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f13.net General Forums => Movies => Topic started by: schild on June 08, 2016, 11:21:54 AM



Title: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 08, 2016, 11:21:54 AM
Weeee:

The Vatican Tapes: 2/10
The Exorcism of Molly Hartley: Watch Emily Rose Instead/10
Triangle: 6/10 (way better than it should have been)
The Pyramid: 3/10
The Visit: 5/10
Final Girl: 6/10 (dialogue not withstanding, it was gorgeous)
Contracted: So Bad I Couldn't Watch the Sequel/10
The Vvitch: NO/10 (this was abhorrent garbage)
Insidious 3: As a stand alone movie, terrible. Watching 1, 2, and 3 in one sitting makes it amazing just because of how they weave together.



Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Evildrider on June 08, 2016, 11:32:05 AM
Check out He Never Died on Netflix.  It's not a super great movie but worth it just for Henry Rollins.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 08, 2016, 11:39:19 AM
Funny, I avoided watching it because of Rollins. Up next is probably the entire V/H/S series.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 08, 2016, 11:41:16 AM
The Witch (VVITCH) was the biggest let down for me. I wanted it so badly to be good. But it was like a slice of life salem movie and just absolutely terrible.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Signe on June 08, 2016, 01:11:14 PM
Too bad.  The Witch got decent reviews for a horror film.  I was hoping they were accurate for a change.  Terrible horror films can be good fun if they're terrible due to being culty and campy or hilarious.  Not so for serious horror films that end up just being bad.  The worst crime, in my book, is when a film that's described as being a thriller or suspenseful is predictable.  I don't get scared when I know what's going to happen.  At best, I'll watch them for special effects or something.  In the last several years, the ones I remember being good were:  The Babadook, Dead Snow 2 and Housebound.  There's more but my brain is dead right now.  And It Follows... that was good, too.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 08, 2016, 01:24:56 PM
I intensely disliked The Babadook, mostly because of the kid. Also, Deborah Logan was fairly dreadful, not that you listed that.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 08, 2016, 03:57:52 PM
Up next is probably the entire V/H/S series.

I really liked those.

Add Oculus to your list if you haven't already seen it.  Aaaand Pontypool?  That one's old but it sticks out as a really nice "rando Netflix horror movie" surprise.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 08, 2016, 04:06:22 PM
Seen both of those. Oculus was more entertaining. Pontypool was the better movie.

I'm 2/3 of the way through the first VHS. It's... ok. The fourth short is by far the strongest. First three were a mess.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 08, 2016, 04:24:11 PM
One of the things I liked best about VHS was that as a collection of shorts, if one of them isn't quite landing it at least gets out of the way quickly enough.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 08, 2016, 05:54:37 PM
I'm writing thoughts about the V/H/S series as I'm watching it. It's already at 2,000 characters. I think it's going to get its own thread.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Margalis on June 08, 2016, 06:55:54 PM
V/H/S 1 & 2 have their charm. The third, Viral, is just super super bad.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 08, 2016, 07:25:18 PM
I liked Witch and Babadook but they aren't horror movies really.

I think Hush is worth watching on Netflix.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 08, 2016, 07:34:58 PM
Hush is on the list for damn sure. I actually just got to "stuff that's on Netflix." Everything else was shit I had to track down.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Signe on June 09, 2016, 08:14:50 AM
I just realised that as far as horror goes, I liked very little from this year so far or last year.  2014 wasn't bad, 2013 was better. 


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 10:54:54 AM
Yeesh: http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=25286.new#new

Fuckin V/H/S.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 09, 2016, 11:20:39 AM
You mentioned Lovecraft movies in the VHS thread.  Have you seen Dagon (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0264508/)?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 11:22:12 AM
Yes, it's garbage.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 09, 2016, 11:36:28 AM
 :mob:

It's definitely not for everyone, but I think it's the closest anyone's come to making a Lovecraft movie "right".  It devolves into (glorious) schlock at the end, but the middle is IMO a pitch perfect adaptation of Shadow over Innsmouth.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 11:44:33 AM
The whole thing felt like schlock to me :/


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 09, 2016, 11:46:02 AM
I might be influenced by the fact that it's so restrained and dignified compared to Re-Animator.  Which I love in its own way.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 11:48:22 AM
Yea, I just find both to be pretty poorly done.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 09, 2016, 12:40:50 PM
Dagon is probably one of the best Lovecraft movies done. It just happens to be low-budget and also based on Lovecraft, which means its mostly schlocky regardless of what you do.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 12:41:32 PM
There is not a single thing in Lovecraft's writing that screams schlock to me. And yet, every Lovecraft movie is full of it. It is beyond aggravating.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 09, 2016, 12:43:38 PM
You mean you don't consider the overwrought prose schlocky? It all feels very 20-30's pulpy to me, which isn't a bad thing but prone to the schlock. I don't know of many screenwriters/directors who can capture that feel of Lovecraft without descending into utter cornball. Del Toro I would think could do it. Guys who direct for the Syfy channel? Probably not.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: 01101010 on June 09, 2016, 12:57:27 PM
Isn't this precisely why a pure Lovecraftian movie has no shot at being created? There are so many different interpretations of the work that it would be difficult to even storyboard something like that let alone get it to work for a wide audience. Who's mind would you trust to develop any of the stories into a movie?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 01:17:39 PM
Quote
Who's mind would you trust to develop any of the stories into a movie?

Del Toro, as Haemish said, would be the first choice. In modern times, Lovecraft needs a bit of an editor. Also someone who will translate his work, not just shove it on screen. Just because some of the writing had a touch of ehhhhhhhh "era-specific" crap to it, doesn't mean that shit has to be translated. Hell, when I read it, the literary floral garbage Haemish alludes to glosses over me like white noise.

A Lovecraft story should be Establish Place -> Establish Dread -> Establish Horror -> Everyone Dies, mostly. There's no need for any of it to be hamfisted, poorly acted, or otherwise. Hell, David Fincher could do it. He *did* do it (with Se7en) to a degree.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on June 09, 2016, 01:53:49 PM
I would say the better Paranormal Activity is pretty Lovecraftian in the setting of creeping horror. The way the sound, lighting and camera angles work together to slowly build and release tension. I'll enjoy just about any mediocre flick that can get that part right, because for me it's more about setting a mood. Naturally, I watch any movie like this late at night with all the lights out and the sound system cranked to 'hope the neighbors don't call the cops'.

I'm also partial to good set pieces, a good location can elevate a mediocre movie for me.

I wish I had thought to start a journal on stuff I began watching when Amazon started Prime Video, I've been far down their corridors of horror. Not much slasher/jump scare stuff, I like the suspense kind of thing.

To be more helpful: Session 9 was a great film. Unfortunately, it was one of the first I remember watching on Amazon and it's been mostly downhill from there. Also, check out Coherence. It was shot in a pretty cool, improvisational way that I feel worked more often than not, where the actors would know who they were and some topics or motivations, but not what was going to happen in the scene. Another one I really dig is Timecrimes, one of my favorite time travel movies (my other favorite after suspenseful horror).

On to the more mediocre. I found Grave Encounters to have a lot of potential, maybe a 6/10 with deductions for jumps, acting and predictability (all usual suspects for found footage, anyway). But it had some of that atmosphere setting stuff I enjoyed enough to mostly put up with the rest of it. The second one, not so much (though I still watched it because pickings are slim).

Muirhouse I actually liked pretty well. There was one long section in the late middle/early end section, where a 'chase' scene dragged on overlong. Otherwise I found it a good, slow, setting type movie. Not much happens, and I'm ok with that because most films can't make 'stuff happening' very well.

There's a slew of pretty meh house type ones for when your queue of quality runs dry, St Francisville Experiment, 7 Nights of Darkness, Spirit Stalkers, Dark Mountain. Again, I wish I had kept notes, some of those might have some redeeming values I liked but forgot. I also take them off my list after I watch them, so I forget which ones I've seen. There was one super-low budget set in an apartment building where the longhair caretaker was the lead character that was oddly enjoyable, can't remember the name.

Unfortunately the Jean Rollin stuff is finally leaving Prime. It's pretty low budget and weird, but it's got tons of euroboob and I like a lot of his stuff as it has a surreal vibe to it. If I still smoked pot or dropped acid I'd like them more :)



Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Teleku on June 09, 2016, 02:17:23 PM
Not to derail the thread, but can Schild (or anybody else who feels up to it) give me a list of top stories/novels to read by Lovecraft?

I've never really read much of his work, though I love horror.  I picked up a random old anthology book of his short stories from a used book shop in Berkeley (that was from the 60's), and enjoyed the few I bothered to read.  Need to finally dive in and see his major stuff.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Margalis on June 09, 2016, 02:19:41 PM
Isn't this precisely why a pure Lovecraftian movie has no shot at being created?

Lovecraft stories rely heavily on mood, the prose and the inner mental states of characters rather than action and dialogue, which doesn't translate well to film.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 09, 2016, 02:32:27 PM
Fincher would do a good Lovecraft as well.

As for which ones to read, the keystones are "At the Mountains of Madness," "Shadows of Innsmouth," and of course "Call of Cthulhu." There's a bunch of others but to me, those are the 3 that stand out. A lot of his earlier works had some of the same horror but didn't really reach the heights of any kind of shared mythology.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 09, 2016, 02:34:59 PM
Not to derail the thread, but can Schild (or anybody else who feels up to it) give me a list of top stories/novels to read by Lovecraft?

Lovecraft has a fair amount of breadth so you'll see a diversity of opinion there.  I really like "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" for example, which is more in a fantasy vein than most of Lovecraft's stuff and would be a turnoff to someone expecting straight up horror.  "Call of Cthulhu" is probably his best known story because Cthulhu himself translates better to visual art than most of Lovecraft's monsters, but the story itself is not one of my favorites.

Check out this ancient thread (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=2469.0).   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 02:43:10 PM
Music of Erich Zann is probably my favorite Lovecraft story at this point.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Kail on June 09, 2016, 02:52:30 PM
Not to derail the thread, but can Schild (or anybody else who feels up to it) give me a list of top stories/novels to read by Lovecraft?
Lovecraft has a fair amount of breadth so you'll see a diversity of opinion there.  I really like "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" for example, which is more in a fantasy vein than most of Lovecraft's stuff and would be a turnoff to someone expecting straight up horror.  

Yeah, I think he's got two kind of separate (though sometimes overlapping) styles, one is a kind of dreamy fantasy style ("Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" or "Quest of Iranon" or "Cats of Ulthar") and the other is his more popular weird/horror stuff.  Probably there's a bunch I'm forgetting, but the iconic stuff I think of when I think of Lovecraft is:

  • Call of Cthulhu (obviously)
  • Dagon
  • The Dunwich Horror
  • The Colour out of Space
  • The Nameless City
  • Rats in the Walls
  • The Whisperer in the Darkness (kind of long)
  • Shadow over Innsmouth (long)
  • At the Mountains of Madness (long)
  • The Shadow out of Time (long)

In terms of popularity, it's probably Cthulhu ahead by a mile, followed by Shadow over Innsmouth and Mountains of Madness, I'd guess.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 03:12:48 PM
Mountains of Madness, I think, is the best of his popular works. Colour out of Space is exceptional. Pickman's Model should be more respected and talked about. The Dunwich Horror floats in and out of popularity and is very good.

Here's the thing, it doesn't take long to read his complete works. I say just read them all. You'll decide what you like and don't like.

Also, read Robert Howard's (you know, Conan) Lovecraft Mythos stuff (Black Eons, Candles, Dig Me No Grave, The Thing on the Roof, Arkham, etc).

Also, absolutely go deep and read the pre-lovecraft stuff, The King in Yellow by Robert Chambers.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 09, 2016, 03:24:27 PM
The King in Yellow was good. The rest of Chambers stuff is not.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 03:32:55 PM
Yes, that needs to be said - do not read other Chambers shit. Just The King in Yellow.

Back to movies - downloading The Green Inferno, which I have not yet seen. Also going to rewatch the shitty American Pulse. In grabbing it, I found out America decided a Pulse 2 and Pulse 3 were necessary.

Another shit trilogy, awesome.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 03:37:36 PM
Also, just to give some scope on where I'm coming from, the best horror I've seen in the last ten years was probably (I have no clue when these came out): The Descent, Oculus, [REC], and Ju-On. I know Ju-On came out closer to Ringu than now, I didn't see it until 2005 or so (but I'm fairly confident it was earlier in the 2000s)

If we're ignoring pure horror, I'd probably put Cloverfield on the list as well as Human Centipede.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Typhon on June 09, 2016, 03:55:51 PM
Kail's list is spot on, but you should read them in a specific order (the more engagingly written first).

Call of Cthulhu (because this isn't written like any of the others and gets you started)*
The Colour out of Space
At the Mountains of Madness*
The Dunwich Horror*
The Shadow out of Time*

The Dunwich Horror is probably my favorite because it's so demented, but it is horribly written, so you need to read some of the others to get used to the way he writes - his prose is hard to read at first, very tedious.  His ideas are fantastic.

I also like these;

The Dreams in the Witch House
The Thing on the Doorstep

*these stories introduce the larger parts of the mythos (in addition to The Whisperer in the Darkness)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 09, 2016, 03:59:14 PM
Here's the thing, it doesn't take long to read his complete works. I say just read them all. You'll decide what you like and don't like.

This is the only really correct answer.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 04:42:15 PM
Pulse 1-3, Southbound, and The Green Inferno have been acquired.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 07:55:17 PM
Pulse is garbage. I can't wait to see the next two.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Margalis on June 09, 2016, 08:46:26 PM
I was not a big fan of Southbound - a little too serious and gritty for my taste maybe.

I think someone previously mentioned "Black Mountain Side." (Though they called it Black Mountain) Pretty good I thought. More of an exercise in atmosphere and setting than anything else, but pretty decent for what it was.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Hawkbit on June 09, 2016, 09:19:10 PM
Also, just to give some scope on where I'm coming from, the best horror I've seen in the last ten years was probably (I have no clue when these came out): The Descent, Oculus, [REC], and Ju-On. I know Ju-On came out closer to Ringu than now, I didn't see it until 2005 or so (but I'm fairly confident it was earlier in the 2000s)

If we're ignoring pure horror, I'd probably put Cloverfield on the list as well as Human Centipede.

I never saw [REC] and will have to now because I agree, The Descent and Oculus were some of my favorite horror films of the past decade. The former we saw in the theatre and the large screen really brings the claustrophobia home. Hostel I also saw in the theatre, and it was memorable because it was when modern horror died to me. The torture porn stuff just doesn't really do it for me and I drew the line at Human Centipede, never actually saw them.

You're Next. Wolf Creek was fucking brutal but I can't really watch these types anymore.

I also liked enough parts of Jeepers Creepers that I can say it's good-esque. Anything about aliens freaks me out badly, so while Signs and The fourth kind and Communion aren't really horror movies, they always scare the shit out of me. I sometimes give movies a lot of credit if they can mash different genres together. For example, I really liked Outlander.

Thanks all for sharing titles - I've added a few to my lists!


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Johny Cee on June 09, 2016, 10:49:50 PM
I was trying to figure out why a bunch of people had read The King in Yellow, then remembered it was heavily referenced in True Detective. 

The "Old School" types, Algernon Blackwood's The Willows, William Hope Hodgson has some good stuff (Nightland is really influential, but he tried to do a faux-17th century style and it is impenetrable), and Arthur Machen (I remember his Great God Pan as being really good) get referenced alot. 

The Nightland book/s are sooo hard to read, but reading it you have massive "OHHHHH" moments for where many popular horror tropes originated. 

For modern writers, Laird Barron and Caitlin Kiernan are both really good.  For Barron, the collection with Men from Porlock.  Kiernan's Red Tree is fantastic.


With the amount body horror Cronenberg uses, I'm really surprised he hasn't taken a swing at a Lovecraft film.  The Fly could be a Lovecraft story.




Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Goreschach on June 09, 2016, 10:53:46 PM
Here's the thing, it doesn't take long to read his complete works. I say just read them all. You'll decide what you like and don't like.

This is the only really correct answer.

Most of the stuff he wrote is public domain. This is a not-actually-complete but pretty comprehensive collection of his short stories.

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/

Most have already been mentioned but some of the best stories would include:

At the Mountains of Madness (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/mountainsofmaddness.htm)
The Call of Cthulu (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecallofcthulhu.htm)
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecaseofcharlesdexterward.htm)
The Colour Out of Space (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thecolouroutofspace.htm)
Dagon (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/dagon.htm)
The Dunwich Horror (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thedunwichhorror.htm)
The Shadow Out of Time (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/theshadowoutoftime.htm)
The Shadow Over Innsmouth (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/theshadowoverinnsmouth.htm)
The Thing on the Doorstep (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thethingonthedoorstep.htm)
The Whisperer in Darkness (http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/thewhispererindarkness.htm)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Margalis on June 09, 2016, 11:36:50 PM
I'm not a fan of "torture porn" but had not seen the first Hostel until recently. It feels pretty tame to me. The horror is less the torture porn aspect and more being in a foreign land, being vulnerable, not really understanding what people are saying, etc. I don't know that it really stands up well, but it also didn't strike me as being beyond the pale and it seemed fairly effective for what it was going for.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2016, 11:38:28 PM
The first hostel is the best movie Eli Roth has done. Also, best use of Takashi Miike as an extra. Movie isn't GOOD though. Roth doesn't do good. He does "ok."


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 10, 2016, 02:31:10 AM
Green Room is out on blu-ray next month which I would recommend checking out. I haven't watched Darling yet (it's on VOD though), but that seems to be pretty polarizing.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on June 10, 2016, 08:13:54 AM
Sort of watched Lazarus last night. Sort of, because it was so bad I ended up mostly playing solitaire on the phone and then started reading a book.

An amazingly shitty movie. -1/10


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: satael on June 10, 2016, 08:39:27 AM
Pulse is garbage. I can't wait to see the next two.

As cliché as it sounds, the original Japanese version of the movie is a lot better (though I'm a bit biased on this since I really like Kiyoshi Kurosawa's movies in general).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 10, 2016, 08:47:35 AM
Seen the original one, liked it. Kristin Bell vehicle was no bueno. Had not seen that one.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 10, 2016, 10:34:36 AM
Pulse 2 is too terrible to bother finishing. made it 19 minutes in. What a masterpiece. Deleting Pulse 3.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 10, 2016, 11:56:41 AM
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/mel-gibson-is-making-the-passion-of-the-christ-2-a7073746.html

how? what?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 10, 2016, 12:07:07 PM
Wait... WHAT?

WUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT???


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: TheWalrus on June 10, 2016, 12:08:46 PM
Well of course there's a sequel. Jesus rises, remember?

3 days. That's some serious lag, man.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Goreschach on June 10, 2016, 12:43:23 PM
Actually, Jesus came back to life immediately after being crucified. It just took him three days to run back to his corpse.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: TheWalrus on June 10, 2016, 12:56:09 PM
Fucking grind. Wonder how much xp he lost.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on June 10, 2016, 01:02:51 PM
Actually, Jesus came back to life immediately after being crucified. It just took him three days to run back to his corpse.
That's what he gets for binding in Galilee before the raid. Should've grouped with a necro.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 10, 2016, 04:59:31 PM
#HORROR is real garbage also. Guess I'm about to head into an Eli-Rothathon. A the very least I know I can finish these movies, even if they're all awful.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 11, 2016, 07:00:39 PM
Green Inferno was terrible. I can't even compliment the gore, other than the practical effects when they dismembered the first guy.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 11, 2016, 09:06:20 PM
The Descent 2 is WAY better than I expected. What a nice little set of movies.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Mandella on June 12, 2016, 10:53:42 AM
The Descent 2 is WAY better than I expected. What a nice little set of movies.

Really? Does the sequel follow the downbeat European theatrical release or the "happy" American one, or is there any connection at all with the characters of the first movie?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 12, 2016, 10:58:40 AM
The Descent 2 is WAY better than I expected. What a nice little set of movies.

Really? Does the sequel follow the downbeat European theatrical release or the "happy" American one, or is there any connection at all with the characters of the first movie?
The Descent 2 takes place directly after the first movie ends. Same actors. There's a few continuity issues and the cinematography doesn't evoke the same level of claustrophobia as the first movie, but all things considered it got the job done. It's now a complete story that begins and ends. The end of the second one leaves things a LITTLE open for a prequel, but given how little money it made, I find that unlikely.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Teleku on June 12, 2016, 04:06:06 PM
Dagon is probably one of the best Lovecraft movies done. It just happens to be low-budget and also based on Lovecraft, which means its mostly schlocky regardless of what you do.
I downloaded and have watched the first half of this movie based on this thread.  While I'll finish it because I want to see what is actually happening overall, this movie could have literally been shown on the original Mystery Science Theater 3000.  Acting and production wise.  Holy hell.  

This is not Schlock.  This is a few steps above Troll 2.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 12, 2016, 04:15:13 PM
Hostel is worse than I remember. Eli Roth may just be a terrible writer.

Fake Edit: Looked up his imdb info before hitting post. He is a terrible writer. Though I have Knock Knock, I haven't yet watched it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 12, 2016, 04:22:49 PM
I think (but could be wrong) that Dagon was actually done as a SciFi original movie with the tits and things added for the DVD release - so yeah, budget is not good and the acting is terrible. But again, it's a decent translation of the story, especially compared to some other Cthulhu movies.

Also, yes... Eli Roth is a really terrible writer.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: rattran on June 14, 2016, 07:09:47 PM
I think the 2005 Call of Cthulhu (silent)movie is the best adaptation, with 60's The Colour Out Of Space aka Die, Monster, Die! the wierdest.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on June 14, 2016, 09:17:00 PM
I think the 2005 Call of Cthulhu (silent)movie is the best adaptation, with 60's The Colour Out Of Space aka Die, Monster, Die! the wierdest.

I like the silent film quite a bit.  Did the same group ever release any other films?

My favorite Lovecraftianish film is John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness, although it is also a love letter to Stephen King.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on June 15, 2016, 08:40:36 AM
Color Out of Space is probably my favorite straight Lovecraft movie.

https://www.amazon.com/Color-Out-Space-Marco-Leibnitz/dp/B00C1CDUES/


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 17, 2016, 12:03:23 AM
Just watched The Gallows.  Pretty good as far as found footage haunted house movies go.

Fake edit: started post before the movie ended.  The last two minutes or so totally undermines it.  Advise stopping the movie as soon as you hear clapping toward the end.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 18, 2016, 10:26:54 AM
You should watch Bonestorm to wash that taste out of your mouth.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 18, 2016, 02:59:35 PM
I don't know why Jennifer Gardner and Kevin Stacy are so desperate for work, but the preview I just saw for their new movie makes TMNT look like a quality film.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: apocrypha on June 18, 2016, 03:18:12 PM
Just watched Oculus, which while mildly entertaining, was very predictable. It also highlighted a major problem with 90% of films made in the last 20 years, which is that actors and actresses are chosen for how pretty they look instead of their acting ability or presence.

Give me one Shelley Duvall in The Shining over ten Karen Gillans in Oculus any day.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: TheWalrus on June 18, 2016, 10:09:33 PM
Kind of pops to music too. Could Tom Petty in his heyday make it today?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Evildrider on June 18, 2016, 10:20:57 PM
Kind of pops to music too. Could Tom Petty in his heyday make it today?

He would be a hipster god I bet.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: K9 on June 19, 2016, 02:56:14 PM
Just watched Oculus, which while mildly entertaining, was very predictable. It also highlighted a major problem with 90% of films made in the last 20 years, which is that actors and actresses are chosen for how pretty they look instead of their acting ability or presence.

Give me one Shelley Duvall in The Shining over ten Karen Gillans in Oculus any day.

Back in the day we didn't have looks, we just had the powerhouse acting talents of people like Sid James  :why_so_serious:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sir T on June 19, 2016, 03:48:16 PM
I dunno if you are looking for suggestions, but I quite liked "shadow of the Vampire", which is a black comedy horror about the making of "Nosferatu" which pretends that Max Shrek was actually a vampire and the deranged director knew that and hired him to bring authenticity to his movie. For those that like the ugly, it has John Malkovich, William Defoe, and Eddie Izzard to bring down the looks average.  :grin:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 19, 2016, 05:35:52 PM
"Splice" (with Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) was fucking amazing.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 19, 2016, 06:53:21 PM
"Splice" (with Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) was fucking amazing.
And Predators (also Adrien Brody) was probably the best in the franchise since the original. Didn't get nearly enough love, probably because AvP had trashed the franchise by then.

--Dave


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 19, 2016, 08:05:17 PM
Second the recommendation on Predators. That one doesn't get enough credit for being a good game.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Johny Cee on June 19, 2016, 10:28:06 PM
Second the recommendation on Predators. That one doesn't get enough credit for being a good game.

The Topher character kills that movie for me.  The rest of it is solid with the "killers/monsters rediscovering their humanity" but ughhh, Topher.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: apocrypha on June 19, 2016, 10:56:54 PM
'Shadow of the Vampire' is great, yep, loved that film. 'Splice' was OK, long time since I saw it and I don't remember a huge amount about it other than I thought it was OK.  :awesome_for_real:

Not seen Predators, will keep an eye out for it. Wife and I did a trawl of IMDB's top movie lists of 2015/2014 last night and realised we hadn't even heard of most of 2015's. We had a kind of shitty year last year and apparently were too wrapped up in our own stuff to notice things like entertainment.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 21, 2016, 04:38:03 PM
Alright, so:

The Conjuring - Exceptional. Just absolutely exceptional. Up until the ending. sad_trombone.

#Horror - What the fuck. What a weird movie. Nearly impossible to follow (or care about).

The Vatican Tapes - Spent years looking for a decent copy. Even for free it's not worth watching.

The 5th Wave - Nope. Couldn't even get into it. Might become background noise for a shitty day just to say I made it through the whole thing.

Sacrifice - I like Radha Mitchell, but this was fairly terrible. And boring.

Edit: Tonight I'm watching the Ryan Reynold's Amityville Horror. I'm sure it will be positively mediocre.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 21, 2016, 05:26:10 PM
Edit: Tonight I'm watching the Ryan Reynold's Amityville Horror. I'm sure it will be positively mediocre.

It was ok, but mostly not memorable.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: rattran on June 22, 2016, 07:49:48 AM
My wife watches a LOT of bad zombie films. Last night was a few really bad ones, the stand out was

Destined to be Ingested (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1098337/) a very pretty, and absolutely pointless film. The Virgin Islands/Puerto Rico locations were pretty, the acting was terribad, the plot was worse. And the last 10 minutes laughable zombies show up. They seem to have patterned the zombie look from Zombie Lake's nazi zombies. Avoid.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 22, 2016, 08:49:11 AM
I can't do bad zombie films. I think it has something to do with makeup and expectations. Like, I expect zombies to be of a certain caliber and bad zombie movies never get there. Bad horror films at least clear the low bar of having gore and cheap thrills, but bad zombie movies just fall flat.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: rattran on June 22, 2016, 09:10:54 AM
I don't think it started as a zombie film, just cannibal native thriller/horror. I suspect zombies were added due to either not having an ending, or running out of cash.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 22, 2016, 10:19:06 AM
Watching The Hole on Netflix now.  Promising premise, was hoping for something along the lines of House of Leaves.  Seems to be going in a much stupider direction.

(edit) Think this crosses over into "so stupid it's good".  YMMV.

(edit) Directed by Joe Dante.  It all makes sense now.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 22, 2016, 12:54:41 PM
The Hole was meh.

Dead by Daylight streams on Twitch are better than most current horror movies.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 27, 2016, 02:45:46 PM
"Listening" is basically "Primer" with a much bigger budget and much worse writing.  Also the sci-fi gimmick is telepathy rather than time travel.  Just worse all around.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 28, 2016, 09:58:28 AM
Tetris: The movie.

Now a trilogy and apparently that's not a hoax.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/28/tetris-films-trilogy?CMP=fb_gu

Though, in keeping with the theme of Tetris, shouldn't it be a quadrilogy?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on July 02, 2016, 06:46:48 AM
Saw Now You See Me 2 last night. Never watched the first but the wife wanted to see this and Tarzan was full. Quite an enjoyable little movie, especially if you like misdirection and parlor magic. Only two "wtf that's bullshit" scenes for me. This series is more enjoyable than the marketing makes it look.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on July 02, 2016, 07:12:20 PM
Tarzan: Not grat but not bad. Worth it for a night-out if you don't want to see any of the shitty blockbusters out right now.

Sam Jackson could have been wholly removed and the movie would have been better. He only served a subplot Tarzan covered and was obviously thrown-in to Americanize things for stupid people. The rest felt very Burroughs-esque.

If you're going to subject yourself to watching Suicide Squad for Margot Robbie, you'd probably enjoy this one more.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Phildo on July 24, 2016, 04:24:25 PM
I watched The Lobster (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3464902/?ref_=nv_sr_1) over the weekend.  The sum total of my reflection on this movie amounts to "what?"


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on July 24, 2016, 04:33:30 PM
I downloaded that months ago based on the description.

Still haven't watched it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Shannow on July 24, 2016, 09:44:51 PM
The Dark Horse, with Cliff Curtis who's one of 'oh yeah that guy'.

DAMN good.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on August 03, 2016, 09:39:36 AM
I can't do bad zombie films. I think it has something to do with makeup and expectations. Like, I expect zombies to be of a certain caliber and bad zombie movies never get there. Bad horror films at least clear the low bar of having gore and cheap thrills, but bad zombie movies just fall flat.
Have you seen Fulci's Zombie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080057/ ? Low budget but still awesome and one of my favorites. But it's definitely bad.

It's too bad the early zombie in the water is SO bad, but makeup+water+1979 *shrug* Stay at least well into the house set to see if you dig it. One of my favorite horror effects ever (hint: eyeball).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on August 08, 2016, 05:07:44 PM
"They're Watching".  Just fast-forward to the last 20 minutes or so, which is where it goes from standard found footage trash to glorious B movie stupidity.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Paelos on August 09, 2016, 07:31:12 AM
I saw Jason Bourne this weekend. It's fun, but it's basically one long car chase, and Matt Damon says maybe 10 lines in the entire thing. Didn't seem worthy of its own thread


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on August 09, 2016, 08:06:33 AM
Saw it last night myself and agree. It doesn't deserve the savage reviews it's getting, though some of the tech moments were pretty WTF. 

They do the CSI "enhance" to a blurry digital pan, for example.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Paelos on August 09, 2016, 08:14:06 AM
I don't read reviews anymore because they don't really reflect the movie. People have started carrying their own politics and agendas into movie reviews of all things, which means I just go watch what I want and ignore the rest.

Basically if I read reviews, I'd never watch anything since they only give good reviews to things I have no interest in (animated movies, teen/kids stuff, or weird indie shit).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on August 09, 2016, 03:18:34 PM
Saw it last night myself and agree. It doesn't deserve the savage reviews it's getting, though some of the tech moments were pretty WTF. 

They do the CSI "enhance" to a blurry digital pan, for example.

I just thought it was boring. Now that Bourne remembers his past they had a chance to do something at least slightly interesting or different with this movie. Instead it's Bourne searching for some information about his past while government agents trying to cover up their shady operations try to kill him. I guess one could argue that this is the formula for the series and you know going into it that this is what you're going to get, but even then it doesn't even execute on that formula as well as any of the previous movies.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: grebo on August 12, 2016, 10:44:12 PM
I thought the fire alarm thing was slightly clever but overall didnt try very hard.  Basically a Dodge Charger commercial.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on August 26, 2016, 11:16:19 PM
Don't Breathe is a great movie and you should all go to the theater and watch it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on August 27, 2016, 08:48:06 AM
It looks interesting but my wife won't go in for horror/ survival movies. I'm curious about the twist, though I suspect we see it in the last trailer.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on August 27, 2016, 04:13:53 PM
I wouldn't go so far as to call any of the plot developments in the movie twists. There's no "everything you thought you knew was wrong" moment or anything like that. It's a really well put together movie that builds up the tension throughout and there's some scenes you don't want spoiled, but as much as the trailer shows you, I don't think it diminishes the movie at all.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on September 25, 2016, 09:01:04 PM
Summer of Blood (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsWxdAmsc1g) was randomly on the tv while I was getting ready for bed and I ended up watching the whole thing. I apologize in advance.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Yegolev on September 26, 2016, 12:55:19 PM
Watched Mortdecai and enjoyed myself.  Not sure what that 13% on Rotten Tomatoes was about.  I could see 50-60%


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Rasix on October 12, 2016, 11:04:23 AM
Eh, it's got a 29% user score on RT and 3.4 out of 10 on metacritic. So, there's no huge disconnect between people liking it and the critical reception. It's just possible, going out on a limb here, that you liked a shitty movie.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Rasix on October 18, 2016, 11:39:03 AM
New Assassin's Creed trailer is really bad. Holy fuck. I'm not creating a thread for this movie.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on October 18, 2016, 01:22:27 PM
That movie has almost no chance to be anything but shit.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on October 20, 2016, 05:57:22 PM
Just showed my class "Soylent Green". The movie really has an unfair reputation for being campy because of the way Heston delivers his last lines but it's actually a great flick. Depressing as all fuck even now, too.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Shannow on October 23, 2016, 07:31:13 AM
Jack Reacher 2. Do not go near this film. At the movies, on cable, even if it's free. 
You have been warned.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on October 24, 2016, 08:22:15 PM
Huh, explains the low score I saw in my movie app. Didn't deliver at all then? Sad.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Abagadro on October 30, 2016, 01:36:03 AM
Watched the film Michael Clayton a couple of times recently after not having seen it since its original run. Very, very solid flick. One of the better depictions of the legal world with the bonus being a slow-burn thriller/suspense yarn.  Hell of a cast and Swinton is really fabulous in it (basically forgot she won her Oscar for it until I looked it up).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Furiously on November 01, 2016, 10:40:08 PM
I watched the shallows tonight. It's fascinating to watch a movie just get worse and worse and worse. At some point someone just said, "Fuck it, it's not a horror movie, it's sharknado."


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on December 19, 2016, 05:32:28 AM
I should mention that La La Land is as good as the reviews suggest. Not going to bother making a thread for it because I know most here won't watch it but it's one of my favorites of the year (will probably win a ton of Oscars also not that that's relevant).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Shannow on December 19, 2016, 06:30:54 AM
Moana is perfectly good Disney kids entertainment. Frozen on the South Pacific. Who knew the Rock could sing?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on December 19, 2016, 07:37:14 AM
La La Land looks like it's a well done musical, but I fucking hate musicals with a passion so yeah, Velorath, I likely won't watch it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on December 19, 2016, 07:59:45 AM
"Allies" featured an acceptable number of Nazis getting shot.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Viin on December 19, 2016, 07:56:22 PM
Moana is perfectly good Disney kids entertainment. Frozen on the South Pacific. Who knew the Rock could sing?

My kids saw this and so I bought the soundtrack for my oldest. She will play it over and over if I let her. I had no idea Alan Tudyk and Jemaine Clement did character voices for it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on December 20, 2016, 01:31:13 AM
Alan Tudyk does voices for EVERYTHING.  Seriously, look him up ;  you'll be amazed at some of the shit he's been in.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on December 20, 2016, 05:06:02 AM
La La Land looks like it's a well done musical, but I fucking hate musicals with a passion so yeah, Velorath, I likely won't watch it.


For a musical it actually doesn't have that many musical (in that characters are singing about what's going on in the story) numbers and they're mostly front-loaded. There are two right at the beginning, another not too longer after which you can see pretty much in its entirety here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmDvq837e3Y), and one more later one. There's a bit of dancing here and there also, and there's some other music that's worked in more naturally due to Gosling's character being a musician. Also, if you're expecting something that's just light and cheerful there's a lot more emotional weight to this movie than you might first expect and parts of it hit pretty hard.

And if you're an Emma Stone fan at all, this is her at her very best. Like even more inhumanly charming than usual.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on January 02, 2017, 10:32:44 PM
Watched Gozu on amazon prime last night. It's a Takashi Miike movie from 2003 and does some batshit crazy stuff, particularly towards the end. I really enjoyed it.

Kurt Russell horrorish western Bone Tomahawk, and Green Room (one of Anton Yelchin's last movies) are both available on Prime as well and are both highly recommended.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: grebo on January 07, 2017, 12:06:41 PM
Caught Criminal last night on HBO Go.  I really don't want to live in a world where Costner is allowed to do things, or be seen by people.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: TheWalrus on January 07, 2017, 12:17:10 PM
Cooties is fucking great. Kid zombies, funny lines, complete throwaway movie, but absolutely worth watching.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on January 27, 2017, 02:13:13 AM
Chan-wook Park's latest movie The Handmaiden is now available to rent or stream digitally on Amazon. Probably his best work since Oldboy though nowhere near as crazy.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: satael on January 27, 2017, 03:39:34 AM
Chan-wook Park's latest movie The Handmaiden is now available to rent or stream digitally on Amazon. Probably his best work since Oldboy though nowhere near as crazy.

Only in the USA it seems (same goes for the bluray release in english)  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: DevilsAdvocate25 on March 16, 2017, 05:14:40 PM
Moana is perfectly good Disney kids entertainment. Frozen on the South Pacific. Who knew the Rock could sing?

My kids saw this and so I bought the soundtrack for my oldest. She will play it over and over if I let her. I had no idea Alan Tudyk and Jemaine Clement did character voices for it.

Jemaine's voice stands out as the big shiny crab for the entire number. I recognized it right off in the theater.

Tudyk voices the chicken. His lines were all "bawk" and "bawk, bawk".


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Father mike on March 17, 2017, 06:24:45 AM
They show Tyduk recording in the extra materials.  He looks right into the camera and says, "Yep, went to Juliard to do that."


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on April 12, 2017, 06:47:25 PM
Forgot we had a useless movies thread.

Obscure, excellent horror movies. I'm filling up my media center genre by genre. Go.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: apocrypha on April 13, 2017, 12:28:44 AM
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0452583/


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on April 13, 2017, 04:28:46 AM
Forgot we had a useless movies thread.

Obscure, excellent horror movies. I'm filling up my media center genre by genre. Go.

I'm not sure where to start since I think we might have different definitions of obscure, excellent, and probably even horror. Also you mention filling up a media center but honestly you might find a $4.99 monthly sub to Shudder worthwhile for convenience, a lot of obscurity, and because some nights instead of watching an excellent movie you might feel like watching Mountain of the Cannibal God because you don't know anything about it but you see it has Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach in it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: rattran on April 13, 2017, 06:02:04 AM
Blood and Donuts (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112527/) is semi-obscure, decent horror comedy from the mid 90s. So half of each of your criteria.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on April 13, 2017, 12:30:32 PM
honestly you might find a $4.99 monthly sub to Shudder worthwhile for convenience, a lot of obscurity, and because some nights instead of watching an excellent movie you might feel like watching Mountain of the Cannibal God because you don't know anything about it but you see it has Ursula Andress and Stacy Keach in it.

I'd never heard of Shudder but it sounds pretty awesome; I've burned through most of the good horror on Netflix it seems like.  Need to research whether it'll work on all my various devices.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on April 13, 2017, 03:21:52 PM
If worse comes to worse it's available as a channel on Amazon also although it's missing some of the stuff you'd get subscribing directly through Shudder (and subbing to one doesn't give you access to the other). There's a seven day free trial though (on both Amazon and on Shudder.com) so if nothing else you can test it out.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on April 18, 2017, 07:15:38 PM
The Void was good. I'm glad it didn't go out of the way to explain a bunch of shit.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on April 19, 2017, 03:33:00 AM
Not gonna bother to bump the thread, but the latest Star Trek was Beyond Terrible.

Better than New Trek 2, but not by much. Jesus Wept, this franchise needs to STOP.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: calapine on April 19, 2017, 03:41:18 AM
It looks interesting but my wife won't go in for horror/ survival movies. I'm curious about the twist, though I suspect we see it in the last trailer.

Depending on how much you care, Red Letter Media reviewed the film, spoilers included: Half in the Bag Episode 116: Blair Witch and Don't Breathe (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVzymV7P8Vs)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on April 25, 2017, 09:58:19 AM
The Void was good. I'm glad it didn't go out of the way to explain a bunch of shit.

Seconded this. It was worth the streaming rental. Good horror in the John Carpenter Prince of Darkness vein. Acting was a bit low fi but the visuals were good.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: apocrypha on April 25, 2017, 11:47:57 AM
Seconded this. It was worth the streaming rental. Good horror in the John Carpenter Prince of Darkness vein.

Oh, really? Love that film, I'm interested now.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on April 26, 2017, 06:04:52 AM
Finally got around to watching Crystal Lake Memories after mentioning it to schild in connection with Never Sleep Again (which I've already seen). It's a fairly exhaustive look at all the Friday the 13th movies up to and including the reboot as well as a bit about the entirely unconnected TV series. It had the effect of me now wanting to rewatch all the movies despite having seen just about every kill in the series over the course of this documentary.

Not as good as Never Sleep Again which has a tighter focus due to less movies to cover, but I suspect most people already know if "seven hour Friday the 13th documentary" sounds appealing to them.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Signe on April 26, 2017, 10:22:08 AM
Not gonna bother to bump the thread, but the latest Star Trek was Beyond Terrible.

Better than New Trek 2, but not by much. Jesus Wept, this franchise needs to STOP.

It took me a while but I saw what you did there.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on April 30, 2017, 12:18:50 PM
You're welcome.

Get Out was fantastic and I'm not sure why there's not a thread.  Also, GotG 2 was great if you like GotG.  I did.  So it was.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 05, 2017, 09:35:36 AM
(http://i.imgur.com/4wx2gjF.jpg)

Managed to grab this print in the 90 seconds it was available.

F5 wars for sick prints are stupid.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: RhyssaFireheart on May 05, 2017, 10:43:40 AM
That is a damn nice looking print.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 05, 2017, 08:50:21 PM
Just watched Founder. It was absolutely superb.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on May 08, 2017, 06:35:02 AM
Our teen is on a horror-watching kick, so she asked me which of the late 70s/early 80s 'classics' she should watch: Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street. I told her to skip Friday the 13th, it's just dumb and she's essentially already seen it, since the film's blueprint has been repeated a million times on TV and in other films. I said, Halloween first and Nightmare second. So we all watched Halloween. I had a hard time not MST3King Donald Pleasance's scenes, and she was kind of astonished at tension built in part around phones that are stuck in one place. She also asked incredulously whether we'd found it scary back then, and I said, "Well, not so much scary as suspenseful?" This was only mildly acceptable.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 08, 2017, 07:42:41 AM
No Hellraiser, Shining, The Thing, Poltergeist or Pet Sematary?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on May 08, 2017, 08:45:09 AM
Most '80's horror movies were sort of scary but not really. The Exorcist, however, scared the ever living fuck out of me as a 13 year old.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 08, 2017, 09:06:04 AM
Most '80's horror movies were sort of scary but not really. The Exorcist, however, scared the ever living fuck out of me as a 13 year old.

M I S S I S S I P P I

 :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on May 08, 2017, 09:09:08 AM
When you've been metaphorically beaten about the head and neck by religion from the time you can remember, in churches where tongues are regularly spoken by the same blue hairs and the congregation only marginally looks down on the snake handlers, you are a prime candidate for pants-shitting territory while watching The Exorcist.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 08, 2017, 09:42:53 AM
Well, yeah. That's what I was saying.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Engels on May 08, 2017, 03:11:54 PM
Ok, three 'obscure' horror movies not yet mentioned that I have watched recently:

The Green Room (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8XSARX3DQg) with Patrick Stewart. Punk band gets held hostage by Pacific Northwest neo nazis, starring Stewart as a calculating leader of the nazis. We may have talked about this one but it bears mentioning again.

Open Grave (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN8ZC_8T15I). This one's harder to describe, but it's just off the hook good. Relies on horror more than jump scares and is just well written. Think Memento meets hell on earth. Not giving it justice. Just watch. Also, not for weenies.

The Monster (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkFCey5FOTQ). The trailer is not going to give it justice, since all it portrays is the actual 'problem' the characters face. What is not portrayed is the exquisite depiction of the mother/daughter relationship and how the danger forces them to look at it. There is an elegance in the storytelling, an impressive concise effectiveness. Its nearly as if the Berlin Film Festival had an affair with Jurassic Park and this is the result.

None of these films are cheerful. The latter in particular can leave you feeling a bit drained, in no small part because the child's acting is so convincing you might be horror struck for a while thereafter.

Also, ffs watch Get Out, if for nothing more than the fact that it is a decent Carpenter-esque film. We should have a thread on this film and I am not sure why we don't.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 08, 2017, 03:44:36 PM
Our teen is on a horror-watching kick, so she asked me which of the late 70s/early 80s 'classics' she should watch: Halloween, Friday the 13th, Nightmare on Elm Street. I told her to skip Friday the 13th, it's just dumb and she's essentially already seen it, since the film's blueprint has been repeated a million times on TV and in other films. I said, Halloween first and Nightmare second. So we all watched Halloween. I had a hard time not MST3King Donald Pleasance's scenes, and she was kind of astonished at tension built in part around phones that are stuck in one place. She also asked incredulously whether we'd found it scary back then, and I said, "Well, not so much scary as suspenseful?" This was only mildly acceptable.


Nightmare on Elm Street 1 and 3 hold up I think, and Friday the 13th IV as well (maybe 3 also). The original Dawn of the Dead has some flaws and the effects in particular may now pale compared to the Walking Dead but it's probably still worth watching. For something just batshit crazy Suspiria is probably the most "accessible" of the 70's giallo movies. The first two Hellraiser movies are also still watchable I think. Creepshow would be a good example of a horror anthology, The Fly is a good body horror movie, and Return of the Living Dead and Evil Dead 2 are obviously good examples of horror/comedy if she's interested in watching different sub-genres of horror.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ruvaldt on May 09, 2017, 08:06:25 AM
Friday the 13th part 3 was the 3d one, no?  I didn't care for that one as much as the other early movies; IV is easily the best.  Dawn of the Dead is still excellent, but yeah, the blue/green makeup on the zombies looks weird nowadays.  Night and Day are both worth watching as well, but especially Night since it was so important in the development of the genre.  I'd also suggest Texas Chainsaw Massacre if they actually want something that might be frightening; it holds up well and has never been properly imitated.

The Changeling is a good ghost story from '80 that is underrated and well worth watching.  The 80s had some good vampire movies as well: Near Dark, Fright Night and Lost Boys are all good.  In the horror-comedy genre I think American Werewolf in London deserves a mention.  I would recommend Re-Animator, but there's a decapitated head cunnilingus scene that might be cringy to watch with a daughter.  Still, it's a fantastic movie.

If you want to get really far out and push the slasher genre as far as the 80s could take it, Sleepaway Camp is a ton of fun.  Just don't read any spoilers.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Signe on May 10, 2017, 09:02:23 PM
Puppetmaster 3!  I just re-watched it a few days ago.  I had forgot how much fun it is.  Nazis!  I've been watching a LOT of horror lately.  It's probably my fav film genre.  Recently I've re-watched some that I quite liked: The Conjuring - a good old fashioned (sorta) haunted house film, Insidious, The Haunting (the old one from the sixties), 1408, and The Cube. 

Oh... and anything with Captain Spaulding or Bruce Campbell in it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 10, 2017, 09:30:30 PM
Friday the 13th part 3 was the 3d one, no?  I didn't care for that one as much as the other early movies; IV is easily the best.  Dawn of the Dead is still excellent, but yeah, the blue/green makeup on the zombies looks weird nowadays.  Night and Day are both worth watching as well, but especially Night since it was so important in the development of the genre.  I'd also suggest Texas Chainsaw Massacre if they actually want something that might be frightening; it holds up well and has never been properly imitated.

The Changeling is a good ghost story from '80 that is underrated and well worth watching.  The 80s had some good vampire movies as well: Near Dark, Fright Night and Lost Boys are all good.  In the horror-comedy genre I think American Werewolf in London deserves a mention.  I would recommend Re-Animator, but there's a decapitated head cunnilingus scene that might be cringy to watch with a daughter.  Still, it's a fantastic movie.

If you want to get really far out and push the slasher genre as far as the 80s could take it, Sleepaway Camp is a ton of fun.  Just don't read any spoilers.

Yeah, Friday the 13th Part 3 was the 3D one. It's also notable for Jason first getting the hockey mask.

And yes, Sleepaway Camp is great.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: SurfD on May 10, 2017, 11:41:34 PM
My old roomie from my college days was a horror fan.  Had about 200 odd VHS tapes for just about everything you could Imagine.  I remember watching most of the classic stuff with him, Friday, Elmstreet, Halloween, Chucky, Most of the HellRaisers, Evil Dead, Army of Darkness, several about a psychotic guy who was a Doctor (or maybe thought he was a Doctor, not sure), and dozens more that I can barely remember.

One of the few of the semi-b-grade ones that has remained stuck in my head over the years was one called The Mangler.   Moderately good tale about a couple of Scooby Gang type teens who think they have stumbled across a cult of demon worshipers preforming evil rituals and decide to go for the "and I would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids" happy ending, only to find out that they actually just fucked up a ritual some bunch of good guys were using to contain the thing.  The movie itself was solid, but not super or anything, but the main reason it sticks in my head is that I remember the final climactic chase seen being one of the most terrifying things I have ever seen on television.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 11, 2017, 03:43:41 AM
Are you sure it was The Mangler because that's the name of the Stephen King story about the demonic laundry press that Tobe Hooper adapted?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 11, 2017, 06:42:08 AM
I've been watching the Hellraiser series this week, and until these posts completely forgotten The Mangler exists. IIRC, isn't the mangler triggered by accidental blood during moving? If so, the mangler is born the same way as the first Hellraiser resurrection occurs.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 11, 2017, 06:28:03 PM
Freddy vs Jason was excellent. I saw it back when it came out, but boy. What a movie. Total respect for both franchises, top to bottom and could not have been executed much better tbh.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 12, 2017, 06:25:27 AM
I'm currently halfway through the Nightmare reboot from 2010. I like Haley as Freddy. He's far less whimsical than Englund, but he's also a stronger actor, like actually something to be afraid of versus Englund's sort of 80s campish villain thing. Ultimately, the movie is a bit of a failure, though I can't completely define why yet - but it's insanely gorgeous. In a way most horror movies aren't.

(http://i.imgur.com/12ycRs3.jpg)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ruvaldt on May 12, 2017, 07:02:40 AM
In fairness to Englund, that campiness/whimsy wasn't really present in the first Nightmare on Elm Street.  That was a pretty serious horror movie.  It mostly started in the sequel and then really ramped up in the third movie.  Since we only got one movie with Haley it's tough to say where the character would've gone in reboot sequels.  But you're right, he wasn't what was wrong with that movie.

Also, Freddy vs. Jason is awesome.  The only thing it's missing is Kane Hodder, and even that is just because I really would've liked to see him and Englund being Jason and Freddy together on screen at least once.  The fellow they got to play Jason did a fine job though.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 12, 2017, 07:19:45 AM
Yea, I thought the Jason was fine.

So, yeah, Nightmare on Elm Street reboot, finished it. Stunning looking movie. It just felt soulless, and I suppose that's its crime. Absolutely nothing about it was compelling. It wasn't bad, it just didn't do anything.

Edit: And yeah, outside of a handful of lines, the first Nightmare wasn't too whimsical.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on May 12, 2017, 08:54:30 AM
So, yeah, Nightmare on Elm Street reboot, finished it. Stunning looking movie. It just felt soulless, and I suppose that's its crime. Absolutely nothing about it was compelling. It wasn't bad, it just didn't do anything.

This. I wanted to like it, and Haley was a great choice for Freddy. There was just nothing about the movie to recommend it at all. It was so flat, I don't really remember much about it at all. It felt like they just didn't have anything they really cared to say with the movie. It felt very much like a studio driven paycheck movie as opposed to any kind of reverent revival of the series.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 12, 2017, 09:31:26 AM
and yet it was still fun to watch

It's a headscratcher that it was so one-note.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Mandella on May 12, 2017, 10:31:52 AM
They rebooted Nightmare on Elm Street?  :uhrr:

That somehow flew right under my radar.

In other news, I just acquired a copy of Heavy Metal and am about to watch it. Let's see if I've grown up any since 1981.

 :grin:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on May 13, 2017, 08:23:23 PM
We've already done Exorcist; she was impressed with that. Lots of it is still--I dunno, emotionally involving, there's a strong legitimate feeling of dread. Scary isn't quite it. It's more that it has real gravity to it.

We did The Thing a couple years back. She thought that was really great.

The Shining she found boring and stilted, and not at all scary, though she did think the typewriter-reveal moment was great. She made fun of Jack Nicolson's performance and I have to admit I ended up feeling the same way. It really, really doesn't age well.

Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are on the list. So is Poltergeist.

I never thought much of Hellraiser, but I suppose we could watch it.




Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 13, 2017, 10:20:02 PM
Honestly, I think the best horror has come out of Asia. The Host, Ju On, Ringu, etc.

I wish that was stuff I'd watched when I was a teenager but I was basically stuck with 80s stuff because we were just getting into the 90s. I have a strong fondness for Congo, which isn't horror unless you really like gorillas. But also, it has Tim Curry.

Anyway, I'd introduce her to Asian shit. If you want a real list, I can give you one.

On Hellraiser, I have a respect for what they're doing, but frankly they did not not will they ever get the budget to do what they really want to do.

Well, maybe they will if Eli Roth does an installment. Though he works on a shoestring he seems way better at stretching that shoestring than most directors.

Edit: also, not sure it's been mentioned but you all should watch Suspiria and Opera from Dario Argento.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: SurfD on May 14, 2017, 12:47:22 AM
Are you sure it was The Mangler because that's the name of the Stephen King story about the demonic laundry press that Tobe Hooper adapted?
Yep, that was the one.   The final scene, where a gigantic, probably 50 to 60 tonne Demonically Possessed Steam laundry press rips itself out of the ground and chases them through the Warehouse / Factory the were in was just plain awesome.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ruvaldt on May 14, 2017, 06:34:12 AM
Suspiria is amazing.  I wonder how it plays with a modern young audience though.  It's the epitome of Italian giallo style over substance and is gorgeous, but the plot doesn't make much sense. There are some parts at the end that I remember being more goofy than creepy.

There's a remake of it coming out this year though, so watching the original before that is surely worthwhile.  Not sure how they're going to reproduce the technicolor of the original.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 14, 2017, 11:15:37 AM
Hellraiser is a series that gets actively worse with every installment. It's kind of amazing.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Mandella on May 15, 2017, 10:29:07 AM
Jeeze. I actually agree with Schild on Hellraiser. Even the first is a movie that I remember really liking for the concept, but on rewatch I'm not so sure they actually executed the concept all that well.

This is a series that I could see having a good total reboot, but I'm not sure who I'd have do it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 15, 2017, 10:31:30 AM
Jeeze. I actually agree with Schild on Hellraiser. Even the first is a movie that I remember really liking for the concept, but on rewatch I'm not so sure they actually executed the concept all that well.

This is a series that I could see having a good total reboot, but I'm not sure who I'd have do it.

I've already thought this through.

Guillermo Del Toro.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on May 15, 2017, 11:17:56 AM
Suspira is amazing, but I had a bad experience watching it with some college students in a course a few years back--not a single one of them got it or liked it. It was interesting how much they all disliked it, and some of them were otherwise folks with good critical taste. That felt like a pure generational reaction.

We've seen both Ringu and The Ring; they're both good and she liked them both very much. Ju On is on the list.

She loved Pan's Labyrinth, though I'm not sure quite what I would call it in genre terms.

We all hate torture-porn horror, so no Saw, no Eli Roth, none of that.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 15, 2017, 01:39:09 PM
Suspira is amazing, but I had a bad experience watching it with some college students in a course a few years back--not a single one of them got it or liked it. It was interesting how much they all disliked it, and some of them were otherwise folks with good critical taste. That felt like a pure generational reaction.

We've seen both Ringu and The Ring; they're both good and she liked them both very much. Ju On is on the list.

She loved Pan's Labyrinth, though I'm not sure quite what I would call it in genre terms.

We all hate torture-porn horror, so no Saw, no Eli Roth, none of that.

The list of torture porn worth watching is short, but Saw and Hostel would be on the list.

As far as Japanese/Asian horror goes, off the top of my head:

Audition
Ju-On (as mentioned)
The Host
Noroi (The Curse)
Battle Royale (it's not horror but fuckit, put it on the list)
Suicide Club (Suicide Circle)
Kwaidan
Dark Water
A Tale of Two Sisters
Shutter
Pulse (Kairo)
The Eye
Dumplings
Tomie


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on May 15, 2017, 05:43:51 PM
If Torture porn is an absolute no-go, you can still watch Saw. Just watch the TV edit. It was a good enough first film that the gore portions were more detracting than additive, IMO.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 15, 2017, 06:28:14 PM
The first Saw is absolutely excellent from beginning to end. My horror binge actually started with Eli Roth and the Saw series last year. I think Hostel is a relevant work in the annals of body horror. Green Inferno was the biggest let down.

Human Centipede is a great flick but I wouldn't call it gore porn.

Ichi the Killer is a must watch. Cabin Fever is very good as well. I honest to god loved the new Last House on the Left as well.

Never watch Irreversible. I don't care how many accolades it gets. It's one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 16, 2017, 02:23:27 AM
The remake of Last House on the Left was better than it had any right to be. I remember liking the trailer enough to make a thread for it here and not unexpectedly schild and I are the only ones who ended up watching it.

I'm not overly into Japanese horror although I do appreciate a lot of it on a visual level. They do creepy a lot better than Hollywood movies though. I tend to prefer the batshit crazy stuff like Hausu.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 16, 2017, 08:51:27 AM
The remake of Last House on the Left was better than it had any right to be. I remember liking the trailer enough to make a thread for it here and not unexpectedly schild and I are the only ones who ended up watching it.

I'm not overly into Japanese horror although I do appreciate a lot of it on a visual level. They do creepy a lot better than Hollywood movies though. I tend to prefer the batshit crazy stuff like Hausu.

Yea, Last House was really what a remake should be.

Also, for those reading this, Hausu was released in America as House. It is from 1977. Do not confuse it with the garbage American movie House from 1985.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 17, 2017, 04:40:42 AM
Rewatched Hatchet with an eye towards watching 2 and 3 for the first time. Fun movie although the opening is a reminder that we didn't get to see Robert Englund and Kane Hodder together in Freddy vs. Jason. Also starting to go through the 2 seasons of Holliston (Hatchet writer/director Adam Green's "sitcom" with Joe Lynch, Dee Snider, and the late Dave Brockie from GWAR). Aside from the deliberately exaggerated laugh track, which is a one note joke that gets a tad annoying until you get used to it, it's very entertaining.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 17, 2017, 07:57:50 AM
I'm on the last 2 Hell Raiser movies. Afterwards I'm moving on to The Purge, due to uh, political reasons. After that, all of Friday the 13th. No clue where things go from there.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 17, 2017, 02:51:21 PM
You could go with Phantasm since the final movie came out recently. It's pretty rough but there's a singular vision to it that's somewhat unique among horror franchises. Or you could go with something like Wishmaster. Aside from that there's more recent stuff but a lot of it, some of which you may have seen, and a lot of which I'm not sure you'd like, and many of which are incredibly uneven:

Don't Breathe
Green Room
The Girl with All the Gifts
The Void
The Loved Ones
Harvest Lake
The Devil's Candy
The Blackcoat's Daughter
Tales of Halloween
Southbound
Beyond the Gates
Hush


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 17, 2017, 03:29:22 PM
God how did I not post about this here.

The Void was excellent.

Edit: So was Southbound. I've actually seen a lot of these movies. It might be single movies next though as I have a few things I haven't watched. Dead Story, Split, Lake Mungo, Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh, etc.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on May 17, 2017, 08:17:53 PM
God how did I not post about this here.

The Void was excellent.

Seconded. If you like John Carpenter's best works (Prince of Darkness era), you'll dig this.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on May 18, 2017, 12:03:46 AM
God how did I not post about this here.

The Void was excellent.

Seconded. If you like John Carpenter's best works (Prince of Darkness era), you'll dig this.

I really enjoyed his In the Mouth of Madness.  And for 80's horror, Tales from the Darkside The Movie will always be special to me  (although I promised I wouldn't tell).

Have you seen the short film Elevated?  It used to be on Youtube, but it seems they removed it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 18, 2017, 08:39:40 AM
I have not.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on May 18, 2017, 08:40:47 AM
Me neither. Is it this film?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eeEs8CRdo8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eeEs8CRdo8)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on May 18, 2017, 11:34:22 AM
Me neither. Is it this film?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eeEs8CRdo8 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eeEs8CRdo8)


No.  It starred David Hewlett.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168730/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_57


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on May 18, 2017, 05:23:43 PM
First Phantasm is an interesting movie.

I've been trying to figure out also which other kinds of old movies my daughter thinks are interesting. Maltese Falcon was a big dud with her (I love it dearly), but she loved Citizen Kane. Thinking I might try Treasure of the Sierra Madre on a double-bill with A Simple Plan some time soon. She liked Hell or High Water recently, so that's a good sign for those.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 18, 2017, 05:25:16 PM
Ok. Hellraiser done. Absolutely got worse and worse until the final one which was somehow worse than the last three put together.

This series is completely misunderstood by the people who make it. Incredible.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Johny Cee on May 18, 2017, 05:50:57 PM
Two fun but not great films:

Suck -- Musical Black Comedy about a shitty bar band.  Bassist (Jessica Pare) gets turned into a vampire, gets the French-Canadian roadie to be her Renfield, shit happens.  Lots of fun cameos....  Moby, Henry Rollins, Iggy Pop, Alison Cooper, guitarist from Rush.  Dave Foley and others have small parts.

He Never Died -- Henry Rollins is weirdo who seems to be immortal, finds out he has a daughter.  Gets into shit with local organized crime.  Rollins performance was fine when he was a disaffected weirdo, not so great later on.  The trailer is a bit spoilery.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 19, 2017, 02:46:33 AM
Ok. Hellraiser done. Absolutely got worse and worse until the final one which was somehow worse than the last three put together.

This series is completely misunderstood by the people who make it. Incredible.

The last one was made in a couple weeks on a very small budget. Some assume it was just made so the studio could hold onto the Hellraiser rights. The one before that I don't think was even written as a Hellraiser movie originally.

I've been trying to figure out also which other kinds of old movies my daughter thinks are interesting. Maltese Falcon was a big dud with her (I love it dearly), but she loved Citizen Kane. Thinking I might try Treasure of the Sierra Madre on a double-bill with A Simple Plan some time soon. She liked Hell or High Water recently, so that's a good sign for those.

Some Like it Hot is usually a fairly safe bet. Also a lot of the Universal monster stuff is entertaining (and Bride of Frankenstein is still genuinely good), most of them are under 80 minutes long, and they've done some good blu-ray collections.


Edit: Also schild, if you're going to be batshit crazy and do things like watch all the Hellraiser movies you could have at least done some sort of writeup documenting your thoughts as you watched each one. The only further step down you could take from there is watching all the Puppet Master movies.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on May 19, 2017, 04:10:19 AM
We've seen the original Dracula and the original Frankenstein. She liked both.

Some Like it Hot is an interesting idea.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 19, 2017, 06:01:03 AM
Also maybe The Thin Man (and it's sequels), It Happened One Night, and His Girl Friday (pretty much all as examples of well-written dialogue which we don't get much of anymore). And yeah, it's an obvious choice but I genuinely love Casablanca.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on May 19, 2017, 07:54:13 AM
Definitely need to watch Harvey. Just an absolute classic.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 19, 2017, 09:43:48 AM
Ok. Hellraiser done. Absolutely got worse and worse until the final one which was somehow worse than the last three put together.

This series is completely misunderstood by the people who make it. Incredible.

The last one was made in a couple weeks on a very small budget. Some assume it was just made so the studio could hold onto the Hellraiser rights. The one before that I don't think was even written as a Hellraiser movie originally.

Edit: Also schild, if you're going to be batshit crazy and do things like watch all the Hellraiser movies you could have at least done some sort of writeup documenting your thoughts as you watched each one. The only further step down you could take from there is watching all the Puppet Master movies.

Well. I didn't think it would be necessary to do that going in. I should probably just be making a post about every movie I watch. Today is 1409 and Lake Mungo (I think, depends how I feel later). 1408 is actually _better_ than I remember, and I remember it pretty fondly.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on May 19, 2017, 09:48:05 AM
She sorta likes Casablanca. She was a bit iffy on The Thin Man but humored me when we watched it a few years back.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 19, 2017, 11:21:23 AM
Huh. The version of 1408 I got had a different ending than the one I got before. Looked it up on Wikipedia, there's 4 endings. It's nearly region dependent.

(Edit: This ending scared the SHIT out of me. Did not expect it at all.)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Signe on May 19, 2017, 12:00:02 PM
My fav old films that aren't horror or some psycho thriller are Bell, Book and Candle, Arsenic and Old Lace, and Jason and the Argonauts.  The little theatre in my home town showed old films mostly from the 40s and 50s on Saturday afternoons.  Oh, and Topper.  I loved Saturdays!  Every single Kid I knew was there, too.  Sometimes we would watch, sometimes we would brawl.  Always fun, though.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 19, 2017, 10:58:22 PM
Just finished the first Purge. It was ok I guess. It made me want to watch Funny Games though, which as far as family torment movies go was better in basically every way. The premise, however, is great. Im glad they discussed the obvious social aspects of such a thing when they really didnt have to. Shame the ending was kind of spoiled in the first fifteen minutes though.

Oddly, though I havent seen them, I can only assume the sequels are better.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 20, 2017, 01:43:16 AM
Just finished the first Purge. It was ok I guess. It made me want to watch Funny Games though, which as far as family torment movies go was better in basically every way. The premise, however, is great. Im glad they discussed the obvious social aspects of such a thing when they really didnt have to. Shame the ending was kind of spoiled in the first fifteen minutes though.

Oddly, though I havent seen them, I can only assume the sequels are better.

They're able to expand the scope in the sequels which improves things.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: carnifex27 on May 21, 2017, 05:14:05 AM
I don't know if it counts as either horror or obscure per se, but if you haven't watched Cube in a while, the original (not the terrible sequels) stands the test of time for me. It had tension and gore, so that makes it horror for me. Also I'll second Johnny Cee's recommendation of He Never Died, but I may be biased as a huge Henry Rollins fan. Seriously, the only reason I watched Sons of Anarchy was because Rollins was in the second season.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 22, 2017, 08:09:06 PM
Grabbing movies by actor. Of all the ones I've gone through, the following 2 people have - anecdotally speaking - the best careers achievement sets in Hollywood:

Philip Seymour Hoffman
Arnold Schwarzenegger


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: MahrinSkel on May 22, 2017, 08:37:33 PM
*cough* (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000347/?mode=desktop&ref_=m_ft_dsk#actor)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 22, 2017, 08:40:57 PM
I'm probably one of the biggest fans of Tim Curry on the planet. His signal:noise ratio, however, is hot garbage. I know that and I haven't even gotten to him yet and don't need to click the link to tell you that (obviously I had to click the link to see who it was though).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on May 23, 2017, 05:14:32 AM
Robert Duvall is for me the actor who consistently is at least entertaining but at his best is really just one of the greatest actors ever: The Apostle, Tender Mercies, The Great Santini as examples of his range in the central role; The Godfather, MASH, Apocalypse Now, Deep Impact, for character roles. Even in the worst shit, he's usually the best thing in it. He also for me really shows how much weaker some of the guys who came up with him who were more celebrated at one point really are--Dustin Hoffman, Gene Hackman, Jack Nicolson, etc. Most of them only play themselves, or they have a phony method-acting schtick, or when they appear in low-grade schlock, they're as bad as the schlock around them.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: satael on May 23, 2017, 05:37:11 AM
My favorite is Takeshi Kitano...when he is in a film directed by Takeshi Kitano.  :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 23, 2017, 06:40:58 AM
Grabbing movies by actor. Of all the ones I've gone through, the following 2 people have - anecdotally speaking - the best careers achievement sets in Hollywood:

Philip Seymour Hoffman
Arnold Schwarzenegger

I'd probably put Kurt Russell up near the top. He's had a long career, done some iconic movies, and is still doing some really great stuff like Bone Tomahawk whereas with Schwarzenegger you kinda have to ignore everything he's done after True Lies.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 23, 2017, 11:58:00 AM
Grabbing movies by actor. Of all the ones I've gone through, the following 2 people have - anecdotally speaking - the best careers achievement sets in Hollywood:

Philip Seymour Hoffman
Arnold Schwarzenegger

I'd probably put Kurt Russell up near the top. He's had a long career, done some iconic movies, and is still doing some really great stuff like Bone Tomahawk whereas with Schwarzenegger you kinda have to ignore everything he's done after True Lies.

I haven't gotten to Kurt yet, but I suspect this is accurate. And yeah, Schwarzeneggar post-mid 90s is ignored.

But 1980-1995 is just unbelievably solid. 1995-2000 isn't even that bad. 6th Day, End of Days, Eraser. They're not great but they're watchable.
My favorite is Takeshi Kitano...when he is in a film directed by Takeshi Kitano.  :awesome_for_real:
This feels like cheating. His career is exceptional and his shitty films can't even be found with english subtitles.

I'd prefer to avoid roping japanese and korean actors into this particular list.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: tar on May 24, 2017, 10:34:15 AM
Ok, so now I'm curious. Where does Christopher Lee fit in this sort of ranking?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 24, 2017, 11:20:24 AM
He doesn't. He's been in a fucking billion movies, 99% of which no one has ever heard of.

Edit: Looked it up, the guy has been working nonstop since the 40s and the ratio of absolute garbage to lord of the rings is about 75:1.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 24, 2017, 12:12:02 PM
It mostly depends on how much affection one has for stuff like Hammer films but even fans of those movies (which I am to some extent) tend to find them more fun than good.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 25, 2017, 02:45:13 PM
I Still Know What You Did Last Summer

In the remaster, you can see through JLH's wet bathrobe. They clearly noticed this as they put a thin bra on her in the next scene, but I don't think they ever expected blu-rays back when they filmed it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on May 26, 2017, 03:44:59 AM
It would be fun to do this kind of thing for a much-lesser known character actor--the kind of person who has been in a zillion movies, is always good and often memorable, but who never really had a single iconic role or major break-through.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on May 26, 2017, 04:28:01 AM
It would be fun to do this kind of thing for a much-lesser known character actor--the kind of person who has been in a zillion movies, is always good and often memorable, but who never really had a single iconic role or major break-through.


Those kinds of guys tend to have such a long filmography that it makes it a pain to go through. Sid Haig is probably the epitome of that sort of actor although he eventually ended up having an iconic role about 40 years into his career. Danny Trejo used to be an actor like that until they made Machete into an actual movie which backfired and kinda diminished that vibe he used to have by overexposing him.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 27, 2017, 01:26:22 PM
Yellow van in XXX3 is labeled Pork Chop Express.

Edit: watched the movies in the wrong order. Am idiot.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sir T on May 27, 2017, 07:35:54 PM
I read somewhere that Christopher Lee is second only to Anthony Quinn in the record for most movies made by an Actor. I always thought He was always fantastic but good God he made some shit to keep food on the table.

You could do worse than look up some Vincent Price. House on haunted Hill was a great movie, The Raven, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, and Master of the World are ones that spring to mind, but I loved everything I ever saw him in.

Bar Edward Scissorhands...


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: MahrinSkel on May 27, 2017, 08:02:49 PM
I read somewhere that Christopher Lee is second only to Anthony Quinn in the record for most movies made by an Actor. I always thought He was always fantastic but good God he made some shit to keep food on the table.

You could do worse than look up some Vincent Price. House on haunted Hill was a great movie, The Raven, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, and Master of the World are ones that spring to mind, but I loved everything I ever saw him in.

Bar Edward Scissorhands...
Vincent Price was in many truly horrible creature-feature schlock films (if you are old enough to remember when they were literally the only thing on TV late on Friday/Saturday nights, you'll have seen a lot of them).

Edward Scissorhands was sort of a big-budget callback to/subversion of those.

--Dave


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sir T on May 28, 2017, 09:59:55 AM
True enough. The guy admitted straight out that all the work he could get for a while was shlock movies and Edger Allem Poe costume stuff, but he believed in work, so he took the Jobs.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 29, 2017, 05:00:20 PM
Watched The 5th Wave. That alien-invasion Chloë Grace Moretz vehicle.

It is the worst movie I have watched among my uh collection. Whichever one Hellraiser 7 was, this was worse.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 01, 2017, 03:37:53 AM
Watched Phantasm Remastered yesterday on Shudder. Solid movie and I'd like to revisit the others soon but I won't have much time over the next month (watching mostly exploitation movies for the Junesploitation event over at fthismovie.net) but will get around to it hopefully after that. Also caved and ordered a UHD blu-ray player and picked up Logan and La La Land. Movies are probably a bigger vice for me than video games these days.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 01, 2017, 07:10:33 AM
Which UHD player did you buy? There's only like 2 or 3 on the market and none of them have tickled my fancy yet. I'm assuming the Samsung because the Xbox One S is stupid.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 01, 2017, 02:28:13 PM
I went with last year's Samsung since it's down to a fairly reasonable price at Amazon right now and this year's model didn't really add anything worth paying another $100 for. I can't see myself buying more than a handful of UHD discs since for the most part I'm fine with streaming but there are a few things I just wanted in better quality.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 01, 2017, 02:44:27 PM
I've been thinking of getting one for literally five to ten movies because I haven't convinced myself 30gb+ movies are worth downloading.

Seeing as I have 8tb left I'm not sure why I'm being cheap with space.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 01, 2017, 03:44:15 PM
I haven't really taken a look to see what the availability is for a lot of this stuff as far as downloading goes. With Logan (and Logan Noir) for instance just glancing on a couple sites I don't see anything higher than 1080p, but then I didn't really spend much time looking.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 01, 2017, 06:10:24 PM
Ok. About 3/4 of the way through Terminator 5 - which is a way better movie than I remember. Easily the best since two, but that's not saying much considering Terminator 3 and 4.

First things first:

4 shouldn't exist. It's like some other company wanted to make a movie using other peoples terminator toys. That they pretend it does exist in 5 with John's scars really sucks.

Terminator 5 making the T800 get old is great, but the age of Sarah + the backstory completely erases the terminator 1 and 2 timeline, which is strange, since terminator 4 kinda pretends it does happen and then terminator 5 gets rid of those but 4 happened.

Anyway.

In short - these movies are terrible to watch in succession. The timelines are a giant fucking mess. Back to the Future it ain't. I suppose I could make some sense out of it if I tried, but I'd be reaching for a good bit of it.

Terminator 2 is still the best one. Terminator 5, with some slight changes, could've been as good as the first but instead they took a u-turn at "let's fuck this up-ville," which is a terrible road to go down. Terminator 4 never should've happened. Terminator 3 is, just like, whatever, man.

Sarah Connor Chronicles is better than 3 and 4 but exists in a totally different timeline and world basically, even if John and Sarah are there. I only mention it because the tv show had my favorite John Connor.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 01, 2017, 06:13:59 PM
(http://i.imgur.com/GNdIR8M.png)

Ugh. I'll take it. I don't like it though.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 01, 2017, 06:15:55 PM
(I hate it when people can't spell "Judgment").


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 01, 2017, 06:29:35 PM
You could probably find a simpler chart that just explains that the first two movies were good and the rest were not.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 01, 2017, 06:35:16 PM
You could probably find a simpler chart that just explains that the first two movies were good and the rest were not.
:awesome_for_real:

Genisys, stupid name aside, deserves a hair more credit than it was given.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 01, 2017, 07:10:44 PM
I'm not sure who it's made for. It's kind of a reboot but relies so heavily on tweaking continuity that it ends up crawling up its own ass. People new to the franchise weren't going to be satisfied, and Terminator fans are just going to be constantly reminded how much better the first two movies were because Genisys takes so much from them.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 01, 2017, 07:17:48 PM
I mean, it's mostly fan service.

As I watch allllllll these movies again, I'm trying to go in with a completely open mind - which is what made Alien worse for wear. I'm really trying to pretend I know nothing going in, even though I mostly do. It changes how you view these things. They become pocket universes. And as pocket universes, Terminator is a great one - and if it went T1, T2, T5 - I don't think the complaints would be nearly as many.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 02, 2017, 05:17:17 AM
If I were tasked with making a Terminator sequel I'd much rather follow T3 and T4 than have to follow T1 and T2.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 02, 2017, 07:32:26 AM
I mean I guess but I'm not really talking about the filmmakers "feelings" here.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 02, 2017, 08:00:20 AM
I actually liked T4 - my biggest complaint was that they pussed out and didn't kill John Connor and have Sam Worthington's character replace him as the leader of the resistance (seeing as how no one knew what Connor really looked like). T3 was garbage start to finish. I still haven't seen Genisys.

However, the Sarah Connor Chronicles was better than T3 and T4 combined, and I thought they really made a mistake not tying it into T4. I blame that on McG because fuck McG.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 02, 2017, 08:05:14 AM
i am not sure what there was to like about t4

it was a bad terminator
it was also a bad war movie

Edit: It wasn't like offensive or anything, it was just dull and boring and incredibly poorly paced


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 03, 2017, 04:49:26 PM
watching all the marvel avengers stuff in the proper order

captain america is stupid and sucks
thor is stupid and sucks
really everyone is stupid and sucks

except iron man

it's not that they're BAD

it's that they suck and are stupid compared to RDJ's Iron man.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 04, 2017, 01:50:54 AM
Watched a really good South Korean revenge film called Pietà the other night. I have no idea why Koreans love revenge films so much but damned if they aren't good at making them.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Mandella on June 04, 2017, 10:11:46 AM
I actually liked T4 - my biggest complaint was that they pussed out and didn't kill John Connor and have Sam Worthington's character replace him as the leader of the resistance (seeing as how no one knew what Connor really looked like). T3 was garbage start to finish. I still haven't seen Genisys.

However, the Sarah Connor Chronicles was better than T3 and T4 combined, and I thought they really made a mistake not tying it into T4. I blame that on McG because fuck McG.

50/50 on that one. I agree that SCC was underrated, but T4? That one made me so mad I swore off the series. It just really bugged me in ways even T3 didn't -- maybe because I could see the blasted ruins of what was originally a good storyline, before Bale & Co. screwed it up.

Obviously haven't seen Genisys, but I've heard enough good word of mouth to make me consider reconsidering...


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Bungee on June 09, 2017, 06:04:58 AM
SO, I don't know if the "Dark Universe" stuff by Universal deserves its own thread.
I stumbled into the new "The Mummy" yesterday and only later found out that this was supposed to be the origin and kickoff for a new monsters instead of superheroes based Avengers style franchise with all the unlikable has-beens in main roles (Tom Cruise, Russel Crowe, Johnny Depp).
And boy did that kickoff suck. They just messed up everything. They could have made their dark universe really dark by making it R rated and following the success that Deadpool had with that course. But no. Nothing original, nothing actually dark, nothing toungue-in-cheek. It's just bad acting with some really lame "humor" and nothing that actually pulls you in. Part of that might've been the shitty cinema I watched it in but I don't seem to be alone in my sentiment looking at the ratings.

Apparently they originally tried to kick it off with "Dracula Untold" - a movie that actually tells a compelling origin story. Yes, nobody actually saw that movie but its tone and setting and directing makes a ton more sense for something called "Dark Universe" than this bullshit.

Sorry for the rant, I was pissed for having wasted time and money on this shit and then got even more pissed off when I found out it actually was supposed to kick off a new franchise (not like you couldn't tell during the movie, but I had to look up just wtf Universal was going for) with a promising setting and just fucked it up.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 09, 2017, 07:17:10 AM
I found the whole idea of the Dark Universe franchise ridiculous, even moreso when they decided Tom Cruise should be a part of it. What character is Russell Crowe playing? The marketing on this is such shit, I didn't realize until I saw TV commercial yesterday that he was supposed to be a monster.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Bungee on June 09, 2017, 07:49:08 AM
Russel Crowe is playing Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and the head of the whole organisation/team. Depp will be the Invisible Man. Cruise is now some Egyptian demigod. At some point Frankenstein and Dracula are supposed to enter the fray. As I said, I like the idea and fucking hate how much they fucked it up.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on June 09, 2017, 09:08:45 AM
The best "Universal Monsters" movie in recent memory is The Monster Squad, which wasn't even made by Universal.


If they really want a franchise for horror monsters, they should adapt (or imitate) a successful Urban Fantasy book series.  Then they would have a template to follow and a stack of IP to sift through for the gold nuggets.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 09, 2017, 01:49:30 PM
I can only say for anyone thinking about going to see The Mummy this weekend because they're curious if it's as bad as everyone says, just go watch It Comes at Night instead which also released this weekend.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 09, 2017, 01:52:49 PM
Wife will watch The Mummy, she won't watch It Comes. Decision made.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Bungee on June 09, 2017, 02:00:17 PM
Wife will watch The Mummy, she won't watch It Comes. Decision made.

Does she know it's nothing like the Fraser movies?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 09, 2017, 02:39:05 PM
Yes, but it's an action movie and not a horror thriller. Horror/ Thriller is an automatic Veto. Anything even close to "Aliens" in terms of suspense is an automatic no.

Considering her Father made her and her sisters watch Alien and Aliens at the ages of 4, 5, and 8 I can't really blame or push that one.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 09, 2017, 03:38:08 PM
but the new mummy was SUPPOSED to be a horror thriller

it just failed at doing everything


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Mandella on June 09, 2017, 09:49:12 PM
I wasn't watching the Mummy trailer that showed before Guardians II (I find them spoilery), but my wife was, and then she started to giggle halfway through. I was like what? It's supposed to be a horror movie isn't it?

All she would do was chortle something about "Tom Cruise" and "bugs."

I don't think that trailer was producing the desired reaction at all.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 10, 2017, 03:53:13 AM
Yeah I never got horror from ANY of the marketing or promotion. Everything said post-2015 action drama instead of 1999 action comedy.  What a huge fail on their part.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 10, 2017, 01:31:45 PM
Watching Attack on Titan (the live action version of the anime version of the manga).

Have not read the manga or seen the anime.

This movie is fucking insane.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 10, 2017, 02:30:58 PM
I had no idea there was a live action version. What's the insane part to you?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 10, 2017, 03:45:36 PM
The whole thing. Having no experience with the source material and an almost complete disregard for story, the movie is just absurd.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 10, 2017, 04:08:16 PM
I read the reviews online. Little Beyond the premise is aligned with the manga or anime. The terror of the Titans are really subverted by the bad rubber suits, even though they really look similar.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 10, 2017, 04:15:35 PM
I think they looked great, going into it knowing very little.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 11, 2017, 09:37:28 AM
Yeah, they weren't 1960's Godzilla terrible, but they didn't seem high quality and I just didn't find them creepy enough in the vids I found on Youtube. The anime versions gave me chills.

The whole story is pretty good so far. Sounds like it's a lot more interesting in the anime/ manga since it's a agrarian society that's just developed the 3d web and sword tech. Apparently there's tanks and shit in the live action? Not true to the sources and makes you wonder why they'd go for bouncing around like trapeze artists.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 11, 2017, 09:45:38 AM
I don't remember a tank. They had shitty cannons though. And the tech looked pretty rough.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 12, 2017, 02:04:53 PM
I enjoyed the anime and the trailer looks good enough for me to give it a watch.  I assume it's not available to stream anywhere legally?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 12, 2017, 04:50:14 PM
No idea.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 13, 2017, 05:58:22 AM
The Mummy wasn't as terrible as I expected. It was still all over the place tonally, never able to decide if it was an Action-Comedy or an Action-Drama. It definitely never, ever, ever tried to be a Horror movie, so I don't know where that sentiment came from.

The beginning is very close to Brendan Frasier's The Mummy, but with a modern setting. The Mummy was buried in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Cruise and his buddy are recon/ looters who stumble on the tomb. There's a lot of action/ comedy here that works OK but not great. Then once the tomb comes out it goes to Action-Drama until the crash you've seen in the trailers and from Cruse's resurrection until the Mummy captures him it switches to Action-Comedy again. Like I said, tonally it's all over the place. Someone doesn't have a clear vision for what they want to do in this Universe.

Speaking of the DU There's a few Easter eggs for the Dark Universe that are presented on the border of bludgeoning you with them; A vampire skull, and a hand from a creature in the Black Lagoon. Nothing I noticed about Invisible Man, Wolfman, or Frankenstein's Monster, though. There was also an Easter Egg reference to Frasier's The Mummy series when the Book of the Dead shows up in the same artifact library. I wouldn't take it as an implication this universe ties into that series, only something the director wanted to toss in as a BS reference.

There definitely won't be a way of discarding this from the DU lore like they did with Dracula, though, because after the Universal Logo you get a big "DARK UNIVERSE" logo that's just the Universal logo in black and gold.

The tie-in for all these movies is Crowe's Jekyl/ Hyde. He's the leader of an organization that's dedicated to fighting evil in the world. Think of the Mummy's Maji on a broader scale and with less morality. Crowe does a really good Jekyl and Hyde, knowing just how hammy to make Hyde when he finally appears.

The movie ends with Cruse predictably getting all the power of Set and becoming a tortured human/ monster trying to resolve his curse. It's apparent this is how all the "Heroes" are going to be used. Putting together tortured man/ monsters to fight bigger evils. Ovarall Dracula: the untold story would have worked well in this universe with this as the plan. They should have stuck with keeping it in, despite the terrible box office.

I'd love to know what bigger Evil they have planned that will take the Universal monster crew to address and not be shlocky and utterly ridiculous. There's nothing in Universal's entire quiver I can think of that will fit that puzzle.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 13, 2017, 07:53:41 AM
The Mummy was buried in Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Cruise and his buddy are recon/ looters who stumble on the tomb.

That makes them the bad guys from the original Mummy. ಠ_ಠ


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 13, 2017, 08:13:47 AM
Yeah, Cruise isn't meant to be a good guy. He's a liar, thief, and looter which is why the Mummy chose him as her vessel to complete the curse. Then again, so was Frasier you just ignored those aspects of the character's personality because of the rest of the movie.

ed: Also I meant to mention this movie was more worth watching than Baywatch, Aliens: Covenant, or Pirates, IMO.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 13, 2017, 11:21:31 PM
Despite the presence of Ellen Page the trailer for the Flatliners remake isn't doing anything for me.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 13, 2017, 11:59:07 PM
Trailer was fucking terrible.

Also it doesn't need to exist. The original isn't exactly good and the premise is dumb.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 14, 2017, 08:12:37 AM
Why the fuck would you think a remake of Flatliners was needed, ever? The first one is barely memorable even as a concept.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: RhyssaFireheart on June 15, 2017, 11:41:38 AM
Why the fuck would you think a remake of Flatliners was needed, ever? The first one is barely memorable even as a concept.

The first one had Kiefer Sutherland, but I could be biased.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 15, 2017, 01:26:42 PM
Why the fuck would you think a remake of Flatliners was needed, ever? The first one is barely memorable even as a concept.

The first one had Kiefer Sutherland, but I could be biased.
I think the new one does also.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 18, 2017, 06:46:31 AM
Dad was visiting last week so I didn't have much time to slam down movies, but yesterday I snuck in The Pyramid.

That is not a good movie.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Mandella on June 18, 2017, 10:25:46 AM
Why the fuck would you think a remake of Flatliners was needed, ever? The first one is barely memorable even as a concept.

I dunno, isn't that a good reason to remake it? The fact that they screwed it up the first time?

And as for the concept, at the time the whole out of body experience thing during death was, well, a thing. Lot's of pop culture focus on "real" accounts and such, so the movie was just riding a topical wave. Now, not so much I'll admit...

I know! They could gender swap the cast and write a script that mostly just makes meta-references to the first movie! Instant gold!
 :grin:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: pxib on June 19, 2017, 05:48:18 PM
Shimmer Lake, a Netflix original on streaming right now. Clever little dark comedy crime thriller. Enjoyed the hell out of it, and hey it's less than 90 minutes. Fun performances, snappy writing, fine direction. I have no complaints.

Nothing the reads BIG SUMMER MOVIE but I would have been pleased to have seen it in a theater on matinee.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 20, 2017, 06:36:57 AM
The Ruins is not a good horror movie and it has some really out of place extreme gore. Crushing someones bones with a frying pan to cut off his legs and cauterizing them with the same frying pan. Like, ok.

I suppose the only interesting thing about it is a lot of the physical damage is done by the survivors/victims themselves.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Mandella on June 20, 2017, 09:21:25 AM
The Ruins is not a good horror movie and it has some really out of place extreme gore. Crushing someones bones with a frying pan to cut off his legs and cauterizing them with the same frying pan. Like, ok.

I suppose the only interesting thing about it is a lot of the physical damage is done by the survivors/victims themselves.

The Ruins is one of those weird movies that I saw some good reviews for (some from the blogs of other horror writers as an example of horror done right) but I totally agree with Schild -- good premise, but done just awful. Stupid people who were stupid long after they should have figured out just how bad their situation was.

I completely missed what anyone saw in it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: MahrinSkel on June 24, 2017, 12:42:16 PM
Is it just me, or is Beauty and the Beast basically "Stockholm Syndrome: The Movie"?

Never noticed that when I watched the animated version way back, but the live action remake is creepy as fuck.

--Dave


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on June 24, 2017, 12:50:46 PM
That's pretty much the story, if you look at it that way. The whole premise even back to the Jean Cocteau version is very indicative of fairy tales about princesses who are rescued by a man. We only notice it now because hopefully we are getting a little woke.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Mandella on June 25, 2017, 09:48:12 AM
Is it just me, or is Beauty and the Beast basically "Stockholm Syndrome: The Movie"?

Never noticed that when I watched the animated version way back, but the live action remake is creepy as fuck.

--Dave

Stockholm Syndrome gets a bad rap. I mean, it's a pretty clear survival function to be able to adapt to and integrate with whatever situation you find yourself with, especially if it is initially hostile.

To the movie specifically, I haven't seen the live action recent one, but the old animated one at least showed Belle influencing the Beast's behavior as much as he was influencing hers, or more. It was kinda trying to make the point that everybody has some good inside that can be reached, or something like that. Or maybe don't judge a book by its beastly cover.

But then it's early, and I'm not entirely woke up yet.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 25, 2017, 10:33:00 AM
The new movie did that also. It's really not Stockholm Syndrome, as that only goes one way. This is certainly a mutual affair.

What it definitely is, is Bestiality: The Movie. Belle was totally ready to do him and he happened to turn into a dude.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Cyrrex on June 26, 2017, 10:30:01 PM
Went with the wife and two older kids to see the latest Transformers movie.  Here is my review:



Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 26, 2017, 10:49:40 PM
A small fortune? Didn't it cost nearly a quarter of a billion dollars?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 26, 2017, 10:55:25 PM
Blame China for the continued existence of those movies.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 26, 2017, 11:06:28 PM
on the list of things I want to blame china for, the transformers doesn't even hit the top 50


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 27, 2017, 11:28:50 AM
RedLetterMedia has made a running gag over the last week of posting fake review videos of the new Transformers movie.  It's past Adam Sandler levels of contempt.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Cyrrex on June 27, 2017, 10:15:34 PM
Not that I care overly much about it, but my first thought was indeed that this is what we get for having to cater to the Chinese market.  But thinking over it further, I think it is just as much about the international market in general.  Although anecdotal, my wife is a good example of this.  When exiting this particular movie we begin discussing what we thought about it.  I said it was awful, my two boys (12 and 15) who are somewhat more Americanized than my wife and have better inherent English ability were pretty "meh" leaning towards the negative.  We could all agree that these TF movies, while never great, actually seem to get worse and worse.  My wife, born and raised in Denmark, never quite sees it the same way.  She thought it was okay, or at least on par with lots of other, better made action flicks.  The utter cornball, horrific and offensive dialogue?  Flies straight over her head.  This goes for tons of movies and TV shows.  The truly terrible stuff just looks like average stuff to her.

I guess it is about appealing to the lowest common denominator, or something. 


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ragnoros on June 29, 2017, 09:56:17 PM
My honest theory is that Michael Bay is trying to figure out just how awful and offensive of a movie he can make before people will stop paying money to see it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Cyrrex on June 29, 2017, 10:00:34 PM
I think Spielberg attaches his name to that stuff as well, though I don't know how much of a part he really plays.  That man's career is really inexplicable.  He was figuratively shitting gold back in the day, but at some point he must have exploded an important vein in his head.  Has he made anything in the last decade that didn't make me want to punch a kitten?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on June 30, 2017, 01:10:06 AM
Watched Lego Batman last night.

I was bored and irritated the whole way through.  I think there was exactly one laugh.

Did I have expectations set to high or summat ?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: NowhereMan on June 30, 2017, 01:15:04 AM
The dialogue probably has something to do with it, non-native speakers even if they have an extremely good grasp of the language still don't quite get the difference between meh and terrible dialogue. In a lot of other countries I suspect subtitles also do a better job than the writers on those movies. The action itself with Transformers (and all Michael Bay films) is grand and loud and has good effects. I think perhaps Americans have a pretty unique thing of rating the quality of big, explosiony action movies. I kind of lump them all together myself although I haven't seen the TF films past the first one to judge if they've gone down hill. The first one was fairly dire and didn't deliver any of the characters or plot I was hoping for from a Transformers film.

Lego Batman: I laughed a bit at it but the plot wasn't as well done or thoughtful as the Lego movie. I think it was fun as a kids movie but it was more a Dreamworks than a Pixar type kids movie. They saw what worked in the Lego movie but didn't really have the ability to pull it off. I think it's fair to compare them though, they clearly went in using that previous success to sell it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on June 30, 2017, 01:23:08 AM
Elena loved it even on, I think, 3rd watching for her now, so it's defo a kids one, but I really expected more for me.  It just wasn't there.

Also, I thought for a Batman bit, the voice chaps were all awful.  The only thing that broadly made me smile was the two scenes harking back to all the other Batmen.  But even that became overdone by the final fight scene with the Adam West Fight-Words.

I dunno.  I'd like to think I'm not just being IronCunty, but it really didn't work for me on any level.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on June 30, 2017, 03:17:52 AM
Watched Lego Batman last night.

I was bored and irritated the whole way through.  I think there was exactly one laugh.

Did I have expectations set to high or summat ?

No, I said the same thing when it came out. I was so bored I fell asleep after the Batman history joke. It was, to me, like watching a movie aimed at 6-8 year olds with no real jokes for parents. I enjoyed The Secret Life of Pets more.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on June 30, 2017, 05:58:03 AM
I tried watching it on a plane. I thought it was dumb, I could only put up with it for about twenty minutes.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: calapine on July 11, 2017, 03:57:47 PM
Trailer for a film that is out already quite a while


Russian SF action film. I would say "ЇЍDЭPԐЍDЭЙҪЄ DДЧ" but it does seem to be a bit more story heavy.

Anyway, watch yourself. There are english subs, just need to be turned on:

Attraction Official Trailer #3 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bYzbzYOVYY)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on July 15, 2017, 08:40:04 AM
Despicable Me 3, continuing the Minions Trend of being fucking garbage and running this franchise into the ground.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Signe on July 16, 2017, 08:07:02 PM
Did Elena like it, though?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on July 17, 2017, 01:10:05 AM
Yes, she loved it.   :awesome_for_real:


(It's really bad tho.)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sir T on July 17, 2017, 01:59:31 AM
I thought the Minions in the first movie were used perfectly. Not too much so as they didn't spoil the gags, kept the focus on the main characters. The other movies... Urrgh...


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on July 17, 2017, 02:34:46 AM
I guess it depends on your view of the minons.  I find them fucking annoying and while funny in the first one, it's a one-note joke that wears quickly.

Whereas, Mark Kermode, the film critic I most listen to, did his review of this film where he liked it entirely due to the minions.

Who knows !


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on July 26, 2017, 11:35:50 PM
Just watched Adjustment Bureau and boy that's a better movie than I remember despite being a bit heavy handed.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on July 27, 2017, 04:20:20 AM
It's ok, I liked the romance, but it got very, very, very 'God-y'

I do not like too much God in my films.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on July 27, 2017, 08:02:45 AM
I appreciated them only saying angels once. But more to the point, the god stuff bothered me less here because the overall premise was more interesting. I also like the whole free will is an illusion thing coming from on high rather than some nonsense corporate overlord like it does in so many sci-fi movies.

But mostly, it was just way more entertaining than I remembered.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on July 27, 2017, 08:19:41 PM
The Circle is maybe one of the worst 5 star-studded movies I've ever seen.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on July 27, 2017, 08:47:51 PM
Yeah that one looked like total trite bullshit from the first trailer. Like The Net only with a less interesting premise.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on July 27, 2017, 09:49:15 PM
The net was great for what it was. The circle was absolute dogshit.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on July 29, 2017, 02:43:42 PM
Wait, was that the one where aliens have captured everyone and they have to be in some kind of stupid alien game show where only one survives ?  I liked it.  Because lots of people died and Darla was in it.

On the matter of Dogshit, however, I just watched that Fantastic Potter Cash Ins and Where to Find Them.

Jesus fuck. 


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on July 30, 2017, 08:04:31 AM
what? The circle was the Netflix Tom Hanks / Emma Watson tour de force that was clearly written by retards. The Net was a Sandra Bullock vehicle from the mid 90s.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ruvaldt on July 30, 2017, 09:16:25 AM
Circle (what Ironwood is talking about) and The Circle (the Hanks/Watson movie) are two different movies.  Both available on Netflix, but neither worth watching.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on July 30, 2017, 09:51:00 AM
what? The circle was the Netflix Tom Hanks / Emma Watson tour de force that was clearly written by retards. The Net was a Sandra Bullock vehicle from the mid 90s.

Yeah, in that case I don't care.  About either.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on August 01, 2017, 12:16:11 PM
The Dark Tower - 95 minutes (lol)
IT - 135 minutes for the first HALF

so

yeah

9/8 can't come soon enough


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Engels on September 05, 2017, 10:16:08 AM
Jusdt saw Buster's Mal Heart this weekend on Netflix. Its sorta a bizarre movie a la Jacob's Ladder and the Lost Room. Its one of those you can probably watch 3-5 times without really locking down precisely what's happened. I think this is a good audience for it:

https://youtu.be/W8ilR2b3QLs


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Abagadro on September 07, 2017, 11:57:12 PM
Seen chunks before, but sat down and finally watched all of Aguirre, the Wrath of God.  Great film and you can see how it influenced a lot of Coppola and Malick.  I think Fitzcarraldo is next for me.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on September 08, 2017, 05:45:33 AM
Be sure to watch the documentary about the making of it afterwards.

Aguirre is super-great, though.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on September 09, 2017, 07:33:21 PM
wow The Mummy is terrible

100% terrible

every part of it


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on September 10, 2017, 07:46:47 AM
I only got through half the movie last night

it somehow gets worse

this is the worst

I can't think of a big budget movie that is worse than this movie


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on September 10, 2017, 10:27:28 AM
I would have been surprised if it was any other way. The concept was supremely dumb - let's franchise characters that haven't really been considered front-line characters for at least 15 years. Then let's attach it to a movie series that had one campy great surprise hit, two really disappointing sequels and two or more (I forget how many Scorpion Kings they made without the Rock) really terrible bombs as spinoffs. OH and let's pay big name stars like Tom Cruise to star in it and make it serious business forgetting the entire campy nature that made the Branden Fraser version so successful. Surely this will make us Marvel Disney bucks!

It was pretty much doomed to failure.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on September 11, 2017, 02:41:14 PM
What's really interesting is all the dumb shit around the movie about it establishing a "franchise". None of these dumb motherfuckers running the studios now seem to have even the vaguest idea of how to go about doing something like that. All they can see is the Marvel and Star Wars people and they go, "oh, that's easy, we can do that, what IP do we have sitting around, we just take the IP and buy some directors and movie stars and get a big ad budget and bam! we gots this".


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: TheWalrus on September 11, 2017, 04:30:04 PM
Slap tits on the mummy this time, that'll sell!


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on September 11, 2017, 05:54:49 PM
To be fair, Sofia Boutella was not the problem with that movie.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on September 11, 2017, 05:58:03 PM
No, but the concept thinking that casting the Mummy as a woman embodied the problem. If you write a story where arguably the woman turned into a supernaturally powerful mummy is semi-sympathetic conceptually, make the fucking movie around that. Shit, even the Brendan Fraser version got that. The old Universal films definitely got that--the monster had to be at least somewhat sympathetic. But you have to really get that idea at some deeper level than a script pitch to a bunch of coked-up fuckfaces sitting around in a Burbank office.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on September 11, 2017, 06:03:08 PM
They made her the mummy and then had a white male yank her power away and become a scientologist god.

The movie was shit.

It wasn't even the fucking Mummy.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: calapine on September 16, 2017, 03:34:07 AM
As a less depressing version of "XY died" I propose "What, XY is still around?"

Part 1: Philip Andre Rourke jr aka Mickey Rourke turned 65 today.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on September 16, 2017, 04:43:27 PM
Michael Keaton is going to ruin his comeback if he keeps picking stinkers like American Assassin. None of the charm of Bond. None of the action of Bourne. None of the fun of Kingsman. 

The women in the movie existed solely as props, yes, even the CIA handler and field agent. They were token and the "I understand you" scene was cringey even though it had a reason.

The plot was as thin as a UK shopping bag and the 'twists' were more predictable than a conservative's response to gay neighbors.

In all, I'm glad I only used movie pass for it. I kept waiting for some real action or drama and it just never came. Keaton nailed his performance and character, but the kid was wooden and I never bought him as the badass or rule-breaker he was supposed to be other than because of the events on screen.

2/5


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Shannow on September 29, 2017, 06:50:58 AM
There's a trailer out for Annihilation. I won't grace it with a thread yet. It looks boring and confusing , just like the book. Or am I not cool enough to get it?

I found that book immensely crappy.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on September 29, 2017, 07:21:10 AM
I wanted to like it--I get that it was going for a Lovecraftian feeling where nothing could be too directly seen or described--but yeah, in the end, it just felt flat and uninvolving to me. I could not really care about the main character.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on September 29, 2017, 12:39:05 PM
The trailer looks great to me.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on October 02, 2017, 03:20:48 AM
Me too.  The film is going to bomb hard though.  There's no way it'll do the pointless nature of the books any justice if it tries and if it doesn't, I don't see the point.

Yes, I see the multiple irony and pun-itude in what I wrote.  I stand by it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Shannow on October 02, 2017, 07:11:40 AM

Yes, I see the multiple irony and pun-itude in what I wrote.  I stand by it.


 :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: calapine on October 24, 2017, 08:20:10 AM
Kelvin Kline is 70 today.

Maybe time to rewatch a A fish named Wanda.  :heart:

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DM4tGtbX0AEfvhn.jpg)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Abagadro on October 26, 2017, 09:03:50 PM
Happy Birthday Mr. Manfrengensen.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on October 31, 2017, 08:07:07 AM
Not at all a useless movie, but I saw "The Thing" for the first time ever in a theater the other day (in glorious 70mm), and holy shit is that a great movie that I should have seen a long time ago.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Signe on October 31, 2017, 10:21:54 AM
The Kurt Russell one, right?  I love that film, too, and it freaked the crap out of me!  They Live was really good, too.  Probably better but it didn't have Kurt Russell.  Having said that, it DID star Rowdy Roddy Piper.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on October 31, 2017, 10:41:11 AM
Not at all a useless movie, but I saw "The Thing" for the first time ever in a theater the other day (in glorious 70mm), and holy shit is that a great movie that I should have seen a long time ago.

What the fuck is wrong with you ?

For anyone else ;  If you haven't seen this, you should see this. Jesus.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on October 31, 2017, 11:24:06 AM
Not at all a useless movie, but I saw "The Thing" for the first time ever in a theater the other day (in glorious 70mm), and holy shit is that a great movie that I should have seen a long time ago.

What the fuck is wrong with you ?

For anyone else ;  If you haven't seen this, you should see this. Jesus.

I was not yet 1 year old when it came out, and I guess it never came on the Sci-Fi channel when I was a teenager, which was my main way of catching up on older movies as I grew up.   :sad_panda: 

Prior to going to see it in the theater I was about 30% sure I had seen it as a kid, because I remembered what it was about, but once I saw the first monster effect I knew I was wrong because I would absolutely remember those visuals.  Must have just heard it described to me.

I am glad I got to have the experience of seeing it for the first time in a theater, though.  I may have been a bit disruptive because I kept giggling with delight.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Father mike on November 08, 2017, 09:02:34 AM
Watched 'Usual Suspects' with the daughter this weekend.  Figured she ought to see it before somebody spoiled it for her.

And between Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer, it's reputation will probably lose a lot of it's shine ...


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on November 08, 2017, 10:47:48 AM
Watched 'Usual Suspects' with the daughter this weekend.  Figured she ought to see it before somebody spoiled it for her.

And between Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer, it's reputation will probably lose a lot of it's shine ...

Wow.  Now I can't stop wondering if they ever had some kind of dragon-and-cyclops predatory showdown on set.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on November 09, 2017, 05:45:38 AM
Watched 'Usual Suspects' with the daughter this weekend.  Figured she ought to see it before somebody spoiled it for her.

And between Kevin Spacey and Bryan Singer, it's reputation will probably lose a lot of it's shine ...

bah

teach your daughter to separate the art from the artist because if she can't art is gonna be nothing but a letdown


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on November 09, 2017, 08:50:11 PM
Happy Death Day was really good. Worst name in the history of cinema. On a scale of 1 to To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything Julie Newmar, it ranks a -4.

But for real, comedy has groundhogs day. SciFi has Edge of Tomorrow. Thrillers have Happy Death Day. It did the repetition genre proud.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on November 13, 2017, 11:17:12 AM
Hope the new Star Wars movie is good, because the director is greenlit for a new canon trilogy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSBEm1oNLT4


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on November 20, 2017, 02:59:46 AM
Finally got to see Wonder Woman and I can't even be bothered bumping the thread, it was so meh.  I mean, I get it.  It's an ok movie (and totally brilliant if you only compare it to the rest of the DC drek) and it's good to see a woman and there's a lot of good feminism and some bum notes too, but.... but it's really just Captain America :  World War One edition and I'm all like ;  Is that it ?

Gal Gadot tho.  Jesus.



Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Abagadro on November 21, 2017, 11:48:10 PM
I swear I've seen Spaceballs at least 20 times and I pick up a new throw away joke every time (unless I am toasted and saw it and forgot it which is possible).  This round:

Colonel Sanders changing Spaceballs I to MegaMaid: "Prepare for metamorphosis. Ready Kafka?"

EDIT: I also watched Bridge On the River Kwai for approximately the 40th time tonight. One of my favorites of all time.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Phildo on November 22, 2017, 07:03:18 AM
(https://img.4plebs.org/boards/pol/image/1476/36/1476364416470.png)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sir T on November 22, 2017, 07:07:45 AM
Did anyone ever see "Spaceballs III: the Search for Spaceballs II"? I've always wondered is it any good, but I never had the courage to watch it as I figured the funniest thing about it would be the title...


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Shannow on December 01, 2017, 06:02:34 AM
What myself and my children did over dinner last night:

All the Pixar movies rated:

The Pantheon: Finding Nemo, Incredibles, Monsters Inc., Toy Story 1 and 3

Almost Pantheon: Inside Out, Toy Story 2, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Bugs Life

Better than great, not almost pantheon: Coco, Finding Dory

Good, but not great: Monsters University, Up

Better than Average: Cars

Average: The Good Dinosaur, Brave

Cars 2 bad: Cars 2

Not rated: Cars 3 (though according to my 8 year old, ‘It was emotional’)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on December 01, 2017, 06:04:47 AM
UP can kiss my fucking ass.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Shannow on December 01, 2017, 07:45:49 AM
Up is highly overrated by some people, including film critics , who'd put it and Wall-E in the pantheon. Wall-E is good. Up is mainly crap. I was outvoted on that one.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Merusk on December 01, 2017, 08:46:16 AM
UP gets high marks for that first 10 minutes and having some really memorable lines from the dog. Those really stick with people and the opening, in particular, speaks to old people who have felt that loss themselves and that gives the critical inflation.  The rest of the movie was entirely forgettable, which I realized when I saw it again recently.

I wouldn't put any of those "Almost Pantheon" movies (Note: I still haven't seen Inside Out so I can't talk about that one)  except Wall-E that that tier as I found them all inferior to Cars. Cars had a decent story and moral and flowed really well with some good, memorable (albeit racist) characters. It's Better than Great, IMO.

Bugs Life and Toy Story 2, in particular, were kind of meh.



Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on December 03, 2017, 10:27:44 AM
The intro to UP was a great short.  Should have stopped there.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on December 04, 2017, 12:25:17 PM
What myself and my children did over dinner last night:

All the Pixar movies rated:

The Pantheon: Finding Nemo, Incredibles, Monsters Inc., Toy Story 1 and 3

Almost Pantheon: Inside Out, Toy Story 2, Ratatouille, Wall-E, Bugs Life

Better than great, not almost pantheon: Coco, Finding Dory

Good, but not great: Monsters University, Up

Better than Average: Cars

Average: The Good Dinosaur, Brave

Cars 2 bad: Cars 2

Not rated: Cars 3 (though according to my 8 year old, ‘It was emotional’)

I think the only ones I've ever wanted to re-watch are Toy Story, Incredibles, and Ratatouille (which I actually think is their best movie).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on December 05, 2017, 11:52:40 AM
Monsters Inc seems to me to maybe be Almost Pantheon when I rewatch it. Finding Nemo also slips for me a teeny bit.

Monsters University is almost Cars 2 bad. The Good Dinosaur is Below Average but not Cars 2 bad.

Ratatouille is unambiguously Pantheon.

Wall-E is like Up only the genius part lasts a lot longer. Once we're on the Fat Ship it loses a lot of its charm and becomes obvious.

I think Inside Out is going to shade slowly up into Pantheon over time.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Father mike on December 06, 2017, 03:12:40 PM
I think the thing about ALL the Pixar movies is that they're highly personal stories.  Each person's Pixar Pantheon depends on their own experience. 

My wife and daughter think Brave the best one -- bar none.  But that's because it tells THEIR story, a contentious but deeply loving mother-daughter relationship.  I don't relate (except maybe peripherally to the Billy Connolly embattled Dad character), so to me it's one of their more average efforts.



Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on December 06, 2017, 09:39:09 PM
That's probably true

After all I do like food and wouldn't mind having super powers


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: satael on December 09, 2017, 12:32:46 AM
Patrick Stewart Might Reprise Jean-Luc Picard Role if Tarantino Directs 'Star Trek' (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/patrick-stewart-might-reprise-jean-luc-picard-role-tarantino-directs-star-trek-1065667)

Not real news and doesn't have a chance of becoming reality but I sure would watch an R-Rated Star Trek film directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Patrick Stewart.  :drill: :drill:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on December 09, 2017, 01:03:38 AM
Did you watch Green Room ?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: satael on December 09, 2017, 01:34:42 AM
Did you watch Green Room ?
I haven't watched any of Saulnier's movies though they are on my list of movies to watch (at some point).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on December 09, 2017, 06:57:26 AM
i'd see Star Trek: To The Racist Beyond


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on December 11, 2017, 12:52:21 PM
If you haven't watched Get Out, what the fuck is wrong with you? GO WATCH IT NOW. It was fantastic from start to finish and it will not win any of the Oscars it deserves to, such as Best Actor.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on December 11, 2017, 07:29:17 PM
irony of that post with what i just posted in the IT thread

Get Out was a fine movie.

but frankly I finished it thinking "well, I've watched Get Out now, yay."

It does not deserve oscars. The movie required very little actual acting. The missing dude was better than the lead.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on December 11, 2017, 07:52:09 PM
I disagree with what you said. (Not about Skaarsgaard but about Get Out not requiring acting).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: jgsugden on December 19, 2017, 12:08:38 PM
Patrick Stewart Might Reprise Jean-Luc Picard Role if Tarantino Directs 'Star Trek' (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/patrick-stewart-might-reprise-jean-luc-picard-role-tarantino-directs-star-trek-1065667)

Not real news and doesn't have a chance of becoming reality but I sure would watch an R-Rated Star Trek film directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Patrick Stewart.  :drill: :drill:
How many lights?  HOW MANY FUCKING LIGHTS, BEYOTCH!


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Abagadro on December 24, 2017, 11:43:18 PM
Showed my boy Holy Grail tonight. Declared it "amazing." I am satisfied.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Abagadro on December 24, 2017, 11:46:54 PM
Never seen Last of the Mohicans but the music keeps popping into my Pandora and its amazing so I need to watch it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Teleku on December 26, 2017, 05:25:09 AM
That's strange, the music for that popped into my head just the other night randomly.  Compelled me to re-watch the final epic end/fight sequence to the film on youtube, which has the really over the top dramatic score.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: calapine on January 02, 2018, 03:02:48 AM
I wonder how a "Spiderman the film - written and directed by Jodie Foster" would look like...

Quote
Jodie Foster takes aim at big-budget studio movies, telling Radio Times magazine that they could spell doom for Hollywood in the way they shape the expectations of American audiences.

“Going to the movies has become like a theme park,” she told the magazine, according to the Telegraph. “Studios making bad content in order to appeal to the masses and shareholders is like fracking — you get the best return right now but you wreck the earth.”

“It’s ruining the viewing habits of the American population and then ultimately the rest of the world,” Foster continued. “I don’t want to make $200 million movies about superheroes.”

Foster made it clear that if she were to direct a superhero movie, it would have to be one with a compelling story and character at its core. Rather than doing a brainless action film, it would have to be about a character with a “really complex psychology.”

The Oscar-winning actress has shifted her focus to directing in recent years, most recently taking on an episode of the Netflix sci-fi anthology “Black Mirror.” In the interview, Foster described a “lack of respect” for directors in Hollywood that accepts only the “untouchable” likes of Steven Spielberg or Clint Eastwood.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on January 02, 2018, 07:52:33 AM
She's not wrong. And I say that as a big fan of superhero movies. The studios are really fucking themselves long term by letting places like Netflix and Amazon make and stream the smaller movies that used to be schedule fillers. The superhero bubble can't last forever.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on January 02, 2018, 04:28:38 PM
I don't love every Michael Mann movie but damn do I love Last of the Mohicans. It is like the perfect combination of a chick-flick romance film and an action film.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on January 02, 2018, 04:31:13 PM
Recent Netflix horror B-movie recommendations: Creep 2 (but watch the first Creep if you haven't) and It Follows (way better than I thought it'd be).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on January 06, 2018, 03:15:40 PM
Logan is still as fantastic as I remember it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Abagadro on January 14, 2018, 11:24:51 PM
Showed my boy Princess Bride which is one of my all time favorite films and books. He declared it "really weird" but "awesome." So I guess I'll take that. 

I forget how god damned good Cary Elwes is in that movie even though I've seen it 50 times or so.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sir T on January 18, 2018, 07:54:58 AM
I was talking to some gamers from Europe on Teamspeak the other night, and they had never heard of the Princess Bride. How the hell do you describe how awesome hat film is? I wound up posting a youtube of the trailer at them.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on January 18, 2018, 01:10:48 PM
Princess Bride is basically a perfect movie.  I rank it up there with Casablanca as a movie that pretty much everyone likes because it's got everything -- humor, romance, adventure, the whole deal.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on January 18, 2018, 01:24:02 PM
The trick that it pulls off that almost nothing else does is to both deconstruct the genre it's part of AND reconstruct it lovingly at the same time. That's goddamn genius.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on January 19, 2018, 07:56:16 AM
Princess Bride is basically a perfect movie.  I rank it up there with Casablanca as a movie that pretty much everyone likes because it's got everything -- humor, romance, adventure, the whole deal.

if unfunny geeks didn't quote it thinking it was funny, i'd agree

hell is other people


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on January 31, 2018, 06:16:06 AM
Faust.  Where are you damn’d?   
  Meph.  In hell.   
  Faust.  How comes it then that thou art out of hell?   
  Meph.  Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.   
Think’st thou that I who saw the face of God,           75
And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,   
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,   
In being depriv’d of everlasting bliss?   
O Faustus! leave these frivolous demands,   
Which strike a terror to my fainting soul.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on February 06, 2018, 01:48:08 PM
More new Star Wars movies in the pipe...from the Game of Thrones dudes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQT-3JODB8k


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on February 06, 2018, 02:14:31 PM
Why? Fuck's sake, how many goddamn movies can they add? 2 new Star Wars Movies a year?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on February 06, 2018, 04:05:09 PM
Why? Fuck's sake, how many goddamn movies can they add? 2 new Star Wars Movies a year?

They're up to 3 Marvel movies a year, so yeah.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Nebu on February 06, 2018, 08:50:05 PM
Are they going to make one where Jar Jar Binks' planet gets blown up?  I'd watch that. 


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Tale on February 07, 2018, 10:53:23 PM
More new Star Wars movies in the pipe...from the Game of Thrones dudes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQT-3JODB8k

- "Join me, and together we can rule the galaxy as father and son."
- "I'll never join you!"
- "So be it." [Darth Vader decapitates Luke Skywalker. Fade to credits.]


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on February 21, 2018, 12:43:33 PM
The Ritual on Netflix is not horrible. Could've been amazing, but I still think it's worth a watch.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on February 21, 2018, 12:53:25 PM
I watched that one recently and agree, it was like Blair Witch but not boring.

One I watched even more recently and recommend more highly: "Don't Kill It".  Just wonderful goofy bloody fun with Dolph Lundgren as a demon hunter and a LOT of people getting killed by the demon over the course of the movie.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on April 12, 2018, 02:21:56 PM
Went to see 'Ghost Stories' with the wife.  Excellent British cast doing the age old Hammer standby of "3 ghost stories tied together with an anorexic main story".

It was fucking brilliant and really, really took me back.  Also, quite successfully scary, even though Jump Scares were mostly the order of the day.

I'm not sure what it would do for you Cousins across the water, but I've had a good night. 


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: pxib on June 08, 2018, 11:40:20 AM
Hotel Artemis has a lot of ideas, but doesn't really deliver on them. As little as there is in the trailer, those are the great moments in the film. Solid premise, wet noodle execution. Also it takes place in a boring, generic cyberpunk future for no reason.

Wait until it's free on some streaming service.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: jgsugden on June 10, 2018, 10:08:17 AM
Out of Curiosity: Any of you folks tried doing Moviepass, yet?

Edit: I'm using it.  Outside of them screwing me over on a promotion and having no customer support, it is saving me money and making it easier for me to decide to delay coming home for a couple hours to see mediocre films.  I still expect them to go belly up soon.  They're hemorrhaging money. 


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on June 14, 2018, 03:49:28 PM
I've been thinking about getting moviepass but I would probably need to get a pass for my wife, too, and then it starts getting into "do we have a babysitter lined up?"  My friends and my parents use it and they are happy with it.

Also, I don't have a smart phone, and isn't that a requirement?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 14, 2018, 04:08:38 PM
Also, I don't have a smart phone, and isn't that a requirement?

What ARE you?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Father mike on June 14, 2018, 05:49:17 PM
What ARE you?
[/quote]

Some one who reads newspapers on the shitter, apparently.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on June 14, 2018, 05:53:43 PM
are you one of the korean war parents whose kid was taken back then?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: jgsugden on June 15, 2018, 01:27:11 PM
I've been thinking about getting moviepass but I would probably need to get a pass for my wife, too, and then it starts getting into "do we have a babysitter lined up?"  My friends and my parents use it and they are happy with it.

Also, I don't have a smart phone, and isn't that a requirement?
Yes.  A smart phone is (essentially) a requirement.

If you get Moviepass, don't get it for your wife/family.  They'll give you free memberships to hand out for a while.

However, their customer service is useless.  They screwed up something for me and getting it fixed is a horrible joke.  Chat sessions with 30 minutes between replies from their customer service team - only to be told they need to escalate it, but escalating is impossible (huh?).  They offered free codes for IHeart Radio as part of a promotion and it looks like their codes are all invalid, but they won't admit it. 

If you get the service, use it a few times quickly to get your value out of it as I would not be surprised to see them go belly up at any time.  From what I've seen of their business plan, they collected $7.99 from me and have already paid out nearly $140.   


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on June 15, 2018, 09:04:06 PM

Some one who reads newspapers on the shitter, apparently.
[/quote]

Books.

I do have an iPad that my parents gave me for Christmas, that I didn't want, because they thought I should have one.  It only works on home Wi Fi, though, not on a data plan or whatever you call cellular connectivity. 

I don't want a smart phone because I don't want to end up like many of my family, staring at it all the time in public instead of interacting or paying attention to my child.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: lamaros on July 23, 2018, 12:35:44 AM
"The Lobster".

This was a bad movie. No one should watch it. Why it was critically feted is beyond me.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Signe on July 23, 2018, 10:27:31 PM
I got a smart phone for the first time only a couple of weeks ago.  The new house doesn't have copper (grrr) and Verizon wanted too much money for a phone so my sister MADE me get a smart phone.  I got a super cheap one.  It's too big for my hand.  I don't know where I left it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Abagadro on August 24, 2018, 01:00:29 AM
Watched Meru for the second or third time tonight. Great documentary about three guys trying to do a first ascent of a little known but very technically difficult peak in the Himalayas.. If you are interested at all in big mountain climbing (and for some reason I am weirdly obsessed with this topic despite the fact that I have a hard time climbing a large flight of stairs) it is really good. Great story and beautiful film.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on September 24, 2018, 02:53:50 PM
House with the Clock in the Walls.

Garbage.

Kids might like it.  Elena did.

Garbage.

Also, had Ted Cruz in it.

Garbage.

Avoid.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: pxib on October 09, 2018, 09:22:27 PM
Got invited to a preview showing of First Man tonight. It was fine.

Don't see it in IMAX: the special effects have been designed to look realistic instead of being designed to look impressive. It's interesting and intense to be in the cockpit of various flights and launches and freaky disasters, but it's not all the much to look at. Great sound design, though. Plenty of historical accuracy if that's your thing.

Also it's kind of a big Oscar-bait minimalist artsy metaphor about a socially awkward, emotionally constipated egghead who can only find the peace he needs in the silence of outer space.

Probably worth seeing, but I kept wishing I was watching something goofy and fun like The Right Stuff or Apollo 13. It won't lose much on the small screen except speaker volume and claustrophobia.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: calapine on October 23, 2018, 03:41:51 PM
Why isnt there a thread about the Gosling Space Movie?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Trippy on October 23, 2018, 03:43:26 PM
Cause nobody saw it?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: MahrinSkel on October 23, 2018, 06:30:50 PM
I was dragged to it. It was a movie. It tried too hard. I already knew 90% of the story and the remainder is probably dramatic license.

--Dave


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on October 23, 2018, 06:50:35 PM
I was dragged to it. It was a movie. It tried too hard. I already knew 90% of the story and the remainder is probably dramatic license.

--Dave

It wasn't the moving cinematic experience many reviewers claim it is? 



Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on October 23, 2018, 07:57:48 PM
Why isnt there a thread about the Gosling Space Movie?

I've long since given up on trying to discuss any movie here that isn't part of some nerd franchise.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on October 24, 2018, 01:29:48 AM
Why isnt there a thread about the Gosling Space Movie?

Make one and find out !


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Cyrrex on October 24, 2018, 02:22:12 AM
Is Gosling Space Movie exactly what it sounds like?  A movie about geese in search of a fresh start?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on October 24, 2018, 07:48:33 AM
Is Gosling Space Movie exactly what it sounds like?  A movie about geese in search of a fresh start?

They need liebensraum and the geese will step until they get it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Hawkbit on November 03, 2018, 09:23:07 PM
Bohemian Rhapsody was formulaic but fun. Some of the first 1/3 was a trying to be a bit too on the nose funny, but the last 2/3 was good fun, even if it took serious liberties.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on November 03, 2018, 11:04:46 PM
I'm not really a fan of it. I can get past it taking some liberties because I know that they have to create some sort of narrative and drama. It just felt like the story they decided to go with didn't feel like Queen. With the exception of Malek's performance the story felt like every episode of Behind the Music where fame & fortune lead to self-destruction and ego leading to a break-up and eventually redemption and reconciliation. It paints Freddie as an outsider even within the band despite the fact that unlike in the movie he was friends and roommates with this guys even when Brian and Roger are still in their Smile days.

Also due to the apparent need for a villain, Paul Prenter gets a lot more focus that would usually be warranted in a story about Queen, and it also hits a lot of the same beats as the Jerry Heller stuff in Straight Outta Compton albeit with an added sexual component.

A lot of the songwriting and concert parts are pretty good, and in particular the Live Aid scene at the end, but those scenes also just kept giving me this nagging feeling of "why don't I just watch the actual video of Live Aid instead?"


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on November 06, 2018, 12:50:28 PM
I just saw Solomon Kane, which came out a while back. It was actually pretty good.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: calapine on December 10, 2018, 05:06:22 AM
I just saw Solomon Kane, which came out a while back. It was actually pretty good.


I just saw Okja, which came out a while back. It was actually pretty good.

Very quirky. Tilda Swinton as CEO kills it as CEO.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjCebKn4iic


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Rasix on March 22, 2019, 10:21:24 AM
Watching The Inventor right now. Elizabeth Holmes has a really weird voice.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Cyrrex on April 05, 2019, 01:36:37 AM
https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-reviews-pet-sematary-1833808594 (https://www.theonion.com/the-onion-reviews-pet-sematary-1833808594)

I made the mistake of trying to watch this Onion review at work.  Only made it halfway through, and I can't stop fucking snorting and snickering, and my colleagues and boss must think I am insane now.  Something about that dude.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Cyrrex on May 16, 2019, 12:30:49 AM
I somehow never noticed that there was a relatively new Jurassic movie.  Fallen Kingdom or whatever.  Now, cards on the table, I rather liked the reboot (Jurassic World?)....it was a good popcorn flick if nothing else, and it looked nice.

But this last one.  Fuck me in the eye hole.  The best parts were over with in the first act, and they were only palatable because of the visuals.  The whole thing was fuckstupid, but to make matters worse....it stole and re-created scenes from all the previous movies in the series.  As if it was a clumsy homage for things that didn't need an homage.  I am not exactly a Jurassic aficionado or anything, but there were at least 10 scenes (and I was only paying half attention to the whole thing) that were mirrors of scenes from the other movies.  And definitely not in a good way.

Jesus Christ.  I want my two hours back.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Cyrrex on June 04, 2019, 09:39:23 AM
Watched the Godzilla movie from 2014 yesterday, as I couldn’t recall if I had seen it before, and since a new one is out I thought to myself “hey, why not”.

Most of it is boring as shit.  The last 30 minutes or so is the only worthwhile bit, monsters fighting monsters and whatnot, but of course it, too, is essentially shit.  Still, if you want to see giant monsters punching each other.....

Nah, never mind.  Avoid.  I would actually prefer to watch Pacific Rim (either one) for monster stuff.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on June 09, 2019, 10:00:05 PM
Pacific Rim 2 really hits the level of over the top camp that makes a film like Godzilla Final Wars watchable.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: jgsugden on August 20, 2019, 02:11:33 PM
Apparently we're getting a 4th Matrix movie....


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on August 20, 2019, 04:33:06 PM
Apparently we're getting a 4th Matrix movie....

y tho


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Hawkbit on August 20, 2019, 05:16:26 PM
dollars


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on August 20, 2019, 08:50:13 PM
That can't be the reason. I can't imagine there's too many people clamoring for a continuation of a series that had one good movie.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Hawkbit on August 21, 2019, 12:52:04 PM
I will be better this time, I promise.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: lamaros on September 22, 2019, 07:41:15 PM
Anyone watched Ad Astra?


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: lamaros on September 25, 2019, 12:11:52 AM
Anyone watched Ad Astra?

I saw it.

It's really bad.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Tale on September 25, 2019, 02:23:27 AM
Apparently we're getting a 4th Matrix movie....

Useless trivia: my wife was an extra in the second and third Matrix movies. Not blaming her.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on September 25, 2019, 03:22:48 AM
Well, I guess if you've got the rubber gear, you may as well use it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on September 28, 2019, 04:46:43 PM
Anyone watched Ad Astra?

I saw it.

It's really bad.

Here we agree 100%. Fucking awful.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Hawkbit on September 28, 2019, 06:18:31 PM
Showgirls II: The Hustlin'

I wasted one of my biannual cinema experiences on this turd because my wife made me tag along to a client/work function. I was mildly interested because there was a buzz about JLo being Oscar-worthy. The client bailed halfway through and my wife was too tipsy to understand we needed to leave as well.

Terrible actors playing terrible people doing terrible things. Somewhere about 2/3 through the movie the director tries to pull some Tarantino on this absolute bucket of shit of a story. Easily the worst movie I've seen in a very long time. I would make a thread but the movie isn't worth it.

Also, negative points for one of the girls having a cat and then she gets arrested and we never find out if the cat is okay.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: pxib on October 20, 2019, 11:30:48 PM
I just happened to rewatch Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and though I had remembered that Lucas Lee was played by Captain America, I'd completely forgotten that Envy Adams and Todd Ingram were played by Captain Marvel and Superman.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Cyrrex on October 21, 2019, 12:03:10 AM
I kinda hated that movie, but I remember thinking at the time that it had one redeeming quality (Brie Larsen).  I am glad to see that I was on the mark about that one.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on October 23, 2019, 09:48:33 AM
The cast was fine, but I hated the movie also.

Which is a shame, because it got a lot of love from the usual crowd and I never really understood why.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Mandella on October 30, 2019, 10:53:06 AM
The cast was fine, but I hated the movie also.

Which is a shame, because it got a lot of love from the usual crowd and I never really understood why.


Because it was a fun movie that entertained me for an hour and a half?

 :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Ironwood on October 30, 2019, 12:06:47 PM
OH YEAH, THAT'LL BE IT, NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT THANKS.  I'M TOTALLY PUT RIGHT NOW.

 :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: pxib on November 29, 2019, 03:15:18 PM
Knives Out is exactly what it seems to be, a classic old whodunnit (with a couple unique twists) with an all-star cast. Everybody seems to be having fun, and the writing is snappy. The mystery which befuddles our melodramatic sleuth is not the one you'd expect... but everyone will wind up gathered in the drawing room by the end of it. Fast, funny, impeccably acted and directed... Rian Johnson back in form, though perhaps not quite as striking as Brick was back in the day.

Enjoyed it, laughed, ah-ha'd and am happy to recommend. Not much to say about it other than that, though, so I didn't think I'd start a thread.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: ezrast on December 02, 2019, 04:23:28 PM
Agreed on all counts. Solid mystery story about a lovably hateable family. Had fun throughout. Hard to talk about without spoilers.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: lamaros on December 08, 2019, 12:32:08 PM
A terrific movie! Completely agree.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on February 09, 2020, 10:21:34 AM
I couldn't find a threat on it, but I finally watched The Favourite from last year with Rachel Weisz and Emma Stone. Goddamn that was good. Very odd cinematography and intentionally historically inaccurate but two great performances by great actresses (and 3 if you count the woman playing Queen Anne, which I do), great costuming and really funny in parts.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: MisterNoisy on April 15, 2020, 08:38:31 PM
Code8 (on Netflix now) is not terrible, but goddamn, it definitely isn't good either.  There are worse ways to kill a couple of hours, but you won't remember it in a week.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on July 14, 2020, 07:51:55 AM
The Old Guard on Netflix. Decent action sequences, a nice queer romance, and utterly fucking predictable in narrative terms. Within twenty minutes I knew everything that was going to happen. I could have stopped the film right then and written out a script outline that would have been accurate down to the fine details.

If they make a sequel, they had better start doing some actual world-building. And also, for immortals, these guys are kind of fucking dumb.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on August 01, 2020, 08:16:40 PM
Watched My Cousin Vinny with my kid the other night. Holds up pretty well--the plot is standard courtroom schmaltz but Pesci's worries about his abilities and his relationship with Marisa Tomei's character feel surprisingly grounded. I was also struck at how benevolent even the serious fuck-up by the police is made to feel despite the fact that the two young guys are facing the death penalty--that part feels like it is definitively in the past--I don't think you could play that for laughs any longer or have the sheriff and judge come off like basically nice guys who are a little too eager to send some boys to fry. Plus of course pre-Internet--somebody should do a full-scale collection of plots that depend upon the slowness and incompletion (in relative terms) of pre-online communications.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on August 02, 2020, 10:06:43 AM
Cell phones with cameras and the Internet require things like genre horror to completely rethink a lot of their tropes, or at the very least make it plainly obvious that "we have no cell service here" as a necessary plot device.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on August 02, 2020, 02:25:30 PM
Funny how in an era of ubiquitous camera phones with high-quality photos and video, every cryptozoological creature ever has apparently decided to stop being seen at all, and the kinds of UFOs that liked to buzz highways and anally probe people now and again have decided to only appear to Air Force jets.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Mandella on August 03, 2020, 12:48:09 PM
Cell phones with cameras and the Internet require things like genre horror to completely rethink a lot of their tropes, or at the very least make it plainly obvious that "we have no cell service here" as a necessary plot device.

And don't forget the "Oh noes I dropped my cell phone" contrivance.

Although honestly not so much a contrivance as just true to life I guess.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on November 03, 2020, 07:44:22 AM
I didn't see a thread on Doctor Sleep, but I watched this over the weekend/last night. I had to watch it in two sittings because holy shit is it longer than it needs to be and boring. It's a thoroughly mediocre movie. It feels like it's trying to be a sequel to the Shining (and the book is a sequel), but a sequel to both the movie and the book, which is a fine needle to thread since Stephen King HATED the Kubrick movie. It's over 2 1/2 hours long which normally wouldn't bother me but the movie moves very slowly and I found that I really didn't give a shit about the main plot with the coven of psychic vampires. Rebecca Ferguson is hot as hell and I like the guy that plays Crow but that whole Evil X-Men led by female Irish Professor X was just utterly boring. Just from the standpoint of directing and filmography, it's such a muted, boring, stylistically uninteresting movie. The best parts of the movie are when the director is trying to ape Stanley Kubrick - the redux of the bar scene from the Shining with McGregor's Danny Torrance is really the only interesting part of the whole goddamn movie. McGregor's take on Danny Torrance seems to be treating him like a retarded manchild and I mean that literally - his speech patterns makes me think he was trying to extrapolate the kid from the original movie into an adult. If you liked the original Shining (book or movie), don't feel like this is necessary because it really isn't.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on July 16, 2021, 09:14:45 AM
NGL I would watch a Waititi-directed Deadpool/Korg teamup movie.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7q60i_Lh_E


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on July 17, 2021, 08:30:46 AM
100%


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on July 17, 2021, 09:10:54 PM
Gunpowder Milkshake on Netflix is fucking awful. I barely made it an hour in. If your idea of incredible cinema is the Japan scenes from Kill Bill, only with more primary colors and neon, and worse action, this is for you. This is Tryhard filmmaking, awkward and unsuccessful attempts to quirky and cool, but with action scenes that can't even manage "Rule of Cool," they just look bad. Hand-to-hand looks like it was done in 1/2 speed then they sped the film up. I couldn't finish it. It had such a great cast but with such garbage writing, and Karen Gillan talking in an American accent hinders her ability to act. It's even weirder when her mother (Lena Headey) speaks with a British accent but Gillan speaks with an American accent, claiming that they moved to America but with scenes that clearly look like they were filmed in Eastern Europe.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on August 30, 2021, 07:18:32 AM
If you have HBO Max, you could check out the latest Hugh Jackman vehicle, Reminiscence (think it's in the theaters too). It's not bad, but it's kind of predictable and forgettable. Written and directed by Lisa Joy, which was the non-Nolan part of the creative team behind Westworld. If you watched s3 of Westworld, this is going to feel a bit familiar - imagine mixing that (except without robots) with a different take on the same kind of tech that was in Strange Days, mixed with JG Ballard's The Drowned World. The setting is sort of interesting - it's basically Miami after a flood, so the city is more like Venice and no one goes out during the day because it's too hot (except for the numerous scenes set in the daytime) with some pretty good effects blending present day Miami only with flooded streets and lots of neon. Unfortunately, the story is pretty predictable from the minute Rebecca Ferguson appears. There are one or two surprises but nothing that puts it past about a 3.5 star rating. Thandie Newton and Angela Sarafyan both have roles, which adds to the "s4 of Westworld" feeling. Daniel Wu has a decent role as a New Orleans gangster but his side project kind of feels more like an excuse to do a set piece.

It's not a waste of 2 hours, but there are better things to watch on HBO Max (like Suicide Squad).


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on January 12, 2022, 12:01:03 PM
Watched a new documentary, "The Rescue", on Disney + (it's in the National Geographic content), based on the rescue of the boys from the cave in Thailand. Really well done--you can see that a good amount of it involves re-enacted sequences as well as actual footage but it's pretty seamless, incredibly well-edited generally. There's an interesting point that comes out of it too which is that in certain cases, highly specialized expertise is simply the only thing that can help solve a problem. It wasn't even cave diving per se; if one of the divers hadn't also been a highly experienced anaesthesiologist they wouldn't have been able to rescue the kids at all.

Extra bonus: they don't even bother mentioning Elon Musk's stupid submarine/pedo thing and yet the film manages to underscore what a colossal oozing bedsore he was for sticking his nose into this thing at all. Not the least because the Thai military was incredibly and legitimately uneasy about the insanely risky plan the cave divers came up with--hell, the divers were deeply unsettled about it--and it turns out that even one day's delay if anybody had paused to say "well, maybe we should talk to that billionaire guy" would have ended up killing at least five of the kids as well as some Thai divers because of water rising again in the caves.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: NowhereMan on February 14, 2022, 02:28:35 AM
Watched the Tinder Swindler on Netflix. I'm always a little uneasy about these kind of documentaries that are a pushing a very particular view of things in this case (spoilers just in case someone really wants to go with no idea of how it turns out but I don't think it really affects viewing)[soiler]the conman who is the target is back out and living the life in Israel and they're trying to raise awareness of who he is and what he's done[/spoiler]. The sheer scope of his scheme is pretty incredible though, it is very much like some insane venture capitalist read about a con man and thought 'this makes money, how is it scaleable?' and just utterly ruining dozens and dozens of people's lives in a short period.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on March 03, 2022, 01:50:43 PM
Licorice Pizza was fun, in a meandering kind of way.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on April 18, 2022, 05:46:42 PM
Watched "Dual" today.  For the first part of the film I was trying to figure out if Karen Gillan sounded like a robot because she couldn't do an American accent and emote at the same time, or because she was supposed to have a flat affect due to clinical depression.  Then Aaron Paul showed up and started doing the same weird flat delivery and I realized "oh, this is what the director WANTED the dialogue to sound like".


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on April 19, 2022, 08:00:16 AM
I don't even bother watching most modern movies anymore. We watched The Honey Pot, a uhh crimedy I guess. Decent movie in there, but the comedy was zany 60s stuff. Then Under the Yum-Yum Tree came on, which was, eh, madcap (see: zany 60s stuff)? But I dig Imogene Coca, who played a maid here, and her husband was Paul Lind of all people, who got his requisite mugging time. The thread between the two was Edie Adams...I do have a thing for noir-type starlets (usually hallmarked by great snappy dialogue, though in these she was usually left with more of a snappy monologue as the casts were pretty uneven).

I'm just happy my prediction for the Honey Pot didn't come true. In the main character's bedroom there are two gold Indian (hindu not mohawk) statues with pitch black skin and painted white eyes....I was worried the killer would dress up as one of them in the penultimate scene....whew. Although we did have as fun game of 'which of these actors will end up in blackface before the movie is over?' We both lost, which is a win.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on April 19, 2022, 08:57:06 AM
On the old movie front, we watched "Rear Window" (my wife's first time seeing it) a few weeks ago to commemorate 2 years of being shut in.   :why_so_serious:   My uncle the film major brought over his Blu-Ray copy and we made a little family movie night out of it.

It holds up well, obviously.  It'd been a while since I'd seen it last and this time around I paid a lot of attention to the coordination of the wide exterior shots with different things happening in different windows as the camera panned around, which would have involved a lot of careful timing with Hitchcock giving remote cues by radio.  In the modern era I imagine they'd film each window on its own and then composite them all together later.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on April 19, 2022, 09:28:40 AM
Good call, I need to rewatch that one. I don't think I've seen it since college! I took a bunch of film classes and one of the better classes was basically a war between the prof and me, at the time I was a huge Kubrick fan and he went to school with Scorsese (this was pre-Goodfellas, most Scorsese I like comes after that and Kubrick only made 1 more film)...but we agreed on Hitchcock and I learned a TON about cinematography back then. Much to the chagrin of the fiancee because I'll sometimes rewind to watch a particularly well-shot scene and I reaally love when there is a great cinematographer in an unexpected film (Friday After Next has some really well-shot scenes, for instance (as well as a wicked soundtrack)).

One goal I want to pursue with drawing/painting is to capture some of that storytelling through cinematography vibe...


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on April 19, 2022, 04:37:30 PM
We watched Rear Window a while back with the cinema-loving daughter and it was a good experience. I showed it to a class of mine also. Some Hitchcock ages poorly but that one is still pretty alive.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on May 11, 2022, 03:39:11 PM
Just saw Hatching (https://m.imdb.com/title/tt12519030/), which I would describe as Turning Red, but Finnish body horror.  Instead of the girl turning into a monster, the monster turns into a girl.  Recommended.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on May 19, 2022, 11:39:12 AM
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (https://www.nickcage.movie/) was surprisingly good.  I was expecting it to be one of those things where they have a hook and just enough funny material to cut together a trailer and that's it, but no, the whole thing was good.  It's not a trick.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on May 19, 2022, 01:14:05 PM
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (https://www.nickcage.movie/) was surprisingly good.  I was expecting it to be one of those things where they have a hook and just enough funny material to cut together a trailer and that's it, but no, the whole thing was good.  It's not a trick.

Did you not see JCVD? These movies work.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on May 19, 2022, 03:53:09 PM
They can work, or they can be Snakes on a Plane.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Phildo on May 20, 2022, 07:34:23 AM
Re: Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, which I agree was a lot of fun:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: lamaros on May 27, 2022, 08:03:50 AM
Everything Everywhere All At Once was pretty fun, I'd recommend it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on May 27, 2022, 08:16:24 AM
Everything Everywhere All At Once was pretty fun, I'd recommend it.

Thread here (http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=26344.0), and yeah, it was great.  If omicron wasn't rearing its ugly head I'd be ready to go see it a second time.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on June 08, 2022, 09:06:29 AM
There's a trailer out for Black Adam. Doesn't really seem worth it's own thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0tOpBuYasI

It feels like a weird leftover. Like, a vehicle built around Black Adam where Captain Marvel isn't around? Where the only other superheroes in evidence are Hawkman, Nuklon and Dr. Fate? What is the point here? Black Adam is the essence of a "relational character": he only makes sense in a universe populated with a) Captain Marvel and b) lots of superheroes who are very restrained in how they deal with bad guys.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on June 08, 2022, 01:23:07 PM
Hey, it worked for Morbius.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on June 08, 2022, 02:27:17 PM
There's a trailer out for Black Adam. Doesn't really seem worth it's own thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0tOpBuYasI

It feels like a weird leftover. Like, a vehicle built around Black Adam where Captain Marvel isn't around? Where the only other superheroes in evidence are Hawkman, Nuklon and Dr. Fate? What is the point here? Black Adam is the essence of a "relational character": he only makes sense in a universe populated with a) Captain Marvel and b) lots of superheroes who are very restrained in how they deal with bad guys.


I mean, they're clearly trying to draw from the Black Reign arc in JSA to some extent, but yeah like you suggest I don't know how well that is going to work in just a vacuum with these characters.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on June 08, 2022, 07:10:25 PM
It's 100% Black Reign but I mean shit, that took a ton of set-up to mean anything plus heroes dividing over whether to be pro-Black Adam or against him. I'm not seeing anything but those three in the IMDB credits. Plus, what, they're not going to try and say "oh ok Fate and Hawkman were ALSO ALIVE in ANCIENT EGYPT so they know him from back when", I hope. That's the kind of thing you make an animated version of and dump it to HBO Max.

Edit add: I found the attempt to relaunch Morbius in the theaters because Sony publicity people thought the Morbin' Time meme was affection for the movie really one of the most hilarious bits of effective trolling ever.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on August 23, 2022, 05:16:23 PM
Glorious (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esqxTzc3lgM) is a movie about a Lovecraftian monster with the voice of JK Simmons who lives in a rest stop glory hole.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on August 23, 2022, 07:28:55 PM
Ok, goddamn. That looks fantastic.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on October 01, 2022, 07:26:12 AM
Have any of you seen Barbarian?

I thought the first half of the film was well written and executed, but the second half was a bit of a mess.  Justin Long shined, but everyone else swung wildly between gritty, true-crime type horror and goofy Jason Vorhees horror as “needed” by the plot.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on October 04, 2022, 05:31:53 PM
It's spooky movie season and I'm between jobs and all boostered up so I've been watching matinees.  So far this week I've seen "Smile" and "Pearl".  "Smile" was pretty good but it was so much like so many other movies that I left it thinking "eh, okay."  "Pearl" stood out more as something I hadn't seen before a dozen times.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Johny Cee on October 06, 2022, 07:13:56 AM
It's spooky movie season and I'm between jobs and all boostered up so I've been watching matinees.  So far this week I've seen "Smile" and "Pearl".  "Smile" was pretty good but it was so much like so many other movies that I left it thinking "eh, okay."  "Pearl" stood out more as something I hadn't seen before a dozen times.

If you want some things that are new to the palate...

The Suspira remake/reimagining from a couple years ago was really good and weird.  (Tilda Swinton plays three parts, including an old German man!  In fact, the cast is almost all women except for a couple police officers who are barely in it.)


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on October 06, 2022, 07:21:09 AM
Yup, I saw that one in the theater in the beforetimes, and rewatched it on streaming last year around this time.  I did like it quite a bit, but I can see a major Argento fan thinking it was blasphemous.

Yesterday I saw something in a less spoopy vein: Vesper (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpp9d5J4oHs).  A rare instance where the lunchtime showing actually had other people in the theater, because it was the only showing of it all day.  It was pretty good and one I'd recommend catching on streaming later this year but I don't know that I'd say it would have been worth taking a day off work for.  Mostly I dug the fact that it was Apocalypse World in a toxic haunted forest instead of the usual toxic desert wasteland.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Johny Cee on October 06, 2022, 12:28:24 PM
Yup, I saw that one in the theater in the beforetimes, and rewatched it on streaming last year around this time.  I did like it quite a bit, but I can see a major Argento fan thinking it was blasphemous.


I mean, Argento has made pure shit for years.... 


Brand New Cherry Flavor on netflix is fun too as a limited series.  By the same guy as the Channel Zero anthology.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on October 06, 2022, 03:57:56 PM
Yup, I saw that one in the theater in the beforetimes, and rewatched it on streaming last year around this time.  I did like it quite a bit, but I can see a major Argento fan thinking it was blasphemous.


I mean, Argento has made pure shit for years.... 


Dark Glasses was perfectly ok.

Suspiria (2018) could have lost about 45 minutes.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on October 11, 2022, 06:44:16 AM
Shudder has a lot of moderately entertaining trash on it, but Deadstream (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NGnOyNhQ5w) far surpassed my expectations.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Johny Cee on October 13, 2022, 01:44:23 PM
Yup, I saw that one in the theater in the beforetimes, and rewatched it on streaming last year around this time.  I did like it quite a bit, but I can see a major Argento fan thinking it was blasphemous.


I mean, Argento has made pure shit for years.... 


Dark Glasses was perfectly ok.

Suspiria (2018) could have lost about 45 minutes.

I'm not an Argento guy anyway, but I have seen images from Dracula 3d and that man is going to have to do better than "perfectly okay" for a while.  John Carpenter had the good sense to putter around somewhere else after he hit the skids, even if The Ward was not offensive and merely blandly better than an Asylum flick and/or the weirdly bad as well as unfun Ghosts of Mars.


Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary now have a podcast called Video Archives, where they talk about videos they used to have at the video store they both worked at in the '80s.  It's pretty good, but it has really made me want to see a bunch of flicks from the '70s/early '80s like Coma and Dressed to Kill.  Its a podcast that feels kind of like the old days of trying to find something in the local video store.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on October 13, 2022, 08:29:18 PM
Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary now have a podcast called Video Archives, where they talk about videos they used to have at the video store they both worked at in the '80s.  It's pretty good, but it has really made me want to see a bunch of flicks from the '70s/early '80s like Coma and Dressed to Kill.  Its a podcast that feels kind of like the old days of trying to find something in the local video store.

I've been listening to the Video Archives podcast, and while I always enjoy hearing Taratino talk about movies. Whenever I check out one that he loves though, 95% of the time I don't find it anywhere near as great as he does.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Threash on October 14, 2022, 08:22:54 AM
Watched the new Hellraiser last night, it was...ok? Certainly better than the sillier and sillier sequels, but not as good as the original. I did not like a few of the plot choices, but the cenobites were amazingly done.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Johny Cee on October 16, 2022, 01:01:41 PM
Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avary now have a podcast called Video Archives, where they talk about videos they used to have at the video store they both worked at in the '80s.  It's pretty good, but it has really made me want to see a bunch of flicks from the '70s/early '80s like Coma and Dressed to Kill.  Its a podcast that feels kind of like the old days of trying to find something in the local video store.

I've been listening to the Video Archives podcast, and while I always enjoy hearing Taratino talk about movies. Whenever I check out one that he loves though, 95% of the time I don't find it anywhere near as great as he does.

Tarantino can really overlook flaws if a movie does at least one thing that is interesting or insightful, even if the rest is schloky nonsense.  Its a nice antidote to the low effort snark that is the norm for film/television podcast and youtube commentary.  It feels very much like Red Letter Media...  and hey, they're both big fans of Leo Fong!

Tarantino also can really come off as a negative charisma creep at times in between saying some really insightful or empathetic things.  He is SUCH an old school video store clerk....  It's like, you have a good conversation with a guy about how interesting or great the themes of a cult movie are, and then he unsolicited tells you the time code for the best tits in the movie and you feel weirded out.


The Eli Roth History of Horror podcast is actually pretty good too.  I don't have much time for Eli Roth movies, but the podcast can be deep and interesting and has some great guests.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: schild on October 25, 2022, 07:36:40 PM
Spooktober Part 1:

  • Pearl: Not good. Well. It's fine, but it's NOT good. If we're making a trilogy that's adjacent to the Texas Chainsaw massacre, you need someone who can carry the movies. Mia Goth didn't and couldn't carry Pearl.
  • X: Was better than Pearl. Moviegoers and critics are BOTH wrong. Mia Goth had the help she needed. Just great.
  • Don't Worry Darling: bad. Florence Pugh can carry it but Styles and Pine are horrific actors and Wilde is an embarrassment. Pugh great though.
  • American Animals: Not a horror movie but also not very good. Beavis and Butthead and Butthead and Butthead Do a Crime.
  • The Fall: I don't know. It's trying to do The Descent thing but ultimately fails?
  • Resurrection: I love Tim Roth. I did not love this. It was just a mess. Also kind of fuckin stupid? I don't know. Gaslight and Abuse, the movie.

Up next: The Night House, Barbarian, VHS99, Cube JP, maybe MEN and uh, I don't know, probably time I rewatched mother!.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on October 26, 2022, 10:24:51 AM
V/H/S/99 feels like it's trying to hard to get the '99 part across and half the segments do it by making the characters obnoxious as fuck. There are two different segments where the intro to the characters are them filming themselves pulling pranks on each other and doing stunts and shit. Last year's entry was a lot better.

Barbarian I went into blind, and I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't that. Pretty entertaining. I'll probably watch Deadstream next.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: satael on October 28, 2022, 02:42:15 AM
Barbarian I went into blind, and I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't that. Pretty entertaining. I'll probably watch Deadstream next.

I have to agree, Barbarian wasn't that great of a movie but without knowing anything in advance (other than it was horror and had a Skarsgård in it) it was entertaining but I couldn't see myself ever watching it again.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: MahrinSkel on November 01, 2022, 06:59:56 PM
Barbarian I went into blind, and I don't know what I was expecting but it wasn't that. Pretty entertaining. I'll probably watch Deadstream next.

I have to agree, Barbarian wasn't that great of a movie but without knowing anything in advance (other than it was horror and had a Skarsgård in it) it was entertaining but I couldn't see myself ever watching it again.
Some twisted shit that managed to actually make me go 'WTF was that?' a few times. But yeah, zero replay value, all shock.

--Dave


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on November 02, 2022, 07:21:19 PM
Barbarian was watchable, but in a totally 'WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?" sort of way. I would watch something by that director again, though yeah, I don't see rewatching Barbarian itself for any reason. I imagine a rewatch would likely just make you poke holes in the story that couldn't be papered over.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on November 05, 2022, 03:43:12 PM
In line with what others have said, Barbarian was fun, especially around the midway point while I was still figuring out what was going on, but I thought the actual reveal of what was going on was kind of weak and muddled.  It felt like they had three different ideas for what the movie was about and kind of mushed them together into something that was less than the sum of its parts.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on November 05, 2022, 10:13:29 PM
Crimes of the Future is just another Cronenberg movie. It makes very little sense outside of being in a Cronen-verse, and doesn't really have much going for it other than a very quirky Kristen Stewart performance. For Cronenberg completionists only.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on November 18, 2022, 08:07:48 AM
Tár was pretty good, because apparently Cate Blanchett as a conductor is just so interesting to me that I didn't even care about the story. Also has one of the most surprisingly funny ending scenes considering everything that happened in the two hours preceding it.

Also watched The Menu last night, which from the first trailer had looked like a movie made specifically for the people on our food channel in Discord. It was pretty great and I won't say much more than that. Should make for a good double feature with Pig.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on December 17, 2022, 07:22:45 AM
There's a trailer out for Black Adam. Doesn't really seem worth it's own thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0tOpBuYasI

It feels like a weird leftover. Like, a vehicle built around Black Adam where Captain Marvel isn't around? Where the only other superheroes in evidence are Hawkman, Nuklon and Dr. Fate? What is the point here? Black Adam is the essence of a "relational character": he only makes sense in a universe populated with a) Captain Marvel and b) lots of superheroes who are very restrained in how they deal with bad guys.

I caught this on HBO.  It's got a few fun action sequences, which puts it above crap like The Eternals.  Other than that, it's just a complete mess, basically for the reasons you said.  Would have made much more sense to bring him in as part of a Captain Marvel movie, because those two characters playing off each other would have been really fun, and the backstory explanation would have been much simpler: "wait, you got these wizard dude powers TOO?"  "Well, five thousand years ago..."


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on December 17, 2022, 03:05:49 PM
Nah, I'd rather watch Eternals.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on December 31, 2022, 02:21:16 PM
Those hack frauds in Milwaukee have outdone themselves.  The most valuable VHS tape in the world is now a factory sealed copy of Nukie (1993) (https://www.ebay.com/itm/225324479952), narrowly beating out a Back to the Future VHS tape that was sold recently for $75k. 


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: BobtheSomething on December 31, 2022, 03:08:05 PM
Those hack frauds in Milwaukee have outdone themselves.  The most valuable VHS tape in the world is now a factory sealed copy of Nukie (1993) (https://www.ebay.com/itm/225324479952), narrowly beating out a Back to the Future VHS tape that was sold recently for $75k. 

That whole video is gold. 


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on December 31, 2022, 03:18:44 PM
When I saw that they'd posted a video on Nukie, I thought "so if they watch it and it's terrible do they destroy ALL the copies?"  Little did I know!  A fitting end to such a venerable running gag.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on January 03, 2023, 12:31:13 AM
The Menu is now available to watch on HBO Max.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on January 05, 2023, 10:10:32 AM
The Menu is now available to watch on HBO Max.



Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Johny Cee on January 05, 2023, 10:16:07 AM
When I saw that they'd posted a video on Nukie, I thought "so if they watch it and it's terrible do they destroy ALL the copies?"  Little did I know!  A fitting end to such a venerable running gag.

The current high bid on the Nukie tape is Gary Newman, of Garry's Mod and everyone's favorite Hobbesian murder simulator Rust.

https://twitter.com/garrynewman/status/1610348956713631745?s=20&t=_BXlcHtjvKjB_jJaT2Q-xQ


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on January 05, 2023, 10:58:08 AM
What a time to be alive.  I have been really curious who the rich dudes are that have gotten it up to $80k for shits and giggles (my personal "shits and giggles" limit was about $1k), because I can't imagine any of them are actually thinking they're going to be able to flip it to a bigger sucker the way the NFT marks do.  Was guessing that it was Hollywood types but wealthy game dev absolutely fits.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Johny Cee on January 05, 2023, 11:51:24 AM
What a time to be alive.  I have been really curious who the rich dudes are that have gotten it up to $80k for shits and giggles (my personal "shits and giggles" limit was about $1k), because I can't imagine any of them are actually thinking they're going to be able to flip it to a bigger sucker the way the NFT marks do.  Was guessing that it was Hollywood types but wealthy game dev absolutely fits.

All proceeds are to charity, so a little more than "shits and giggles". 


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on January 05, 2023, 12:11:33 PM
Unless those high bidders were going to donate that much money to those charities anyway, what they're buying is shits and giggles, and the charitable contribution is just a side effect.  

Which I think is great.  Because if they were going to donate the money anyway then this silly stunt won't have resulted in any net good in the world other than getting rid of a bunch of copies of a bad movie.   :awesome_for_real:


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Threash on January 05, 2023, 01:12:32 PM
The Menu is now available to watch on HBO Max.

Thanks, this was fucking great.



Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on January 06, 2023, 11:18:54 AM
The Menu is now available to watch on HBO Max.

Wtf is that, I wouldn't plate something like that on a Thursday night at my house.

Also, pro-tip for cooks, get a Thermoworks Thermapen. No reason to guess where your temps are. Not cheap, but my only regret is not buying it years ago (and wasting money on cheaper thermos). After my cast iron pan and chef knife, it's #3 most important tool in my kitchen.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Trippy on January 06, 2023, 01:00:27 PM
ThermoPro is a good budget alternative to the Thermapen. Also Thermapen has a new fancy schmancy updated model the "ONE" if the difference between a 3 second reading and a 1 second reading is a matter of life or death, or your fish being overcooked, and you have the money for it.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on January 06, 2023, 01:24:25 PM
The Menu is now available to watch on HBO Max.

Wtf is that, I wouldn't plate something like that on a Thursday night at my house.

Watch the movie.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on January 22, 2023, 03:25:50 AM
There’s a French version of One Cut of the Dead called Final Cut (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Cut_(2022_film)) that  is both a remake and an in-universe sequel.  As a fan of the original I found it very entertaining.  Like the original, I think it’s better to see it blind (but crucially, having seen the original One Cut first, because I think the giant meta joke they’re pulling works much better that way) so you can start off being utterly confused.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on January 22, 2023, 08:26:40 PM
There’s a French version of One Cut of the Dead called Final Cut (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Final_Cut_(2022_film)) that  is both a remake and an in-universe sequel.  As a fan of the original I found it very entertaining.  Like the original, I think it’s better to see it blind (but crucially, having seen the original One Cut first, because I think the giant meta joke they’re pulling works much better that way) so you can start off being utterly confused.

I might check it out at some point. I loved the original, but then when I watched One Cut of the Dead in Hollywood it felt like the idea had already kinda run its course.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: lamaros on January 28, 2023, 03:16:23 PM
The banshees of inisherin is not McDonagh's best movie. Probably a clear worst movie for my taste. Still has some very good moments and some funny bits, but doesn't really become anything.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Velorath on January 28, 2023, 06:25:47 PM
I'd say it's his second best movie.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: HaemishM on January 28, 2023, 06:55:44 PM
Of the 3 I've seen (Banshees, In Bruges and Three Billboards), I'd rate it second myself.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: lamaros on January 29, 2023, 03:58:54 AM
Of the 3 I've seen (Banshees, In Bruges and Three Billboards), I'd rate it second myself.

I'd put it below In Bruges and also Seven Psychopaths. About the same at 3 Billboards.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Rasix on February 13, 2023, 10:36:10 AM
Over the last 2 days, I watched Hereditary and Midsommar back to back. I guess I'm an Ari Aster fan now; both of these were great. Anything similar that I should watch? I've liked Eggers stuff as well. Just as a note: not really a fan of extreme gore and/or torture.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on March 08, 2023, 08:34:01 AM
I just finished Banshees of Inisherin and would say it's one of the better horror movies I've seen recently.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Khaldun on March 27, 2023, 05:27:00 PM
Um, the Puss in Boots: Last Wish movie is...really goddamn great. I am stunned.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Sky on April 07, 2023, 06:50:00 AM
https://www.starwars.com/news/swce-2023-new-star-wars-films

Three new movies announced. Filoni being Filoni, some dawn of the Jedi thing that will likely piss off a lot of fans, and the Ms Marvel director on the (imo) worst of the lot:

Quote
Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy’s film will be set after the events of Rise of Skywalker, and feature Daisy Ridley back as Rey as she builds a new Jedi Order.

ohno

I'm in the middle of the latest Thrawn trilogy by Zahn right now and dammit if someone couldn't just make a Sherlock-like Thrawn series/movie trilogy.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on May 22, 2023, 10:46:29 PM
Evil Dead Rise: not bad.  I might have actually liked it better if I weren't comparing it to the Raimi films.  These newer Evil Dead movies just don't capture the "fun" of the old ones, but I do admire the effort.


Title: Re: Useless Movies
Post by: Samwise on January 16, 2024, 12:53:28 PM
Saltburn is a hell of a ride if you can manage to watch it without having been spoilered first.  I don't think I'll ever want to go back and rewatch it knowing the plot in advance, though, which feels like a flaw.