Recently watched movies!

[lhb412]

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

It Follows

I continue my tradition of being about two years behind everyone else! Another great horror film (they seem to be making a lot of them these days), and despite the really cool stylistic flourishes (like the synth score) the thing that impressed me the most was the realism of the characters and setting. The characters all range from, what? mid-teens to 21 or so? Gosh, you could label some of these scenes as documentary footage and I'd believe you. These are real kids! And the neighborhoods they live in hit me in the nostalgia center: I grew up in just such a place, a neighborhood quite nice when built that's now 30 - 40 years old.

[Rody]

[jellydonut25]

[klen7]

X-Men: Apocalypse - The best thing about this film was pausing it constantly to explain the X-Men cinematic universe to Mrs Klen7, not because i'm the kind of person that does that, but because she had a lot of questions on what the hell was going on... best scene was the Quicksilver scene. I also really liked the idea of the pyramid trap at the beginning.

[Dr Kain]

[Rody]

[lhb412]

The Valley of Gwangi

The new Blu looks awesome! I still think the human portion of this film is a bit weak; to me the characters all end up kind of unlikeable. Gwangi, however, is a spectacular character. He's one of Harryhausen's best creations. Of course, the film is really just a smaller scale remake of King Kong in a different setting. I'm not sure I noticed they totally re-do the Kong breaking through the gate bit with the church doors.

[Dr Kain]

Kong Skull Island Round 2 - Man, I felt like I was watching an entirely different movie compared to what I saw last week. Yeah, the characters are still lackluster outside of Packard and Marlow, and most are there to die, but this was a damn good monster flick. It's on par with Godzilla 2014 and the post-credit scene was awesome! Just like before, the camera work and cinematography are top notch. That scene with Kong fighting off the helicopters with the sunrise behind him is badass. I can now say that I give it a slid 8/10 stars. Looking forward to owning this one on BD.

[jellydonut25]

Get Out - I wanted to like it more than I did. It's really well directed, and that's a great sign from a first-time director, but I hated one of the characters and thought it had one too many plot contrivances and holes to really be GREAT. 3.5/5

[O.Supreme]

Blazing Saddles-- oh boy...this just popped up on my Netflix, I could swear this was not there before, and I'm really shocked. Never thought I'd see this film again, but it is really a treat, and something that can never be duplicated in this day and age. Also I find it just a bit odd that this film pops up just days after comments made by NBA player Andre Iguodala went viral. Maybe I'm just too much of a conspiracy theorist, but I have noticed little things like this. Like when a celebrity dies, and all of a sudden several of there movies pop-up on Netflix...I just wish there was a bit more known behind how content is selected for the streaming service...but oh well. Hilarious movie, brightened my day that's for sure.

[lhb412]

You know, I've heard a ton of people say that Blazing Saddles couldn't be made today because of political correctness and I think that's a bunch of bull. I mean, some people will complain about anything, but I think most of the time context matters. Blazing Saddles is so explicitly an anti-racist movie. It's the racist whites who're skewered. Mel Brooks said he never had a complaint from a black person about the use of the 'n word' because he used the word 'correctly.'

Honestly, this belief kinda baffles me, as you often see racist and sexist things in recent movies, especially broad comedies, with none of the context that Brooks' film has (usually just relying on lazy stereotypes), and while they may get in a little trouble the films aren't getting banned or anything. Then there's the trend of saying outrageous things with no context at all for shock value in order to provoke a response, which is another can of worms.

[O.Supreme]

[jellydonut25]

Cell - the adaptation of the Stephen King novel starring John Cusack and Samuel L Jackson.... and those indisputable facts are about the nicest things I can say about it. Cell's not my favorite novel... I actually don't even remember THAT much of it, but what I do remember isn't in the movie, and that's beside the point of it being just a bad movie unto itself. It tries to pull a "Mist" where it takes King's story that ends on a hopeful, but not definitive note and twists it into the darkest, most depressing thing possible, but it doesn't work and after all the time this spent in development hell, I have to wonder why they pushed forward if THIS is what they were gonna do.

[lhb412]

Kong: Skull Island

This movie is so unrealistic. There's no way a gorilla that size could really exist.

[Psycho Soldier]

[lhb412]

Train to Busan

I'm so sick and tired of zombies it's should tell you something that I think this zombie movie is terrific! Apparently it was the biggest movie ever in Korea, and while it's not quite as good as The Host (the other crazy successful Korean monster film from this century) it shares a similar vein of social commentary.

Apparently an Ameircan remake is in the works, which doesn't make any sense because they already made the American version of this, called World War Z, and it was't very good.

[klen7]

[Dr Kain]

Ouija Origin of Evil - The first 2/3rds of this movie is absolutely fantastic with some truly outstanding suspense and horror. The scares are top notch and the acting is terrific. Then the priest dude comes to their house and things start to become generic and the ending is so damn terrible. I felt like this thing turned into a whole different movie during its last act and everything fell to pieces. As such, I'm giving it a 7/10. Such a disappointment given how much praise this movie has gotten.

[lhb412]

The Handmaiden

In Japanese occupied Korea in the early 20th century a female thief poses as a wealthy heiresses' handmaiden, working in tandem with a conman posing as a count, the two connive to have the heiress seduced and married to the false count, only to dispose of the heiress in an asylum after the wedding and split her inheritance, but that's not what happens. That's not what happens at all, but I really don't want to give away too many spoilers because I was delighted by the twists and turns the movie takes. I'm reminded of watching Hitchcock's Vertigo for the first time and having the luxury of being surprised. This film is also beautifully directed, scrumptiously shot, and brilliantly acted, so by all means everyone should see it, barring the age restriction (17 and up?).

A lot of folks have said the movie is practically pornography... I mean, it's kinky, sure, but porn? I'm thinking a decade or so of practically every movie being PG-13 has caused our brains to soften. And people have a tendency to see non-heterosexual activity as inherently more dirty than equivalent heterosexul activity, so I think there's some bias there. It's the reason gay movies with basically the same content as straight movies tend to be rated more harshly by the 17th century Puritans at the MPAA.

Oh, and it'd make a great double feature with Crimson Peak. It's a 'house' movie, but no ghosts in this one.

[Rody]

Your Name.

You know how sometimes you can get all hyped about something and then the final product just doesn't live up to that?
Yeah, Your Name. wasn't like that at all.
Seriously, Makoto Shinkai has created a masterpiece with this film. It's jaw-droppingly gorgeous in Shinkai's signature way, it's cleverly scripted, and it's an absolute emotional ride. I laughed, I cried (well, no, but my stomach was in a knot), I was utterly tense - this film delivers a story as intimate as it is grand, and it just hit all the right notes for me.
A.

[Dr Kain]

Did no one see Colossal?

[lhb412]

^Sadly, it's not playing anywhere near me (or, presumably, many other folks on this board), but it seems to be opening in progressively more theaters the next few weeks. Hopefully it expands into a wide release.

[lhb412]

Police Story

Pre-American fame Jackie Chan is a real blindspot in my film knowledge. For most of us it seemed like Rumble in the Bronx was his first film, you know? This film itself is a bit of a mess, with really melodramatically over-serious bits inside a mostly goofy film, but that's part of the charm. The ending of this film is fantastic, as Jackie and his opponents (and even his girlfriend and the other female lead) are repeatedly smashing through and falling over and jumping into various (mostly glass) objects in a HK shopping mall.