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Post by someoldguy on Jan 16, 2020 17:48:36 GMT -5
More movies I watched lately but not yet mentioned. Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut (2004) Got this on DVD years ago and somehow forgot to watch. More understandable in the extended version but still weird. Also you get to see more of Drew Barrymore’s work, which is always interesting. Richard Kelly was hailed as the next big thing after Donnie Darko, then Southland Tales happened. His next directorial effort, The Box, was perhaps not as confused and overly crowded as Southland Tales but was nowhere near a winner. The Box at least had being based on a Richard Matheson story in its favor, although it dragged it out way beyond that story. The original Matheson story is itself related to The Monkey's Paw, but with a very different slant. |
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Post by someoldguy on Jan 17, 2020 12:04:50 GMT -5
Evolution (2001)
Meteor carries alien DNA, or something, to Earth. Alien creatures evolve like mad. Mostly very funny without being stupid. Very nice FX of the great variety of alien critters. Think Ghostbusters with alien lifeforms. A good fun watch.
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Post by someoldguy on Jan 17, 2020 22:08:23 GMT -5
Sweetheart (2019) Young girl stranded on island when the boat goes down is menaced by humanoid from the deep. No, that was a different movie.  This large underwater creature is vaguely humanoid and likes to kill and eat people or anything else it can find. Nice slow reveal. Girl manages to stay alive until other survivors arrive and things get more complicated. Scary sequences along the way and good action near the end. Unanswered questions, for example, what did happen to Zack? I can think of a very unsettling answer. |
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Post by ArcLight on Jan 17, 2020 22:19:35 GMT -5
Well, I mentioned Underwater (2020) in its own thread here - werewolfmovies.proboards.com/thread/1659/underwater-2020 - when I saw it. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) Worlds collide as a scheme by the Kingpin brings together a variety of Spider-people from different dimensions. As a life-long Spidey fan, I have to say this is my favorite Spider-Man film so far. With a stupidly gorgeous animation style on top of everything else. Love it. Ready or Not (2019) Samara Weaving marries into a family that takes game night just a little too seriously. Samara Weaving quickly became one of my favorite actresses with The Babysitter and Mayhem. This movie makes a fine addition to the collection. A lot of bloody fun. (Both Spidey and Ready or Not I actually intended to just have running as 'background noise' but ended up watching most of 'em anyway.) John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum (2019) After his actions in Chapter 2, John finds himself the target of - well, everyone. Okay...in a lot of the ways it's more of the same, but when the same is some of the best action put on film in ages, I'm okay with that. Throwing Halle Berry and Mark Dacascos into the mix helps. Crawl (2019) A young woman and her injured father are trapped by alligators in the rapidly-flooding crawlspace under their Florida home. Nicely done little thriller. Jaws in a basement, if you will.
Dad lives in South Carolina and gets to see 'gators when he's out and about sometimes. Pretty cool, at least from a distance.
Remember, the easiest way to tell the difference between alligators and crocodiles is that one will see you later and the other will see you after 'while.
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Post by ArcLight on Jan 17, 2020 22:21:26 GMT -5
Sweetheart (2019) Young girl stranded on island when the boat goes down is menaced by humanoid from the deep. No, that was a different movie. This large underwater creature is vaguely humanoid and likes to kill and eat people or anything else it can find. Nice slow reveal. Girl manages to stay alive until other survivors arrive and things get more complicated. Scary sequences along the way and good action near the end. Unanswered questions, for example, what did happen to Zack? I can think of a very unsettling answer. Ooohh...more water critters. Might have to dig check that one out since. |
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Post by someoldguy on Jan 18, 2020 14:23:27 GMT -5
Remember, the easiest way to tell the difference between alligators and crocodiles is that one will see you later and the other will see after 'while.
I learned to dance to Bill Haley and the Comets.  |
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Post by someoldguy on Jan 18, 2020 16:29:32 GMT -5
Carrie 2002
To the extent that it duplicates material from the 1976 classic, this remake is no better and usually not as good as the original. To the extent that it introduces new material, it generally fails. OK the extended FX are good, but do not really add anything except Wow factor. IMO the flashbacks work against the central thrust of the story that made it so powerful, keeping it all within a narrowly limited space and time, the claustrophobic little world of Carrie's life. And the ending just flops. Making Carrie 'nicer' and somehow 'innocent' does not work. Carrie is the angry violent revenge fantasies of the bullied and humiliated too shy high school kid brought into the real world. Changing that misses the point of the story without providing an alternative point.
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Post by silverbullet63 on Jan 18, 2020 19:36:54 GMT -5
Midsommar(2019)
Whew boy, quite an extreme way to end a long term relationship. Florence Pugh can wail and scream with the
best of them. Director could've shaved off 30 mins.
Gorgeous film, beautifully shot.
Casino (1995)
Legend (2015)
Best thing about this one, watching Tom Hardy work.
Also the soundtrack.
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Post by someoldguy on Jan 18, 2020 21:41:37 GMT -5
Tammy and the T-Rex (1994)
Title says Tanny and the Teenage T-Rex
End credits also say Tanny
Strictly for fun, although it starts off rather serious. Teenager's boyfriend gets murdered by gang. Mad scientist puts his brain in a T-Rex robot. Mayhem ensues in comical ways. This is the uncut version, which means good gore, heads bitten off, guts ripped out etc.
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Post by silverbullet63 on Jan 19, 2020 15:46:51 GMT -5
Animal (2015)
Decent Creature hunting humans in the Woods flick.
Night Skies (2007)
Mediocre SciFi/thriller, with humans being hunted by Aliens.
Wilderness (2006)
Nasty little UK survival horror film, wayward teens hunted like prey on an isolated island.
Jackals (2017)
Family have their loved one kidnapped, to save him from a Cult. Who come and lay siege to their Vacation home in the woods.
To get him back.
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Post by someoldguy on Jan 19, 2020 18:03:04 GMT -5
Paranormal Activity (2009) 'Found footage' is not my favorite style. At least this one often has the camera on a tripod or on a flat surface instead of bouncy bouncy hand held. The movie is supposedly edited from a huge amount of actual found footage, yet there is no significant reference to the circumstances of that. This works against the suspension of disbelief, providing no 'hook' to hang it on. That is, to me it comes across merely as a movie pretending to be found footage. The story is OK but it is not really much of a story. There are no answers here, just a series of increasingly creepy occurrences. Since the boyfriend gets killed by the girlfriend, the absence of a rationale for it is particularly annoying IMO. |
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Post by someoldguy on Jan 20, 2020 13:21:42 GMT -5
The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962) Uncut version A masterpiece of late '50s B+W mad scientist cheese and schlock that is great fun to watch if you are in the mood for this kind of thing. The movie was made in 1959 but was not released until some 10 minutes or so of 'gore and nudity' was cut. Fake B+W blood and skimpy outfits is all, probably PG-13 by today's standards. I saw this in the movies when it first came out in cut form. Fun then. More fun now. Doctor experiments with new transplant techniques. Girlfriend gets decapitated in car crash and her body burns. He keeps her head alive in a dish with tubes and stuff running into her. He then goes searching for a new (and of course very sexy) body to attach her head to, with no qualms about how he gets it. Girlfriend is not at all happy having been saved this way. Girlfriend establishes telepathic link with monster in closet, a hideous mishmosh of body parts from a failed experiment. Lead characters acting is OK if not great. Cheap sets and FX. Dialog is fun in the grand tradition of Ed Wood. Deformed lab assistant (is there any other kind?) talking to head. At the end, the lab assistant gets killed and so does the mad doctor when (hideous yet funny looking) monster breaks out of closet instigated by telepathic head. Lab somehow gets on fire. (Of course) Monster saves unconscious would be body donor from fire. Head dies laughing after screen goes black. I wonder if the monster and the girl he saved became an item. I understand there is a MST3K version of this. Was that really necessary? I think the movie speaks for itself. |
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Post by ArcLight on Jan 20, 2020 14:00:41 GMT -5
Son of Kong (1933)
Yes, the sequels have been around forever. This follow-up to the original King Kong came out a mere eight months later and picks up with Carl Denham being hounded both by the press and various people out to sue him for the destruction and death Kong caused in New York. His escape from the city puts him back on the Venture and heading back to Skull Island in search of treasure.
I'm currently trying to read a 'new pulp' follow-up to King Kong. It's at least the second one I've read, and neither take the events of this movie into account so I pulled it out and watched it. Not a patch on the original, but still fun if you like that sort of thing (and I do). Technically, I'd put it third in the Big Monkey trilogy behind the original Kong and Mighty Joe Young.
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Post by silverbullet63 on Jan 20, 2020 14:01:05 GMT -5
Crawl (2019)
Much better than I expected.
Young woman and her injured father are trapped in their home.
During a Category 5 Hurricane. While being hunted by hungry Gators.
Hard Rain (1998)
Christian Slater battles criminals, who attempt to rob the armored truck he and his Uncle are driving. During a Rainstorm
that has flooded the town.
Southie (1999)
A drama set in South Boston, starring Donnie Wahlberg.
Eat Locals (2017)
A group of British Vampire Overlords gather for a meeting at
a Country home. Which takes place every 50 yrs.
A militia of Vampire Killers show up and all hell breaks loose.
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Post by someoldguy on Jan 20, 2020 15:03:45 GMT -5
Crawl (2019) Much better than I expected. Young woman and her injured father are trapped in their home. During a Category 5 Hurricane. While being hunted by hungry Gators. I was going to comment on this movie when you posted. Sam Raimi does it again! Lots of thrills with minimal side plots. UPDATE: Raimi produced this. Alexandra Aja directed. Saw this years back. Good suspenseful one with the relentless rain building tension. I love the bit where the guy in charge of the dam is sitting on the john when the high water safety alarm goes off and he leaps up, pants still down, to hit the switch to open the spillways. I have not seen the others but the vampire one sounds good. |
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Le Loup-Garou Qui Rit
This large underwater creature is vaguely humanoid and likes to kill and eat people or anything else it can find. Nice slow reveal. Girl manages to stay alive until other survivors arrive and things get more complicated. Scary sequences along the way and good action near the end. 
