Recently watched movies!

[lhb412]

The Evil Dead

....aaaaand I officially begin the Halloween season. I never noticed several aesthetic similarities between this and 'Manos,' the Hands of Fate before - probably because I haven't watched this movie in 8 or 9 years!

Ash vs. Torgo!

[XvGojira]

[canofhumdingers]

[lhb412]

Evil Dead II

I wish they kept the white streak in Ash's hair for the next movie.

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[XvGojira]

[Dr Kain]

Halloween - Picked up the 35th Anniversary BD that came out today and I must say there was a lot I did not notice the first time I saw it last year. I do feel the ending of the movie worked a lot better for me this time around than before, and part of that was due to understanding more of Loomis' dialog. Anyway, the movie itself is very well done. The pacing is fantastic. The music truly fits the mood and scenes that surround it. Not to mention the acting is quite good for the majority of the movie and I love the camera angles used throughout Michael's stalking moments. It is also amazing to think of how little money and time Carpenter had when he made the movie, and yet, it is so much better than most horror movies made today with million dollar budgets. Overall, I give the movie a 9/10 stars as it is a damn good movie and I am glad I bought it.

[jellydonut25]

That opening stalk scene, which is just one long cut, is one of the most ambitious things ever filmed, and one of the best twists in a movie ever (assuming you don't know it beforehand). I imagine audiences in the 70s thought, "Oh man, this thing is getting started EARLY, the killer is already stalking people" and then to see that it's a CHILD probably blew people's minds.

[Dr Kain]

Halloween II - So we couldn't wait until Friday to watch the next one and went right into II after we finished the first one. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeell, I'm not sure really what to think of this movie. It wasn't terrible, it had some really great moments to it, but it was not even close to being even remotely as great as the first one. I also don't like that they have now made Lauri be Michael's sister. I preferred that he just went after her because she stepped on his house. On the other hand, a lot of it still felt like it was a Carpenter movie mixed with a standard slasher movie, so I do give it points for that. Overall, I'm going to give Halloween II a 7/10 even though it was a generic horror movie rather than being something truly unique and creative.

[klen7]

I cant wait to see your review of #3

[jellydonut25]

[DannyBeane]

Bullet to the Head, 5th Element and From Dusk til Dawn. All very entertaining movies. The Blu ray of The 5th Element was absolutely gorgeous. Very bright and colorful. One of my favorite movies of all time.

[XvGojira]

[eabaker]

[XvGojira]

[eabaker]

I like some of the sequels. 4 entertains me, and I like the overall tone of 5, but I think the cumulative effect has been the over-stretching of the basic concept.

I've actually (shamefully) never seen the producer's cut of 6.

[XvGojira]

[jellydonut25]

[eabaker]

[DannyBeane]

World War Z. This movie was actually pretty good. I felt it was on par with the 2004 Dawn of the Dead which I enjoyed. The CGI zombies were a minor complaint but I felt the global scale of this film put it above other recent zombie movies. Its at least worth a redbox rental.

[lhb412]

Tekkonkinkreet

Anime film. Two powerful street urchins, Black and White, roam the (gorgeously rendered) decrepit metropolis of Treasure Town gettin' in fights and hanging out. Stuff happens. The plots unfolds in a lackadaisical fashion, but it's interesting, often exciting, and always beautiful looking. There's an interesting theme of the corporatization of culture going on in the background, but the meat of the the thing revolves around Black and White's relationship and the metaphorical connotations thereof. I imagine every viewer would read a slightly different meaning into it (Taoist? Christian? Manichaeism?).

[klen7]

I really need to rewatch that, I remember the last act of the film being drastically different in tone

[eabaker]

Jenn and I inflicted Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of The Great Gatsby upon ourselves last night (only strong liquor helped us through it, and at times in our drunken mockery we rather felt like Nick Carraway ourselves - at least, going by the way we interpret the character in the book).

There are, of course, assorted schools of thought on how much one should compare a movie adaptation to its source material when judging its quality. In this case, I feel like the ways in which it deviated from the novel also happen to result in its being a bad movie, but it would be every bit as bad without making the comparison. This is because narratively it follows the book very closely - pretty much all the right events occur, and in the right order, but the tone - both in visual approach and in the bulk of the performances - is so egregiously wrong as to render the narrative functionally meaningless. A brilliant, sly, snarky commentary on American culture has been rendered as merely a gaudy melodrama. Almost any time we ought to be laughing with the movie, we are instead lauging at its po-faced intensity.

What is most frustrating is that that there are a few moments where it gets things so right. DiCaprio genuinely seems to understand the character of Gatsby, and in their moments together - and almost exclusively in those moments - Maguire is a magnificent embodiment of Nick. The rest of the time, even when the casting is right - Elizabeth Debicki is a good but annoyingly under-used Jordan, and Joel Edgerton is an entirely reasonable choice for Tom - the actors are generally being directed to give entirely the wrong performances, and whatever they do get right is criminally undercut by the style of the movie.

[lhb412]

Lone Wolf and Cub: White Heaven in Hell

The last in the original movie series, and it's kind of a mess. Still, a few good moments and a pretty darn strong movie series overall. Installments #2,4 and 5 are my favorites.