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Last seen...

Secretariat. Quite enjoyable. They managed to create some excitement even though you knew he was going to win.
 
Anamnesis said:
Hardcore. Maybe I've become too difficult to shock, but this was tame given the subject matter. I will say the final scenes pack a punch (both literally and figuratively).
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Is this the Paul Schrader/George C. Scott film? Nice. I read somewhere that the original written ending is different. The scene where Scott sees his daughter up on the screen for the first time is brutal, the emotions that go across his face. Whatever happened to Season Hubley, she was great in this and another of my early 80's faves, Vice Squad.
 
lenny nero said:
Is this the Paul Schrader/George C. Scott film? Nice. I read somewhere that the original written ending is different. The scene where Scott sees his daughter up on the screen for the first time is brutal, the emotions that go across his face. Whatever happened to Season Hubley, she was great in this and another of my early 80's faves, Vice Squad.
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Yeah, it's available on Hulu. The original ending was more downbeat:
Scott's character learns his daughter died in a car accident and goes back to Grand Rapids.
I'm glad they changed the ending. That seems way too bleak. And yeah, the scene where Scott watches his daughter's movie was rough. I must say, it really was a great peformance all around.
 
Finally got around to watching The Thin Red Line after having spent years thinking it was just another war movie in the same mold as Saving Private Ryan. ...Wow, was I spectacularly wrong about that. This is one of those movies where I'd actually love to see the full 6-hour cut.
 
The Tourist - It was alright with a couple twists here and there but not good overall. Johnny Deep looks like he walked off the Pirates of the Caribbean set and landed on this set. 5/10

Skyline - Very awful cheap movie with some bad acting. 3/10
 
Sucker Punch. ...No. I can see what Snyder is going for, essentially delivering video game porn only to call out people for wanting to watch video game porn, but David Lynch or even Aronofsky he's not. Impressive visuals, nice crossreferencing, but if you're going to do what's essentially American McGee's Alice meets Brazil you might want to add something of your own as well or I might as well watch Brazil again. :star2:
 
Paranormal Activity 2 It was kind of interesting, creepy at times, but the fly-on-the-wall thing gets tired after a while. The tie-in to the first was well handled, but generally just ok. C+.
 
It's Easter, so as usual I celebrate (and encourage others to celebrate) this season of death and resurrection with... zombie movies.

Two classics I hadn't actually seen before:

Night Of The Comet (1985) is better than it looks. Yes, both the soundtrack, the dialogue and the cold war subtext scream mid-80s cheese, but it's actually a pretty decent lighthearted post-apocalyptic story with female protagonists who kick ass and lots of clever little twists. Not much in the way of zombies, unfortunately, but there's one or two decent scenes. :star3:

Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things (1971) puts us in the middle of an acting troupe led by an excentric director who wants everyone to take part in a satanic ritual to raise the dead. Trouble is, it works. It takes forever to get going, but once it does it floors it and pours on the carnage (by 1971 standards) aided by a very effective soundtrack. There's not much here, really, but worth watching for that pure board-up-the-doors-they-want-to-eat-you zombie rush. :star3: -

Also rewatched Fulci's Zombi 2 AKA Zombie AKA Zombie Flesh Eaters for the fifth time or so. Still one of the best ones out there. The people who hadn't seen it before all rolled their eyes at some of the special effects, at the completely gratuitous nude scenes, at Tisa Farrow's somewhat limited acting ability... but nobody laughed when the real horror scenes came, slow, relentless, evil. Fulci's a piece of work. Also, this scene is still the cruellest and coolest stunt scene I know:
YouTube - Death Fight! Zombie vs Shark , scene from Great Italian Horror Movie - Zombie
Yes, that's a real stuntman fighting a real live tigershark.

In exchange for making people watch Zombi 2 I had to watch Despicable Me too. It was OK. Loved the minions.

Also, Super. There's been quite a lot of movies lately that set out to deconstruct the idea of ordinary people becoming superheroes - Kick-Ass and Defendor, for instance. Super, while similar to those two, is a far more realistic and dark take on the idea, with Rainn Wilson and Ellen Page dressing up as superheroes to fight crime by any means necessary - any sort of crime, but especially slimy Kevin Bacon. Even though it starts out as pure oddball comedy, it soon becomes obvious that they're not the sort of people who are cut out to be heroes and things get... violent. Let's just say that if you ever thought Ellen Page's Juno persona seemed a little quirkier than what's normally considered sane, this movie takes that idea and turns it into full-blown psychosis without missing a beat. Brilliant little low-budget anticomedy. Also, it has Nathan Fillion as a Christian superhero. :star4:
 
Also rewatched Fulci's Zombi 2 AKA Zombie AKA Zombie Flesh Eaters for the fifth time or so. Still one of the best ones out there. The people who hadn't seen it before all rolled their eyes at some of the special effects, at the completely gratuitous nude scenes, at Tisa Farrow's somewhat limited acting ability... but nobody laughed when the real horror scenes came, slow, relentless, evil. Fulci's a piece of work.
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The splinter in the eyeball scene is a landmark in gore cinema. It takes forever!

Over the weekend I watched Tropic of Cancer(1971), Rip Torn portrays Henry. Worth a look, but I prefer Fred Ward's take on him in Henry and June. Nice look at early 70's Paris. :star3:
 
127 hours - 8/10 Brilliant screenplay, and the performance of James franco was very good. They did a great job of fleshing out a two hour long film with mostly one man stuck in one place!

Due Date - 5/10 There's about two laughs in the whole film. Other than that it's shite
 
beer good said:
Sucker Punch. ...No. I can see what Snyder is going for, essentially delivering video game porn only to call out people for wanting to watch video game porn, but David Lynch or even Aronofsky he's not. Impressive visuals, nice crossreferencing, but if you're going to do what's essentially American McGee's Alice meets Brazil you might want to add something of your own as well or I might as well watch Brazil again. :star2:
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I'm worried about him taking the reign on The Superman reboot. If it's like Sucker Punch then the franchise will be dead but if it's like 300 then it will be great.
 
The Eagle. Roman ex-centurion vows to restore his family's honour, lost when his father led the ninth legion north of Hadrian's Wall 20 years earlier and never came back. So he goes north along with his celtic slave to find the legion's golden eagle among the nigh-inhuman Scots and prove himself one of the few honourable Men in the increasingly sissyfied Rome. Anyone wanting to read it as a slightly rah-rah libertarian metaphor for how some people see the US's past and present will not be told to shut up. Not as silly as last year's Centurion, but also not as much fun, and Channing Tatum in the lead plays Generic Hero Guy with absolutely no personality whatsoever. That said, if you want sword-n-shield battles and grim nature shots, it's not a complete waste of time.
 
The Way Back ~ A group of men escape a Siberian gulag and walk 4,000 miles to India. Ed Harris, looking as grizzled as ever, plays an American named Mr Smith. :star3:
 
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