28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[Spun Lepton]

George Miller, yes, thank you. I knew that. Just got the names mixed up.

Haven't watched Thunderdome, yet, but soon. Decided to watch the next movie for my Grim Street channel. Paganini Horror. Written by Luigi Cozzi and Daria Nicolodi. One of these people was responsible for Star Crash and the wonderfully goofy Contamination. The other was (partly) responsible for Suspiria and Asia Argento. Directed by Cozzi. Intermittently silly and never dull, with an ending that starts out like a cop-out, but then takes a left-turn into endearing silliness. Also has Donald Pleasence in a smaller role.

"What a strange light coming from other there."
"It's more than strange, it's weird!"

Haven't decided what rating I'm going to give it. At least a 5/10, though.

[megladon8]

The Exterminator is one ugly movie, but it's definitely one of the better exploitation films to come out of that 70s/80s era.

Robert Ginty is painfully vanilla. Really needed a better star for this.

But it plays out like a Garth Ennis Punisher book. Just brutal. Feels like they came up with these insanely horrific ways for The Exterminator to kill people, then went back and wrote the crimes the victims committed. Like, "okay, so this guy he is going to ever so slowly lower into a meat grinder. What can we have him do, to make the audience want to see him die this brutally?"

The absurdly racist (and fake looking) Vietnam opening followed by the hilariously tone deaf country song is either brilliant or terrible.

Jumping back and forth between hating and loving this movie, the main reason for the hate being some very uncomfortable scenes of sexual torture that were just...too much.

If you're in the right mood, it is recommended. Horrible people being killed horribly by a Punisher-like vigilante.

If you have a queasy stomach, stay away.

[Idioteque Stalker]

Three more animes:

Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade's dead-ass seriousness produced diminishing returns as the film devolved into the type of intelligence/counter-intelligence one-upmanship that I personally find uninteresting. "Insurance policies," the films calls it ("I knew you were gonna do this, so I did this." "Well, I knew you knew I was gonna do that, so I did this!"). But man was the first half chock-full of compelling moral quandaries, not to mention visuals potent enough to give them life. The prologue in particular was as lucid an explanation as I've seen of how big picture economics/politics can divide a society to the point of war in the streets, where everyone believes (sometimes fanatically) they're fighting on the "right side," but no one really knows how/why/when the lines were drawn in the first place. Recommended for those who want "mature anime" but are frustrated that "mature anime" can oftentimes be defined by over-the-top violence and nudity. (The violence is here, certainly, and it can be brutal, but it's grounded in a reality that is presented as similar to our own. In video game terms the difference between The Last of Us and Mortal Kombat.)

The Tale of the White Serpent (or Panda and the Magic Serpent) strains under the considerable weight of its historical importance -- first full-length anime in color, first imported to the West, huge inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki -- but it still has plenty to offer today. Just maybe not in the washed out state of the Prime Video version, which gets so bad that lighter characters (such as the central couple) are oftentimes indistinguishable from a scene's background. The music is lovely, and there's some super rad psychedelic imagery in the third act, but who knows if I'll ever get the chance to view it in better condition. It's possible that a fancy blu-ray release could send this one over the top.

The first thirty minutes of Kiki's Delivery Service held zero surprises for me, so I was concerned it might become the first Miyazaki film I don't like. But then this ridiculously cool dog named Jeff won me over, and I suddenly understood the film's wavelength: here's a story with no villain, where everyone is kind to each other, and that's pretty much it. It's incredibly wholesome. Of course, since you can't have a story with zero conflict, Kiki experiences unexplained mood swings and arbitrarily decides to be rude to this one super nice kid for no reason -- but whatever, nobody is going into this movie expecting huge depth of character. I was also sincerely bothered by her blatant disregard of all pedestrian law. There's one shot of her walking down the highway, about to round a corner, and I was positive she was about to get hit by a careening semi-truck. But nothing happens, we're just supposed to feel her loneliness in that moment. If I ever watch this with small children I'm definitely going to make sure they know Kiki is being reckless, and we are not to act like her when around the street.

EDIT: Interstella 5555 or Night on the Galactic Railroad up next.

[Skitch]

Jin-Roh review: accurate.

[Spun Lepton]

Mad Mad Beyond Thunderdome
What in the hell was THAT? Last I saw this I must've been 14, so that probably explains why I had fond memories of it. Tonally, it's a mess, especially given its pedigree. Lots of misplaced slapstick after Max and the kids return to Bartertown. It was frustrating as hell. At times it really felt like they were trying to mimic the tone from Indiana Jones. I mean, it works GREAT for those movies, but Max is supposed to be darker and sharper-edged. And what's with Max talking so much? What happened to the stoic hero? And what happened to the reluctant hero, mostly out for himself? Honestly, most of the movie before Max meets the kids is just fine. After that though ... ugh.

[

Show Spoiler

Can anybody explain to me why Aunty just spares him at the end?

]

Fury Road - 10/10
Road Warrior - 8/10
Mad Max - 6/10
Beyond Thunderdome - 4/10

[transmogrifier]

Most overrated film series of all time:

1. Mad Max
2. The Dark Knight Trilogy
3. Raimi's Spider-Man
4. The Avengers
5. Evil Dead
6. X-Men
7. Harry Potter

[StuSmallz]

Ah yes, X-Men, the series that, in 13 releases, never got above an 8.00 critical average on RT, and had almost every single entry get significantly lower than that anyway; so overrated!

[transmogrifier]

Ah yes, X-Men, the series that, in 13 releases, never got above an 8.00 critical average on RT, and had almost every single entry get significantly lower than that anyway; so overrated!

Yes; it is worse than even that.

[Morris Schæffer]

Mad Max is synonymous with vehicular mayhem for me. Beyond Thunderdome does not really have that although I'm not opposed to a franchise trying something new. But Beyond Thunderdome didn't feel like it was charting exciting new waters, it simply felt like a vanilla version of what came before. Compared to Fury Road, which advances the franchise in subtle new ways while still being cut from the same cloth as the 1979 and 1981 installments.

[Dukefrukem]

Most overrated film series of all time:

1. Mad Max
2. The Dark Knight Trilogy
3. Raimi's Spider-Man
4. The Avengers
5. Evil Dead
6. X-Men
7. Harry Potter

Dude, Harry Potter is #1. Nothing happens in that seventeen movie cash grab.

The only one worth watching is the time travel one.

[Spun Lepton]

Most overrated film series of all time:

1. Mad Max
2. The Dark Knight Trilogy
3. Raimi's Spider-Man
4. The Avengers
5. Evil Dead
6. X-Men
7. Harry Potter

S.O. maintains that Evil Dead II is the worst movie I've ever shown her, but she likes Twilight, so ...

[Scar]

S.O. maintains that Evil Dead II is the worst movie I've ever shown her, but she likes Twilight, so ...

*gasp*

[Idioteque Stalker]

Does anyone else get slightly annoyed when credits say "Introducing..." so-and-so?

[baby doll]

Does anyone else get slightly annoyed when credits say "Introducing..." so-and-so?

More sad than annoyed, at least if it's an old movie and their career tanked immediately afterwards.

[megladon8]

Does anyone else get slightly annoyed when credits say "Introducing..." so-and-so?

How do you mean?

[Idioteque Stalker]

How do you mean?

Today I watched The New World, and at the end of the opening cast credits it said, "...and introducing Q'orianka Kilcher." Some might say it highlights a new talent, but my annoyance is this nagging feeling the attention is actually being redirected toward producers, casting directors, etc. Like "I have discovered something great, and you're welcome." Also, as baby doll touched on, it puts no small amount of expectation on actors who are typically quite young, and therefore (at least in hindsight) sometimes don't live up to such a "grand" introduction.

[StanleyK]

Watched an early Don Siegel film, The Big Steal. It's very Hitchcockian- it's about a man who goes on the run to clear his name, meets a dame along the way, and there's plenty of flirtation and comedy interspersed with tense scenes (well, the ones towards the end are more tense; the car chase scenes throughout are kinda dull). Very fun movie. It's always nice to watch something with no expectations and be pleasantly surprised.

[megladon8]

Today I watched The New World, and at the end of the opening cast credits it said, "...and introducing Q'orianka Kilcher." Some might say it highlights a new talent, but my annoyance is this nagging feeling the attention is actually being redirected toward producers, casting directors, etc. Like "I have discovered something great, and you're welcome." Also, as baby doll touched on, it puts no small amount of expectation on actors who are typically quite young, and therefore (at least in hindsight) sometimes don't live up to such a "grand" introduction.

I can't say I've ever thought of it that way, but now I'm scared that is all I will be able to think of when I see it.

Thanks, IS!

[Idioteque Stalker]

I can't say I've ever thought of it that way, but now I'm scared that is all I will be able to think of when I see it.

Thanks, IS!

Ha, yeah, like I said it's only a slight annoyance for me. But I'm always glad to disrupt someone else's unmitigated joy.

[DFA1979]

Nothing overrated about The Evil Dead series. I forgive trans for that one. For now.

[baby doll]

I know I've seen Evil Dead 2, but for the life of me, I can't remember if I ever saw Army of Darkness. Probably not (I think I'm thinking of the cliffhanger ending of Evil Dead 2), but has anybody ever had the experience of sitting down to watch a movie you thought you hadn't seen and then realizing you'd already seen it and forgotten it?

[Mr. McGibblets]

I watched the Paul Rudd movie Our Idiot Brother a few years ago and the whole time (and still) I was not sure if I had seen it before. It seemed really familiar, but it's also so generic that I could probably have just seen the trailer and filled in the rest.

[DFA1979]

Army of Darkness is a fun, energetic and humorous movie. The Evil Dead is a good, nasty B-movie horror film. The Evil Dead II is one of the best horror comedies ever made. Sure they all have their flaws like most movies.

A solid chunk of what I often watch yearly are forgettable movies. Often they are ones on streaming services, and some are ones I viewed while drinking or in the mood for something dumb to pass the time. I did better last year in not viewing so many of them, however that was a fluke.

[StuSmallz]

Regarding the discussion of the Mad Max​ films, I'd rate/rank them as such:

Fury Road 9
The Road Warrior 8.75
Mad Max 8
Thunderdome 7.5

In other words, it's a series that's at its best with a certain balance between bigger budgets and a greater emphasis on action; I mean, I like the elaborate, all-practical sets and society-building of Thunderdome, but the softer overall tone held it back anyway. Anyway, another thing that strikes me about the series is that, while it doesn't seem as though George Miller had an overarching "master plan", he still did a good job of making it seem like he did in retrospect, by intentionally looking back at previous entries and building on top of them, like how Fury Road finally gave Max a strong character arc of personal redemption (one that he'd been needing for a long time), or how The Road Warrior goes all in on the post-apocalyptic setting that the first film only hinted at (which was an accident, because they didn't have the money to shoot at decent locations in the original), or how Mad Max ends up feeling like an intentional origin story (instead of a standalone, one-off film) for how the main character ended up as an survivalist drifter, constantly alienating himself from what's left of society, considering that all the sequels followed in its wake in that regard. Miller may have been building the plane as he directed it, but he did a good job of making it seem otherwise.

[Morris Schæffer]

Saw War of the Worlds again, the Spielberg version. Original complaints remain (The son) and the ending is just a bit anti-climactic. Yeah yeah, I know the book ends like that as well, but perhaps it is written in such a way that it earns that ending. In the movie I just felt like the aliens were really dumb, especially because they buried their machines likely squillions of years ago. But the spectacle, my God that remains pretty awe-inspiring and my brand new 4K disc looked tremendous on the 65 inch Oled.