Last movie you saw.

[Visutox 188]

Apocalypto - 8.5/10

 

Amazing movie. Everything in it is great, and you can feel the struggle of the main character throughout the whole film. A well shot movie for sure. And yeah, the morality of the story is worthy to spend time thinking about it.

 

 

I also re-watched Ichi The Killer, good film. 

[Bear 1817]

The Kid with the Golden Arm - Amazing Chang Cheh flick with several Venom Mob members, which in itself is pretty fucking awesome and makes this more than watchable. The mainlot is very straightforward and something you've seen before, but the characters are cool and the fights are even cooler. This is Chang Cheh quality - this is awesome!

 

 

The Lady Hermit - Cool wuxia with two strong, female leads. The plot is good, the cast is great and the violence is amazing. The fights themself were a bit of a letdown, but the blood and violence makes up for it for me, because it is a pretty bloody film and I love blood on screen. It's not spectaculare, but it's good damn fun. Do watch!

 

[RinFukurou 46]

Interstellar, i just watched it yesterday, and have to say, there is some deep scientific content it it. 10/10 would recommend!

[Bear 1817]

Legendary Weapons of China - Fantastic martial arts film by Lau Kar-leung, who also starred in the film. It's not his best film, but it's amazing nonetheless and the cast is great. Gordon Liu, Kara Hui, Hsiao Ho and bothers Lau Kar-leung and Lau Kar-wing among others. The plot is great, the fihts are well-choreographed, executed and directed, as well as very diverse, and there's som very cool taoist maoshan folk magic thrown in as well. The last fihts is awesome as fuck, as is the whole film. Good shit!

 

 

The Iron-Fisted Monk - After the success of The Shaolin Plot, in which Sammo Hung had his major role, he asked for funds to direct a film and got a yes - the very same year as the release of The Shaolin Plot Sammo Hung got his directorical debut with The Iron-Fisted Monk, and the film itself is nothing short of a masterpiece. The plot is pretty dark and grim, though fairly usual, but a good plot. Sammo Hung & co are all great and the fights are amazing, and every single one of them are better than the previous one, which makes it quite exciting as the first fight were already amazing. Great film, and it's always fun to see Sammo Hung. How a man of his size can be this smooth, fast and precise is beyond me. So god damn impressive!

 

 

The Lady Assassin - Clocking in at only 86 minutes this wuxia is a tad too short and suffers from it as some characters should've been given a lot more screentime, as well as the plot being given more time to grow, but this was a surprisingly good film. Amazing I mean. But it's bloody, it's exciting and it's very, very, very fun. Great cast too. Also, the fights are extremely smooth and fast-paced. Tight as fuck.

 

[Des 289]

Interstellar, i just watched it yesterday, and have to say, there is some deep scientific content it it. 10/10 would recommend!

To be honest, calling this "deep scientific content" is ridiculous, and even calling it speculation only goes as far as the final act when the movie goes all out fantasy.

 

I didn't mind the fantasy bit much but it was a strong contrast with earlier in the movie where they were really trying to convince the audience there are theories in science that support what is happening on screen. Making a big deal out of scientific accuracy (as far as it is actually proven!) only to suddenly change course in the end was surprising!

[takeruismyhero 19]

I think... it was Beatrock Love. It's a movie Takeru was in during his acting career at 22. Let me tell you... HE WAS FUCKING ADORABLE. I was literally swooning the entire time. It reminded me of how he was when I first discovered him and hated him. I loved his character so much because OMFG HE WAS SO CUTE. <3 Like gawd. The movie, right um... the movie was actually pretty good. It was kind of weird because there were so many things that were left unsaid about it. I was expecting there to be a lot more when I watched it, you know? But... it was still really good. Plus points because it had my hero.

 

I mean...  LOOK AT THIS BUNDLE OF BABY TAKERU CUTENESS:

 

[ChaoticEnding 2070]

*u*

[Jigsaw9 6783]

Filth - Watched this one cuz it's based on an Irvine Welsh novel, and boy, was it fucked up, lol. I kinda expected it to be a bit more funny but it was actually quite brutal and heavy in atmosphere, especially as the story developed. Nice one.

 

Backcountry - Pretty good 'nature horror.' Nothing special but a decent flick. I like how they went with gradually building up the tension... so yeah, there isn't much scary shit happening in like the first hour but it's still pretty okay. Also, the visuals and the music were quite nice!

 

Wyrmwood - Kickass post-apocalyptic zombie B-movie with some interesting/fun twists on the genre. Not much else to say, totally recommended!

[Bear 1817]

GLOW: The Story of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling - A very nice documentary about GLOW, the first ever female wrestling show. The documentary starts at the begining and walks through the history of the show in 75 minutes. Interviews with plenty of the girls, creators, trainer (god damn, this guy was amazing! So into it!), how they've done after the show and a short piece on how the wrestling fucked with some of these girls' bodies. It was a really nice documentary and I will have to check out GLOW. Seems like the most cheesy TV-show ever made.

 

 

Holy shit that is awesome.

[togz 2004]

Ah, I recently discovered SAW - SAW IV was added to Netflix, so recently I've marathon-ed through those a couple times. Hopefully they'll add the rest of the movies soon, Those were my favorite movies back in the day man.

[Bear 1817]

Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan - Amazing martial arts revenge-flick directed by Chor Yuen. What an amazing film! This one was simply close to perfection. It's beautifully shot, acted and directed. The fights aren't all that impressive skill wise, but they are beautifully done and almost poetic in a weird way. The film was released in 1972, the year before one of my all time favourite films - Lady Snowblood, and I would lie if I said I did not get a Lady Snowblood-feeling from this film, because they are present from the first minute and to the end. Especially the cinematography, art direction, bloody fights and the way it is shot reminds me of a lot of Lady Snowblood. Fantastic film! Really fucking amazing!

 

[Bear 1817]

The 14 Amazons - A two hour long wuxia epic directed by Cheng Gang and Charles Tung, and as far as I know the first film to be based on the Generals of the Yang Family. The premise and certain scenes of the film is really silly and it's all very cheesy, but it's got this majestic, grandeour feeling to it, a brilliant cast (where most are females) and great action. Well, the action gets great after a while, because in the begining it feels very underwhelming and poorly choreographed and executed. I really enjoyed this classic, epic martial arts drama.

 

 

 

I actually tried Frankie Chan's 2011 remake Legendary Amazons a couple of years ago, but I had to turn it off after 30 minutes as it was so fucking awful. It's the film that teached me that I don't actually have to see shitty films to the end no matter how bad it is. Yes, it was that bad. Eeeeew.

[Bear 1817]

Why Don't You Play in Hell? - A cool, but disappointingly lawed action/comedy/draa by Sion Sono (Suicide Club, Strange Circus). As usual he offers something fresh, but there's plenty of nods to a couple of other directors, namely Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie. The first hour is slow as fuck, but good and I love how it takes time to build the characters and around the hour mark the film kicks off and the pace increases and the fun is turned up. But the first hour, despite slow, feels necessary. Fumi Nikaido, Hiroki Hasegawa and Tak Sakaguchi are really impressive in the film.

 

However, I mention flawed and here it comes: there's some awful CGI in the film. Blood, limbs flying through the air and god knows what, and for one it looks awfully shitty, but as a second it doesn't fit together with the rest of the film. It's so out of place and annoying, and  to me it ruins a film that could've been a nutball, batshit crazy masterpiece. Such a fucking shame.

 

 

Magnificent Butcher - Classic Yuen Woo-ping flick with Sammo Hung, Kwan Tak-hing and Yuen Biao among others. Yuen Woo-ping and Sammo Hung does play a lot on Yuen Woo-ping's earlier film Drunken Master with Jackie Chan, but with a bit less humour and a darker theme thrown in. It even features Beggar So which I personally think is cool as fuck. Sammo Hung is amazing as always and the fights are so well-choreographed and entertaining that's it's a pleasure to watch. I can't really find anything to put my finger on. Fantastic film!

 

 

 

Fun fact: Kwan Tak-hing who portrays Wong Fei-hung in this film, played Wong Fei-hung in at least 77 films between 1940 and the 1980's. That's crazy.

[Bear 1817]

Five Fingers of Death - This cult classic with Lieh Lo is badass. The plot is something quite similar to other films of the time, but as many of the others it manages to set itself apart from those. Good fights, blood and lots of awesomeness! This is also one of the films that started the kung fu craze in the US in the early/mid 70's and a massive inspiration on Tarantino's Kill Bill.

 

[Flame-X 441]

Just came back from seeing Furious 7.

 

Great action popcorn flick! Definitely outdoes its predecessors in almost every way. The last few minutes of the film was very sentimental tribute to Paul. Go see it!

[enyx 903]

Nightcrawler

 

Directed & written by Dan Gilroy and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Nightcrawler is basically a character study centred around its sociopathic lead character, Louis "Lou" Bloom. Gyllenhaal's proven himself to be a very capable actor in the past, but if there's one area in which I think he particularly excels, it's when he plays darker, more morally ambiguous characters (case in point, his performance in his previous feature length film Enemy). In that respect, this feels like a film tailor-made for him to take centre-stage, and he absolutely nails it. Lou is morally nihilistic, sociopathic thief turned nightcrawler - somebody that shoots footage of crimes and accidents in order to sell to news outlets. As you can probably guess, things get more and more disturbing as we see the lengths to which Lou will go, without showing any regards for ethicality or social norms, to get the best footage possible. What I love about this character and his portrayal, however, is not his disturbing mentality, but the fact that I was actually able to emphasise with him for large portions of the film. I think this is partly down to Gyllenhaal's performance, but also due to Dan Gilroy's script and directorial decisions.

 

Gilroy was, of course, a largely unknown quantity going into this film due to the fact that it marks his directorial debut, and for the most part I think he did a very good job with Nightcralwer. There are some subtle decisions that show that he possessed an intricate understanding of both what he wanted to portray with this film, and how to portray it. For example, whilst the film primarily centres around a person of questionable moral character, the film is rarely presented in a way that tried to force a particular impression upon you. A great example of this is how the movie score is utilised. Gilroy could have easily asked composer James Newton Howard to compose a bunch of dark, eerie sounding tracks for use during the film's more disturbing scenes, but instead, the score is often written and utilised in a way that instead emphasises how Lou himself would see a particular situation. For example (minor spoilers): there's a scene in which Lou encounters a scene of a tragic accident and decides to move a person's (presumably dead) body in order to get a more dramatic shot of the scene; rather than playing music designed to encourage a feeling of disgust from the viewer, the scene instead utilises a more uplifting piece of music, because as far a Lou's concerned, this particularly incident is a positive thing. It's sublte elements like this that allow the film to explore its central character's psyche in a very non-judgemental way, allowing the audience to interpret things how they wish.

 

Nightcrawler isn't perfect however. Despite everything I just said in the previous paragraph, there are some occasional moments where it tries to force-feed you with certain moral judgements in a way that feels rather awkward. Perhaps the most notable example of this is the existence of a particular character whose only role in the film seems to be to criticise the moral ambiguity of his co-worker's/boss' decisions. Pretty much any time she decides to use an edgy piece of film for a news broadcast, Mr White Knight feels the need to interject with "That's immoral!" or something to that effect. I understand what Gilroy was going for here, but I think most people would have come to this conclusion themselves without needing this character to explain it to them over and over again.  Even if they didn't come to that conclusion themselves, well... if anything that would have made discussing the film with others more interesting in my opinion. Either way, having a character in a film whose only purpose seems to be to blatantly tell the audience what they should think during a particular scene is just a case of sloppy writing in my opinion.

 

On the whole, however, Nightcrawler is a great film that's worth seeing, particularly if you like morally ambiguous character studies. It's not perfect, but I enjoyed it a lot and I'll definitely be keeping an eye on this director going forward.

[Bear 1817]

The Eight Diagram Pole Fighter - Super classic martial arts film by Lau Kar-Leung, starring Gordon Liu and Alexander Fu. It's based on Generals of the Yang Family and it gives you pretty much everything you'd expect, but everything about it it's top notch. An absolute masterpiece!

 

The film was re-written during shotting because of Alexander Fu's sudden death, though, so it's not exactly accurate. But shit happens when people suddenly die. But as I said, a masterpiece!

 

 

The Avenging Eagle - An amazing wuxia by Sun Chung with personal favourite Ti Lung in the lead, as well as Alexander Fu and Ku Feng. Another superb masterpiece. The plot is great, the characters and actors are great and the action is amazing. Everything's more or less perfect in this film. Brilliant.

 

[Bear 1817]

Buddha's Palm - What a film. That plot isn't very clear and it doesn't build the colourful characters as well as it should have, but this batshit crazy wuxia film is one of the most over the top and wicked films I've ever seen. Lots and lots of old school special effects and fights and everything. A most entertaining film. A masterpiece is what this is.

 

This is some next level wuxia shit, and not for beginers for sure. It's batshit crazy, and most people will find it too ridiculous to watch. But for fans of great, crazy, wuxia-adventures, then this is for you.

 

 

Holy Flame of the Martial World - Another batshit crazy wuxia masterpiece. It's not as crazy as Buddha's Palm, but still god damn crazy. Especially towards the end of the film. It gets super wicked, but I love it and the special effects are nothing short of breathtaking for a guy like me. Masterpiece!

 

[beni 2149]

As you can see, I rarely watch any movies. ^^;;

 

Latest: 

 

 

Plot Summary:

A New York photographer sets out to catch a sadistic serial killer in Versus director Ryuhei Kitamura's adaptation of a short story by horror icon Clive Barker.

 

Other Info:

Released in 2008, based on Clive Barker's 1984 short story of the same name, a drama/mystery horror-thriller movie.

 

Thoughts:

So, because I'm hella biased and the director is Japanese, I needed to watch this so did so the night I stumbled upon it on Netflix. Seeing as this was the first movie actor Bradley Cooper ever starred in as the main character, this peaked my interest further. When discussing its plot, it's pretty simple but still effective. I personally managed to guess the ending as the film just went past its mid point, so this film might be really predictable for the major film watchers, since even my detective skills were correct for once. The acting is top notch for a horror though. Okay, maybe not when it came to the death scenes (and it doesn't help that when deaths occur, it's executed in some of the dumbest ways). However, you still feel for the characters, but that's possibly lost once the movie starts throwing at you

paranormal ideas.

Effects wise, it's obvious. Much of the gore and blood shed is really CGI obvs, but it never looses its cringe factor simply due to what is happening to the characters. It's a thriller, indeed, unless you guess correctly what the hell is going on, but it's still got the style and the energy to keep your eyes glued to the screen. If you're a hard core horror fan and have skipped past this little one, I really do encourage you to give it a try!

 

Rating:

 

Note: Please only watch this if you've over 18. ;-;

 

[Bear 1817]

Clans of Intrigue - The first film in the "Sentimental Swordsman"-trilogy by Chor Yuen starring Ti Lung as the sentimental swordsman. I was totally caught off guard with this film as I expected more standard wuxia, which I simply love, because this is, to my big surprise, a wuxia suspense-mystery. It's a great wuxia film, and a great suspense-mystery film, and together they create an unique and fantastic wuxia film. It feels fresh and original, and it's very atmospheric. Ti Lung is amazing as always, the fights are superb and everything truly works here. A superb masterpiece!

 

 

Legend of the Bat - The second film in the series of the "sentimental swordsman", and another masterpiece. A slight step down from the first, though. It's a bit messier and lacks that final punch of atmosphere and mystery that made the first film so good, but it's not much worse. Ti Lung, great fights and a cool plot. A good entry, but the worst of the three. Doesn't say much though, as the two others are more or less perfect.

 

Kudos for using the bat amulet from the Hammer/Shaw cult classic The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampire. That's awesome!

 

 

Perils of the Sentimental Swordsman - With the third and last film of the sentimental swordsman trilogy Chor Yuen ups everything back to the level of the first one with both the atmosphere and mystery being top notch. The atmosphere at the Ghost Village is beyond brilliant. Great fights, colourful characters and of course Ti Lung. Fantastic film!

 

 

I love how good Ti Lung is in general, and he really fits the character here. He's so slick and smooth in everything he does. What a man and what an actor!

 

 

 

Also, these films have nothing to do with Chor Yuen's The Sentimental Swordsman and Return of the Sentimental Swordsman which also star Ti Lung. Heh. I'll have to watch both these some day, though. Should be awesome as fuck.

[Bear 1817]

The Deadly Duo - Chang Cheh-wuxia with David Chiang and Ti Lung in the main roles. The plot is as straight forward as it gets for a martial arts film, but there's some great characters and even more great fights. It's 95 minutes long, and I am ure that 70-75 of those are spent fighting, but I don't mind that since the fights are so well-made. I was extremely entertained by this flick.

 

 

The 7 Grandmasters - Straight-forward, cheesy and extremely good kung fu-flick with lots of style both for the fights and characters. Some of the characters here  looks beyond cool. Fat mustaches, big beards, cooly braided hair and whatnot. Lots of well-choreograhed fighting and more. Super entertaining, classic kung fu film.

 

[Bear 1817]

A Chinese Ghost Story - One of the most original and unique films I've ever seen. Ching Siu-tung, perhaps best known for the fantastic films Duel to the Death and The Swordsman II, directed this film back in 1987 with Leslie Cheung, Joey Wang and Ma Wu in the leading roles. The film itself is completely different from anything you've ever seen and will see. It's a perfect blend of horror, romantic comedy and high fantasy wuxia, and it plays really well on all these genres. It's sweet and romantic, it's funny, it's atmospheric and it's exciting with great fights. The actors does amazing, the creature design is great and it's an overall fantastic film. I find nothing to complaina bout here.

 

 

A Chinese Ghost Story II - Leslie Cheung returns to the sequel playing the same role, so does Wu Ma but he's playing a far smaller part in this sequel. Joey Wang returns as well, but as another character. Now, to the big question: does it live up to its predecessor? No, sadly it doesn't. The romantic comedy part feels less genuine and real, and the focus lies more on action, horror and special effects, which makes it lack that really unique touch from the first film. And the plot isn't quite as good either. Not even close. But the action is better. Really better, but then again the focus did not lie on the action for the first film. It's not a bad film, not at all, I love the film and I think it's amazing. It's just not on par with it's predecessor.

 

[Bear 1817]

What do people think of the first picture of Jared Leto's The Joker from Suicide Squad?

 

 

I think he looks godawful. It looks like some poor cosplay shit. A big fucking joke.

[doombox 4421]

Snowpiercer (2013) : I wanted to see this one because I love me some dystopian future, sci-fi last-of-humanity -esque films. The cast is amazing and diverse, stretching across big names from America, Europe, and Korea. The action and suspense is well done, the fight choreography doesn't get boring or redundant (I could have done with less guns, just because you would think ricochet bullets or running out of ammo would be a major factor. But it is conveniently forgotten for the sake of pushing the plot.) A gripe I have is the character development feels like an afterthought, when I felt it should have been the driving force. There are also slight bits of comedy that are apparently director Joon-ho Bong's signature but don't sit well because the characters don't particularly have senses of humor (but the lack of humor suits this kind of film to me). So a few things may have been "lost in translation" but overall, if you want a film that's gonna make you eat that entire bowl of popcorn and cheer when certain characters reach their final destinations (see what I did there? XD) then this is a good movie for a night in with friends.

Trailer:

 

EDIT:

I meant to comment on that Leto picture too. LOL. I don't mind his look as much as I just hate his tattoos. They need to fire whoever thought that looked okay. OTL

[Des 289]

 

The Doom Generation (1995)

Trashy low-budget cult movie with lots of blood, violence, harsh language and sex. The viewer is dragged along with this couple pictured above (+ a stranger they pick up) on what you could call is a bit of a road trip through moral depravity. This isn't going anywhere and doesn't have much of a storyline. It's an experience.

 

I thought it was very well made in the sense that it drags you deep into a world you never knew existed (and to a certain extend actually never did) and takes enjoyment in seducing the viewer to go along with the ride, no matter how disturbed some of the images and events are. One scene can be real cool and stunning with gorgeous colors, the next scene may be a slap in the face, showing you how messed up this situation truly is. Especially the ending. God, that ending!

 

The soundtrack is monumental! There's Slowdive, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Curve, Lush and Cocteau Twins among others... and there's even a Pizzicato Five song playing in the background of a long scene! Basically all things considered cool and hip in the 90's underground scene of a 'doomed generation' are gathered here.

 

The general reception on this was very negative. I read even Roger Ebert the famous critic gave this zero stars. He hated it!

IMDb users aren't fans either: a rating of 5.9 is very low for their standards. Don't be discouraged though. While this may be appealing to a smaller audience, if you ARE that audience, you just might end up enjoying it. I thought it was a great ride and certainly memorable.