Not to mention holy shit, he mangles English worse than any other regular on the board right now, which includes dozens of non-native speakers. Even in this one brief sentence: "I won't dignify your poorly thought comment with anything other than; not true." he makes TWO idiotic errors. HE DIDN'T THINK THROUGH HIS REPLY TO REXXZ SAYING HIS REPLY IS POORLY THOUGHT-THROUGH. Like even a Trump style "WRONG" would've been better, and conveyed about as much meaning.


Yes. It does.

I have worked on a Max Landis movie and met him. He's incredibly intelligent but unfortunately, that intelligence seems to be trapped in the maturity of an over excited 6 year old. As is the case with most children of famous people, he was probably raised in an environment where no one told him 'no' or 'Max, that's probably a bad idea'. Which I guess is great for creativity and all that, since he's been a super proficient writer his whole life but god damn that makes an adult incredibly irritating to be around. He's the perfect example of someone who is acceptable in 'small doses'.

The film I worked on that he wrote ended up being garbage but even as a writer that's so beyond his control in the end.

That would be literally every single movie he's ever done that isn't Chronicle, so it's hard to pinpoint exactly which movie of his you're talking about.

Carnival Of Souls - this was really good. Excellently eerie, dreamlike stuff with a real sense of the horror of the mind. The sightings of "The Man" are so fucking well done, especially for 1962, and the soundtrack and visuals are expert even with the low budget. Wiki says this influenced David Lynch and I can definitely see that. Easily scarier than many modern movies.

I'm in Louisiana. I worked on the full run (3 months) on Mr. Right and actually a couple days on American Ultra, which happen in the same universe if you pay attention. Never saw AU but Mr. Right was dogshit and a complete waste of Sam Rockwell.

Max strikes me as the guy who is quick to understand a concept or an idea on a personal level, able to pick apart the intricacies with ease, but gets very muddled with how he relates it to others. He works on a big picture level but not so much on detail-to-detail stuff. Since he's a wrestling fan, I'd liken him to a much more charming Vince Russo. I read his GB3 pitch and think it would've made a very solid sequel but the way he writes about women is off-putting, like he took the Jack Nicholson line from As Good As It Gets* and took it to heart.

He's the kind of guy who you want to like but it's obvious he needs an ass kicking or two, either literally or figuratively, so you just ignore him for a bit.

*

Not sure if this is already posted, but yesterday I finally watched X-Men "Apocalypse" and there is The Four Horsemen by Metallica in the soundtrack.

As always, great movie and great X-Men-Metallica connection (also Hugh Jackman introduce the band at Global Citizen Festival this year).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJNDckGz7Ic

Fully agreed. It had such great potential but is one of the VERY few movies I have ever turned off without finishing.

On a better note, I got to introduce my wife to Hot Fuzz last night. That movie is so great. I've seen it numerous times but pick up on something new with each viewing.

Has anyone seen Paul (which features some of the same folks as Shaun Of The Dead, Hot Fuzz, etc.)? I REALLY don't care for Seth Rogen, but Simon Pegg and Nick Frost I think are fantastic.

Paul is one of those movies that I thought was okay-at-best when I first saw it, but watching it again has had it grow on me. Same thing with Hot Fuzz, actually, which I thought was weaker than Shaun of the Dead initially but now I see it as the best thing Pegg's ever been involved in. Rogen as the voice of Paul is PERFECT and it's one of the few Kristen Wiig roles I can stand. Plus, Goddess Sigourney makes an appearance.

If you haven't, check out the show that Pegg/Frost/Wright did pre-Shaun called Spaced. It's their brand of humor, so a lot of nerdy jokes mixed with dry sarcasm and slapstick, but the energy and heart on display is amazing. It can almost work as a prequel to Shaun, as Jessica Hynes (Yvonne from Shaun) is the co-lead with Pegg, and it's interesting to think of this "will they/won't they" relationship as the backstory to Shaun and Yvonne.

Right on; thanks! I've added Spaced to my IMDB watchlist.

I'll check out Paul one of these days then. I've been reluctant to do so mainly because of Rogen but if it's well written and done, I can set aside my annoyance with him.

Yeah Paul was a fine movie. Nowhere near Hot Fuzz, of course, but Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are great together as always, and Seth Rogen isn't as annoying as usual. I don't think it was as clever as a lot of the movies they're in, but the "buddy comedy" parts come through very strong. If you're already a big fan of Pegg/Frost movies then watching it is basically a no-brainer.

Cool; I'll be sure to post here my thoughts once I watch it!

Had a brief look at the trailer, looks very interesting, if a little cheesy (maybe it's just the trailer hyperbole though). Plays a lot with shadows, it seems, which is what me and my dad are all into since we watch a lot of dramatic, grotesque b'n'w movies in the style of the German Expressionists. Will look out for this.


EDIT: grammar

I saw that movie a few years ago, it does indeed rule.

There's some Venom in the cage fight scene in Germany, too. Countess Bathory I think.

I'll have to check this cause I haven't noticed, thanks for the spoiler

Halfway through some other kind of movie for a change: Zootropolis (or Zootopia for you Americans). I've never seen any Disney film handle modern tense social issues in such a balanced and realistic fashion. I've always thought kids' movies never addressed any REALLY relevant topics, even if the stories and themes tended to be interesting, but this film proved me totally wrong. Animation is meticulously done, and looks astounding considering the last time I saw a CGI-animated movie, it was from 2007 (although Inside Out's was fascinating but I thought that was just a gimmick). 10/10 so far.

EDIT: Finished.

Definitely one of Disney's classics.

I just watched Halloween H20 and there are so many things wrong with this movie, but

I've never seen H20 in full. I've heard extremely mixed opinions about it over the years; some say it's the best Halloween sequel by far, and others (like Brad Jones) say it's a terrible piece of shit. Whatever the case may be, there's no way it can be worse than Halloween Resurrection, which is still the title holder of the worst slasher movie I've ever seen in my life, and easily in the bottom 10 movies I've bore witness to.

God, Halloween Resurrection sucks.

I dont remember much of H20, but the last 10 minutes were pretty awesome. It was a good way to end the series to me.

The best way to end the series was Loomis shooting Myers and the body disappearing.

But then how could Moustapha Akkad beat the horse dead in the quest for more money?

Despite whining about how bad Halloween II (1981) was a couple years ago, I ended up watching it again this weekend with a friend who hadn't seen it. I found Laurie Strode a lackluster heroine in the first movie, and the writing for her is even worse this time. Because of Halloween I's events, now she knows about the danger, yet the script has her spending about an hour of the 92 minute length in a hospital bed. And once she finally gets up, she spends a decent amount of that time sitting on the floor.

After being a chore to sit through most of the way, killing off characters (sometimes offscreen) I never cared about, H-II becomes unintentionally funny at the climax.


My memory was faulty on one point, though. I could have sworn Loomis says "I shot him six times" to various characters, several times throughout the movie. He actually says it three times to the same character, all within the opening minutes. I still chuckled at that part anyway.

H20 > H-II, I suppose?

On par, I'd say. Halloween II was a studio-ordered cash grab that nobody involved particularly cared for, but H2O was the series trying to be like Scream and missing out on what made Scream work. They're different beasts with different faults, but if there's ever been a series of horror flicks where the quality of the original is so far ahead of any of its sequels then it's Halloween.

Watched Friday the 13th I & II and Halloween I on Sunday. Was good fun, had been a long time since I'd seen them. Its kind of funny to watch in retrospect the "trollop to virtuous mother Teresa" order the women die in the film. My partner's got a book on Slasher movies I kind of wanna read after this recent run of cheesy slasher flicks. We also almost watched The Final Girls, but haven't gotten to it yet.

Last night we did watch The Witch though...I dunno just felt like a kind of undeveloped and a bit pointless movie. Just was left feeling a bit lukewarm about it.

Yeah, Texas Chainsaw Massacre is about the same level of quality drop as Halloween after both series' first films. I'm glad that era of horror movie shameless marketing is over...for now anyway. I didn't hate Halloween II or H20 but, come on, why even bother with those when you have the original. The Rob Zombie remakes were just a whole new level of atrociousness - so fucking awful on every possible level.

Here's what I watched the last few days for Halloween:

Psycho - man, Hitchcock was a master of the slow burn. This is just all tension-building all the way. The way this story develops, and the effect of Norman Bates has gravitas because we've become accustomed to guys like him in the years since - guys who appear so innocuous and mild-mannered but then it turns out they just snap. The setting, a desolate weed-grown motel in the middle of nowhere, is perfect for the story of quiet, hidden insanity and murder. Brilliant.

The Witch - One of the most evil movies out there. This is just a big middle-finger to puritanism and religion. The reverence of the characters to their god just makes all the eerieness going on around them that much more dire and meaningful to them - horror is good when you feel the characters' fear. The film turns into a sort of weird whodunit, with the characters suspicious of one another as to who's possessed by dark forces. The acting, the atmosphere, the slow-building madness - this is chilling shit. I really love it.

TCM II is absolutely crazy and weird in a fun way though, so I'd say it's way above HII in terms of overall quality.

Yeah, what? TCM II is crazy awesome, I don't know why anyone who isn't old and boring or really squeamish wouldn't like it.

I always thought it was terrible and irritating. I haven't seen it in ages, but I also don't care or want to see it again frankly. I just remember really hating that movie.

Do you hate Troma movies too? That's what it reminds me most of.

You probably hated it because it's almost exactly the opposite of the original, in terms of tone. It's more like a zany, funhouse version of TCM. It seems like the sort of movie Rob Zombie would have made if he were a better director and took over the series at that time (I did like the Devil's Rejects a lot though).

Haven't really seen many Troma movies. But yeah, TCM II was just not what I wanted at all. Too cartoony and zany compared to the original, and really just annoying as fuck to me. I know it was what Hooper wanted to do, but I think that's just proof that sometimes a director gets it right with something like the first TCM without intending to - sort of a happy accident thing.

I don't know, I'm pretty sure he achieved what he intended to set out to do on both films if you ask me. He probably just didn't want to do a rehash of the first one and decided to amplify certain surreal and humorous aspects of the original, possibly taking the series in another direction. I personally like them both quite a lot but I do prefer the more serious original by a wide margin.

I was gonna ask what you thought of this one, figured it would be right up your alley. I'd add that the film is shot really well, the cinematography has this foreboding, bleak vibe that matches the tone of the story.

After I finished watching it I felt like the pacing might have been a bit uneven and they could have done more with the 'weird whodunit' angle of the story, but in the days since I've thought about it more I think it worked pretty well. I did really like the last shot of the movie:

I could have sworn I read that TCM II was what he always wanted to do with the first one, but didn't take it in that direction for whatever reason. I'll have to look that up. You could be right.

Corpsefister, yeah, I saw it in theaters, but seeing it on DVD was so much better because I could read subtitles for those thick accents.

As to your spoiler...

I really didn't like the end of this movie. I watched it on Halloween as well and it left me feeling neither here nor there about. There was just something missing for me with the way it ended that I can't quite put my finger on, and so feeling really undecided and "meh" about it.

The ending was the best part to me, both in the theater and this time around. That's the kind of stuff I love seeing in horror.

Agreed. Like I said I wasn't entirely sure about the pacing of the last part when I first watched it, but reflecting on it I really liked it. I'm sure I'll watch it again at some point.

Yeah, I can sort of see how the pacing might be an issue. Maybe it is a bit too fast at the end where it was slower in the beginning. I did think they captured the mundane, boring life those people led very well, though, while also conveying it in an interesting way. And the actors were just so good. Magnificent jobs from them all. They felt like real people from that time.