Old Movie Review Thread

The Hunted was on AMC after work today, and with the description of "Past Oscar winners Tommy Lee Jones and Benicio Del Toro go one-on-one in this tense thriller. When a former special-ops soldier (Del Toro) begins killing hunters in the Oregon wilderness, the FBI enlists a retired tracker (Jones) to track him.", how could I not watch it?

This was, I would say, one of the top 10 worst movies I've ever seen. Ever. And I've watched Gigli, Battlefield Earth, and From Justin to fucking Kelly (I dumped that girlfriend quite soon afterward due to "unrelated" issues).

There wasn't a single good acting performance: from Del Toro, to the only actress in more than two scenes, to the extras with three lines. The plot was fucking ridiculous (not to mention the fact that they were in the "Oregon wilderness" for a total of about 12 minutes), and every direction the movie took was completely preposterous and unbelievable (Jones trained an elite squad of special-ops soldiers how to be killing machines, but "fortunately never had to kill anyone" himself. Yeah, I've never played guitar but I've seen tons of people do it, so I'll teach you).

I have no problem turning a shitty movie off or walking out on one, but I had to follow this one through till the end. It was so terrible it turned out to be funny. I laughed almost as much in this as I did while watching "My Bloody Valentine".

2/10.

 

Since Crown Royal posted about the upcoming remake, I decided to re-watch the original

Dinner for Idiots (1998)

A French film built around the amazing comic performance of Mr. Pignon, a fat, balding, hopelessly optimistic, and simple-minded idiot who has a passion for building matchstick models of famous architectural works. He is invited to a dinner for similar individuals, but when his host injures his back, Pignon arrives, and finds a way to wreak idiot havoc inside the apartment.

What I especially like is how natural the interaction of all the characters is, and how Pignon's stupidity, while great, is not over the top. He is by no means "quirky"; unless he is put into a situation where intelligence is required, Pignon would seem like a relatively normal individual. Based on the trailer for the American remake, that's something they haven't grasped.

Besides Pignon, this movie has numerous hysterical, creative scenes with the other characters, along with an absolutely furious pace. The premise is introduced in mere seconds, there is never a dull or slow moment, and more is accomplished in the movie's 78 minutes than most comedies that span two hours.

Hell, it even has a surprising and thoughtful ending. Great comedy; definitely worth checking out.

80/100

 

Metropolis (1927)

Fritz Lang is the most creative director in history, and this is most prolific masterpiece. It's galvanzing to watch, considering when it was made not only how impressive the special effects and art direction is, but how semi-accurate he was with his depictions of the future (despite the totalitarianism).

Watch it, then watch it again. It's one of the very best movies ever made, a movie to truly drink in the sights of (it IS a silent picture, FYI).

10/10

 

I would definitely recommend people to watch it, just to see what all the commotion is about, but let me offer a different perspective;

It's my belief that the first truly good films began in the 1930s; all the silent era stuff in the 10s and 20s was (at best) watchable if you were bored. Not only were most of those movies deathly dull (it took me a good 10 days to get through "Nosferatu"; every 5 minutes were painfully slow), but they were incredibly simplistic and primitive.

Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin, two of the best directors of the 20s along with Murnau, Eisenstein, and Lang, were vaudeville performers whose shtick were pies in the face, people falling over in funny ways, and other shit similar to a Looney Tunes short. (In fact, I would prefer a Bugs Bunny cartoon; funnier and smarter)

They are also my two favorite directors from that period, since (at least) their second-rate, circus-style humor was less boring. This sounds very disparaging, but that's exactly what Keaton and Chaplin were; vaudeville/circus performers who were experimenting with film, and making short, simple two reels showcasing the things they used to do on stage.

To the credit of some of these directors, when sound came along, they made movies that are still good and enjoyable in the modern day (I reviewed "M" by Lang above), so it was the technical limitations of the medium that constricted them more than inferior skills.

Specifically, when I watched "Metropolis", I actually dozed off for a few minutes here and there. So much of it was just unnecessary and overdone, from the details of the work schedule to shots of corridors and street corners held way too long. The story itself is banal and predictable.

Yeah, it was a monumentally influential and important film, but neither enjoyable nor thought-provoking.

Anyways, they have recently found more of the lost footage, and this Youtube link contains the longest and most accurate cut out there with English subs. Check it out and make up your own mind.

 

If it's classics you're looking for, let me give you my all-time Silver Screen-era list (some in colour):

Citizen Kane
The Magnificient Ambersons
Duck Soup
Forbidden Plant
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Rashomon (fucking amazing.)
Touch of Evil
Metropolis
Les Diaboliques- this movie is astonishing. The best thriller ever made.
Nosferatu (1922)
Dead of Night
The Lost Weekend
Double Idemnity
On the Waterfront
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)
The Adventures of Robin Hood
City Lights
My Darling Clementine
Peeping Tom
The Lost Horizon
M
The Night of the Hunter
High Noon

Put any of those films on your "to do" list, and I give you my word they will not disapoint. Sure. Gone with the Wind and The Ten Commandments were epic classics with amazing scenes but they were fucking LONG and very melodramatic.

 

I agree with most of the list above, but would put a caveat beside the following four;

All of them are silent films that are extremely slow-paced, with Nosferatu being the worst offender. (City Lights is my favorite of the four) I dislike them, but it's hardly a new sentiment; when I asked my parents, they mentioned being unable to stand these silent movies a good 35-40 years ago, also. Other people love them to this very day, but they're not for everyone.

Heh, I love "Gone with the Wind". What did you think of movies like "Alexander Nevsky" and "All Quiet on the Western Front"? Those are my two favorite ones from the 30s.

 

I decided to take Mr. Royal up on his recommendation;

Duck Soup (1933)-

A film following the comic exploits of the new ruler of the country of Freedonia, and the corrupt ambassador who wants to conquer the nation for the neighboring Sylvania. Really though, it's just an excuse for a bunch of comic set pieces.

It's a tough movie to review. On the one hand, this Marx brothers comedy is a tremendous improvement over the primitive, silent film sleeping pills of Keaton and Chaplin. It is well-paced and engaging, even by modern standards, and some of the scenes are legitimately funny. At the same time, it suffers from both poor editing (lots of random, discontinuous cuts in the middle of a scene) and a bunch of hokey, kitsch elements that simply don't work nowadays.

For instance, there are occasional musical numbers throughout the movie. For audiences from the 30s all the way to the 50s, that was par for the course. Nowadays, it feels weird and unfunny. The humor is hit and miss; it's traditional, old-school, clean Jewish-American comedy. Some jokes bomb horribly, while others are amusing and a few even hilarious. Random ending, too.

It deserves respect for advancing the genre, and being one of the first decent comedy films.

71/100

 

Shogun Assassin (Compilation of the movie Lone Wolf & Cub I & II)

Bloodletting as you have never seen. The most stone-faced hero in history. A baby cart more armed to the teeth than Mr. Bond's Aston Martin. This is the story of the Shogun's executioner and his non-stop rampage to avenge the death of his wife, with his baby son in tow. He gets in inordinate amounts of brutally violent combat. This film hold up to nowadays standards, with a glowing, comic book look and feel and never tires to take itself too seriously. It gives the viewer a stunning, almost hypnotic display of intentional extreme violence. If you love true style and great action you own yourself to see this. (Using Alan Rickman voice) Do Not...disapoint me.

9.5/10

 

I would recommend watching Lonewolf and Cub 1 and 2 separately, since Shogun Assassin not only cuts out many of the important plot elements and story, but the more violent, bloody kills.

The entire series is a masterpiece, and deserves to be watched in its full glory.

 

The Spirit

I watched this with the gf last night. It's kind of like Sin City done like the Adam West Batman tv show. It's a comic movie that acts like it. The Octopus, played by Samuel L. Jackson is hilarious. The women in this movie are each smoking hot (Eva Mendes, Scarlett Johansen, Sarah Paulson, Jaime King among others), the violence is silly fun, and the film noir thing is unusual and made the movie's visuals pop. Enjoyable, but a typical bubblegum type movie.

 

Suspiria

This, in my own opinion, is the best horror film ever made. Dario Argento made a skittles-coloured, nihlistic nightmare of a movie with an opening and closing fifteen minutes that will drive you right up the wall.

Argento and the progressive rock band Goblin composed the most terrifying music score ever. A combination of a lullabye, guitar and sinister hissing that will get under your skin and stay there.

The plot is actually kind of stupid and because half of it is originally acted in Italian so it's been dubbed, and the performances seem one-note save for Valerie Harper as the American who goes to a European ballet school that's actually a witches' coven. As soon as she arrives, everything goes batshit and there will be blood. Argento serves up the most visible and bloody killings you can imagine and in the opening reel, the most absolutely animalistic and horrifying murder scene you will ever, EVER see.

The visual style that is so trenchant by Italian directors like Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci is unmatched here. The camerawork is one-of-a-kind, the atmosphere is bone-chilling, and Argento plants the (genuine) shocks with frightening deftness.

DO NOT REMAKE THIS FILM, HOLLYWOOD. It is perfect and you will just be trouncing a pure classic into shit chowder.

10/10

The sequel, Inferno is not bad and has style to burn (a little too much), but the final of the trilogy The Mother Of Tears is obnoxious, gory garbage.

 

After so many classic older films, it was time to change things up;

Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (2009)-

A Japanese "splatter comedy" featuring more death, blood, and dismemberment than most horror franchises taken together, all played for laughs. It revolves around a high school romantic triangle between a normal guy, a vampire girl who mutilates guys, and a Gothic lolita who, after dying, is resurrected as "Frankenstein girl" by her father, a mad scientist.

There are also side-arcs about a school club that cuts their wrists and another that embraces African culture and paint their faces black.

It's all extremely silly, but thankfully, the film-makers realize this, never presenting the action in a serious manner, and keeping the movie relatively short (80 minutes), right before it out-stayed its welcome.

Decently entertaining and funny, although the crazy screenshots are probably better than the film itself.

65/100

 

Indiana Jones And The Lost Ark

I reviewed IJ&TTOD about a month back and raged about how shit it was, this resulted in several negative responses from pissed off fans. For the record you guys can eat a bag of dicks, it was a pile of puerile shit with no redeeming qualities.

So it was with some trepidation I fired up Ark, I remembered it being brilliant, however the same can be said for Temple. You know what, it was pretty good and I enjoyed the ride. Sure it’s dated and I didn’t feel the magic I did when I was in my early teens but as a popcorn movie it was better than most, and I will probably fire it up again in ten years or so.

And I still get a kick out of Indy shooting down the big guy with the two scimitars.

67/100

Next will be Last Crusade.

 

The Mosquito Coast (1986)

Wow. Give him the right role, and Harrison Ford will knock your eyes out. He's never been better than in this film, as a brilliant and iconoclastic inventor/mad scientist who move his family away from the ever-expanding America to a remote town in Central America and feels the need to play God. Ford's character is incredibly driven and refreshingly unsympathetic- don't expect to be rooting for him- and gives a Oscar-worthy performance. This is based on Paul Theroux's novel (Ford's character is a much bigger asshole in the book) and is a great film.

8/10

I haven't tevied a movie I hate in a while, so let's give you a doozy:

She's All That

I hate this film. I hate it more than Hitler. I hate it more than Terrell Owens. It hate it more than raisins. This film was an enormous hit about the high school "hunk" (comically ugly Freddie Prinze Jr.) trying to make a swan out of the school's ugly girl- Rachel Leigh Cook- who is actually pretty, but no one on this earth would be able to tell that because she wears glasses.

This is one of the worst movies ever made. Not bad in a good way, but bad as in "A bullet from a .44 would taste pretty good about now". This film kick-started all of the stupid, unrealistic teen films that stupid teenager flocked to the theatre to see every weekend, but it's bar none the worst. Any resemblance between the characters in this film and real people is purely accidental. IT's chock full of schmucks you just want to slap silly.

1/10

 

Old classics aren't the only famous movies I haven't seen yet;

Sin City (2005)-

Talk about a mixed bag! It's a mostly black and white comic book adaptation of pulp, noir crime stories from a big city. I loved the visual style and approach, but hated the exposition, which was often comically bad. (The Josh Hartnett soliloquy at the start, for example)

The dialogue is either poorly written, doesn't translate well from the comic to a movie, or both. However, the action is choreographed beautifully, and largely makes up for it. The acting varies, from horrible and mailed-in (Brittany Murphy, and, as much as it pains me to type, Michael Madsen) to very good. (Rourke, Clive Owen)

Some of the stories, with their twists and double-crosses, were way too predictable, but the plot holes were forgivable, and the decent amount of violence was a plus.

I went through the entire movie alternately disliking and greatly enjoying what I saw. Probably more of the latter, though.

70/100

 

After lamenting how crappy documentaries are, a friend suggested the following movie. I will never listen to him again for film recommendations;

This Film is not yet Rated (2006)-

A movie I was prepared to like considerably, as its focus was the absurdity of the MPAA Ratings Board and their censorship.

Unfortunately, it was insultingly stupid, insipid, and childish. It pushed the whole "CORPORATIONS ARE EVIL!CORPORATIONS CONTROL THE MPAA" mantra, when in reality, ratings hurt them the most. Also, can they please explain to me how the hell the McCarthy hearings had ANYTHING to do with the MPAA trying to break the unions? That was one of the dumbest things I have ever heard, and wild speculation doesn't count as support.

I could go on for hours about all the factual errors. (Example: Movies by 20th Century Fox are not controlled by Newscorp; just watch "Avatar", or Cameron calling O'Reilly an idiot)

Equally bad, the movie takes 5 minutes of real content and information and keeps re-iterating it to death for what seems like hours. Just the same thing over and over, making it extremely tedious to watch. Also, there are a number of liberal feminist directors (most notably the moron who made "Boys Don't Cry") who claim the Ratings Board is sexist against women, since they won't show a female orgasm. (Because they show male orgasms all the time, right?)

There is also a God-awful subplot with a couple of bumbling, incompetent lesbian private investigators hired by the director trying to figure out the members of the MPAA Ratings Board are. It is so bad that it actually pushes me over to the MPAA's side.

If douchebags like the filmmakers and their lackeys are going to harass these relatively normal people, why not keep their identity's secret?

It would get an even lower score, but they featured an interview with Matt Stone (of South Park fame), who was funny and insightful as usual.

Still, avoid this like the plague.

18/100

 

Solomon Kane

Where to begin? The movie was just okay. I didn't realize it was out on DVD until someone here pointed it out. Before that point I'd been anticipating it because of how great the trailer looked. At this point I wish the trailer didn't have all of the best parts. It began well and the first act was full of cool action.

The second act meandered a bit and began the predictability of the entire film.

The third act was quick and I mean 20 minutes quick.

Spoiler

The 'boss' scenes didn't explain at all the main antagonist's reasonings other than just being evil and wanting Solomon's soul. Why? Why this man of all men?

Ultimately it felt like the shallow backstory to a sequel that I will not watch. I wanted to root for it but it ended up being predictable and boring. In the end I didn't care about Solomon, his quest or his attempts to seek redemption.

4/10

Spoiler

only rated this high because the final monster special effects looked cool.

 

Robocop (1987)

There are three 1980's Hollywood action movies that truly stand head and shoulders above the others- The Terminator, Die Hard, and Robocop. Paul Verhoeven exploded onto the American scene with this film, his own satire of where western culture was heading. It's unapologetically grim and ultra violent- ever bullet impact leaves a visibly blood mess- it's also smashingly entertaining, as a brutally murdered cop reborn as an unkillable cyborg for the police seeks revenge on the repugnant goons that slaughtered him (in one of the films many ghastly scenes). This ight seem like exploitation but it's just too awesome for that- Peter Weller gives a formidable physical performance as Murphy, and Ronny Cox and Kurtwood Smith are as perfectly hissable as ever as the sleazy bad guys. This was also marking the end of stop-motion animation and this film features one of the greatest of that era: Rob Bottin & Phil Tippett's (The Thing, Total Recall, Jurassic Park) ED209 is a legend in animation special effects, still very impressive to this day.

I honestly don't know anybody who deosn't think this movie is incredible. It's entertainment of the highest order, a Hall Of Fame action film.

8/10