http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Days_Here

Y'all heard about this?

Just watched trailers. Wow. He almost looks too old to be the son of his parents. Man, I feel even worse missing them at MDF, considering he doesn't look particularly healthy... Anyway, interested in watching this.

Yeah, saw it on a random film blog and thought it'd make a great documentary....

Trouble in Paradise (1932): A gentleman thief and his partner (professional and personal) land on a big con in interwar Europe. Well, as big as cons went in this day and age. They weren't the hyperbolic, get idiot rich quick-schemes or supremely well thought out to the smallest detail plots that they are today. It's just a small-time con to get money from a rather naive, rich young widow. The gentleman thief is quick with his wit and with his feet, but he clearly is always worrying about things and some of his manners rather amateur. Which is probably why - in the name of drama - he falls in love with the target. Fun and fairly innocent as far as these things go. Surprisingly, a lot of innuendo about sex, but of course this was before the film code.

The Omen (1976): Everyone knows this, but I hadn't seen it in full before. Very atmospheric, the sense of dread is very permeative.

Rebecca (1940): An "early" Hitchcock film about a young woman marrying a recently widowed, older man and moving with him to his gothic manor in Cornwall. His dead wife's presence is still felt very strongly all about the house and it is constantly looming over her and her interaction with everyone at the estate. While the unnerving atmosphere turns to a regular detective story in the end (with a twist though), it keeps one interested and at the edge of one's seat for the two plus hours is takes to conclude the story.

Just watched a Mexican film called Battle in Heaven (2005). Truly awful. In between watching grotesquely fat people have sex, you can watch a man who works for "the general" (no, I don't know either) kidnap a baby and watch it die in his care (no, I don't know either), shag the general's daughter (no, I don't know either) and get redemption through religion even though murder is a deadly sin (no, I don't know either). Preachy religious messages, awful blaring sound throughout, a cast of actors who are all non-professional and show it, and more pretentiousness than you can shake a stick at. But what can you expect from a director who says things like "Unfortunately, narrative is still a part of cinema and it's difficult to get around that"?

Training Day is a kick ass movie for the first 2/3. I really wish it had a better, more plausible ending.

Good deal man. I liked this one quite a bit, not to mention the soundtrack. There were a number of memorable scenes. Just to name one. The scene with the first nanny saying "look at me, it's all for you" still gives me the creeps, ha.



That's a good synopsis and critique. But you know? This sentence you said is all I remember from watching for some reason: "In between watching grotesquely fat people have sex." And how much they had to pay that woman to do them, ha.



Yeah, I liked this one. Seen it a few times. Ethan Hawke and Denzel made a good team. I liked him as the bad guy, it was a change of pace. Apparently someone was just telling me not that long ago that Denzel's character's car in the film actually got stolen while they were shooting because they used real crime ridden locations at the apartment scene! Wasn't there an alternate ending too?

I remember when Denzel was a really good actor that made films like Training Day and American Gangster. Now he just does shit like Safe House.

Speaking of Denzel, my friend had me watch Man On Fire last week. Hated it, dumb revenge tale with no substance or emotion. It tried to make up for it in style and that didn't work either. And only a tard would have been surprised that the girl was alive. I also watched Unstoppable too, that one was alright. Didn't care for some of the acting though and all the stupid decisions had me chuckling the entire movie. Pretty sad that it's based on real events.

Finally watched the Departed. Pretty good, it was just too bad that I had the elevator scene ruined for me by some vid on youtube.

Yeah too bad. I was completely caught off guard by that scene, one of the best parts of the movie.

I recommend Buried for anyone who likes unique movies. Very claustrophobic, a non cop-out ending, and a tremendous performance by Ryan Reynolds (usually pretty shitty).

Yeah I really liked Buried, surprisingly avoids being tedious, since it doesn't even resort to the extended intro or flashback scenes of 127 Hours (Which I saw last week, it is also excellent) and other than the snake scene I don't think it really had any padding to get the duration stretched.

Buried was OK. Definitely wasn't too boring, but toward the end it got really stupid and pretty much shot itself in the foot.

Eh it didn't bother me that much, lots of thrillers suffer from weak endings. I try to look at the overall movie when judging. Too often do crappy endings colour someone's perception of an entire movie.

Well, if the ending is crappy, then the rest of the movie better damn well be really good to make up for it, but in Buried's case the ending really did kind of ruin it for me, and didn't let me enjoy it as much as I might have otherwise. It had some good moments before that, but then it went full-on SAW-style cliche at the end with the whole



As for the 'lots of thrillers suffer from weak endings' thing...I dunno, really? I've never thought of that as just a problem thrillers had.

I said thrillers specifically because that's a genre where the ending matters a lot cause lots of plot points build up to the ending so a bad one is usually more of a let down. I agree that the Buried ending was disappointing though.

I'd actually forgotten the whole element to the ending, I liked the total ending that followed it.

Anyone know any good medieval war movies with historic roots? Not some shitty overly-musical cheesy/not up to detail movie, I mean a real one, preferably graphic and with great stories based on real wars.

I wouldn't say it's a -great- movie, but Kevin Costner's new Robin Hood film meets your qualifications.

Flesh + Blood does a pretty good job of presenting the middle ages in all of it's filth, rape, ignorance and violence.

Dude... please tell me you're not serious.

You'd probably be better off with something like Kenneth Branagh's Henry V. It's from a time before he got vomitously big-headed and smarmy.

Been meaning to check out Flesh + Blood. Wish it was on Netflix, but maybe I'll have to go a more rougish route.

Watched Hugo. Surprisingly enjoyable for a kid's show. Great cinematography and visual effects, as well as a captivating story and superb acting. 9/10

Quite keen to watch Hugo. Usually hate kids films on account of being a bitter old man, but big Scorcese fan and all, so yeah.

Last Action Hero (1993)
3/5

Watched Last Action Hero today for the first time in almost 20 years. Actually surprisingly very good. I love its playing up of movie cliches - there's lotf of very cliche class, lines, moments and lots of over the top action. The child actor gives one of the better kid's performances I've seen in a while also. The film also has a rockin soundtrack - with a theme song by Tesla, some ACDC and Megadeth, and Queensryche - one of the more kickass classic metal soundtracks out there. Perhaps the real highlight of the film is the badass performance of CHarles Dance (Who many of you will know these days as Tywin Lannister) who classes up the film as an awesome, cold hearted and brutal villain, and Arnie's nemesis. It's a pleasure to watch his scenes. Throw in Tom Noonan as The Ripper - an axe throwing, disfigured psychotic, and you've got a winning formula for a fun, over the top 90s action classic. I honestly have no idea why this film was such a commercial flop. It's tonnes of fun - in the tradition of films like Last Boy Scout, Die Hard, True Lies, etc, and i can think of tonnes of much crappier films that seem to have been more commercially and critically successful - both contemporary to this film, and since. I'm really glad to have revisited this piece and was genuinely entertained and pleasantly surprised by this. An underrated film.

That movie is just so much fun. I love 90's Arnie movies.

Because it was marketed as a typical action movie. People went in droves, only to find it was making fun of the genre they loved, so sales for the film plummeted. As for The Last Boy Scout, I watched three quarters of it. When the annoying little girl came into the mix, it reduced whatever balls the film had to shit. The start of the film was one of the best intros to an action movie. Sheer brilliance. It's just too bad the rest of the film declined lower and lower from that point on.

Last Action Hero is pretty stupid, but there were a few good moments in the first half; shame it dragged on for like 3 fucking hours or something. Last Boy Scout rules though. Great action movie.

Watched Hugo Saturday, thoroughly enjoyed it. I had no clue what to expect storyline-wise, but I'd only heard good things about it. I'd definitely watch it again. The characters were all pretty engaging, and the story was pretty standard-fare; burdened child remedying himself and something greater along a fascinating adventure: but good. I wonder if anyone's read the book? It's fairly new, isn't it?

I was also introduced to In Time a couple weekends ago, which somehow slipped under my radar. Wasn't anything too impressive but it captivated me during the wee hours of the morning. I'm a sucker for a dystopian story.

(Concerns the ending of Dark City.)

I haven't gone to the movies in a while. I do believe theaters use subliminal messages to hawk concessions for I CANNOT sit in a theater without popcorn and soft drink.

Emp, I agree with most of your Hellraiser criticism, but it's still one of my favourite horror movies. The second one is better but has even more wtf logic. After that, brace yourself for more shittiness than you could possibly imagine.

I've done that before, I get a little restless, I think that's what I was referencing a couple pages back.

Re: Hellraiser...yeah, I don't know, I have seen it a few times and it does not hold up well with repeated viewings, although I would have liked a whole movie focused more on the awesome Cenobites. The other shit just kind of sucks.

Of course the smell of popcorn itself in the theater doesn't help me stave off it.

Be careful what you wish for...

Haha yeah the 3rd one has plenty of Cenobites, but... it was awful. The ones in the first movie looked genuinely unsettling but then it just got dumb. I could watch the first two over and over again however, great movies. I wouldn't mind if another Hellraiser came out, I'd watch it, especially if Armored Saint was in it again.

Witness (1985)
3.5/5

A classic, and its day highly acclaimed thriller, that was nominated for something like 8 Academy Awards, and won 4. This film is the story of a young Amish buy, who while on a trip with his mother, witnesses a brutal murder, by the hands of Danny Glover and an associate, in a train station bathroom. Having reported the crime to the police, brave, veteran detective Harrison Ford begins to fear for the safety of the boy and his mother. After sheltering them in Philadelphia, Ford flees with the Amish back to their traditional community in rural Pennsylvania. A pretty solidly executed, and at times suspenseful film, the only major flaw i found in this one was the pacing, which at times lulls a bit and almost makes you forget there are brutal criminals out there begging for the blood of these key witnesses to a crime which involves deep corruption and intrigue.

A film in which the cast is great - with Harrison Ford in a commanding performance, Kelly McGillis strong as the young Amish widow mother. There are also appearances by Danny Glover, and even Viggo Mortensen in his feature debut as a member of the Amish community. Josef Sommer is convincingly sleazy. Anyways, Peter Weir in his best film gives a solid job in cinematography, capturing the Amish countryside, and there are some thrilling scenes. Maurice Jarre (father of Jean-Michel Jarre) scores the film with a forboding synth soundtrack which works well in some of the darker scenes. Altogether a decent thriller, but with the pacing, feels like it's just missing a little somthing to bump it up into the stratosphere. Seemingly forgotten today, this film was a smash hit at the time and rocked the box office and awards shows.

I've been meaning to check out Hellraiser. I've never seen any of them, (Yes, I know) and have high expectations. I remember seeing scenes from a Rotting Christ Fan-made video, looked really good, especially the costume design.

I personally only watch the first two and completly ignore anything after them, but that's just personal opionion. The first two are two of the best horror movies period, and still has some of the the most amazing and stomach churning special effects. Also, Doug Bradley has one of the greatest voices in all of horror, it's no wonder that Cradle of Filth have hired him for voice work for their albums.

Ugh don't even get me started on Hellraiser and how stupid it got. They really milked that way past what it was worth.

Basically. Hell on Earth was a Joke, Bloodline was retarded (etc...) Inferno was somewhat okay though. Probably because it wasn't even a Hellraiser movie at first and they just threw Pinhead in at the end.

I'm actually excited to see Inferno. That one looks a bit more up my alley plot-wise...