Anyone else stoked for Shin Godzilla? I liked Gareth Edwards' version okay, better than some people here if I recall the talk when it came out, but I'm excited for a new Toho Godzilla.

I think the closest theater showing it is in Boston. I'm bummed, because the movie looks incredible and I've been waiting for it impatiently.

Finally got ahold of Castaway on the Moon and working subtitles for it (actually I think I could've gotten by without them! kind of a proud moment there). Really excellent movie that managed to be sort of a send-up of the problems with contemporary Korean society while also being just silly and fun and sad and pretty all at the same time. Closest thing I can think of to it is another Korean movie, I'm A Cyborg But That's OK.

I'm about to go watch Rosemary's Baby on the big screen at an indie theater in my hometown. Gonna be awesome.

Um, it's appropriate with Taratino??? That's more or less his style. The mild quirkiness/tongue-in-cheek humour is inherent in next to all his movies. It's playful and that's what I appreciate about it, I can switch off and enjoy the super tense "cat and mouse" dialogue, spectacle of unrestrained over the top gore/violence and playful mild humour.

Saw 'The Nice Guys'... Probably hyped myself up because while good I wouldn't rate it amazing. Was a little too slapsticky in parts, some additions like the daughter tagging along felt unnecessary and The Last Boy Scout-ish, and there was distinct moments the dialogue felt pretentious. But those are minor nit-picks. I liked it's The Big Lebowski meets Lethal Weapon feel, I'd definitely say it's a solid 8.5/10.

I dislike his style to a great degree! This is because I actually like the kind of movies he likes, b-movies. His movies are lamer than their own source material because they are constantly filled with him going "Look! Look! See! This is just like those old b-movies but with teh funnay on purpose! Wink wink! LEL!" Yes, I'm sure he would say "Wink Wink" out loud if he could. It's cool to be influenced by b-movies, but to wear the influence on your shoulder like a badge of accomplishment and use them as a catch all excuse for the crappy drama he shoe horns in is not. Both his movies and he himself try, way, way too hard to be cool. Also, his incredibly awkward interactions with black people while saying he's an honorary negro himself reminds me of Romney's binders full of women and Trump's claims that hispanics love him.

On an unrelated note, everyone I know who likes Tarantino also likes Asylum movies.

Been on a Stephen King kick as of late, and I finally saw Firestarter all the way through. Not a bad flick, but it was sometimes really silly and the acting ranged from serviceable to ham-fisted. George C Scott was great though; he's great at being a hateable slimeball. Pacing was good, and the music by Tangerine Dream was, as always from them, moody and enjoyable. The fire effects and stunt work were easily the highlights; great, practically done stuff you don't see anymore. Not a great movie, but an enjoyable one all the same.

I'm looking to build up my library of old horror, b-movie, exploitation, etc. films getting high quality rereleases in recent years. Other than names like Scream/Shout Factory, Arrow, Criterion, Twilight Time, and Vinegar Syndrome, what are some suggestions of boutique labels I can dig in to?

Not sure if you've ever heard of Blue Underground or Synapse Films, but those are some great starts right there. I especially recommend Synapse because they have great customer service and their blu rays are stellar on average.

Your opinion is widely invalid because you don't like his movies from the on-set, not to mention half your opinion is just trash talk. Kudos for somehow mentioning Trump despite there being the most minute of correlations. That's exactly the type of unwarranted festering hate darkeningday has for his archfoe: Christian Bale. Be honest, is it because he gets more attention and acclaim than your precious b-movies? But thanks for chiming in and providing a very balanced opinion.

JS: I don't like Tarantino's style because [lengthy, we'll thought out and reasoned reply]

V: Your opinion is invalid because you don't like his movies


Throw in an ellipsis or two and that's actually a direct quote!

I guess I should specify, I don't like Tarantino's movies or Tarantino himself. It is perfectly possible to like one of those things and not the other, but I happen to dislike both.

I can't really hate Tarantino, I love Pulp Fiction and watch it at least once a year or so. And I've enjoyed several of his other films pretty well, especially Inglourious Basterds, though I have not seen them in years. Maybe they haven't aged well.

I really thought his last two movies sucked though. Some decent stuff here and there, but annoyingly chipper and kitsch for such serious subject matter... I agree with J_S on the "wink wink" thing; it's very over the top and I do not care for that tone. Hateful Eight was also ungodly boring to me. That thing was an hour and a half movie stretched out through unnatural pauses and irritatingly repetitive dialogue into a three hour mess.

Quentin T has always been a hit or miss for me, I never seem to just have an average opinion on his movies. I either like it a lot or I just don't like it at all.

Almost all of Tarantino's movies (except Reservoir Dogs) are internally hit-or-miss for me. As cool as Pulp Fiction is, the cartoonishness of some parts just seems out of place - the hillbilly rapists in the middle of LA come to mind, and sure it's iconic, but it's at odds with the tone of the rest of the movie and also doesn't really add a whole lot imo (beyond "LEL the gimp"). Still, I do like PF a lot. The rest of his movies suffer similar problems but even moreso - see the KKK comedy routine in Django Unchained. Yet even his worst movies tend to have at least a few amazing scenes - see pretty much every scene in Django featuring Christoph Waltz's character.

Yeah, the KKK comedy routine was funny I guess but didn't really fit in the movie. And god, Tarantino's own cameo in Django and the scene he's in were just terrible.

I mostly love Tarantino. Hateful Eight was cool but way too long, but good enough for having a drink while watching a masterful director masturbate. The only one of his movies I don't really have an opinion on is probably Death Proof, I think I've only watched it once.

It's funny how people in general seem to rate Inglorious Basterds fairly high. Of all the stuff he has done it's probably one of my least favorites. It's cool enough, and Waltz is awesome in it, of course, but I definitely prefer Django Unchained to it.

Gotta watch Jackie Brown again soon. Been too long.

Haha yeah I forgot about that bit. Plus, how awful was his attempt at an Australian accent?

DiCaprio's overacting in Django was pretty funny.

Missed this part before. No, I'm not annoyed that Tarantino gets more attention than the less famous people who's work he mines for free ideas. They made movies because they had fun, weird, outrageous, or just plain silly ideas for movies and usually had a lot of fun doing it. They weren't bound by the rules of Very Serious Cinema, so they could be as cheesy, gruesome, or unusual as they wanted. With Tarantino the whole ethos is backwards. He puts that stuff in his movies for the exact opposite reason: because it's conventional. His films all have a checklist of stupid shit that has to get ticked off which includes a making a big hipster show of how serious and important they are despite their content. That's a much lamer way to make schlocky films, and his perpetual insecurity demonstrates there's no need for any no-name director from the 70's to envy him.

Yeah, the whole "I smashed my hand down on the table and cut the fuck out of it, but fuck it, we're in character: keep rolling" was absolutely fantastic.

I watched The Perfect Host last night. (I had got the blu-ray at the dollar store for $1.) It was ok. It had a few more twists and turns than I expected, though they felt somewhat forced - as if the intention of the movie makers was more focused on surprising the viewers than story, character development, etc. For the most part the acting was fine and dialog adequate, though there was quite a bit of suspension of belief necessary to watch it. I'd give it a 6/10.

The Perfect Host tried to be too much. That entire third act should've been cut out and have the whole movie just take place in the house. David Hyde Pierce carries the fuck out of that movie.

I agree that it definitely tried to be too much and that Pierce did a pretty good job acting, though I appreciated the third act if only for the sake of it not being cliche and probably turning into another Hard Candy which is certainly not needed. That being said, the third act took the psychological aspect of the thriller out and turned into just a cops-and-robbers flick which generally isn't as interesting. I like when movies don't stick to what genre they're "supposed" to be, like Sunshine which - while flawed - did a great job IMO of taking a straight-up sci-fi story and morphing it into a slasher horror.

I was lucky enough to see Shin Godzilla earlier. Overall, I really adored most of this film, though that could just be my bias as a lifelong Godzilla fan coming through. But anyway, the best part of this movie were the action scenes, as you can well imagine. Lots of solid destruction and Godzilla generally being cool and intimidating. There was a real weight and sense of awareness to the destruction that I really liked.

The actors/characters weren't too bad; slightly above average for one of these movies but mostly part for the course. It did range from melodramatic to plain painful (the American actors) at times but was mostly solid.

This leads me to the weakest point of the movie: the pacing. It started off erratic and dialogue-heavy, haphazardly introducing multiple characters at once, usually through onscreen blurbs. However at this point the movie evenly went back and forth between these scenes and Godzilla's shenanigans. But after a certain point the pacing slowed to crawl and the dialogue just became superfluous. The content of the dialogue was intriguing, but it was so on-going and heavy-handed in the 3rd act that it almost didn't matter.

But another plus, especially coming from a fan, was the use of classic sound effects and music from the older series. Godzilla's roars, the explosions, the sounds of tank fire, buildings being destroyed and Godzilla's footsteps, all lovingly lifted from the older movies. Between that and the utilization of many of Akira Ifukube's musical cues, I had a smile planted across my face.

Overall, while the pacing and dialogue were quite a chore to deal with at times, the elaborate, weighty action scenes and loving odes to classic Godzilla films helped very much to make up for the shortcomings.

A Perfect Host was garbage, total ridiculous bullshit twist ending. Can imagine some wanker writer coming up with that and nudging himself on the shoulder, "it's not cliche so therefore it's good". No, it's actually fine to make a narrative as is and not throw some M Night Shyamalan bullocks in there to appease some pretentious film school snobs.

Watched a zom/rom/com last night called Night of the Living Deb. It's streaming on Netflix. If this came out earlier it would be in discussion with Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. Kyle Rankin directed it, and it's similar to his previous work Infestation in tone and delivery: a loving mockery of genre tropes with a fun cast. Definitely worth a watch but it's nothing groundbreaking.

Star Wars: Rogue One second trailer premiered today and it looks fucking great!

Watched a movie called Late Phases last night on Netflix, a werewolf movie - you don't see many of those these days. It's about an old blind man who moves into a retirement community and discovers a werewolf is attacking people, and so he begins to prepare to kill it on the next full moon. I liked the drama in this and it had more than most horror films, with equal time given to the man's reckoning of his life at its end and his hunt for the wolf. That could have easily been a bit hamfisted but it worked here, with a balanced feel and a nice pacing. The action was cool and the settings were nicely sparse and eerie. I wasn't blown away by this, but it was enjoyable and different from the norm.

Late Phases is pretty solid. If nothing else, it (along with his brief turn in The Guest) made me want to see Ethan Embry as a renegade cop. He looks the part of a crazy asshole these days. Also, Lance Guest now is a dead ringer for H. Jon Benjamin.

Empy, have you seen Mulberry St.? Nick Damici (the blind vet from Late Phases) is also in that, and it's of similar quality: not great, but worth a watch.

Looks decent; I just added to my ever-growing watch-list.

I didn't see it but I've heard the name and seen the cover. He's apparently also in the movie We Are What We Are, which is also on Netflix and which I also plan to watch this month. Thanks for the rec.

Hardcore Henry director did the new Weeknd video; it's pretty good:

Linking to that (great video)...

Kristy (2014)
Justine (Haley Bennett, Hardcore Henry) is a college student stuck on campus over Thanksgiving break. Her boyfriend Aaron (Lucas Till, X-Men: First Class) is going to his family's lodge and her roommate Nicole (Erica Ash, Scary Movie 5), originally supposed to spend the break with her, has to fly back to Colorado due to a family emergency, leaving her BMW in Justine's care. While making a trip to the nearest convenience store, Justine is accosted by the hooded Violet (Ashley Greene, Twilight: Breaking Dawn pt. 2) and three of her friends, chasing her back to the campus and playing a deadly game of hide and seek.

The strengths come in the form of solid-if-unspectacular direction by Oliver Blackburn (Donkey Punch), with several key scenes dripping with atmosphere and paranoia, as well as the somewhat interesting concept from writer Anthony Jaswinski (The Shallows). Violet and her friends, it turns out, are part of a national occult-flavored terrorist group, all connected by a darkweb site known as the Fold: a file-sharing/chat group predicated on sharing their united hatred of "Kristy" (typically beautiful, well-to-do, God-fearing young women) and videos taken of their slaughters. The choice of costuming for the Fold seems to be heavy jackets, hooded sweatshirts, and homemade masks made of papier maché with a tinfoil coating. It's a nice surprise to have masked killers in a horror film kept intentionally low key and blue collar, a wise throwback to the origin of Michael Myers' costume of choice (a stolen Halloween mask and a mechanic's jumpsuit). That each killer has their own weapon of choice offers little help in differentiating them, too, enhancing the idea of a solid horde rather than a grouping of "forced iconic" killers (see: most Rob Zombie and Zombie-inspired movies).

In addition to the simplistic design of the killers, Justine's use of the campus as a means of hiding and, eventually, combating her assailants is utilized to near perfection. Early on, she is shown to be on a work program as part of the campus kitchen, recalled quickly as she uses the knowledge of her surroundings to escape an attack. She is also shown to be an avid jogger, proving to be a useful trait while trying to outrun the Fold, and part of the swim team, which she also uses to stage an ambush. Justine, in fact, melds the classic "Final Girl" traits of using her wit to survive with the more modern one, also using her major in Chemistry to create flammable concoctions out of cleaning products.

It's a pity, then, that so much of this movie falls flat. Haley Bennett is serviceable in her role, in particular due to her appearance (she's unarguably beautiful but in a "girl next door" way) and the believable turn of her character (from victim to attacker), but she lacks the level of depth in her performance that would truly elevate this role. For every wonderful scene that Blackburn constructs, especially those involving the cars and the fog that rolls in, there are another two that feel like every generic major studio horror offering from the past 15 years (such as when Justine tries to escape to the roof of the library but is immediately discovered by the Fold). One character that had the potential to bring some much needed intensity to the second act, groundskeeper Scott (James Ransone, Sinister), falls flat on his face by engaging in one of the most insufferably dumb moments of the film, wandering into the fog where he knows killers are present. The final scene of the film seems as though it were written to be a remarkable pay-off to the horrors that Justine has suffered by the Fold but then turns into a cheap vigilante origin story.

Overall, there are plenty of worse films to waste your time with, and the few strengths of the film (mostly surrounding Jaswinski's "Chekhov's Gun" set-ups, a few great shots by Blackburn, and some well-imagined retaliation by Justine) save it from pure mediocrity. 6/10

Hahaha, I reviewed that movie last year around Thanksgiving (because of the film's setting and time). I thought it had a cool idea with the "Kristy" thing but it was poorly explained, and the film mostly just came off as half-finished and dull. It just seemed like they didn't care about actually setting up the story beyond bare-minimum sketches of what was happening.

Glad to see we agree on at least one movie. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't particularly memorable. I also thought...

There were many ways it could've been better. Here is the review: http://docuniverse.blogspot.com/2015/11 ... -2014.html

Having experienced a vegan Thanksgiving, you're analogy is spot-on.

Also, your reviews always read like a more venomous Andrew Borntreger. Kudos!

I do not know who that is. I've always been bad at knowing critics - I'll look him up. Thanks man.