Oh, I'm not saying N by NW is a bad movie by any means; just that, given its massive stature even among Hitchcock's other films, I really expected it to be better.

I haven't seen Lifeboat, or even really heard of it. I'll check it out, sounds interesting.

1987 - I'm a huge 80's fan, to me the 80's had everything and I'd be content living out my days from that decade alone. Simply an incredibly entertaining and fun time for movies. Along with the action greats of RoboCop, Predator, Lethal Weapon, The Running Man and Over The Top, there was also intensely memorable and quotable comedy movies from that year such as Evil Dead 2, Spaceballs, Planes, Trains & Automobiles, House II: The Second Story and Throw Momma from the Train. It was the year where immensely varied movies churned out like wildfire, you had the excellent horror of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and The Stepfather while also films that have gone on to become cult classics like The Lost Boys and some of arguably the best movies of all time like Full Metal Jacket. There are even several I'm sure are superb that I've yet to see like Rampage, Near Dark and The Hidden.

I'd have to say 1994 was a pretty strong contender, as well. That year gave us The Lion King, The Shawshank Redemption, Forrest Gump, Speed, Dumb & Dumber, Pulp Fiction, Wes Craven's New Nightmare, and Hoop Dreams.

More or less my thoughts. I found it hard to believe such a well-loved film was so lacking in just about all areas. Unfortunately I can't go into detail as most of the things which make it so silly and dumb are the twists and turns it takes which would spoil the film if I were to discuss. Strangers on a Train was also immensely disappointing. I'm really hoping Rope delivers something masterfully done that I can at least hold in high regard like Psycho.

I think North by Northwest's pacing is really good. I like how the information is handed to us as Grant's character is slowly putting the pieces of the puzzle together, one by one. It had me at the edge of my seat when I first watched it, and I'm thinking about watching it again. That's my defense of it.

Personally, for an underrated Hitchcock film, I really like The Trouble with Harry. It's hilarious, tense, and an all around blast to watch. The premise is genius; a group of people, living in the same neighborhood, have come across the dead body of the title character, Harry. See, The Trouble with Harry is that he's dead, and no one knows who killed him, so they try to figure out who killed him by asking each other what they did with Harry before he died. I'm not explaining it all too well, but it's a really good movie, and I recommend it.

The Trouble with Harry is hilarious, much, much better than Hitchcock's other late-era dabbling in comedy, Family Plot. Still, both films are superior to most dark comedies not directed by the Coen bros.

Yeah, Family Plot was only ok. It wasn't terrible, but it's kind of a weak movie to end a career on. Oh well, if you're career consists of making Shadow of a Doubt, Rope, Psycho, and other innovative movies, I can't complain when you make a few duds.

Oh wow, The Trouble with Harry was produced much earlier than I thought it was; I could've sworn that it was from the late 60's/early 70's given its tone and atmosphere, but it turns out it came out in 1955. It's also interesting to note it featured Shirley MacLaine's acting debut. Christ, what a starlet she was about to blossom into. I really need to watch this one again as well.

I have to agree with fsm, code or no, North by Northwest is probably my least favorite of Hitchcock's films. As he pointed out, it is not very gripping. At any point it doesn't seem like the main character is in any actual danger and considering all the praise it gets, it just didn't match up to all that.

Not to mention the best movie ever made: Clerks.

Oh shit, I could've sworn Clerks was 1995, for some reason.

But yeah, Clerks.

Trick 'r Treat - I'd say this is better than The ABCs of Death and both V/H/S movies, but that's kind of misleading because it's not really an anthology in the way those are. It's structured more like (and I hate having to make this comparison) Pulp Fiction, with a handful of related stories about crazy shit happening on Halloween in a seemingly normal town. I give this a mild recommendation if you're in the mood for some seasonally appropriate 'fun horror.'

CLERKS! Such a great movie! I watched that with my parents while my sister was having a girly-sleepover birthday party, and we were all laughing our asses off! I still can't believe that I watched that with my parents, though. It's kind of weird, now that I really think about it.

It can't be any weirder than watching American Pie with your dad, or watching Road Trip with your mom.

Shit... maybe that's why I'm fucked up.

Hey, that's why we're all here.

I think I watched more "cutting-edge" movies with my dad, which I think is strange, personally, because my mom is the more "cutting-edge" parent. I watched Kill Bill and Scarface with my dad. All I can claim with my mom, is watching a lot of silent movies.

Yeah, Trick r Treat is awesome, and way better than those movies. The only thing that disappointed me was

The only thing lame about Trick or Treat is that segment with the old bus driver guy. I dunno, that one never grabbed me. The other segments are kick ass though.

I hated every minute of Trick R Treat. Cool enough premise but the segments were lacklustre not unlike VHS 2 in that respect. I don't get how this film is considered underrated when it's clearly mediocre apart from a cool intro sequence. It's on the same level of Creep Show 2 in being passable but almost all segments are bland and stale, once you get over the blatant twists and/or surprising elements (about 7 years late on that trend TrT) it's a one way to ticket to bored-sville. Both Surprise Party and The School Bus Massacre Revisited were lame as shit, one on the level of a goofy Goosebumps episode and the other comparable to that early Backstreet Boys music video. You're better off watching a Halloween episode of Dawson's Creek.

People actually think Clerks is hilarious? We're talking about the same movie, right? The one with the insufferably whiny and unlikable protagonist who just bitches and complains for an hour or so while three or four funny things happen around him? The one where almost every joke falls flat, the acting is awful, and where the only moments of genuine personality are the little inconsequential bits that clearly weren't meant to be the real jokes (especially since damn near every joke has a three minute run-up to the punchline)?

Clerks II delivers like ten laughs per minute, but the original is just crap. I get what it represented and I get why it's so popular, but for every Olaf the Russian heavy metal singer segment, there are six segments of Randall listing off a bunch of porn movies for about two and a half minutes longer than comically viable.

Clerks isn't laugh out loud funny, but it's very, very good. I only saw it once a few years ago, haven't gotten around to it again yet, but it's one of those movies you just kind of sit and let it roll over you, rather than really looking for each and every joke like a normal movie. It reminded me a lot of Pulp Fiction or something, where it's difficult to explain why it's good. It just is. It is iconoclastic.

Kevin Smith just writes interesting dialogue that manages to carry the movie, even with the less-than-stellar acting and sub-zero production values.

He has a gift for dialogue but I don't think it was fully developed by Clerks, since I like pretty much everything else he's done (granted I haven't seen his latest couple, but you know which ones I'm talking about). None of the conversations were interesting or humorous to me, and only a few of them felt real at all. It's a comedy that isn't funny, that's why I don't like it.

No, it doesn't feel remotely real, but it's wonderful nonetheless. It's got sort of an old stage-production vibe to it that really works. I do think it was better developed in later movies but it's still quite enjoyable for me in Clerks.

I really liked the rawness of it. Lent it a certain honesty and brevity that a lot of his more overblown later stuff missed out on - it was very low key and ended up feeling very cool and personal because of it, like a portrait into his psyche. As much fun as his later works are, I really think it's his masterpiece.

It's good if you treat it like the amateur piece of cinema that it is. I'm not entirely fond of it but I can't deny it has it's moments, the downside is it takes too long to get to the punchline, whereas something like Pulp Fiction everything is unstable - one second you get someone almost dying of a overdose, another you get two guys chatting about McDonald's and then later a long drawn out rape scene. Basically it's hinged on the suspense of not knowing whereas Clerks is generally about nothing and you never expect anything to eventuate. It wasn't until Mallrats that Kevin Smith actually started making movies and not 'fly-on-the-wall' semi doco/drama/comedies. Another thing I don't like is it's very dated and the black and white picture that was so excessively common in the 90's only increases that fact.

If you guys actually think Kevin Smith dialog is funny, you've apparently never watched anything British ever.

I have to agree with darkeningday here. I used to like Smith when I was 15 (pretty much the mental age that KS will remain for the rest of his life) but then I grew up. Mallrats and Chasing Amy are so-so, the rest of his oeuvre goes from laughable (Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) to just puzzlingly bad (Red State).

Well remember that the black and white in Clerks wasn't a stylistic choice. It was to cut down on the already nearly-nothing budget since color stock would have cost too much.

Also, I liked Red State. It was stinking and stinking until it got to Michael Parks and the church nuts, though.

This just in, it's impossible to like both, it has to be one or the other. Thanks for the wisdom there.

I am aware of that, yet it still it doesn't excuse it from being forever tainted. When I watch something like Clerks I think cliche 90's and nothing else but when I watch Following I don't even think about the lack of colour past a minute in. The lack of eventfulness really makes you stop and simply observe the imagery on the surface.

Also: all British things are categorically better than Kevin Smith. Excuse me while I turn off my trash American cinema while I tuttle off to watch the latest events of Big Brother Series 32,485,643,569: Second Cousins of B-List Celebrities' Dog Walkers Edition. *sips tea, sticks out pinky*

People can't use hyperbole without being instantly jumped on anymore? That's unfortunate.

While lowest-tier Britcoms make even crap like Everybody Loves Raymond look like Oscar Wilde, I'd still prefer a Big Brother episode over virtually any Kevin Smith film (outside of Chasing Amy, Mallrats and maybe Jersey Girl.) Because at least Big Brother would wear its misogynistic and heteronormative assertions on its sleeve and would know it's nothing beyond cheap, hollow entertainment for late-night male teenage stoners. And I find it especially nice that writers of Big Brother have never written themselves into their own product in order to prove that "it doesn't matter how you look or how she feels about you, if you do sex to a purddy lady real good, she'll totally fall in love with you forever and for always."

Just. Yuck.

I take it that you're trying to interpret the overall message of Chasing Amy? If so, you have completely missed the mark. The film is about how the key to any true relationship is trust and putting the individual over their past actions. While sex did play an integral part in its dialogue, what was most important was its message. If anything, it reminded me of Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House, just with sex substituting for finances.

Jason Lee in Mallrats and Chasing Amy is the greatest griping character of all time.

Sir, you have forgotten your crumpets!

Zombie Night

This here was an unbelievably fun and entertaining effort that really has a lot of fun times about it. The fact that this one just absolutely runs through a relentless pace that's all built around the zombies getting free at the opening, barely five minutes in which allows this to really just warp through it's paces with the numerous encounters that transpire here following this type of pace. With an exceptionally creepy encounter in the graveyard as the zombies slowly rise from the grave to the home encounter where the zombies break in and force them to keep their own children out of harm's way and the thrilling encounter on the abandoned streets that feature a whole slew of zombies shambling along after the heroes who have to avoid the ever-increasing mass. The final half, where the underground tunnels through the cemetery with the zombies falling from the graves above them into the tunnels leading into the bloodbath ushered in the mausoleum is perfectly handled with some absolutely chilling moments stretched out quite nicely, a multitude of gore shots that look quite impressive and a rather fun amount of action containing two incredibly creepy locations being utilized quite nicely.

As well, the inciting spark for the zombie rampage is quite original and certainly creative, marking one of the only times such a concept was utilized and definitely made the fact that the heroes trying to deal with such overwhelming odds was a certainly fruitless endeavor look all the more impacting when there's some suspense to be wrung from this clever trick. As well, there's shuffling zombies brought back that play up the fact that it's the sheer number on undead that really makes them so frightening, and when called upon they do move about quite quickly when necessary so there's something for everyone.

While the ending is just way too quick and completely lifeless despite having such a great gimmick attached to it, it's the only thing holding this one down.

The Watermen

This here wasn't all that great and really had a lot of problems. One of the biggest is the fact that there's just no way to really take the group of hunters here seriously enough as a threat. Speaking in mumbled accents that make their intended threats barely audible, working a storyline that makes no sense and basically offering nothing of any real substance here that makes it come together in any shape or form, all of which work to make the group of butchers completely ridiculous as threats. The fact that there's very few encounters between them and the friends also really hinders them since we don't get to see them in action beyond slicing up the bodies or hunting them down, so we don't get a sense of fear from them since there's no home-field advantage being in the swampy, forested areas with only one sequence showing that and they get easily out-gunned in the situation anyway which really just throws the whole thing for a loop. So much is spent on them being ruthless butchers that they get outsmarted, and really only have the upper hand with weapons since the hand-to-hand combat is to the way of the group so they don't even have that.

An extra-long set-up time to actually get to the island makes for a rather distressing time since the group of friends are the typical uninteresting and self-involved jerks that make it easy to want them dead.

Thankfully, it's saved by a fine last-half that really puts the confrontations back-to-back-to-back that allows for a lot of great action, some pretty gory dismembering that's effectively bloody and tons of nudity from those well-qualified to deliver it. All in all, this one is pretty disappointing.

I don't know, most Kevin Smith movies I think are about exactly what you said there - they know what they are; they are silly, over the top movies for teenage guys. I don't really think they're gut-busting hilarious, but I think most of them are very likable and enjoyable in their own ways. There's just a real personality and style to his works, and I always have a weakness for that trait in any medium.

As for Chasing Amy, that whole "straight guy gets a lesbian in bed" thing does rub me the wrong way; it's why I wouldn't put it as one of my favorite Smith movies. But the other guy was right in that it's not all the film is about, and I still pretty much think it's a good flick.

I agree with Emp, here. Clerks seemed pretty self-aware to me, and even though I haven't seen any other Kevin Smith movie, I can't imagine that they wouldn't be either, based on a few snippets I've seen.

For what it's worth, I was referring to Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

I actually thought Clerks was pretty good. It just seemed really unpretentious and genuine, even if the writing wasn't the best. The characters could be whiny and dumb at times, but they felt like real people. If you've ever worked a shitty minimum-wage job like that, you'll know that those places are full of that type. It's far from a great movie, but it had a genuine humanity to it that I appreciated.

After that Kevin Smith basically totally loses me. His comedies are full of this crap where you can tell he's smugly congratulating himself on how edgy he is, like in Dogma where there's the black disciple, God is a woman, etc. It's about on the level of Ghost selling a dildo with their name on it.