Watched The Purge on Sunday night. What a dumb movie. Crappy home invasion thriller with a preposterous concept, mostly lame suspense, and a twist ending that was telegraphed in the first 10 minutes of the movie. Best parts of it were the leader of the invaders being an actually pretty good actor and Adelaide Kane in a schoolgirl uniform. I've heard the sequel is better though.

The Purge Anarchy is fucking awful. One of the most pretentious, awful piles of fedora-wearing nonsense you could get...so fucking bad. It's basically the movie for the sorts of people who are convinced America is some kind of conspiracy, and everything is painted in broad, cartoonish strokes with zero real intelligence or insights on the themes it's portraying.

Watched Kingsman last week - really cool flick, like Kick-Ass but it felt more refined and the director seemed to really enjoy making this even more than his previous flick. This was just a fun, bloody romp that made you feel high on life. The action killed and the characters were a lot of fun and had attitude and personality in spades. This does tend to drag a bit, but it's okay because it feels like the director and people involved just don't want to end the film because they're having too much fun making it. The church action scene and the finale were explosively good. I don't think Matthew Vaughn has made a masterwork yet but with films like this he's getting there for sure.

So it's not very good then?

You may be able to find a better choice for your movie night, is the way I can put it.

^It drags 15 or so minutes towards the end, probably because it's an origin story and it takes up so much of the movie, adding the last act feels a bit much. Best thing Matthew Vaughn has done next to First Class.

I still like Kick-Ass maybe a bit more, but Kingsman felt like a better movie overall. I haven't seen First Class in ages, but I remember that one being good too.

It's weird, I was really on track to dislike Matthew Vaughn given his early collabs with Guy Ritchie and the awful "L4YER CAKƐ," but Kick-Ass was a barrel of Nic-Cage-burning-alive fun and First Class was pretty much about as good as comic book movies get. Kingsman looks decent, but I'd have much preferred if he'd headed Days of Future Past instead of the pedo. I mean, not because Singer is a pedo but because it was a terrible movie with boring direction.

-Layer Cake was good
-Days of Future Past was good
-Stop!

In this age of overly serious Bond films, Kingsman was a pretty fun flick and Colin Firth was cool. Worth watching.

I enjoyed Birdman and it was well deserved Oscar win even though The Grand Budapest Hotel was clearly the winner in my heart! The acting was superb (Ed Norton hnnnnnnnnnng) and the way it was filmed was interesting and adventurous. The soundtrack annoyed me a bit though, drums all the fucking time, it was eh.

I actually preferred DOFP but in regards to Vaughn I was ready to write him off as a one trick pony with First Class, but Kingsman was every bit as good as First Class only highly comedic and surprisingly gory. I never liked Kick-Ass and haven't bothered with the sequel despite the obvious incentive of Jim Carrey, it's sort of callous attitude towards violence and the insensitive behavior among the teenagers that starred was hard to care for. Nic Cage was an easy stand out, and if I had to watch again would simply skip to his scenes, but everything else was mostly tiresome vulgarity. Layer Cake (I refuse to name it with numbers) had a lot of promise but drifted to a mediocre third act, with it's high rating I expected something far more satisfying.

For those not aware The Purge was meant to be a sequel to The Strangers, the underrated horror movie starring Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman, but after a number of years the studio or director couldn't get the rights so they reworked it to be have the 'derpy one day a year - crime is legal' concept. A lot of people complained the first movie was too much of an isolated setting when it should have been a larger/ more expansive movie - the explanation is it's a reworked script.

But wasn't The Strangers itself pretty much a shot-for-shot remake of the French film "ils?" I actually watched both films and I liked the American remake more thanks to better production values, but they were still pretty much the exact same movie.

I'm glad I wasn't the only one annoyed with those drums. It was like Whiplash's in-movie drumming was part of the background music in Birdman.

Maybe so, but that doesn't detract from my comment. In truth it's a pretty loose plot that could be easily duplicated unwittingly. What I do know is the director/writer said it's inspired by the Manson Family murders.

I vividly remember reading comingsoon/darkhorizons news articles related to The Strangers 2 in 2009/10 before it was swept under the rug, but obviously I'm not going to spend a number of hours digging them up. The Strangers seems like a complete movie like The Descent, thankfully The Strangers remains a singular film to this day while The Descent wasn't as fortunate.

I was wondering, does anyone have any recommendations for movies similar to Scarface? Everywhere I look just suggests me all the usual movies you'd expect (The Godfather, Goodfellas, etc.) But I want to watch more movies with the 80's neon sort of atmosphere. With a synth soundtrack, white shirts and aviator shades, tropical climate, the works. The only modern movie I've seen with that atmosphere is Drive and the only movie contemporary to Scarface I've seen like that is Thief (excellent movie for anyone who hasn't seen it). Has anyone else seen anything like I'm talking about?

How are the sequels? Are they so-bad-they're-good, just-good-enough-to-be-boring or Star Wars: Christmas Special bad?

I've seen the second and it's just a duller ride compared to the first. The whole opening feels forced and there's barely any reason for the re-premise, random comedy in dire situation(?), introducing new characters that belong more in Daylight with Sylvester Stallone than The Descent, removing most of mystery which made the first memorable, unexplainable non continuity - check, etc. It's not bad but it barely holds a candle to the first film.

Well I've watched a few movies in the last week or so, don't know what to make of them, but still, this is a good place to ramble.

Gone Girl
I'm starting to feel worried about Oscar buzz movies from last year, they seem so good (Backing Nightcrawler to win me back), I've only seen two, but I hated Birdman, and this was so fucking... mid day movie? There were parts I liked but damn, it goes on forever, I possibly had the twist spoiled by bastardhead, but still, come on, this is the exact same thing as hallmark movies with the I guess there's some stuff about how the media gets involved in shit it doesn't understand, but other than the lawyer throwing shit in Affleck's face it doesn't do enough to warrant being like two and three quarters hours long. The ending also is just way too ambiguous, a good ambiguous ending has a few ways the story could go which don't REALLY matter and lets the viewer decide, but seriously, there are like 12 ways it could go from there, not based off a couple of decisions by characters.

Inbred
A bad hillbilly murder movie I watched from a chick who loves bad horror who didn't want to watch it again, but thought I should see it. I completely understand why. This movie is just, absurdly confused between tone and content, it's interesting, but absolutely vile and not worth watching twice. It does the standard horror crap with a bunch of asshole teens doing some crap, there's a dweeby guy in charge, and a "cool" lady in charge, but dweeb guy seems to have the right interests at heart. The early scenes are mostly generic, but eh, I can laugh at a piss joke or a black humour goat explosion, but the movie just doesn't get black humour properly. . At any rate, the whole damn movie from there, except for the too silly to even laugh at gas explosion, follows the same idea: apparently funny and quirky back woods weirdos laughing and betting while they slowly and horrifically murder people. It's just fucking, awkward. I mean, they draw attention to someone's fighting spirit as they trap, dismember, and boredly execute this apparently likeable person, and it's presented as lighthearted. Just, fuck. These kills aren't funny or gloopy enough to make sense in a funny sense (going back to Wrong Turns, I got a snigger out of the harvester in the last shitty one), it's just agonising, cruel torture, presented as quirk, it's fucking bizarre. It's mean spirited, but doesn't think it is. Just, fuck.

Xtro
I've spent the last few days watching all of Best of the Worst (Plinkett review guys), and this one stuck out as a movie they seemed to genuinely like, and obviously one I've seen gifs of, so I thought I had to see it. I think I loved it. It's just bizarre friggen movie which is fast paced and gory and just a bunch of fun. The first half hour is genuinely solid horror, with a cool monster, and an infamously good gore scene, then all of that stuff goes away while it turns into a weird, kinda kid friendly movie except for the boobs and pubes with cheesy magic powers and clowns and panthers. It's just a fucking weird trip, and I grinned through pretty much all of it. I actually don't think it was badly acted or written, compared to reviews I've read (I may be drunk), which helped the monster free mid section for me. It was very bare bones, but it was propelled forwards at all times. Then the end suddenly jumps back to weird assed gore after 45 minutes of porno murder ET, it's just strange, and it made me happy. Dumb, enjoyable movie.

I'm with you on Gone Girl, lord_genghis. That movie was a piece of shit, Lifetime-gone-Hollywood waste of time.

Yeah I found alot of the highly praised movies last year disappointing. I've already said my piece on Birdman, it being a tiresome mess of movie disguised in one-continuous shot gimmick, pointless scenes and an obnoxious sporadic score, and certainly not a 5 or even 4 star rating. Gone Girl was as has been put a Hallmark movie, only polished with a high budget, offensive language and violence. It's a half baked idea from an author who tried desperately to pull an M. Night Shyamalan to a tired formula. The Babadook was also a disappointing 2014 movie, a neat idea weighted by the trimmings of Hollywood horror. I think it would have made a good enough psychological drama if it opted that route, instead we have overused dumb scares. It's not enough of it's own movie to have an impact and not enough of a junkfood horror to be talked super lowly of. I haven't seen Boyhood but everything I've heard/read/watched indicates I'll dislike it.

Gone Girl was a satire of those sorts of Hallmark movies - pretty obviously, really. I don't see anything half baked about it. All the movies voluteswarth mentioned I thought were awesome. Rewatched Boyhood a few weeks ago and it was an absolute treasure.

In Your Eyes - 1/5

Watched this on a whim and found it incredibly hackneyed, cliched - just a corny, dumb, unrealistic story about two people who discover they have a telepathic connection. The writing is just empty and bland and doesn't engage you, setting up zero good challenges or hardships for these characters to overcome and yet acting like you're supposed to be so torn apart by their plights. It sort of goes for a very whimsical, feel-good atmosphere, but I didn't even think it was good as that - way too empty-headed and full of too many shitty music numbers for that. Very poor movie, and written by Joss Whedon at that, which is a bit surprising as it barely feels like his style at all.

That's why Lord Genghis, Thiesthu and myself all agree? Satire? It was obviously a satire of the american media, a satire of Hallmark movies? This was the type of movie that is based on a semi-smut trash novel of the year, with the most unbelievably pretentious dialogue (the whole pick-up scene is excruciatingly bad), offensive language for the sake of being edgy and raunchy (I can't find the exact line but his sister saying to Ben Affleck "hit her in the face with your cock"), everything post 'the big reveal' half way is another movie, like two scripts pasted together in a half baked attempt to appear unpredictable/different. It tries a few styles, psychological drama, secret love affair, thriller, detective crime mystery, but never rests on one style enough to provide a gripping movie. Added to that despite the shocking events going down most of the characters are so blasé about the events including Ben Affleck. Plus it's overall a bloated film that could have easily been made into a mini-series, the third act feels like ending upon ending upon ending.

The whole thing had a very dark sense of humor about every aspect of it. I don't think it was lampooning "Hallmark movies" the way it was doing with American media and marriages, but I certainly don't think it was ever really trying to be anything it wasn't, i.e. the criticisms of pretentiousness you're saying. Interviews I've read with the author of the book only reinforced that playful, fun sort of attitude it has, though I wouldn't really try to use that to persuade you, as I'm talking about the book and not the movie - but yeah, that's just what I took from both the book and movie. The movie struck me as Fincher, the lead actors and author/scriptwriter Gillian Flynn just having a lot of fun making this twisted, bizarre story come to life, is all.

Granted I only saw the movie once back when it was in theaters, but it was word-for-word from the book, which I love. I think the story feels very natural as a kind of psychological thriller that happens to have a wit about it. I don't really see it as "trying too many things," though maybe I'd understand what you meant more if I watched the movie again. I'll get back to you on that after I do it again sometime. As for bloated and "offensive language for the sake of being raunchy," eh, just kind of a taste thing I guess. That line his sister said about "slap her with your cock" was pretty dumb, yeah, but it was really only that one line that was like that that I remember.

I didn't find it pretentious, I'll give it that, I just seemed too Hallmark-y for that. As for the trying too many things, I definitely get that, because it's like three hours long and none of the directions it goes it digs into enough to say thats what it "was about". Like you can't say it's a movie about how the media manipulates opinions, but it definitely has that, it's not a movie about detectives and mystery, but it has that, and it's not a movie about marriages and relationships, but it has that, it's not a thriller about crazy psychopaths, but it has that. It does a lot of different things, but no real focus on anything.

As for language, eh, I call people cunts all the time. The gore scene was genuinely shocking and well done though.

Really liked Cold in July with Michael C. Hall. Easily better than season 6,7,8 of Dexter and that 80's synth soundtrack is cool as hell.

I saw the new Robocop reboot since it was on Amazon Prime... and was kind of surprised it wasn't nearly as bad as it looked/expected. Still not great and it didn't need to be a full 2 hours, but it passed the time. I still haven't seen Robocop 2 or 3, but I wonder if this reboot is better than those haha. They sound pretty terrible.

Still wish we could get a follow up to the last Dredd movie though, that was pretty cool.

I haven't seen the new one, but 2 is stupid but fun and don't ever ever ever watch part 3.

Which one supposedly has cyborg ninja? 3?

Makes you wonder how much better these remakes/reboots would be if they didn't piss off fans and just not call them the exact name of the original.
RoboCop 2 isn't bad in a more comic-book sort of way, it's not as dark and brutal as the first but there's enough action to make up for it. Everything after RoboCop 2 is abysmal, better off with the 80's cartoon series.

and that's the one with the flying Robocop.... Also the only Robocop in the franchise not played by Peter Weller I think

It was written and directed by Fred Dekker who also did Night of the Creeps and Monster Squad and it pretty much ended his career.

Funny ya'll mention Robocop; I just watched it in its entirety for the first time last night (I know I know, shameful).

Just saw Top Five. I liked it.
D.M.X makes a great cameo

If you liked it, check out Starship Troopers and Total Recall if you haven't seen those. I love them all, classic Paul Verhoeven.

And if you want classic Paul Verhoeven in a totally different sense, watch Showgirls.

Has anyone seen the one he did, I think it was called Lady Hawk? I have it on VHS but haven't taken the time to check it out.

Nah, Ladyhawke wasn't directed by Verhoeven, you may be thinking of Flesh + Blood. Ladyhawke is great, though, perfect '80s medieval fantasy adventure stuff.

I have to admit, I tried to watch it about... seven, eight years ago. Couldn't get more than ten minutes (or so) in. Ferris Bueller in a medieval setting just didn't cut it.

Flesh + Blood is basically Game of Thrones before there was Game of Thrones.

Watched Interstellar last night and loved it. Only thing I didn't care for was the .

Hmmm I must have gotten confused by Rutgers Hauer being in both.