Recently watched movies!

[klen7]

RE: Cronenberg films
I would highly recommend 'A History of Violence' and 'Eastern Promises'. I understand the love for Scanners, Dead Zone, and Videodrome, but really 'The Fly' is the only piece of his body horror films i'd recommend. Cosmopolis is pretty much bottom of the barrel, and A Dangerous Method is incredibly dry which is a shame, because he managed to get some strong chemistry and sexual tension out of 'Eastern Promises' and 'A Dangerous Method' has a story that should be played almost entirely to that strength.

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[eabaker]

Continuing my posting from the past, imagine that it is July 25th as you read the following:

Watched two horror re-makes recently, didn't care for either.

Rob Zombie's Halloween - What an overstuffed, barely coherent mess of a movie. How can a re-make of something as simple as Halloween be that much longer than the original, and still have to rush through every single thing it does?

Poltergeist - Again, overstuffed, but, unlike Halloween, in this case I can't even see where anybody thought what they were doing was remotely interesting. Flat script, bland characterization, extremely poor visual style... I tried to watch it "as its own movie," rather than as a remake, but every time it looked like it might be attempting something creative or original, it then threw in some awkward callback to the original, and showed itself inferior by comparison. Oh, and if you're going to try to redeem your pointless movie by using a Cramps song at the end, use the Cramps' version, not some uninspired cover.

[jellydonut25]

RZ's Halloween is tough, because so many people compare it to Carpenter's original, while giving some of the sequels passes...I think it ranks pretty solidly as a film in that franchise, honestly. It's certainly better than parts 5, 6, and Resurrection without breaking a sweat. And I'd argue better than 2 and 4...and maybe/probably even H20.

[eabaker]

[DannyBeane]

I can see how Kain wouldn't like Cronenberg. His films are definitely weird and have a weird vibe and if you don't like the body horror genre, then I can't fault him for that. I love Cronenbergand I love how his films have this strange feeling of there being something going on that you can't quite perceive. Videodrome in particular has this feeling of dread that feels like an outside influence affecting the world in the film. As a viewer I felt like a part of the story.

[eabaker]

Videodrome is also one of only a half dozen or so movies that I had teachers screen in multiple classes.

[jellydonut25]

[eabaker]

Continuing my time travel movie reviewing adventure, I am posting the following from way, waaayyyy back on July 26th:

Ugh. Tomorrowland. So not worth the $1.50 I paid to see it in the theater.

The first 3/4 of the movie is mostly a bunch of meaningless running around, then all of the interesting ideas are just kind of flatly stated over the course of three rushed scenes, then a bunch of jumping around and explosions, the end.

Did nobody realize at the script stage that their movie was almost all first act, and that they weren't doing justice to a single concept?

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[klen7]

I turned off House of 1000 Corpses half way through, and got even less into Devil's Rejects before turning it off. Rob Zombie movies just aren't my bag, he seems to get that "true horror should make you uncomfortable" but shock value is a sword that cuts both ways and relying on it too heavily can leave your audience with negative feelings like disgust. I can see how hardened horror fans would find something in these films, but the average movie goer is going to have hard time getting past the depravity and sadism of these films.

[Dr Kain]

I actually found The Devils Rejects to be boring. The only Zombie movie I did enjoy is House, but that is because it felt more like a bunch of Rob Zombie music videos strung together.

Hobo Meyers is the least of that movie's problems. The unlikable characters, the boring execution, the terrible acting, the forced in Sheri Moon Zombie ghost scenes, and the unsatisfying ending make the movie bad.

I'll take any of the classic Halloween movies over Zombie's crap any day (except Resurrection). Oh, there is also one other big issue. Zombie's Halloween movies are just way too damn long. His movies are 2 hours each when there is no need for them to be anything beyond 90 minutes. Most of the Halloween movies knew when to stop or they would start dragging, Zombie does not. He is the Peter Jackson of horror.

[eabaker]

Our time travel is taking us to the very, very recent past at this point, as I speak to you from August 1st:

I just watched Strephon Taylor's 2010 dubbing/re-scoring of the original Nosferatu. Where to begin?

First off, as is the standard with modern presentations of early films, rather than converting the 18fps footage to 24fps to maintain the original (naturalistic) motion, they simply let the 18fps footage play at 24fps, creating that sped-up look that people now (wrongly) associate with silent film. That made the dubbing inherently ridiculous, basically spoiling the whole thing from the start.

The voice actors almost across the board pitched their performances all wrong for what was on screen. The VO was cartoonish and absurd, while almost everyone else gave dull, lifeless readings totally mismatched to the somewhat fevered visuals. The only decent voice was the one given to Renfield, and even he ended up sounding distractingly like Dr. Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb.

And, good lord, they opted to give is a heavy metal score. Is there any cheesier approach to a horror score? It just spoils any kind of dramatic of spooky effect.

I was actually kind of intrigued by the idea of a dubbed version of this movie, but it was always a questionable endeavor, and the execution justified every bit of trepidation one might have.

[lhb412]

^ Weren't some silent comedies intended to be shown speed up for humorous effect?

[eabaker]

^Possibly, but I don't know for sure.

[jellydonut25]

[eabaker]

Again, we travel back in time 11 days, as I post these opinions which were formulated on August 2nd:

Rob Zombie's Halloween II (2009) - Objectively worse than Zombie's first Halloween movie, but at least a more interesting kind of mess. It was really playing out as (at least) three different movies at once, and with varying results.

First off, there is the dramatic movie looking at post-traumatic stress. This was the best conceived and realized of the threads, and a marked improvement over the flimsy, superficial approach taken to the same subject matter in Halloween: H20. And, rather than just one perspective on it, here there are four different characters with varying degrees of damage and differing responses to it. Unfortunately, Zombie is in a bit over his head here, and most of what's going on doesn't come to anything meaningful in the end, but at least it was ambitious and unique.

Then, there's the surrealist art movie aspect. The imagery is cool; Zombie demonstrates a tremendous awareness of classic surrealist and expressionist cinema, and he executes his effects very well. Unfortunately, the script is just too literal about everything it does with these elements, which ends up rendering it more obnoxious than fascinating.

And, finally, there's the straight-forward, extreme slasher element. As in the previous movie, Zombie is working in the tradition of the most brutal, sleazy, ugly entries in this much-maligned sub-genre, and here his style is even more fractured and grating than ever. Any time Halloween II is in slasher mode, it is just an obnoxious, artless assault on the senses.

Any two of these three approaches, done well, could have been intertwined to create something distinctive, challenging, and even insightful. But all tossed together so haphazardly, and presented in such ham-handed manner, they produce little more than chaotic noise.

[klen7]

Lucy: I knew what i was getting into from the trailer. The premise is ridiculous and it takes it to ridiculous places, but other than a few overly unsubtle themes, i would say this is a movie with good direction and a terrible story. The beginning of the film up until the bag breaks, is really super solid movie that i really want to watch more of. After the bag breaks it just gets more and more ridiculous...but the pacing never falters and it never overstays its welcome... its weird because i really hate the premise and the story, but i can't hate the movie.


Horns: I like that this movie was non-traditional in a lot of ways, at least up until the very end where it takes an unfortunate cliched approach to ratcheting up the climax another notch, which ultimately undoes a lot of the groundwork laid by the film to that point.

[eabaker]

Hey, at this point, I can talk about the actual last movie I watched.

Unfortunately, that movie was The Core, so why would I bother saying anything at all?

[jellydonut25]

I actually KINDA like RZ's Halloween 2 because I can see a good movie in there, which is more than I can say for other entries in the series, and I think it's one of the more ambitious entries.

I thought Lucy was hot garbage, but I could see how someone might not hate it.

Horns I think was just a bit too long for its own good. The whole subplot with his brother really amounted to nothing and I think the whole movie would have flowed better without that and benefited from a quicker running time.

[DannyBeane]

I hated horns. I thought it tried to be too smart and hip for what it ultimately accomplished.

[lhb412]

Rio Bravo

Apparently, director Howard Hawks was not too impressed with the crop of more morally ambiguous (more psychologically complex) westerns at the time, including 3:10 to Yuma but especially High Noon, so he made this big, morally certain good guys vs. bad guys western starring John Wayne to counter what he saw as, uh... creeping liberalism, I guess? All I know is that all of these films are great, and I don't really care that they might be philosophically opposed to one another.

Wayne is so great in this film. No one could play John Wayne like John Wayne could.

[mr.negativity]

For me it's McLintock! El Dorado and Rio Bravo.
I think Robert Mitchum has better chemistry with John Wayne. Maybe it's the age, but he pulls off a tough drunk better than Dean Martin.
McLintock is just a fun movie. Everybody looks like they're having fun. Maureen O'Hara has some good chemistry with Wayne.