I sort of assumed that from the praise that my co-worker was giving it last week. His delight in (from what I recall) Hansel's diabetes was most... informative.
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Much of MADNESS, and more of SIN, and HORROR the soul of the plot.
I kind of liked that Van Helsing was clearly a descendant of House of Frankenstein/House of Dracula run of Universal's later monster movies. Didn't make it a good film, but that aspect appealed to me.
I refuse to see Mama because the commercials were inescapable for a while and I got completely sick of that kid whispering Mama all the time.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
The supposed homage to the older movies just reminded me of Ebert's comment about reminding you of what you could have been watching. Instead of Van Helsing, you could have been watching Daughter of Dracula or Son of Frankenstein...
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Much of MADNESS, and more of SIN, and HORROR the soul of the plot.
I was recently really impressed by "Kontroll" - a Hungarian film set in the Budapest Metro.
Kind of like an ideal hybrid of a low-budget quirky independent film and an action movie. The film centers around an architect turned metro ticket collector dealing with his dysfunctional crew, a hostile public, a rival, a love interest in a bear suit, and a mysterious pusher. I'm not sure who or what recommended it to me, but it's the best thing I've seen in recent months.
Documentary about a relatively talented artist who is an egotistical, alcoholic nitwit with the social graces of a feces-throwing monkey who perpetually burns his bridges.
It plays out like you'd imagine any other romantic comedy would. But it does it in such a charming way that you don't really care. It's a little sweet and a little funny and pretty non-offensive in any way. And looking at the landscape that's available at this time it's pretty much the best thing going on. I mean, besides the leftover Academy bait that may still be playing.
A documentary about an incredibly driven amateur director of questionable talent and his struggles to finish a movie on a shoe-string budget (sweet-talked out of his elderly uncle) in order to finally get his career moving.
The short movie Coven (which he pronounces Co-Ven, with an O as in Open) is what he finally finishes.
It plays out like you'd imagine any other romantic comedy would. But it does it in such a charming way that you don't really care. It's a little sweet and a little funny and pretty non-offensive in any way. And looking at the landscape that's available at this time it's pretty much the best thing going on. I mean, besides the leftover Academy bait that may still be playing.
We saw this last weekend. The SO loved it and wants to see it again. I thought it was just OK. It's got some funny bits, and I though the male lead did a good job. I agree with one of the podcasts I listen to, that described the female lead as "a somehow even less charismatic Kristen Stewart". I thought Rob Cordry and the actress who played the best friend character both did a good job, and that Malkovitch was horrible, and his character was dumb. I had to sort of bite my tongue the entire time, and remind myself that it was a romantic comedy that borrowed the setting of a zombie film, not an actual zombie film, because the zombie rules made no sense at all. In once scene, the main guy makes a joke about how long it takes them to shuffle anywhere then, in the very next scene, they're sprinting around and I swear I saw a zombie deliver a flying roundhouse kick. Also, to nitpick, it irritates me when the majority of the music in a movie is diegetic, but then they throw in a couple of non-diegetic songs.
3 dead yet still beating hearts out of five
This weekend we watched Safety Not Guaranteed on the Net Flicks. It's based on this interweb meme, and stars Aubrey Plaza and Mark Duplass, both of whom I dig. I liked it a lot, although there was some stuff at the end, which I won't spoil, that I wish had been kept a bit more ambiguous. It reminded me in some ways of Sound of My Voice, which I also loved.
4 shoddy prosthetic ears out of five
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"Trans Am Jesus" is "what hanged me"
We haven't watched them yet, so it's kind of stupid to post about it, but I am so fucking busy with school I don't know if I'll ever have time and I was tired of thinking about it without posting about it. So shut up.
We got Wreck-It Ralph and Celeste and Jesse Forever, and I am really looking forward seeing them both.
I watched Valhalla Rising yesterday. I rather enjoyed it, although it is the kind of thing you need to be in the mood for. The story is not terribly important (or coherent) but Mads Mikkelsen has such an odd kind of charisma that he manages to carry the movie. And he does so without speaking, as he has no lines.
You do have to be ready be deal with some annoying plotholes and such:
The Scottish Highlands are very pretty, but there are limits to how much work you can make them do. In this movie they represent, well, the Scottish Highlands, as well as Somewhere in North America, 1000AD. Somewhere in North America with rolling hills and highly acidic peaty soil that is covered in bracken and heather, that is. And Lochs, one of which (filmed so you can't see the ends) is standing in for a river even though the water is clearly not running. Did I mention they managed to get lost on a fog on the way to the holy land and managed not only to drift across the Atlantic, (I can suspend disbelief that much) but UP A RIVER? Without touching those ores everyone seems to have forgotten about when they were stuck in the mist even though it is a goddamn longship?
But if you ignore those (you get the feeling they just did not have the budget to solve those) then it is a very well-shot movie. One of those films where you have to consider the story as a backdrop to the shots, and not the other way around.
Final verdict? Cabin in the Woods is an almost traditional (modern) horror movie that is at once both meta in nature but not quite as tongue in cheek as Scream. Scream to me was still the better movie, but Cabin is no slouch and worth a look see.
Now that I've finally seen this movie, I can reaffirm that my Borther is a genius and all would do well to pay heed to his proclamations.
Carmen and Geoffrey - I am embarrassed to admit that I had this disc sitting on my shelf for a couple of months before I was in the mood to watch it. Which makes me officially an idiot. It was completely awesome. It's the story of Geoffrey Holder and his wife Carmen DeLavallade. I knew who he was and liked him but I had no idea how amazing he truly was and I didn't know a thing about her. She was Alvin Ailey's partner, originally it was the Ailey/DeLavallade Company, and possible the most famous and/or important African American female dancer of her time. It kind of burns me that he's a household name even among White people and I'd never heard of her.
But Geoffrey Holder, holy crap what a talent! He paints, he dances, he acts, he choreographs, he directs. Hell, he even designs all the sets and the costumes for his shows. And when I tried to see if I could get a copy of the book they showed the release of in the film, I discovered he even has a cookbook out. It is a crying shame that if you ask almost anyone my age if they know who he is, all they'll mention is Seven-up. That man's my new hero.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
I watched Shallow Hal last weekend and I still can't decide if it's incredibly annoying or not bad at all. Currently I'm leaning towards "incredibly annoying" but I dunno.
I watched Lolita 3 days ago and read a bit of the book. Although, the movie wasn't to my tastes as I knew later that Kubrick had to edit a lot of bits of the original script because of the delicate subject the movie handled. It's crazy to see how obsessed Humbert is with the young nymphet Lolita! He has this belief that their are certain 12-13 year old who are not so innocent, and it is even said in the novel that he think they're evil.
I know it's already a classic and you probably know everything about it, but damn! is it good. I think it gets better every time I watch it. The scene with the swaying trees coming toward the castle is probably my favorite movie image of all time. In a lifetime of watching horror movies I have never seen anyone look as genuinely terrified as Mifune does while being shot at by his own men. And his evil laugh would give Mark Hamill a run for his money. It's simply the best Shakespeare adaptation ever made. Which can't be surprising, when geniuses like Shakespeare, Kurosawa and Mifune team up you have to expect greatness.
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"freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of its substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order."
- Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Ed. v. Barnette
If I watch a Batman movie I expect to see Batman. For more than 20 minutes (out of over two and a half hours) if that's not too inconvenient. As it were, Catwoman actually stole the show with ease. Anne Hathaway was brilliant.
ETA: Mostly boring, overlong and full of plotholes.
So ... I almost posted this in the bad movie thread but that would have been a little over the top.
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Last edited by Stormlight; 03-11-2013 at 10:25 AM.
I'm here because we watched Cloud Atlas this weekend, and it was totally not what I expected and also it was so good! Complete head flick. It's got to be great to be Tom Hanks. He's like, "Let's spend a shitload of money to make a movie off of this totally bizarre book, and I want to play all of the characters and also Halle Barry should be in it," and they're like, "Whatever you say, Mr. Hanks!"