26

(17 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Evil Dead 1 and 2 excepted, I really can't stand what I've seen of Sam Raimi's work. Army of Darkness is exemplary of everything I hate about his sensibilities.

27

(17 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I spent most of my life not watching much in the way of horror, because it wasn't a genre I found really interesting. The past couple of years have been a horror period for me, but I can't put my finger on why I keep coming back. Horror films are never successful. I can laugh at a comedy, I can get emotionally invested in a drama... I can't get scared by a horror movie. I really like the idea of a scary movie but I haven't found one yet.

Anyway, I don't know what you have and haven't seen, so this is just a random sampling of stuff I've seen fairly recently, mostly ignoring the obvious staple-type things, especially when DiF has done them. Like The Shining or The Fly. These are not in any particular order.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari - Goes well with Nosferatu.
Re-Animator - Super fun horror-comedy. Jeffrey Combs at his best.
We Are What We Are - Super pretentious and will have you in hysterics during the climax.
The Wicker Man - The Christopher Lee one, not the fucking Nic Cage one. Really bizarre, atmospheric film that's genuinely unsettling.
The Innkeepers - Slow burn haunted house that does a lot right and an equal amount wrong. Sara Paxton is charming and almost enough to carry the film.
The Conjuring - Nice subtle poltergeist movie for most of the run-time. Not perfect, but well-crafted with a strong cast.
Black Death - Interesting for being a medieval horror movie. Not entirely successful, but pretty engrossing.
Pumpkinhead - Full-on eighties monster movie. Great creature, directed by Stan Winston himself. Stars Lance Henriksen, who does anything but phone it in.
The Others - Well-acted, well-shot, solidly twisty plot.
Any Evil Dead movie - 2 is the best for comedy value. 1 is interesting for the way it overcomes budgetary issues. Remake is fascinating to watch when you have the context of the other two, even if it isn't the strongest example of the genre. Avoid Army of Darkness at all costs.
The Perfect Host - Watch it for David Hyde Pierce. He's incredible in this movie.
Nightmare on Elm Street - The first one, the remake, and Wes Craven's weird meta commentary on the franchise, New Nightmare, are all worth checking out. I can't vouch for the sequels, I only saw the second one and it was miserable.
Spider - More Cronenberg for you. Ralph Fiennes is phenomenal in this.
Below - Trey recommended this on Pitch Black, and it is really good. Haunted house in a submarine directed by David Twohy. Starring Olivia Williams, who I have such a crush on.


Guess that's probably enough for now. Also, Manhunter doesn't really count as horror, I don't think. It's more of a thriller.

28

(985 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I fail to see how the mystery was resolved, Faldor?

  Show
Yes, Clara's what put this idea in the DOCTOR'S head. But that doesn't explain the nightmares and associated phenomenon happening to everybody else. Clara has a throwaway jokey line about the "Listen" on the chalkboard looking like The Doctor's handwriting, and he's forgetful enough to have written it and not remembered... but we SAW the incident, that's not what happened.

And the sheet monster? It can't be a boy playing a prank. For one, it's not remotely believable behavior that a child would stand there for five minutes and not say anything, even after the game was up and the adults were mad. Two, a kid would throw the blanket off and been all, "gotcha, loser!" at some point long before the scene was finished. As soon as he saw they were properly scared it'd be all tee-hees and relieved sighs. Three, when the blanket starts to come down we see some vague vfxery business that couldn't be the top of a child's head.

So yeah, I fail to see the resolution myself, personally.

29

(985 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I liked a lot of what Listen had to offer, and I was pretty engrossed for the first 2/3rds or so, but it annoyed me that in the last act they kind of actively decided to stop telling the story they started with.

SPOILER Show
I don't personally MIND the way Clara was incorporated into the Doctor's past there, but I did mind the way it was used as a substitute for a sensical ending. I know a LOT of fans who already hate how much Clara has been retconned into Who canon are going to have taco grande beef with this.

I was thinking about this last night and I think I figured out generally why Moffat's era isn't working as well for me as I was anticipating. Moffat has this love for unconventional storytelling, whether it's just eschewing the three-act structure, showing things out of order, or solving/instigating situations with timey-wimey shenanigans. In RTD's era, when these episodes are peppered in among the rest of a series, it's this really exciting break from the form.

In Moffat's era though, the lack of form has become the form. The reason we have our storytelling rules and the reason studios have those script structure checklists and whatnot is because that's the easiest proven way to successfully tell a story to the broadest demographic possible. It's fine to obey those rules, and it's equally fine to break those rules. But the reason breaking them can be so interesting is because it's a break from the norm. With Moffat, the traditional episodes have become the exception, rather than the rule, and without them to contrast the rule-breaking cleverness, it just becomes tired, and the viewer gets irritated.

I think that's what it is for me anyway, in the macro. I also have a problem with the way he writes women and some of his recurring tropes.

30

(3 replies, posted in Creations)

I don't know anything about the statue, but I could help you with the bird if you end up going that way. What SHOULD he be sitting on, just a branch?

I'm pretty sure that's a comedy video making fun of how generic that trailer is.

32

(985 replies, posted in Off Topic)

EDIT: Posts happened while I was typing this, guess I shouldn't take breaks in the middle. This is in response to BDA's reaction to the episode.

Really? I didn't LOVE this episode, but I enjoyed it. More than I did Into the Dalek, which had a lot of good bits but a stupid premise and nonsensical execution thereof. This story felt more like classic Doctor Who than possibly ANY episode since the reboot. If I didn't know it were Mark Gatiss you could have told me it was an old discarded script from the Baker era that they trimmed down and punched up a bit and I'd have believed you.

Peter Capaldi's really getting comfortable in the role, Clara's finally developing something of a personality, and I liked the portrayal of Robin and the Sheriff. The Doctor trying to solve the mystery of how there can be a Robin Hood was enough to hold it together for me. It's not going to go down as an all-time classic, but it was a fun 45 minutes.

My only big problems with it were:

SPOILER Show
1.) Um... the ending was ridiculous. The robot's plan wasn't, "WE NEED TO GET ALL KINDS OF GOLD TO TOUCH OUR SHIP IN RANDOM PLACES!!!" They were actually melting it down to make circuit boards to fix the damage to their ship. I don't understand why shooting a golden arrow into the casing of one of the ship's engines is going to give them the power boost they need to escape Earth's atmosphere.

2.) The Maid Marion bit was too convenient and didn't make sense. She literally just got kidnapped earlier that DAY. Why is Robin moping around like she's been gone forever, and more importantly why was she not with him under his protection? Why is he goofing around with magic strangers in the forest instead of protecting his gal?

33

(25 replies, posted in Off Topic)

That's a good point, that's absolutely fair to say. But then I just... I really don't understand the point of this movie. If you just wanted me to see a child age in real time you could have shown me a documentary shot the same way. This is a narrative film, and I personally see little value in the narrative, it's just mediocre writing hung on the skeleton of the interesting gimmick. Divorcing it from that is an attempt to understand why Linklater felt the need to tell me this STORY, and there isn't much to that. If the intention is to provide a decade-spanning EXPERIENCE it's just... not that engrossing. Again, I don't mean to undersell the achievement, because it's a bold thing to even attempt and kudos to them for managing it successfully.

34

(25 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Just saw this today. I'm not sure what I think about it, honestly. I think I qualify as one of Dorkman's robots though, because there was only one scene in the movie that came close to moving me.

  Show
When they've fled the abusive drunk husband and they're sitting in that lady's kitchen and Sam keeps asking her mom questions about what's going to happen next and finally her mom just breaks down. That was a pretty strong scene.

But the rest of it didn't really affect me in any significant way. Some of it was relatable, a lot of it was not. Some of it was interesting, a lot of it was not. It didn't really go anywhere plot-wise, which can work if the film has a message, but I'm not sure what exactly this film was trying to convey to me. If it was all about the experience, about replicating the feeling of growing up, I guess it did alright. I ABSOLUTELY admire the project conceptually. I hope there's a serious making of on the blu-ray, because I want to know the shape of the script before they started filming.

That's really all I've got. Chad's right though, without the "gimmick" (it's absolutely more than that, I know) of the aging cast, it's a pretty bland, generic indie movie story.

35

(538 replies, posted in Creations)

I'm really impressed with how elaborate this has gotten. If you guys need help with some compositing or something, I'll definitely have some free time in the next couple of months.

36

(85 replies, posted in Episodes)

I get that that's not CinemaSins stated intention. But Jp12x specifically said, "there is often a correlation between high or low counts and good or bad movies (in my opinion of movie enjoyment). It's just like the audience % on RottenTomatoes. It suggests there may or may not be something you won't like."

And I'm wondering how it can function in that capacity for him when the count is inflated by things that are just intended to be jokes. Hell, I forget the specific example, but I saw one video where they called something cool and THAT counted as a sin too.

37

(85 replies, posted in Episodes)

Jp12x wrote:

CinemaSins is just what they claim to be. They count the things in movies that they choose to call "sins". These are not an indicator of how amusing the movie will be, etc. But, there is often a correlation between high or low counts and good or bad movies (in my opinion of movie enjoyment). It's just like the audience % on RottenTomatoes. It suggests there may or may not be something you won't like.

I can't really agree with this. I recently watched some more of their videos to see what all the noise in this thread was about, hadn't seen any in a while. There's a lot of the plot hole poking and general nitpickery involved, but then there's also stuff like these examples of sins from Elyisum: "Reading" (in regard to subtitles), "Unnecessary wagon wheel space station design," "So... great band name, Fuchsia, Foster, and Fichtner. You're Welcome." "Wickus isn't growing a prawn arm in this scene." That's just in the first five minutes, I didn't have the stomach for nine more.

Obviously those are intended to be jokes. They didn't particularly tickle me, I'm not a fan of narrator guy's delivery. But these all counted as sins on the counter. So how is there in any way a value to this as a gauge for whether or not you'll like the movie?

AshDigital wrote:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2014/07/05/article-0-1F6B0CA500000578-614_638x676.jpg

I saw this when you posted it yesterday and I thought, "Um, okay, whatever." Seeing it for the second time I realize that's fucking Martin Freeman and NOW I get it.

Zarban wrote:

It's really a shame to watch something like National Treasure and see a woman who has one clue to give, then just follows the hero around second guessing him for the rest of the movie.

long-ass image Show
http://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/20140702.png

SMBC gets it.

40

(127 replies, posted in Off Topic)

If Cinema Sins are doing those videos for comedic effect then they've got a whole different problem in that they're not fucking funny.

41

(262 replies, posted in Episodes)

I was just thinking it'd be cool if you guys did the original RoboCop.

And then I was thinking maybe it'd be a fun exercise to double feature it with the remake for the purpose of comparing and contrasting. But then, I haven't SEEN the remake, so maybe that might not be fun at all.

I had no intention of writing as much as I did. Sorry to those who choose to slog through it, but Eddie got my brain-gears turning.

I haven't seen Days of Future Past yet, I'm going this weekend and I'm looking forward to it, based on the trailers. In the run-up to it I rewatched all the X-Men movies, because I hadn't seen any of the first trilogy since 2006 and I hadn't seen First Class since the theater. I figured it would do me some good to refamiliarize myself before DoFP rewrote everything. My memory of the films were that they were all quite good, with Last Stand not being as bad as people say, and about on par with the first one, which was decent, and then X2 and First Class being very good films.

After the rewatch, my feeling is that there's really only one worthwhile film in the bunch, and that's X2. The rest are pretty mediocre.

Let me start by saying that I never read the comics. I was a DC kid, not by choice, that's just how my tastes tended to skew. I picked up one issue of X-Men when I was about eight, and there were three different storylines with like fifteen different characters set on Earth and possibly also a desert planet of some kind maybe? I was completely unable to grasp the story and thus abandoned X-Men altogether. Before that I had seen the animated series a bit, but I was never a loyal viewer.

So I don't care how faithful they are to the comics at all, and I have no idea what riches they haven't yet mined. I'm observing them strictly as a series of films.

X-Men is a decent introduction. It establishes the world pretty clearly and efficiently, sets up Xavier and Magneto and their central conflict, and introduces us to Wolverine. That's about it. The plot is comic booky in a very dopey way, and Magneto's plot is scientifically... not science at all, which I find jarring in a series that plays it as straight as this one does. Any character who's not Wolverine, Rogue, or Magneto receives little to no development. And it's HEAVILY coated in the style of the time, with the Matrix-y leather and wire-fu action, like you said. Wolverine swinging around on Lady Liberty's hat hasn't aged nearly as gracefully as bullet time.

X-2 is a really good action film. It's got a better sense of pace than the first, Bryan Singer's more confident with the action, and all the set-up is out of the way. Wolverine gets more development, Jean and Storm are actually kind of given something to do, and Nightcrawler is a great addition to the cast. It's still a big dumb blockbuster, but it's very well made and entertaining. I could nitpick the movie on little things, and certainly did while watching, but it's solid.

The Last Stand... I still don't hate it. I still don't think it's MUCH worse than the first film, and most of the faults I don't believe are due to Brett Ratner. I don't know why he's so vilified, he's a perfectly competent, workmanlike filmmaker. On a scene-by-scene basis, there's really not much overtly BAD about the movie. But it's an hour and twenty minutes of set-up, and then twenty minutes of "final battle" action that the franchise, and certainly the film itself, hasn't earned. There's no real plot that's ever put in motion, and the decision to tackle both the Dark Phoenix story and the cure is baffling, as they have no impact upon one another. In my memory version of the film I had Wolverine stabbing Jean with the cure to stop her from Dark Phoenixing all over the island, but there's not even that. Dude just stabs her with his wrist-knives.

First Class, as I said, I remembered as being a pretty strong film. However watching it with the context of the series fresher in my mind... I didn't really enjoy it too much. I think my primary dissatisfaction stems from the lack of clarity on what it wants to be. It breaks continuity with previous films so frequently that it feels like it's trying to be a reboot, but it's written like a prequel. This is a problem I have with most prequels (looking at you, The Hobbit), where they're not trying to function as an introduction to the world for the benefit of later chronological viewings, they function under the assumption that everybody has already seen the first films. For example Cerebro, they don't explain it nearly as well as X-Men does, because you've seen X-Men and they've already established it. But they change it from being something Xavier and Magneto work on together to something McCoy has already built. And the film is just riddled with things like that. Even the relationships between characters are established through shorthand, but they've so radically changed the nature of those relationships with decisions such as having Mystique and Xavier be essentially foster siblings. It's confused and confusing.

On top of that, the film lacks a genuine throughline in the plot, and so many scenes feel like treading water. Kevin Bacon's hammy brand of villainy is at odds with the work Fassbender and McAvoy are doing. There are so many moments that exist just to tick boxes, like Xavier getting paralyzed. It's messily handled, it comes out of nowhere, it has no impact, and it's wholly unnecessary to the story they're telling. Plus it means the friendship Charles and Erik frequently refer to in the other films lasted all of a week. It's a deeply flawed movie with an amazing cast, stellar production design, and slick direction.

And if I'm being really petty, there are some godawful visual effects in the film.

That was the big surprise of my rewatch, was how far First Class fell. I genuinely think it may be the weakest of the X-Men films. Though now I question the value of the X-Men film franchise overall. Even the spin-offs, Origins was hot garbage and The Wolverine was two-thirds of a great Clint Eastwood film that turned into a Wolfenstein level at the end. And not in a good way.

43

(449 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I never heard of the book, I didn't have any idea that this existed until I saw this trailer five minutes ago.

Is it just me or does this look REALLY fucking awesome? Of course, I haven't seen any films from the "Liam Neeson pursues and kills somebody" genre, not even the first Taken, so maybe it just seems fresher to me.

44

(255 replies, posted in Creations)

Cool! If you send me the script I can get it knocked out later tonight. Or is it somewhere back in the thread?

45

(255 replies, posted in Creations)

I'll do Jimmy if you're looking for somebody. I'm on day 2 of a four day weekend here, I've got nothing but time at the moment.

46

(65 replies, posted in Off Topic)

I wholeheartedly second this motion.

I read Teague's post this morning and it's been stewing in my head ever since. I haven't seen the Roland Emmerich Godzilla, or the Gareth Edwards one yet, though I'm kind of excited to do so sometime next week. I honestly kind of think the ship has sailed on Godzilla being truly scary to a degree. Godzilla and his monster battles break buildings, and we've made ourselves immune to that by doing it so much in the past decade. Unfortunately that seems to be kind of all he can be.

My first thought, and this is just sort of flow of consciousness at the moment, is to take it as far away from that as possible. If we can't frighten people with the spectacle of large scale destruction anymore, then I think it should be the fear of isolation. I've struggled to come up with a way to do that with Godzilla, this is the best I have so far.

A group of scientists are exploring these previously uncharted caverns. This is kind of a typical place to start one of these movies, where they either find Godzilla and he breaks free to go cause his mayhem, but we're going to be here for the entire movie. After we set-up our characters and their mission, an "earthquake" very quickly shuts off the only known exit. They can't contact anybody on the outside, so they decide the only thing to do is to go deeper into the caverns and look for a way out.

One of them has been 127 Hoursed by the cave-in, so they leave one of their group with him. There's no cell reception, but they have walkie talkies. The majority of the group goes out and explores the caverns, occasionally thinking they hear roars and such, but it's so quiet and indistinct they can't be certain. The two back at the cave-in site maintain a constant presence by asking questions and making jokes over the radio. The healthy one will report on the deteriorating status of the James Franco now and again. Probably the group finds some unexplainable goo, because that's the kind of thing you do in these movies. Then there's another earthquake, and they hear largely unintelligible screaming and exclamations over the walkie talkies.

The group at large returns to the cave-in site, and finds nothing of their two companions but the crushed arm or leg still pinned under the rock. So now they know there's a creature in here with them and they need to make their way out post-haste. The location would be this collection of vast caverns connected by tunnels of various sizes, ranging from small enough that our heroes have to crawl through to fucking massive.

The tension comes from the sound of roars growing more pronounced in the distance, the sound of footsteps, the recurring "earthquakes." The occasional run-in with Godzilla consists of an arm or a jaw struggling and snapping at them in the smaller tunnels from one of the larger caverns. They can catch site of the occasional tussle through a crack or something. But we never get a good look, we never see Godzilla or what he's fighting.

Until the third act, where the shit hits the fan and we meet our action quota. The explorer team makes it into this MASSIVE, beautiful cavern. Shortly thereafter Godzilla and his enemy appear, the enemy being this gigantic prehistoric hornet-type creature. So they're duking it out, and our heroes can see this dim shaft of light at the top of the cavern, that's of course their way out. They have to rock climb their way up to this opening WHILE Godzilla's fighting Hornet Mothra, so the walls are crumbling, they're constantly falling and slipping and losing purchase, all connected so one will drag others with them, in this crazy vertical action sequence with a monster battle as a backdrop/instigating force.

They finally make it into the opening, only to realize they're not out of the woods yet, this is just the hornet monster's labyrinthine, honeycomb-esque home base. He's seen them entering and isn't having it, so they have to make it up this series of winding, narrow tunnels WHILE being pursued by hornet monster, who is in turn pursued by Godzilla, whose actions are constantly threatening to bring the whole house down.

It's hard to succinctly explain the third act, but it looks hella cool in my head.

That's all I've got at the moment and I totally made most of it up as I went along. I know I don't have characters or theme, and probably I'm violating everything Godzilla has ever stood for, but that was the first
thing to come to mind.

EDIT: Couple of thoughts I had as I turned this over in my head after posting. Probably they should notice the opening and start their climb BEFORE the monsters show up fighting, because you'd be crazy to not wait them out. This also gets you a moment where they can be halfway up and they hear the approaching roars and footsteps and they're like "Seriously with this?" But now they're committed and HAVE to continue during the fight.

Also possibly, the Hornet monster could come OUT of the hole to establish it as his home that he's defending from Godzilla. And if the pudding wanted to be really overegged, the nest could have baby hornet monsters in it that the humans have to fight off with pickaxes and whatnot as they make their escape. Like the whatevers in Cloverfield.

48

(65 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Holy shit. Tonight's episode was easily the best yet. That was incredibly unnerving.

49

(65 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Totally agree. This season is building in such an unexpected way, but every move feels so calculated and correct. SO stoked to hear they finally got picked up for a third today.

Outstanding performances tonight. Michael Pitt is doing terrific work as Mason Verger, and the first scene where Hannibal and Will discuss Abigail was some of their strongest work to date.

50

(65 replies, posted in Off Topic)

Doctor Submarine wrote:

If it's any consolation, the show has diverged radically from the books, so it's unlikely that anything meaningful will get spoiled by them. The Vergers are taken from the book after Silence of the Lambs, for example.

Well, that's true, but

Hannibal the shitty movie and probably later episodes of this season Show
Mason in Hannibal has an origin story that dates back to before Hannibal was locked up, so pre-Red Dragon. And we're probably going to see a version of the flashback scene from that film soon, and without the annoying slow shutter speed photography.