What are you watching?

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

It's always interesting when two films come out at the same time that do the same story. Deep Imapct/Armageddon etc. Last night I watched Bombshell about super creep Roger Ailes. Earlier in the year I had seen The Loudest Voice and that's a hell of a mini series. Russel Crowe gives one of the best performances I've seen in movies or TV and the TV format gives the story a lot more room to breathe. It really leaves Bombshell with no where to go. I expected a black comedy or something a bit more cinematic but this is just a straight faced retelling of the story. TV is such a high standard now, it's shot on the same cameras the movies are shot on and there's nothing to pick between them for quality so you got to wonder whether there's a future for this sort of film. 2 hours is just not enough time to tell a story like this with any nuance. Although as it has no nuance it also arguable hits harder on the pre-MeToo side of the story so I'm sure it will have it's champions on that front.

I love MILLER'S CROSSING. BARTON FINK is possibly my favourite of their films

Watched this the night before. It's kind of a sister film to Millers Crossing (similar casts, written at the same time) so they make a good double bill. I love Barton Fink so take everything after this as me just nit picking at the sides. There's something about this film that feels a bit counterfeit to me. Now at this point in time the Coens were just making movies about movies and Barton Fink is definitely that but this film goes a bit further. It's hard to put my finger on it... I don't think symbolism and surrealism is their territory. I don't think their brains work that way and I'm not sure that at this point that they actually had anything to say themselves. It's almost like they're playing at being the type of filmmakers who do naturally work that territory. "What would Polanski do now?" It's very self conscious.

Sidenote, I was just reading up on the film. I see they have long planned to do a sequel called Old Fink and had gone so far as to discuss it with Tuturro. Apparently it will focus on an elderly Barton who's a professor at a university after dobbing in his mates at the house of unamerican activities. Last word on it was that they were waiting for Turturro to age into the role.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

David Fincher's Zodiac. I understand what he was going for with this. Do it as a very stripped down and realistic film. Kind of like the opposite of Se7en. But it's so dull, cliche and frankly overlong. Then I remembered a movie that took the same approach and was successful; Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer

The last good Fincher film is Fight Club. I've disliked everything he's done since.

[Paul L Scholar of Sleaze Find all posts View Profile Close Paul L]

Watched this the night before. It's kind of a sister film to Millers Crossing (similar casts, written at the same time) so they make a good double bill. I love Barton Fink so take everything after this as me just nit picking at the sides. There's something about this film that feels a bit counterfeit to me. Now at this point in time the Coens were just making movies about movies and Barton Fink is definitely that but this film goes a bit further. It's hard to put my finger on it... I don't think symbolism and surrealism is their territory. I don't think their brains work that way and I'm not sure that at this point that they actually had anything to say themselves. It's almost like they're playing at being the type of filmmakers who do naturally work that territory. "What would Polanski do now?" It's very self conscious.

Sidenote, I was just reading up on the film. I see they have long planned to do a sequel called Old Fink and had gone so far as to discuss it with Tuturro. Apparently it will focus on an elderly Barton who's a professor at a university after dobbing in his mates at the house of unamerican activities. Last word on it was that they were waiting for Turturro to age into the role.

I know what you mean, Dom. Objectively speaking, BARTON FINK is far from their best work (though also far from their worst) and it has an archness that I know grates for some people, but the film draws me in every time I stumble across it.

[Nabonga Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nabonga]

Hot Pursuit
Woke up in an absolutely foul mood. Made a pot of coffee and put this on.
I don't know why people rated this so low. This was fucking hilarious. Reese
Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara work great as a pair. I'm totally buying this
when I can find it cheap on amazon. A lot of fun! And my day was made.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

Rabid Grannies. Someone made a fan-edit combining the uncut version with the cut version's English dub.

Way too slow to start. The entire 1st act can be skipped. We wait over 30 minutes for something to happen. Once it finally, finally gets going it's pretty amusing with some good gore.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

Broken Arrow: When you've been with someone for a while you feel like you know everything about them, that there are no more surprises, but then the other day my girl confessed that she had never seen Broken Arrow! She had gone 38 years without seeing seeing this cinematic masterpiece. You better believe I put an end to that shit pretty quickly.

I seem to recall that this is not well thought of. For me prime Woo. In fact probably the best Woo. You've got Christian Slater, the man Christian Slaters mum called "the best actor of his generation", having an absolute blast playing against peak Travolta in one of those will they/won't they, repressed homosexual, good guy/bad guy, going to shoot at each other a lot but not hit one another because they're so into each other type relationships. Which is fantastic. And then you've got Woo at his best selling every moment. The musical stings at all the right points, the extreme close ups punctuating the shoot ups always on point. It's top stuff.

One thing I'd never noticed is that pretty much every line between Slater and the girl is a double entendre. There's a stretch at the end in particular where I don't think they have a line that doesn't sound dodgy. He jumps onto the train landing on top of her, they're laying on top oh each other and she says "Alright, you can come." A guard happens across them and says "This is where you two get off." They kill the bad guys and she says "You know you're still under arrest." He replies "Then you'd better take me in." I'm not sure any of it is intentional though. Need a screenwriters commentary on this...

[Nabonga Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nabonga]

Broken Arrow is underrated 4 sho.

The Courier
Savaged on imdb but I liked it a lot. I've always liked Olga Kurylenko and here she is front and center as an ex soldier now doing motorcycle courier stuff for shady people it seems. Her latest delivery turns out to be a cyanide device designed to take out a high profile target witness who can put away a shady real estate guy (Gary Oldman in what was probably his easiest paycheck ever) for life. The witness manages to survive through a fluke and Kurylenko tries to get him out of there but the bad guys seal the building and send in mercs to finish the job. Unarmed they have to use their wits to try and survive and somehow make their way out of there in one piece. This is one of those rail thin super model chick owns brutal brick shit house expert mercs type of things. That's always silly but here they at least try to make it a bit more plausible by having her use her wits and target her opponents weak points, which makes it more believable. She also takes a lot of beatings/almost dies a couple of times so it's not as one sided as usual. The scenes are well choreographed and exciting and they go all out with the gore at times. Very entertaining. The main bad guy inside the building is an awful actor and is completely annoying the whole film through. I hate him and hope he never works again. The story doesn't totally make sense but that's normal for these b action films. It was very enjoyable and stylishly made. Definitely buying this one.

This Means War
Terrible McG cack. Two "bad ass" CIA dudes waste departmental resources stalking a sorta cute chick (I'm sorry Hollywood, you're gonna hafta do better than Reese "Do you know who I am??!!!" Witherspoon to make this anywhere close to believable) in a competition to see which one of them she chooses as a boyfriend. Since both of them really like her, this means war obviously. Positively moronic stuff. Awful Chelsea Handler is the comedy sidekick giving terrible advice on Reece's characters dating situation and Til Schweiger skulks around as a menacing background threat they have to put aside their squabbles to take down. Also, I've never thought of this before but Tom Hardy is really weird and goofy looking from every angle except face front. But then again, he's starring opposite Chris Pine who looks like a creepy Thunderbirds puppet so whatever.

Nattmara
Pretty damn solid Arne Mattsson movie. Sure he cribs from Hitchcock and Polanski but it's very well made and suspenseful. I just wish he'd toned down Gunnar Hellstrí¶ms performance. The very first time he enters the frame it's obvious he's involved in the murder the story's built around. Every other scene he's in he looks super suspicious, haha... throwing creepy glances at everyone and everything. Ulla Jacobsson is on point though as the scared and alcoholic woman who's targeted for murder. Like Mannekí¤ng I Rí¶tt (the likely inspiration for Blood And Black Lace) this too takes place in a fashion house but this is in black and white even though it was made 7 years later. I would love to see this properly restored and released on blu-ray. Mannekí¤ng I Rí¶tt too for that matter.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

All Hollow's Eve: 2012-ish I think? From the guy who directed Terrifier and I didn't know this was a thing. Pretty good anthology flick. Actually, very good if it weren't for the 2nd short which really sucked due to a terrible costume choice. 2 out of 3 aint bad as they say.

[Nabonga Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nabonga]

Sonic The Hedgehog
As far as video game movies go, pretty much perfect. Despite Jim Carrey
being 90's obnoxious (that schtick really should've stayed there) I very much
loved this. Lots of fun.

Overboard
Genderswap remake of the Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell classic (?) with the brilliant
Anna Faris (besides Kaitlin Olson, the funniest actress out there) and some mexican
dude who also was pretty funny and likeable. I really enjoyed this. I haven't seen the
original film because I don't really care about Goldie Hawn and don't like Russell enough
to bother. It could've been a little shorter but it held my attention. Strange seeing Per
Graffman show up in this.

Hollywood Love Story
Cynical Vice mockery of terrible, vapid delusional millenial douche bags/baguettes who think they're
gonna make it in Hollywood. None of them are talented (maybe the mentally ill art chick if she
can get the help she obviously so desperately needs to get her shit together) and all are intensely
annoying people glued to their phones in the race for likes. Somewhere along the way society fucked up.
Funnily enough the whole thing is narrated by Paris Fucking Hilton of all people. A person who was born
super rich and extremely connected before she even could speak. Someone like that talking about how you
gotta work hard to make it in this business is quite frankly ludicrous. Still it's a fascinating train wreck to watch.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

Memory: The Origins Of Alien:
Interesting look behind the scenes at the inspiration and making of Alien. I never knew Walter Hill was originally attached to direct. Imagine if that had gone ahead. Nothing against Hill, he's a damned fine director, but if he'd made Alien only the likes of the denizens of this board would have ever heard of the film. Then Hill moved on because he didn't think a lot of the script, it came to Ridley and he had the pull to insist on Giger as designer. Anyway decently entertaining and they tell you some really disgusting things about wasps.

Alien:
As a follow up. It's a while since I saw it and I was the never the massive fan a lot fo people are. i like enough to have owned the VHS, the DVD and now the lovely google play copy but I prefer the sequel. Things that stuck out to me on this viewing. Why are those Alien eggs fresh? It's sort of inferred that this place has been abandoned for years, if not decades, if not centuries. Is there no expiration date on an Alien egg? Seems strange. The scene where the cat watches the Alien kill Harry Dean Stanton is the most cat scene any cat has ever been a part of. Why does the ship have clear self destruct instructions? I've never seen any mechanical thing that had writ in bold instruction on how to make it explode. This thing would be worth billions. As the owner of the ship why would you take your chances that one of your cabin fever riddled crew wouldn't lose his shit, get drunk and blow the ship sky high for kicks? Super handy when you have an alien but I see no other reason why you would have this. Seems to be a common feature in starships though.

[Alex K. Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Alex K.]

I found this site that shows all the good shit on sites like Tubi by IMDB rating: https://reelgood.com/genre/horror/on-tubi_tv?offset=300 and we all know IMDB isn't the most accurate but it's better than nothing. Anything rated 5 or above has to be at least passable. I'm curious what new horror shit is out there remaining undiscovered as we all are. Law of averages and shit and all that; if there's 10 million shit horror films dumped on the market every year surely, surely now, there has to be a few good ones?

Enter, The Dead (2011). https://tubitv.com/movies/447843/the_dead

I like to think of this as Hell of the Living Dead but good. Great zombie film, solid acting, great gore and makeup, a film worthy of your time.

[Nabonga Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nabonga]

Ann & Eve
Later Arne Mattsson movie. Apparently he was bitter while making this. It's meandering
and slooow. Marie Liljedahl and Gio Petre hoing around the Balkans should not be this boring.
The print that was put out on dvd in Sweden is censored apparently. The oily threesome with
the dwarf playing piano is optically blurred in a very annoying distracting way. Way to make an
already plodding film much worse. SWV did put out a different version but as much as I love Marie
Liljedahl I can't be arsed to track it down.

[Dom D Spoon! Find all posts View Profile Close Dom D]

Final Analysis: I have a well documented addiction to 90s neo-noir but somehow this one slipped through the net. Glad to finally catch up with it as it's actually very watchable. For the most part it feels like a grand reproduction of 40s noir with some Kim Basinger action and nods to Vertigo thrown in. Then at the finale it ends and then ends again and then come back for another twist and another ending in absurd, gialloesque fashion. Lacks style to be a classic but for a decidedly mainstream thriller it's a good bit of fun.

[Gary Banks Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Gary Banks]

Horror Of The Blood Monsters-The only way I can watch this film is with the Sam Sherman commentary. For some reason, I get relaxed every time and have, on a few viewings, drifted off to sleep. Was feeling pretty sleepy about the halfway point tonight, but rallied and stayed awake. Maybe next week when I want to take an hour nap,I'll pop this in and see if it works again.

[Nabonga Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Nabonga]

The Rock
Michael Bay's masterpiece. A bloody good time. I never did understand how that heart injection would prevent your skin from melting off but whatever. I love this film. Excellent cast, fast paced and exciting. This could very well be the best action movie of all time.

Cutthroat Island
Geena Davis's disastrous vanity project. She must've had some magic poon to make that happen. To be fair, it didn't deserve to tank that bad but it's an awfully bland film. Frank Langella is the best thing about it. It's also painfully long. I checked my watch several times. A lame duck.

One Crazy Summer
Inspired 80's lunacy. I loved every second. John Cusack apparently hates it but then again, he is a boring twat. This is way overdue for a good blu-ray release. Demi Moore was super cute here.