Recently watched movies!

[Dr Kain]

Scarlet Street - This was an interesting Film Noir because it didn't feel like one to me for quite a while, but man, its last act was nothing short of amazing. It is probably my least favorite of the Film Noirs I have watched over these last several months, but it was still not even close to being a bad movie. I give it a 7/10 stars.

Batman - This movie was my introduction to Batman when I was at the age of 7. As a child, it was also the first VHS tape I ever bought with my own movie and was a movie I watched religiously as a child. As an adult, it is still an incredible movie, it does justice to the comics, but is far from perfect. It has a lot of excellent atmosphere around it as Burton was able to perfectly capture the look and tone of Gotham City. The bat suit in this movie is hands down the best bat suit ever done in live action to this day. Keaton plays off an incredible Batman, but his Bruce takes a few big missteps. He has the look of Wayne down, but there are times when he just fumbles the role, especially when it comes to Vicki. I also do not like that he does not change his voice between Wayne and Batman. Jack Nicholson does an excellent job at playing Jack Torrence wearing the Joker's clothes, but like Keaton's Wayne, I don't full feel like Jack is Joker. He has the look, but something feels off about his personality. I do like that they kept to the origins established in the comics of him falling in the chemicals, but two of the movie's biggest downfalls is he being the one who killed Bruce's parents and his demise. I feel they both take a way from the movie immensely. Another misstep the movie has is with Gordon and Harvey, as they appear to be there just for the sake of being there rather than being a part of the universe Burton was creating. In fact, that is the only thing this movie is missing, giving us development of the other characters. I understand it is a Batman movie, but if no one else, Gordon is an intricate part of Batman's life. Here, you could just give him any name and it would change nothing because he adds nothing. The same goes for Dent. The Batmobile kicks all kinds of ass, and like the bat suit, it is still the best Batmobile on screen to date. Bassinger does a good job as Vicky even though she has the wrong hair color. Knox is pretty much pointless too. Finally though, Elfman's score is freaking fantastic. Easily the best Batman movie score to date. Overall, the movie's aging is a mixed bag. Some areas have aged quite well, others not so much. Nevertheless, it is an incredible movie that as I said gets the Batman character nearly right, has an extremely well done Gotham, and a phenomenal score. I am torn as to whether I give it an 8 or a 9/10.

[Psycho Soldier]

The Jurassic Park trilogy - Decided to watch all three movies last night. Well, at least the first one is awesome. The CGI hasn't withstood the test of time quite as well as people say, but - except for a CG Brachiosaurus head when Alan and the kids are in the tree - it still looks fine overall. The Lost World is a grind, mostly because none of the human characters are likeable or interesting. Even Ian Malcolm is grating at times. The rampaging T. rex at the end does redeem it somewhat, but it doesn't make up for the painfully long cliff-side rescue scene. By the time I hit JPIII, I started checking my phone, waiting for things to end. That particular movie is a waste of time.

[XvGojira]

[Psycho Soldier]

JP3 didn't deliver many thrills, IMO. The Pteranodon sequence was okay, but otherwise, the action set pieces fell flat. They were either too derivative of the previous movies, or they had no emotional hooks. I really didn't care about the main characters - except for Grant, but that's more due to Sam Neill than to the character per se. Everyone else could have been slashed apart by the Spinosaurus, for all I cared.

[Dr Kain]

Notorious - I have to be honest, I wasn't blown away by this one. It is a really good movie, and there are a lot of great moments in it, but it felt more like a romance rather than a Film Noir. Cary Grant is awesome though. I'm three for three in movies I have seen him in now. Of course, Claude Rains is also friggin phenomenal too. I give it a 7/10 stars.

[lhb412]

^Yeah, it's a romantic thriller. I certainly don't think of it as a noir. I associate noir with either criminals or the people who solve crimes, either way: crime intensive. Notorious is about espionage.

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

^The last few minutes of Notorious is fantastic. Hitchcock knew how to end a film.

Gamera 2: Advent of Legion

Ah, I love this film so much. This is one of those comfort food movies for me.

[Dr Kain]

Dr No - A good start to an amazing franchise. Connery is great, but the movie does move at a very slow pace. Nevertheless, I give it a 7.10.

[Dr Kain]

Rebecca - The performances are nothing short of wonderful here, and the story is very well done, but I do feel the movie dragged on a little bit. That aside, for what was Hitchcock's first American film it is a brilliant one. I think my favorite scene is when they are watching the film of their honey moon due to how the light is used, especially when Maxim starts staring at his wife angrily. Overall, I give it an fantastic 8/10.

[jellydonut25]

[XvGojira]

[Dr Kain]

Spellbound - Unfortunately, I had a hard time really getting into this movie and I am not sure why. It just didn't grip me as much as the other Hitchcock movies have. I loved the dream sequence bit, and the last half hour of the movie was well done, but I was kind of bored. It isn't my least favorite Hitchcock movie, as that still goes to Saboteur and Family Plot, but it is a pretty weak movie overall. I give it a 6/10 stars.

[Dr Kain]

Psycho Remake 1998 - This is without a doubt the absolute worst, most unnecessary, pointless remake I have ever seen in my life, and that is saying A LOT!! The only thing I learned from this movie is that Vince Vaughn can do a good imitation of Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. Honestly, I don't get the purpose of this remake other than to spit over Hitchcock's vision. The movie added nothing original to the story. The actors were just reading their lines. I don't even know what the point of having Danny Elfman be there for when the entire soundtrack was just taken off of the original. Hell, they could have just had the actors in this movie lip sync to the original dialog. This was like watching a High School reenactment of Psycho. Everyone was completely miscast with William Macy being the absolute worst of the cast. The only actor that seemed to care was James Remar, but that was probably because he did not have to suffer through the movie for probably more than a day of shooting. Also, for being in the 90s, NOTHING even felt like the 90s. The dialog was still 60s dialog. The way everything was done was still 60s. For example, I'm quite certain cops in the 90s did not just look at the license and registration and compare it to their license plate And I'm sure Bates would have had a computer SOMEWHERE!! As I said, this is without a doubt the worst remake ever made, and maybe even the worst movie ever made. It has knocked Battlefield Earth out of my number one spot for that category.

[lhb412]

^I think Elfman did it because he was a huge fan of Bernard Herrmann, who did the original music.

I think a far better tribute to Herrmann from Elfman was Elfman's score for Hellboy II, which was inspired (but not a direct copy) by Herrmann's scores for the Ray Harryhausen fantasy films.

[Dr Kain]

[lhb412]

I guess just getting an orchestra to perform the same score as his idol note-by-note was... appealing, maybe? I don't know. I just know Herrmann was a big inspiration of Elfman.

[Dr Kain]

[jellydonut25]

[Dr Kain]

[Shin_Edda_Robo!!!!!]

This Masterpiece. Godfrey Ho's Ninja Terminator, featuring music from the Metal Heroes series Megabeast Investigator Juspion (hard to miss).

A mishmash of two different movies, a South Korean martial arts action cop film, and some other movie featuring Richard Harrison. Considered the Ed Wood of Hong Kong, Godfrey Ho had the unique talent to splice two (horrible) movies into something that is distinctly never boring and always entertaining for various reasons whether he intended or not. It's always fun, and the action is actually pretty decent. NINJER TERMINATOR!

And then there is p ossibly the most famous use of a phone ever.

High? Bored? Both? Watch this.

[jellydonut25]

[lhb412]

Harakiri (1962)

An ever-thickening, harrowing plot more than makes up for any percieved deficit of action (all the fighting is in the final 20 minutes or so) in this remarkable samurai film.

[jellydonut25]

I watched the pilot of American Horror Story and thought it was pretty awful.

It feels disjointed and cliche-ridden. The characters don't really ring true like real people at all, and the plot really seems to consist of "How can we get from one horror image to another?"

[Benjamin Haines]