Recently watched movies!

[MouthForWar]

[jellydonut25]

[MouthForWar]

No, I get it. Aside from maybe Oldboy, all of Park's films have drawn that kind of criticism to some extent. Which is why I thought maybe it might just be him. But yeah, I'd always urge someone to give Thirst another try since I do think that's a spectacular film.

Anyway, moving on.

I saw Kick Ass 2. It had a beginning, a middle, and an end. (I posted more in the corresponding thread).

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

Not sure if I mentioned that I watched Chronicle recently. It's held up pretty well for the most part. Some of its faults seemed a little more glaring, but I really like its unique take on the genre.

[klen7]

This weekend was a lot of Ultra Q, but also worked in Innerspace, The Island and A Life Less Ordinary.

It has been too long since I have seen Innerspace. Classic Dante.

This is the first time i saw The Island since its original release. It had a lot of ideas in it, much more so than the Transformers flicks combined, kind of makes you wonder what kind of movie Michael Bay would be putting out if it hadn't done so poorly... maybe he would have stuck with original scripts instead of franchise films... the blatant product placement was pretty painful though

A Life Less Ordinary is a movie i like far more than i probably should. I think Holly Hunter is scene stealingly spectacular in it, but Delroy Lindo and Stanley Tucci are also pretty great. Maybe if the main couple had been cast differently i could justify my love for this film less ashamedly. It's definitely no Trainspotting or Shallow Grave... kind of a weird stop on the Danny Boyle filmography... but Holly Hunter is so great in this.

[MekaGojira3k]

Watched Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi because I was in a Star Wars mood.

Man, I love Empire so much.

[O.Supreme]

Disney's Planes. A Decent family film. Although the similarity to Cars is kind of obvious beyond just being set in the same continuity- (a plane that wants to win a race) instead of being a hot-shot rookie however, this is an underdog story with a few twists. One thing that surprised me was that it had more heart akin to the first Cars movie than the soulless money-grubbing sequel Cars 2. If nothing else, for the adults, many of the CG landscapes are quite impressive from rural Nebraska, to the Ganges in India, it is quite diverse.

However if you dont have kids, or aren't close to any kids, you can probably skip it and not lose any sleep. I think I saw only one couple in the audiance w/o kids.

[Tom R VanSlambrouck]

The Lair of the White Worm- It had its weird moments but for the most part it was a pretty enjoyable horror film. I thought it was an interesting take on the vampire and the SPFX where really well done.

[DannyBeane]

Dusted off my copy of YOG Monster from Space. Its still a fun movie albeit not a spectacular one. I just never really feel like the world is truly threatened and I feel like that's because the movie spends all its time on a secluded island. That said, some of the visuals are gorgeous.

[Dr Kain]

I just got to see Escape from New York at the Alamo Drafthouse and wow, what a great movie that is. I somewhat enjoyed it on DVD last month, but getting to see it on the big screen with audio and video that did not look or sound like **** was amazing. In fact, between the Carpenter movies I have seen recently (Thing, Halloween, and Escape), I just realized how much he uses the score of the movie to build up the tension of the scenes. I noticed this in Thing many years ago, but I never actually thought about it until tonight. That is pretty damn awesome. Now I really must see some of his other movies like The Fog. Anyway, this movie is a bit dated due to things like the giant cell phone, but it does not take away from the great story being told. I think this is one I'll be buying on BD the next time it gets rereleased (which will hopefully be using whatever source the Alamo showing was from). I give this movie a 9/10

[jellydonut25]

Assault on Precinct 13, Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York, The Thing, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, They Live, and In the Mouth of Madness are some of my FAVORITE movies. See any of these that you have not. (most are already on blu ray and Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness hit blu later this year...The Fog is the only one that's out right now that I still need to pick up)


Christine is also ok, and I personally really like Vampires though I understand I'm in the minority on that opinion. I'm also in the minority on thinking Dark Star is just kinda ok, more to be appreciated as sort of an indie, student film and the start of an illustrious career than anything I particularly enjoy, but I also have only ever seen a really poor quality rip of it.

Escape from LA is not so good. It's not really bad, but it lacks the understated menace of NY with no villain that really matches Isaac Hayes as The Duke, and really, after the quite fantastic Bruce Campbell cameo, the movie is all downhill in a sea (kinda literally) of shoddy effects and a lack of any suspense.

I'd also like to revisit Starman, Ghosts of Mars, and Village of the Damned, it's been YEARS since I've seen any of them. I know none are terribly popular, but I feel I need a more informed opinion as I can't remember much of anything about any of those films.

The Ward is his only movie I know for sure I have an outright contempt for, as I just find it to be lazy and entirely forgettable.

[MouthForWar]

[XvGojira]

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

Ride Lonesome

I've been meaning to catch a Budd Boetticher film for a while. Among cinephiles he's know for being for Westerns what Val Lewton was for horror: a guy who was given paltry budgets to make B-movies to fill the quota and ended up turning out a series of genre pictures that frequently outclassed their 'A-movie' counterparts.

Pretty big rep, so I had high expectations which, at first, didn't seem to be filled. It just seemed like standard Western stuff to me. Then, somewhere in the middle portion of the film when we start learning more about each character while various outside forces threaten them, it hit me: this film is like every Western boiled down to it's essence in one lean little package. It all ends in a 70 min runtime (like most B-pictures then), and I felt like I'd just watched a big-budget, two-hour epic.

[Dr Kain]

[MouthForWar]

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

[eabaker]

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

You guys are making me want to see the three or four early Carpenter flicks I've missed... anyway:

Charade

This is a movie from the early '60s starring Cary Grant and Audry Hepburn (and a few terrific actors in supporting parts) that's basically a transparent rip-off of the bigger, splashier Hitchcock movies that were so successful in that time. It proves something I've always said about rip-offs: if you make it just as good as the thing you're ripping off, no one will care that it's a rip-off. Seriously, this movie is perfect: great performances, great script, great music. The plot is a romantic comedy/murder mystery/espionage thriller - always a winner.

[O.Supreme]

The Giant Gila Monster MST3k

I have seen this film, and the MST3K version numerous times (outside of all the Japanese film shown on MST3K, this is one of my favs...) But I have never seen it sourced from the Rhino Volume 10.2 DVD. The newly created scenes with Joel, the bots, & the Mads had me rolling.

"Yes just remove your *godzillaversusmegalon*(muffled voice) DVD, DISPOSE OF IT, and replace with THE GIANT GILA MONSTER"

I'm sure they were obligated to do something like this as part of the settlement withToho, but did they actually thnk anyone was going to destroy a perfectly good copy of a now super rare movie? Most fans that had them I'm sure held on to theirs, or are selling them for hundreds of dollars as I've seen on eBay. --Actually MB should have tried to use TV's Franks' defense when they messed up on the DAM extras the first time "It's not my fault, I dont speak Japanese, Toho said "Noho" and I thought that meant yes"

[MekaGojira3k]