Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Rev. Powell]

Hundreds of Beavers - A quasi silent semi animated black and white madcap comedy film.  Pretty bonkers, genuinely funny, very creative, lots of good running gags.  Totally worth a watch. 

I haven't seen it all the way through (I tried to zip through a screener 30 minutes before an interview), but everyone I know who's seen it has raved about it. No one didn't like it. I am going to sit down and watch it all the way through before the year's out for sure.

[lester1/2jr]

Killing Of A Sacred Deer (2017) - This may be the real "see it then go insane movie" that Antrum and Cigarette Burns were trying to approximate. As a weird foreign film, it probably wouldn't have raised too many eyebrows. As a big budget picture with an A list cast ( Colin Farrell, Nicole Kidman, Alicia Silverstone) it feels like there's a hole in the matrix or something. You can easily imagine normies drawn in by the cast going "What the Hell?" at, for example, all the hand job stuff.

Colin Farrell plays the lead role as "more stodgy later era Mel Gibson". As a surgeon, he was unable to save the life (perhaps due to his own error?) of the father of a teen who he is now a friend and mentor to. The problems start when the kid starts to get too attached, even seeking to set the doctor up with his Mom (Alicia Silverstone, whose vegan lifestyle is paying off, still hot ), not to mention the whole homo erotic May December bromance between the two that will either cause you to squirm or squirm with delight depending on your persuasions.

Basically, it's an edgy, sophisticated but confident art house movie given a mainstream makeover and it works. Kind of like how "Closer" (2004) worked with a similar recipe, but it's much bleaker and weirder than that. Lots of 9 and 10 and then 1 and 2 ratings were what drew me in.

5/5

edit: I should have brought up/ compared to Todd Solondz duh

[Dr. Whom]

Legend (1985)

A demon wants to kill the last unicorn to plunge the world into eternal night. Can a nature boy and a princess save the day?

This is another instance of a perfectly good plan being ruined by disastrous understaffing. If Darkness had employed, say, a dozen half decent henchmen, none of this would have happened. Now he has to entrust a key part of his plan to three bumbling goblins, and leave his stronghold essentially unguarded, so any intruder has the run of the place. Invest in your underlings, that is what I say.

One wonders who this is made for. The simple linear plot and even simpler characters make it something for young kids, yet it is strangely dark and creepy. Make up and prosthetics are top notch and Tim Curry has the best demonic laugh in cinema, but these can't make up for the lightweight script.

[zombie no.one]

LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971)

First time viewing of a title that I've been aware of since forever. fits nicely into that late 60s-early 70s horror style like ROSEMARY'S BABY and DON'T LOOK NOW... effortlessly more unsettling than any modern horrors. few moments genuinely creeped me. Zohra Lampert (Jessica) what a babe. couldn't take my eyes off her, but a very ego-free performance as well. not vain

[Gabriel Knight]

Legend (1985)

A demon wants to kill the last unicorn to plunge the world into eternal night. Can a nature boy and a princess save the day?

This is another instance of a perfectly good plan being ruined by disastrous understaffing. If Darkness had employed, say, a dozen half decent henchmen, none of this would have happened. Now he has to entrust a key part of his plan to three bumbling goblins, and leave his stronghold essentially unguarded, so any intruder has the run of the place. Invest in your underlings, that is what I say.

One wonders who this is made for. The simple linear plot and even simpler characters make it something for young kids, yet it is strangely dark and creepy. Make up and prosthetics are top notch and Tim Curry has the best demonic laugh in cinema, but these can't make up for the lightweight script.

I believe there's two cuts of this movie, one which has a more "adult" plot. I honestly don't remember which one I watched, I do remember enjoying it tho.

[Gabriel Knight]

THE STRANGERS (2008)

A young couple staying in an isolated vacation home are terrorized by three unknown assailants.

Oh man, this film was unbelievable. It's like they took all the clichés of horror movies, put them together into a blender, and then threw them into a poorly conceived story in which the main characters are a bunch of hysterical morons. The sad thing is that they're not even stupid funny like in FRIDAY THE 13TH, where they're supposed to act idiotic so we cheer as they get disposed of. No, THE STRANGERS takes itself very seriously, supposedly mimicking a real-life situation, and yet we have things like victims splitting apart for no reason, girl twisting her ankle, the phone won't work, bad people with scary masks, a friend mistaken for a bad guy, jump scares, false jump scares, and the list goes on and on.

Non-existent soundtrack, random sound effects meant as cheap shocks, and worst of all, the movie has shaky camera for its entire run, as if a drunk chimpanzee filmed it. I almost vomited. Make sure you have Dramamine ready before watching this film - or better yet, don't watch it at all.

2/10 I gave it an extra star because at one point I managed to get a glimpse of Liv Tyler's legs.

[lester1/2jr]

Mother (2017) - It was hard to get lost in this movie as it was just so strange and unbelievable, but it was entertaining enough and I watched it in one night. In contrast, I was previously on my second or third night of "Holocaust 2000" and eventually just gave up.

Jennifer Lawrence is a submissive/ traditional sort of wife (this is taken to ridiculous extent) who is re-doing her massive house while her husband has writer's block. Her husband is so desperate for attention that he invites some random couple looking for a bed and breakfast to basically live with them. J Law not standing up for herself becomes basically a running joke. It's too insane to be taken seriously. More and more people show up and tear up the couple's house and the husband seems to not mind.

The whole thing feels like, awkwardly, an ego trip for the writer /director Darren Aronofsky who is a fairly prominent director but not particularly famous and wouldn't be recognized really anywhere. I was annoyed at having to imagine what the various things represented, rather than driven by curiosity to discover their meaning. I gather it's some sort of abstract take on the life of a successful creative type.

If you just take it as face value though, it's a wacky ride with some creepy stuff and solid performances. "Life ain't nothing but a funny funny riddle" isn't that what John Denver taught us?

4.45 / 5


edit: Yeah I missed ALL of this https://collider.com/mother-movie-explained/ (<---- spoilers)

[Trevor]

YouTube clips of THE DEVIL RIDES OUT 😳

[Trevor]

Three Dangerous Ladies (1977) with Sir John Hurt.

[Rev. Powell]

"Universum Brdecka" (2017): Documentary about the life of Czech writer/cartoonist/director Jirí Brdecka , as seen mostly through his daughter's eyes. Makes the mistake of assuming its subject is more interesting than his work (which is very interesting, but subsidiary here to biographical details). Included as an extra on the Brdecka-written "Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians" Blu-ray. 2/5.

[zombie no.one]

AIRPLANE 2

rehashes just about every single gag from the first movie, with almost surreal lack of variation... you know exactly where each joke is going. works better as some kind of uncalled-for parody of the first one, than as a comedy in its own right (which it fails at).

[lester1/2jr]

Possessor (2020) - I really enjoyed this effort from David Cronenberg's son Brandon. It's got a good but conventional sci fi plot about an assassin who takes over peoples brains to commit the perfect crime (using technology) but also some Cronenberg family weirdness going on.

I remember once I was in the parking lot of Whole Foods and there was a shopping cart moving across the parking lot. I assumed it was some sort of radar controlled system Whole Foods had devised to keep track of their carts. The person I was with informed me that no, it was actually just the wind blowing the cart. Similarly, The idea of some nefarious group being able to take over a person's body, do a crime, then leave seems not at all far fetched to me.

What if they took over a person's body then lost the connection though, like with a phone? That would suck for them and also be pretty confusing for the person being taken over. Thus, we have the movie's tension. You also have to be able to play the person believably.

so the plot is fantastical, but realistically so.

"What if they ask them about some childhood memory" yeah exactly, but don't worry about that.

5/5 I think there is an uncut version? I would like to see that because I definitely missed some stuff, as usual. very cool beans though

[Rev. Powell]

5/5 I think there is an uncut version?

It's a little bit of sex and violence that was cut for an "R" rating. I only saw the uncut version, can't really say how impactful the changes were.

[RCMerchant]

LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971)

First time viewing of a title that I've been aware of since forever. fits nicely into that late 60s-early 70s horror style like ROSEMARY'S BABY and DON'T LOOK NOW... effortlessly more unsettling than any modern horrors. few moments genuinely creeped me. Zohra Lampert (Jessica) what a babe. couldn't take my eyes off her, but a very ego-free performance as well. not vain

I love this movie. One of the 70's best.

[RCMerchant]

KILL, BABY, KILL! (1966)
Mario Bava's classic tale of supernatural death, witchcraft, and ghostly gothic, is IMHO, the BEST gothic horror film of all time, hands down.
A mysterious ghost of a young girl giggles and kills by peering into the doomed soul's windows.
Bava's camara go's wild in this lush looking film. Don't miss it! It's on TUBI. I have it on an old washed up Sinister Cinema vhs as well.