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

terry.330

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Well after essentially rubbing my brain in feces with House of 1000 Corpses and Terrifier 2 I needed something with some actual artistic value. So I got nicely stoned and watched:

Suspira- Easily in Argento's top 3 and a visual masterpiece. It's the kind of movie that reminds me why I love the horror genre and what it's capable of in the right hands. I watched the recent Synapse 4k release and it looks and sounds absolutely incredible. I had been putting off watching this for just the right time and this was definitely it.
 

100proof

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Witch Board - 80s trash. Hot lady (the gorgeous and sadly no longer with us Tawny Kitaen) uses a ouija board to talk to a 10-year-old dead boy who's actually a serial killer that slowly takes over her body. Maximum 80s hair (multiple mullets and Tawny has her full-on ginger frizz) and the world's most annoying medium are probably the highlights. Tawny also has a shower scene which would've been exciting in 1987 or whatever. A couple of amusing kills but it's mostly just unintentionally funny.
 
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terry.330

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Witch Board - 80s trash. Hot lady (the gorgeous and sadly no longer with us Tawny Kitaen) uses a ouija board to talk to a 10-year-old dead boy who's actually a serial killer that slowly takes over her body. Maximum 80s hair (multiple mullets and Tawny has her full-on ginger frizz) and the world's most annoying medium are probably the highlights. Tawny also has a shower scene which would've been exciting in 1987 or whatever. A couple of amusing kills but it's mostly just unintentionally funny.
There's also a sequel that's a bit better, no Tawny but the lead is still smokin'. It's a little more self aware and intentionally goofy. I enjoy both.
 

Tarma

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Drive - bluray - no, not the Ryan Gosling film, but the obscure 1997 Mark Dacascos flick.

Interesting one, it doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be a buddy movie, straight up action, or a screw-ball comedy. The fight scenes are brilliantly coreographed - way ahead of their time for 1997, when you compare them with some of the stuff you see in the likes of the John Wick franchise.

I quite liked Mark Dacascos' performance, and it's a shame he never went more mainstream (although there is some irony in that he is in a John Wick film - one of the sequels). The late Brittany Murphy is in it for a while, and gives a really odd-ball performance.

Worth a watch, but overall there is much better fare out there.


Raw Deal - 4K - one of Schwarzenegger's often overlooked films, sitting in between the moderate hit of Commando, and the international success of Predator. I've always really liked this, there's a certain 80s charm about it, even if it has nothing original going for it. I suppose it's interesting in that the character of Kaminski is fairly low-key, when compared with the larger than life characters Arnie would go on to play in the likes of Total Recall, T2, and True Lies.

Anyway, great transfer on this StudioCanal 4K release, well worth picking up on import if you like Arnie and / or cheesy 80s action films.
 

terry.330

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Drive - bluray - no, not the Ryan Gosling film, but the obscure 1997 Mark Dacascos flick.

Interesting one, it doesn't seem to know whether it wants to be a buddy movie, straight up action, or a screw-ball comedy. The fight scenes are brilliantly coreographed - way ahead of their time for 1997, when you compare them with some of the stuff you see in the likes of the John Wick franchise.

I quite liked Mark Dacascos' performance, and it's a shame he never went more mainstream (although there is some irony in that he is in a John Wick film - one of the sequels). The late Brittany Murphy is in it for a while, and gives a really odd-ball performance.

Worth a watch, but overall there is much better fare out there.
That's a fun one, used to be a VHS rental go-to. Agreed about Dacascos, he was a great action guy and always came off very likable. Not the best actor but he still should have been bigger.

If you liked Drive I would also recommend The Big Hit. Very similar in tone and heavy on action.
 

terry.330

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One Missed Call 2- Ugh, this was bad. Zero style, boring, soap opera level acting, half assed jump scares and no gore or interesting effects. It's just a total blah fest of cliches and mediocrity. Worst of all it's not even connected to the original and shoehorning in the phone call gimmick is totally pointless. A total waste of time.
 

NeoSneth

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Scream VI
The violence of the murders is cranked up, but the rest of the movie is worse and it knows it. You are given a pretty heavy clue as to who the killer is with a single line midway through the movie. The self awareness is painful to watch at times. Does this franchise have fans? because it pretends like it has fans, and I feel awkward for everyone involved. It's pretty hard to follow the historical plot, so a good chunk of the movie is them explaining how this all fits together and totally makes sense.
 

terry.330

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Scream VI
Even if it was good I don't think I could look at Courtney Cox's freakish plastic surgery face for an entire movie.

I honestly don't know who the series is for anymore. People our age know better and young people are too young to have experienced the series when it was still relevant. I guess it's still somehow riding on it's name and the originals status as a "classic" and that's enough to keep duping enough people.
 

pixeljunkie

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Scream VI
The violence of the murders is cranked up, but the rest of the movie is worse and it knows it. You are given a pretty heavy clue as to who the killer is with a single line midway through the movie. The self awareness is painful to watch at times. Does this franchise have fans? because it pretends like it has fans, and I feel awkward for everyone involved. It's pretty hard to follow the historical plot, so a good chunk of the movie is them explaining how this all fits together and totally makes sense.

I've never understood the perceived fandom with the Scream franchise....ever. I saw the first at release and was stoked - then immediately disappointed. Saw the 2nd to see if it was any better. It wasn't. It's somehow still going on....
 

Samson

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Encanto - Just saw it for the first time yesterday. I really don't understand why people are calling it one of Disney's "best" movies in recent time. I found it dull and extremely boring. The only time I ever felt interested was during the song Dos Oruguitas, which was really well done and easily the only enjoyable part of the movie for me. I just don't understand why so many people hype this movie up to oblivion, but then again that is the case for most movies today unfortunately.
 

NeoSneth

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Encanto - Just saw it for the first time yesterday. I really don't understand why people are calling it one of Disney's "best" movies in recent time. I found it dull and extremely boring. The only time I ever felt interested was during the song Dos Oruguitas, which was really well done and easily the only enjoyable part of the movie for me. I just don't understand why so many people hype this movie up to oblivion, but then again that is the case for most movies today unfortunately.

The same reason people hype Black Panther despite it's endless flaws. It's not white and not a princess, so you take what you can get. It had a few catchy songs which helped boost it. Not as good as CoCo IMO, but it did get more traction.
 

terry.330

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For a Few Dollars More- Fantastic. Leone at the top of his game. Not as epic as some of his others and even though it's till over two hours it's a pretty tight film. Eastwood doing his thing as always but this time backed by Lee Van Cleef in an equally awesome role. Klaus Kinski making a somewhat out of place appearance. Solid cinematography, lots of action and general manly stoic coolness with the Morricone score as the cherry on the top.

Freddy vs. Jason- This is way worse than I remember it and that was already pretty bad. The whole thing is just a total mess. It's super early 00s in all the worst ways and cringe inducing more times than I can count. The plot such as it is is absolutely embarrassing. But it's the script that really does it in, it's on another level of bad usually reserved for movies starring ICP. I mean this thing had been in development for decades and had multiple ideas pitched and this is the one they chose to make? Fucking hell.

Sorority Row- Trash but at least there are some fun deaths and a lot of T&A. BI'll be generous and say it gets a couple bonus points casting for Carrie Fisher and killing Audrina from The Hills and throwing her corpse away like a piece of trash.
 

Samson

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For a Few Dollars More- Fantastic. Leone at the top of his game. Not as epic as some of his others and even though it's till over two hours it's a pretty tight film. Eastwood doing his thing as always but this time backed by Lee Van Cleef in an equally awesome role. Klaus Kinski making a somewhat out of place appearance. Solid cinematography, lots of action and general manly stoic coolness with the Morricone score as the cherry on the top.

Freddy vs. Jason- This is way worse than I remember it and that was already pretty bad. The whole thing is just a total mess. It's super early 00s in all the worst ways and cringe inducing more times than I can count. The plot such as it is is absolutely embarrassing. But it's the script that really does it in, it's on another level of bad usually reserved for movies starring ICP. I mean this thing had been in development for decades and had multiple ideas pitched and this is the one they chose to make? Fucking hell.

Sorority Row- Trash but at least there are some fun deaths and a lot of T&A. BI'll be generous and say it gets a couple bonus points casting for Carrie Fisher and killing Audrina from The Hills and throwing her corpse away like a piece of trash.
The thing I didn't like about Freddy Vs Jason was when whenever the action started getting intense or whenever a chase scene started, the film would do some stupid bullcrap where the movie would drop framerate and look like a lagging youtube video. Also the main final girl in that movie (Lori I think was her name?) was so annoying. Most of the time she would just scream or act like a kid having a temper tantrum, unlike Nancy or Alice from the previous Nightmare movies who had more character and wit to them. It was worth watching for me solely because it is the last time Robert Englund got to be Freddy.
 

pixeljunkie

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The thing I didn't like about Freddy Vs Jason was when whenever the action started getting intense or whenever a chase scene started, the film would do some stupid bullcrap where the movie would drop framerate and look like a lagging youtube video. Also the main final girl in that movie (Lori I think was her name?) was so annoying. Most of the time she would just scream or act like a kid having a temper tantrum, unlike Nancy or Alice from the previous Nightmare movies who had more character and wit to them. It was worth watching for me solely because it is the last time Robert Englund got to be Freddy.

I remember enjoying the actual Freddy VS Jason fight at the end and that was it. EVERYTHING leading up to it was total garbage.
 

terry.330

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I remember enjoying the actual Freddy VS Jason fight at the end and that was it. EVERYTHING leading up to it was total garbage.
That fight has not aged well, it's like a really bad video game cutscene. Freddy doesn't even do anything cool, he just throws Jason around with his dream powers...it's also way shorter than I remembered.

The annoying lead actress is the least of the movies problems. It's just the worst possible thing they could have done in every way. Every single decision is wrong.
 

pixeljunkie

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That fight has not aged well, it's like a really bad video game cutscene. Freddy doesn't even do anything cool, he just throws Jason around with his dream powers...it's also way shorter than I remembered.

The annoying lead actress is the least of the movies problems. It's just the worst possible thing they could have done in every way. Every single decision is wrong.

hahah yeah, I have zero desire to ever revisit it. I also remember the cringe Dollar General Jason Mewes character.
 

terry.330

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Police Story 3: Supercop- Insane. This is when Jackie started to really push the envelope with more elaborate stunts and exotic locations. Big action, vehicle mayhem, way more shootouts and explosions than most of his older movies. Michelle Yeoh really putting in some work with the vehicle based stunts as well. Just incredibly entertaining and still a bit of humor but not too much and zero melodrama, the way it should be. It's been a while since I've seen the US Supercop cut of the movie but I didn't really notice too much of a difference like some of his other movies that were edited to shit. I got the 88 Films 4k set and it's awesome, hopefully Police Story 4 will get a release as well.
 

Samson

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A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master (1988) - This has always been one of my favorite Nightmare movies. It does take a weird turn for the series as it kills off the cast of Dream Warriors by the end of the first act of the film, however I do feel Alice is a cool replacement for Kristen. Also, the lack of Patricia Arquette is a bit weird, but I can understand she couldn't be in the film due to her pregnancy at the time. Part of the films script problems can be attributed due to the writers strike of 1988 that was happening during the films production, which resulted in some of the dialogue and decisions being weird. Regardless, it easily has some of the most iconic kills in the series and really excels in cinematography. The camera zoom-out during Sheila's dream was fantastic as well as the cool final fight between Alice and Freddy. Some of the effects in the movie (Like Debbie's cockroach death) were done by Screaming Mad George who directed the 1991 Guyver movie and also worked on Society. Overall, it does have some problems, but it's always been a guilty pleasure of mine. Really good film in the series in my opinion.
 

SouthtownKid

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Freddy vs. Jason- This is way worse than I remember it and that was already pretty bad. The whole thing is just a total mess. It's super early 00s in all the worst ways and cringe inducing more times than I can count. The plot such as it is is absolutely embarrassing. But it's the script that really does it in, it's on another level of bad usually reserved for movies starring ICP. I mean this thing had been in development for decades and had multiple ideas pitched and this is the one they chose to make? Fucking hell.
I did not hate this movie. It is garbage, but compared to the majority of the F13 movies, it's perfectly fine. It's not the worst of the Freddy movies either, unfortunately.

The one thing I did appreciate about this movie was the lack of bullshit, even if the lack of bullshit was only because they didn't have time for it since they needed to accomodate both Freddy and Jason in a limited runtime. Usually in the Nightmare movie formula, one character encounters Freddy and there's a period of time where no one believes them until eventually he starts going after all of them, a few people die, and then everyone finally wakes up to what's going on. But in this movie, as soon as Freddy shows up, everyone instantly gets on board. No bullshit fucking around, no scepticism. That, I liked. Everything else was average at best, but still better than Jason X, Freddy Goes To Hell, Jason Takes Manhattan, etc., etc.
 

100proof

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Yeah, guessed I missed the FvJ hate train earlier but I largely agree with Kid. It's not a good movie by any stretch of the imagination (bad CG, bad writing, cornball Freddy, the lead actress has nice tits but is a terrible actor and the rest of the acting isn't much better) but I'm not really sure what anyone expected considering the source material. All of the Friday movies are varying levels of trash (some more lovable than others) and while there are a couple of decent Nightmare movies, most of them are corny and cheap.

FvJ is what it is but it's at least competently shot and understands the two characters which is a low bar, to be sure, but a lot of the movies in those two franchises don't even reach that level.
 

terry.330

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I think I hate it more as a product of the time period than for it's actual quality. Which is still unbelievably low.

It's a shame that lead chick ruined her career (and probably life) by dating Edward Furlong and getting sucked into his vortex of scum. Not that she was a good actress but I wouldn't have minded seeing her sweet rack in a few more flicks.
 
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100proof

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I think I hate it more as a product of the time period than for it's actual quality. Which is still unbelievably low.

It's a shame that lead chick ruined her career (and probably life) by dating Edward Furlong and getting sucked into his vortex of scum. Not that she was a good actress but I wouldn't have minded seeing her sweet rack in a few more flicks.

Oof yeah, that's rough for her. She probably wasn't going to be a star but being pulled in to a drug addict's shitstorm is a great way to sabotage what little chance at a career you had. We could've at least gotten a few nude scenes out of her first...

2003 is right around the nadir for horror over the last 50 years. A lot of bad remakes and low-budget drivel. We were starved for good content outside of a couple of beacons of hope.
 

LoneSage

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FvJ was a movie you had to see on a Friday night. Summer of 2003 forever.

edit: every movie is made to be seen in the theater but some movies coupled with that audience participation transforms the viewing into a spectacle that can't be replicated at home.
 
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jro

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Hitting up some of my missed streaming stuff and a few re-watches:

Champions - dumb as hell but also undeniably entertaining if you check your IQ and just go with it. Harrelson can make just about anything watchable, and Kaitlin Olson looked less awful than usual. Really liked the ending. The nutshot on "retards" was such a good line.

The Offering - eh, maybe I'm just not one for Jewish horror. Blah, not recommended at all.

The Immaculate Room - could have sworn I had watched this but no, I had not, so watched it today as part of my incoming Kate Bosworth binge (she's in that weird Dracula movie with Justin Long, next on my list and I've also been meaning to rewatch Black Rock). It was not great, but also not bad. Had a nice sense of earned believability to it and a very good ending.

13 Sins - re-watch, didn't remember much from original viewing in 2019 or whatever. Quite enjoyable, nice sense of tension, nasty ending. Oddly, I spent half the movie thinking Brendan Fletcher (hi Uwe Boll!) should have been the lead, but then came to realize a beta cuck guy (I apologize but more eloquent euphemisms are not coming to me) works much better. I still really like it, holds up well. And Rise (Kye Kye Remix) still is still the most bizarrely unexpectedly awesome end credits song ever.
 
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terry.330

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Nosferatu: The Vampyre- 1979 remake of the FW Murnau classic by Werner Herzong. Klaus Kinski of course plays Dracula with the expected level of genuine creepiness and presence. Isabella Adjani plays Lucy with all of her porcelain vulnerability and Bruno Ganz is suitably cast as Jonathan Harker. This is an almost shot for shot remake which is at times bit of a hinderance to the movie considering both Herzog and Kinski's scope and range. The whole thing is very dreamlike and eerily calm to a degree that I felt didn't quite work all the time. It was never quite boring but it was often slow to a point that bordered on tedious. Thankfully there is some genuinely beautiful cinematography, landscapes and sets. Overall it was enjoyable and I have a feeling I'd actually enjoy it more on a second viewing after knowing what to expect.
 
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