Last movie you saw.

[Bear 1817]

 

Lowlife - I ain't gonna add too much about this, but I watched this a few days ago and was quite surprised to say the least. I haven't heard a single mention of this nowhere and just checked it out because I really liked the artworks. Lowlife, Ryan Prows debut feature, isn't an original film that brings anything new to the table. But it still feels like a breath of fresh air as it's 100% 90's Quentin Tarantino through and through. If you ask me, everything about the film just feels extremely 90's Tarantinoesque, and I loved it. Everything from the way the film is told and filmed, to the characters and their dialogue just feel like early Tarantino.

I guess a lot of people will write it off as a poor copycat, but for someone like me who's watched Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown 50+ times each it was totally awesome.

 

Solo: A Star Wars Story - I've heard a bit this and a bit of that when it comes to this film, but I ain't gonna lie, I really liked it. It feels like a Star Wars film through and through, but at the same time it feels quite different because they've taken more of a classic space western approach, rather than a space opera which gives it a new dimension as far as Star Wars goes. Not quite on par with Rogue One, but still very, very good IMO. Donald Glover is just fantastic!

 

Office Uprising - Decent enough action-comedy with lots of violence and many, many jokes. Sadly, both the special effects and jokes are very hit and miss. At their best they're excellent, but the excellent ones doesn't come in plenty here. Tries to go into horror territory, but never really manage to build itself as a horror film. So I'll post it here instead.

[violetchain 912]

Terrifier (2017). 

The first part of it was actually pretty fun, but it just started to feel really grim and unpleasant towards the middle for me. The first two girls it introduced at least had a few stereotypical personality traits and cute Halloween costumes, but the sister had literally no characteristics at all. I can't remember a single thing about her besides that one phone call scene at the beginning. The ending felt pretty anticlimactic as well.

[Bear 1817]

Thought Terrifier was terrific. On a whole other level than e.g It. Dark, grim, sadistic and with what is perhaps the coolest clown ever. Excellent atmosphere too.

 

Totally recommended!

[violetchain 912]

^The clown was well done for sure. Just felt a little too grim and pointless to me in the second half. I'm generally more partial to goofy horror movies though, so maybe that's my own bias coming out.

 

Watched A Cure for Wellness yesterday, which was solid at the beginning but lost me in the second half as well. Beautiful setting, but I thought it was going to be about the modern businessman, and it turned into a bunch of silly Crimson Peak-esque nonsense.

Edited September 13, 2018 by violetchain

[vkboytotransgirl 45]

Last movie I watched was Veronica (2017). Meh, it was okay-ish, nothing special. Seems like I've seen every good horror movie already. I'm really into horror but I've watched 300+ movies already. Nothing below the year 2000 because that is boring to me. Hope anyone has suggestions.

[platy 3018]

Unfortunately, I spent my money on The Nun. 

It's a confused movie that doesn't really try hard in the horror department. Several lazy  jump scares in succession actually makes for an exhausting movie experience, especially since these scares aren't scary. Just loud. 

For some reason there's a recurring joke about French-Canadians which was lost on me.... The comedy is so out of place, even more so as we get towards the end of the movie. 

The demon nun gets hyped up as the ultimate evil and does not live up to the hype. I could rant for hours on how stupid the conclusion to this film was. The nun's appearance in The Conjuring 2 terrified me to death and she only showed up for a couple of minutes at a time. In this movie, she just annoyed me. 

Halfway through this horror movie they bring in a story about templars and I was lost, later on we get a quick Tomb Raider style treasure hunting scene to add to the sense of incoherence. Then as everything is concluded (badly) they add a reveal and quick tie in to the first Conjuring and man... It led to the dumbest final scene I've had the misfortune to experience. I left laughing. 

 

Don't pay to watch this. 

 

[Bear 1817]

No. Just no.

 

 

Sicario - Dark, grim and really great thriller with a magnificent Benicio Del Toro that completely steals the show. His performance is on a whole other level in this flick. All aspects of the film is great, but he's the best part of it. And the first scene where the cross the Mexican-American border bak from Juarez. Intense as fuck! Superb!

[Jigsaw9 6783]

^ Sicario was sick. Loved  the heavy atmosphere and the music was brilliant too.

 

I last saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let's Do the Time Warp Again which is kinda like a modern TV remake of the classic musical / movie. It's literally the same script, almost scene-for-scene, but with boosted visuals and added references / easter eggs. The Tim Curry version is of course miles better than this one, but at least it was entertaining and heartwarming to see a younger cast perform the classic numbers. Laverne Cox was pretty great as Frank-N-Furter, and Reeve Carney's Riff-Raff had an eerily similar voice to Richard O'Brien, haha. Adam Lambert's Eddie was fun too, hamming it up as expected. If you don't see this movie you won't lose out on anything, but it's okay for one watch of retro-nostalgia.

Edited September 15, 2018 by Jigsaw9

[Flame-X 441]

The Predator (2018)

 

Easily the worst of the franchise. I went in with low expectations, but I still ended up being disappointed. What this movie was going for was action comedy. However, the humor was shoehorned in and I remember only laughing once in the entire movie. Lots of one liners, but wrongly timed. My goodness the CGI was awful. Probably the worst I've seen in years. This movie does confirm its canon to the first two Predator films, which brings me to another annoyance about this movie.... why isn't titled Predator 3? By the end of the movie, it's almost setting itself up for a sequel, so what are you gonna call it? THE Predator 2?  Some action scenes are decent, the 3rd act was sloppy on its editing. Too many fast cuts to process what going on. And the acting... I'm done.

[Bear 1817]

Sicario: Day of the Soldado - Good, but a bit of a disappointment tbh. It lacks the coldhearted and mean-spirited atmosphere of the first film, and the character changes was a bit iffy. Felt they didn't make much sense at all. But the film was cool and Benicio Del Toro is brilliant once more. What an actor!

[vkboytotransgirl 45]

@Bear No, not in that way, that's your biggest wish, will never happen.

 

I watched some Korean horror movie Sector 7 which was meh. Watched 2 japanese horrors 1 named Death water, that one was pretty good and creepy if you're into weird japanese movies, second was so shit cant even remember the name.

[Tokage 5930]

On 9/13/2018 at 11:11 PM, vkboytotransgirl said:

Seems like I've seen every good horror movie already. I'm really into horror but I've watched 300+ movies already. Nothing below the year 2000 because that is boring to me. Hope anyone has suggestions.

Top 10 cursed sentences posted on monochrome heaven dot com, anyway try The Wailing if you haven't yet, probably one of the best Asian horrors to come out in recent years

 

Recent viewings:

The Saddest Music in the World: Cool and quirky film by Guy Maddin. He somehow always manages to make his movies feel as if they're like lost films from the '20s/'30s that were buried underground for several decades before being discovered or something. Really cool aesthetic style that might take some time to get accustomed to, but I dig it. Features a woman without legs receiving a pair of artificial glass legs (filled with beer) and an international competition to find the saddest song in the world among other things. 

 

Mr. Vampire: Hong Kong comedy/horror (altho it's really leaning much further in the direction of comedy than horror imo) that's extremely amusing. Very fast-paced, never gets boring. There's always some goofy shit going down. Features those Chinese hopping vampires, magic, horny ghost girls, and a lot of slapstick action and impressive stunts. I can see how this ended up being such a popular and genre-defining movie. Good 'just turn your brain off and watch' material.

 

The Devil's Doorway: Found footage horror movie that's still relatively new (came out this year I think). Has the novelty of being set in the '60s, so it's shot in this kind of grainy old school style. I reckon people who enjoyed that other found footage horror The Borderlands might enjoy this one as well, since this one is also about investigators from the church being sent off to investigate reported miracles and discovering something much darker. Instead of an old church, this one's set in an Irish home for 'fallen women'. It's kind of on the short side, but at least that also means it doesn't overstay its welcome.

 

Mulholland Drive: Absolutely based, probably in my personal top 3 by David Lynch. Just go and watch it if you haven't seen it yet cuz that shit's GOOD. It's in many people's top lists for a reason.

 

Edited September 17, 2018 by Tokage

[suji 8317]

@Bear @vkboytotransgirl ...please act like civilized adults and settle your beef privately.

[Bear 1817]

The Amazing Spider-Man - Aside from decent romance, this doesn't bring much new to the table as far as Spider-Man goes and I cannot believe that they spent so much money on a reboot that feels more or less exactly the same as the original. A waste of time as far as I am concerned. Not because it's bad in any way, but because I've already seen Spider-Man 1, 2 and 3. Meh.

 

Not very impressed by the CGI either. So artificial and boring, and the scenes made for 3D are nothing short of embarrassing. Fucking ew!

Edited September 17, 2018 by Bear

[suji 8317]

5 hours ago, Bear said:

Wut? How is this acting like an uncivilized adult (from my side)? If this is acting uncivilized, then 80% of the threads on this forum needs to be closed asap as they are way, way, way, way, way more uncivilized than this shit.

Don't fight with me. All I asked was to settle this privately.

[YuyoDrift 1540]

On 9/13/2018 at 5:21 PM, platy said:

Unfortunately, I spent my money on The Nun. 

Don't pay to watch this. 

 

 

Shit, too late lol.

I saw it on opening night, and I thought it was a snoozer as well. The whole universe is just comprised of jumpscares at this point.

 

 

On 9/15/2018 at 8:07 PM, Flame-X said:

The Predator (2018)

 

Easily the worst of the franchise. I went in with low expectations, but I still ended up being disappointed. 

 

Dude I can't believe you went to see that. At the same time, thanks for taking the bullet for all of us lol.

 

I saw What We Do In the Shadows the other night on Netflix. 

Not at all what I was expecting lol, but it was very entertaining since it was like a spinoff of MTV's True Life "I'm a vampire" or something.

Do recommend if you're bored and on Netflix.

[Flame-X 441]

^

 

I didn't see a single trailer of the movie. My only exposure was some twitch ads and Chris Stuckman's movie reviews on youtube. As someone who really enjoyed the first two Predator films, I wanted to see it regardless. It's really sad when the first AvP movie was far more enjoyable than this one.

[Bear 1817]

The Island at the Top of the World - Old Disney-produced fantasy-adventure that is right up my alley. It's a fairly known story about a pair that goes out to find a hidden island to find a missing son, and that meats different people and challenges along the way. Really nice-looking film with beautiful sets and special effects, and I didn't mind the story and characters either. It's flawed, but very fun nonetheless. Superb score too.

 

Paul - I'm a big fan of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, and I also like Seth Rogen a lot so it was about time I got around to see this. E.T. meets Roadtrip. Simple enough and fairly straight-forward, but it was really fun. Not the best Pegg and Frost film, but very good.

 

Bushwick - Decent enough modern action-adventure with Dave Bautista. I liked Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion's first film, Cooties, but in Bushwick their lack of experience shines through. It's OK for what it is, but it looks and feels cheap as fuck. What I will give it however is that the camera work is excellent at times. Several long shots, no anooying camera shake and it's got some sweet-as-fuck and clever camera moment here and there. But that's it. Was entertained for its 90 minute playtime, but it's not a film I'll watch again.

 

Eliminators - Alright action film with Scott Adkins, Stu Bennett and James Cosmo. It's really stupid and all that, but it was fun enough. Some nice action and martial arts scenes, and it's always refreshing when you see the camera man step back for the action scenes and give you a decent overview of what's happening, instead of all this shaky close-up shit we've gotten for the past two decades. Scott Adkins is always badass though. Have to give him that.

[Bear 1817]

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - Jurassic World wasn't exactly a masterpiece or anything. Hell, it wasn't even a good film. It was decent at best, and a film I'll most likely never watch again. But as I fucking love the universe and even really enjoy The Lost World and Jurassic Park 3 I just had to watch it. And I am sad to say that it was exactly as I imagined. The only times it feels slightly as a Jurassic Park film is when it uses scenes from the original, and even then it only feels like its done parodically. The characters are flat and boring and none have any motives for what they're doing, the set-pieces looks incredibly artificial and soulless and the dinosaurs doesn't like shit. There's just nothing here tbh. Crap!

 

Power Rangers - As a fan of the original TV-series and some of the old video games I just had to check this out. Didn't expect much, and didn't get much. It's a really weird film as it jumps back and forth between being silly and cartoonish as fuck and rather dark and gritty, and the creators didn't really seem to have any clue as to where to go with the film. It's all over the place. The CGI is less than good to. Every single time they use CGI for a jump or something, which they happen to do quite a lot, the physics are way off. Like, not just a litle. It's so fucking bad. Dear God! Rita Repulsa is also disappointing as fuck. Poorly played by Elisabeth Banks. Lacks everything that made the original Rita so good. Original was crazy as fuck and seemed like a maniac through and through. This doesn't. This is just out of place.

[Bear 1817]

Arrival - I expected some generic and mediocre sci-fi action, so I was taken quite by surprise when it proved to be a slow-burning, deep and thought-provoking sci-fi-drama with a lot of depth. This was just magnificent! Btw, I was not surprised about this when I saw that it was a Denis Villeneuve though. I just didn't realize this was one of his works. Anyway, fantastic!

 

Justice League Dark - Animated DC film with a fantastic set of characters (Batman, Constantine, Zatanna, Deadman, Etrigan the Demon, Black Orchid, Felix Faust and a shitload of more) , a complex and cool-as-fuck-plot with great action, interesting and fun dialogue and lots of depth all over the place. The whole story holds a sense of mystery to it, deals with magic and whatnot but still feels like a proper superhero film. Really fucking good! 

 

There's also a sequel series to this called Constantine: City of Demons. I just have to dig into that series ASAP!

 

 

Fucking hell, these animated films from DC are so good. How the hell are they able to produce one brilliant animated film after another, and when it comes to live-action films we're treated with utter fucking shit like Man of Steel, Batman v Superman:
Dawn of Justice, Suicide Squad and Justice League. At their best, Wonder Woman, they're mediocre as fucking fuck. It's incredible.

[Bear 1817]

Watched Wheelman with Frank Grillo last night. One of 2017's best movies. A extremely tense and suspenseful thriller set mostly in a car with Frank Grillo talking on the phone. Simple as fuck, but balanced perfectly between style and substance and is really effective. Feels like a tribute to late 60's and 70's car movies, which in itself is awesome. With a budget of 5m and shot in 19 days it's a b-film alright, but that just makes it better.

 

Must watch for sure!

[Bear 1817]

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox - And incredibly well-crafted DC tale based on 2011's graphic novel Flashpoint. Easily one of the best superhero movies I've seen. Deep, rich and really complex storyline, great, well-crafted and deep characters, loads of nice and brutal violence and so on. Everything takes time in an alternative universe, and I am a proper sucker for that kind of things. Yeah, thought this was exceptional and a must for any fan of superheros.

 

I need to get a hold of the graphic novel it is based on. Like now!

 

Justice League: War - Cool, modern origin story that's a bit all over the place, but still incredibly funny and entertaining and not hard to follow or anything. It's not anywhere near as complex and well-written as The Flashpoint Paradox, though. It's really straight-forward and heavy on the action. But it was really fun!

 

Ant-Man and the Wasp - A bit disappointing as it doesn't live up to the quality of its predecessor, despite the creators choice to utilize Paul Rudd's comedic timing way more and better. But in the end I thought it was a bit too light-hearted, and it lacked a proper villain. Thought Ghost was pretty boring and simple. Shame, because if Ghost was a bit meaner this would've been thousand times better tbh.

 

 

[violetchain 912]

"Animal World", which was a weird Chinese take on "Kaiji", with Michael Douglas as the villain for some reason. Most of the actual rock, paper, scissors game was pretty similar to the Japanese "Kaiji" movie, but it was changed in a few subtle ways that made it a bit unpredictable and refreshing to watch. However, the movie was also peppered with these weird scenes of the main character imagining himself as a clown warrior smiting his enemies and his opponents morphing into animals, plus a bunch of annoying and completely unnecessary special effects.

 

Plus the movie only really covered the rock, paper, scissors game and it just sort of abruptly ended afterwards.

 

The game part is pretty tense, the romantic bits are kind of cute, and it's kind of interesting seeing people from all over the world taking part in the game instead of just Japanese players, but the Japanese "Kaiji" just covers so much more without all the obnoxious extra visual effects and constant slow-mo shots. Plus he looks terrifying as a clown, and I hate clowns, so there's that.

 

 

^The scammer guy on the ship is so much dreamier than the one in the Japanese version though. God, it was worth watching the movie for that burgundy suit and scarf combo alone.

Edited October 10, 2018 by violetchain

[Bear 1817]

Justice League: Throne of Atlantis - Stand-alone sequel to Justice League: War, but not quite as good. But again it's a cool origin story about Aquaman, but you also get a taste of Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Green Lantern and so on. I like how it's an actual Aquaman story, but the second half isn't all that and they didn't get the most of out his character. Anyway, it's a fun, action-driven superhero movie.

 

Superman/Doomsday - This one of based off The Death of Superman, so you kinda know the story. Thought it was superb, despite Doomsday not having a big enough part. But the rest is just top notch. Can't really find anything to complain about. Not the best animated DC film, but very, very good. Deep, rich, complex and with massive characters with a lot of depth.

 

Justice League: The New Frontier - Deep, rich, complex and with massive characters with a lot of depth. There's absolutely nothing not to love here. Got a superb story, great animations,amazing characters and so on. Really, really good!

 

Wonder Woman - Again, deep, rich, complex and with massive characters with a lot of depth. It kinda tells the same story as the shitty live-action film, just a billion times better and more interesting in every single way. Surprisingly brutal and dark with Wonder Woman showing no mercy and is using extreme force and just fucking people up. You know, beheadings and such. Steve Trevor is also bad as fuck in this. Just showing no mercy whatsoever, a pure fucking execution is just awesome and unexpected.

[violetchain 912]

Saw "Tigers Are Not Afraid" tonight as part of the Toronto After Dark Film Festival.

 

God, those were some adorable kids. I can see the "Pan's Labyrinth" comparisons for sure, but there was a distinctive grim and gritty vibe throughout the whole thing that was a refreshing contrast to a lot of similar fantasy films. Really liked the slightly ambiguous way the "magic" was presented as well. And that ending...