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Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews
- Thread starter Rascally Badger
- Start date
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- movies
Dude. I don't know anyone who's seen it. I need to talk about it. Saw it two weeks ago, can't stop thinking about it.
This is my favourite movie of last 5 years. Incredible... Yet weird and droning... Until it isn't
Isrieri
My father told me this would happen
The trailer also interested me and now you've got me real curious.
It's important that you don't know too much I think.
I fucking LOVE how Jean Jacket went the whole first half of the movie without eating any people, then starts hunting them almost exclusively one Jupes fed his entire audience to it.
It's just a great case of someone thinking they can take advantage of a situation they don't understand and making it thousands of times worse.
The trailers aren't LYING, but it's SO much more than a movie about a UFO fucking up a ranch.
That's not a spoiler that's literally the one sentence description of every single trailer.
Anyway it rules and I really can't recommend it enough.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I made a sudden decision to get a year's subscription to Shudder and now I have to justify it (even though I watch maybe a movie a month from Criterion, which costs more). But I wasn't in the mood for horror but I also know they have horror adjacent movies. So I decided to watch The Ninth Configuration, a weird little movie from William Peter Blatty of the Exorcist fame. It's a movie I've seen both tagged as comedy and horror and personally feel neither of these but at least comedy makes some sense. I guess there's existential dread but that's more sad than conventionally scary.
The film is a little like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest in that there's a cast of "insane" people held up in an abandoned castle in the US. The view of mental illness is cartoonishly broad (like a guy trying to make an all dog version of MacBeth), even by the standards of the time but there is also a hint that this mysterious rash of insanity are people pulling a Klinger from MASH and trying to get out of the Vietnam war. But that's only in the narration and we kind of accept most of these people are wacky "nuts". A new guy is brought in to help with rehabilitation but it soon becomes clear that he too might be delusional.
You'd think that's where it might get scary or mysterious but mostly the delusional guy (Stacy Keach) is trying to help by being all give and yield to these people and gently talking to them. Mostly it becomes about the relationship between him and an outlier patient, not a soldier but an astronaut who freaked out the day of a mission (actual connection to horror, he's the guy who was told he was going to die in space by Regan in the Exorcist). Tonally, though, it feels like Blatty is going for a Kurt Vonnegut vibe in trying to be weird and witty and discuss the human condition and really it mostly works when it is about sadness. It is a mesmerizing, interesting movie, if flawed, and I do hope more people check out this little oddity.
The film is a little like One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest in that there's a cast of "insane" people held up in an abandoned castle in the US. The view of mental illness is cartoonishly broad (like a guy trying to make an all dog version of MacBeth), even by the standards of the time but there is also a hint that this mysterious rash of insanity are people pulling a Klinger from MASH and trying to get out of the Vietnam war. But that's only in the narration and we kind of accept most of these people are wacky "nuts". A new guy is brought in to help with rehabilitation but it soon becomes clear that he too might be delusional.
You'd think that's where it might get scary or mysterious but mostly the delusional guy (Stacy Keach) is trying to help by being all give and yield to these people and gently talking to them. Mostly it becomes about the relationship between him and an outlier patient, not a soldier but an astronaut who freaked out the day of a mission (actual connection to horror, he's the guy who was told he was going to die in space by Regan in the Exorcist). Tonally, though, it feels like Blatty is going for a Kurt Vonnegut vibe in trying to be weird and witty and discuss the human condition and really it mostly works when it is about sadness. It is a mesmerizing, interesting movie, if flawed, and I do hope more people check out this little oddity.
I love shudder. Watch as many Joe Bob Briggs specials as you can, plus the Elvira one from last year. Also if Crystal Lake Memories is still on there, it's an exhaustive doc on Friday the 13th.
I have some thoughts on great movies on the service. I'm in Canada and the choices may vary! But hmu if you want my dumb opinions!
I have some thoughts on great movies on the service. I'm in Canada and the choices may vary! But hmu if you want my dumb opinions!
So I think
it was eating people ahead of time? Keith David was killed by it's refuse. Do you think it was attracted to area due to Jupe? I sorta got the feeling Jupe "discovered" it and was buying out the ranch's horses. The ranch needed to sell due to hardships after Keith David dies
Ok so Holst. What the fuck. I feel this is a religious experience for him. Ascend to the heavens and sit in purgatory. Wild
Ok so Holst. What the fuck. I feel this is a religious experience for him. Ascend to the heavens and sit in purgatory. Wild
Oh yeah good point. Jupes was pretty obviously feeding it horses the whole time, so people was more of a sometimes food. Still, the moment he tried to turn it into a roadside attraction is definitely the moment everything truly went to hell.
Holst deciding to walk into oblivion was WEIRD to me, because Unlike Jupes, he definitely understood that he WASN'T looking at an advanced intelligence, but a scavenging animal. I guess you could say that he was obsessed with animal brutality, as all the film he was editing in his free time was shots of animals fighting, or the idea that since he finally got a perfect shot, he no longer needs to be alive, but it still feels weird.
Holst deciding to walk into oblivion was WEIRD to me, because Unlike Jupes, he definitely understood that he WASN'T looking at an advanced intelligence, but a scavenging animal. I guess you could say that he was obsessed with animal brutality, as all the film he was editing in his free time was shots of animals fighting, or the idea that since he finally got a perfect shot, he no longer needs to be alive, but it still feels weird.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
This is like, just a long recap if memory serves but... still. Like it. I like to consider myself a discerning viewer but I also like things that are just "and then this happened, then this happened."
Not quite the same but it's also like why I like the In Search of Darkness things. I want them to make more but for different decades because the 80s is mostly tapped out (unless they go mostly foreign films)
I think there is a third one coming. They are very fascile, but still fun?
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
100%. It's the same pleasure I get from the Bravo 100 Scariest Movie Moments special from the mid-2000s. Just video clips and talking heads. Deconstruct it accurately if you want, I still like it.
There is also a 80s sci-fi one by same group coming soon as well!
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I mean, fun and I get the appeal of the VHS era but the 70s was also a really good horror era I'd like 'em to do. Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Let's Scare Jessica to Death, Ganja and Hess, Don't Look Now, Suspiria, various giallo.
Harbinger Down was a movie made by the peeps what made that The Thing remake, and had all their cool, cool practical effects monsters replaced by CG monsters, and wanted to show us what we could have had instead.
To that end, this was just, straight up, The Thing, except on a boat. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as The Thing, and there really wasn’t enough of the monster considering how “Look at this kick ass monster!” Was the entire reason the movie was made, but that being said, it’s got Lance Hendrikson and a really cool bunch of monster puppets, so given the reason for its existence, it’s a resounding success.
if Your choice is between this and The Thing, watch The Thing. If you want to watch The Thing but wish it was on a boat, watch Virus. If you want to watch The Thing but wish it was on a boat, and it was cold, and nobody was very paranoid about anything, watch Harbinger Down.
or just watch a super cut of the monster scenes, that’d take, like, five minutes tops
To that end, this was just, straight up, The Thing, except on a boat. It wasn’t anywhere near as good as The Thing, and there really wasn’t enough of the monster considering how “Look at this kick ass monster!” Was the entire reason the movie was made, but that being said, it’s got Lance Hendrikson and a really cool bunch of monster puppets, so given the reason for its existence, it’s a resounding success.
if Your choice is between this and The Thing, watch The Thing. If you want to watch The Thing but wish it was on a boat, watch Virus. If you want to watch The Thing but wish it was on a boat, and it was cold, and nobody was very paranoid about anything, watch Harbinger Down.
or just watch a super cut of the monster scenes, that’d take, like, five minutes tops
This reminds me:
Horror Noire is a good doc on there, as well as a lengthy one on folk horror. It has a ridiculous name, so I can't recall it as well
And you're right. I'm basically sick to death of all 80s nostalgia.
IIRC Harbinger Down had a Kickstarter and we contributed to it! It's not great but it was fun enough.
Olli
(he/him)
Yep, I got a poster out of it! It wasn't a very smart use of my money in retrospect but on the other hand, I don't feel bad about letting a bunch of practical effects guys do practical effects.
I know I've said this before, but there hasn't been a better movie made this millennium than The Nice Guys. Just freakin perfect.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh is a film that feels like it spends the first half almost struggling with being a giallo movie then finally feels free to just be a Hitchcock with a fun, silly ending. Even the title is about this character's fetish and as you might expect from the genre (assuming you are familiar), there are topless women getting slashed with a straight razor by a guy in black gloves and coat. Then it stops being tits and blood when it gets into the mystery. The first part lacks some of the style of early Argento but I had a lot of fun with the second half and I like the decision to reveal the serial killer happens to be coincidental to the villains' plans and doesn't enter into the last act.
After RRR blew my mind perfectly inside-out, I decided that my next steps into learning more about Indian cinema would be to watch some more works from the same director, S. S. Rajamouli, so I watched both parts of Baahubali. These are epics that express the motifs and themes of legends without directly adapting any specific one. The story is simple, confident, and iconic, the production is gorgeous,and the stunts are outta sight.
A fun time, though if you’re prone to action movie fatigue it’ll set in when you get into the third act of the second film. Not the transcendent experience RRR was, but I wasn’t expecting it to be.
I think I’ll go with a drama in a contemporary setting for my next one. Probably something much more musical.
A fun time, though if you’re prone to action movie fatigue it’ll set in when you get into the third act of the second film. Not the transcendent experience RRR was, but I wasn’t expecting it to be.
I think I’ll go with a drama in a contemporary setting for my next one. Probably something much more musical.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Shock is a 70s Italian possession movie with a Oedipal twist. A woman, her son and her second husband move into the house where her first husband died. Soon, she noticed her son behaving strangely and becomes convinced something is very wrong. This is Mario Bava's last theatrical film and while it is just OK, it has some visually arresting moments, particularly in the last act.
I won't go out of my way to recommend it but if you like me watch a bunch of movies in October, maybe put it in the list to shake things up.
I won't go out of my way to recommend it but if you like me watch a bunch of movies in October, maybe put it in the list to shake things up.
Did not care much for Mandy, on the whole. If you’re going to watch a movie where Nic Cage goes on a vengeance fuelled rampage against a murderous cult of demonic bikers, watch Drive Angry instead.
if you wish Drive Angry dedicated About 70% of its run time to Nic Cages unblinking face and the slow motion rantings of a sex cult priest, then here you go.
Chainsaw fight was cool, though
if you wish Drive Angry dedicated About 70% of its run time to Nic Cages unblinking face and the slow motion rantings of a sex cult priest, then here you go.
Chainsaw fight was cool, though
I don't mean this in a snide way, but perfectly straightforward: had you ever seen an Indian movie before RRR?
I had seen a couple, yes. I would say RRR renewed rather than kindled my interest in learning more about Indian cinema