The Professional: This is one of my favourite movies ever. Amazing acting from everyone involved, compelling characters, flawless pacing, pulse pounding action, quotable, kick ass soundtrack unforgettable. I mean, if you haven't seen it, what are you waiting for?

You mean Leon the Professional? Yeah, that movie is kick ass.

Yeah! It never gets old. Gary Oldman is brilliant in it.

A preview from the upcoming movie 'Jobs'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... pxebeiwK_I

Blimey. How can anyone take this seriously with Ashton Kutcher? I remember watching that movie about the silicon valley, the Microsoft Vs Apple wars etc and it was watchable. I don't know whether this new movie can even be called a "tribute" or a "biopic" if it doesn't do justice to Jobs himself. It sure looks like it won't.

It doesn't look that bad.

hahaha Empyreal watched the Devil Inside. Dude, that movie was sooooo bad. The audience booed when it was over. That had never happened to me before in my history of going to the movies. They HATED it.

FUCK that movie. I didn't see it in theaters because I wasn't gonna waste $10 on it knowing it wasn't very good, but I really did not expect that incompetent of a movie.

Woz looked weird in that clip and even though the makeup-artists would've put in a lot of effort to make Ashton resemble Steve Jobs, he still looks out of place. Jobs was a smooth-talking-brilliant-marketing guy, right? I find it hard to believe that Ashton can pull that off. I know, I know, it's just a teaser clip, but that's my gut feel.

Edit: Whoa, six hundred and sixty six posts.

Looks like a tremendously dull affair. Making something mundane into a spectacle.

Fuck any possession movie besides the Exorcist. Generally they are over the top, have terrible acting and rely too much on special effects. I mean The Exorcist was a bit over the top too but it had a bit of charm to it.

I had some small, small hope it might be enjoyable, even if only in a bad, cheesy way....nope...

Also, when my friends and I saw the first Paranormal Activity, most of the theater laughed at the ending. That's how you know you made a shitty ass horror movie.

Well I thankfully didn't spend money on it because my best friend works at a theatre. I saw it on the day it came our so NOTHING COULD PREPARE ME FOR THE MIND NUMBING SHITTINESS.

I thought they were going to riot when I saw it. I knew the ending going into it and Ive never heard that many people say "bullshit" etc. I youtubed the Paranormal Activity 4 ending and people were screaming at everything. There were actual grown men screaming at .

I just watched Cloud Atlas....I think people will either love it, or think its complete bullshit. It was too long and felt confusing.

You kiddin'? Paranormal Activity (and Insidious and the 8mm film portions of Sinister) was probably one of the best horror movies to come out in the past, what? 20-25 years? At least not since The Thing, The Changeling, and/or Legend of Hell House.

Atmospheric, paranoia-inducing horror is the only true horror. Slashers and monster movies are just dumb action movies made even dumber.

EDIT: But I will agree that Paranormal Activity 4 was a giant pile of horse shit. Bad Oren Peli! Bad! Think about what you did!

I saw 2 and 3 in the theater. 2 was eh for me, although it had its moments. 3 was blah, and my father actually hated it to the point of naming it the worst movie he's ever seen. 4 I've not seen yet, although I might download it out of sheer curiosity.

As for best/favorite horror film(s) of recent memory, the first Saw I thought was absolutely excellent. Much better than what the series would come to be. Hunger by Steven Hentges is also very, very good. It's on Netflix so I highly recommend anyone that has that service to go watch it. The House of the Devil by Ti West is likewise very good, and will instantly appeal to anyone that prefers the early 80s style horror film, if only by virtue that it's made exactly like a horror film from that era would be. The odd numbered segments in V/H/S I also quite liked; the even numbered ones kinda sucked, which is a damn shame because the movie's second segment was made by Ti West and it's the worst one of the bunch.

Paranormal Activity was lame. Best horror movie of the last 20-25 years? I don't think so.

Well, you're wrong again. Both the Paranormal Activity movies I saw were shit and Insidious was especially bad.

V/H/S: Awesome flick! I was expecting nothing but this was a really creative horror anthology (I'm really nostalgic for those, you never see them anymore). One of, if not THE, best found footage things I've seen. Low budget as hell but they pulled it off. Seriously, why does no one talk about this? It has everything. Great gore, original twists on somewhat familiar tropes, an actually not cringe inducing framing story. Some of it gets far fetched but it enthralls so well that suspension of disbelief comes easier. It's actually very atmospheric and creepy too, managing at times to allllllmmmoost be silly but not crossing that line, though some may disagree.

Just put V/H/S in my top 10 of the year, now on the blog by the way! Oh it was silly as hell (that story with the webcams ) but it was also the most fun I've had with any horror movie in ages. Totally killer, blood-chilling shit that used everything it had to scare you and that was why it ruled.

The first Paranormal Activity wasn't bad for what it was. It had to rely on some immeasurably stupid characters and a really terrible, sequel baiting ending, but I liked how it was slow building and you never really had a big evil face to attach to anything. It was all in the shadows, being malevolent in a subtle, indirect way. I also heard rumblings of one of the original endings which

But no, it would make ten jillion times it's budget if twenty two people had paid to see it so of course they needed the crappy sequel baiting ending so they could churn out this horridly lazy money machine every year.

Ah good! IT WASN'T SILLY!
Ok, maybe a little but it was creepy silly. I thought the webcam story was so cool when the twist finally happened. Even if it's a bit unclear to me what actually happened .

The webcam story being in the movie felt incredibly out of place, if only by virtue of forcing me to ask the question "Who transferred these Skype calls onto a VHS tape and why?" That and the premise, while interesting, was a bit too vague for me to get into. The third segment about the killer that exists in the camcorder's tracking errors was the most fascinating of all the segments and definitely the one I'd like to see expanded upon, be it through a longer short film or an actual feature of its own.

I've been meaning to see V/H/S; must do so soon.

Insidious annoyed me mainly because of the wasted potential - as I claimed previously in discussions about it here, there were some very good concepts and a few creepy sets that could have been turned into something much better than the end product. I actually didn't mind the first Paranormal Activity - I thought that ending was effective, actually. I've persisted with the series because I can't stand not getting the full story when I know that the pieces of the plot are out there; I want to know the narrative, dammit, and I want those gaps filled.

I'd have to agree about The House of the Devil; I did think that the beginning dragged on far too long, but it's worth it in hindsight. Very highly recommended; it references that whole era of horror without at any point seeming like a rehash... It captures an old-fashioned menace and actually takes it where it's meant to go, if that makes sense.

Speaking of recent horror, I'll once again mention Dead Birds - seriously underrated supernatural horror; it gave me genuine chills now and then. (And I'll repeat yet again - no, it's not that bog-awful remake of The Birds - actually, this one has nothing to do with birds, really; you'll have to play 'spot the title scene', though the answer to that is quite rewarding.)

That's where the suspension of disbelief I was talking about comes from. Who gives a shit how it got there, really? It's only an excuse to tell a cool story. Maybe if the stories sucked I would have been distracted by tiny details like that. I think all the stories worked perfectly with how short they were and would lose steam as full length films.

That's what frustrated me about Insidious too, Calusari. It could have been genuinely effective, but they squandered all of their good ideas.

Also, Jocelin Donahue dancing to One Thing Leads to Another is one of my favorite movie scenes in recent memory.

I had forgotten about that, actually. Well, there you go.

Her performance is pretty damn good, generally; while the writing and direction are stellar, the film would have suffered immensely if the lead hadn't been able to pull off that character - she conveys the right mixture of annoying naïveté and desperation. That comment made me look her up and let me realise where I know her from - The Burrowers; she was pretty good in that, too, even though it's - in my view - a far, far inferior film. Actually, another one suffering from the problem of wasted potential: great set-up, fine characterisation at points, some very interesting ideas and a beginning that promised so much... and then... well, yeah; egads. It wasn't even consistently awful - there were some genuinely good scenes even in the sillier phases; very frustrating.

Cry of the Banshee: Hammer-ish horror with Vincent Price as a lecherous lord with lecherous underlings and offspring both good and evil. Lots of needless skin shown and not much atmosphere built. The human evil gets its comeuppances of course. I just wonder what happened to the priest.

The Parallax View: A conspiracy flick with some rather stupid conspirators who go on a killing spree, eliminating witnesses to an assassination they did years ago. Warren Beatty is an offbeat journalist going after them and seems that no one knows anything about this conspiracy yet everyone is involved and their security screening isn't exactly tight. It's an intriguing idea and the film is not that badly executed, but definitely the writing could've used some more thought. The short propaganda film in the middle is disturbing and effective.

Regarding Paranormal Activity, it does drag on and the characters are rather silly (though both points are excusable considering that they are used due to the constraints of the film), but there are a couple of effective scenes:

A little late but I want to comment on The Devil Inside as well. My sister rented it for my my other sister and her husband to see. I got dragged into it and what I saw was perhaps one of the shittiest movies I'd ever seen. Obviously horror movies aren't my primary pick when it comes to movies, but this one topped worst movie of the year for me. Just awful acting, plus how monumentally boring it was made it an uncomfortable sitting. As soon as I saw that the movie was going to be a "follow a group around with a camera" styled film like Blair Witch Project and the like I wanted out, but then ten minutes in I wanted to punch my tv. Terrible excuse for a movie, which I wouldn't even call. More like a very awkward, overly-long sketch project.

I searched up the movie again just now and I totally forgot how enraged I was with the ending, only because I expected some kind of payoff to the horseshit I sat through. "Visit my website", which I doubt is enough of a spoiler, is among the shittiest endings imaginable.

So I watched The Hobbit a couple days ago and actually stayed awake the entire time this time. I really enjoyed the riddles scene with Gollum, and the climax. Something about the movie felt rushed though; all the scenes just seemed to move right into each other which was quite the opposite in the LotR series and not at all what I was expecting. And what was the whole deal with Radagast? He felt like a Tolkien version of Jar Jar Binks.

Absolutely right on how the movie went from one scene to the next without much thought. The lighter nature of the movie compared to the LOTR batch didn't interest me as much, and there were holes that didn't make much sense to me, but I still enjoyed the movie. Jackson brought me right back to the Middle Earth setting that I loved ten years ago, but most of my complaints lied with who was involved. I'm not going to complain about the scope of the movie, but the dwarves certainly aren't as memorable beyond maybe 4 of them. The pale orc I thought shouldn't have been CGI, and the final battle on the cliff I thought was forced.

Dol Guldur ruled though. I wanted to see more of that.

The Paranormal Activity series, especially 3 and 4, and Insidious were great movies, personally.

The best part is that the website is just a couple deleted scenes and some character biographies.

So I'm sick as a dog, and have resigned myself to the couch for the day. It is absolutely bone-chilling outside, snow has fallen, and I've got some McDonald's breakfast on the way. God bless my girlfriend.

What better way to spend a day light this fighting illness than with a stack of great movies?

Currently, I have these stacked up in front of me:

Legends of Horror (some 50+ B horror films from the 20s-70s. $10.00!)
Chinatown
Stalker (Tarkovsky)
Live and Let Die (my favorite Bond movie)
Eyes Without a Face


Excitement mounts!

What company made your 50 movie pack? All of my horror packs except one were made by Echo Bridge.

Mizwa, have you watched Stalker yet? I've had it for months, and have watched about half of it. Contrary to what that implies, I really enjoyed what I saw, but I got distracted by other stuff and so turned it off. I didn't want to devote anything less than my full attention to it. I've only seen one other Tarkovsky movie (Solaris), and it's obvious that he's one of the greats. He reminds me a bit of Bergman too, especially in Stalker.

And as an interesting note, Stalker is Varg Vikernes's all-time favorite movie. An interview with him is actually where I first heard of it.

I'm a bit late to the discussion, but yeah, love that movie. I never get tired of watching it, as everything about it is goddamn perfect. Used to to be a bit weirded out by the strange sexualization of such a young Natalie Portman, but got used to it later after thinking about the possible psychological reasons for that kind of behavior in a girl as young as she was back then when put in her situation. But I digress..... The point is; everyone who hasn't watched that movie yet has some catching up to do.

In the original script Mathilda seduced Léon, you know? They cut that part.

I..... Wasn't aware of that. Glad they got rid of that idea.

Stalker is really dense, I don't blame you. It's basically just three guys slowly walking around and talking the whole time, but luckily their conversations are really interesting. Despite being very good it does take a lot of effort to get through, though. It's an interesting take on the book (Roadside Picnic, which is also very good) in that it basically takes the setting and then inserts its own characters into it. Stalkers are a thing in the book, as is the wish-granter and the history of the Zone, but the characters and story are 100% original.

So I searched if this movie was discussed in this thread and found only Snowgrave's post. I watched it yesterday and I thought it was a brilliant movie in the rom-com genre. The plot seemed genuine enough to keep me hooked throughout. I smiled and chuckled at some of the scenes which had good comedic value. Aside from that, the movie had strong performances from De Niro and Jennifer Lawrence. I never really liked J.Lawrence in her previous movies especially Hunger Games, but in this she made me feel like she was all grown up and mature. Bradley Cooper did his bit. I reckon if they had a big-name lead actor, I probably wouldn't have enjoyed it that much. Anyway, not that awards mean anything, but I hope this movie bags a few.