Recent viewings

[indianasmith]

BEREAVEMENT (2011) - I just watched this very dark and disturbing horror film earlier in the week.  Without giving away too much of the plot, the basic premise is about  a deranged serial killer who lives in an abandoned slaughter house and abducts and murders young women there, then puts them in a deep freeze in the basement.  He abducts a young boy who suffers from a rare disease that keeps him from feeling any physical pain, even from major injuries.  The psycho takes the boy's invulnerability to pain as a sign that he is some sort of superior being and makes the child his apprentice in murder.
  Five years later, a teenage girl whose parents have died in an accident comes to the country to live with her aunt and uncle.  Her daily jogging takes her past the old slaughterhouse . . . and weirdness ensues.
  I am not easily rattled by horror films, but the ending of this one was downright difficult to watch.  A dark and disturbing picture, but oddly compelling.

[Vik]

The Thing From Another World
Good scifi, especially for its time, but John Carpenter's version is way better.

Brazil
Interesting film. I should give it a second viewing to make my mind up about it.

[Rev. Powell]

SOLARIS (1972): An astronaut on a satellite circling a mysterious planet that may be alive meets, and falls in love with, a hallucinated version of his dead wife.  A unique mix of hard science fiction, arthouse drama and heavy existential symbolism; making it as "sci-fi" movie was writer/director Andrei Tarkovsky's way of getting around Soviet censors who wouldn't allow him to discuss the concept of God.  Warning to anyone who thought 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was "too slow-moving"; Tarkovsky's pacing makes Kubrick look like Michael Bay.  4.5/5.

[Vik]

SOLARIS (1972): An astronaut on a satellite circling a mysterious planet that may be alive meets, and falls in love with, a hallucinated version of his dead wife.  A unique mix of hard science fiction, arthouse drama and heavy existential symbolism; making it as "sci-fi" movie was writer/director Andrei Tarkovsky's way of getting around Soviet censors who wouldn't allow him to discuss the concept of God.  Warning to anyone who thought 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was "too slow-moving"; Tarkovsky's pacing makes Kubrick look like Michael Bay.  4.5/5.

I've been wanting to see some of his films for ages now. Can't find a DVD anywhere, and if I do it's too expensive.

[Rev. Powell]

SOLARIS (1972): An astronaut on a satellite circling a mysterious planet that may be alive meets, and falls in love with, a hallucinated version of his dead wife.  A unique mix of hard science fiction, arthouse drama and heavy existential symbolism; making it as "sci-fi" movie was writer/director Andrei Tarkovsky's way of getting around Soviet censors who wouldn't allow him to discuss the concept of God.  Warning to anyone who thought 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was "too slow-moving"; Tarkovsky's pacing makes Kubrick look like Michael Bay.  4.5/5.

I've been wanting to see some of his films for ages now. Can't find a DVD anywhere, and if I do it's too expensive.

Too bad you don't have Netflix where you are. 

I think STALKER is the best of Tarkovsky's movies, but SOLARIS may be the most accessible.  If you can get past the first forty-five minutes or so, the pace picks up once he actually gets on the spaceship.

[JaseSF]

One Crazy Summer (1986): Hoops McCann (John Cusack) and his misfit friends (Joel Murray as George Calimari, Kristen Goelz as George's little sister Squid Calamari, Bobcat Goldthwait as Egg Stork, Tom Villard as Egg's twin brother Clay Stork and Curtis Armstrong as Ack Ack Raymond) on the island of Nantucket work together to help Hoops newest love interest Cassandra (Demi Moore) in her attempts to save her grandfather's house from falling into the hands of greedy, evil land developers the Beckerstead family.

This was very silly and often stupid but it was also quite funny. I was really surprised by how much I laughed at this one and all the ensuing stupid hijinks that ensues, some of it completely unbelievable yet if you left yourself go and go along with it, it's really quite funny. Best bits involve Bobcat getting trapped in a Godzilla costume and eventually going on a rampage as only Bobcat can do, the car jump, the jaws style mutant dolpin prop attack and the rocket launcher attacks. The Beckersteads also make for great cheesy on-screen villains. *** out of ***** stars.

The Aristocats (1970): A classy family of Parisian cats; Duchess (Eva Gabor) and her three kittens Berlioz (Dean Clark), Marie (Liz English) and Toulouse (Gary Dubin), set to inherit a fortune tries to make their way out of the country and back into their city home, with the unlikely help of a smart and savvy stray tom cat named Thomas O'Malley (Phil Harris), after the jealous butler Edgar, who secretly wants the fortune all to himself, tries to dispose of them there.

This was pretty good. A solid, entertaining Disney animated effort albeit perhaps not quite the classic many others are. Still it has some great moments of drama, romance and comedy. It never quite seems to succeed in the suspense department though although it attempts it on a few occasions, one just never gets the feeling our heroes are ever in serious danger even when we should feel that way. Especially funny here though are the two constantly bickering retired army dogs Napoleon and Lafayette who soon set their sights on Edgar and his motorcycle as their next target. Honestly they were what I enjoyed most about this film. *** out of ***** stars.

[JaseSF]

SOLARIS (1972): An astronaut on a satellite circling a mysterious planet that may be alive meets, and falls in love with, a hallucinated version of his dead wife.  A unique mix of hard science fiction, arthouse drama and heavy existential symbolism; making it as "sci-fi" movie was writer/director Andrei Tarkovsky's way of getting around Soviet censors who wouldn't allow him to discuss the concept of God.  Warning to anyone who thought 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY was "too slow-moving"; Tarkovsky's pacing makes Kubrick look like Michael Bay.  4.5/5.

I've been wanting to see some of his films for ages now. Can't find a DVD anywhere, and if I do it's too expensive.

Too bad you don't have Netflix where you are. 

I think STALKER is the best of Tarkovsky's movies, but SOLARIS may be the most accessible.  If you can get past the first forty-five minutes or so, the pace picks up once he actually gets on the spaceship.

SOLARIS is unquestionably one of the greatest science fiction films of all-time but yeah it is extremely slow-moving. Definitely more for hard SF fans and those who have a lot of patience and can bear slow-moving films.

[FatFreddysCat]

The wife and I tried to watch "Sucker Punch" tonight, but bailed out on it after about 45 minutes. It's an incomprehensible friggin' mess. Nice eye candy but if there's a narrative in there, I couldn't find it.

Avoid.

[claws]

The Candy Snatchers (1973)

At times odd and off beat crime flick with some black humor and brief violence. Very Grindhouse and very entertaining. 4.5/5

Three... Extremes (2004)

Three tales of the macabre done very artsy, sick, slick and with style. The second story drags but the other two are just amazing. One of the last good Asian horror movies to come out during the J-Horror craze. 4.5/5

[indianasmith]

The wife and I tried to watch "Sucker Punch" tonight, but bailed out on it after about 45 minutes. It's an incomprehensible friggin' mess. Nice eye candy but if there's a narrative in there, I couldn't find it.

Avoid.

Give it another chance.  I found it to be a masterpiece of surrealism, and it is still (as of September) my favorite movie of 2011.

[FatFreddysCat]

The wife and I tried to watch "Sucker Punch" tonight, but bailed out on it after about 45 minutes. It's an incomprehensible friggin' mess. Nice eye candy but if there's a narrative in there, I couldn't find it.

Avoid.

Give it another chance.  I found it to be a masterpiece of surrealism, and it is still (as of September) my favorite movie of 2011.

Well, I went back and watched the rest late last night and it didn't get any better. The action/fantasy scenes were cool, but the stuff in between... zzzzzz..

Zack Snyder has done the impossible -- he took a can't miss prospect (i.e. a zillion dollar action epic STARRING A CAST OF SCANTILY CLAD HOT WOMEN) and somehow managed to make it boring.

Ehh, well, it was RedBox, so I'm only out a buck. Sorry, man, I tried. It just wasn't my thang.

[indianasmith]

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.  My wife hated it, for the record.
As long as you don't start dissin' on the LOTR trilogy, we'll get along just fine!

[FatFreddysCat]

Different strokes for different folks, I suppose.  My wife hated it, for the record.
As long as you don't start dissin' on the LOTR trilogy, we'll get along just fine!

Oh, my wife was HATIN' Sucker Punch. She was the main reason I turned it off at the halfway point (and went back to finish it after she went to sleep)... I couldn't take her running commentary anymore (i.e. "Did I miss something? What is this movie about? Does this movie make ANY sense? What the f*ck is going on?" etc,. etc.) I have a feeling she's going to be bringing that one up every time I complain about a movie she picks out for quite a while. (Me: "Another Twilight movie? Ewww." Wife: "Well, YOU brought home that damn Sucker Punch movie!"

As for the LOTR trilogy, I guess you could say I'm "ambivalent." I don't hate'em but I don't love'em either... I've seen the first two films and though I'll grant that they are beautifully made, they're just not "my" thing either. Is that OK?  

[bob]

4 out of stars 5

[InformationGeek]

X-Men: First Class: It was available on the plane ride back from my vacation.  That was a great movie, despite one shoddy preformance.  Probably the second best comic movie we had this summer (I thought Captain America was better).