This page is for general discussion that is not necessarily directed toward a specific review (though you could also address that sort of topic here). Have a question or comment? Want to discuss amongst yourselves? Cut loose! I may also post things here that I think would be more fitting than in a review or on the Bulletin Board.
Feel like watching a video, but not sure which one? Here's the skinny on a few.
Since it's October, I'll list the top 3 films that scare the poop out of me (and might just do the job for you too). In no particular order:
ReplyDelete1) The Ring (I've only seen the American version, though I hear the original Japanese Ringu is also very terrifying).
2) Paranormal Activity (entire franchise so far)
3) White Noise 1 (the sequel is a very different kind of movie and not to be included on this list)
Top reccomended horror/comedies to watch:
ReplyDelete1) Cabin in the Woods
2) The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu
3) Stan Helsing
4) Transylmania
and for the extra point: it has humor but it's more of a freaking awesome action/horror (against Zombie Nazis!)
5) Dead Snow
I can't believe I forgot to mention Tucker And Dale Versus Evil. Let's make this number 1.5. Also a deconstruction of the horror genre.
DeleteFavorite time-travel movies:
ReplyDelete1) Timecrimes (Spanish film, but the subtitles don't interfere with anything else on screen; really great, clean story)
2) 11 Minutes (an indie film, also very cleanly done; takes place all in one house in [mostly] reverse order)
3) Hot Tub Time Machine (made me laugh more than almost any other movie)
4) Back To The Future (I'll cheat and treat the three as one film here)
5) 12 Monkeys (I loved the unique approach they took, especially at the ending)
6) Army Of Darkness (cult classic, great for quoting, and Bruce Campbell's best film IMHO; a.k.a. Evil Dead 3, but you can watch it without the first two)
And it's a TV series, but I would be remiss not to mention the phenomenal:
0) Doctor Who (modern era)
I haven't hardly reviewed any of the Foriegn Film category, but I feel compelled to mention that of those I've seen so far (primarilly on Netflix) have been really good. I particularly enjoyed Ip Man, Eden Log (which was no longer available to stream when last I saw, but it very much worth the watch if you get the chance, also it's in English somehow), Timecrimes, Dead Snow, I Saw The Devil, and Fish Story (though I'm not sure if FS is stremable or not, as I saw it on my cousin's copy).
ReplyDeleteSamuel L. Jackson tends to take "the shotgun approach" in acting (he acts in many many movies). Though to his credit it's because he loves acting, rather than because he wants to pad his chances of being in good movies. My 3 favorite of his films (at this moment) are:
ReplyDelete1) Pulp Fiction
2) Black Snake Moan
3) The Caveman's Valentine
Also not to be forgotten are:
DeleteDie Hard With A Vengence and
The Incredibles
If you think comics are for kids, then you're not reading the right ones. Well, I guess it's true as much as to say that TV or movies are for kids: there are some for kids, but there are others that are made for adults either due to content or to quality. Some of my favorite comics are pulp-ish ones. Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' Criminal is a great series (or series of series, as each mini tends to be a 4-issue run and about different characters and situations each time) whose title is descriptive enough. If you liked The Departed, then I highly reccomend Sleeper, also by Ed Brubaker: it's about a government agent under cover in a huge crime syndicate and he gets left out in the cold... and both government and crime organizations just happen to have super powers (the metahuman aspect is almost incidental to the story and you might even forget about it because the story and characters are so compelling). Similarly, Incognito (same creative team as Criminal) is about a super-criminal who turned state's evidence and is now in witness relocation. Possibly my favorite recent title is Near Death and it concluded last month, this time by a different creative team of Jay Faerber and Simone Guglielmini. It's about a (non-super powered) assassin who has a near-death experience, went to hell (or believes he did, either way it suffices), and now tries to fix his karmic balance by saving lives (though he knows he'll be lucky to live long enough to save such a large number). The character isn't a particularly nice guy, but he's easy enough to relate to in his plight, and he "has a certain set of skills" (if you haven't seen Taken, do so soon). While I'm sad to see the series come to an end, I very much appreciate it not dragging otu long after the writer runs out of story to tell (other series that I've loved that also do this are Sandman and the spinoff Lucifer). Returning to the Brubaker/Phillips pool, a series currently in print is Fatale. Like Criminal, it's a 50's-style pulp story, but the title-inspiring femme fatale is supernatural and there are a Lovecraft-style cult and dark beings in play. I love genre mash-ups and this scratches almost every itch I have.
ReplyDeleteThis next blurb is originally part of my review for Luther, but I think it would be as-well suited for this page, so I'll paste it here as well:
ReplyDeleteI know this is a television series rather than a movie, but I watched the whole thing over the weekend and I really liked it so I want to tell you about it. What I like about television series is that they can develop characters far more thoroughly than a two-hour film can. Either the BBC consistently creates fantastic television (which I tend to believe) or I've just been incredibly lucky with the series I've watched so far (Sherlock, Jekyll, Party Animals, Luther, Doctor Who: I strongly recommend them all). One of the factors I like so much about these British shows is that the seasons/series tend to be roughly 6 episodes. I like shorter runs because it makes it easier to watch the entire story and it's far less intimidating to start (for example, I really want to watch all of The X-Files, but in the back of my head I know it will take me a long long time to finish and so I keep putting it off). Also, the shorter year's-worth of programming tends to allow more quality per episode compared to pumping out a new episode every week for months on end. Sort of interesting is that American shows call a year's-worth a season and the collection of all seasons as a series compared to British shows calling the year's-worth a series (I'm not sure what they call the combined series; perhaps one of my UK readers could help me out with that)... you could note that the British shows tend to make one solid story arc across the entire series (also with a solid story per episode) whereas American shows tend to be more episodic and disconnected.
Robin Williams is best known for his comedic roles, but I have been far more impressed with his dramatic roles. My favorite Robin Williams dramas are:
ReplyDelete1) One Hour Photo (the best acting I've ever seen him do)
2) What Dreams May Come (really cool ideas here)
3) Good Will Hunting
Also good, but not as fantastic are:
4) Insomnia (unrelated to the Stephen King novel of the same name; fyi, not a lot of screen time for Williams)
5) The Final Cut
Just a heads up. Detective Dee does have subtitles, on netflix, they just arent the default option. You need to go into "audio and subtitles" to turn them on. I know this because Bruce Campbell once helped Detective D solve the case of the rampaging albino mega squirel.
ReplyDeleteIt occured to me today that The Big Lebowski is kind of a cross between a standard detective noir story and Winnie the Pooh. Am I crazy do you see it too?
ReplyDeleteOk, so I went to a 24-hour bad movie marathon called B-Fest (as in B-movies). It's like Mystery Science Theater 3000, but in stead of a guy and 3 robots making wisecracks about the movie, this has an auditorium of hundreds of college geeks and/or movie fans. It's a grueling night and day but it's a lot of hilarious fun. Here are my thoughts on some of the movies shown this year...
ReplyDeleteBreaker! Breaker!: Hilariously bad Chuck Norris movie. A good-bad movie, kind of like (but not nearly as iconic as) Troll 2
The Wasp Woman: Pretty lame. It made little sense and the waspiness was pretty lacking. If you want to watch a bad MST3K-style movie, then go ahead. Otherwise, just watch The Fly.
Steel: Pretty bad as well, but kind of funny/charming in that lame way. Kind of painful if you're a fan of the comic character, due to the gross dissimilarities from the print version, so pretend it has nothing to do with the DC property.
Black Belt Jones: Kung-Fu exploitation film greatness! I particularly loved the loud "pow" sounds whenever he hit somebody, like in a Bruce Lee movie.
Galaxina: I slept through the entirety of this one, but other attendees said it was like Barbarella but without any of the redeeming qualities.
Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman: Bad in so many ways but for some reason I like it. I think its that the characters are all so memorable despite the nonsensical plot.
Sorority House Massacre: I slept through much of this movie, and while I liked the creepy dream-sequences, it was pretty boring. And I hear from those that stayed awake that it was much lacking in massacres.
Beach Blanket Bingo: Actually not too bad for its time period. The physical comedy of the bumbling leader of the motorcycle gang is like F-Troop minus 100 IQ points (you read that right) and a lot of the ideals are dated. But many of the characters are fun anyway and I actually think the duet song "I think you think I thing" is a good point about expectations in a relationship and is probably a good conversation for most couples to have before misunderstandings get too big.
Steele Justice: Essence of action movie. Drunkard violent ex-cop (like Die Hard) takes on crime/drug lord, uses heavy artillery in a major city (like True Lies). The lead good guy is the "sweep the leg" douchebag sensei from the original Karate Kid.
The Barbarians: Actually an incredible movie. Oh man, I wish I grew up watching this movie. If you liked the original Conan, then you'll love this. All of the good attributes of Conan but with two barbarian brothers who have a hilarious lack of maturity at times.
I've been watching the show Supernatural lately. I like it because it's like a cross between Angel and The OC, two shows I really liked. I especially like the frequent peppering of film references, which I can pat myself on the back when I get it (almost every one so far, yay me). The last episode I saw had the brothers hunting a werewolf and claiming to be police detectives Landis and Dante (directors of the films (An American Werewolf In London and The Howling, respectively). I didn't get the reference off the bat, but I could tell by the look Sam gave Dean that it was a reference, so I looked it up (I had kind of an idea they'd be werewolf movie hints). Anyone else watch/ed the show and have thoughts to share?
ReplyDeleteOk, so: Gungrave. It's an anime, 1 season. The first episode seemed kind of interesting, but didn't nail me to the couch. Started of in a big armored truck where a scientist and a girl revive this Frankenstein-monster-type warrior to fight off some other super-science zombie/creatures that are attacking them. I liked that they didn't use dialogue to tell you flat out what's going on and let you put it together yourself (they give you enough to figure out what's important at the moment), but the characters weren't super compelling. Glad I watched teh second episode because it jumps to a huge flashback (decades prior) and spends over half the series telling how the Frankenstein guy and the head mobster that sent the goons to kill him were best friends most of their lives and rose from lowly street hoodlums to big-time gangsters. It's like The Outsiders and then Scarface. For the past-era has no super-science and the characters actually are compelling. We know where they're going to end up but the journey is totally worth it and we get to see who these guys really are. This is what I wish the Star Wars prequels had managed to accomplish better. It tells a huge chunk of their lives pretty thoroughly and it feels more like a series of movies than one show (I mean this in a good way). Also, for those of you who've seen the anime Death Note, remember how the story progresses and the fundamental problem changes and evolves pretty drastically from epiosode to episode (as might be dragged out over a much longer time in many American network TV shows)? This does that pretty much too. I like that by the time we catch up to the first episode again, we've been shown all of the characters who were in ep1 and how they grow into who we first saw. I didn't even notice them setting it up in some of these cases. There were some spots of dialogue in the early-middle episodes that I thought explained things a little too thoroughly like your'e supposed to in a show for small children (this is not), and at least some of it was I think translation/cultural difference issues ("his name is Blood War! That means the blood of the battlefield!" Yeah, I KNOW: I SPEAK ENGLISH! My theory on that one was that in the Japanese version had his name in English or another non-Japanese language such that it would be less obvious to the original audience.) But overall I'm digging it.
ReplyDelete