Movies

[dunie]

Ehhhhh even as a Tarantino fan (apologist at this point?) I think the only critique I have on your last point is the production time of movies  more than it can't be done or he can't do it.  Maybe if he made more than one movie every 3-4 years he could be doing something on Trump right before election.

You're right, but Trump's been Trump since the 80s. I forgive Tarantino for doing cooler things earlier and ignoring Trump.

All I want to know is if it is yet another post 9/11 Tarantino movie all about revenge.  I am sure I will enjoy it at some point, but I am a bit less jazzed for this one.  It is a good cast, but we aren't going to be having Christof Walz solving world hunger with all the ham he is bringing to the mix like the last couple.

Nah, each of the Hateful Eight don't have an origin story in revenge, no. Maybe 3/8? Makkotah? I recall revenge being more happenstance.

[NotMiki]

Grand Budapest Hotel: a movie so contrived and self-assured that it would be completely insufferable if it were not more or less a perfect move.  Fortunately it's more or less a perfect movie.

[Sierra]

Did I miss that part?

It's Bespin during Empire, not Obiwan on the Deathstar there as well.

its okay cid i still luv u

Nah, totally Death Star. Talking plot developments here, not architecture.

Though I will admit that I was very happy to see that the Star Wars universe still retains blatant work hazards like single-file, railingless catwalks over gigantic pits of nothingness. I feel like you can't have proper Star Wars without that kind of obviously unsafe civil engineering.

[Hunter Sopko]

Grand Budapest Hotel: a movie so contrived and self-assured that it would be completely insufferable if it were not more or less a perfect move.  Fortunately it's more or less a perfect movie.

So, so true. Still love this movie.

[Grefter]

You're right, but Trump's been Trump since the 80s. I forgive Tarantino for doing cooler things earlier and ignoring Trump.

Well true.  Trump has always been a shit.  I still think even 24 months ago no one was seriously thinking he would be remotely as close to a serious contender rather than purely as a commercial stunt.

[Captain K]

Pitch Perfect:  The Treblemakers got robbed.

Pitch Perfect 2:  Das SoundMachine got robbed.

[dunie]

Saw Concussion. Didn't meet my expectations. A B-rated drama with some good dialogue but poor editing. Smith's accent was safe and stereotypical (hello again Hollywood) but his facial expressions were sometimes spot on.

Eh. Got into a long argument about pipeline violence, s
have been set on never encouraging a football career for future unborn child. Grew up in too much of the HS/college football cheer.

Edit-  OH
 Saw Tangerine finally. Great acting, yaaaaaaaaas, slay queens!

[The Duck]

Goodnight Mommy: I got snowed in and my friends and I watched this. I think maybe twenty years ago it would have been fresh and original but we saw through it in like the first 5 minutes and we were all disappointed that we were right because it's so easy to anticipate. This film is a little unsettling but more in a baffling way than one ground in what the director actually does. I guess horror isn't really my genre. It's genuinely rare for me to be perturbed or bothered by anything in horror movies, even cheap jump scares. I don't say this out of any macho I can't get scared thing but most of the best acclaimed horrors of the past few years have done little for me (It Follows, Babadook). Maybe I am able to disengage from that kind of thing really easily and the grisliest gore stuff doesn't really bother me.

Want to see Carol and Anomalisa soon. Hail Caesar also looks like the only new movie coming out for months that could be good.

[Grefter]

Picking the twist really isn't the point of horror.  It's mostly about the feeling of unease it gives you.  If you shatter that then all you have left is enjoying genre tropes (which you can certainly base good and bad movies off!   Cabin in the Woods is all that.  So are slasher flicks).  If those aren't your thing, yeah horror is always likely to fall flat.

[The Duck]

This movie isn't necessarily reliant on a twist but it was there and I think I was looking for things that confirmed it rather than sinking into the tension or mood. Maybe that's part of it, but this movie did a poor job of making things particularly suspenseful, instead it was just kind of weird. There are moments of tension and unease in movies that definitely work for me, the most notable in my mind being most scenes with Anton Chigurh/Javier Bardem in No Country for Old Men, but I don't get as much of that from straight up horror movies really.

I did like Cabin in the Woods though. I'm trying to get recommendations from people who are really into the genre but I realize it just may not be my thing.

[Grefter]

I enjoy horror sort of as a concept and horror movies en made rather than a lot of discreet examples.  It's sort of "here is a bunch of weird things people make movies about".  It means even if an individual movie kinda sucks it is just one more data point.

If you want a weird suggestion of a range of them from good to trashy to interesting as things that exist?

I Spit on your Grave (warning this one is roooooouuugh), Last House on the Left remake (same) both cover off a weird side part of horror, both that reinforces but is kind of a response to Last Girl stuff.  They are both Rape Revenge movies, which is hard to deal with.

Nightmare on Elm Street 1 & 3, both of these are 80s camp while playing with big concepts when paired together.

Valentine, a textbook post Scream suspense thrillers.  Urban Legends sort of fits the same space but tries to be More Scream and fails.

Behind the Mask: The story of Leslie Vernon.  Cabin in the woods hits similar notes, more serious though.

Sopko would slap me if I didn't say In the Mouth of Madness, I figure you have seen that though.

Oh and Event Horizon if you want Doom's plot ripped off and played completely straight.  Some sexy Sam Neil action there.

J-Horror, K-Horror and Body Horror also have a bunch more there I either don't know or didn't note because it is too big and I don't do them justice.  The body horror wiki has a damn good checklist to hit and honestly just ask Alex for recs.  He doesn't compulsively consume it, but he knows good stuff.

[Hunter Sopko]

Of course I would've slapped you.

There's also some of my odd favorites to add here. Most in the slight horror-comedy vein.

House, which is as you can figure, a haunted house movie that does its thing and relies on the horror genre tropes for comedy rather than scares. It's an odd, but very enjoyable film. Plus NORM is in it!

Hard Rock Zombies. Cheesy, low-budget, so-bad-its-good horror movie with some completely out-of-place scenes that come off as well-written. 80's hair metal band fights zombie Hitler. Need I say more? Why aren't you watching this movie right now?

More serious entries:

The Mist. Such a downer and it feels so good.

[The Duck]

The Mist is really good, yeah. I have seen some J-Horror but haven't come away being very impressed by the ones I saw.

I get camp horror and like that a lot, but most straight up horrors aren't that effective. I'll check some of these out at some point though, thanks!

[Grefter]

Do you mean this one or this one for House?

Because the first one is notoriously weird and amazing.  A horror movie based on the dreams of the director's 5 year old daughter populated with Japanese school girl tropes.

The kung fu girl gets in a fight with furniture.

[Hunter Sopko]

Probably the second one, though the link isn't working. The one with William Katz and George Wendt.

But yes, totally forgot about that other House. Watch both.

[Grefter]

Fixed the link, but yeah that was the one.

[Meeplelard]

Jurassic World: Saw this because parents had it on Netflix.  All I can say is it's enjoyably stupid and yes, THAT is how you do a big Dinosaur fight with a T-rex. 

[Shale]

Ex Machina: Really interesting movie, well-directed and acted. Nicely creepy, tense and affecting by turns. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending -- without getting too spoilery, I feel like the big twist at the end made it a better SF story, but also undercut its strongest themes as a piece of social commentary.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Ex Machina: Really interesting movie, well-directed and acted. Nicely creepy, tense and affecting by turns. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending -- without getting too spoilery, I feel like the big twist at the end made it a better SF story, but also undercut its strongest themes as a piece of social commentary.

I saw it as a commentary on the nature of self-awareness.  Oscar Isaac's character was all hung up on empathy and genuine reaction, but the ability to prioritize yourself over others meant that she was beyond a set of hard-coded rules and could judge options as the best for her, not whether they adhered the most to their programming.

Also if you want to look at it through the lens of all the talk about god, the decision to kill someone as the true marker of her self-awareness could be an original sin/Cain and Abel thing

[The Duck]

Ex Machina: Really interesting movie, well-directed and acted. Nicely creepy, tense and affecting by turns. I'm not sure how I feel about the ending -- without getting too spoilery, I feel like the big twist at the end made it a better SF story, but also undercut its strongest themes as a piece of social commentary.

I felt the shift at the end was jarring and went in a direction that wasn't as interesting as the first half or so. Like, I've seen the second half of that movie dozens of times in other movies but the first half seemed like a set up for something a lot more intriguing than it ended up being. Great performances all around though.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Stop whatever you are doing and watch Neil Breen's third film Fateful Findings right now.  There's only two kinds of movies that can surprise you: truly great movies and truly bad movies, and this movie was non-stop surprises.  It felt like Neil Breen decided to make a movie after having one described to him.

This is his third movie and he shows steady improvement, but because his first movie Double Down was so incredibly bad we'll need to wait for hundreds of movies before he produces the greatest film ever made.

Watch it.  It has the most surprising ending I've ever seen and I have seen Lethal Weapon 6.

[The Duck]

Fateful Findings is better than what Tommy Wiseau does in the Room in many ways and that's remarkable.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Fateful Findings is better than what Tommy Wiseau does in the Room in many ways and that's remarkable.

Also Neil Breen shows his balls and taint in Double Down if that's your thing

[AndrewRogue]

Do you mean this one or this one for House?

Because the first one is notoriously weird and amazing.  A horror movie based on the dreams of the director's 5 year old daughter populated with Japanese school girl tropes.

The kung fu girl gets in a fight with furniture.

House (JP) is the most amazing thing I've ever seen. It is pure, unadulterated madness.

[The Duck]

Hail Caesar - I thought this was really fucking funny, like among the Coen Brothers' funniest. I don't know what it means entirely. Would that it 'twer so simple.

SQUINT, SQUINT AT THE GRANDUER