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

[Hattori Hanzo]

Bought the Blu-ray in a 10 for 50 €. Not necessarily a $45 movie in my book but I still like it.

 

[Taiso]

I consider $45 the cost of entry to all the bonus materials. The movie isn't worth more than ten bucks to own, IMO. The only reason I even own a DVD of it is because it was part of that 'era' of cinema for me.

The score is a banger, though. There are only, like, three tracks to it (lol) but they are pretty stellar. Hard to believe Ennio Moricone was involved with it.

There IS an 'expanded' soundtrack for the flick that would be another curiosity to experience. I'm sure it's on YT. Looking at the running times for the tracks, they're all really short too. Curious.

Red Sonja (expanded) soundtrack

Red Sonja (expanded) soundtrack CD details and availability. Movie music by composer Ennio Morricone.

www.moviemusic.com

 

[100proof]

Wow, great timing. My sister said she wants us to go to the movie theater today and watch something. I know what we're going to see now. Cheers m8

Enjoy. Hope your sister is okay with the occasional jump scare and Raimi flood of bodily fluids.

I often wonder what it would have been like to be a fly on the wall of some of the cinema of my youth now that I am old and understand a lot more about the filmmaking process. Peter Jackson gave us a wonderful gift with his 'appendices' for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit (regardless of what you might think of that latter trilogy, the filmmaking process for them is still pretty interesting). I only wish that other productions would have had the foresight to document their efforts in greater detail.

It's less foresight and more cost-consciousness. Most movies simply don't have the time and the budget to do extensive behind-the-scenes/documentary style walkabouts. Especially now that physical media is a niche hobby so there's just no financial incentive to make them. The glory days of the early 00s - 2012ish when even the non-boutique studios were putting together lavish box sets and "Deluxe Edition" releases are long over... which is sad. A lot of that stuff was really interesting/fun. These days, it would just be hours of watching people film in front of green screens for most movies wearing mo-cap suits.

 

[Taiso]

This was one of the things I really liked about Kevin Smith before he turned into a sobbing old man. He actually talked frankly about the process of film making and showed a lot of it to us when a lot of industry types weren't really giving us that kind of access. He was a Gen X rebel and felt like 'one of us'. Man, his sense of irony was so great back in the 90s.

Not that Kevin Smith was ever a master film maker, but I felt like he was a lot more transparent about the entire process, even admitting he maxed out a bunch of credit cards to get Clerks made. That's one of the things that made his speaking engagements so much fun to watch before his pothead bathrobe phase. That John Peters Superman story will live forever in my heart.

 

[LoneSage]

Send Help - so I didn't read 100proof's review, I just saw he recommended it and it was a Sam Raimi flick, and that was good enough for me. So I went in completely blind. That said, I was surprised how average it was, and surprised even more that I enjoyed it - watching it in the theater with people was a good choice.

That said, I can honestly say it was the most predictable movie I have ever seen in my life. Every thing that happened, I predicted. Every little 'what a tweest!' moment, I knew was going to happen.

The vomit scene was big Raimi, but otherwise? I would be hard-pressed to think of it as a Raimi flick. Oh, it's also not a horror movie by any stretch.

My biggest takeaway is the theme is about people in toxic, abusive relationships, and how in those relationships it's not clear if the victim is really 100% innocent. The guy continually abuses the woman, and yet she keeps coming back. 100proof and my sister both felt the ending was unsatisfying, and I feel that was fitting in with the theme - in these kinds of relationships, sometimes there are no heroes.

Not a great film, but you know what, really glad I got to watch it in the theater. Like 100proof said, it's nice that this kind of movie can still exist and be watched in the theater. I woke up this morning not even aware Raimi made a new film and finished it watching one. Today was a good day.

 

[100proof]

The vomit scene was big Raimi, but otherwise? I would be hard-pressed to think of it as a Raimi flick. Oh, it's also not a horror movie by any stretch.

Spoiler:

The vomit, the ghost jump scare, the boar kill (with silly, excessive gore and eye popping), the eye gouging, the plane crash with dude getting stabbed with a fork, the multiple snap zooms on the tunafish on her face among other things, the Bruce Campbell/Classic cameos.. there are a LOT of Raimi-isms in this movie

As far as how to categorize it, I don't know that I'd call it a horror movie either but it has a lot of the trappings of a horror movie. It's a genre-bender if nothing else.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

The Mystery of Chess Boxing is still as great as it was when I first saw it. It's a potboiler "dumbass wants to learn kung fu" movie but just when things start to get boring the movie cuts to Mark Lung as the best villain of all time beating the shit out of someone with his five elements technique bullshit. That's for the whole movie until main dumbass gets trained properly by chess man and is found by Ghost Face Killer. Then the movie remembers the title and finishes with a pretty cool fight.

He's a killer, that's why.

I don't know how someone could ever hate this movie.

 

[terry.330]

Sisu: Road to Revenge- If you’ve seen the first one than you know what to expect. Now take that and crank it up a couple notches because this one gets real crazy. It’s not as strong story wise as it‘s much more openly a series of cartoonish set pieces with just enough to stitch them together. But that’s okay because it’s so fucking badass and violent that it makes up for it. It’s a shame this one didn’t do as well as the first, hopefully it’ll find a bigger audience on streaming because these movies deserve it.

Highly recommend both movies.

 

[max 330 megafartz]

Watched Kids In The Hall- Brain Candy tonight.
Yeah thats another 90’s movie that predicted current day.

 

[jro]

Can I just take a second to ask what in the f happened to Neil Marshall? I'm currently watching The Descent for like the eight time and it's still great, Dog Soldiers is awesome, Doomsday is always a really good time. Fassbender one not good but whatevs I suppose plenty of violence and Poots is nice to look at.

Then just garbage ever after.

Garland isn't heading there just yet but I'm getting a little worried.

 

[Taiso]

All I remember about The Descent is how badly I wanted to bang Natalie Mendoza in a cave. She was fine as hell in that movie.

 

[StevenK]

All I remember about The Descent is how badly I wanted to bang Natalie Mendoza in a cave. She was fine as hell in that movie.

You'd hope she'd be a bit tighter than that

 

[Taiso]

I was working on my own 'descent', if ya know what I mean.

 

[100proof]

Yeah, I watched The Descent again not too long ago and definitely remembered that the moment the monsters show up, it gets way less interesting (still a great movie though) and that there are multiple women in that movie who are girl-next-door fuckable.

Dog Soldiers is cool (and falls into one of my favorite sub-genres, the "monster siege" movie along with The Thing, Demon Knight, Feast and many others) but I think it's largely propped up by most werewolf movies being fucking awful which makes it look better by comparison.

 

[terry.330]

Yeah, Dog Soldiers tries a bit too hard to be badass and has some really terrible dialogue. Still a lot of fun though.

I think Doomsday is a bit underrated. It’s shlock almost perfected. Like if Paul WS Anderson’s movies were actually fun and R rated. Escape from NY meets Mad Max with a bit of Resident Evil and Braveheart.

 

[nuke sc]

Watched Kids In The Hall- Brain Candy tonight.
Yeah thats another 90’s movie that predicted current day.

Mr. November... Mr. December...

Brain Candy is amazing.

 

[terry.330]

Too bad we’ll never get a proper version of Brain Candy with the deleted scenes and original ending.

 

[nuke sc]

I don't know much about that other than one of the suits hating cancer boy or something and doing whatever he could to see it fail.

 

[Tarma]

What do you get when you put a movie together that has - Fred Williamson, Peter Fonda, Gary Busey, Robert Forster, Henry Silva, and Vanity?

Well, what you don't get is a decent movie.

What you do get is 1993's South Beach - a low budget action thriller, that's low on action, and even lower on thrills. The cast is completely wasted, the movie is all over the place trying to go in too many directions with what is passing for "plot"... this is not good, not even remotely.

Worth watching if you want to see how low some of the principle actors careers had sunk by the early-90s.

 

[Tarma]

Narrow Margin - pretty decent thriller from Peter Hyams. Anne Archer witnesses a murder and flees to the Canadian Rockies hoping she wasn't seen. ADA Gene Hackman goes after her to get her to testify and enter witness protection. Unfortunately, someone in his office has sold him out and now hitmen are trying to kill both of them.

Taut from start to finish, this clips along at a nice pace and is well shot. The plot is probably a little hokey in places, but this is a well made flick, and Hackman and Hyams fans won't be disappointed.

 

[Tarma]

Under Siege - 1992's Die Hard on a boat with Steven Seagal, Tommy Lee Jones, Gary Busey, and Erika Eleniak's bussom.

Very entertaining, although I think I prefer Seagal's more hard hitting stuff like Out for Justice and Marked For Death.

Great 4K release from Arrow.

 

[terry.330]

Rare Exports- After Sisu 2 I wanted to revisit this one. Glad I did, it’s probably the most unique and bizarre Christmas movie ever.

It’s about a little boy in rural Finland where everyone is a reindeer farmer. The local reindeer population is wiped out by what they think are wolves driven from their territory by a big drilling operation. Turns out it was actually feral elves and the drilling operation isn’t looking for minerals, they’re looking for the original Santa. The evil Santa from the old fairy tales that was buried under a nearby mountain hundreds of years ago.

i don’t want to spoil too much, if that setup sounds interesting watch the movie. It’s not a schlocky piece of horror comedy like you would probably expect. More of a surreal yet still grounded slice of Scandinavian light horror with a lot of heart. Highly recommended.

I also watched the 2 shorts that this was based on. They were decidedly more comical and also worth checking out.

 

[Hot Chocolate]

Twin Peaks: eps 28-30
-Rewatching the show at Alamo, Fire Walk With Me is next Saturday. Audrey Horne, that it.

Boyhood
-didn't finish it as the kid was annoying as all hell.

Send Help
-since he didn't use his normal writing crew this is the most( well almost ) unRaimi movie directed by Raimi which is why I liked it.

 

[joe8]

Has anyone seen the movie The Island (2005)? It has influences from other movies, such as THX 1138 and Blade Runner.

 

[Tarma]

No Joe, no one else has seen that movie. Only you.

jfc