TODAY I WATCHED (TV-series, Movies, Cinema Playlists) 2013

The best part of Devil is the opening credit sequence. Love the upside down helicopter shots and the music is quite effective as well. It's your average **1/2 low budget thriller.

S.D. wrote:

The best part of Devil is the opening credit sequence.  Love the upside down helicopter shots and the music is quite effective as well.  It's your average **1/2 low budget thriller.

Agreed; that was mesmerizing. At first I thought Netflix had screwed up the orientation.

Dredd

Not bad. Tight little moderately-budgeted adaptation with an engaging script and a penchant for the visceral. The violence and Karl Urban's Dredd is reminiscent of many an 80's action title. Unfortunately the direction is pretty stock stuff outside of the slo-mo scenes--which are beautiful and tedious at the same time--and Dredd has zero character. He is written as a robot without a past or motive. Never read the comics; perhaps the same holds true there. It's not great but it's a fun ride and much better than the Stallone vehicle. Still wondering when we're gonna get a Dredd movie with Anthrax's I Am the Law inserted somewhere. You'd think it would be almost obligatory.

Watching now: AHS Coven. Boiling semen, incest, and bestiality. I thought Asylum was OTT; this one I can't even take seriously lol.

Big Bang Theory

Hot Fuzz


Watched this years ago when it was new and recall it being kinda disappointing after the awesome 'Shaun of the Dead'. Watched it again the other night and I gotta say it fared waaaayyy better this time around. Funny stuff.

The World's End is even better, easily my favorite of the three (even though I love all of them).

S.D. wrote:

The World's End is even better, easily my favorite of the three (even though I love all of them).

Yea, I'm looking foward to that one. I assume that one will be out shortly on-demand, due to cable running Hot Fuzz and Shaun fairly often as of late.

Pawn Stars

MetalGuy71 wrote:

S.D. wrote:

The World's End is even better, easily my favorite of the three (even though I love all of them).

Yea, I'm looking foward to that one. I assume that one will be out shortly on-demand, due to cable running Hot Fuzz and Shaun fairly often as of late.

It's a little more low-key than the first two but I think you'll definitely enjoy it, one of the more intelligent films I saw this year.

corplhicks wrote:

Dredd

Not bad. Tight little moderately-budgeted adaptation with an engaging script and a penchant for the visceral. The violence and Karl Urban's Dredd is reminiscent of many an 80's action title. Unfortunately the direction is pretty stock stuff outside of the slo-mo scenes--which are beautiful and tedious at the same time--and Dredd has zero character. He is written as a robot without a past or motive. Never read the comics; perhaps the same holds true there. It's not great but it's a fun ride and much better than the Stallone vehicle. Still wondering when we're gonna get a Dredd movie with Anthrax's I Am the Law inserted somewhere. You'd think it would be almost obligatory.

Or Dark Angel's Darkness Descends.

Required Fields wrote:

corplhicks wrote:

Dredd

Not bad. Tight little moderately-budgeted adaptation with an engaging script and a penchant for the visceral. The violence and Karl Urban's Dredd is reminiscent of many an 80's action title. Unfortunately the direction is pretty stock stuff outside of the slo-mo scenes--which are beautiful and tedious at the same time--and Dredd has zero character. He is written as a robot without a past or motive. Never read the comics; perhaps the same holds true there. It's not great but it's a fun ride and much better than the Stallone vehicle. Still wondering when we're gonna get a Dredd movie with Anthrax's I Am the Law inserted somewhere. You'd think it would be almost obligatory.

Or Dark Angel's Darkness Descends.

Darkness Descends is about Judge Dredd? I had no idea.

Smackdown

Children of the Corn.

So why does everyone hate on this so much? Yeah there's nothing logical about the setup, and there is no gore to speak of (the movie's R rating shows just how much our standards have changed these days...), but here I watched this during lunch and planned to shut it off ten or 20 minutes in, and I end up watching the whole thing. There is a lot of padding in the scenes of the two leads running around, and the whole affair is pretty incoherent, but the acting is very good (Linda Hamilton is at her hottest in this one) and it's kind of a fun little ride. Minimalism at its finest. I have to say too that the cinematography is a notch above most flicks of the day (I'm looking at you, f*cking Cujo).

TIL Stephen King's original story was a mere 15-page short with a twist/downer ending that was nixed here.

Oblivion. Amazing design work and cinematography, and a 'jigsaw puzzle' type plot which I loved. Not a great film, but a really enjoyable one for me.

corplhicks wrote:

Children of the Corn.

So why does everyone hate on this so much? Yeah there's nothing logical about the setup, and there is no gore to speak of (the movie's R rating shows just how much our standards have changed these days...), but here I watched this during lunch and planned to shut it off ten or 20 minutes in, and I end up watching the whole thing. There is a lot of padding in the scenes of the two leads running around, and the whole affair is pretty incoherent, but the acting is very good (Linda Hamilton is at her hottest in this one) and it's kind of a fun little ride. Minimalism at its finest. I have to say too that the cinematography is a notch above most flicks of the day (I'm looking at you, f*cking Cujo).

TIL Stephen King's original story was a mere 15-page short with a twist/downer ending that was nixed here.

Dude I love this film!! Usually there are three things that turn me on to a movie

* Great story
* Amazing cinematography
* Murderous devil worshiping pre pubescent hillbillies.

Children of the Corn has at least one of these!!  

Boris2008 wrote:

corplhicks wrote:

Children of the Corn.

So why does everyone hate on this so much? Yeah there's nothing logical about the setup, and there is no gore to speak of (the movie's R rating shows just how much our standards have changed these days...), but here I watched this during lunch and planned to shut it off ten or 20 minutes in, and I end up watching the whole thing. There is a lot of padding in the scenes of the two leads running around, and the whole affair is pretty incoherent, but the acting is very good (Linda Hamilton is at her hottest in this one) and it's kind of a fun little ride. Minimalism at its finest. I have to say too that the cinematography is a notch above most flicks of the day (I'm looking at you, f*cking Cujo).

TIL Stephen King's original story was a mere 15-page short with a twist/downer ending that was nixed here.

Dude I love this film!! Usually there are three things that turn me on to a movie

* Great story
* Amazing cinematography
* Murderous devil worshiping pre pubescent hillbillies.

Children of the Corn has at least one of these!!  

lol Certainly the last one, somewhat the middle one, and the first one is a complicated one. I did enjoy the sunset lighting and the wide shots of the rural town; I really thought it was going to be a cut and dry look. As for the story, it really is stupid as one immediately asks how the outside world knows nothing about this deserted town ruled by kids. Surely the lack of a census would have the state a bit concerned?

Doesn't matter though. I thought the movie was fun. Glad someone else did.

The Relic.

Good God. 90% of this movie is complete darkness.

I've always been a fan of director Peter Hyams' earlier work such as Capricorn One, Outland, and especially 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Ever since he came out of retirement, though, he seems to have lost grip on any personalized style...except for one thing. Hyams is one of the few working directors who acts as his own DOP, and takes this a step further by exclusively depending on natural light for every shot. This worked in his earlier work well, with a lot a refraction and surface texture enhancing his use of wide shots and full house staging. This causes problems here, however. The Relic, like many other movies of the 90's, was shot using Eastman EXR film stock. The benefit to this stock was greater detail in muted colors along with a fine grain saturation for heightened realism like in Seven and Shawshank Redemption. The complication with EXR was that it was a low-speed emulation, which meant that additional lighting had to be rigged to provide clarity. The point of all this is that Hyams' natural lighting most likely was not well received by the EXR stock, which resulted in one of the murkiest, darkest movies I've ever seen. Everything that happens is so dimly lit that, even with my HDTV's brightness cranked up, none of it can be discerned. It may be innovative to have a sequence lit only by a few flashlights held by the actors, but in this case it was a really bad decision.


Most of the film's deaths are decapitations, which gets old but doesn't matter because you can't f*cking see them. Also first half of film is tedious setup with paper thing characters; I had to fight sleep. In the end, a waste of time, and it's hard to call it a bad movie because I couldn't f*cking see if it was or not.

"Relic" was a great book... The movie was a poop sandwich.

Last night I watched two seasonally appropriate documentaries on Netflix: Nightmares in Red, White and Blue and American Grindhouse.



Nightmares traces the history of American horror films from the silent era to the present day, while Grindhouse explores the world of seamy, low budget, violent-n-sexy independent films (and the run-down, inner city theatres which played them) whose hey day lasted from the '30s through the 70s.
Both docs were packed with tons of clips from classic and not-so-classic films (lots of gore and boobies!!) and comments from genre film luminaries like Larry 'It's Alive' Cohen, William 'Maniac Cop' Lustig, John 'Halloween' Carpenter, Joe 'Gremlins' Dante, Roger Corman, and many more. Educational and entertaining!!!

Alien

The ultimate in sci-fi horror. This one never gets old. It has a great story filled with tension and one of the coolest monsters to grace the screen.

007 wrote:

Alien

The ultimate in sci-fi horror. This one never gets old. It has a great story filled with tension and one of the coolest monsters to grace the screen.

My first scary movie experience at age seven. Couldn't sleep for a week. My favorite, though most heavily maligned and abused, sci-fi franchise to this day.

Caught up on DVR:

Agents Of Shield
Modern Family
South Park
Revolution

Agents of Shield
The 4400

Currently watching Texas Tech vs Oklahoma.

I used to be completely indifferent to OU until I met a guy at work who was an ardent (and arrogant), obnoxious Oklahoma fan. Now I root against The Sooners in anything.

Go Horned Frogs!

Getting ready to watch the World Series Game 3.

For some reason I find it funny that Fox will be switching coverage of the Texas Tech/OU game to Fox News Channel so they can cover the World Series on "Big Fox".

This is a helluva game between TT and OU; it the Cards weren't in the WS I'd probably switch over to FNC.