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

[terry.330]

Black Sunday- Mario Bava's directorial debut and it's a pretty damn good one. Gothic as fuck with incredible use of shadows, gorgeous black and white visuals, gliding camera work and incredible sets. Just pure atmosphere. Barbara Steele in the lead looking absolutely stunning and haunting (those eyes).

In 1500's Moldavia a female vampire is tried and sentenced to death by some pretty gruesome means. As she is dying she curses her persecutors and vows revenge. 200 years later her ghost returns looking to reincarnate herself and punish the descendants of the people who killed her. Nothing amazingly original but it works well enough and feels very european folksy. Not only is it very classically euro-gothic it also has a touch of 30's Hollywood. The visuals and atmosphere were hugely influential and it's easy to see why. This one is definitely recommended.

 

[100proof]

Immaculate - Sydney Sweeney's tig ol bitties star as a novitiate (nun in training) who goes to Italy to take her vows and work in an old nun's home. She suddenly finds herself preggo (despite not having done the big nasty) and the nuns/priests immediately think it's a miracle and not that she's just a lying whore. Then things get weird, then get a little weirder and the movie ends with a laugh-out-loud 15 minute sequence of a nine months pregnant woman in labor revenge killing a bunch of people. It took everything in my power to not awlwardly laugh out loud in the theater like Robert DeNiro in Cape Fear.

This one's kind of a sloppy mess. It pretends to have some spooky stuff going on in the early parts and treads familiar religious horror grounds to build tension but then that just kinda falls by the wayside and the villian just ends up being a weirdo priest (which gets hardcore telegraphed from the beginning so it's not much of a spoiler). They find a couple of excuses for Sydney Sweeney to be naked/in sheer clothiing which is appreciated (that girl has some serious bahonkadonkaroos for a Hollywood tartlet... a shame they'll probably starve and shame her in to looking like everyone else) and she gives a pretty good performance. The Italian castle/churchy thing it's set in is sufficiently creepy and well-shot. Largely, the movie is a lot of interesting ideas that are poorly executed: they set up early on that very few people in the convent speak English so she's kind of isolated but then halfway through a bunch of people that previously only speak Italian suddenly speak English just fine. The jump scare-y stuff early on is just a dumb red herring to put in trailers which is lame. A lot of it could just be bad editing/a lot of material getting cut out but it's ultimately just not that interesting.

But ho man... the ending...

I don't know why I'm bothering other than it still makes me chuckle but I'm spoilering the end of this dumb movie.

Spoiler:

So it turns out that the priest that invited her there is a former genetic biologist who discovered the DNA of Jesus on a holy relic and is trying to clone him and impregnate him in to nuns and the whole convent/church is in on it. That in and of itself is laugh out loud stupid but it's a horror movie plot so whatever. Anyway, they basically trap her there to force her to give birth (gee, I wonder what this movie's subtext is) and she escapes when she gets left alone in their makeshift hospital room with the mother superior. Sister Mary Melons beats over the head with a big crucifix and repeatedly stabs her in the eyes and face with it. She then gets up, her water breaks, she strangles a priest to death with her rosary beads and then burns the geneticist guy alive in his creepy lab. She then tries to escape through catacombs, typical villain resurrection, she stabs him in the neck with the relic and she escapes. Standard final girl stuff.

The BEST PART is when she escapes out in to the open air, she then immediately squats down and gives birth. A lot of screaming, a weirdly comical sploosh noise... congrats on the easiest natural birth ever. This bitch then bites through her umbilical cord, casually strolls over and grabs a huge rock and smashes her freak Jesus baby with it. Cut to credits. I don't know if I just watched the dumbest fucking thing ever or if it was like secret bonkers genius shit.

 

[Average Joe]

Black Sunday- Mario Bava's directorial debut and it's a pretty damn good one. Gothic as fuck with incredible use of shadows, gorgeous black and white visuals, gliding camera work and incredible sets. Just pure atmosphere. Barbara Steele in the lead looking absolutely stunning and haunting (those eyes).

In 1500's Moldavia a female vampire is tried and sentenced to death by some pretty gruesome means. As she is dying she curses her persecutors and vows revenge. 200 years later her ghost returns looking to reincarnate herself and punish the descendants of the people who killed her. Nothing amazingly original but it works well enough and feels very european folksy. Not only is it very classically euro-gothic it also has a touch of 30's Hollywood. The visuals and atmosphere were hugely influential and it's easy to see why. This one is definitely recommended.

Still easily in my Top 10 favorite Horror films and one I always watch a couple times a year.

 

[HornheaDD]

Immaculate - Sydney Sweeney's tig ol bitties star as a novitiate

So like... are they shown.. or...

 

[100proof]

So like... are they shown.. or...

The nips are shown through wet, sheer clothes and she's naked in a couple of scenes (though no pepperonis) but I guess no? There is a scene where she runs through a field where she's clearly not wearing support and that shit looks painful.

 

[Hot Chocolate]

Bunching all the things I've seen all together:

Godzilla x Kong: New Empire
-Godzilla just being a a kaiju that just wants to beat up apes is hilarious to me and mostly why I enjoyed this. Scar King was the other best part of this as just a pure dick of a villain that this Monsterverse needed.

Immaculate
-this movie was just hilarious and all of the christians being upset about this has just made me laugh even harder. This is some bonkers nunspoltaion shit that I assume folks who love all that seventies grindhouse movies beat off to mention. If Sydney is going to be doing rom coms just to fund stuff like this than by all means more power to her.

Monkey Man
-as a fan of the international and domestic action/revenge movies that are clearly referenced here I had a blast watching this

 

[terry.330]

Basquiat- The incredible cast and some strong performances can't save this from being a middling unfocused piece that runs out of steam in the last act. There's also no real sense of time, it covers around 8 years but only feels like a couple of months. It's still worth watching and it does manage to capture a little bit of the magic from that period in the NYC art scene. Still it's a movie that I watch every few years and am always left a little disappointed.

 

[HornheaDD]

Terminator Salvation makes absolutely no god damned sense.

Bale saw the script and didnt say "Nah man." ?? Michael Ironside saw the script and didn't say "fuck off."?? I hadn't seen this since it came out and didn't remember anything other than the Terminator hybrid guy. I also completely forgot it was by "McG." When I saw that in the opening credits I thought "Oh yeah this being bullshit makes a lot of sense."

Can you imagine if that jackass was actually given the reigns to a Superman movie like it was going to be? Him and Brett Ratner should move to the mountains and stop bothering people.

edit: Although, thiccy thicc Bryce Dallas Howard... yes.

 

[Lagduf]

Terminator Salvation makes absolutely no god damned sense.

Bale saw the script and didnt say "Nah man." ?? Michael Ironside saw the script and didn't say "fuck off."?? I hadn't seen this since it came out and didn't remember anything other than the Terminator hybrid guy. I also completely forgot it was by "McG." When I saw that in the opening credits I thought "Oh yeah this being bullshit makes a lot of sense."

Can you imagine if that jackass was actually given the reigns to a Superman movie like it was going to be? Him and Brett Ratner should move to the mountains and stop bothering people.

edit: Although, thiccy thicc Bryce Dallas Howard... yes.

I mean terminator salvation has a magical negro.

It’s fucking terrible.

 

[SouthtownKid]

Can you imagine if that jackass was actually given the reigns to a Superman movie like it was going to be? Him and Brett Ratner should move to the mountains and stop bothering people.

Please don't tell me McG is one of those Bryan Singer/Brett Ratner pedos. Maybe he's never done any other good movies, but those two McG Charlie's Angels movies are fucking tremendous. Ratner has never once done anything even slightly good. I don't know if even Uwe Boll could manage to fuck up a movie with Chris Tucker in his prime and Jackie Chan the way Ratner did.

 

[terry.330]

Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla (74')- This is prime old school Godzilla nonsense, just goofy as hell. An imposter G, aliens, a psychic, a magic pipe, a magic statue and all kinds of nonsensical "science". I love that they consistently over explain needless plot points and completely ignore anything that should be explained. Also the first half of the movie is them taking the magic statue from Okinawa to northern mainland Japan and them immediately having to go back. Completely nullifying everything that happened. Good stuff.

 

[Average Joe]

Immaculate

So this was carried a lot by its ending for me, which was a bit up there on the bonkers scale. I would have appreciated them upping up the bonkers a few more notches to reach the next tier, but I understand why they didn't for the audience it was releasing to.

Most of the film is a bit too safe in its cliches and predictability (outside of the specific main plot point) and could have benefited from breaking out of the mold a bit.

Main actress from the hit film Madame Web (Streaming at home now!) did a pretty great job here and especially towards the end when she was losing her shit proper.

Definitely had a bit of a grindhouse look/feel to it which I always appreciate in a wide release film and the church location shots were great as well.

 

[SouthtownKid]

Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla (74')- This is prime old school Godzilla nonsense, just goofy as hell. An imposter G, aliens, a psychic, a magic pipe, a magic statue and all kinds of nonsensical "science". I love that they consistently over explain needless plot points and completely ignore anything that should be explained. Also the first half of the movie is them taking the magic statue from Okinawa to northern mainland Japan and them immediately having to go back. Completely nullifying everything that happened. Good stuff.

I like the one immediately after that one even more.

 

[terry.330]

I like the one immediately after that one even more.

The Terror of MechaGodzilla? I watched that earlier and would probably rate it about the same. Though I don't love Titanosaur as much as a lot fans seem to.

Species II- Terrible, just terrible. Some fun practical effects and a decent amount of nudity don't help at all, it's just too poorly written and incredibly cheap looking. The first one was kind of a mess but man it's head and shoulders above this junk.

 

[LoneSage]

Species II- Terrible, just terrible. Some fun practical effects and a decent amount of nudity don't help at all, it's just too poorly written and incredibly cheap looking. The first one was kind of a mess but man it's head and shoulders above this junk.

It is indeed a weird one. Kudos to you for sitting through it. It could have easily been a late night softcore Cinemax movie. The first Species was at least an event movie of the summer. Stupid but at least a fun time to waste a night. Species II, yeesh. Hey, where you toy boys at? Go buy some of those MacFarlane Species II toys and post pics in that uh toy thread.

 

[Tarma]

Rutger Hauer double-bill:

Wanted: Dead or Alive - Pretty decent action thriller from the mid-80s, Gene Simmons is really good as the bad guy - an almost inspired piece of casting. Shame Hauer wasn't offered more stuff like this before he disappeared into the land of low-rent 90s B-Movies.

Speaking of which...

Surviving The Game - Another take on the novella "The Most Dangerous Game"... if you go in expecting Hard Target but with Ice-T, you're gonna be very disappointed. This has a solid cast, and moves at a fairly decent pace, but it leans far more into thriller than action film. I can't help but think that it feels more like a TV-movie than something that was intended for the big screen, it's just lacking that little bit of extra polish in the visuals. It's ok overall, but Hard Target is a country mile ahead of this, and then some.

 

[terry.330]

It is indeed a weird one. Kudos to you for sitting through it. It could have easily been a late night softcore Cinemax movie. The first Species was at least an event movie of the summer. Stupid but at least a fun time to waste a night. Species II, yeesh. Hey, where you toy boys at? Go buy some of those MacFarlane Species II toys and post pics in that uh toy thread.

I realized after watching it that it's by the same director as The Changeling, which is awesome. After looking at the guy's resume it's pretty obvious that he just became a director for hire and didn't give a shit about anything after a certain point in his career. Bummer.

 

[Average Joe]

Pacific Rim: Uprising

A lot of teens; many bad attempts at comedy; Charlie Day is evil; Kaiju love Mount Fuji; literally everyone feels generic; three Kaiju converge to form one giant Kaiju (this part I liked); guy from the new shitty Star Wars Trilogy and girl have a fun snowball fight to celebrate tens of thousands of people and several of their friends dying.

I'm generally quite easy to please and especially so when it comes to big dumb monster movies, but this was awful on almost every level.

 

[wyo]

Please don't tell me McG is one of those Bryan Singer/Brett Ratner pedos. Maybe he's never done any other good movies, but those two McG Charlie's Angels movies are fucking tremendous. Ratner has never once done anything even slightly good. I don't know if even Uwe Boll could manage to fuck up a movie with Chris Tucker in his prime and Jackie Chan the way Ratner did.

McG has never made anything good. Why do you like the Charlie's Angels movies?

 

[dspoonrt]

McG has never made anything good. Why do you like the Charlie's Angels movies?

He made a handful of decent music videos in the mid 90s, but his film and TV work is indefensible dogshit.

 

[terry.330]

Laura- A sort of glamorous noir-lite murder mystery from 1944 starring Gene Tierney, Dana Ashbrook and Vincent Price. A beautiful and successful young woman is murdered in her apartment and a detective starts digging into the woman's past and her dubious acquaintances. But the more he digs the more he finds himself falling in love with her. There's a bit more to it than that of course but I don't want to give anything away. Gene Tierney is fantastic as the titular Laura, she really has that classic Hollywood screen presence. The supporting cast is also good and the direction by Otto Preminger is extremely solid.

 

[SouthtownKid]

McG has never made anything good. Why do you like the Charlie's Angels movies?

If you're incapable of enjoying a light, ridiculous spoof of action movie tropes, I don't know what to tell you. I'm not going to try to convince the doctor you're ready to live on your own out in the world, Rain Man. Bernie Mac in the second one alone makes them worth watching.

 

[terry.330]

I don't know man, I think the Charlie's Angels movies are painful and that's coming from a guy that enjoys Supernatural.

 

[Hattori Hanzo]

I'm with him. Charlie's Angels ain't bad.

 

[LoneSage]

Charlie's Angels, the first one, came out when I was in sixth grade. I loved that movie at the time, I thought it was cool as hell. It had a great energy to it and was perfectly cast. Sam Rockwell killed it and now I just remembered the inexplicable Thin Man character played by Crispin Glover. Oh shit, Tom Green as Chad! I think I watched it in a jampacked theater on a Friday night. Good memories all-around.

The sequel though, wtf. I won't even lie to the Kid and tell him I'll give it another chance. The sequel and Terminator Salvation made me realize McG got lucky once.