He condensed the entire first season of Avatar into 90 minutes, and so whatever wasn't just plain deleted has been altered and stripped of all the character that made the show so good to begin with. Every single word said by every single character is exposition of some sort, and character development is nowhere to be found. The acting is hilariously bad and the actual fight scenes are boring and monotonous due to always being done in one shot with a boom camera flying around the actors, thus killing the suspension of disbelief as you can tell the actors are waiting for the camera to be in the proper position. It's just an unmitigated disaster of a movie.

Fucking love Argento's stuff! Deep Red, Suspiria, Phenomena, Cat o' Nine Tails, and my personal favorite, Tenebre. There's a few other ones I dig like Lamberto Bava's A Blade In The Dark, Black Belly of the Tarantula, Bay of Blood, and My Dear Killer, which is pretty slow but has some wicked death scenes.

^Why anyone would desperately seek out and put them-self through such mediocrity is beyond me. All his films but three (and that's being generous) are neither good nor so-bad it's good. It would be better to watch all the Saw and Final Destination movies, because at least under the terrible acting and convoluted plot you get unintentionally funny death scenes. Unlike Shyamalan who is entirely comparable to a bland Outer Limits episode. It's basically the equivalent of watching all the Spy Kids and Transformers movies.

I disagree; Shyamalamadingdong's movies tend to be fascinating trainwrecks, rather than just shlocky cash-ins. Yes, they're bad, but they're usually decent premises sunk by a combination of so many bad decisions that it's fun to pick at them and imagine what key changes could have been made to fix them.

Gnade (Mercy) - Just saw this for the first time last night, after a fair bit of anticipation. It's one of the few major dramas to come from director Matthias Glasner after his absolutely fantastic Der Freie Wille, and it also co-stars Jürgen Vogel, who gave such a wonderful performance in that film. Thankfully this did not disappoint. It's not quite as emotionally crushing as Der Freie Wille, but it explores similar themes of guilt, atonement, and compassion in a setting so awe-inspiring and otherworldly that it has to be seen to be understood. The mesmerizing atmosphere is brought to an incredible pitch by the jawdroppingly beautiful camerawork - some of the most memorable I've seen in years. And of course the other technical aspects of the film are great, painting a poignant picture of quiet emotional suffering in a community where no god exists to absolve one's sins but oneself and one's neighbors. A really great film that I need to watch again. I only wish it could be on the big screen.

@Empyreal: Glad you liked The Brood! Such a great film, definitely among my top five horror flicks. I love how it's got that Lovecraft-for-the-modern-furniture-age vibe. Come to think of it, I've always loved that quality in things... too bad it's so rare to find.

Unfortunately my two other Cronenberg films watched this month weren't nearly up to scratch, those being Shivers and eXistenZ. Shivers was too early to be anything great, so it had something of an excuse, but eXistenZ was just.... eh. It just sort of seemed like some confused semi-sequel to Videodrome that didn't really make a whole fucklot of sense and didn't really do any particularly interesting work with symbols and metaphors (or twisted soma-nightmare!) the way the former did. It was just kinda like Cronenberg wanted to make a movie about video games and virtual reality but had no idea where to go with it in the end. It floats in this awkward midspace between just being a freaky concept piece and actually having a point to make, not really succeeding at either. I dunno, maybe someone else here has a more astute analysis than I do. I'd like to hear one.

Grave Halloween

This here turned out to be quite an entertaining and enjoyable effort that gets a lot of great points about it. One of the better elements here is the use of the local custom that plays such a central part of the storyline that it really starts to feel as though the events could happen to play out as they do. Being that this is Japanese the culture and heritage of honoring one's deceased echoes throughout this one in so many ways that the great pride it places on the subject earns the eventual rampage from the ghosts later on once the mocking had been committed. It's all completely justified and rational, and that makes the ghostly actions all the more fun with several incredibly chilling gags, from simply transporting you to a different dimensional plane of reality without realizing it in order to prevent their friends from finding them in time to prevent your death, vanishing behind trees, rocks or landscape changes to avoid detection, putting your own thoughts against you and making you do something against your will or just flat-out attacking you with their ghostly powers in vicious, brutal attacks. By doing this in such a chilling and creepy location, almost seemingly filmed at the real forest itself as the attention to minute features of the area makes for an absolutely chilling, creepy area to remain the entire time, and offers up plenty of suspense from the landscape itself. With a fast pace that keeps things moving along briskly, a couple of brutal and quite bloody deaths dished out, a real sense of danger when it comes to the treatment of the cast since they're all in the firing line at some point and not too many flaws here, this is a spectacular, stand-out effort.

Dude, paragraphs! Check them out sometime.

Anyway, watched They Live with a few friends last night. I don’t think I would have enjoyed it as much watching it on my own but we had some good laughs. The premise itself is kind of cool and the theme of a ruling elite is just as relevant as ever, but man was there ever some awful dialog. Like sure, the kick ass and chew bubble gum line is corny in a rather likeable way, but "Life’s a bitch, and she’s in heat"? UGH.

Oh man, that fight between Roddy Piper and Keith David! It just keeps going on and on, managing to be completely ridiculous and brutal at the same time. Amazing.

Modern furniture age, huh? Yeah, it really was the best new thing I've seen this year for horror. It's hard to explain what was so good about it. It wasn't particularly flashy or anything, and didn't have one particular scene that stuck out as memorable (well, maybe the climax when she reveals what's underneath her robe...), but it was just so chilling and set a tone really well. The characters were very well done and he understands how to make great characters with only an hour and a half to do so - they were likable and realistic and had flaws, etc. It just had this real joy of filmmaking about it. I read somewhere that Cronenberg based it off some parts of his own life, and I can tell - it has a very personal feel to it.

Really eXistenZ seemed like Cronenberg's attempt at cyberpunk more than anything else, though rather than mechanical or electronic body mods, it was all biotech. I'm not sure exactly where he was trying to go with it in terms of themes, other than perhaps virtual reality (and computers in general) blurring the line between reality and fiction - which they definitely have. People aren't going to start mistaking MMOs for the real world, but I personally know of several relationships (even marriages) that were destroyed by in-game WoW stuff (not just one partner playing too much and neglecting the other).

Amusingly enough, as different from the norm as Cronenberg's vision of cyberpunk was, it had the same strengths and suffered from the same weaknesses as regular cyberpunk. I absolutely love the style of the world he creates - the little biological computers that are part tool, part beloved pet, and part external bodily organ; the gun made from organic components that fired teeth; the computer assembly line that looked more like a filthy slaughterhouse than an industrial factory, with the foul pools that bred the bloated, engineered frog-creatures that they ripped the organ components out of to build the computers. Unfortunately, there is very little substance to the movie - not much of an overarching plot, shallow characters, not much exploration of its themes.

In short, the movie is very much style over substance, and even though it's very much flawed, I can't help liking it simply because the style is so damn cool and original.

Watched Ringu, the original one. It's more of a mistery thriller than the "spooky things popping out" american remake. It's a cool movie and all, but I feel like knowing the plot beforehand detracted from my enjoyment.

Just watched Monsters University. I found it disappointing. I loved Monsters Inc. and is probably my favorite Pixar movie so I had high hopes for this one. It was just another Animal House clone but not up to to the standard of that movie or Revenge of the Nerds. It fulfilled every cliche from those kinds of movies without the beer and girls since Pixar has always been very kid friendly. It was also copying Harry Potter far too much with the boarding school environment (though this is college) and the Dean was a replica of Professor Mcgonagal, as well as the loud, fairly neutral sports announcer at the games resembling the guy from Harry Potter. There was not enough of it's own original story telling. I think it also didn't help with how one-dimensional and forgettable all the characters were. The only characters that felt like they had any real depth was Sully and Mike. The setting was very limited to just the university and if they had moved outside the box a little it may have been more memorable. Because of the flow and how predictable it was there was never much tension, and it was a very 'safe' movie.

With all that said I did enjoy the movie while I was watching it and the laughs were there but not up to the humor of Monsters Inc. Overall I would say it is an enjoyable watch for Pixar fans but it was pretty average overall.

I would agree with this description and verdict. It certainly is a case of style over substance though I, too, can't resist enjoying it; it is a startling, fascinating piece, even if it has less to say about grander themes than other films of the genre at least attempt to have.

When it comes to cyberpunk themes that the film explores, though, I'd also point to the body/machine relationship. I've always thought that this was a less prominent but still quite pervasive cyberpunk trope. Films (and books, too, for that matter) in the genre will often mention the body modifications that inhabitants of the worlds they create do/can undergo, and/or show how the technologies featuring in the narrative can distance users from their bodies. The difference between whatever 'system' the cyberpunk hero has to face or fight and the resistance/alternative societies (often where the hackers, for example, hide out or get information) is often drawn in bodily terms; the latter are almost always more visceral, grimy, physical. eXistenZ explores this in really interesting ways, I think. The technophiles are more in touch with their bodies than, say, those who resist the new gaming technology, but they're also incredibly desensitised. The whole movie forces a confrontation with the flesh (typical Cronenberg) at its most abject, immediate, almost horrific level, taking the theme to an almost new height.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2537176/?ref_=nv_sr_1

This seriously happened?

You know, I've been here long enough that if you had this much of an issue with my posting style, you should've said something. You had your chance, you lost it by not saying anything so it's not my business anymore.

Eye of the Devil

This here turned out to be quite an unusual and disappointing effort. The film's biggest issue here is the fact that there's the utterly overused angle of thinking it's creepy when people knowingly withhold information crucial to the survival of others and yet can't reveal anything, essentially being unable to stop talking about it but never saying anything. This is a common theme in numerous movies and has never worked out well since it basically keeps the movie going along but does nothing with it that hasn't been done in those other efforts, making this off to be a cliche as well as basically doing nothing for the film anyway. As well, the details of the belief that powers through this is just utterly confusing, never really making any bit of sense as to why the ceremony was adopted or what it's supposed to prove which just makes the whole effort confusing, and as well the film does seem to run on a little longer than it should, stretched out by the needless withholding of information causing unnecessary investigations that go nowhere since they're all stone-walled or dead-ends, and it's only piecing everything together at the end does this evoke any sort of terror.







That said, it's still got some solid, enjoyable moments here, for the discovery in the forest mausoleum leading to the raid by the black-hooded figures is chilling, the town-hall ceremony has a few surprises and the finale employs a clever trick to really sell what's going on quite nicely. Beyond that, the eerie behavior of everyone around is quite a bit of fun and gets pretty chilling at times, especially towards the one girl who is so off that there's an unnerving atmosphere that plays into the whole secrecy surrounding the whole proceedings, making for a better film than it sounds but still not as good as it could've been.

I assume you want people to actually read your posts and it would help if they were a less of a text wall. I’m sure that some people skip them but I don’t care either way, it was just a friendly suggestion.

I agree with slayerr666, he's been here for ages now. Weird that people just started saying that stuff now after all this time. I thought his paragraphs were too long from the beginning, but eh, it's an internet forum, what are you gonna do?

He's been warned by 2 mods already (including me), oh well, that's for him if he doesn't want people to read his stuff.

Problem solved. Now get back to talking about movies.

Only God Forgives - I'll admit it, I never got what people found so special about Drive. OGF has the same director and star yet is widely considered inferior (40% Tomatometer vs. 93%). So I figured there was a pretty good chance I'd hate this one.

Well, wouldn't ya know it, I liked Only God Forgives more than I thought I would, for reasons I cannot describe without major spoilers.


This probably wasn't what the filmmaker wanted me to get out of his work, but whatever. I think I get where he was going with Ryan Gosling's, um,


In short, even if you weren't blown away by Drive, there's a chance you might not completely hate Only God Forgives. And hey, if nothing else, it features the most painfully awkward family dinner scene outside the Texas Chainsaw franchise.


Yeah. It was about what I expected. Subrick did a detailed review a few pages ago.

Yes, the relationship between the biological and mechanical/digital parts of a cyborg definitely is a secondary theme in cyberpunk, a sort of evolution of what basically started out as just a more extreme "futuristic" example of body modifications like piercings and tattoos or whatever (which started attracting a lot more mainstream attention in the 80s). Japanese cyberpunk especially really ran with that in things like Ghost in the Shell and Tetsuo: The Iron Man.

One cyberpunk movie that people might not know about that deals with cyborgs is Nemesis (1992). It's a weird, weird movie in that it is a total trainwreck in some aspects while others it does extremely well. The plot is a total disjointed mess with way, WAY too much setup, backstory that doesn't end up becoming important, extraneous details that should've been cut, topped off with poor acting and writing. At the same time, the special effects are genuinely fantastic - the movie was directed by cyborg lover Albert Pyun, so most of the main characters look human but are in fact heavily modified cyborgs on the inside. As they get blown apart the machinery starts to stand out, and looks fantastic. The side-effect of the fights being between cyborgs is that they can all take a huge amount of punishment, so they just kind of blow holes in each other for extended periods and take each other apart piece by piece. In short, the action scenes are amazing, but everything else is fucking terrible. With a good screenplay the movie could've been amazing, but unfortunately, no such luck. Still worth watching, though.

Escape Plan is the perfect throwback action movie. Go see it!

I enjoyed redlettermedia's review of this title: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_imbu9jmAo Not that I needed the push, and rarely am I swayed unless I already have zero interest, but it listed all the things I hated from Drive that I imagined would be carried over, among them - style over substance and unnecessary patience-testing slow-moving scenes. It's refreshing to hear people with actual relatable opinions who don't come across as hyperactive salesmen.

I watched Man of Steel yesterday. It was about as good a Superman movie as I could have hoped for, considering that I don't really like Superman much at all. Granted most of the cool parts were the evil Kryptonians wrecking dudes. Also that weird Prohibition cop from Boardwalk Empire made a pretty good villain. That guy is so good at having an awkward mouth and bulging his eyes out, I tell you what.

Creature with the Atom Brain

This ended up being quite a bland and overall disappointing zombie effort. For the most part, the film remains solely on the investigation angle of the police trying to determine the cause of the strange deaths around town and interpreting the evidence left behind, running all sorts of different tests and experiments on the material and even debating what they mean for the majority of the film's running time, leaving large portions of the film completely without zombie action at all. Despite the appeal of doing so during the heyday of the 50s sci-fi monster movies running during the same time, in a horror film that type of story doesn't work for it lowers the on-screen amount of time the actual creatures take up, and that in itself is quite the opposite of what's supposed to happen in a genre-related film.

Not that the zombies themselves are all that imposing, outfitted with Frankenstein-like marks around the forehead to denote an operation on their face has taken place but otherwise remain completely un-suggestive of traditional zombies or their behavior, and that remains the biggest portion of this one's problems as the lack of traditional zombie actions may make this a bitter pill to swallow for traditionalists, for the creatures are able to speak in a monotone voice, follow commands through a radio-receiver that also allows them to transmit video quality of their deeds and remain lifeless until called upon to act, so the purpose of reanimating the dead tissue for the process, a key component of zombie-lore, remains quite curious for it could've been done through hypnotized lackeys and the result is the same.

Though there's some fun sequences here and there, mainly the finale as the army of creatures descends upon the military task-force assigned to take them out, there's just not enough to compound the boredom such a quick film implies.

The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll

Despite having a rather interesting take on the famous story, this entry isn't really all that special. One of the biggest problems here is that the change-over into his new personality doesn't bring about any real reason to fear him, for he looks like himself without the facial hair and lack of old-age wrinkles, or in other words just an ordinary man. This isn't a change into a twisted, deformed brute that looks slightly different from modern society but rather exactly the same as the other people around him, so he doesn't exactly inspire a great deal of fear amongst those around him as he goes through the motions of the story. In fact, several times he's shown to be knocked-out or even manhandled with extreme ease, and it's really only minor details about what he wants his friend to do that inspires any sort of terror. In fact, those actions are downright lame in any sense, not making it seem like there's a big dramatic, horror-inspired fate for what's going on but rather just an ordinary man asking his friend to do some pretty weird things for about an hour, making this one take an eternity to get going.

The last half, when he goes about setting on revenge for the affair does it get going as there's some life to the film, as well as the potential for the some chills as he finally engages in actions that put others in the line of his temper, and it goes somewhat towards restoring some fear to him, but the majority of the film is so bland that there's not a lot of good that can come from it.

Funny you mention Creature with The Atom Brain. I just saw that today. Hokey but not horrible. I've seen a lot worse (MST3K, anyone?)

Captain Phillips

Whether or not you're familiar with the back story, this is very much well worth watching. One of Hanks' better movies and the Somali pirates are terrifying.

DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp - 4/5

What I like is it's not overblown and over-the-top, it feels like an hour long episode and doesn't take it's self too seriously. It doesn't feel dated apart from Genie's clothes and there's enough adult lingo and jokes to appeal to an older audience. There's an adventure aspect in the first half that almost mirrors a lost Indiana Jones episode (which is a perfect way to entice the audience) and a power struggle in the second half for Scrooge McDuck to overcome (which feels more grander and epic than a regular episode), even a heist element that wasn't entirely predictable, but it all flows seamlessly and it's most of all fun.

It's hard to pick apart such a well done cartoon movie but the villain voiced by Christopher Lloyd is a very stereotypical. Sure, he can shape-shift but he's hardly someone to be feared and is too clumsy to be a threat. Rip Taylor is perfectly suited as Genie and provides a decent amount of comic relief. The character of Dijon also provides comic relief but his foolishness was a bit much and made Merlock seem weak.

This is really the type of film kids should be growing up with, it has a moral message but it's not forced down their throat and some liberties are taken that most PC people today would deem scary and not suitable, but I think kids can handle this sort of entertainment.

Curse of the Undead

This is an overall curious and quite enjoyable effort. Basically this here turns out to be a cunning combination of Western and vampire horror, but for once the mixture is not a detriment to the other as they usually result in forsaking one part of the story for the other if the two chosen topics really have little in common with each other. Here, we get a typical Western about a ranch family involved in a border dispute with their neighbors who resorts to underhanded tactics to keep his side of the property without repercussions, involved in numerous shady deals with the authorities to keep himself in line and offers up plenty of shoot-outs, beatings and scenes of everyone wandering around on horse- back to fulfill that part of the storyline, and basically turns the script around by having the loner coming in to deal with the situation being a vampire. By still incorporating those tactics, where he resides in coffins, can't stay out in the sunlight for long periods of time and resorts to blood-drinking to carry out his orders all fall in line with known vampire lore, as well as the defense tactics used to stop his rampage that carries out on the outskirts of the story before being brought in by the land dispute where everything finally makes sense.

The only real problems here is the last half, where the vampire far more often than necessary taunts the hero with long-winded speeches about humanity and faith of God, which really hurts his effectiveness as a villain since it all comes off so lame and stupid. Overall, though, it more than makes up for that one little flaw.

From Clive Barker's Facebook:



In short, the Hellraiser remake is going forward with Clive Barker writing it, no CGI, and Doug Bradley playing Pinhead.

The main thing that surprised me about the first Hellraiser was that Pinhead isn't really in it that much. Compared to the Friday on Elm Street knockoff slasher flick I expected, Hellraiser was more of a supernatural horror drama about a dysfunctional family with a crazy uncle and a Natalie Portman lookalike daughter.

Some of the effects in the original have aged badly; I'm thinking of yellow lightning or electricity that looked totally cartoonish. But the Cenobite makeup and costumes were good, and I like the scene where (minor spoilers)


The only movie in that franchise I'm sure I haven't seen is the new one with the non Doug Bradley Pinhead. It only has a 2.8 user rating at IMDB and is all of 75 minutes long.

I watched it on Netflix, and it SUUUUUUCKS. Just an intensely lame movie, notwithstanding Doug Bradley being replaced by a chubby dude that can't do the voice at all.

None of the Hellraiser movies are good. They are pretty much the equivalent of buying bargain bin dollar-store food as compared to cooking your own. The first one, eh, it isn't that awful, but everything after that I would give 1 star or less. Just shit movies.

Was there ever any Clive Barker penned--or even inspired--film that wasn't complete horse dung (besides the original Hellraiser) to all but the most forgiving horror devotees? I'm drawing a complete blank.

While I admit I kinda really liked Hellraiser, I'm pretty sure the only reason is because it starred Star Trek's Garak. Best character on DS9 by a long shot.

Candyman

I've only seen the first one. It was alright. The cenobites were pretty cool, actually, but the movie sorta wastes them on a pretty idiotic plot.

Really? I dunno, I liked that one when I was a kid, but aside from the plot and the beginning of the movie it's pretty much just a bunch of violent, dull hack work.

I liked Hellraiser 2 better than the first one, the demon like world was really trippy and awesome. 3 was a hilarious joke of a film and the rest well. is history. I used to like Bloodline but then I realized what an unmitigated mess that film is.

Yep. Empyreal will disagree but you're right on the money.

Lord of Illusions and Nightbreed both had potential but only certain parts were actually good. The less said about Midnight Meat-Train the better.

It's also a fascinating ghost/love story with unconventional grotesque and touching poetry. The beautiful haunting score by Phillip Glass echoes these aspects. On the surface it's your typical slasher bogeyman story but at it's heart it's something much deeper, it basically comes down to whether you have a problem with the violence on screen, which I simply do not as it serves it's purpose and that's to be shocking when it matters most.

So I was in the mood for some romantic movies. I didn't want the dumbed-down generic hollywood crap so I searched and came across these two. For the genre, I must say they were pretty good.

Like Crazy: What struck me first when I read about the movie was that it was shot entirely on a Canon 7D camera, that's a semi-pro DSLR camera. It certainly piqued my interest coz I've got a 60D with as good video capabilities. Anyway, the word 'indie' film obviously ran across my mind. Very indie but yet the movie won accolades at big fests and soon got picked up for major distribution. On to the movie, I quite liked it. Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones are great in it. It's about a couple from different countries falling in love and then having to go through the ups and downs over long distance. One can call it an emotional roller-coaster and as a viewer you root for them to work things out. It seemed very real to me and maybe that struck a chord.
8/10

Stuck in love: This is more of a big budget movie with a fairly well known cast. A family of 4, with the parents divorced, go through their own relationship woes. That's pretty much the story line with a few good dialogues. Lily Collins stole the show for me with a very mature performance. I honestly didn't expect her to be that good. Overall, pretty convincing acting by everyone.
7/10

Lord of Illusions and Nightbreed both had potential but only certain parts were actually good. The less said about Midnight Meat-Train the better.

It's also a fascinating ghost/love story with unconventional grotesque and touching poetry. The beautiful haunting score by Phillip Glass echoes these aspects. On the surface it's your typical slasher bogeyman story but at it's heart it's something much deeper, it basically comes down to whether you have a problem with the violence on screen, which I simply do not as it serves it's purpose and that's to be shocking when it matters most.[/quote]

I first saw Candyman when I was in 6th grade and I don't think I even knew anything about it and some of it freaked me out. The music is really haunting and for some reason, the bathroom thing with the kid was creepy. I'm also rather close to east st.louis, which is really similar to urban area that it's set in.

Havent seen Nightbreed in years, but there will be a restored blu ray coming out.