I didn’t watch the last one because I fell asleep, but so far the Tom Waits segment was my favorite, because he’s such a great character actor.
Could they have possibly picked a more beautiful location for his segment? It looks like it was shot in heaven. This also may be the first movie since “Waterworld” to detail how much smoke and soot a gun discharges when you fire it. I always laugh at movies when fancy nickel-plated guns are sparkling clean after being fired twenty times. It would be covered in black in two seconds.
The Apostle (on Netflix) A guy goes searching for his sister at some cult island off the coast of Britain sometime in the early 1900s. Hijinx ensue. I love gothic-style horror, but man, this movie was fucking heavy. Dan Stevens is becoming one of my favorite actors. I saw him in the Man Who Invented Christmas recently and he was great in that. This was a very different role and he killed this one too. My only gripe is that the first and second halves felt like different movies. I liked the first half much better. When the second half starts getting into the supernatural stuff, it drops a lot of subplots and never quite circles back to some of them later on. The plot was ok, nothing ground breaking and the story wasn’t written amazingly. But the acting was good and horror elements/violence were pretty fucking brutal. Its free if you have Netflix so I think it’s worth watching. 6/10
That plot wasn’t what I thought it would be. But the horror and violent scenes were as nasty as it gets. Stevens is going to be a huge star. That scene in the septic/sewer is one of the scariest scenes I have EVER seen in any film. I will not forget it as long as I live, I’d recommend the movie just for that 60 seconds alone.
Yeah seriously. Scared the absolute fuck out of me because up until that point it wasn’t that kind of movie. I think I have to give it a second viewing, there is just so much going on so quickly. The violence was so visceral. The director also made both Raid movies. If you haven’t seen it, The Raid 2 is a work of art.
The last one was good, if you ever wake back up. I didn't realize the trapper was Harris from Major League until I saw the credits. And, I still liked the opener with Nelson the best, but the Prospector with Waits was definitely a close second - even with Chekhov's Owl.
Spider-Man: into the Spider-Verse This is fantastic. Everything about this movie is great. The cast is solid top to bottom, the writing is clever, the animation is superb in ways I've not seen, and the story is dense. It's one of the most entertaining films I have seen in a very long time. It was very unique in so many ways, and was better than I was expecting. Well done all around. 10/10
Tales from the Hood 2: I randomly saw they made another one and was on netflix. Really liked the first as a sleeper as a Twilight Zone esque horror flick based in the hood. The same producers and directors were back so I had hoped it could match the quality of the first. Wrong. The first story is so laughably bad in acting and execution I almost turned it off. The through line plot that connects the segments is unfortunately the second worst executed story of the movie. Ham fisted and predictable from the outset Keith"Howd you get the Beans above the frank?" David does a passable job as the narrator but it's all just too campy. The closest story to the quality of the original was the Emmett Till story, which with a bigger budget could have been a really great segment about shifting timelines in a parallel universe. 2/10
Any movie involving Keith David’s velvet voice gets two stars. That’s a shame that it sucks. I also enjoyed the first one. A bit campy, but from the original TV previews back in ‘95 I m thought it was going to be a satire horror-comedy. It was not that whatsoever, but instead a VERY sadistic and nasty message film for it’s climate. It’s better than people think it’s going to be.
Mortal Engines Sometimes, a movie is so bad it's good. For example, I enjoyed Pacific Rim because I knew what I was getting - giant robots fighting giant monsters. The story didn't matter at all, as long as there weren't any long breaks between robots or monsters. Sometimes, a movie is just a stupid idea. That's what Mortal Engines is. Because Steampunk is a stupid genre, that exists only to feature bowler hats and blimps. Bargain-Price Elle Fanning teams up with Discount Eddie Redmayne to bring down an evil plot, in a world where cities are now on fucking wheels, because why not? From the producers of such hits as Nearly Every Other Film Also Starring Hugo Weaving, you'll also see Well Known Character Actor Not As Expensive As Andy Serkis. What you won't see is any rolling cities worth a shit other than London. Discussing this movie is sad, because it further validates a stupid premise. Rolling cities? Seriously?
It’s nice to know that it’s every bit as terrible as it looks. Steampunk was not something that was supposed to span more than two decades, it was already annoying then.
Preach, glad that movie was shitty. There is nothing appealing or interesting about the steampunk genre. Hey, you know what would be cool? If the world never left the first phase of the Industrial Revolution and the transistor never developed. Actually, no its pretty fucking lame. The only steampunk anything I enjoyed was the Thief PC games, and even then, the setting/world got old after a while.
It’s the “fashion” that I find especially annoying. The leather trenchcoat w/ goggles & stovepipe hat shit. The women with their borderline tee-hee slutty robot costumes. It kind of reminds of of the movie “The Golden Child” where it gives the impression that it’s wildly popular, when in fact everybody hates it.
No one ever asked for a entire genre of fiction centered around looking like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, but for some reason it popped up anyway.
I was at a ComiCon in Niagara a few years ago, that’s the one time I see it. Dressed up in this Victorian London S&M garb. This rail-thin neckbeard with the greasiest hair I’ve ever seen was lugging around a pipe-outfitted Kasio key-tar. What are you doing, dude? I always thought the point of Cosplay was to pay homage to a character, game,story etc. that you liked. What they were doing pretty much says “Look at this useless ensemble I put together! No....SERIOUSLY look at it. Or, I’ll die.”
I went in knowing it would be pretty bad, but I had the free time and the money, so I figured I'd see what London on tank treads looked like battling the rolling cities of Europe. After first few minutes, the novelty wears off, and they never do anything other than attack a rolling...hamlet of Bavaria? Then, by the first third of the movie, you will already know every upcoming plot twist so you're just kinda watching dirty steampunk people do random things. Plus a Frankenstein-like subplot, because Stephen Lang needed to play a badass. If you want to see a dystopian movie where people are mobile, watch Snowpiercer - it was much better and had a great cast.
Vice This movie should have been good, but it just wasn’t. There wasn’t much to the story or any character development of any kind. I’m not even sure what the point was. It could have been an interesting story of how Dick Cheney grew into the person that eventually causes the second Iraq War but it boils down to his wife telling him to get his shit together. The first half was kind of like that, but then it fell apart. Christian Bale and Steve Carrell were awesome albeit a bit cartoonish, but most of the other characters just missed the mark and Rockwell was barely in it. I don’t know why Tyler Perry gets serious roles when he never pulls it off. The ending was just strange and had nothing to do with Cheney whatsoever and veered toward Trump for some reason. Hollywood will probably jerk itself off and give it some awards, but I’m guessing it’s going to bomb. 4/10
Damn, I heard the reviews weren't good I was at least willing to give the premise points because it's not a fucking sequel, prequel, reboot, rehash, of established movie franchises. It's more about the over all execution of the plot than the premise sucking maybe?
The House That Jack Built Get to know a sick mind more than anybody has ever wanted to. Abandon all hope ye who enter here. Given the subject matter is a serial killer film directed by Lars Vin Trier, it’s probably going to be a tough pill to swollew. Aaaaaaaaand it is. Matt Dillon is remarkably believable in a real-life way as an exceptionally sick-minded sociopath who murders five dozen people in the Pacific Northwest during the 70’s and 80’s. Like most of Von Trier’s films it’s divided into chapters— Five “incidents”, centering aroung increasingly depraved and nasty murders, and a disarming, symbolism-rampant epilogue that seems to be a different film. The film itself is impossible to classify. It has breathless anticipation but little suspense. Truly horrid and disgusting acts done in the guise of a black comedy. It’s not a slasher but a psychological arthouse pseudo-horror that certainly isn’t for all tastes —or the faint of heart— but it’s also a movie to see at least once, as it has rich rewards buried in it. But at other times it will seem like a pointless pindrop escapade. This movie caused a mass walkout when screened at Cannes. Dozens of people running for the exits in the middle of being shown. Watch it to find out why. It’s Von Trier’s best film, and probably his least pretentious. 8/10