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Movies You've Seen Recently |OT| June 2017

Fassbender hamming it up with himself is better than that nasty ass puppet they came up with for that Joss Whedon induced mess. Alien 3 and AVP are also better than Resurrection tho.

Nine year old me didn't know how to deal with that hybrid thing at the end. Haven't seen the movie since.
 

lordxar

Member
From the actual Alien franchise Rez is third best...or at least tied with 3. I have yet to see Covenant but I'm seriously doubting it could top either 3 or 4. Prom doesn't count and AvP's are a whole other thing.

Full Metal Jacket Somehow I end up watching this at least once a year. Woke up today and fired up Netflix to see what caught my eye. Hey FMJ....hmm....its been a while. Two hours later... I really dug the full movie this time. A lot of times I watch the good half and stop but I really enjoyed being absorbed into Vietnam during the 60's from the music to the bang bang.

Hardcore Henry Keep your eye on that bucket cuz I'm about to fill it up. So this wasn't actually the vomitron I expected even though some shots were a bit hectic. I did not really enjoy it though. Cool idea, decently executed but just not that satisfying in the end.
 

Toothless

Member
Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is one of the most reverent adaptations I've ever seen. Nostalgic memories popped up time and time again while watching it, making me realize just how much the books were a part of my childhood. The gorgeous animation and wacky humor really capture just what Captain Underpants was when I was a kid. It's hard to say if one could really enjoy this film without growing up with that material, but I'd have to imagine it's still outrageously funny on its own terms. It lacks true heart, but that's fine for this type of animation. Hart and Middleditch fit their roles surprisingly well, and Helms is perfect as the titular Captain. Jordan Peele steals the show as an over-the-top nerd, but really this entire voice cast is great. Again, the animation beautifully transfers the illustrations to CGI, and it's just a ridiculously fun time. Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie is joyously obnoxious, perfectly translating the witty source material to the big screen in a truly fun fashion. Snot kidding. 7/10
 
My Cousin Rachel is a very well shot and acted film, with great music, that is really very dull. The story and the central mystery are never quite gripping enough, and nowhere steamy enough, for an ideally sexual or sensual story its remarkably chaste. There's some interesting ideas and themes here about the patriarchy, male dominated worlds, and a womans own agency to make her decisions, but they're just not 'present' enough to elevate the film.

It's extremely well acted, Sam Claflin and Holliday Grainger in particular are very good, but I was spectacularly unimpressed with Rachel Weisz in such a key role as Rachel, and there's shockingly little chemistry between herself and Claflin. There's very little flow between the scenes, and as said the lack of sex or even vaguely sexual energy really just makes its very boring.

The weak narrative and central mystery, unconvicing acting and lack of chemistry, together with a severe lack of steaminess, combine to sink My Cousin Rachel and made the whole long (it felt longer than it was) running time feel like a drag.
 
I've been on a Five Came Back bender since the show came out, and it's paying off.

Stagecoach (1939)
It's a pretty good film, with really charming and compelling characters, excellent visual direction, and a surprising amount of restraint.
I like that they didn't make the big chase the end of the picture, choosing instead to have an extended denouement where tension is favoured over spectacle.

It's culturally insensitive a lot of times, but that's not a shock to anyone.

My Darling Clementine (1946)
This is a damn fine western. Telling the almost mythic story of Wyatt Earp and the OK Corral in an intimate fashion. Despite the epic grandeur of the landscapes and towering heroes that populate the narrative, they managed to capture the town's humanity and pioneering spirit in what ought to be a revenge film.

Special note goes to the masterful compositions in the cinematography, which are (mostly) subtle but compelling.

Highly recommended.

The Best years of Our Lives (1946)
It is greatly admirable that despite the potential for embellishment and exploitation, the film deals with its subject matter with restraint and honesty. "The Best Years of Our Lives" manages to tell an affecting and touching story about WW2 vets returning home with internal and external scars, into homes and family also changed by the war.

It is worth mentioning that the director William Wyler was a disabled WW2 vet, who flew on bombing missions as a cameraman where he lost his hearing during a flight. It's important because this experience may have allowed him to direct the actors towards realistic and powerful performances. The camerawork, from Citizen Kane cinematographer Gregg Tolland, is unflashy and unpretentious. This allows for long takes where the characters truly come to life and powerful moments where the costs of war come clear.

The film is around 3 hours long, but it allows for scenes to play out naturally, and the plot isn't as important as characters being fleshed out organically. Terrific film.

It Happened One Night (1934)
Really charming and funny movie. The resolution to the plot kinda dates it though.
Watched it on a trans-Pacific flight, so I wasn't in the physical condition to be critical.

I tried watching Tampopo in a flight. I thought it was just gonna be fun food porn, but then I got to a scene which was very awkward to watch on a plane with kids and Japanese senior citizens. You know the one.
 

SeanC

Member
Red River - On a Howard Hawks tear lately and finally got this one off my list. It's a gorgeous and ambitious movie. John Wayne gives a fantastic performance and plays a total asshole who's greed and selfishness just starts to take over (shades of Bogart in Treasure of the Sierra Madre here, pretty much irredeemable by the end - both came out the same year 1948). Montgomery Cliff is amazing too as his counterpart, though he never quite outgrows the boyishness in the story to become a man, though he's still very much a hero. Maybe it's just his youth in the movie. He was only 25 or so when they shot it and its his first movie.

The cinematography is utterly gorgeous, mostly on-location with tens of thousands of herds of cattle streaming like a flowing river across the fields and hills of Texas. It's a sweeping epic that has a lot of standard western fare for its time, and it has some odd late-story elements that come like in the last 30/40 minutes that seemed strange plot-wise, feels shoehorning a better ending when it shouldn't be, but it still shows a darker element just under the surface as Dunstan (Wayne) it a total scumbag taking advantage of those under him and we see his fall from grace. I wish the movie had seen it all the way through, from what I read they rewrote the ending and it's kind of noticeable, but up to that it's a great flick.


The Big Sick - Though a bit long for the story it wants to tell, it drags at times with parts that go for a bit too long or feel repetitive, I really enjoyed it. Great dialogue and character chemistry with fantastic performances all around. I've known Kumail and Emily's story for a while and they did a great job putting it into an emotional but funny film.
 
Wonder Woman (2017) - I liked it. I guess I thought I was going to like it more than I did though. There are some incredibly epic moments. No Man's Land, including the shot from above, is a great set piece. I actually enjoyed the ending battle. I do think Gadot and Pine have some great chemistry that carries the movie.

But there are pacing issues. The entire island stuff could basically take up an entire movie. And the "fish out of water" stuff in London was pretty good. But basically it felt like "go here, do this, have one epic moment, then go here, do that, have one epic moment" right up to the end. A little too paint by numbers. A little too easy to go from one location to the next.

Also, "I'm not sending you in there when we're trying to negotiate a peace!" only to find a battle going on in No Man's Land was pretty stupid. There were story bits like this in a number of places that annoyed me.

But again, somehow, I liked it.

3.5 / 5
 
My Cousin Rachel is a very well shot and acted film, with great music, that is really very dull. The story and the central mystery are never quite gripping enough, and nowhere steamy enough, for an ideally sexual or sensual story its remarkably chaste. There's some interesting ideas and themes here about the patriarchy, male dominated worlds, and a womans own agency to make her decisions, but they're just not 'present' enough to elevate the film.

It's extremely well acted, Sam Claflin and Holliday Grainger in particular are very good, but I was spectacularly unimpressed with Rachel Weisz in such a key role as Rachel, and there's shockingly little chemistry between herself and Claflin. There's very little flow between the scenes, and as said the lack of sex or even vaguely sexual energy really just makes its very boring.

The weak narrative and central mystery, unconvicing acting and lack of chemistry, together with a severe lack of steaminess, combine to sink My Cousin Rachel and made the whole long (it felt longer than it was) running time feel like a drag.

That's a shame, it looked provocative from the trailers. I'll have to skip it.
 

Ridley327

Member
A couple of recent indie horror films, to wash away the lingering funk of how bad Beyond the Gates still remains!

The Eyes of My Mother: Just a wholesome story of a young woman that has to take care of the farm all by herself! While that's not entirely inaccurate, one must mention that it is through the lens of a horror film, and specifically that of the arthouse variety. That's generally shorthand for "in black and white, has subtitles for a foreign language and is generally disturbing for what it doesn't show rather than what it does," which this film follows to a T. It's far from being predictable, though, which is the biggest reason why the film is compelling to watch. The film could almost be described as politely unpleasant, which helps give it a eerie power of nontraditional suspense as it relies more on the knowledge of the situation being bad and wondering how much worse it could actually get from there. With crisp photography and a kind of restraint on how much it's willing to show visually, it certainly looks the part and plays it well, but to what end? That's my biggest problem with this, as it doesn't really have a lot of depth to it that could have given it the potential to really bore in and stay with you longer than the jolts it provides. It's a weird situation where it doesn't have a quality problem per se, but one gets the sense that the sheer quantity is present because the filmmakers were aware that what they're working with was a bit on the thin side and didn't have the time or the money to keep it in the oven longer for a bigger impact. As it stands, it definitely disturbs and feels like what hopefully pans out as an emerging talent to watch, both in front of and behind the camera, but even a little bit more substance could have gone a long way.

Prevenge: While she's better known for her more outright comedic roles, it's hard not see Alice Lowe finding a different set of inspiration for her directorial debut from one of her other collaborators in Ben Wheatley. While this is a bit kinder and gentler, this film nevertheless exhibits the same kind of cutting dark humor sprinkled every so often with bouts of ultraviolence and atmospheric unease delivered through a nice editing rhythm that you'd normally find in Wheatley's output. Don't call it a ripoff, though: with the unique perspective here, aided by Lowe's real life pregnancy at the time, the direction takes a nice turn with the focus on the normal hazards of pregnancy that stand to get in the way of all the slashing, with Lowe writing some delicious barbs that she delivers about as perfectly as you could ask for. The one-woman-show here is impressive on its own merits, but that it also feels so confident makes for a surprisingly satisfying feature debut. It's frequently hilarious while also not downplaying the grimness of the subject matter, and for a premise that relies on believing that a woman is being broadcast murderous intentions by her unborn child, it never gets to be too audacious to feel like it goes too far. The ending does perhaps feel a bit rushed given the momentum it's been building up, but it's not too grave an error to come anywhere close to sinking the film. Who knows when Lowe will get the chance to mount another spotlight like this again, but I'll definitely be there to eagerly anticipate it.
 
A couple of recent indie horror films, to wash away the lingering funk of how bad Beyond the Gates still remains!

The Eyes of My Mother: Just a wholesome story of a young woman that has to take care of the farm all by herself! While that's not entirely inaccurate, one must mention that it is through the lens of a horror film, and specifically that of the arthouse variety. That's generally shorthand for "in black and white, has subtitles for a foreign language and is generally disturbing for what it doesn't show rather than what it does," which this film follows to a T. It's far from being predictable, though, which is the biggest reason why the film is compelling to watch. The film could almost be described as politely unpleasant, which helps give it a eerie power of nontraditional suspense as it relies more on the knowledge of the situation being bad and wondering how much worse it could actually get from there. With crisp photography and a kind of restraint on how much it's willing to show visually, it certainly looks the part and plays it well, but to what end? That's my biggest problem with this, as it doesn't really have a lot of depth to it that could have given it the potential to really bore in and stay with you longer than the jolts it provides. It's a weird situation where it doesn't have a quality problem per se, but one gets the sense that the sheer quantity is present because the filmmakers were aware that what they're working with was a bit on the thin side and didn't have the time or the money to keep it in the oven longer for a bigger impact. As it stands, it definitely disturbs and feels like what hopefully pans out as an emerging talent to watch, both in front of and behind the camera, but even a little bit more substance could have gone a long way.

Prevenge: While she's better known for her more outright comedic roles, it's hard not see Alice Lowe finding a different set of inspiration for her directorial debut from one of her other collaborators in Ben Wheatley. While this is a bit kinder and gentler, this film nevertheless exhibits the same kind of cutting dark humor sprinkled every so often with bouts of ultraviolence and atmospheric unease delivered through a nice editing rhythm that you'd normally find in Wheatley's output. Don't call it a ripoff, though: with the unique perspective here, aided by Lowe's real life pregnancy at the time, the direction takes a nice turn with the focus on the normal hazards of pregnancy that stand to get in the way of all the slashing, with Lowe writing some delicious barbs that she delivers about as perfectly as you could ask for. The one-woman-show here is impressive on its own merits, but that it also feels so confident makes for a surprisingly satisfying feature debut. It's frequently hilarious while also not downplaying the grimness of the subject matter, and for a premise that relies on believing that a woman is being broadcast murderous intentions by her unborn child, it never gets to be too audacious to feel like it goes too far. The ending does perhaps feel a bit rushed given the momentum it's been building up, but it's not too grave an error to come anywhere close to sinking the film. Who knows when Lowe will get the chance to mount another spotlight like this again, but I'll definitely be there to eagerly anticipate it.

For me, The Eyes Of My Mother succeeds in showing what loneliness can do in a very disturbing fashion, so I was satisfied enough to not need anything deeper. The arthouse filmmaking definitely helps for the viewing experience, though :p

Prevenge is so awesome. Makes for a good complimentary watch with Bitch and Raw.
 
Oh shit, 50th anniversary edition of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly coming in August... with the theatrical cut finally in HD!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0716XZB2B/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Is this transfer gonna be different from the more recent remaster? (The one with the weird tint. It's still much better than the first BD release)
I get that it may be a different cut, but I've already bought the blu-ray twice. I wish they just released a remastered version of all three movies in one box, instead of just having the one movie be cleaned up.
 
Is this transfer gonna be different from the more recent remaster? (The one with the weird tint. It's still much better than the first BD release)
I get that it may be a different cut, but I've already bought the blu-ray twice. I wish they just released a remastered version of all three movies in one box, instead of just having the one movie be cleaned up.

I think I read that it's based on the recent remaster, but with alterations to match the original theatrical cut as closely as possible, including changes to the color timing.
 
Gonna have to double dip on that. The bluray trilogy is so cheap too that its no big deal

Would be nice to get the other 2 movies given the same treatment tho but they are rarely as discussed or played on tv
 

Blader

Member
I think I read that it's based on the recent remaster, but with alterations to match the original theatrical cut as closely as possible, including changes to the color timing.

yeah, Kino has made some tweaks:

From Kino:

"Besides the color correction (removing the yellowishness) we also made the following corrections and adjustments to create our 161 Minute cut of the Theatrical version:

The “flip cut” transition/optical wipe from "Tuco talking to Blondie and taking a bite of his cigar to being hung" was restored to its original version

The fadeout to black of the "gun shop owner with the sign in his mouth" scene is now a cut to exodus scene.

The fadeout of the "Blondie passing out as Tuco is bringing him water" scene happens exactly 1 second later than how it was on old MGM DVD release of the Theatrical Cut.

The dissolve from "night" scene to "coach arriving at the mission" scene now fades up from black

The shot of the train leaving the station (with Tuco and Wallace on it) was supposedly longer in the US theatrical cut, before cutting directly to Tuco in the train and not dissolving out earlier to the early morning camp scene - Our 4K of the 161 minute cut matches the old MGM DVD of the theatrical cut exactly."
 

BumRush

Member
Movies I've seen for the first time in the last 2-3 weeks:

Lego Batman: 2.5/5 - meh, I had pretty high hopes for this but it was a bit of a letdowm. Batman was such a dick, which was funny at first but it can it's course well before the end of the film

The Accountant: 3/5 - it wasn't a very good movie, but the twists were fun (albeit telegraphed) and it didn't overstay its welcome

Kubo and the Two Strings: 4/5 - gorgeous movie with an endearing story and quality voice acting

Split: 4.5/5 - I'm so mad at myself for not catching this in theatres. M Night is back and McAvoy turned in an excellent performance

Logan: 4/5 - a little too depressing for me but I know that was the intent. Definitely a genre-buster...it's a comic book movie but it's more a road-to-perdition-esque action / drama that happened to star wolverine

Your Name: 4/5 - biggest surprise of the bunch for me. I generally (really) dislike anime, but I love
time travel
and ended up really liking the story and characters
 
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) explores the repression of sexuality in Victorian London using a creative repertoire of formal techniques. POV shots, dissolves, clever framing of mirrors and dual close ups, and, of course, split-screen all hint at the "beast" that lurks within us all. It's not just the formal inventiveness that sets this film above most of the Universal Monster movies of the time, but Frederic March's absolutely beastly performance as Mr. Hyde (and appropriately worn down Jekyll). At first Hyde's neanderthal appearance and bubbling energy may cause more than a few giggles, but those will quickly turn to gasps as Hyde establishes himself as an incredibly malicious and genuinely terrifying figure. March's performance is filled with explosive physicality and tiny, grotesque tics (stroking the tines of a comb has never been so sinister) that establish Hyde's horrible character to a T. The film is further aided in exploring its themes due to the fact that it's a pre-code era film, so it's able to get away with quite a bit more violence and sexuality than one might expect from Hollywood films of the time.
 
Life - Daniel Espinosa

Space horror/suspense movies are to me a bit like ice cream. No matter how shitty it is, it's still ice cream.

Life is pretty lifeless (surely I must have been the first...), where absolutely nothing stands out. Someone probably thought that "it's 2017, lets just make an Alien variation" and thus this was born. It follows every single beat you expect, it's not particularly effective in terms of suspense, the camera is boring, the actors do jack shit, the sets are mundane, the set pieces are confusing as fuck (the last 20 minutes...wtf), but it's still entertaining. The eerie nature of an extraterrestrial organism hunting humans stranded and locked in space simply works. Every single time. It's probably the dissonance of the vastness and emptiness of space with the visceral emotions like fear and survival instincts.

The final track of the film is good. Like really good. It's also a fucking blatant copy of a Sicario song.
 

big ander

Member
Hunt for the Wilderpeople - **** everybody was right about this one.
Cinevardaphoto - *** was under the impression this was three Varda documentary shorts edited into a feature, but they're really just "compiled." Not stitched together in any way, though there's a lot of overlap in content. All three concern images and their contexts and histories, the role of community and family in living holistically, perspective shifting with age, and how art does (or doesn't!) transform our lives.
The House of the Devil [rewatch] - ****1/2 how is it that ti west made two masterful euro-inflected horror/exploitation pastiches about how perilous it is to be paid to do nothing but has made only middling-to-awful misfires besides. Peak Greta Gerwig in this movie
 
John Wick 2: I'm going to say something that is probably controversial: I think the fight scenes were the least interesting part of John Wick 2. Everybody has guns, but for some reason they all just run right up to John Wick like they are a bad ai from a horde mode fps. Also, there are like 20 times where John Wick ducks behind a corner and waits there for someone to blindly charge behind it. You would expect at least one of these world class assassins to try flushing him out with a grenade. On top​ of that, Ruby Rose has a gun and ammo and decides to just attack him with a tiny little knife instead. At a certain point it's hard to be impressed by what he is doing because it feels like he is just fighting ridiculously incompetent people. Also, what's with the fat guy that he has to put like 20 bullets into? At first I thought it was supposed to be his fat blocking the bullets, but then Wick shoots directly through his skull and into his brain and the guy keeps coming at him. Shit was just silly all around.

I did really enjoy the rest of it though. The characters and world building were better than in the first film, and I feel like they actually made that film stronger retroactively.


also also also also That all sounded really negative, so I will say that I liked the first fight in the garage and the showdown with Common.
 

vio

Member
John Wick 2: I'm going to say something that is probably controversial: I think the fight scenes were the least interesting part of John Wick 2. Everybody has guns, but for some reason they all just run right up to John Wick like they are a bad ai from a horde mode fps. Also, there are like 20 times where John Wick ducks behind a corner and waits there for someone to blindly charge behind it. You would expect at least one of these world class assassins to try flushing him out with a grenade. On top​ of that, Ruby Rose has a gun and ammo and decides to just attack him with a tiny little knife instead. At a certain point it's hard to be impressed by what he is doing because it feels like he is just fighting ridiculously incompetent people. Also, what's with the fat guy that he has to put like 20 bullets into? At first I thought it was supposed to be his fat blocking the bullets, but then Wick shoots directly through his skull and into his brain and the guy keeps coming at him. Shit was just silly all around.

I did really enjoy the rest of it though. The characters and world building were better than in the first film, and I feel like they actually made that film stronger retroactively.


also also also also That all sounded really negative, so I will say that I liked the first fight in the garage and the showdown with Common.

100% agree. Great world building, but action scenes were weakest part of the movie. John in supposed to be this legend, but it does not show really.

It`s a good movie but John Wick has nothing on this guy..
nv3ho0.gif
 
Life - Daniel Espinosa

Space horror/suspense movies are to me a bit like ice cream. No matter how shitty it is, it's still ice cream.

Life is pretty lifeless (surely I must have been the first...), where absolutely nothing stands out. Someone probably thought that "it's 2017, lets just make an Alien variation" and thus this was born. It follows every single beat you expect, it's not particularly effective in terms of suspense, the camera is boring, the actors do jack shit, the sets are mundane, the set pieces are confusing as fuck (the last 20 minutes...wtf), but it's still entertaining. The eerie nature of an extraterrestrial organism hunting humans stranded and locked in space simply works. Every single time. It's probably the dissonance of the vastness and emptiness of space with the visceral emotions like fear and survival instincts.

The final track of the film is good. Like really good. It's also a fucking blatant copy of a Sicario song.

So you're saying it's like you wanted to have ice cream but you got ice milk instead.
 
100% agree. Great world building, but action scenes were weakest part of the movie. John in supposed to be this legend, but it does not show really.

It`s a good movie but John Wick has nothing on this guy..
nv3ho0.gif


It was also disappointing that the final showdown was in a room full of mirrors. It looked cool, but that shit has its own page on TV tropes full of examples. Just a couple of years ago The Guest ended with basically the same showdown, and its unrelated, but that movie also weirdly guest starred Lance Reddick.
 
The Girl With All the Gifts (2016) - I love zombie movies. It's become clear over the last couple of years, however, that to survive in the zombie avalanche you need to do something different. Witness: 28 Days Later, Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead, Train to Busan. You gotta innovate.

What I liked about TGWAtG is that it innovates. We get the mystery in the beginning, as to why these children are being restrained. We get the revelation of that mystery over time, of who they are and why they're where they are. By the time we go outside and see the infection, we're in some serious shit.

When I say this movie innovates, I should explain. This movie combines things from other movies into its own brew. We got the fast zombies from 28 Days/Busan. But what it really reminded me of was The Terminator/Matrix. That this was less about the death of humanity but the rise of something else. And it's not robots or machines but the next evolution of man, this fungus growing inside.

And it actually left me with a lot of really cool questions, both about ourselves and how we've evolved to where we are (and how bacteria may have impacted all of that) and where we're going ... will we continue to evolve or will we have more of a reset, a "devolution" first? Anyway, I like a movie that gets me asking those kinds of questions, introduces those types of questions that plague me (sorry about the pun) for days afterward.

The movie has its flaws. It has some stupid-ass characters. Just like other zombie movies. But I like the framework and the story and where it was going.

3.5 / 5
 
100% agree. Great world building, but action scenes were weakest part of the movie. John in supposed to be this legend, but it does not show really.

It`s a good movie but John Wick has nothing on this guy..
nv3ho0.gif

Leon is goat. The action scenes were great because they make you invested and care about the characters first. And the action scenes were nicely edit--they don't reveal too much, but just enough to make him look badass while leaving a bit of mystery. Gives me vibes of Nolan's batman, but better.
 
While they expanded the Wickverse in John Wick 2, I find myself preferring the more subtle world building in the first one. I feel like they shown and told too much in the second film, while in the first film a lot of the world is more implied and left to the audience's imagination.
 
It was also disappointing that the final showdown was in a room full of mirrors. It looked cool, but that shit has its own page on TV tropes full of examples. Just a couple of years ago The Guest ended with basically the same showdown, and its unrelated, but that movie also weirdly guest starred Lance Reddick.

Bruh...we shitting on hall of mirror climaxes? That is one device that has earned its eternal corner in cinematic tropes, right alongside carnival climaxes. It's a great way to provide some visual playfulness and absurd tension, and add a bit of variety in a movie that's so reliant on Keanu shooting dozens of people in the head.
 

Blader

Member
Some more Corman.

The St. Valentine's Day Massacre
I saw an interview recently where some guy was asking Corman about this film and compared it to The Godfather, which I thought was some eyeroll transparent flattery nonsense. C'mon, Roger Corman isn't making anything close to The Godfather! But actually...

Well, it's not The Godfather, but it's an unusually damn good gangster film, that at times feels like its portending some elements in Coppola's film -- in particular the rawness of the violence. This is one of Corman's best-looking movies. Being produced by a major studio rather than an indie outfit like AIP obviously put a lot more budget on the screen, but Corman really knows how to squeeze every one of those dollars for what they're worth; it's a fantastic looking production. There's a large cast of characters here, and while it's sometimes hard to keep straight who's who, I really like the film's gimmick of interrupting the proceedings with some Dragnet-esque narration that briefly intros each character over the diegetic sound. It's a little intrusive at first, but it becomes an effective technique when Corman uses it to steer all of these guys to their doom. Jason Robards is chewing the scenery quite well here as Capone, but I liked the performance and honestly enjoyed it more than DeNiro in The Untouchables.

I was really surprised at how good this movie was. Looks great, has compelling plot with an effective narrative gimmick, boasts a strong ensemble cast that makes it much more than just Al Capone: The Movie, and depicts a visceral level of violence that actually does feel like something of a forerunner to The Godfather. One of Corman's best.
8/10

Tales of Terror
This, on the other hand, is one of his worst (or least one of the worst among the dozen or so I've seen). An anthology of three Poe short stories, which is always a red flag as anthology stories are never strong from start to finish. The first two stories here are just terrible. The first is badly underwritten and the second is flat out annoying, with a focus on Peter Lorre's bumbling drunk oaf performance. Vincent Price is hamming it up too hard in both, even by his standards. The third saves it: an interesting story idea (what happens to a person's mind if they're hypnotized right at the point of death...or something like that) anchored by a more-or-less good performance by Basil Rathbone. It's a pretty solid segment, that's dragged down by the awful hour preceding it. Production values are solid but not unusually good or bad for Corman's Poe cycle.
5/10
 
Gal Gadot is a great Wonder Woman and Chris Pine was a delight as usual, but overall Wonder Woman is fairly average. I enjoyed it, but nothing really elevates it above serviceable. Obviously in comparison to the other DCEU crap it's godly, but I think that might be propping it up a bit in people's minds. Or you know, they just liked it more than I did.
 
Bruh...we shitting on hall of mirror climaxes? That is one device that has earned its eternal corner in cinematic tropes, right alongside carnival climaxes. It's a great way to provide some visual playfulness and absurd tension, and add a bit of variety in a movie that's so reliant on Keanu shooting dozens of people in the head.

Yeah I'm always down for a hall of mirrors standoff

I enjoyed John Wick 2 quite a bit (moreso than the first) but I think it peaked in Rome personally. All the preparation and introduction to the resources at his disposal leading up to the confrontation with his mark and then the shootout when he had to escape was a really fun stretch that the rest of the movies pacing couldn't live up to

Also whats everyone here think of twin peaks so far. 1/3 of the way finished with this new season so far and it's still got me hooked so far. Reminds me a lot of mulholland drives first hour right now.
 

Icolin

Banned
Yeah I'm always down for a hall of mirrors standoff

I enjoyed John Wick 2 quite a bit (moreso than the first) but I think it peaked in Rome personally. All the preparation and introduction to the resources at his disposal leading up to the confrontation with his mark and then the shootout when he had to escape was a really fun stretch that the rest of the movies pacing couldn't live up to

Also whats everyone here think of twin peaks so far. 1/3 of the way finished with this new season so far and it's still got me hooked so far. Reminds me a lot of mulholland drives first hour right now.

Love it. It really feels like an amalgamation of Lynch's previous work (lots of Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive throwbacks/influences in particular), as well as maintaining what made Twin Peaks so special in the first place.

And the music is fucking killer, as is to be expected.
 
Love it. It really feels like an amalgamation of Lynch's previous work (lots of Eraserhead and Mulholland Drive throwbacks/influences in particular), as well as maintaining what made Twin Peaks so special in the first place.

And the music is fucking killer, as is to be expected.

That chromatics song was so dope. As is the jazzy one that plays during a lot of the dougie scenes
 
I'm loving Twin Peaks so far, for sure the best new thing I've watched this year on either the big or small screen. Definitely gives me Mulholland Drive vibes.
 
Need some help, Movie-GAF. Just bought a couple of movies and of course their digital codes are for Ultraviolet/Vudu.

So now I have a Disney Anywhere collection, a Google Play collection and a Vudu Collection.

Ugh.

Furthermore, apparently Vudu doesn't allow you to download movies to my Chromebook... only to a PC. Which annoys the shit out of me. Yes, I can stream it, but as I'm headed out on a trip shortly I was hoping to store a few flicks to watch.

Is Plex the answer to this? Just turn my PC into a media server? But if so, how can I access it while I'm on the road and potentially out of wifi area? Can I download stuff to Plex and then download it to whatever device I want from there? It seems once I buy this piece of media I should be able to view it on whatever I want.
 
Need some help, Movie-GAF. Just bought a couple of movies and of course their digital codes are for Ultraviolet/Vudu.

So now I have a Disney Anywhere collection, a Google Play collection and a Vudu Collection.

Ugh.

Furthermore, apparently Vudu doesn't allow you to download movies to my Chromebook... only to a PC. Which annoys the shit out of me. Yes, I can stream it, but as I'm headed out on a trip shortly I was hoping to store a few flicks to watch.

Is Plex the answer to this? Just turn my PC into a media server? But if so, how can I access it while I'm on the road and potentially out of wifi area? Can I download stuff to Plex and then download it to whatever device I want from there? It seems once I buy this piece of media I should be able to view it on whatever I want.


You can connect Disney movies anywhere to Vudu as well, not that it solves all of your problems.
 
I'm loving Twin Peaks so far, for sure the best new thing I've watched this year on either the big or small screen. Definitely gives me Mulholland Drive vibes.

It has been great so far.

I was prepared for it to be shitty nostalgia tricks, but Lynch has done it again.

I lol at the small minds who demand more plot and explanations.
 
I find myself entranced by the new Twin Peaks eps the first time, but entertained more the 2nd time because it's such a disjointed experience. Similar to my initial reactions to Mulholland Drive. I do wish I could binge the whole thing because the week to week wait is killing me, but these individual episodes living with me longer is probably a good thing.
 
I was a bit surprised how that thread got so big, there's more posters in there than the audience of Inland Empire. David Lynch fans everywhere? Didn't made a lot of sense. Then the show aired, Lynch did is thing, it was lovely, and the reaction was weird. Plot? Structure? I don't get it. Were all this people lying they were Lynch fans?
 
I was a bit surprised how that thread got so big, there's more posters in there than the audience of Inland Empire. David Lynch fans everywhere? Didn't made a lot of sense. Then the show aired, Lynch did is thing, it was lovely, and the reaction was weird. Plot? Structure? I don't get it. Were all this people lying they were Lynch fans?

You think people would do that, just randomly claiming to like things because they've heard they're supposed to like it.....


I kind of did it myself with the animation show The Cities Of Gold a while back too. I have warm, fuzzy memories of the original show (now considered S1), but despite supporting a new season and singing the praise for the original, I just can't bring myself to actually watch the new material. There's a 25 year gap between those two events as well, so perhaps it's similar with Twin Peaks.
You can't just go back to being someone you were two decades ago.
 

Divius

Member
As someone who loves (most of) Twin Peaks but is not necessarily a fan of Lynch, I'm enjoying the show just fine so far. I do understand people expecting a more traditional TP wanting more structure/plot, but it's too early to judge anyway.
 
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