Recently watched movies!

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

You could interpret the fantasy elements as being real, not imagined.

[lhb412]

"Borefest?"

It'd be a real interesting war film without the supernatural element. "Abusive father" ? He's her new stepfather and hardly seems to notice her, also, he's one of the scariest characters in any movie ever. He's in a movie with a terrifying ghoul called The Pale Man that eats children and he is far scarier than The Pale Man!

[klen7]

I adore Pan's Labyrinth, but i do think the film was marketed as more fantasy. It was a drama about the spanish civil war outpost that took most of the narrative time, while the commercials focused on the fantastic elements. I had a couple friends that were in the same boat as Dr. Kain - said it was the worst film of the year. They have revisited it since and now appreciate it for what it is, but for a while they'd cite PL as a reason why I shouldnt be excited for GDT films

[lhb412]

Zombie (aka Zombi 2)

'Unofficial' sequel to Dawn of the Dead (or, as it was titled in Italy, 'Zombi') that starts with an abandoned boat in NYC harbor that turns out to be not so abandoned because there's a zombie on it, and a reporter and the daughter of the guy who owned the boat go to the Caribbean island the boat came from to figure out what's going on (it's zombies).

The fun thing here is that it's a really early film explicitly following up on Romero's zombies; they eat people, you get bit you become one, and you can only kill 'em with a blow to the head... but at the same time they bring the supernatural back in as the explanation, as with classical zombies; the makeup recalls more classical zombies and EC Comics ghouls, as opposed to trying to make them look like cadavers; and while most of the zombies behave in the mindless Romero way some other sneak around and are more clever.

I actually dislike zombies as both a monster and a genre outside of Romeo and Shaun of the Dead, but this one's pretty okay.

[eabaker]

[klen7]

^ the first "R-rated" (actually it was the unrated version...) movie i saw was "Dead Alive" - i can still see the gore effects from that when i close my eyes

[eabaker]

[O.Supreme]

Curse of Bigfoot (1976) - well Amazon continues to scratch my comedic itch with new Rifftrax offerings. I'll tell you there are no shortage of cheesy movies in this world, that's for sure. Thank goodness MST3K, Rifftrax and the like make many of them passable as entertainment, but only just barely. The history on this film is pretty fascinating though, considering its about a mummy and not Bigfoot at all LOL!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_Bigfoot

[lhb412]

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle

I understand why this movie is such a huge hit. In an era where it seems every blockbuster movie wants to be the next biggest thing, bigger and more epic and more spectacular than ever before, this one is just a simple, fluffy fantasy adventure for families with a likable cast. Sometimes this is all you need, you know? It was great to see Karen Gillan in a big movie where she's not unrecognizable in alien makeup, and The Rock playing a scrawny nerd in The Rock's body is classic, but it's really Jack Black who steals the movie.

Oh, and I saw The Shape of Water again. It's still amazing.

[O.Supreme]

The Cloverfield Paradox ok---as I mentioned in the Cloverfield thread, I had no interest in the Super Bowl yesterday, so as I was randomly watching things on Netflix and saw this drop seemingly out of nowhere, I figured, what the heck, I'll give it a watch. But since its been out for less than 24 hours, I'll try to not post any plot details, but it will be difficult, because I as only a nominal Cloverfield fan have a lot of questions...

As a self-contained story, I believe the idea is interesting, fairly well conceived, how well its was executed though, I believe only time will tell. It was a bit more graphic than I was expecting, and I'm not sure what little humor the film had was executed so well. I have a lot of questions about the time line especially. Initially I believed the events of this film were occurring simultaneously with that of the first film, as we see the POV of the Space Station crew, and the character Michael staying on Earth, seemingly witnessing the events of the first film. However the film *sort of* establishes itself set in the future, and while no direct time was ever stated in the first film, the political tensions, and lack of natural resources causing this mission are not hinted at in the first film, which has a more "current day" feel. We are lead to believe that what occurs at the station is the cause of the first films events, but the films ending raises more questions than it answers (maybe that's it's intent?)...anyway, I haven't seen any of the viral marketing, or know much of the backstory of this universe, so if someone wants to explain it to me, it would be appreciated. . The film I see isn't doing to well critically, but since I don't pay attention to critics, I have no idea how they score things. For a film that seemingly dropped out of nowhere, and cost me little more than one hour and 45 minuets of my time it was fine. It's sad to say that I've actually paid money at the theater for other films in the past, and got much less entertainment value.

[klen7]

The Ritual - an indie horror flick on Netflix. Very good. If you like films like Triangle or Black Death you should feel at home with this intelligent little gem. Good production and I'll put the rest here...

If you are a horror fan, I'd put this right up there with The Void as a stylistic, unnerving flick that doesn't fit the Hollywood horror mold. I loved it

[jellydonut25]

I'm intrigued....but I did not like The Void. It had great effects and everything else was just a worse version of something from a Cliver Barker movie or one of Carpenter's apocalypse trilogy.

[klen7]

^ The Void comparison is probably misleading. Black Death would probably be the closest film i can think of. I mentioned The Void as something that was a bit glossier than the standard indie fair that wasnt afraid to try something a bit different

[Dr Kain]

The Little Mermaid - I haven't watched this movie in 25 years and I never realized how damn dark this movie is. Holy christ! Not to mention all of the inuendos that come with it. It's a very enjoyable film, however, the last act is way too rushed. It's like they decided to cram 30 minutes worth of story into 10 minutes because they ran out of their budget or something. Either way, it kind of hurts the narrative as a whole. I give it an 8/10.

[eabaker]

Last night I rewatched the first Cloverfield for the first time since it was in theaters (along with my wife, who had never seen it before).

Man, that movie has no third act whatsoever. It just runs out of story, sputters along for a few extraneous minutes, and then stops.

[klen7]

Mazinger Z Infinity - they did something new, but it felt true to the original. Even the soundtrack is a throwback. Insane action, ridiculous robot designs. Pretty fun

[khouji]

I watched some Leonardo DiCaprio Films like Blood Diamond and Catch Me If You Can

[sentaison]

Thunderbolt Fantasy-The Sword of Life and Death. If you liked Thunderbolt Fantasy at all you'll enjoy this. It has two stories and a prologue teaser to season 2. The first is why The Screaming Phoenix Killer wants Enigmatic Gale dead (boy is Lin Xuě Yā a manipulative "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!"!). The second is about Shāng Bù Huàn meeting someone using his name and sudden fame for reputedly taking down Xuán Guǐ Zōng singlehandedly. The prologue shows people from Xī Yōu hearing about him and making ready to hunt him down. Apparently they want the he carries around with him.

[lhb412]

^Wow! Crunchy has the Thunderbolt Fantasy movie/special?! Neato!

Finally watched one of them there Cloverfields the kids like so much. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a rather good little thriller with some tense scenes and excellent performances from the 3 principles.

[eabaker]

[jellydonut25]

[EricDent]

Live action Black Butler movie.
Was not too bad, and did a decent job of bringing the anime to life.
While yes they did switch it up a bit, it was done well.

Must say the girl they got to play Rin was really cute.

[khouji]

I just watched I AM HEROa Japanese Zombie Film

[lhb412]

Manhunter

Several years before Silence of the Lambs knocked everyone's socks off this movie, by acclaimed director Michael Mann, was the first to adapt one of the novels in the series. It didn't do too well critically or financially so people forgot about it and then Lambs came out and buried it but then people kinda came back and rediscovered it and that's great because this movie is pretty great.

Former FBI agent Will Graham is lured out of retirement and away from his wife and kid to once again catch a serial killer, this despite his time in a psyche ward after catching Dr. Hannibal Lector and just the collective trauma he's done to himself by using his talent of getting inside serial killer's heads and thinking what they think to find them. The interesting thing is that the performances are all a bit more subtle and less... showy (?) than the ones in Lambs, but at the same time the directing is much more stylized, the art direction is clean and sharp, and the music is really really cool.

That fella Dollarhyde may have been a horrible serial killer, but he did have a great first date idea for that blind woman.