Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Dr. Whom]

Painted Skin: The Resurrection (2012)

A fox spirit imprisoned in the ice escapes after 500 years and needs someone to give her his heart in order to become human. At the same time a princess who is supposed to be married off to a barbarian prince but who is in love with a general guarding the border tries to escape her fate. Perhaps they can work something out, but it turns out the barbarians have plans of their own.

This is a sequel to the original Painted Skin which I haven't seen. This one is your basic par for the course Chinese action/fantasy movie. It has got everything you expect, without being exceptional. Although it is not really a low budget movie, it is a bit too ambitious for the means at its disposal, so you sometimes feel let down by the production values. Entertaining, nevertheless.

[Gabriel Knight]

UNFORGIVEN (1992)

Retired Old West gunslinger William Munny (Clint Eastwood) reluctantly takes on one last job, with the help of his old partner Ned Logan (Morgan Freeman) and a young man, The "Schofield Kid" (Jaimz Woolvett).

SPOILERS ALERT

Man, this movie was a disappointment. I'm not much into westerns, but nevertheless I recently decided to watch the "dollars trilogy", and boy did I loved it. So coming into this modern take on the genre, and with a cast like that, I was expecting a great movie, but sadly it was quite the boring drama which did nothing for me.

First, the direction. I usually love Clint Eastwood's movies, but this one was rather bland. Everything was too clean and polished for such a harsh time, if you watch the Sergio Lione movies, everyone was dirty, sweaty, and had bad teeth. The shooting scenes are few, short, and nonsensical, extremely far away from the awesomeness of the movies of old - how the hell did Little Bill didn't shoot Munny after he took down the bartender, I will never know.
It has too many rainy scenes, which are dark and murky. It's cool to have action scenes in the rain (as unoriginal they are), but this one goes too far. It takes two hours to get to the last and pretty much only fight, but by that time I was almost snoring. I know there's at least two more shootouts, but they're not between two sides, more from one to another and then running away. I was expecting a cool duel like the times of old, but the movie was trying to steer away from the epicness of those scenes, because killing is bad or something about that.

Now, the script. I understand that they were trying to take on the cowboys as more real human beings, with their own problems and weights in their souls, but this one is simply lame. It's like everyone's Mother Teresa or something. Most of the characters are huge cliches: prostitutes with hearths of gold, a hot-shot kid who lie about how many men he killed to impress others, a ruthless sheriff, and so on. The town was hilarious because not only was compossed by a couple of houses, but it seemed to have more security than actual people living in it. At the end I couldn't care much about anyone, not even Munny, because his dialog was always the same: "oh woe is me, I did bad things in the past", "my wife straigthened me up", "ain't gonna drink or kill anyone else", then proceeds to get drunk and kill everyone because his friend died.

Overall, it's not a bad movie. I understand what they were trying to do, but sadly I felt bored and couldn't care about anyone. Perhaps I needed to be in a different state of mind, right now I want closeups of squinting eyes and hands reaching for guns. 6/10 

[zelmo73]

Two things:

UNFORGIVEN (1992)

It has too many rainy scenes, which are dark and murky.

If you can, buy the 4K version of the movie if you have a 4K HDR TV. The HDR clears up the dark scenes quite a bit, and the 4K detail cleans up the crap resolution that you would otherwise get on a DVD.

Overall, it's not a bad movie. I understand what they were trying to do, but sadly I felt bored and couldn't care about anyone. Perhaps I needed to be in a different state of mind, right now I want closeups of squinting eyes and hands reaching for guns.

If you had watched it in 1992 when it was first released, then you might have looked at the movie differently. We had crap for western movies in the late '80s and early '90s. The best one out of that era was Quigley Down Under (1989). Otherwise we had bargain bin movies like Young Guns (1988) and Young Guns II (1990) to put up with. It wasn't until a year after Unforgiven (1992) that we finally had an epic western film in Tombstone (1993).

[RCMerchant]

MY FRIEND DAHMER (2017)
This is disturbing. I watched about a half hour and turned the channel. Don't get me wrong- it is a very well made film. But it's real f**ked up and scary as hell.
Has anyone else seen it? Should I watch the rest?


http://youtu.be/jmnuC7tn9D4

[Rev. Powell]

FILM ADVENTURER: KAREL ZEMAN (2015): A documentary about the Czech animator consisting of clips, interviews, and scenes of film students trying to recreate some of his famous practical effects. Zeman's life wasn't particularly interesting, but his art was amazing; this doc will tell you just about everything you need to know, and make you want to hunt down some of the rarer movies. Included on the Criterion Collection Zeman set. 3/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker" (2019)
The latest Star Wars trilogy comes to a close, as Rey finally unravels her mysterious past and the Resistance deals with a newly-revitalized Emperor Palpatine, who has plans to launch an all-new, even more brutal Galactic Empire. As usual, the special effects are first rate and the action zips along at a breakneck pace. Tons of fanboy fun.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Avengers: Endgame" (2019)
It's five years after the "Thanos Snap" that eliminated half of all living things, and the surviving Avengers think they've figured out how to go back in time to un-do the damage. Naturally, ol'  Thanos isn't going to let them do it without a fight. Cue the blasting, zapping, and exploding.
"Endgame's" three hour (!) running time might seem like a bit much (I had to "pause" it around the mid point for a lunch break and to take my dog for a walk), but it never bogs down or gets boring. Thanks to the non stop action and cameos by pretty much every superhero in the Marvel Universe, "Endgame" brings this "phase" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to a mostly-satisfying conclusion.

[Rev. Powell]

SPREE (2020): Obsessed with collecting social media likes, rideshare driver tries to generate followers by livestreaming a murder spree. This satire's insight is almost entirely contained in the one-line synopsis, and although the plot gets wild (after a slow start), there aren't enough laughs or thrills here to recommend. 2/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Spider-Man: Far From Home" (2019)
Picking up after the events of "Avengers: Endgame," Peter Parker/Spider-Man just wants to have a normal summer vacation with no super-hero action. A class trip to Europe sounds like the perfect diversion, but naturally trouble still finds him across the ocean, and he ends up tangling with the illusionist super-villain Mysterio.
Of course, the movie's got plenty of wall to wall action, but it's also quite funny, and its light hearted tone makes a nice counterpoint to the dark-n-serious Endgame.  
Marvel's winning streak continues!

[lester1/2jr]

No Hands on the Clock (1941) - rather likeable if not super ambitious crime- mystery- comedy deal. A just married private investigator gets a case involving a missing guy and his new wife insists on coming along on all the dangerous missions. He'll do something like lock her in their room and go to a bar to do undercover work but he always drinks milk so she'll show up and see the empty glass of milk and know he was there and get mad. She's like Curly from the three stooges always fuming then getting over it quickly.

The comedy works and it moves quickly enough but I wasn't able to follow the mystery. I could never remember who the person was they were talking about so the big reveal was pretty lost on me.


4.25/ 5  I wonder what the porn adaption would be called?

[RCMerchant]

SOCIETY (1989)

A 17 year old boy's rich family are not what the seem. Are the from outer space, or something far more creepier?
Being this a Brian Yunzna movie, don't expect it to all make sense.
Do expect some gruesome Screaming Mad George f/x and twisted humor!

[indianasmith]

SOCIETY (1989)

A 17 year old boy's rich family are not what the seem. Are the from outer space, or something far more creepier?
Being this a Brian Yunzna movie, don't expect it to all make sense.
Do expect some gruesome Screaming Mad George f/x and twisted humor!

The poster alone makes me want to see this movie!

[Alex]

SOCIETY (1989)

A 17 year old boy's rich family are not what the seem. Are the from outer space, or something far more creepier?
Being this a Brian Yunzna movie, don't expect it to all make sense.
Do expect some gruesome Screaming Mad George f/x and twisted humor!

The poster alone makes me want to see this movie!

I rented this one when it first came out on VHS. After my mum watched it she told me I was never to bring something like that into the house again.

[RCMerchant]

SOCIETY (1989)

A 17 year old boy's rich family are not what the seem. Are the from outer space, or something far more creepier?
Being this a Brian Yunzna movie, don't expect it to all make sense.
Do expect some gruesome Screaming Mad George f/x and twisted humor!

The poster alone makes me want to see this movie!

It's on Tubi!

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Babysitter: Killer Queen" (2020)
Sequel to the 2018 Netflix horror comedy hit. Two years after the events of the first "Babysitter," young Cole is having a hellish time in high school and suffering from flashbacks. The girl next door invites him for a weekend at her family's lake house to get his mind off of it, but his undead "friends" from the first film crash the party to finish the ritual they started back then.
The first "Babysitter" wasn't a classic by any means, but at least it was entertainingly dumb. This sequel is mostly just dumb. The cartoonish gore is worth a few chuckles, but otherwise this one is skippable.