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lenny nero said:
District 9 ~ the best sci fi actioner I've seen since Starship Troopers. I was really surprised by how much action there was in it, and really surprised by the touching character arc of the protagonist. They don't beat you over the head with the social commentary either. I love the fact that it's not based on a line of toys or an existing series. :star4:
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I saw this one recently as well, and was terrified! I left the theater loving it, though, and it certainly satisfied my action fix much better than all the ridiculous superhero films abounding.
 
Paranormal Activity. Spooky film with an ending that had me jump out of my seat. Now if only the shaky-cam didn't make me feel so queasy . . .
 
Orphan (2009)

About a maid I'll sing a song, sing rickety-tickety-tin
About a maid I'll sing a song
Who didn't have her family long...

Yes, it's the ol' "creepy child" ploy, eh? Married couple with a history of cheating (him) and drinking (her) have pieced it all together and are about to have a third child... except the wife miscarries. And so instead, they adopt an adorable little Russian girl, who with her accent and her shy smiles nestles her way into the hearts of her adopted parents and sister, while her adopted brother comes off as a spoiled brat just looking for attention... except then it gradually becomes clear that something is wrong with this girl. She has more in common with Wednesday Addams than just her dress sense.

It's a story that shouldn't work as well as it does. Because really, it does. It is, in fact, quite creepy and disturbing. It should be too obvious, the explanation should be too preposterous, but they play it so straight you almost find yourself wondering if it's not just all a misunderstanding - obviously a child who dresses like a cartoon villain can't be really bad, right? It's shot by a director who's studied his early Cronenberg (particularly The Brood, of course). And it's carried by the creepiest child actor performance I've seen since Let The Right One In; if 12-year-old Isabelle Fuhrman looks like an Evil Child cliché at the beginning of the movie, just wait until the end. The transformation... sorry, transformations are... woah. Did I say "disturbing" already?

You'll see most of it coming, you'll be annoyed with some of the characters, you'll wish it were 15 minutes shorter, but damn, it's got... something. :star4:



Paranormal Activity (2007)

With ghost hunter shows so popular, let's do a horror movie on the subject. A couple who just moved into a house together start hearing... things at night. Something's haunting them. They summon a paranormal expert who feels the house's aura, as those guys are wont to do, and tells them it's not the house that's haunted, it's her. (Of course it's the woman.) So moving out won't do any good. But have no fear, it's the man of the house to the rescue! He buys a camera and a ouija board, sets up the camera in the bedroom to record what happens every night, and starts taunting the ghost and tell it to do its worst.

The ghost takes him up on his offer. The movie, supposedly, is the result: the edited tapes found in the camera afterwards.

Apparently shot on a budget of $15,000 with one camera, four actors and no special effects, it's probably easy to compare this to Blair Witch Project, though the actual stories have little to no similarity - if anything, this is a spiritual successor of Ju-On: The Grudge. And there are things about it that are pretty effective; especially the long, sped-up takes of the bedroom at night, where we watch them sleeping while the hours tick away on the camera's time indicator... and then suddenly slows down to normal time and we know something is going to happen. With no background music, no hint that it's not just two ordinary people being harrassed by something, it plays the authenticity card very nicely. But it's got two major problems:
1) The whole thing depends on everyone - especially the man of the house - acting like complete idiots, which may or may not be realistic but almost makes you cheer for the ghost. So, they can't leave. What do we do then? Just shrug and accept that, apparently. Oh, and piss off the ghost some more. Seriously, stop pulling the tiger's tail already.
2) By making the characters rather unlikable fools without much depth, we miss much of the opportunity for actual, y'know, horror, to make it about people rather than ghosts. We don't get inside them, and what remains of the horror movie is just shock. Suddenly, a door slams! Somebody screams! The lights come on! Yes, you'll jump out of your seat, but it's just a ride, it's just a haunted building.

Interesting effort, and worth applause for the way it does a lot with a little, but could have been better. :star3:
 
Paranormal Activity (2007)

With ghost hunter shows so popular, let's do a horror movie on the subject. A couple who just moved into a house together start hearing... things at night. Something's haunting them. They summon a paranormal expert who feels the house's aura, as those guys are wont to do, and tells them it's not the house that's haunted, it's her. (Of course it's the woman.) So moving out won't do any good. But have no fear, it's the man of the house to the rescue! He buys a camera and a ouija board, sets up the camera in the bedroom to record what happens every night, and starts taunting the ghost and tell it to do its worst.

The ghost takes him up on his offer. The movie, supposedly, is the result: the edited tapes found in the camera afterwards.

Apparently shot on a budget of $15,000 with one camera, four actors and no special effects, it's probably easy to compare this to Blair Witch Project, though the actual stories have little to no similarity - if anything, this is a spiritual successor of Ju-On: The Grudge. And there are things about it that are pretty effective; especially the long, sped-up takes of the bedroom at night, where we watch them sleeping while the hours tick away on the camera's time indicator... and then suddenly slows down to normal time and we know something is going to happen. With no background music, no hint that it's not just two ordinary people being harrassed by something, it plays the authenticity card very nicely. But it's got two major problems:
1) The whole thing depends on everyone - especially the man of the house - acting like complete idiots, which may or may not be realistic but almost makes you cheer for the ghost. So, they can't leave. What do we do then? Just shrug and accept that, apparently. Oh, and piss off the ghost some more. Seriously, stop pulling the tiger's tail already.
2) By making the characters rather unlikable fools without much depth, we miss much of the opportunity for actual, y'know, horror, to make it about people rather than ghosts. We don't get inside them, and what remains of the horror movie is just shock. Suddenly, a door slams! Somebody screams! The lights come on! Yes, you'll jump out of your seat, but it's just a ride, it's just a haunted building.

Interesting effort, and worth applause for the way it does a lot with a little, but could have been better.
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Loved it up until the ending. Yes, the male character grated on my nerves, but I found the night scenes really effective and creepy. I've read that there were 2 other "original" endings shot and that this one was recommended by Steven Spielberg.
 
It was the weekend of silly movies:
Epic Movie :star4: - If you like the genre (and I do) it's garanteed to make you laugh hard.
The Love Guru :star1: - There's just something about Mike Myers's movies that doesn't work for me. I like silly movies but this is a bad silly movie. Everything seems very forced and unnatural. It did make me laugh on occasion, but as a whole it didn't convince me. Best parts of the movie to me: the "Mariska Hargitay" salutation (
especially when he meets Mariska Hargitay
) and the very last scene, during credits.
 
lenny nero said:
Ninja Assassin ~ this movie had a lot of ninja's in it. :) It's also the bloodiest flick I've seen since Kill Bill 1.
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I saw this last night! Weird.. It was a lot of fun, the dialogue/plot was shit, but it was really fun to watch. Totally entertained. The violence was awesome. Yay!
 
watched a bunch of zombie movies last night:

night of the living dead
dawn of the dead
day of the dead
land of the dead


that's probably the order i like them in too. night of the living dead owns~! if you don't mind old movies you should check it out
 
In theaters: Sherlock Holmes. The relationship between Holmes and Watson was fun. Rachel McAdams, however, was very underwhelming as Irene Adler.

On DVD: The Woodsman. Very thought-provoking, but thankfully not as depressing as I thought it would have been.
 
tears of life said:
Saw My Sister's Keeper last week. It was actually quite good, and pretty much everyone in the cinema ended up crying. The only major thing to point out was that they completely changed the ending of the book (ANNOYING!!), but it was still touching.
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I finally got around to seeing this....I was seriously pissed at that ending! wasted the whole movie!
 
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