Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 31, 2023 1:11:46 GMT -5
THE BODY SNATCHER (1945) This Universal RKO Picture stars Boris Karloff as a medical grave robber, inspired by Burke & Hare. It is based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson of Jekyll & Hyde fame. It’s directed by Robert Wise of Star Trek: The Motion Picture fame (of his wide range of movies I'm choosing that one just to provoke PG Cooper). And Bela Lugosi makes an appearance. By the way, I’m still waiting for SnoBorderZero to watch Son of Frankenstein. Anyhoo, it has come to my attention that I haven’t really watched any movies (or even interviews) in which Karloff speaks. Did he really sound like the Grinch in real-life? If so, Universal wasted this guy’s time and career. Yeah, Frankenstein is great and all, but you also have the goddamn Grinch. What an amazing voice we really only got to enjoy in the Grinch — and here! Karloff is phenomenal in this role. The movie is okay. It’s just Burke & Hare. Go watch the John Landis movie if you’re interested in that subject. Dude’s an expert in dead bodies (too soon, Doomsday?). But Karloff eats up the screen in all his Grinch-like glory. Who won the Oscar that year? And why wasn’t it Karloff? But a more pressing question is, when is SnoBorderZero gonna watch Son of Frankenstein?
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 31, 2023 7:42:12 GMT -5
Film Thirty-One: The House That Jack Built (2018) I’m a pretty big Lars Von Trier fan, especially in this late phase of his career, so it’s maybe a bit odd that I waited something like five years to see his most recent film. I was holding out to see the unrated version, which proved to be harder to find than I expected it would be through streaming and the like (the edited version is everywhere). That probably wasn’t really that necessary (the difference between the two is something like a single minute), but I am glad I finally crossed this one off just the same though my opinions of it are a bit mixed, which is fine because this is… uh… not a movie that invites uncomplicated enjoyment. In terms of structure this seems to be acting as a companion piece to Von Trier’s previous film Nymphomaniac in that both are structured as a conversation/debate between its central character and someone else about the life they’ve led to that point, but this one is about a person whose life has been defined by violence rather than sex. The difference of course is that there are rational ways to argue about the morality of the life of the lady from Nymphomanic, there are no such rational arguments to had about the sociopathic serial killer from this film so these “debates” mostly serve to explore this guy’s self-conception and maniacal ego. In some ways a movie getting into the mind of a killer like this has been done before, most notably in American Psycho, but Lars Von Trier is obviously going to add his own edgelord flavor to thing and man… even for him this thing is assaultive. In many ways it seems like the work of someone trying to burn all his bridges and it’s going to be a bit depressing if this turns out to be his last feature film (which is possible given the director’s health concerns). Still, Von Trier is not one to half ass things and there’s definitely some audacious work on display here and whatever’s off-putting about it is decidedly intentional. His visual style is as strong as ever and he puts some pretty audacious stuff into the film like the final reveal of who he’s talking to this whole time and why. The film can also be read as something of a metaphor for filmmaking, an interpretation that’s probably confirmed by Von Trier’s use of clips from his past movies in one sequence, which seems like a particularly self-loathing statement from Von Trier. Parts of the movie like that feel exhilarating, but other parts feel a little indulgent. I don’t think this needed to be two and a half hours and I’m also not sure that Matt Dillon is really the right person to cast as “Jack.” This is a character who’s supposed to exude a certain kind of pretension and I don’t think Dillon really does that. Frankly I suspect that he’s here more because he was the biggest “name” who Von Trier could find who’d be willing to associate themselves with such material. Overall I have to admire the audacity of all of this but out of Von Trier’s last four films I would say I definitely prefer Antichrist, Melancholia, and Nymphomaniac. This one would see to be that style brought to its limit, maybe even past its limit, and if Von Trier is able to return to filmmaking this would probably be the place to re-invent himself even if the last phase was fruitful. ***1/2 out of Five
Happy Halloween!
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 31, 2023 9:59:32 GMT -5
DAY THIRTY-ONE: The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993) - 30th Anniversary
Thirty years of The Nightmare Before Christmas, huh? It almost seems hard to believe, and yet, here we are. So, as someone who grew up as pretty big Tim Burton fan, one would think that this movie would be one of my all-timers. Well, not really, no. Don't misconstrue that as me saying that I dislike this movie -- that couldn't be farther from the truth -- it's just that I've always simply found this movie to be good, not great. And yet, curiously, the sort of infectious cultural impact it's had in the years since its release has very much infected me. Just this year, for instance, I got a special t-shirt off of Teepublic that's a takeoff on the Blue Moon beer label, but in Nightmare Before Christmas style, it's become Halloween Moon beer, made by the Halloweentown Brewing Company label. So, what is it, exactly, about a movie I find to be good and not great that it's able to still have such a hold over me? The answer's simple: vibes. This is very much a movie where the tone, vibes, and overall air of creativity on display is able to carry a lot of it, and successfully so. Because, let's be honest, Jack Skellington and Sally aren't the most vividly-defined characters with complicated arcs; the characters and story of this movie are very simple and straightforward; that's what happens when a movie just runs about 71 minutes. And yet, they still work because of this movie's infectious vibes. From the opening tune of This Is Halloween, this movie envelops you in its world and atmosphere and charms you with its various quirks and eccentricities. The stamp of Tim Burton is clearly all over this thing, and effectively so. Both he and Henry Selick work together to make sure that the filmmaking is strong enough to carry us through the simple story so that the experience feels fulfilling. The visuals and general ideas on display do a lot of heavylifting there, but of course, the songs are all bangers, too. So, again, it's all about the vibes with A Nightmare Before Christmas. Not to discount anybody who legitimately loves the characters, because they absolutely have their charms. But you combine those with the infectious enthusiasm on display with the visuals and overall filmmaking, and it's not hard to see why this Nightmare is still haunting after thirty years.
***/****
Happy Halloween!
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Doomsday
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Post by Doomsday on Oct 31, 2023 18:07:20 GMT -5
And now the final installment of this year's series of Doomsday watching horror movies he's never seen before for Halloween......
Don't Look Now (1973)
Talk about a movie that had me invested and on the edge of my seat for reasons that I don't think I've ever experienced. I knew this was some sort of cinephile horror classic, a movie people would reference to put their moviegoing credentials on display online. This time I did it right and I went in knowing nothing which in this case was a very good decision. The first scene shows John and Laura Baxter hard at work in their home while their children play outside. Moments later John gets a peculiar feeling and rushes outside to find his daughter drowned. Months later John and Laura are in Venice, Italy where John is restoring a church when they have odd run-ins with a psychic set of sisters as well as visions of a young child wearing the same red coat their daughter was wearing before she died. The really cool thing about this movie is that you don't know where this movie is going until literally the very end. You sit there guessing, wondering what the psychics might predict. You wonder what their intentions are. What about the mysterious figure in red? Is that related? How are the police involved? It's not uncommon to have twists and turns especially in horror films but I can't recall any where the entire story and direction are hidden leaving the viewer wondering but also transfixed. And the final image of the reveal of the person in the red coat was legitimately disturbing. Considering some of the junk I watched for Halloween this month, this was a nice way to go out. That sex scene was something else though. It was awkward, a little loopy, at one point was Julie Christie having sex with Donald Sutherland's armpit? Ah well, creative liberties I suppose. A so says Doomsday Now everybody get back to the film club, all of you. Oh so you can rewatch a bunch of slasher movies for this thread but don't have the cajones to get a recommendation from Drac or Coop? Get with it!
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 31, 2023 18:26:20 GMT -5
Now everybody get back to the film club, all of you. Oh so you can rewatch a bunch of slasher movies for this thread but don't have the cajones to get a recommendation from Drac or Coop? Get with it! Lol, somehow, I just knew you were gonna say something like this at some point this month.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Oct 31, 2023 18:38:24 GMT -5
How it started... How about any of the old timers, IanTheCool Nilade thebtskink We basically ignore time limits these days so if you want in there won't be much in the way of deadlines. How it's going... Now everybody get back to the film club, all of you. Oh so you can rewatch a bunch of slasher movies for this thread but don't have the cajones to get a recommendation from Drac or Coop? Get with it!
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 31, 2023 20:05:31 GMT -5
At least Doomsday had the foresight to include a movie that'd fit for this series in my latest recommendations. Two birds, one stone. So, that's me done for this round.
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IanTheCool
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Post by IanTheCool on Oct 31, 2023 21:35:24 GMT -5
October 31 Halloween Selection Sleepy Hollow
Tim Burton seems like a great choice for the big screen adaptation of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman. It certainly looks good and is evocative of a certain mood and place. The headless horseman effects work well also.
But I have to admit that the movie itself sort of comes off as flat. It feels stilted in a way, like its really just putting this story onto the page without becoming its own living, breathing film. It was fine, but only that.
6/10
Bonus Selection The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
After we decided to throw in this Disney classic short. Its funny how you only remember the good parts of these things when you are a kid, because I forgot how long it takes to get to the good part. The animation of the horse chase is still solid though.
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Oct 31, 2023 22:23:46 GMT -5
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN (2003) / THE HAUNTED MANSION (2003) 2003 was 20 years ago. We were blessed with Kangaroo Jack. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner fought in a playground. Will Ferrell went streaking. Chris Rock ran for President. Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson were in anger management. Nightcrawler attacked the White House. We got not one but two Matrix sequels. Jim Carrey played God. We searched for Nemo. Shrek played the Hulk. Arnold Schwarzenegger told us to talk to the hand. Shit got real in Bad Boys II. Tobey Maguire broke his back on Seabiscuit. Freddy fought Jason. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson got lost in translation. Sean Penn lost his daughter. Uma Thurman got her revenge. There was... two... three... Christmas classics. Mike Myers brought a Dr. Seuss classic to life while Jack Black taught us how to rock. Tom Cruise was the last samurai. Ewan McGregor caught a really big fish. And of course... Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King had a 0% chance of winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards. This was also the year in which Disney released two movies based on their theme park rides to wildly different results. I'm not gonna shit on Eddie Murphy's Haunted Mansion. Honestly, it's a perfectly fine. I didn't care too much for its Bram Stoker's Dracula inspired plot, but the scenes involving the mansion itself were a lot of fun and I think kids will (and have) enjoyed it. But... to compare it to Pirates of the Caribbean is almost a joke. One feels like a Disney Channel Original Movie while the other is a genuine Hollywood blockbuster. PhantomKnight and I are the only ones here that like these movies, so I won't say much except that the original (the only one I rewatched for this thread) still holds up. Johnny Depp is awesome as Jack Sparrow. I do enjoy Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly. The supporting cast is great. The music is awesome. The action scenes are great. It is a ghost story -- so you can enjoy it on Halloween too. That's mostly it for this year. Hope you all had a fun Halloween. See ya next year. It'll still be the 31st for a few more hours on the west coast. Maybe I'll squeeze in an extra movie or two for Doomsday and SnoBorderZero. Ciao.
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PhantomKnight
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Post by PhantomKnight on Oct 31, 2023 23:16:29 GMT -5
October 31 Halloween Selection Sleepy Hollow
But I have to admit that the movie itself sort of comes off as flat. It feels stilted in a way, like its really just putting this story onto the page without becoming its own living, breathing film. It was fine, but only that.
6/10 I'd hardly call it flat. I'd say Burton's passion for the story is all over it.
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Mar 12, 2024 16:41:03 GMT -5
31 DAYS OF HALLOWEENSALEM'S LOT (1979)Salem's Lot is the story of a small town invaded by vampires. In America, it was released as a 3-hour TV mini-series and in Europe it was a 2-hour theatrical film. Baby Boomers and Generation X seem to favor the TV mini-series since it's a better adaptation of its source material - a Stephen King novel. Millennials, however, may gravitate towards the European Cut. The vampire scenes are awesome, but the small town drama is like watching paint dry. Most younger viewers aren't gonna tolerate a 3-hour version of this story and the 2-hour version isn't that great either. Salem's Lot, really, just seems to be a generational thing. RETURN TO SALEM’S LOT (1987)Gen X adores the original Salem’s Lot (although it was boring shit) and detest this sequel/soft-reboot. Foreshadowing of things to come? I actually didn’t mind this one at all. It wasn’t particularly scary (not that it needed to be) or thrilling, but I did find myself invested in the story. This guy and his son move into a small town that’s almost fully populated by vampires. Instead of attacking them, they welcome them into their society. They want to move away from human blood because of AIDS and the crack epidemic (I’m serious) and have moved to animal blood. So they want to form a truce with the humans. That’s all fine and dandy until the dad realizes that there’s other ulterior motives. As I said, the movie is pretty good. It has an interesting take on vampires. There is one glaring flaw, however, and that’s the acting. It’s atrocious. But oh well. Some may find that amusing. 1godzillafan, the new Salem Lot wasn’t worthy of a theatrical release, according to David Zaslav, so it going straight to Max this year.
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Dracula
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Post by Dracula on Mar 12, 2024 17:04:23 GMT -5
At least it's not a tax write-off...
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Neverending
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Post by Neverending on Mar 28, 2024 16:12:17 GMT -5
Film Twelve: Pacific Heights (1990) Yuppie Horror Installment 3: While The Stepfather predated Fatal Attraction and Dead Calm was different enough that it didn’t really need to live in its shadow, Pacific Heights is the first of the yuppie horror films to be pretty obviously inspired by the success of that Adrian Lynne film in 1987. Here we are once again treated to a pair of upper middle class people (albeit a little younger this time) who find their lives turned upside down when a crazy person shows up in it. This time we look at a young couple (Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith) are the new owners of an apartment building that they have purchased at great risk by taking out a mortgage that they can only pay if they collect all their rent payments promptly. The plan is upended when a man named Carter Hayes (Michael Keaton) becomes one of their first tenants and promptly begins acting strangely. He makes noise all through the night but never answers the door and his rent payments haven’t shown up either and when these inexperienced landlords try to evict him he finds a number of ways to dodge the orders. The film is in certain ways a 1990s answer to Cape Fear (it was made a year before Martin Scorsese’s remake) in that it’s about a psychopath who terrorizes a family without ever really breaking any laws and occasionally making them look like the bad guy. Unlike Cape Fear, Carter Hayes’ motivations are never entirely clear. Sometimes he comes off like he’s merely a con man who hopes to profit from what he’s doing, other times he seems like he just gets off on causing mischief, and sometimes he seems like a straight-up psycho. The goal of the movie is to put you in the shoes of these landlords who suddenly find themselves in the middle of this kafka-esque spiral of trouble. However, the movie sort of undercuts this by making its protagonists (but particularly the Matthew Modine character) almost impossible to relate to or sympathize with. The Modine character is a flat out impulsive moron who brings most of his problems on himself by getting ridiculously aggressive and making mind-bogglingly stupid decisions at every turn and never fucking learns. He makes the boyfriend in Paranormal Activity look calm and collected by comparison. The Melanie Griffith character is a bit more likable and proves to be more capable than she looks by the end, but she’s also under-developed and Griggith’s performance isn’t much better than Modine’s. Michael Keaton obviously gives the standout performance here, but I still don’t know that I’d really call Carter Hayes a particularly good villain. In fact I strongly suspect that earlier versions of the script (or perhaps early cuts of the film even) had Hayes being less of a dangerous psychopath and more of a jackass trying to rip people off and that this was changed at the last minute by a studio note that demanded that the film play more like a thriller and that a bunch of shots of Keaton behaving like a sinister creep be added which don’t really get followed through on. There’s a really bizarre scene with Hayes right at the very beginning of the film that seems to be completely incongruous with everything that comes after and I can’t help but wonder if this is a residual piece of that alternate version of the film. Who knows, at the end of the day this just isn’t nearly as good of a film as it could have been. It’s certainly beneath the dignity of director John Schlesinger (who seemed to have fallen off in a big way during the 80s) and is generally just kind of forgettable. ** out of Four31 DAYS OF HALLOWEENPACIFIC HEIGHTS (1990)Life after The Joker wasn't too kind to Bob the Goon.I'm a sucker for a good 1990's thriller and Pacific Heights is no except. It stars Michael Keaton, in his post-Batman role, as a mysterious rich guy who moves into an apartment in San Francisco and turns his landlord's lives into a living nightmare. They're played by Matthew Modine and Melanie Griffith. These type of movies usually involve characters that make stupid decisions and Pacific Heights is no exception. First, they let this guy move into the apartment without making a deposit. Then, they start a pissing contest when he begins to annoy his neighbors. And finally, the Matthew Modine character gets so enraged that he beats up the Michael Keaton character and gets a restraining order. Can you imagine being kicked out of your own property - by your tenant? Crazy! But that's what makes the movie so much fun to watch. It's like an absurd version of real life. Or at least it's supposed to be. If you go to the IMDb boards for Pacific Heights, you'll see a thread with landlords sharing their own horror stories. That sounds... incredibly bad. Really, that's the plot? I always thought it was like Cape Fear but in an apartment... which also is a shitty concept. But yeah, I'd totally rent to Michael Keaton as long as he stays in Birdman character at all times. I do like the Jennifer Lawrence gifs though. It's making it very difficult to concentrate at work. Woah. Did DeSantis do something… good?? www.wptv.com/news/state/florida-gov-ron-desantis-signs-law-squashing-squatters-rights
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