I am happy to have my own Netflix account, I have missed the DVD option after two years. It is great to explore on a much larger scale compared to my close minded old days. Last three films have been Stagecoach, Straw Dogs and High And Low. Nice mix of old, new, foreign, western, film noir, action, drama etc.

So what did yall think of It Comes at Night?

Watched "The Spy Who Boned Us" on Prime last night - it has to be one of the funniest F-grade movies I've ever seen. Any film that ends with people getting baked by smoking a nuclearized terrorist's beard has to be good, right?

Recently watched The Belko Experiment - 5/10
Based on a script by James Gunn, pre Guardians and The Cabin in the Woods. Seen these types of movies before. It was just ok. Could have been a lot worse. It was gross, but not too gross.

Red Sparrow - Brutal and unrelenting. Probably the most violent stuff you're liable to see in a mainstream theater. But as a movie it's just alright. Jennifer Lawrence is good and the story is a solid political thriller that sizzles and seethes, but it doesn't have a particular hook that ever totally drew me in. A solid if unremarkable thriller.

The Open House - A ridiculous, silly movie full of badly written and delivered lines and a lack of anything happening. Every choice made and every story beat were just so goofy and nonsensical. The whole thing was basically a joke and like The Room of horror.

Thoroughbreds - I dug it. Sick puppy of a movie about two disparate young women reforging a friendship only to start to plot a diabolical crime. The dialogue and acting were good and the characters developed well through their actions. The plot unfolds in a truly dark, weird, disturbed manner and fans of that shit will eat this up.

Two Evil Eyes - A pair of Edgar Allan Poe stories adapted by George Romero and Dario Argento. I wasn't wild about either, and the fact that Argento's involved a cat just made me wish I was watching the Drew Barrymore segment from Cat's Eye.

While I'm here I'll take the opportunity to piss and moan some more about how promising young horror directors these days start by making something of their own, then gravitate to sequel / remake / reboot territory. The latest example is that one of the co-directors of The Void is making a Leprechaun sequel for SyFy channel.

The new Strangers movie sucks. I didn't realize it wasn't a direct sequel but a movie "inspired" by the original. It has a killer soundtrack and that's all. Literally every other aspect of the movie was junk. They got caught halfway between wanting to make a psychological thriller and a schlocky 80s slasher. In the end they never committed to one or the other, and the movie blatantly suffers for it.

Watched two entertaining indie (?) movies this weekend - "Bad Match" and "Happy Hunting." First was about a piece of shit bro-dude who relentlessly uses a Tinder-like app and gets himself into some "Fatal Attraction" style trouble. Second one was a muchos entertaining take on the "hunting humans" genre, with some classy cinematography thrown in for good measure.

I've seen Annihilation on Saturday and it's still stuck in my head. I have recently watched Ex Machina, which I loved, and I was so hyped with this new one, based on comments I've read in the internet. I also immediately fell in love with Alex Garland's style with Ex Machina.

This movie delivered, way beyond my expectations. Combining ideas (to varied degrees) from Stalker, Solaris, Arrival, even from horror films like The Thing, with these marvelous looks and colors that would remind of What Dreams May Come; this could have gone terribly wrong. But no, it's extremely well-put and the director knows how to do his things and to keep the "mystery" going.



I'm so in love with what I'm starting to call "visual Sci-Fi." Recent films like Blade Runner and Annihilation (I guess Interstellar could be counted here as well, though I didn't really like the movie as a whole) are quite different in basically every aspect, but they have these gorgeous images and colors, along with an interesting storyline and a "sci-fi" setup. I'd be happy to see more of this stuff in the future.

Yeah I agree, Annihilation was excellent, and focusing on the visuals is a good way to set the medium apart from the much more established written side of sci-fi. I think I enjoyed Annihilation even more because I had recently re-watched Stalker in a local arthouse theater - I enjoyed it greatly the first time, but I definitely appreciated the fantastic visuals much more on the big screen. Stalker definitely takes a more overtly intellectual/philosophical approach than Annihilation did, with Annihilation going a more psychedelic/atmospheric identity-undermining route. It's interesting how different two films can be despite essentially telling the same story.

Finally saw Black Panther over the weekend. A solid, if formulaic Marvel effort. Good characters and action, the humor was more brief and nowhere near as obnoxious as it was in Doctor Strange. Humorous and not even remotely subtle commentary on Trumpism.

I thought it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's like they filmed just enough footage to cobble together a solid trailer. The actual piece itself was a fucking trainwreck from jump. What is that exposition at the beginning? They hustle you through the most traumatic experience in this kids life in about 45 seconds. Zero attempt to paint them as human beings.

And then it just gets so much worse from there. Literally every decision the mom and son make is impossibly dunderheaded. I was hoping they'd die just to end the shitshow, but then I didn't want to cheer for the villain either because....well what the fuck? There's NOTHING to them. Any of them. They took the senseless violence of The Strangers and forgot to include ANYTHING else.

I posted this the day after I watched it:

Oh yeah, for sure. And also my friends and I laughed through the whole thing. It was absolutely hysterical.

I felt that It Comes At Night is the weakest movie from 2017 that I would give a "positive" review to, as it had some problems with a hacky usage of mostly pointless nightmare sequences, which seems to mostly be there so the film can pretend to be more of a Horror film than it really is, which, combined with the rather simplistic story, and its fundamental, grim sort of pointlessness, all but ensures that I'll never have any sort of interest or need to rewatch it ever again. However, that being said, I did enjoy it enough to recommend you to see it at least once, because of its vivid style and atmosphere; the ominously booming soundtrack, the slowly creeping cinematography, and the overall feel of imminent dread redeems its flaws enough to render it a memorable experience, even though it's one I'll probably never check out again. Hey, whatever; they can't all be "rewatch every day" experience, y'know.

So, those of you who fancy yourselves "movie reviewers" these days (which is fucking everybody who thinks just having an opinion automatically makes it valid), Leonard Maltin was quoted with an interesting line about how many young self-professed reviewers are simply doing a gross injustice to the medium as a whole.




I'd have to say, personally, from what I've seen, people have just, in general, gotten acidic when it comes to movies. MST3K taught us it could be fun to watch bad movies, but people grossly misunderstood this and seemed to start deliberately tearing into things desperate to be funny. Beyond that is rampant fanboyism across the board. Desperation for the same thing to be delivered to audiences over and over again, which is why our glut of remakes, deliberate franchise focuses, and sequelitis seems to be worsening. People prefer an ever-slipping popular franchise over any new idea. Intelligent storytelling is being kicked by the wayside for rollercoasters of explosions, and no, Michael Bay is hardly the only director delivering flash and pizzazz over substance, depth, plot, or character.

And back to Maltin's point, young self-professed "critics," especially of the YouTube variety, are working from knee-jerk efforts for attention instead of a point of view based on film history, film style, or experience. I'd have to say, the same problem also affects so-called critics of gaming who have only been playing games since the PS2 or Xbox 360.

I agree with the idea of a lot of film critics and people who talk about movies being more motivated by this desire for attention. I do my own blog but I don't even want to be called a critic really. The idea of being known just for opinions about entertainment is weird to me and it should be reserved for people with high levels of critical analyses and education. I just do it for comedy purposes. And I'd hope I have more knowledge of movies than some people he's talking about anyway. I think the main issue is just how easy it is to self-publish yourself and feign legitimacy.

There are always good films though - a lot of stuff in big studios is safe and relies on flash and pomp over substance. But I still find a handful of new movies a year that I easily like as much as many classic films. I'm always amazed at how much creative talent is out there.

Maltin can go eat a dick. I know what I like and what I don't. I don't have to be immersed in the whole history of the art to know that. I don't have to study the history of film critics to know pretentious bullshit when I see it, either.

My experience with Youtube movie talk is limited to RedLetterMedia, YourMovieSucks, Honest Trailers, and CinemaSins. I got bored of CinemaSins pretty fast, and it's probably not a coincidence that's the one that ranks highest on the desperately seeking attention scale. RLM is my favorite because they usually find a good balance between being entertaining and having a productive discussion. (Excluding their obvious tongue-in-cheek material like trailer reactions and Nerd Crew.)

And maybe that Leonard Maltin quote sounds better in context, but I really don't care if people discussing contemporary movies are familiar with the silent era.

Like whatever you want, but it is weird to see people saying they're movie buffs and love movies when they mostly watch Marvel flicks and Judd Apatow comedies from the last 10-15 years.

No one said to study the history of film critics.

Speaking as somebody who's been reviewing music for a decade now as a dumb side hobby, I can say that knowledge of the art you're critiquing is obviously super important, and an understanding of context is absolutely essential to not just being a dumbass all the time.

But I don't have to acquaint myself with the finer points of the baroque period to talk about Taiwanese black metal. That above quote is pure snobbery. You'll gain knowledge and expertise as you go, everybody starts somewhere, but you don't need to have a broad and all encompassing knowledge of everything tangentially related to your specialty, and dismissing everybody who doesn't is pure highfalutin' exclusionist horseshit.

CinemaSins is complete garbage and should be ignored by everyone who actually likes movies or has some inkling of self respect. YMS is pretty entertaining, but I haven't bothered with Honest Trailers.

I think you miss the point, though. CinemaSins, for instance, frequently waver between "oh we're just having fun" to acting like they should be considered "legitimate reviewers." Small plotholes here or there do not destroy a movie, but CinemaSins would behave like it does, or that they're failure in understanding the film or even paying attention to it is a sign of failure in the film work itself.

The problem is people who proclaim to be fans of cinema or movie buffs or "serious reviewers" who are grossly uneducated in the medium as a whole. While it's fine to hold an opinion regardless of depth of experience, an opinion only really carries validity with knowledge, experience, and context. Would you trust an art critic, for instance, who didn't know anything about Monet or Picasso, Pointillism or Cubism?

I haven't always agreed with Maltin, and MST3K even riffed on him over the movie Laserblast, comparing it to movies he gave equivalent scores. Later, he was even on the show to introduce Gorgo, which he handily proclaimed as a movie he enjoyed. He marks one of the only professional guest stars the show ever had in it's original run.

In this case, I think he has a good point. One does not need to know everything about film history, but one's understanding, knowledge, and opinion is markedly improved by having said knowledge. If you're buying a car, would you want professional opinions or just the rants of some rando who knows nothing of the histories of the company, make, model, or current issues?

I can't help but wonder if this is another segment of society slipping backwards where we scoff at experts, professionals, and education in favor of amateurs and "Joe Everybody." Sure, it's fun sometimes, but how does it not demean the value of the medium as a whole? It's why I've started shutting everything off when I'm watching a show or movie or something. Too often, I think we have half a dozen distractions while we do something, so we never actually give it a chance.

You wouldn't have to understand the baroque period to review metal, but it's like, you still need some context. Someone reviewing metal albums without being familiar with Sabbath, Priest, etc would be as silly as what R_H is talking about. Movies aren't quite as fractioned-off and segregated as music genres either, I don't think.

Ha, I think you've taken his point to an illogical extreme to be offended. By comparison, you're saying you don't need to be familiar with Metropolis or Chinatown to critique Kung Fu movies from the 70's. You might not. But someone not versed in Kung Fu movies, or 70's grindhouse, exploitation, or action movies might be a poor judge on what makes a good Kung Fu movie, if not a good movie in general. A broad understanding helps, and expertise in your noted direction. Maltin is a broad-range reviewer. He doesn't specialize.

In your case, a knowledge of general musicianship and metal specifically helps. If all you listen to or know is Black Metal, your reviews may be skewed, even inaccurate or untrustworthy.

Here's an anecdote: I used to post regularly on a forum for movie buffs, and we had a couple horror fans there (me being one of them). We had a guy who would review films--nice guy, don't get me wrong--but he almost exclusively watched horror films and his reviews were badly skewed. What were his metrics? Typically, how much gore, violence, and nudity were delivered on-screen. Plot, character, even horror atmosphere (which I would argue is the most important part of a solid horror film) were all secondary, if not tertiary or non-concerns. He dismissed the wider swath of cinema history. This meant that cinematically strong or interesting films, say Dead Man, Unforgiven, Captain Fantastic, or Swiss Army Man would be largely skipped, rated solely on violent or graphic moments, and he didn't seem to understand the rest of the art and design of filmmaking.

Frankly, I have little problem with pretentiousness. When it's unwarranted ego fluff, it's annoying. If someone is speaking from a point of knowledge, experience, intelligence, and understanding, then by all means, those offended by perceived pretentiousness are the ones with the problem. That, however, is me. This Hitchens quote is one of most poignant things I've ever agreed to.



I don't see pretentiousness in Maltin's words. I see a man who recognizes his once respected profession has been watered/dumbed-down by a number of unfortunate factors.

Finally, a lot of these mediums are very, very formulaic. Breaking from the formulas is important in creating memorable new pieces, but breaking from them too far is a sign of either incompetence or an uneducated rank amateur. Music frequently follows verse-chorus-verse-chorus format, and metal and rock seems particularly fond of verse-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-chorus formats, at least from my limited understanding (there's a reason I stopped bothering with music reviews, I am not a musician and my understanding is limited on technical aspects). I understand movies and video games far more, as they follow certain narrative formats that I understand, or gameplay design formats that I understand. Schooling for them was also related.

I think y'all are missing what he literally said, using foreign and silent films as examples. Being familiar with them certainly helps and will likely make you a better reviewer but I think I can safely trust a modern reviewer's opinion of the newest blockbuster if he hasn't seen a single Charlie Chaplin film. I think your division of where the subgenres begin and end with the music analogy is just different from where mine is, because saying something like you're being handicapped by only knowing films from the last forty years instead of the last eighty is just as weird to me as saying I'm handicapped as a metal reviewer because I don't listen to 1920's jazz since they're both music. Emp's example of not knowing Sabbath and Priest and Hazard's example of only knowing black metal are totally legit concerns, but that's not what the film dude is saying to me. That'd be closer to him saying that you probably don't have a great grasp of a certain genre if you don't know the early classics, not "you need to know totally unrelated styles or else you're worse than somebody who does by default".

Sometimes teenagers can get a discount on car insurance if they have good grades, but it's a "good student discount", not a "bad student penalty". Having good working knowledge of silent and foreign films is probably rather helpful, but I think it's more of a positive to know them than it is a negative to not.

I get what you mean about the silent films. And it is more of a positive to know them than a negative to not, sure. But the main point is that so many modern "average Joe" film "critics" on Youtube substitute nitpicking and fanboyism for actual critiques over substance, character, relevance, etc. I see this stuff online and off - people who talk about small inconsistencies as ways to bash a film and people who just really enjoy bashing anything and everything to look cool or something. I feel like my old Cinema Freaks reviews were a product of that same stuff. It was a very weird internet culture back then that was just obsessed with pop culture. It was a more innocent time.

What R_H said about society falling back on random people's opinions and treating them with the same weight as those who've been knee deep in stuff forever is what I think the issue is.

Dang, I'd better watch those old movies right away so that I can properly re-evaluate all the movies I've seen up 'til now.

I think the 40 and 80 years thing might also miss the point. Star Wars represents a notable separation in what defined Hollywood. They aren't heady movies. Harlan Ellison famously derided Star Wars for grossly watering-down science fiction in general. I think the point is how the design and focus changed of filmmaking change. Star Wars helped birth the modern flash-and-pizzazz blockbuster, where plot, acting, and character development took a backseat to thrilling special effects and deliberate epic scope. Twenty years after Star Wars, and all the highest-grossing, major films are SF-lite "summer blockbuster" style movies that aren't too complex on the character front. Star Wars itself is very simplistic black and white morality storytelling. I think Benicio Del Toro's character in Episode VIII was the first really notable morally gray character in the damn franchise. Took them 40 years to get to that. Sure, maybe Han Solo, but even he was clearly a "good guy" to root for.

It was a marked change in what Hollywood spends most of their money on. Instead of thrilling dramatic movies, mysteries, and character stories, the focus is on benchmark Science Fiction-lite action films for families and teenagers. And this style of film has been gradually replacing cinematic dramas for decades. This is one of those things not understood otherwise. Go back to the 40's and 50's for instance, and stuff like Star Wars was the purview of pulpy SF shlock, with only rare pieces as stand-outs (I'll say Them! is one of them). The era was notable for some great dramas, a lot of heady Noir thrillers, whodunit mysteries, and the like.

It dons on me right now, that in a real way, what we spend most of our time and money on, are kids' movies. There was always a place for intelligent science fiction and action, but for a long time, it's been considered the domain of children's movies. So were comic books and comic book movies, and look at where all the money goes now. One could, I dare say, make an argument that we are in an era where people are unable to, simply, grow up. Nostalgia-bait is almost literally everywhere, trying to sell us on our childhoods, and that's what we're seeing in the movies.

When this is the bulk of what people consume, it makes understanding more determined and careful character and drama films harder for a consumer. Go back to my anecdote about the horror fan who only understood horror, and even that from a narrow point of view. He didn't seem to grasp the finer nuances of filmmaking beyond "a screen filled with red splatter and sometimes boobs."

TL:DR - I don't think Star Wars is referencing age of cinema, but a marked change in the cinematic landscape, that is something unlikely to be noticed by someone not well versed in cinema, particularly pre-Star Wars cinema. It is unlikely to be noticed because from Star Wars' inception, the landscape and focus of "big" Hollywood has changed dramatically.

If released in 1956, Independence Day would have been considered pulpy family-centric, low-brow entertainment. Even with solid effects, it would hardly be considered a cinematic classic, and likely would not have even been a major money-maker. It's limited character development and convenient plot would have been considered for a child's audience. In 1996, well after Star Wars began altering the landscape of cinema, the Independence Day is a serious blockbuster, a major money maker, and it grossly overshadows nearly everything else for the year.

This is a change in Hollywood that Maltin also noted in the article.

Edited for some dreadful grammar.

There is ignorance from misunderstanding and ignorance from choosing not to understand.

The former can be fixed, the latter is inexcusable.

I'm somewhere between all of you guys. I think that quote by Maltin does kinda reek of a guy who loves the smell of his own farts (when put entirely out of context; I don't really know the guy) and could've been phrased better, but at the same time, I do agree with how many modern self-styled reviewers only possess the thinnest veneer of legitimacy, due to a significant lack of knowledge regarding the wider context of film as an artistic endeavor.

Now, I have no pretensions of schooling anyone; I'm a random schmo who loves the MCU and other popcorn flicks. But I also have a deep appreciation for the likes of Kubrick or classic Argentinian films, and honestly, I think my understanding of the latter definitely counts for a lot more than the former. I think it was iamnotbatman who said once that there is such a thing as being a "better fan" of something than someone else based on your insight and knowledge of the thing in question, and Resident's mention of a "horror fan" couldn't possibly be a better example. People with a shallow understanding of cinema make for piss poor reviewers, and while you don't need to have watched, say, Nosferatu to understand horror films, doing so would definitely provide you with a wealth of context regarding how far the genre has come since then.

Ultimately, I just think it's weird for people to style themselves as movie buffs and connoisseurs when nearly everything they have seen is from the 90's and onwards. These people need a serious dose of humility. Take Tamara Chambers, of Tamara's Never Seen, for example; the entire series is based on the fact that there are tons of classic films she hasn't seen, and so she limits herself to describing her reactions to them, pretty much entirely unburdened nostalgia goggles, and you know what? I think that's super cool. I'm a lot more interested in watching her than some guy who considers himself Roger Ebert because he was a teen when The Breakfast Club came out.

Only if you are calling yourself a legitimate film critic. Otherwise it doesn't matter.

While I wouldn't say it's as segregated (since art that is presented by performer-to-audience is going to generate more passion than art with a barrier), there's something to be said about viewing films in terms of their genre (and sub-genre) to understand its quality. Particularly this applies to pastiche and homage.

For example, I have no qualms saying Turbo Kid and Hot Fuzz are virtually perfect. They both require contextual knowledge to fully understand their brilliance, though. With the former, knowing the tropes of low budget 70s/80s sci-fi, especially the "post-apocalyptic" niche, leads to a greater appreciation of its art design, story beats, and even the quality of acting. The latter requires a vast knowledge of popcorn cop movies from Dirty Harry onward, both in terms of one-liners and trope subversion. I give them both 9/10.

But what if you don't "get" the reference? Turbo Kid might not be a classic to you if you haven't seen stuff like A Boy and his Dog or even Rad, and the twins who work the front desk in Hot Fuzz are just a solemn chuckle without having seen In the Heat of the Night.

Maltin is right in principle, that the more vast a knowledgebase the more weight a critique holds, but this is also the guy who shat on Gremlins for being too dark/violent for kids when that was part of its appeal. It's a bit like how Roger Ebert called NOTLD trash but without the revision upon actively watching it.

If we're talking good internet critics and not discussing Doug Walker or Lindsay Ellis then we're doing ourselves a major disservice.

Has anyone seen "The Rose"? I've avoided it for years, figuring it'd be a cheese fest, since it's Bette Midler. I finally picked up the Criterion re-issue of it, and I think it's one of the greatest rock n' roll films ever made. I know it's basically a sensationalized story about Janis Joplin, but man, I was impressed. Midler is incredible in it, as well.

Saw Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo in a theater tonight. I've dug this flick for a long time, but something about seeing it in a proper theater with others around made it magical. What a film.

Watched Demon House earlier...its mostly interviews and cheesy reenactments, but a simple google search explains that its just about all bullshit. It's highly implied that they were going to try to make a movie out of it.

One thing I admire about Maltin is his sense of humor. He didn't like Gremlins, but appeared in the second movie to crap on it again, only to be attacked by the Gremlins. MST3K gleefully riffed Maltin (as I noted earlier) for giving silly 70's SF film Laserblast an equivalent or higher rating to several films they considered industry classics. He later appeared on the show to introduce a movie (Gorgo) that he very well enjoyed, but recognized the value of it for the show. To be fair, Gorgo is one of the more solid films to have appeared on MST3K, and is one of the movies I'd personally seen well before it was riffed.

Not every critic is perfect, not every opinion is going to appeal to everyone, and to be frank, not every fan is going to like a movie for classic cinematic reasons. When Night of the Living Dead first released, it was considered violent, controversial gore horror. Seems almost quaint today, and we see it through different lenses now.

Times change how we see movies, as does age. Some benefit, some get worse with every viewing. Some are irredeemably, permanently awful. Like Battlefield Earth or Howard the Duck. For instance, I hated the Star Wars prequel trilogy for the most part, but after seeing Episode VII, I looked at them, shrugged, and said, "well, at least George was trying some new ideas for his dreadful trilogy."

I'm sure we all have a couple movies we in our favorites that were critically panned.

Critically panned, sure. Panned by Maltin's discontinued annual movie book, absolutely. For example, he gives The Dark Knight 2 stars out of 4, and The Thing (1982) 1.5. But here's what I consider one of the most useful outcomes of the Internet fueled "everyone's a critic" era: If a movie has an IMDB user score below 5.0 (based on at least a few hundred ratings), it's almost certainly not very good.

Off the top of my head, here are the movies I like "best" that scored under 5 on IMDB (excluding enjoyably terrible movies like The Room):
Texas Chainsaw 3D (4.8)
Drive Thru (4.6)
The Unborn 2009 (4.8)
Showgirls (4.7) - although maybe this should be filed under enjoyably terrible

No surprise they're mostly horror, and even my favorite of those TCM 3D I'd give a 6 / 10 while admitting it's pretty flawed and takes a dumb story turn in the second half.

I realize I'm probably talking about something slightly different here than Maltin is. He seems to be complaining about ordinary people with Internet access and little movie knowledge trying to act like real critics on Youtube, while I'm talking about ordinary people pooling their opinions by clicking a button to rank a movie on a scale of 1 to 10. But I think it illustrates why there's some value in listening to the wisdom of the crowd, even when most of "the crowd" haven't seen as many silent films as Maltin has.

TL / DR:
"I won't like that movie because Maltin's guide gave it 2 stars or less" <-- Not a useful rule; too many significant counterexamples
"I won't like that movie because IMDB users rated it under 5.0" <-- Very useful guideline; counterexamples tend to be obviously flawed movies that somehow manage to be kind of enjoyable

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Greatest breastfeeding sequence in the history of cinema. Symptoms by Jose Larraz is another good Euro horror flick featuring a sprawling manor.