Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion...

Sure, Donnie Darko won't be everyone's cup of tea, but it's worth checking out. If you don't mind sci-fi with a dose of Lynchian surrealism, I highly recommend it.

I used to like Deep Blue Sea quite a bit, but seeing it again a few months ago made me realize I personally don't think it holds up as well as I thought it did. I guess if you look at it as more of an expensive B-movie it works better. Still I think it's kind of empty in a way. Familiar story beats but not enough personality. I think Deep Rising is a better example of that kind of film, it's more playful and I think it suits it better.

Deep Blue Sea has Tom Jane though which it definitely has going for it.

Last edited by TechNoir (2013-12-12 18:26:02)

Not sure I've ever seen all of Brain Donors, but I know I've seen some of it.

Is there a sight gag where one of the characters crosses his fingers and they're all twisted up in an impossible way?

Is there a franchise that goes on for more than three films that that isn't true of?   About the only counter-example I can think of is Harry Potter, because they're all based directly on a series of books by one author.
And to a lesser extent, the Bond series.   

Aside from those, most every long-running franchise is just a series of attempts by various people to wring more money out of a brand in whatever way they think will work.

Didn't hate it, liked a lot about it - mostly the period re-creations.  Coupla good jokes, Emma Thompson is fun and Hanks Hankses as good as always. 

Obviously a Disney movie isn't going to take a warts-and-all approach to a Disney story... I was a bit surprised how far they did go with showing that not everything was perfect during the making of Poppins.  But ultimately the movie couldn't seem to decide if it wanted be cynical or uplifting, and ends up neither/nor.   

Mostly it made me think how Disney is lucky that their studio looks almost exactly as it did when Walt roamed there - it makes an ideal location for a movie about Disney history.  Maybe they should use this as the start of a Hanks-as-Walt franchise.  Next Christmas:  the hilarious tale of Walt's struggle to make The Adventures of Bullwhip Griffin.

Not that I am a horror fan, so I really am not qualified to comment, but I agree on this one. It is like the series either feels need the need to ramp up the shock value or it retreads the same tropes and hoping we don't notice.

Like Trey said, that is true of many franchises, but horror rests so much on either shock or ick, so, one way or the other, the ante gets upped every time.

Or, we get Repo: the Genetic Opera.

(1992 Theatrical Cut) 9/10

6.5/10

It's important to note that in most cases, the creator was against the idea of a franchise. The first Elm Street ended with Freddy Dead, before the studio-mandated last shot, both John Carpenter and Sean Cunningham wanted the Halloween and Friday the 13th series to be anthologies, etc. The problem you point out goes back to the original Universal horror films. Usually the only way to keep using a character well is to just say, outright, "fuck continuity". This is the Godzilla and James Bond model, as well as Doctor Who in its previous incarnation. (both Godzilla, in the 90's, and current Who flirted with continuity, to their detriment.)

What an awful poster.

Yes, this is a cinematographic (is that a word?) classic. One of the all time best. It swept every cinematography award in its year. How they shot those candlelight scenes is legendary with those f0.7 Zeiss lenses (originally intended for NASA satellite imagery). In Oblivion, Kosinksi and Miranda used a Sony F65 to shoot that candlelight scene where Morgan Freeman introduces himself, but Barry Lyndon had a unique softness to the equivalent shots (Lyndon with the German mother and baby scene).
Occasionally they show this in revival cinemas in London - if you get a chance to see this on the big screen, then do so. Cinema history.
Otherwise the movie has a few flaws - O'Neal's acting, slow pacing during the second duel, and extremely stiff performances to the point of being stylised. It's often compared to a montage of carefully composed tableaux (like the opening credits sequence to Watchmen).
Pity there's no extras on the DVD or commentary. Would have loved to see some behind-the-scenes.

I'm a big fan of 18th century history (the Enlightenment) and this movie nails the look more than any other.

So long as you go in expecting the exact opposite to shaky-cam and trigger-happy editing. Some knowledge of the Thackeray novel it's based upon would help to appreciate the subtleties in the narration, but even if one doesn't have that, you can appreciate it just on a visual level. The gorgeous compositions start right from the opening frame.