by eabaker » Mon Feb 10, 2014 5:24 pm
Watched a couple of flicks over the weekend.
Watched Mrs. Brown on Friday night. That was a damned fine flick. Judi Dench as Queen Victoria may be the most obvious piece of casting in the history of cinema (alongside Geoffrey Palmer playing - gasp! - a stuffy bureaucrat), but that's hardly a bad thing, and Billy Connolly was downright fantastic - I've been a fan since he took over Head of the Class, but I really didn't know he had that in him. And it's one of those rare movies featuring Gerard Butler where he's not clearly too good for the material.
Watched The Amityville Horror (1979) last night. I know, I know, it's absurd that I hadn't seen it before, considering that the movie came out the same year that I did... Anyway, it had a lot of really good individual moments/sequences, things that have really stuck in my head into today, some wonderful atmosphere, great use of of sound, excellent performances, and fantastic photography and editing. However, structurally, it has some big issues. There are developments that should completely alter the flow of the narrative, and then just... don't, and there are threads that never tie back. Pretty good, definitely unnerving, very glad to have finally seen it, and there's definitely a lot to love in the style of it.
Tokyo, a smoldering memorial to the unknown, an unknown which at this very moment still prevails and could at any time lash out with its terrible destruction anywhere else in the world.