Movie opinions thread (what have you seen, what did you think?)

[terry.330]

EEAAO is awesome. If it had been made by anybody else it would be a pretentious mess.


Burnt Offerings- A 70's made for TV horror piece starring Oliver Reed, Karen Black, Bettie Davis and Burgess Meredith. Pretty basic modern-gothic haunted house stuff but it's done well enough that it elevates it past it's made for TV trappings. If you dig 70's horror this is worth checking out.

This led me down a rabbit hole of reading about Oliver Reed and wow what a maniac. Dude was a massive alcoholic misogynistic asshole and there are some wild stories about him.

-He started a fight in a pub and after it was broken up the two guys he was beefing with waited for him outside and attacked him with broken beer bottles and fucked him up big time.
-He used to hang out with Keith Moon and they'd go on some pretty serious benders.
-He puked on Steve McQueen.
-Shelly Winters dumped a glass of whiskey on his head on live TV after he mocked her.
-While filming Cutthroat Island he showed up to set drunk, showed his dick to Geena Davis and got into a fist fight.
-He basically became a joke for the British TV networks as they'd have him on panel shows knowing that he'd just get drunk and make some sort of scene.
-He died at age 61 while filming Gladiator, he went to a local pub and got into a drinking competition with a group of British sailors.

 

[LoneSage]

Sounds like Dinkins

 

[jro]

Finished up my run of what I consider to be the mainline New French Extremity (I am intentionally leaving out Irreversible since I don't think it's a horror movie, one, and two, I don't wanna re-watch it). I consider these all to be influential in horror filmmaking afterward but not to necessarily actually be any good on their own. Case in point:
-High Tension - I remembered not thinking much of this upon release, and that opinion held up all the way if not a bit more here, first re-watch of it since 2009 or so. I think it technically works; there aren't any shots that include both Marie and The Killer, but it still takes some serious liberties with suspension of disbelief even when you know what's happening. It works better as a simple slasher-chase film than what it's going for IMO.
-Martyrs - re-watched this for the third time a few months ago, just now remembering that... I still like it quite a bit. I'd honestly say I appreciate it more each time I've watched it. The story is oddly meandering at first, but then that part makes a lot more sense when you know what's coming, and the ending is properly vague and well-earned IMO. DO NOT bother with the garbage American remake but the original is and will always be worth a watch I think.
-Inside - first time I'd rewatched this, it is still really good. Second after Frontier(s) for my genre favorite. Just a taut, simple story that's told with zero fat, and it's told very well. Highly recommended to anyone interested in the genre.
-Sheitan - eh, it's fine. Cassell alone pretty much makes it worth a watch, though it's not much more than that. It's meant to be a riff on Texas Chainsaw/cannibal family tropes but I think it's better on its own without any baggage dragging the viewer's expectations down. It does get properly sick and twisted in the last 20 minutes or so so there's that.
-Trouble Every Day - I had not watched this at all before, finally managed to get through it this eve. Denis definitely has her own style, and for the first hour or so, I was thinking that it pretty much DQ'ed it from being in the genre, but then there were a couple scenes that made it pretty clear, I suppose, that it fits. It's slow as hell, hard to fit into any one genre of film, I guess I'd call it NFE to its credit, bored the hell out of me for 70 minutes then I admit I actually ended up really liking it. Easily one of the more difficult films from the genre/era to box in. Give it a shot if you're remotely interested though.
-Frontier(s) - ah, yes. I remembered liking this quite a lot from the first time I'd watched it however many years ago. It is, however, not streamable on any platform that I know of in the U.S., so my intention to re-watch it went zero for quite a while. Finally just bought a DVD copy for $10 shipped on eBay, why not. Watched it last night and it is still really, really good. Easily the best example of NFE filmmaking IMO, it's actually interesting while still being just completely brutally unpleasant to watch, which is what I'm pretty sure they were all going for. The final girl's incessant shaking at the end gets a little weird but it doesn't not work I guess. Easily my favorite from the movement and probably still on my shortlist of the top ten movies I'd re-watch over and over.

 

[lithy]

What I mean is Porco Rosso is "Real Cool" and the only Ghibli film you'll get into. Because I know you.

Checked it out from the library this week.

 

[terry.330]

Porco Rosso is great, probably my favorite Ghibli movie.

-High Tension - It works better as a simple slasher-chase film than what it's going for IMO.

Definitely, the twist is terrible and actually brings the movie down considerably.


Constantine- Looks like we're getting a sequel, almost 20 years later that no one asked for that's apparently coming out sometime this year.

I remember liking this somewhat but nah, it just doesn't work. Nothing feels quite right. They kind of capture the mood of the comic but everything is bad CG that's aged very poorly. The casting is fine except of Shia, he's fucking terrible. The movie has severe pacing issues and feels very uneven. There's some fun to be had with the exorcist stuff, magic, weapons etc. but it's not enough, too much of the movie is mishandled. Which is a bummer because this is one of those movies you want to be better. We'll see what they do with the sequel.

 

[lithy]

We also just recently made our way through all 8 Harry Potter movies since the older kid mainlined the books this year. Wife was really into them when they first came out with her siblings. I never read them. I read the first 3 books with the younger kid prior to watching movies but then our reading pace couldn't keep up with the oldest's desire to watch the movies. So we went with that timeline instead.

They're all 'good'. My preference is for the tone/style that the middle few movies (3-5) seems to balance. The early ones border on cartoonish (Chris Columbus). The middle ones have a good mix of juvenile 'dark' tones (starting with Cuaron in 3). The later ones have people dying left and right and sort of forgo a basic 'baddie' plot structure in favor of the overarching final battle (not necessarily a complaint,, as with many series a resolution is sometimes preferable).

They're not LOTR or Star Wars for me, but I have no problem watching any of them.

 

[lithy]

Constantine- Looks like we're getting a sequel, almost 20 years later that no one asked for that's apparently coming out sometime this year.

I remember liking this somewhat but nah, it just doesn't work. Nothing feels quite right. They kind of capture the mood of the comic but everything is bad CG that's aged very poorly. The casting is fine except of Shia, he's fucking terrible. The movie has severe pacing issues and feels very uneven. There's some fun to be had with the exorcist stuff, magic, weapons etc. but it's not enough, too much of the movie is mishandled. Which is a bummer because this is one of those movies you want to be better. We'll see what they do with the sequel.

I (irrationally?) love this movie. Totally unexplainable crush on Rachael Weisz. Weirdly typical asexual casting of Tilda Swinton strikes me as perfect. I did not know it was a comic (sorry, graphic novel) until much later and have to date still not read that source material. Depictions of hell always interest me (What Dreams May Come). A sort of supernatural double agent plot twist with the resolution.

Like I said, I've seen plenty of complaints about this one, I never bothered with the TV show, and I have no real interest in a sequel (Twisters? why), but I happened to see this one maybe at the right time and still have a soft spot for it today whenever it shows up on TNT or whatever.

 

[jro]

Fuck me I think I confused the ideas from Sheitan and Frontier(s). Frontier(s) needlessly adds a cannibal family (Texas Chainsaw) scope to things, and Sheitan just parodies, I dunno, whatever a dude fucking his sister to birth Satan is. My bad. Doesn't change my opinion of either film.

 

[StevenK]

We also just recently made our way through all 8 Harry Potter movies since the older kid mainlined the books this year. Wife was really into them when they first came out with her siblings. I never read them. I read the first 3 books with the younger kid prior to watching movies but then our reading pace couldn't keep up with the oldest's desire to watch the movies. So we went with that timeline instead.

Exact same situation here, only their watching movies pace was also too fast for me and I missed all of those too. So I've read the first three books with the kids, which were fun, and been told that the rest of the books and the films were good, and will likely never watch them myself.

I never got the Hermione crush thing. I realise in the films she's about 7, but now, as an adult, I just don't see it.

I find latter day Daniel Radcliffe weird and awkward, and I actually quite like him for it.

 

[Average Joe]

Definitely, the twist is terrible and actually brings the movie down considerably.

Might be the worst twist in cinematic history.

Still think the movie rules despite it.

 

[LoneSage]

Terry movie request for The Stuff, mid 80s horror。

 

[Average Joe]

Terry movie request for The Stuff, mid 80s horror。

Infuriatingly terrible editing.

 

[100proof]

Constantine is a bad take on the source material but I still enjoy it largely for the actors in smaller roles (Tilda Swinton, Peter Stormare chewing the scenery for 5 minutes, Djimon Hounsou). Keanu tries so hard to be a miserable crank.

Fuck High Tension. It has a couple of great gore shots but the entire movie is an almost beat-for-beat ripoff of a Dean Koontz book (Intensity) which the director denied for years before finally coming clean. Amusingly, the only thing that isn't copied wholesale from the book is the shit twist.

 

[Average Joe]

XX (X-Cross)

Now this is my shit.

Low budget janky and patchwork J-Horror that looks and plays out like a film version of D3's Simple 2000 game series.

Bunch of old inbred farmer's have been cutting off the left legs of hot women for hundreds of years and then letting their bodies rot on poles to serve as deities to protect the village. A couple of girls get caught up in it all and then get chased by aforementioned farmers and some lady in a dress with an eyepatch (because of course) and giant scissors... just all the cliches really. Does a lot of bouncing around narratively between the two leads and I kind of dug it since it feels a lot like a PS2 Horror game when they did that kind of stuff. Lot of people chewing the scenery and it is quite goofy in a "it knows exactly what it is" kind of way and I'm all for it.

Better than Dune 1/2, but worse than Everything Everywhere All At Once.

 

[terry.330]

My Science Project- One of those goofy mid 80's teen sci-fi flicks. Not up to the level of Bill & Ted, more along the lines of Waxworks II and House II. Kind of janky, no real logic to anything, bad acting (really bad dialogue) etc. Lots of special effects that range anywhere from pretty decent to what the hell just happened? Fisher Stevens plays an insufferable meatball goomba, Dennis Hopper is a burnt out hippie science teacher, everyone else is pretty blah.

Basically a kid is failing science class and has one last project that determines wether or not he passes. He finds some old nebulous alien technology the military hid back in the 50's and turns it in as his project. The "gizmo" turns on and goes haywire, opening a rift in time and space where everything merges. Like I said it doesn't make much sense, one of those movies you probably had to have seen growing up to have much appreciation for it. The second half is pretty fun and Hopper's performance is a hoot.

 

[terry.330]

Humanoids From The Deep- Giant horny mutant fishmen attack a small fishing town and sexually assault beach babes. This is another Roger Corman production so you know what that means, It's cheap as hell but the nudity is gratuitous and there's a lot of gore. Very late 70's, lots of flannel and bad facial hair. Nice little shocker of an ending. Would make a great double feature with Piranha.

 

[Claudia Schiffer]

I liked it and @basic did a great job with his part.

fake is right. it was an okay movie but they went overboard for the sake of going overboard. it was like an asian version of inception.

 

[wyo]

they went overboard for the sake of going overboard.

You just described every Asian movie!

 

[Claudia Schiffer]

You just described every Asian movie!

that's racist

 

[Hattori Hanzo]

More than 90% off, buy dis for 20 bucks

Apple TV

tv.apple.com

Some are 4K DV on Apple, also available in HD from Microsoft US.

Spoiler:

• Grand Hotel
• Mutiny on the Bounty
• The Adventures of Robin Hood
• Casablanca
• Mildred Pierce
• Key Largo
• A Streetcar Named Desire
• Giant
• Ben-Hur
• What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
• Bonnie and Clyde
• Cool Hand Luke
• Bullitt
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
• Purple Rain
• The Color Purple
• Unforgiven
• Mystic River
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
• Million Dollar Baby
• The Departed
• Argo
• A Star Is Born
• Judas and the Black Messiah

 

[terry.330]

Tales From The Crypt- The OG one from 1972 by Amicus. It's very dry in that old school British way, hokey but not corny. It's an anthology of 5 stories centered around a group of strangers taking a tour of a crypt where they get trapped and shown just what awful people they are. The Crypt Keeper is just an old guy in a monk/grim reaper robe. It's just basic macabre morality tales but they're all pretty enjoyable with some great character actors. Classic stuff.

 

[Xavier]

All quiet on the western front (most recent one 2022) - I was distracted most of the movie by how everybody had an English accent. I wish I could have put it in German with subs but that wasn't an option.

Makes me think we need to figure out something with accents in movies.

It's funny how in shows and movies smart people seem to have almost no accent and to portray others as stupid they have really thick ones and you can hardly understand them.

It reminded me of House Of Gucci. Decent movie overall but what's going on with these Americans pretending to have accents? Or speaking some lines in Italian? Moreover I'm pretty sure there's some legit Italian actors in the movie who speak near or perfect English. There's also some sort of try with the use of body language and gestures. Overall I don't see much difference between this and how people in movies used to pull their eye flaps and speak a bunch of gobbledy goop pretending to be Asian. I'm not really Italian though so I only pondered it for about 30 seconds.

Google:

Who Has the Best—and Worst—Italian Accent in House of Gucci? A Dialect Coach on Lady Gaga, Jared Leto, and More.

There’s one thing just about everyone does wrong.

slate.com

What an Italian Thinks of the Italian Accent in House of Gucci

Is it that extraordinary work that the media has depicted?

antozanini.medium.com

Napoleon. I liked it. I was thinking before I started watching it how most everything we know about him is fake English propaganda that we all propagate to this very day over 100 years later. I wonder how historically accurate it was? I'm too lazy to google it yet but didn't find it to be an over the top caricature.

Oppenheimer: Just got around to watching this one somewhat recently but almost fell asleep during the last 45 minutes and have forgot to watch the rest of it. Seems like I'm seeing a different movie than what I heard everybody else talking about. Oh it's about the ramifications of making the nuclear bomb!
Well I mean that's a topic touched on in the movie but not really what it's about IMO.

One theme is how you can be a hero, the worlds savior one moment and the next they're trying to nail you to a cross. This brought front and center IMO by how the movie doesn't play out in chronological order.

Another topic is how this guy thinks differently from the rest of us, almost like he's autistic. How he has to dance around with things like goals, ambitions, friends, family and other relationships. Almost like that movie a beautiful mind.

 

[terry.330]

The Legend of Hell House- More 70's horror. A group of psychics are hired to investigate Hell House where 27 guest were killed under bizarre circumstances in 1927. Roddy McDowell leads the group as he was part of a team that attempted this back in the 50's and he was the only survivor. It's a pretty standard haunted house movie and really leans into the psychic and medium stuff. Roddy McDowell really get to chew some scenery although Pamela Franklin gives him some stiff competition. The whole movie has a nervous and purposefully off-kilter feel to it and there's some nice camera work. Don't let the hokey title fool you the movie takes itself seriously and manages to avoid being too shlocky for the most part. If you like the original The Haunting this is an easy recommendation.

 

[terry.330]

Species- Man what a wasted opportunity. I watched a behind the scenes video on this awhile ago and the studio totally fucked this up. The insistence on using really bad (even for the time) CG over practical effects and hiring HR Giger but then not listening to him being the biggest two. They cut an entire scene with a "ghost train" that Giger designed and actually had built at his own expense only for him to send it to the studio and they used it for like 2 seconds in a dream sequence. He also had life-sized versions of Sil built at different stages of her evolution that are literal pieces of art and the studio just used CG.

All that stuff aside the movie still isn't all that great. Natasha Hensitridge is a knockout but between her limited acting ability and the character/creature she plays there's zero appeal. The rest of the cast are all talented but they all seem totally miscast and their characters are terribly written. Giger's original vision of a highly sexual, artistic, sic-fi, horror metaphor is completely watered down by studio interference and terrible writing. An interesting misfire but not much more regardless it's got a hot naked chick in it so it got multiple direct to video sequels.

 

[famicommander]

Neve Campbell returning for Scream 7. Will be directed by series creator Kevin Williamson, written by Guy Busick and James Vanderbilt (same writers and 5 and 6).

I hope she took these clowns to the cleaners after the bullshit they pulled. Lowballed Neve for Scream 6, then lowballed Jenna Ortega for Scream 7, then fired Melissa Barrera for calling Israel's apartheid state an apartheid state. They had to circle back to Neve or risk letting Courteney Cox and her weird face try to carry a whole movie.