Last Movie Watched Thread

The Bling Ring. The performances were pretty good but it was nevertheless quite boring.

Over the weekend, I watched:

The Sacrament - I forgot that this was basically a recreation of a Jim Jones-type cult. It was really depressing and not really "scary", but horrifying in that something very similar happened IRL. One of the survivors of Jim Jones still travels around talking about her experiences, and it was just terrible.

Maniac - Elijah Wood as a mannequin store owner and serial killer, in a movie shot in first-person perspective. Very well done.

Insidious: Chapter 2 - Sequel continuing the story about a family with a father and son who are able to visit the realm of the dead, and evil ghosts come back with them. I really liked this one...it didn't rely on gore or creepy makeup for the scares, and worked very well as a sequel.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974) - The only gripe I have, and it's been something I've been trying to overlook since I watched it last night, is the fact that all Sally does for the last act of the film is scream her head off. It's not a matter of not sympathizing, I understand that in that situation of escalating madness and violence, all she can really do is scream. But I mean for instance, when she jumps out the window the first time and has briefly escaped Leatherface, she runs screaming into the woods. ALL she had to do was shut up for a moment and go hide in the woods, he had no way of finding her, the only source of light was the flashlight that had long since been discarded. But even as I type that I know that that kind of logic isn't really the point of the movie. It is just one big building nightmare that literally explodes when she jumps out of the second window back into daylight. The only time I found her screaming to be as effective as it was in the initial chainsaw attack scene is at the end when she's riding the truck and has clearly just gone mad.

That being said, I liked it, I get why it's revered as a classic. Not my personal favorite of the major slashers but it's still a very good movie if you haven't seen it.

Birdman: There were only two things I disliked about this film, and neither of them had anything to do with the movie. 1) I can't stand it when audiences clap after a film. What, are you applauding the projectionist for hitting the "Play" button? Gimme a break. 2) The two or three people in a crowd of 300 who make a point to laugh the loudest and longest just to make sure everyone around them understands that they got the joke.

Otherwise a wonderful outing.

Thor:The Dark World

Day of the Dead. Amusing, not especially great.

Just saw '71, movie about British soldier who gets cut off from his unit during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It is very, very good.

Wouldn't compare them. 71 is more of a paranoid fiction film about a soldier lost in a war he barely understands.

Hunger is best though.

Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge. I'm not a huge fan of the Nightmare movies, but I'll throw one on every now and then. I was entertained, but caught off guard on the lack of horrible one liners. I guess they were still trying to make a 'proper' horror movie with this one even though there were still several seemingly purposeful humorous parts.

"Alive Inside." It's about music being given to the elderly with dementia and Alzheimer's and the effect it has. (You may have seen a video in 2011 that went viral of a 94-year-old man hearing his favorite song and the reaction that elicited. This documentary is about the research and program behind that.) It is simultaneously hopeful and sad because it does address how screwed up American society is when it comes to aging.

Watching "Enemy of the State" again, Will Smith's best movie. Gene Hackman's character, an ex-NSA super spook operating in perfect anonymity, owns and drives the most recognizable car in the world: a bright blue El Camino.

The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands - Exhilarating historical recreation film, from the 1920s and regarding two key naval battles of World War I (the German victory at Coronel, and their resulting defeat at the Falklands - the events that made Graf von Spee a household name, well, given your household.)

Light on characters, heavy on plot, extensive use of ships. The kind of rousing patriotic film that is remarkably without malice, with honourable foes who even fish each other out of the water once defeated (it's a bit like Wings in this regard.)

I just finished watching Arthur, which is pretty much a perfect movie. 'Nuff said.

I watched Grabbers of the weekend. It was a pretty fun little creature movie. Pretty much an Irish Tremors, which is also what happens when you run out of whiskey. Crushed it. Take that Irish.