Recently watched movies!

[XvGojira]

[jellydonut25]

Maniac (2012) - Now I wish I'd bought it when I saw it for ten bucks the other day. It's the kind of movie that sticks with you and I like that a lot.

It tries a little to hard to be stylistic like Drive or something, but there are times when that really works and the first-person POV actually works more often than not. They didn't overdo it by having it be shaky cam or something because let's face it, when I see things in my life, they don't all appear to be shaking around like crazy

[XvGojira]

Scooby-Doo (2002) - Scooby-Doo has always been a favorite cartoon of mine. And I thought that this movie was an alright adaptation when it first came out. Watching it again I see that's a bigger mess than it should be. All CGI budget went into to Scooby, leaving the weird giant hairless cat looking gremlin things looking extremely cheap and year behind their time. The casting is fine, and over time, Matthew Lillard has become a great Shaggy. And Linda Cardellini is a great Velma for many reasons. There is more crude humor in this then there needs to be, the cartoons never made fart joke but here they're everywhere (and Scrappy peeing on Daphne). The idea of Scrappy ultimately being the villain was a great idea but the execution sucked. While fun it is severely lacking.

Scooby-Doo 2 Monsters Unleashed - Now this is a Scooby movie. The first movie barely touched on the past glory of Mystery Inc (and the history of the cartoon), this one revels in it wondrously. The CG is a bit more evened out. Most of the Ghost are just suitmation augmented with CG in post, making them look, feel, and move realistically (or as realistically as you can get for a Scooby-Doo monster). And this mystery actually felt more like a Scooby-Doo mystery than the last movie. And all the side and incidental characters are just wild and caricaturized as they would be in a Scooby episode. You can never go wrong with Peter Boyle. Again there is crude humor, but it's not a prevalent. And points off for turning him into Taz instead of his 2D self out of fear of people comparing them (Hint: They already are regardless and not making him him when he turns 'toon is a slap in the face). This one is by far the better of the three. But there is one issue that they both got wrong that the cheaper DTV Prequels got right, Scooby shouldn't look like a real dog. I watched the Prequel movies some time ago and it struck me that the Scooby in those looked and felt more like Scooby but that was because they couldn't attempt to make him look like a real dog that did all the cartoon-y things Scooby does. And I will say any things this movie does wrong, putting Linda Cardellini in a tight vinyl suit and awkwardly get into the Mystery Machine makes up for it (even putting Velma in a tight vinyl suit and awkwardly get into the Mystery Machine).

[lhb412]

Psycho

Hitchcock: master of films that take a crazy left-turn halfway through, and hey, the psychiatrist at the end is Kolchak's boss!

[Reaper G]

[Dr Kain]

The Werewolf of London - I have some mixed feelings on this movie. The movie itself is not bad by any means, but it moves at such a slow pace that it is hard to sit through in one sitting. The werewolf effects are average at best (certainly no where near the creativity used 6 years later), but I believe that is more because the actor was being a brat when it came to the make-up. The other problem is that the movie just lacks atmosphere. The scenes in Tibet are great and set a mood that the rest of the movie just fails to continue on when in London. And did I miss something or did Wilfred's assistant at the very beginning of the movie just disappear between scenes? He was never mentioned again. Now one thing I do have to mention, which has no barring on the movie itself is that this movie came out in 1935, 6 years before The Wolf Man, but in the bonus features of The Wolf Man, everyone acts as if Siodnik was the creator of the full moon portion even though this movie clearly came first. How does he get the credit? I give this movie a 6/10.

BTW, I've come to realize that either 1) in the 30s and 40s they believed a moon was full several days in a row when these movies were made, or 2) the "full" moon is actually the term for the phase when the moon is also like 98% full in the sky along with being 100% full based on Dr Yogami's comments to the cops.

[XvGojira]

[MekaGojira3k]

Watched Horror Castle (1963) for the first time today. Eh. The concept is interesting, but the execution isn't, not at all.

[lhb412]

Bride of Frankenstein

My favorite horror film of all time, my favorite Halloween movie, just one of my favorite films of all time. One of those films you can watch again and again and love more each time. It has everything: laughter, tears, multiple creatures, crazy characters, beautiful photography and art direction, a brilliant and witty script... just the best.

[DannyBeane]

[Dr Kain]

Well I just got back from seeing the Halloween Trilogy at the Alamo Drafthouse and how amazing it was to see them on the big screen. I won't get into the details of the movies themselves since I did that a month ago, but it was glorious. They used the newly remastered print for the original that just came out on BD while II and III were their original 35MM prints. It was an interesting experience to see them in 35MM, but at the same time it also made me appreciate the ability to digitally remaster these movies for a great format such as BD. Oh, and I have to say that I enjoyed the third movie A LOT more than I did when I first watched it. The plan itself is still flawed (who is going to let their kid stay up until midnight for this giveaway on the East coast??), but the movie seem to move at a much faster pace that it did before.

[XvGojira]

Ender's Game - It has been ages since I read the book, so I can't speak for specifics, but it is a good rendition of the story. The biggest omission I noticed is Ender's brother and sister super blogging on Earth, which is fine in my opinion, and a lack of screen time for Bean. But while it wasn't a bad movie in any respect I wasn't really impressed for most of the movie. It felt very stereotypical militaristic sci-fi story but with kid soldiers. But the final fight and the immediate fall out was totally worth the ticket price. It was really well put together and some of the visuals made me wish I saw it in IMAX (although my girlfriend said the opposite). And if they attempt a sequel I doubt they'd go the "Speaker of the Dead" route but if they did the Bean story, they'd either have to basically re-introduce the character, cuz he was barely in it, or reframe the story around Petra instead, who got way more screen time. Honestly I don't think it needs a sequel. I'm fine with this being what it is.

[jellydonut25]

Kinda disappointing to hear about Bean since I thought the idea was to kinda combine the Bean-centric novel with this story

[Dr Kain]

The only thing I know of Ender's Game is the last two chapters of the book, so I know the twist.

Anyway,

Mama - This movie sucked. It did not have a single lick of suspense. It was predictable, cliche, and boring. Plus, the ending was just down right stupid and felt like they were just throwing random **** together to end the movie. The only reason I'm giving it a 1/10 is because it of one good jump scare. Other than that, one of the worst horror movies I have ever seen.

[klen7]

[Dr Kain]

Ender's Game - This was actually pretty good. From what I have read of the book (like the last few chapters) there was A LOT cut out, but it was enjoyable. It won't win any awards because it wasn't anything special, but it was worth seeing. The training bits during the first half of the move were by far the best parts of the movie. I'll give the movie a 7/10 as it was on par with Pacific Rim. Good ideas, good effects, but little to no character development.

[lhb412]

Young Frankenstein

I end my Halloween viewing a few days late with this, the last of the three perfect Frankenstein movies. I only wish James Whale had been alive to see this one, as I'm sure he would have loved it (and been a bit jealous of Mel Brooks' being allowed to put more blatantly risque material in).

.... and hey, Svengoolie's showing the original Frankenstein right now! He's apparently showing nothin' but Frankenstein films this month! So much for ending my Halloween viewing.

[Dr Kain]

Every day if Halloween for me. October just means I get to go nuts with it.

[XvGojira]

I've talked about Ender's Games with some friends and I think we hit the reason why the movie mostly felt stereotypical to me. It was stereotypical because the book the first to do many of the things in there. It's like taking someone who has played sci-fi shooters all their life and never saw Aliens and showing them Aliens.

[Dr Kain]

Something Wicked This Way Comes - It has been a while since I've seen this movie and I loved it as a kid and it is still quite good. THere are some flaws with the movie, like how when Will and Jim go running off after they watched Mr Cooger turned to a kid and then suddenly Will is wearing completely different clothes in the next scene even though they haven't gone back home yet. As I said, I do enjoy the movie, but at the same time, I would love to see a new adaptation that is quite closer to the book (well, the first half is fairly accurate) as some of my favorite things in the original novel was that Mr Dark was the Illustrated Man and there was a lot more dealing with the Dust Witch. I also like the ending to the book better, but whatever. The spider scene was always one of my favorite scenes of the movie and is one of the scenes that I always remember about the movie. Overall, I give this movie a 7/10 despite its flaws and poor acting from the kids because the tale itself is very cool along with it being my favorite Bradbury story.

[Destroysall]

Saw I just saw a documentary called "Samsara" once again:


I have to say, Olivier de Sagazan's work was one of the highlights. We were studying him in class and it really is just intriguing.

[Dr Kain]

Masque of the Red Death - THis was the first time I have ever seen a Vincent Price movie (unless you count The Invisible Man Returns) and it was pretty good. Obviously it barely has anything to do with Poe's actually original story since the movie needs to do more than just be during a masquerade, but it was enjoyable and well worth waiting for the last 10 minutes of the movie to cover the Poe story. I will admit the movie moved a little be slowly in the middle, as I felt Julianas character was completely pointless, but it was still good nonetheless. I give it a 7/10 stars.

[lhb412]

^Watch The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Theater of Blood! They're the best Price horror flicks.

[jellydonut25]

I just started After Earth and may stop VERY soon. Apparently, we have mastered interstellar travel, and have created hover wheelchairs in this future, but no longer have prosthetic limbs. That just happened in the first 9 minutes.

EDIT: It's mostly over. This movie is atrocious. It might be the worst I've seen this year. Horrible acting, bad directing, bad script, rife with plot holes and logical inconsistencies. What an awful pile of crap.
EDIT AGAIN: I went and looked at movies I've seen this year...and I dunno if this is the worst, and that's really sad. Lords of Salem definitely takes that cake still, and then there's A Good Day to Die Hard, Jack the Giant Slayer, Identity Thief, Spring Breakers, all of which might be worse. And I didn't care for Great Gatsby or Stoker either.

I don't want to pass judgment on this year of movies, because there are still many I have yet to see, but that's quite a list of crap.

[Benjamin Haines]

I saw the first hour or so of Identity Thief at a friend's house and I jumped at the opportunity to leave before it was over. Terrible, unfunny, and aggravating. I don't know why Jason Bateman didn't just stomp the "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!" out of her.