Old Movie Review Thread

Decided to rewatch a classic;

12 Angry Men (1957)-

A dozen jurors decide whether a murder suspect is innocent or guilty. Virtually the entire movie takes place inside a single, small deliberation room, and consists of conversations between the men.

I had seen this before, but when I was 14, in a class. I thought it was a very good picture, about how men rush to judgment, and make decisions based on emotion, only constructing valid, hard reasons after the fact. However, the movie has a lot more to it. Each juror symbolizes something different in society or the way it thinks, but is simultaneously realistic enough for the audience to recognize from their own lives.

Juror #12 is an ad man with nothing to say about the case, who cracks jokes, plays Tic-Tac-Toe with Juror #3, and actually switches between "guilty" and "not guilty" a couple of times. He literally has nothing inside of his head, and either refuses, or is unable to pay any attention to the court proceedings.

Not every juror arguing for a guilty verdict is wrong-headed or biased, either. Juror #4 is a calm, intelligent man who argues solely by the facts. Once enough reasonable objections have been made to the testimony, he changes his vote. Obviously, in a film based solely on these elements, the acting and dialogue is brilliant. It really does a great job of showing the typical way men argue and think. Henry Fonda is outstanding as Juror #7 and Lee J Cobb as the furious Juror #3, but so is everyone else.

A truly amazing masterpiece; one of the rare pictures as exciting and pertinent today as it was over a half century ago.

90/100

 

The Lovely Bones 2009 This movie is terrible but I warn you it's not until after you have watched the whole movie that you realize it's terrible.

It's about a young girl who is murdered and proceeds to tell her story from the afterlife. Don't worry I'm not spoiling anything because she tells you this and who kills her within the first five minuets of the film. The first half hour is actually good, it's unique because they are kind of doing a murder mystery in reverse so you are trying to put the puzzle together of what is going to happen.

Then you start to wonder, the little girl has scenes that are supposed to be in purgatory I promise you will not be impressed by the special effects. You will not say, "my those are some excellent visual graphics." You will say "God this is really destroying the movie and not adding a single fucking thing to the story", except what Peter Jackson must think heaven is like.

Stanley Tucci is a really good really creepy villain in this film, it's a shame it's totally wasted with all the nonsense about the afterlife. I imagine the book it's based off could be quite good, the film however is a stinker.

3.5/10

 

SAW 5 As always the contraptions are cool and gory. However how the fuck does he afford all of that crap?

2/10

 

Trick r Treat (2007)

Oh, this could have been great. Don't get me wrong, it isn't too bad. It's a great looking film that absolutely drips with the spirit of the holiday, and it's extemely well produced (by Bryan Singer). Why it was shelved for nearly four years I have no idea (and then released only directly to video), but obvious post-production fucking around narrowed the running time of this pup fiction horror flick to just over 70 minutes! It's four stories that cross over each other and come full circle: A serial killing high school principal, a cruel Halloween joke that bites the pranksters on the ass, Anna Paquin gets stalked by a vampire, and a cantankerous old man is terrorized by the film's pint-sized murderous silent muse, "Sam" (named after the original All Hallow's Eve name: Samhain).

The one with the principal (Dylan Baker) and Anna Paquin (who has never, EVER looked hotter) have great pay-off twists. The scene with Baker and his impressionable young son in his basement has such a great suspenseful build-up and the shoe hitting the floor is spectacularly sick. Paquin's story twist also has a great twist (if you don't see it coming) but the other two tales are predictable stalk n' slash types that bare no gripping interest.

It's very Hollywood looking, though the movie's holiday decor art direction showing it's love for the spirit of Halloween is great. The violence and gore are a notch or two up from traditional major motion pictures but it isn't all that scary. Forgettable, but deserved at least a theatrical try. This really could have been better, though.

6/10

 

DEVIL'S NIGHT DEVIL FILMS

Rosemary's Baby (1968)

This is horror at is most patient, controlled, and menacing. Aside from the notorious conception scene, there's no on-screen supernatural monsters or violence. It's all about performance, atmosphere, and what Pelanksi DOESN'T show you, which he drives the viewer right up the wall. There is not a better place to shoot this film than in the Dakota (where Lennon was murdered), a gorgeous and eerie building dripping with Gothic Art Deco. Masterful and scary as Hell.

9/10

The Exorcist (1973)
William Peter Blatty and William Friedken teamed together to make what most call the scariest film of all time. Is it? Maybe (Night of the Living Dead gets my vote), but one thing is guaranteed: this film wreaks havoc on your nerve endings and is calculated at embracing fear to perfection. It forsakes cheap "boo scares" and uses horrifying make-up and bone chilling climate to rock the audience to its core, which it still does to this day. Hardly dated and brilliantly acted, the pinnacle modern horror film.

9.5/10

The Omen (1976)

A great cast does not a great horror movie make. So goes for this film, which seems less apt at scaring the viewer and more apt at devising horrible Rube Goldberg-style deaths to kill off each of its cast members with sheer predictability. Better than the usual horror film, but when you compare it to the previous two films it's kind of contrived and despite a now notorious decapitation scene deosn't shock too much. A watchable potboiler, but overrated to say the least.

6/10

The Sentinel (1977)

As far as devil movies go, this is all style over substance- Icky, gross special/make-up effects and a stupid script. A film about a model living in an apartment that's the gate to hell (is there any other kind?)it has some great stylized jolts along the way (especially when the heroine is attacked by her dead father) but the story bears way too many trips to the well and the climax chooses being gross over scary and the dialogue is cardboard. Meh.

5/10

 

Hmm, I really liked this one. Let's see if I can convey what made it such an enjoyable, quality film to me;

The Omen (1976)

An American ambassador living in the English countryside finds out his son might be the Anti-Christ when people around him begin mysteriously dying. The first such incident occurs during Damian's birthday party, when on a bright, sunny day, his nanny calls out cheerfully to Damian, and then hangs herself. This is one of the last times we will see the sun in the movie, and shortly thereafter, Damian's supposed father, played by Gregory Peck, teams up with a suspicious local photographer to find out more.

It's wonderful "adventure/mystery horror" film. Our two intrepid heroes, Peck and David Warner, travel around England searching for clues about the true identity of his supposed son Damian. Meanwhile, a Satanic nanny watches over Damian, and Peck's wife is in danger from the boy. There is tension, but also a sense of dangerous, risky adventure, and a desire to figure out the backstory, giving "The Omen" a much different feel than most horror films.

Also, the movie has a very tense, chilly atmosphere, with bad weather outside, and dark shadows inside. As all this is going on, we are treated to a steady diet of deliciously gory, unexpected deaths. A deserved horror classic in my book.

75/100

 

Predators Chances are if you liked the other movies in this franchise you will like this one. Adrian Brody is an ex-special ops mercenary who is mysteriously kidnapped and dropped on a foreign planet. With him are a group of specialists, all killers who are being hunted.

The thing that will annoy the shit out of you in this one is that the Predator alien goes from a ridiculously extraordinary hunter to a mindless drone chasing the victims like a villain in a slasher movie. You will still see cool weapons (with both the humans and the aliens) and of course they don't waste anytime with a real back story and they jump right into action.

Spoiler

The Topher Grace character is annoying, how did he recognize a plant on another planet? Also a Predator is killed by a man with a sword? Maybe he was lead into a challenge but I don't know why he would do that when he was a "hunter." You would also think a superior being would be ready for one of the humans to have an explosive on them when they got that close.

I'm not sure if it was Rodriguez or the writers that missed the boat on this one but it is definitely sub-par.

4.5/10

 

Lately, I've been passing the time checking out crappy indie movies from my university's library. Here are some of the notable one, good and bad.

-Lonesome Jim: Casey Affleck plays a directionless shithead who hates his family (he basically plays himself). In the movie he: moves back home, has sex with Liv Tyler, and learns a lesson about being less emo. Everything about this movie is decent, the story, the acting, etc. The visuals, however, are terrible. I think this movie was shot on camcorder that got thrown in an oven for a few hours. Overall I was satisfied with this movie. B-

-Broken Flowers: The cover mentions something about being a comedy. Do not be fooled, Bill Murray does nothing to to redeem this movie. There are exactly zero funny moments throughout it's duration. The story is mildly interesting, but you are just pissed off at the end by the lack of resolution. It's your run of the mill indie flick that expects you to make interpretations out of nothing. Seriously, fuck this movie. D

- Naked: I watched this movie and was completely floored. This movie really has some of the best and most insightful dialogue I have ever heard in a movie. Easily makes the top ten list in that regard. It's about an English man (played by the guy who was Remus in Harry Potter) who is incredibly intelligent. Despite his intelligence(or maybe because of it), he has a very dark and cynical perspective that leads him to self destructive behavior. It's one of those movies with a loose story line and an indefinite resolution. Even if you hate the story, it will be worth it to watch just for the dialogue. A

- Good Time Max: I don't think I can succinctly articulate how much I hate this movie, but I'll try anyway.This movie is about two brothers who are genius'. The only way they show their supposed intelligence is by wearing pseudo intellectual horn rim glasses and by fucking up with drugs. The acting is so bad and the characterizations just so fucking weird it's almost surreal. This movie is the Oreck vacuum cleaner of indie films. I like James Franco; who directs, writes, and stars, but Jesus this was a serious fuck up. I suspect that all of the goofy shit he has been doing lately like guest staring on general hospital and imitating Rodney Dangerfield are all part of a deep seated existential crisis he went through after participating in this train wreck. I am James Franco's complete lack of directorial ability. F

 

Winter Break 2003

This may be worth reviewing, it may not. But I have to say something. And first of all, I'll say this - it's horrendous. Bad acting, bad writing, plodding, predictable, unoriginal in every way... but I can't stop thinking about it. I watched it on NetFlix instant watch a few days ago and can't get it out of my mind. It's a ski movie unlike any other - and not in a good way. Rated R, but with no boobs, a single use of the word "fuck" and 90 minutes long and not to mention, a straight-to-DVD release. It's Aspen Extreme without the sweeping drama. It's Hot Dog without the wet t-shirt contests. It's Out Cold without Zach Galifinaikas. It's Ski Patrol without the... well, let's just say it's not Ski Patrol. It's set and filmed in Aspen, and is about four friends who move to Colorado after graduation to duck the real world and enjoy a life in the snow and the mountains because they're young and they can. Yeah, I know what you're thinking - NEXT.

BUT -- in these rare, fleeting moments, the movie does an OK job portraying a bunch of guys loving life not because of their jobs or money but because of their friends and lifestyle. Of four guys packed into a tiny two-bedroom house a few blocks from the mountain, barely getting by on crappy mountain jobs and living away from their families and their homes for the first time as they grapple with the demands of an actual career and lifestyle just to live a life they love. I'm going to go ahead and say it - it could have been a masterpiece. It could have been the first ski movie to transcend the genre and cross over into themes of living for yourself and the struggle to make it on your own terms, but it didn't. It missed that mark by a long shot. Still, it had the right idea.

And while you probably don't care, this movie was wholly personal. Filmed in some of the same bars I've been kicked out of, on the same runs I've torn up, in the same streets and shops I've been in, while I was living in Aspen after college to do the exact same thing they did. I remember renting it when I was 17 years old with a friend who was planning on being a ski bum with me after we graduated, a friend who is still living in Utah while I start a career here in Washington, DC. Yeah, this brought out some emotion in me, which for such a shitty movie, embarrasses me to say.

 

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Follows a couple of bank/train robbers, played immaculately by Paul Newman and Robert Redford.

The movie is a motley collection of outstanding scenes, some slow and funny, others sudden, explosive, and tinged with tragedy. They're as diverse as can be, and all serve to show the changing life and surroundings of our two protagonists.

The film has consistently great humor and adventure, but as with all of GR Hill's works, there is the occasional, unexpected depth, seen here with the constant premonitions and warnings of Butch and Sundance's demise, as well as the appropriate, yet sad ending. It's funnier than most comedies, better acted than most dramas, more exciting than most action films, and more poignant than most tragedies.

Great stuff.

83/100

 

The Crazies I honestly can not believe how decent this picture was. Set in smalltown USA it immediately jumps into the story. I always appreciate when a picture doesn't pretend to be something it's not and saves you forty five minuets of character and or story development.

The government accidentally releases a virus on an unknowing small town. The movie shows the flu ripping through the population as well as the swift government response in trying to contain and quarantine the epidemic. Death follows. Another added treat is that the flu causes people to become sociopathic zombies, so more death ensues.


Timothy Olyphant is great and it is a surprisingly decent film for the silly title and story.

6.125/10

 

Time to change things up with these three unusual films;

Don't be a Menace to South Central While Drinking your Juice in the Hood (1996)-

A parody of early 90's black gangster/hood films like "Boyz in the Hood" and "Menace II Society".

It's not a consistently good comedy, as certain scenes are either lame or overly silly, but there are some really funny moments. The Wayans do a solid job selling the material, and one's enjoyment is enhanced from watching the films it parodies. Near the end, the gangster swerves and running gags (especially the hood grannie) become predictable, but thankfully, the film ends soon after, at a mere 84 minutes, before wearing out its welcome. Decent.

63/100

Boss Nigger (1975)-

I'll let the hilarious trailer explain.

The picture is at its best when it goes with a light-hearted vibe. Williamson is surprisingly weak as the lead, but his deputy (Durville Martin), is hilarious, and the main villain (William Smith) is also good. Sadly, the film is directed and edited poorly; certain scenes don't need to be in here, accomplishing nothing, while others go on for far too long. I also would have liked more fights, and just more worthwhile moments in general. It's watchable, but not even close to the best blaxploitation of that era.

46/100

Dolemite (1975)-

I'll let this crazy trailer explain.

Utterly awful, but HILARIOUSLY so. Contains some of the worst, most pathetic fight scenes ever filmed, inept, emotionless line readings of idiotic dialogue passed off as "acting", visible boom mics, drunk directing and editing, and a protagonist who never changes facial expression once throughout the whole film, and mainly just screams "MOTHERFUCKER!!!" But it's just so insanely funny because of it, that you can't call the film less than watchable.

Objectively, it's one of the worst "movies" ever made. In fact, even calling it such is a stretch. Subjectively, it's incredibly funny, which is why it possesses cult status to this day.

52/100

 

10 Things I Hate About You

One of the few teen comedies that gets better with age.

Based on Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew", it made Heath Ledger a star. A hilarious move with a strong plot, it's about the only teen comedy I can stand.

Funnier than a Wayans Brother movie, but would never consider it a classic -7/10

 

Kids I vaguely remember people going on about how good it was when I was in high school. I finally got around to checking it out as a 20 year old and could not stand it. Here's why. It is supposed to be a realistic depiction of urban teenagers. The result is possibly the worst dialogue ever spoken in a movie, absolutely crude and lacking any kind of substance. It was retarded. It's kind of like Alpha Dog. Featuring white kids with ghetto accents, twenty word vocabularies, and a predilection for substituting the word fuck for every known sentence construction known to the English language. It was so bad I didn't even make it all the way through. The plot has something to do with all of the kids in the movie getting hiv, effectively preventing them from reproducing and propagating their genes. This is the kind of movie that could only be interesting to semi-retarded teenager (even if I had seen it when I was in grade school I still probably would have hated it because I have never been that stupid). This movie does do a good job of showing, with an extreme example, how fucked up things can get when you are a careless teenager.

 

I hate to tell you this but that is a good example of teens growing up in New York City in the 90's. Two of my fraternity brothers were from NYC, (Bronx and Brooklyn) they loved that movie. They actually called one of their buddies from home Telly.

I'm not trying to blast you but your 19 and from the suburbs. So of course they don't sound like you or your friends or any teen culture your used too. If you watch Fast Times at Ridgemont High or Dazed and Confused you will also find they don't sound like present day teenagers. That sadly was a pretty realistic interpretation of how urban white kids sounded.

I do agree with you that I didn't care for the plot very much. The whole HIV storyline was designed to pack quite a punch but I felt it was a little too much for the film.

 

I think the substance of what the kids spoke of in Ridgemont High (picking up, abortions, etc.) are still valid today and how the stoners spoke in Dazed and Confused is still perfectly applicable for today's youth, it's one of the best written, best acted movies I've ever seen.

Conclusion: KIDS sucks and is melodramatic, Dazed and Confused is a perfect movie.

Focus:

I finally got around to watching Valhalla Rising. I don't think I'm exaggerating in saying that it's one of the worst movies ever made. It's 30% stoic reaction shots. It's a shame because it looked so totally badass as a concept.

 

I never said that I thought Kids was unrealistic. Yes, I grew up in the suburbs but that's not to say lived my whole life without hearing retard speak. The truth is that there is no correlation between a movie's perceived realism and it's entertainment value. Kids could very well have been a true story, but that doesn't change the fact that it's annoying and altogether shitty. Good movies do not have to be relatable to be enjoyed, or rather they're universally relatable instead of superficially relatable. This movie belongs to the latter group as the only people who like it, as I said earlier, are adolescent shit heads. If you could find anyone over 25 watch this movie and enjoy it, I would be shocked.

 

OLD SCHOOL 2003 The film that made Vince Vaughn and Will Ferrell mainstream. This in my humble opinion is the best comedy of all time, better than Animal House, better than Caddyshack, better than the Mel Brooks films and absolutely better than any Judd Apatow film.

The movie is nearly flawless, it does not get caught up in a stupid love story nor does it get to incredibly silly. Many of the Seth/Judd films find themselves getting a little to lost in the plot and story. (Knocked Up, Superbad) The other new comedy's of our generation get flat out stupid at times (Anchorman, Pineapple Express) old school is a perfect blend of excellent writing a very well paced story (very difficult for a comedy, if you don't believe me see IHTSBIH) and scene stealing actors.

Three older friends find themselves starting a fraternity after one of them (Wilson) rents a house right outside a college campus. Hilarity ensues. Many of the scenes are so well known but are hardly the best, Will Ferrell's streaking scene is great but overshadows numerous magnificent one liners.

On the DVD you will find deleted scenes that are funnier than any one scene in all of Will Ferrell's sports films combined. If you don't believe me select "ask Frank" on the menu section of the DVD. The film can be watched thousands of times, quoted and talked about at any water cooler or any bar. It is an absolute masterpiece.

This is the highest rating I have given on any review.

9.125/10