What have you been watching? (DVD or Films on TV)

[burlivesleftnut]

Just saw the unreleased (in theaters) French horror film, Inside. This is another Weinstein Bros acquisition that was just kind of dumped onto DVD. Nice to see these guys keeping things the same as they were with Miramax.

Anyhoo, Inside is about a preggers woman who loses her husband in a car accident. 4 months later, it's xmas eve and she's on the cusp of giving birth to her baby. Still bitter after the accident, she decides to spend the night alone... only to be stalked by a mad woman bent on forcing a c-section on our hero so she can take the baby for her own.

One thing comes to mind when I look back on this movie experience:



Don't get me wrong. The movie was kind of scary, but if you are a gorehound you HAVE to see this. It's got some of the best splatter shots I have seen on film in a long time. A huge pair of scissors feature prominently in the movie and they are put to use in all kinds of creative ways. We also get knitting needle porn, self tracheotomy porn, and accidentally kill a loved one porn. A real stand out is the original score for the movie. Definitely creepy and creative.

I wish American's were making horror like France is. Subtitles can be so distracting when you are trying to watch someone's face get flambeted with bug spray.

[tapehead]

I liked it too Burl, the only thing that bothered me were a few moments of jump cut schizo editing that had no point whatsoever. This thread is worth a read too - gales of thick, sticky red blood, women intent upon cutting each other up, lots of psycho-sexual shenanigans - good fun all around.

[RogueScribner]

Rambo

Can you believe I've never seen a Rambo movie before? Well, that's not true. I saw First Blood on TV back in the mid-80's, but I'm sure it was edited all to hell and I barely remember it anyways. So effectively this is the first Rambo movie I've seen. It was okay, I guess. After the first act it's essentially a search-and-rescue movie and things didn't get crazy until the final 20 minutes at which point it was overkill. Julie Benz had nothing to do but look scared/worried after the first 45 minutes. I wasn't really impressed. That being said, the character of Rambo piqued my interest and I think I'll search out the other films in the series.

Click

Harmless and sometimes funny movie that doesn't quite sell the dramatic stuff towards the end. I thought it'd be zanier than it actually was.

Once Upon a Time in the West

I have to face it: though I love Segio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America, I just can't seem to get into his other films. After hearing how great his trilogy of of Westerns were and also OUATITW, I think I just don't get it. Sure, these films have a certain visual flair, and Ennio's Morricone's music is pretty awesome, but dramatically I just don't find myself caring all that much. Maybe it's the genre: I've never been partial to Westerns. I didn't really think any of the films were horrible, but I didn't think they were worthy of much praise either. I gave 'em a shot. I'll just stick with OUATIA in the future.

[Spandau Belly]

Big Trouble In Little China

I watched this DVD having picked it up in the bargain bin last week and am now certain I have never seen it in English or entirely in one viewing. I think I'd only seen bits here and there dubbed in French on television.

It's a pretty funky movie that feels really high budget. It's kinda like an urban version of Temple of Doom, and by urban I mean in a big Western city, not urban like as in black folk. You've got all the staples of your standard John Carpenter movie: Kurt Russel navigating a bizarre landscape trying to rescue somebody, a group of mismatched characters all being pulled together by big supernatural events, comic book fantasy, lotsa action etc.

Like I said, this movie follows the whole Indiana Jones adventure template and also throws in a lot of Ghostbusters type thrills that come from watching a monster or a ghost do something crazy. Since the plot is just a bunch of people running around looking for other people, the entertainment has to come from the wacky shit they encounter along the way and there's definately enough wacky shit to keep me entertained even though some parts inevitably get a little boring and repetative seeing as all these little misadventures along the way are kinda disconnected and don't really serve to build to anything and are more just individually entertaining sequences.

In a way I like the idea of making Kurt Russel the guy you keep expecting to be the hero of the movie be pretty useless, but at the same time it kind cuts the steam out of the movie. I realize that it's funny that he spends most of the action sequences standing around watching or on the floor unconscious, but it's also occasionally frustrating. They've got Kim Catrall in there as the useless chick, and normally in action movies that's fine, but since Kurt Russel is already performing the useless chick duties in this film it makes her even more redundant than regular useless action movie chicks like Erika Eleniak in Under Siege or whatever.

The set design in this movie is amazing. It's very comic booky and some of these sets look like they're out of a Zhang Yimou movie, which makes me want Yimou to do a movie with monsters and ghosts 'n shit.

So overall, I liked this movie for it's non-stop inventive spectacle and goofy ideas.

[Al Shut]

I saw The Balck Dahlia last night and it was better than I was led to believe.

Sure it wasn't actually good, I never had the impression that it managed to form the complex source into something cohessive but it wasn't actually bad or shit or what else some peolpe have said.

[so sorry]

I saw The Balck Dahlia last night and it was better than I was led to believe.

Sure it wasn't actually good, I never had the impression that it managed to form the complex source into something cohessive but it wasn't actually bad or shit or what else some peolpe have said.

I was one of those people... I'll stop short of calling is shit, but it was boring as hell, and I personally don't believe its worth anyone's time.

[Spandau Belly]

If The Black Dahlia isn't garbage, then I don't know what is. I watched it with four friends who hadn't read the book, they were lost right away. The movie just jumps over endless plotpoints without connecting any of the dots. Hartnett's a boxer, gets teeth knocked out, becomes cop, is best friend with partner, partner quickly becomes crazy drug addict, girlfriend has connections to organized crime, dad is crazy old German, Rose McGowan, K.D. Lang as Wayne Newton, jump jump jump. It's like they didn't know what to cut so they decided to try and rush through everything at lightspeed.

At the halfway point when they throw the novel out and just start winging their own story I just couldn't follow it anymore. And the whole end where the mum confesses everything like a "I would've got away with it if it weren't for you meddling kids" scene from Scooby Doo was beyond terrible.

I also think they maybe should've devote more than five minutes to the Black Dahlia case. Maybe that's just me. I dunno.

David Fincher was working on this until they canned him and so he went off and made Zodiac (the second best film of last year) instead because it was another famous unsolved murder case involving the theme of obsessions and so he could just use all the ideas he came up with for Black Dahlia. I'd really love to hear the studio's rational on what they didn't like about Fincher's vision.

[Al Shut]

Well personally I think Zodiac would have benefitted from either more time for the charactes, especially Downey's who becomes an obessed addict pretty quickly too or a more focused, clearer approach to the investigation which (probably very realisticly) goes into a hundred differnt directions at alternating times.

[travis-dane]

The camera work in The Black Dahlia is really good, like in every other DePalma movie, the rest was a letdown.
The acting was okay too, but I had the feeling, that they have cut out various plot points.

[Al Shut]

Compared to the book it was based on, yeah they did

[Spandau Belly]

In Black Dahlia: The Movie they rushed through the first half of the book covering most of the plotpoints and character backgrounds, just not in a meaningful way. Stuff would happen and you'd learn stuff about the characters but none of it ever came back of changed the context of any scene.

In the book, Bucky's background as a boxer and as a German American played into several scenes, they left that stuff in the movie, but it just served no purpose. Hartnett might as well have just been a cop from the start with no need to mention his crazy German father or his days as a boxer.

Lee(Eckhart)'s transformation into obsessed drug addict seems to happen completely in between two scenes. And having his character in there at all was kinda pointless since the movie cut the whole middle act of the novel in Mexico where Bucky learns more and more about just how sick the dude was. From that point on the movie realized it couldn't fit the rest of the book into the remaining running time and just made up a new second half to avoid all the Mexico stuff. And I think most of the stuff with the corrupt police force and the Vogels and the German-American community got axed.

The movie mostly just focussed on love triangles and avoided really mentioning the case at all. The book was a lot more like the movie Zodiac turned out. Endless frustrating dead ends and men's lives being ruined by obsession.

[Chris a.k.a StuntMike]

Just watched Dead Bang. John Frankenhiemer directs Don Johnson as loser cop(the guy pukes on a suspect after a hungover footchase) Jerry Beck chasing Nazi killers. This is an odd movie. I see a few Frankenhiemer touches but overall the look is just like the main charecter. Dirty.

And Venus Fucking Flytrap from WKRP is in it. Watch for William Forsythe in one of the most wooden performances ever. Especially compared to his role in Stone Cold, which was a year or two later.

[travis-dane]

Well, looks like I have to read "The Black Dahlia".
There are some hints and pieces of a good story in the movie. Seems to me, the Book has it all.

[DerLanghaarige]

Yesterday I watched The Devil Dared Me To, a comedy about a man who wants to live his childhood dream of being a daredevil stuntman. If this would have been made in...let's say the UK, it would be a nice and sweet movie with lots of "magic moments". But this one is from New Zealand, which means that it's over the top and contains lots of tasteless jokes, from A (for amputation), to...uhm...A (for anal rape). I laughed many times and I laughed hard, but I still know funnier movies. It's worth checking it out anyway.

[The Vicar]

Compared to the book it was based on, yeah they did

Seconded. Snag the book.

[LaDracul]

So far...

"Brokeback Mountain"-I ate pudding while watching. But damn, that was a sad movie for a number of reasons.

"Wedding Crashers"-Very by the book, but still entertaining. Had a cameo by presidential candidate John McCain.

"American Psycho"-Caught it on YouTube. You know, Bateman is one letter away from Batman...

[DerLanghaarige]

The Mist
I liked it. It's pretty much "Best of Darabaont's both worlds", combining his ability to write serious drama (Shawshank) with his ability to write entertaining monster flicks (The Fly 2, The Blob). I just disliked the ending. Not because it's "controversial", more because it's streched out till I didn't care anymore what happens next and Darabont tacked a shameless attent to make the audience cry on it. So the short story had an open ending (as far as I know) and that's okay! There is no need to explain everything in the end, but Darabont couldn't come up with anything better than ANOTHER open ending + "see him cry"?
Good movie anyway.

[Peven]

watched "Gunga Din" this evening, w/ Cary Grant, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, and Sam Jaffe in the title role. i can't believe i have never seen it before now, this is a truly great film. a MUST see for anyone who claims to love cinema, imo. now i know where Spielberg got his inspiration for at least part of Temple of Doom, too. i can see this being remade today, by the right people, and it being a smash with both critics and fans.


give it to Gore Verbinski and he'll nail it, imo

[caruso_stalker217]

Recently watched BLACK RAIN for the first time. One of the few Ridley Scott movies I actually like. Pretty badass, headbutts, decapitation, Japanese people, etc.

[Peven]

Recently watched BLACK RAIN for the first time. One of the few Ridley Scott movies I actually like. Pretty badass, headbutts, decapitation, Japanese people, etc.

yeah, i can't resist a movie with Japanese people in it...

[Spandau Belly]

Recently watched BLACK RAIN for the first time. One of the few Ridley Scott movies I actually like. Pretty badass, headbutts, decapitation, Japanese people, etc.

yeah, i can't resist a movie with Japanese people in it...

I've had Japanese people in me, could you resist that?

[burlivesleftnut]

I saw Rogue last night. I really appreciated the travelogue portions at the beginning which showcased Australia's Northern Territory. I don't think I have ever seen such a beautiful place. Of course it looked pretty desolate when you got away from the water, but still would love to do some sightseeing there someday.

Oh and then there was the movie. It was okay, but more characters should have died because they were all really annoying except for the two leads, but for a man vs. nature story it wasn't bad. The croc effects at the end were really well done. I'd give this probably a 6/10.

[RogueScribner]

Vacancy

It was almost a good movie. Solid performances from Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale. Frank Whaley was pretty one-note and Ethan Embry was barely in the movie. It was pretty character focused in the beginning, then the 2nd act introduced the creepy weirdness of the motel and it turned into a bit of a survival tale (what would you do under pressure, etc.). Unfortunately, the 3rd act pretty much kills it. It's not awful, but it's pretty standard stuff for a thriller/horror movie. The bad guys were never really developed so there was no catharsis when they were killed off and the two leads didn't really reach a dramatic climax. In fact, the movie had a bit of a non-ending. It just pretty much stopped after the final bad guy was killed. It lacked punctuation. I think if the baddies were developed a bit more and the third act was rewritten to pay off the dramatic as well as thriller aspects of the story, this could have been a really good movie. As it is, it's just okay.

[Chairman Kaga]

The Mist
I liked it. It's pretty much "Best of Darabaont's both worlds", combining his ability to write serious drama (Shawshank) with his ability to write entertaining monster flicks (The Fly 2, The Blob). I just disliked the ending. Not because it's "controversial", more because it's streched out till I didn't care anymore what happens next and Darabont tacked a shameless attent to make the audience cry on it. So the short story had an open ending (as far as I know) and that's okay! There is no need to explain everything in the end, but Darabont couldn't come up with anything better than ANOTHER open ending + "see him cry"?
Good movie anyway.

The ending of the short story is mush worse cinematiclly than what Darabont did.

[caruso_stalker217]

The Mist
I liked it. It's pretty much "Best of Darabaont's both worlds", combining his ability to write serious drama (Shawshank) with his ability to write entertaining monster flicks (The Fly 2, The Blob). I just disliked the ending. Not because it's "controversial", more because it's streched out till I didn't care anymore what happens next and Darabont tacked a shameless attent to make the audience cry on it. So the short story had an open ending (as far as I know) and that's okay! There is no need to explain everything in the end, but Darabont couldn't come up with anything better than ANOTHER open ending + "see him cry"?
Good movie anyway.

The ending of the short story is mush worse cinematiclly than what Darabont did.

I agree. Open endings can work (THE THING is a good example, though it doesn't take much imagination to fill in what happens) but I don't think THE MIST would've worked with one. If they just drove off into the mist at the end I would have been let down because that isn't very satisfying.

Also, the ending wasn't tacked on. As Darabont has said in interviews and on the commentary he had written the ending ten years before he made the movie and that he took it directly from the novella when David thinks about if worst came to worst that he would find a way out for himself because he didn't have enough bullets for everybody.

Personally, I love the ending. I was almost laughing as I was leaving the theater.

[caruso_stalker217]

I just watched NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (hence the signature), since I hadn't bothered to watch it when I bought it two goddamn months ago. I think I like it more each viewing.

[travis-dane]

I watched ANDROID APOCALYPSE, with Chris Jericho and without Japenese people, but with a lot of B-Movie action.
It is a remake of "The Defiant Ones", just instead of Sidney Poitier and Tony Curtis being chained together,they have a Android and some B-Movie dude chained together.
Also, the movie features tons of sand(exploding sand) and many shovels.

[caruso_stalker217]

Is the android a chick and do they have android-human sexual relations?

[Spandau Belly]

Actually Caruso, I saw movie about exactly that last night. It was called:

2046

It was another movie by that Wong Kar Wai dude who made that My Blueberry Nights movie I saw a month ago. Even though I thought Blueberry was mindblowingly cheesy, something made me kinda like it. It felt so sincere in its corniness. And all this Wong guy's fans say it was his worst film and since he usually makes movies in his native China, I was willing to believe he was just out of his element with his first American movie.

Well, 2046 was definately better in that the camerawork wasn't riddled with cheesy dated effects such as that blurry slomo thing that showed up every second shot in Blueberry Nights. 2046 was actually really well shot. The acting was good too, like with Blueberry Nights, this Wong guy loaded the cast with wall to wall hotties and is good at creating jazzy moods.

The story concerns a meloncholy journalist named Mr. Chow in the 1960s who writes sci-fi eroticon, like The Fountain we see both the story of the author and the story itself being acted out. And both are pretty interesting.

But the movie kinda went a little long for my tastes. Mr. Chow's love interests come in and out, and like James Bond, he seems to live in a world where everybody is goodlooking and available to him. He sort of samples their lives with voyeuristic indifference and watches them all either destroy themselves or outgrow their need for him but not physically age over ten years. They all kinda go away, come back, go away again and to me it was all kind of the same and once it got into its final twenty minutes I was really getting bored. Atmosphere and hotties can only go so far. The sci-fi stuff was pretty interesting, but it mostly stopped half an hour before the end.

[LaDracul]

I watched "Army of Darkness" today. Watching a lot of "Xena/Hercules" prior does give you a lot of appreciation for how incredibly batshit crazy the movie is.

Next time, I'm probably going to do a double feature of "Red Riding Hood" (Which I'm probably going to skip through the singing) and "Stardust".

[Raziel]

The 39 Steps (1935). It was free with The Sunday Times (The Lady Vanishes is free with this Saturday's Times, by the way). Very enjoyable, wonderfully shot, and full of wit and vigour. Seeing as it's regarded as a classic I was probably expecting to much, and found some of it a little more frivolous than I had expected, but it's still absolutely top class stuff.

[LaDracul]

Finished "Red Riding Hood"...amusing, but fast-forward through the songs. Some aren't very good. I do give props for the werewolf having a Gollum/Smeagol thing where he has conversations with both sides of his personality, as well as Cassandra Pearson (AKA Elvira) as the Hunter's mom, a victim of wolf-swallowing.

This was also from the guy who directed "Grease". This was better than "Grease", and I really don't care for "Grease". Though it wasn't as good as "Stardust", which is the next one I'll watch tonight.

[DerLanghaarige]

Last Friday I watched Be Kind Rewind and I really loved it. There are not many movies that are such a perfect mix between heart and hilarity. Most other movies that try this turn out to be too corny or too silly. I would really go so far that this movie is in my top 3 of 2008.
8,5/10

[bastard_robo]

THE ENTIRE RUN OF THE SHIELD to catch up before I watch Season 7

[Spandau Belly]

THE SPANISH PRISONER

This is another David Mamet film in the David Mamet sub genre. It involves all the typical Mamet stuff like a big con that only gets bigger, quarky stark dialgoue, and themes of greed, paranoia and loyalty. It was pretty good. Like usual, Mamet is a much better writer than he is a director. The dialogue is great and full of all sorts of awesome little Mamet exchanges. But the visuals were kinda lacking in style. I think his directorial technique has greatly improved since this film seeing as Spartan and Redbelt are both much better looking films, but still, he's not a guy who I'd want to direct somebody else's script and I kinda wish he'd let better directors handle his stuff with Mamet just kinda consulting.

Campbell Scott acts the same way he did in Rodger Dodger, which is to say kinda like an robot of Kyle MacLachlan. And Steve Martin was pretty good as a debonair millionaire Gatsby type. So now that I've seen Redbelt and this, I think Mamet needs to make a movie with Steve Martin and Tim Allen as the leads and get respectable performances from both of them in one good movie, because he seems to be able to write characters for these guys that actually work in an against-the-grain Tarantino style way.

The film is almost Hitchcockian in Scott's portrayal of the main character 'Joe' as your typical Hitchcockian everyman pulled into a giant web of deceit. I could actually see this movie being made forty years earlier with Cary Grant.

So overall a good movie.

And if you haven't seen Redbelt yet, I don't know what you're waiting for.

[Chris a.k.a StuntMike]

Watched The Seven-Ups last night. Kinda like Bullitt, but in New York. And Richard Lynch as the bad guy. And Joe Spinell. Good car chase.

Spartan is worth a rewatch in the next few days.

[instant_karma]

Campbell Scott acts the same way he did in Rodger Dodger, which is to say kinda like an robot of Kyle MacLachlan.

I think that's an almost perfect description of Campbell Scott in this movie.

You probably shouldn't watch too many Mamet movies in a short period of time. I did that once, and am now convinced that Ricky Jay is the Secret Master of the World.

[Chris a.k.a StuntMike]

Campbell Scott acts the same way he did in Rodger Dodger, which is to say kinda like an robot of Kyle MacLachlan.

I think that's an almost perfect description of Campbell Scott in this movie.

You probably shouldn't watch too many Mamet movies in a short period of time. I did that once, and am now convinced that Ricky Jay is the Secret Master of the World.

He is

[bastard_robo]

DerLanghaarige YOUR SIG IS FUCKING HILARIOUS!

[caruso_stalker217]

DerLanghaarige YOUR SIG IS FUCKING HILARIOUS!

Seconded.

[DerLanghaarige]

Thank you.

[bangkoknotorious]

films on demand are the greatest

[bastard_robo]

Watching WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS!!!!


Toho at its finest!

Its part of the AMERICAN EXCHANGE as I call it, as it stars Russ Tamblyn, of Twin Peaks and is the father of Amber Tamblyn of Joan of Arcadia..

Its about two giant Bigfoot like monsters who are brothers. One lives in the sea and eats people, the other is brown and lives in the mountains of japan and is peaceful. As some scientist investigate the Green one, they find out about the brown one (who they thought was originally the green) After the military attacks and wounds the Green one who has been rampaging the coastline of Japan and eating people, the brown comes to the rescue. While the brown is off doing his own thing, the Green monster eats some more people while recuperating. The brown finds the remains of the people he ate and isnt too pleased. This causes the two to have a falling out and the brown tries to stop the green from killing. This leads to one of the GREATEST MONSTER BATTLES EVER in tokyo as the two beat the living hell out of each other with judo flips and street fighting style punches!

[Spandau Belly]

I saw BATMAN RETURNS. I had not seen this film since its initial release when I was a youth and I didn't remember it very well.

All I can say is Holy Shit! This movie is a career high for everybody involved. I think this is the best film I've seen out of Tim Burton and the best performances I've seen from Michelle Pfieffer and Danny DeVito. Normally I dislike Burton's movies because I feel they all go flat half an hour in once he's shown off all his production design and fucked around with a fog machine a few times, but this time he actually built a story with characters with actual relationships and a dynamic that builds over the movie.

I was kinda figuring he'd run out of tricks by the time we were approaching the end and then Danny DeVito starts speechifying like Patton to an army of pneguins with rocket packs strapped on and I practically shit my pants. This movie is a perverse masterpiece. I've seen Burton's other Batman movie a couple of times since a bunch of my friends love it, but now this Batman Returns has got me questioning my friends' taste because it's just so much fucking better. I thought that first Batman didn't have much going for it other than Nicholson being awesome as The Joker, but this one is just great.

Keaton is okay as Batman, they might have done better to pad his shoulders out a bit more but he was convincing enough in the fight scenes and driving the Batmobile. I didn't entirely buy him when he was Bruce Wayne. He just seemed to nice and normal and middleclass and not like the rich privledged son recluse he's supposed to be. But this movie doesn't even have that much of Batman, let alone Bruce Wayne. He pretty much splits the screen time evenly with the villains, who are fascinating. Michelle Pfeiffer is hysterical at the beginning when she's the doormat secretary and then she's scary and sexy as Catwoman. And Danny DeVito summons a lot more gusto then I thought he had in him. I like how his character is still kinda ferral and tries to hump everybody's leg and he sometimes barks and grunts like an animal.

If I have one criticism about the casting, it might be Christopher Walken. I haven't made up my mind, but I think he might be one freak to many in this freakshow. Walken is even less believeable as a smug tycoon than Keaton, Walken seems more like a mad scientist or a serial killer or something and so his alliance with The Penguin doesn't feel as strange as it maybe should. I think maybe a guy like Warren Beatty might've fit better. But again, this movie is fucking great and Walken is always amusing, so this is just a very minor quabble.

So, yeah, consider my mind blown. Great fucking movie.

[caruso_stalker217]

I saw BATMAN RETURNS. I had not seen this film since its initial release when I was a youth and I didn't remember it very well.

All I can say is Holy Shit! This movie is a career high for everybody involved. I think this is the best film I've seen out of Tim Burton and the best performances I've seen from Michelle Pfieffer and Danny DeVito. Normally I dislike Burton's movies because I feel they all go flat half an hour in once he's shown off all his production design and fucked around with a fog machine a few times, but this time he actually built a story with characters with actual relationships and a dynamic that builds over the movie.

I was kinda figuring he'd run out of tricks by the time we were approaching the end and then Danny DeVito starts speechifying like Patton to an army of pneguins with rocket packs strapped on and I practically shit my pants. This movie is a perverse masterpiece. I've seen Burton's other Batman movie a couple of times since a bunch of my friends love it, but now this Batman Returns has got me questioning my friends' taste because it's just so much fucking better. I thought that first Batman didn't have much going for it other than Nicholson being awesome as The Joker, but this one is just great.

Keaton is okay as Batman, they might have done better to pad his shoulders out a bit more but he was convincing enough in the fight scenes and driving the Batmobile. I didn't entirely buy him when he was Bruce Wayne. He just seemed to nice and normal and middleclass and not like the rich privledged son recluse he's supposed to be. But this movie doesn't even have that much of Batman, let alone Bruce Wayne. He pretty much splits the screen time evenly with the villains, who are fascinating. Michelle Pfeiffer is hysterical at the beginning when she's the doormat secretary and then she's scary and sexy as Catwoman. And Danny DeVito summons a lot more gusto then I thought he had in him. I like how his character is still kinda ferral and tries to hump everybody's leg and he sometimes barks and grunts like an animal.

If I have one criticism about the casting, it might be Christopher Walken. I haven't made up my mind, but I think he might be one freak to many in this freakshow. Walken is even less believeable as a smug tycoon than Keaton, Walken seems more like a mad scientist or a serial killer or something and so his alliance with The Penguin doesn't feel as strange as it maybe should. I think maybe a guy like Warren Beatty might've fit better. But again, this movie is fucking great and Walken is always amusing, so this is just a very minor quabble.

So, yeah, consider my mind blown. Great fucking movie.

This is what I like to hear.

[RogueScribner]

BR rulez!

[BuckyO'harre]

Its part of the AMERICAN EXCHANGE as I call it, as it stars Russ Tamblyn, of Twin Peaks and is the father of Amber Tamblyn of Joan of Arcadia..

Twin Peaks,hell



He's Gideon (AKA-"blue shirt") from Seven Brides for Seven Brothers!

Keep your dancin',
and huntin',
and shootin',
and trappin',
'cause we're goin' COURRRRRRTIN'!


I have problems...

many,many problems.

[TonyWilson]

I saw BATMAN RETURNS. I had not seen this film since its initial release when I was a youth and I didn't remember it very well.

All I can say is Holy Shit! This movie is a career high for everybody involved. I think this is the best film I've seen out of Tim Burton and the best performances I've seen from Michelle Pfieffer and Danny DeVito. Normally I dislike Burton's movies because I feel they all go flat half an hour in once he's shown off all his production design and fucked around with a fog machine a few times, but this time he actually built a story with characters with actual relationships and a dynamic that builds over the movie.

I was kinda figuring he'd run out of tricks by the time we were approaching the end and then Danny DeVito starts speechifying like Patton to an army of pneguins with rocket packs strapped on and I practically shit my pants. This movie is a perverse masterpiece. I've seen Burton's other Batman movie a couple of times since a bunch of my friends love it, but now this Batman Returns has got me questioning my friends' taste because it's just so much fucking better. I thought that first Batman didn't have much going for it other than Nicholson being awesome as The Joker, but this one is just great.

Keaton is okay as Batman, they might have done better to pad his shoulders out a bit more but he was convincing enough in the fight scenes and driving the Batmobile. I didn't entirely buy him when he was Bruce Wayne. He just seemed to nice and normal and middleclass and not like the rich privledged son recluse he's supposed to be. But this movie doesn't even have that much of Batman, let alone Bruce Wayne. He pretty much splits the screen time evenly with the villains, who are fascinating. Michelle Pfeiffer is hysterical at the beginning when she's the doormat secretary and then she's scary and sexy as Catwoman. And Danny DeVito summons a lot more gusto then I thought he had in him. I like how his character is still kinda ferral and tries to hump everybody's leg and he sometimes barks and grunts like an animal.

If I have one criticism about the casting, it might be Christopher Walken. I haven't made up my mind, but I think he might be one freak to many in this freakshow. Walken is even less believeable as a smug tycoon than Keaton, Walken seems more like a mad scientist or a serial killer or something and so his alliance with The Penguin doesn't feel as strange as it maybe should. I think maybe a guy like Warren Beatty might've fit better. But again, this movie is fucking great and Walken is always amusing, so this is just a very minor quabble.

So, yeah, consider my mind blown. Great fucking movie.

Oh yes!
Heartily thirded, Batman Returns is some kind of masterpiece. Both BR and The Dark Knight are non-batman Batman films, not that he isn't featured enough or anything like that but because they are true auteur pieces that use Batman as a jumping off point for myriad psychological/political investigations and ideas.

[caruso_stalker217]

I've been watching the original non-jazzed versions of the STAR WARS pictures, having recently purchased them on the DVD format. I had STAR WARS and EMPIRE on VHS but hadn't seen anything but the adulterated versions for a few years. Now I'm riding a pretty bitchin' wave of nostalgia. It's like I'm seven years old again, sitting on my grandfather's bed and watching the entire trilogy on one tape. Except this is on three separate DVDs and I'm a little taller now what with the adulthood and all, so it's really nothing like that. But I'm feeling that old feeling. The feeling you get like when you're watching STAR WARS, I guess. Without having to endure Hayden Christensen's fucking mug or piles of CGI flicked in your eyeballs and taking you out of the movie. So I guess it IS like watching STAR WARS on VHS in your grandfather's bedroom. Or as fucking close as you can get these days.

I'm watching EMPIRE right now. Like most everybody I've always considered it the best of the STAR WARS pictures. But now I'm finally seeing why it is. I mean this is just a great movie. This is what the movies (movies in general, not just STAR WARS, though also STAR WARS) are all about. And it makes me kind of sad/pissed off that the prequels are so goddamn shitty and there is nothing that can be done about it. Those movies are out there forever. They can't be taken back. They can't be replaced with good movies that actually deserve the title STAR WARS. I mean I'm sitting here watching THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and I am completely one hundred percent empathizing with a fucking space sasquatch as he watches his best friend being frozen in carbonite. I can identify with this space sasquatch more than any character in the prequels. And that is pretty fucked up.

Wow, I sound like a real genuine bona fide STAR WARS nerd. With the outrage and everything. I never thought it could happen to me. Thank you, internet forum.

[travis-dane]

I watched ZOMBIE STRIPPERS last night.