General Entertainment ~Rate The Last Movie/TV Show You Watched Thread~

[Keyser_Soze]

 

The Babadook: 6/10

 

I had heard good things about this one and seemed to be highly rated but it really did not resonate with me. It's about a boy and his mother who's still trying to cope with the loss of her husband. The kid claims to see monsters and makes gadgets to battle them. He's very troublesome and obnoxious. When a movie has an annoying kid there better be a payoff to the whole thing and I don't think there really was much of a payoff. The film not particularly scary either, not that it super matters but it was mostly odd, I guess. The metaphorical nature of the movie didn't come as a surprise either the movie really tried to spell it out early.

[Greatoneshere]

With the second weekend of October now having passed, my wife and I got through a bunch more horror films, see the second bracket below (first bracket is from the first weekend): 

 

A Quiet Place Part II (2020): 7.5/10

The Shallows (2016): 7/10

Halloween (1978): 8/10

Halloween (2018): 7.5/10

Halloween Kills - Extended Cut (2021): 7.5/10 (people hated this? I fucking loved it)

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022): 7.5/10 (very clever, cutting satire of Gen Z'ers)

 

Candyman (1992): 8/10 (great commentary on white peoples' fears of black people and injustice towards them)

Candyman (2021): 8/10 (beautifully shot, scored, acted while expanding and completely respecting the original - we liked this one, sequel to the original)

Hellraiser (1987): 8/10 (still love the mythology and lore, really enjoy the films don't overexplain anything, not as scary as I remember but still enjoyable)

Hellraiser II: Hellbound 8/10 (absolute necessity to watch right after the first one, this finally takes us to hell and the effects are really good and hold up)

Hellraiser (2022): 7.5/10 (respectful reboot that honors the original two films while doing its own thing with excellent practical effects, not quite as good)

The Thing (1982): 8/10 (John Carpenter crushes it as usual, Kurt Russell is great, love the ending, Ennio Morricone score is next level, beautiful landscapes)

The Thing (2011): 7/10 (a well-made prequel film that perfectly ties into the original without too much fanservice, surprised people didn't like this one)

Werewolf By Night (2022): 7.5/10 (really well made, a lot of fun to watch, not too long, and finally introduces three fun B-tier characters to the MCU)

 

I'd never seen Halloween Kills or The Thing prequel before and both were far better than critic or audience reviews indicated - glad I finally checked them out. Also both Candyman's and Hellraiser II need more love.

[Mercury33]

Trying to do 31 Horror/Halloween movies in 31 days. 
 

Oct 1: The Wolf of Snow Hollow 7.5/10

Oct 2: X - 9/10
Oct 3: Quiet Place 2 - 7.5/10

Oct 4: Dale and Tucker vs Evil - 5/10

Oct 5: Malignant - 9.9/10

Oct 6: Hubie Halloween - 8/10

Oct 7: Werewolf By Night - 9.5/10

Oct 8: Scream 5 - 6.5/10

Oct 9: Hellraiser(2022) - 7/10

 

Oct 10: The Night House - 7.5/10

I really really enjoyed this. Had it rated much higher until the end. It didn’t have a terrible end but I don’t think it lived up to the mystery it was building. 

[heydude93]

She Dies Tomorrow - Not sure how to describe this. "Mood horror" i guess?  Like that Picnic at Hanging Rock film from the 70's, it's definitely a mysterious horror film/thriller, but with no gore or monsters or killers or anything like that.  Honestly it was rough staying interested at times, but i like the dark humor and unique concept, 7/10.

 

Hard Candy - Haven't watched anything this harrowing in a long time. Easy to imagine film classes using it as an example of effective limited storytelling.  Probably won't see it again, but an unforgettable experience 8/10 

 

The Rental - Having stayed at BnBs, this one got to me occasionally but I think it lacked style and it's another horror movie where the main characters make so many unrelatable and idiotic decisions, but overall it was alright, 7/10

[Greatoneshere]

13 minutes ago, heydude93 said:

She Dies Tomorrow - Not sure how to describe this. "Mood horror" i guess?  Like that Picnic at Hanging Rock film from the 70's, it's definitely a mysterious horror film/thriller, but with no gore or monsters or killers or anything like that.  Honestly it was rough staying interested at times, but i liked the dark humor and unique concept, 7/10.

 

The Rental - Having stayed at BnBs, this one definitely got to me occassionally but I think it lacked style and it's yet another horror movie where the main characters make so many unrelatable and idiotic decisions, but overall it was alright, 7/10

 

Both of these films are on my list for the wife and I to watch this month. 7/10's are promising and about what I expected of both of them, they sound good.

[Zeluge]

Bros - Funny, heartfelt, smartly frames its commentary through character. Eichner has a lengthy monologue in the middle that floored me. Maybe a bit too long, but wouldn't know what to cut.

 

Pearl - Finally finished it! Killer final shot.

 

Little Sister - Third time’s the charm for Zach Clark. Can't stop thinking about it. Constantly destabilizing, but not in an aggressive, off-putting way.

 

Fire Island - Figured I’d see the other big gay rom-com of the year (to be stupidly reductive) and it’s not bad. Generally pleasant, though the flaws stick with me more than anything (except for a couple of really great visual gags early on.)

 

Support the Girls - Damn, I forget how much I love Bujalski. A very generous film.

 

Breathless (1960, rewatch) - Very dismissive of this when I first saw it ages ago, likely because I was OD'ing on French New Wave, but this second look opened everything up. Still wows. Excited for my Godard dive.

 

T-Rex - Only just found out about Mickey Reece, and found a bunch of his stuff to rent on Drafthouse. Like Slacker, but not constraining itself to the bit so much and cuts away to varying settings.

 

Suedehead - Still very low-budget, but I was digging this more than T-Rex. Consistently amusing, and breaks perspective at such odd times to beneficial results.

 

Tár - I strongly dislike Little Children so I approached this with great skepticism, and I’ll be damned! Yes, I think it wobbles the very very last scene (actually casts a decent amount of the end in a questionable light), and some of the shop talk comes off as … off, even to my untrained-on-matters-of-the-classical ears, and it frequently brought out the side-seat director in me (dude’s a bit too in love with his wides), but all in all, I really liked this. Great concept to indict a character without showing any explicit wrong-doing. Blanchett's amazing.

 

Triangle of Sadness - I missed The Square, but comparing this to Force Majeure, Östlund has gone in such a broad, obvious direction but does it so well that it’s hard to fault him too much. Yacht section is surprisingly great, liked the first one as well. Last third loses steam, and gets less interesting as it goes on. Like Tati if he had an intense disdain for humanity.

[Mercury33]

Trying to do 31 Horror/Halloween movies in 31 days. 
 

Oct 1: The Wolf of Snow Hollow 7.5/10

Oct 2: X - 9/10
Oct 3: Quiet Place 2 - 7.5/10

Oct 4: Dale and Tucker vs Evil - 5/10

Oct 5: Malignant - 9.9/10

Oct 6: Hubie Halloween - 8/10

Oct 7: Werewolf By Night - 9.5/10

Oct 8: Scream 5 - 6.5/10

Oct 9: Hellraiser(2022) - 7/10

Oct 10: The Night House - 7.5/10

 

Oct 11: The Rental - 4.5/10

Big pile of nothing. A true masterclass on how to lack any suspense and fail to build any tension. I didn’t hate it. It’s just nothing. Nothing happens, and the little that happens towards the end is so abrupt and generic that it might as well have not happened at all. 

[Greatoneshere]

13 hours ago, Mercury33 said:

Oct 11: The Rental - 4.5/10

Big pile of nothing. A true masterclass on how to lack any suspense and fail to build any tension. I didn’t hate it. It’s just nothing. Nothing happens, and the little that happens towards the end is so abrupt and generic that it might as well have not happened at all. 

 

We'll be catching this one this month as well, curious to see Dave Franco directing. It's a divisive film from what I can tell, as an example @heydude93 just saw the movie and gave it a 7/10 just a few posts up in this thread compared to your 4.5/10.

[Mercury33]

57 minutes ago, Greatoneshere said:

 

We'll be catching this one this month as well, curious to see Dave Franco directing. It's a divisive film from what I can tell, as an example @heydude93 just saw the movie and gave it a 7/10 just a few posts up in this thread compared to your 4.5/10.

I was in the 7 range until the ending. It just fell a little flat for me. But it’s a very well made piece of flatness haha. I could see how other people could rate it much higher. Especially if you actually stay in Air BnB’s which I never have. 

[Bloodporne]

On 10/9/2022 at 6:40 AM, Keyser_Soze said:

 

The Babadook: 6/10

 

I had heard good things about this one and seemed to be highly rated but it really did not resonate with me. It's about a boy and his mother who's still trying to cope with the loss of her husband. The kid claims to see monsters and makes gadgets to battle them. He's very troublesome and obnoxious. When a movie has an annoying kid there better be a payoff to the whole thing and I don't think there really was much of a payoff. The film not particularly scary either, not that it super matters but it was mostly odd, I guess. The metaphorical nature of the movie didn't come as a surprise either the movie really tried to spell it out early.

I actually watched this one twice and while I mostly agree, there was one segment that for some reason turned my opinion on it around a bit. Still I wouldn't rate it higher than a 7/10 ultimately so not that far off.

 

Anyway, there's a scene where she "confronts" the room upstairs and there's this really well done, very surreal shot of the bedroom that is clearly not its physical self any more. The way it depicted her mental state in the set design veering into Caligari or David Lynch territories felt really satisfying to me and kind of gave it that extra unexpected oompf it had been missing for me. 

 

It's definitely not a masterpiece and I don't even think it's a great movie but it had some flashes that pushed it beyond regular Horror fare and into that psychological drama turns horror territory I enjoy the most. 

[Bloodporne]

Friday - 8.5/10

Next Friday - 6/10 

 

I just revisited both with my girlfriend over the weekend and for some reason I remembered the sequel being way better than it was. It has a lot of good gags in it but the neighbors are painfully unfunny and take up way too much time. But then there's characters like Pinky that they could've easily used for another 10 more minutes and I would've dug it. Weak movie held together by some funny side characters. 

 

First one though, still a really great flick. 

[heydude93]

 

On 10/11/2022 at 9:26 PM, Mercury33 said:

Oct 11: The Rental - 4.5/10

Big pile of nothing. A true masterclass on how to lack any suspense and fail to build any tension. I didn’t hate it. It’s just nothing. Nothing happens, and the little that happens towards the end is so abrupt and generic that it might as well have not happened at all. 

 

Even though i liked it a bit more I think this take is mostly on point. Living through some creepy bnb encounters makes you want to see films that depict the horror of that experience in a way that does it justice and mines more surprising and memorable thrills out of it. The premise of The Rental was good but the execution is lacking i would say.  I suppose its possible Barbarian is a movie about bnb's that gets it right...

 

[Mercury33]

I wish Barbarian was on streaming. I wanna see it so bad. 

[Keyser_Soze]

6 hours ago, Bloodporne said:

I actually watched this one twice and while I mostly agree, there was one segment that for some reason turned my opinion on it around a bit. Still I wouldn't rate it higher than a 7/10 ultimately so not that far off.

 

Anyway, there's a scene where she "confronts" the room upstairs and there's this really well done, very surreal shot of the bedroom that is clearly not its physical self any more. The way it depicted her mental state in the set design veering into Caligari or David Lynch territories felt really satisfying to me and kind of gave it that extra unexpected oompf it had been missing for me. 

 

It's definitely not a masterpiece and I don't even think it's a great movie but it had some flashes that pushed it beyond regular Horror fare and into that psychological drama turns horror territory I enjoy the most. 

 

I agree. The cinematography was interesting in spots and Essie Davis did a great job acting but it wasn't enough to prop up the rest of the movie IMO, especially having to endure that annoying kid.

[Mercury33]

Trying to do 31 Horror/Halloween movies in 31 days. 
 

Oct 1: The Wolf of Snow Hollow 7.5/10

Oct 2: X - 9/10
Oct 3: Quiet Place 2 - 7.5/10

Oct 4: Dale and Tucker vs Evil - 5/10

Oct 5: Malignant - 9.9/10

Oct 6: Hubie Halloween - 8/10

Oct 7: Werewolf By Night - 9.5/10

Oct 8: Scream 5 - 6.5/10

Oct 9: Hellraiser(2022) - 7/10

Oct 10: The Night House - 7.5/10

Oct 11: The Rental - 4.5/10

 

Oct 12: Halloween(2018) - 8.5/10

I saw this when it came out and rewatching to get ready for Halloween Ends. I LOVED the 2018 version. I loved that it is essentially the exact same plot but that it subverts expectations from the original. Recreating shots but with Lorie in the place of Michael becasue she’s the real predator. The moment when you realize all her teachings sunk in with her daughter and she’s just as ready for Michael as her mom was fantastic. Best modern version of a 70/80’s horror movie hands down. 

[Bloodporne]

9 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I agree. The cinematography was interesting in spots and Essie Davis did a great job acting but it wasn't enough to prop up the rest of the movie IMO, especially having to endure that annoying kid.

It's one of those movies that didn't really go weird enough for me to justify how threadbare the plot was. Like I said, I thought it went there in that one segment but then there's also, like you said, endless scenes of that kid being a little shit. I get that's kind of the point but good lord, it didn't make for a terribly well-balanced viewing experience. 

 

Come to think of it, I think a 6.5/10 would be more accurate for me . And yes, the main actress was the highlight of the flick. The actual "monster"/supernatural allusions were actually the most forgettable part of the movie for me. 

[Mercury33]

Trying to do 31 Horror/Halloween movies in 31 days. 
 

Oct 1: The Wolf of Snow Hollow 7.5/10

Oct 2: X - 9/10
Oct 3: Quiet Place 2 - 7.5/10

Oct 4: Dale and Tucker vs Evil - 5/10

Oct 5: Malignant - 9.9/10

Oct 6: Hubie Halloween - 8/10

Oct 7: Werewolf By Night - 9.5/10

Oct 8: Scream 5 - 6.5/10

Oct 9: Hellraiser(2022) - 7/10

Oct 10: The Night House - 7.5/10

Oct 11: The Rental - 4.5/10

Oct 12: Halloween(2018) - 8.5/10

 

Oct 13: Halloween Kills - 8/10

Ok, this is objectively a bad movie. The dialogue is bad, the pacing is weird, the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense. But god damn did I love it 😂 I disliked every character except Lorie so much that I audibly cheered when Michael went all John Wick at the end. Cool idea to bring the kids back but fuck them haha. Goofy ass movie but I thought it was a lot of fun. 

[Greatoneshere]

10 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

Oct 13: Halloween Kills - 8/10

Ok, this is objectively a bad movie. The dialogue is bad, the pacing is weird, the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense. But god damn did I love it 😂 I disliked every character except Lorie so much that I audibly cheered when Michael went all John Wick at the end. Cool idea to bring the kids back but fuck them haha. Goofy ass movie but I thought it was a lot of fun. 

 

I disagree that it's "objectively a bad movie", I know it's generally considered mediocre but I really enjoyed the film. I enjoyed expanding characters' stories from the past for the present, I enjoyed the devolution of the community into a hysteric panic, and the montage of Michael Myers killing a bunch of people was pretty epic as far as horror films go. The whole thing is also very well shot and scored. Seems you liked it for the same reasons I did. The film didn't honestly feel that different than Halloween (2018), I'm not even close to some die-hard Halloween fan so I had a lot of fun with this one.

[Zeluge]

Stars at Noon - Feels like an American adaptation of a Claire Denis movie. Some of her visual lyricism is on display, but there's way too much talking, and too little of it is of value. Qualley's quite good, though I think I like the conception of her character more than her performance. Tindersticks score is wonderful, as always.

 

Trouble Every Day (rewatch) - Unfortunate for the former movie that they screened it with one of her finest. Subtle, mysterious, erotic while also being kind of frightening. Colors really popped on 35mm too.

 

Amsterdam - Rough. Top to bottom, comes off like amateur hour. Littered with joke ideas that aren't actual written, performed, shot, or edited for the benefit of a punchline. Washington is particularly weak. A complete mess. I laughed a few times. A lot of that was Nivola, who's in it far too little. Anya was good too.

[Greatoneshere]

56 minutes ago, Zeluge said:

Amsterdam - Rough. Top to bottom, comes off like amateur hour. Littered with joke ideas that aren't actual written, performed, shot, or edited for the benefit of a punchline. Washington is particularly weak. A complete mess. I laughed a few times. A lot of that was Nivola, who's in it far too little. Anya was good too.

 

What would you rate/what do you think of David O. Russell's previous films by comparison?

[Zeluge]

21 hours ago, Greatoneshere said:

What would you rate/what do you think of David O. Russell's previous films by comparison?

 

Flirting with Disaster and Three Kings are the pinnacle of his capabilities . Both idiosyncratic and bearing a personal stamp, but at very different budgets and wavelengths. Love them.

 

I remember liking I Heart Huckabees. It's been forever though.

 

Big dropoff.

 

Joy has some moments. A big ol' mess though.

 

American Hustle and Amsterdam fall on the same level of "failures with some moments", but I want to say Hustle works more closely as an actual movie. But it is more irritating than Amsterdam, which is just confusing in its slackness. Real toss up here.

 

Silver Linings Playbook is bad. Awful take on mental illness (the ending is the closest I've ever gotten to screaming in a theater) and all the comedy falls flat. Lawrence is bad here, don't know how she got the Oscar.

 

Haven't seen Spanking the Monkey, The Fighter or Accidental Love (as much as that latter one counts; I gave it five minutes once, turned it off.)

[Greatoneshere]

4 minutes ago, Zeluge said:

 

Flirting with Disaster and Three Kings are the pinnacle of his capabilities . Both idiosyncratic and bearing a personal stamp, but at very different budgets and wavelengths. Love them.

 

I remember liking I Heart Huckabees. It's been forever though.

 

Big dropoff.

 

Joy has some moments. A big ol' mess though.

 

American Hustle and Amsterdam fall on the same level of "failures with some moments", but I want to say Hustle works more closely as an actual movie. But it is more irritating than Amsterdam, which is just confusing in its slackness. Real toss up here.

 

Silver Linings Playbook is bad. Awful take on mental illness (the ending is the closest I've ever gotten to screaming in a theater) and all the comedy falls flat. Lawrence is bad here, don't know how she got the Oscar.

 

Haven't seen Spanking the Monkey, The Fighter or Accidental Love (as much as that latter one counts; I gave it five minutes once, turned it off.)

 

Thanks for the breakdown! I highly recommend seeing Spanking the Monkey and The Fighter, and ignore Accidental Love, I don't count it).

[Mercury33]

Trying to do 31 Horror/Halloween movies in 31 days. 
 

Oct 1: The Wolf of Snow Hollow 7.5/10

Oct 2: X - 9/10
Oct 3: Quiet Place 2 - 7.5/10

Oct 4: Dale and Tucker vs Evil - 5/10

Oct 5: Malignant - 9.9/10

Oct 6: Hubie Halloween - 8/10

Oct 7: Werewolf By Night - 9.5/10

Oct 8: Scream 5 - 6.5/10

Oct 9: Hellraiser(2022) - 7/10

Oct 10: The Night House - 7.5/10

Oct 11: The Rental - 4.5/10

Oct 12: Halloween(2018) - 8.5/10

Oct 13: Halloween Kills - 8/10

 

Oct 14: Halloween Ends - 8.25/10

Uhhh I didn’t hate this at all. I think the plot was a super odd choice for the “final” Halloween but in a void I like it. Gave me those Corey Feldman Friday the 13th vibes. What a weird trilogy. All three movies so drastically different in tone. 

[Keyser_Soze]

 

Ghost Son: 6/10

 

Ghost Son stars Laura Harring (From Mulholland Drive) and also contains a high profile appearance from Pete Postlethwaite who's actually better than this movie deserves. In fact that cover art is probably the best thing about the movie. It's about a woman named Stacey who falls in love with a dude named Mark in South Africa. Now this is notable because you rarely see a Mark in a movie. Can you name a movie where the main character is named Mark? You cannot. In any case they get married and are very intimate and you can even partially see some of Mark's dick in one scene. But he gets in a car accident and dies. Laura Harring actually pedals a bike to the accident and she looks fantastic. In any case she's very distraught about Mark's death and hallucinates about him a lot. One such hallucination is Mark insinuating that she cannot live without him and should join him in death. She tries but ultimately decides against it. Later she has sex with Mark's ghost, or something and is pregnant. She decides to have the baby I guess and turns out it's kind of a troublesome baby that sucks her tits so hard during breastfeeding that they bleed. So the baby is kind of possessed by Mark's spirit I guess is the idea, Spoilers: His spirit is angry she didn't actually join him in death and chose to live with their son. There's a lot of setup and weirdness to the movie but it feels kind of silly than scary. In fact there are a bunch of parts that try to have jump scares but they come at awkward moments and don't really come across as scary.

 

It feels strange having watched this after The Bababdook it felt sort of similar. Grief, an unhappy child, elephants. But a lot of it felt like nonsense. Still man, Pete Postlethwaite, damn good.

[Mercury33]

Trying to do 31 Horror/Halloween movies in 31 days. 
 

Oct 1: The Wolf of Snow Hollow 7.5/10

Oct 2: X - 9/10
Oct 3: Quiet Place 2 - 7.5/10

Oct 4: Dale and Tucker vs Evil - 5/10

Oct 5: Malignant - 9.9/10

Oct 6: Hubie Halloween - 8/10

Oct 7: Werewolf By Night - 9.5/10

Oct 8: Scream 5 - 6.5/10

Oct 9: Hellraiser(2022) - 7/10

Oct 10: The Night House - 7.5/10

Oct 11: The Rental - 4.5/10

Oct 12: Halloween(2018) - 8.5/10

Oct 13: Halloween Kills - 8/10

Oct 14: Halloween Ends - 8.25/10

 

Oct 15: It Follows - 9/10

Crossing one off my Shame List. Finally getting around to see this. Loved it. Interesting concept, great tension. Love that’s there’s no explanation, just an evil that exists. Funny having just finished modern Halloween and what that series has become. And then going to It Follows which was very clearly inspired by the original in a lot of ways. Half way to 31!

[Mercury33]

Trying to do 31 Horror/Halloween movies in 31 days. 
 

Oct 1: The Wolf of Snow Hollow 7.5/10

Oct 2: X - 9/10
Oct 3: Quiet Place 2 - 7.5/10

Oct 4: Dale and Tucker vs Evil - 5/10

Oct 5: Malignant - 9.9/10

Oct 6: Hubie Halloween - 8/10

Oct 7: Werewolf By Night - 9.5/10

Oct 8: Scream 5 - 6.5/10

Oct 9: Hellraiser(2022) - 7/10

Oct 10: The Night House - 7.5/10

Oct 11: The Rental - 4.5/10

Oct 12: Halloween(2018) - 8.5/10

Oct 13: Halloween Kills - 8/10

Oct 14: Halloween Ends - 8.25/10

Oct 15: It Follows - 9/10

 

Oct 16: Videodrome - 7/10

Crossing another one off my Shame List. I liked it. I miss the crazy practical effect body horror from the 80’s. Shits too realistic these days haha. Crazy how relevant the message of this movie still is. I can only imagine the experience watching this when it released haha. 

[Mercury33]

Trying to do 31 Horror/Halloween movies in 31 days. 
 

Oct 1: The Wolf of Snow Hollow 7.5/10

Oct 2: X - 9/10
Oct 3: Quiet Place 2 - 7.5/10

Oct 4: Dale and Tucker vs Evil - 5/10

Oct 5: Malignant - 9.9/10

Oct 6: Hubie Halloween - 8/10

Oct 7: Werewolf By Night - 9.5/10

Oct 8: Scream 5 - 6.5/10

Oct 9: Hellraiser(2022) - 7/10

Oct 10: The Night House - 7.5/10

Oct 11: The Rental - 4.5/10

Oct 12: Halloween(2018) - 8.5/10

Oct 13: Halloween Kills - 8/10

Oct 14: Halloween Ends - 8.25/10

Oct 15: It Follows - 9/10

Oct 16: Videodrome - 7/10

 

Oct 17: Candyman(2021) - 6/10

I dunno, it was alright. I didn’t hate it but I feel like it doesn’t do anything. It’s a less interesting, WAY less stylish version of the original. It doesn’t attempt to spin the formula the way Halloween 2018 did. 

[Fizzzzle]

The Northman  - Of all the movies I've seen, it's definitely one of them.

 

It's definitely gorgeous, but I never really found myself particuarly caring much about any of the characters, good or bad.

[Bloodporne]

7 hours ago, Mercury33 said:

 

 

Oct 17: Candyman(2021) - 6/10

I dunno, it was alright. I didn’t hate it but I feel like it doesn’t do anything. It’s a less interesting, WAY less stylish version of the original. It doesn’t attempt to spin the formula the way Halloween 2018 did. 

I just watched it last night with my girlfriend as well. I thought it started with tons of promise, particularly the opening shots and score, but then rapidly descended into some hodgepodge of ham-fisted social commentary, boring gore and general messiness. They had the budget, they had cinematography, they had the score, and it's like they had no idea what to really do with it after 20 minutes. 

 

The real shame is that I think the social commentary was a cool angle for them to lean further into but holy shit is this movie riddled with corny lines, terrible acting and characters thinner than cardboard cutouts. Not saying the original isn't B-as-fuck elevated by many stylistic choices but I'm baffled how much they fumbled here considering what they had to work with. 

 

I'd probably give it a 5/10 but it was such an odd movie, I'm not entirely sure what to rate it because it did sometimes hit an interesting note before once again spiraling into some bizarre turn. 

 

 

[Bloodporne]

The Black Phone - 6.5/10

 

A very competent movie with some cool writing that never really felt like it particularly "ignited" for me. There were a lot of cool elements here but it's one of those movies where I kept expecting more or something? I thought Ethan Hawk's character was going to be a lot more interesting than he eventually was with the ending particularly not being terribly exciting. 

 

I couldn't help but think of it as Stranger Things meets Silence of the Lambs without the highs of either. 

[Bloodporne]

Last but not least, I've FINALLY started watching Carnivale, after meaning to do so for like...close to 20 years. This show is truly fantastic so far, I can't believe it took me so long. I love everything about it. 

[Zeluge]

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance - Desperately wish this had been my introduction to Park Chan-wook instead of Oldboy, because it would have led to me following his career more closely over a decade ago. Large portions of this operate without dialogue, and it's completely engrossing. And then it opens up to Song Kang-ho's character in the back half, and it's on another level. This is an early example of Park's penchant for narrative elision that I don't think has quite been mastered yet (especially with the procedural-esque vibe of it all), but a near-masterpiece otherwise.

 

Lady Vengeance - This seems to be viewed as the weakest of the trilogy, which is a shame. Love the ebb and flow of Geum-ja's self-serving nature, and how the direction that the last act goes is somewhat foreshadowed by the focus put on the other inmates and their backstories and how they fit into the grand plan. Seems to be the start of Park's experimenting with scene transitions, like the English-to-Korean dictionary acting as a physical wipe, or a shot being aligned with the back of a door as it opens in the following scene. Also, there's a moment here that mentions self-imprisonment/isolation as a form of penance that made me think of the ending to Spike Lee's Oldboy. Very interesting.

 

Thirst - A wild ride, it shape-shifts and changes genre and tone so frequently that it's almost exhausting. Sang-hyeon lifting Tae-ju into his shoes is one of the most romantic things I've ever seen. The main sex scene is done so well, and Park lets his freak flag fly a bit with the foreplay leading into it (and some other scenes!)

 

Stoker (rewatch) - A movie that I've slowly come to realize over the years has a special place in my heart, and I was curious how it would fare in the Park run. Glad to say it holds up wonderfully. This is his only feature where he's not credited as a screenwriter, and it's evident in the absence of tight plotting that's been something of a hallmark in all his other works. Instead, there's a clear disregard for the narrative almost to the point of abstraction, and he aims to make this deeply-involving sensory experience (I suspect India's acute hearing was not in the script because it feels more like a carry-over from Thirst.) Such an anomaly, and I love it.

 

Decision to Leave - A flurry of procedural details that resets itself near the halfway mark and a burgeoning, stifled relationship with a constantly-shifting power dynamic. Park goes wild with shooting "impossible" mirror shots as if he just found out about this technological advancement hours into shooting. So good, already aching for a rewatch.

[silentbob]

8 minutes ago, Bloodporne said:

Last but not least, I've FINALLY started watching Carnivale, after meaning to do so for like...close to 20 years. This show is truly fantastic so far, I can't believe it took me so long. I love everything about it. 

it’s such a fucking shame how the show leaves it for a third season and probably more. It was a bad time for shows I really liked getting canned it seem right after each other like Deadwood and Dead Like Me. Always happy to see a new fan of the show

[Bloodporne]

13 minutes ago, silentbob said:

it’s such a fucking shame how the show leaves it for a third season and probably more. It was a bad time for shows I really liked getting canned it seem right after each other like Deadwood and Dead Like Me. Always happy to see a new fan of the show

I only just saw the 'Babylon' episode but honestly, even as standalone tales each episode has been fantastic so far. There's something really intense about it. It sucks me in and brings me right into its mood. This episode 'Babylon' alone puts most movies with a sort of Gothic Americana flair to absolute shame. I could keep going about this show but it really gets under my skin, very special. 

[Bloodporne]

I've been on a roll in general. I just rewatched The Wailing for the third time and man, I forgot who recommended it here again but I've grown to really love that movie. I'm still not sure I follow its logic 100% but there's something about that that makes it extra tense later on into the film.