movies

[Darkweasel]

Hacksaw Ridge

Mel Gibson directs the true story about conscientious objector Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) who joins the army during WWII under the condition he will not be required to take up arms against the enemy. The army try forcing Doss to leave, telling him he'll never get to play any part in the war effort because of his refusal to touch any kind of firearm. However, after his father (Hugo Weaving), a former soldier, steps in, Doss is allowed to join the conflict, and over the course of a couple of terrifying days and nights he rescues most of his injured and dying squad from the battlefield, earning the respect of everyone who thought he was a coward.

A film of two halves, the first section of the film will probably disappoint a lot of people as it focuses on the love story between Doss and his girlfriend with a spot of parental abuse thrown in. The boot camp section will undoubtedly have its detractors too, most likely because it feels a little too much like a lightweight version of Full Metal Jacket, or because of the slightly odd casting of Vince Vaughn as the film's drill sergeant version of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. To his credit though, Vaughn actually puts in a pretty decent performance, playing a slightly more caring and human version of R Lee Ermey's brutal drill instructor. Even the walking uni-expression, Sam Worthington (Avatar, Terminator Salvation), puts in a reasonable effort as Vaughn's Captain.

However, Hacksaw Ridge is all about the war scenes, and the second half of the film is where Gibson's directing skills really come into their own. The battle sequences are every bit as horrifying as Saving Private Ryan as arms, heads, and legs are blown off at an alarming rate, and soldiers are riddled with bullets and burned alive by flamethrowers every few seconds.

Garfield is excellent throughout, Weaving is superb as the abusive father tormented by his own combat experiences, and the rest of the cast are a likeable/unlikable bunch as required. Gibson's own religious beliefs are unashamedly up front and on display throughout the film, and there's a distinct lack of profanity in the script. Things occasionally lean towards the mawkish side, and it's also a little long at nearly two and a half hours, but it's still probably the best war film since Saving Private Ryan.
8.5/10



JACKIE

A couple of years ago I found myself watching Blue Jasmine, a film which saw Cate Blanchett put in a performance so good it outshone the film itself. The same thing happens here, but with an even greater divide. Whereas Blue Jasmine was actually a pretty good film to start with, Jackie is tortoise paced, uneventful misery porn which really doesn't deserve a performance as good as the one Natalie Portman delivers.

Focusing mainly on the events straight after the assassination of JFK, the film is basically Jackie Kennedy (Portman) telling a journalist everything that happened during the hours and days that followed. The problem is, nothing much did happen. Lyndon B Johnson was sworn in as the new president, Jackie had an argument with Robert Kennedy, talked to her priest (John Hurt looking unsurprisingly ill) and repeatedly changed her mind about how she was going to get to the funeral. We do get to see her a couple of years before the assassination, doing an interview for TV where she talks about furniture, but other than that, there's really not much to tell.

Everyone involved puts in a good performance, but there's so little going on that its difficult to maintain interest even when people like Hurt and Richard E Grant are trying their best. Portman, however, is brilliant and you can't take your eyes off her even when what she's saying is less than riveting. Facially, she's not really a dead ringer for the real Jackie Kennedy, but her voice and mannerisms are mimicked perfectly. And although she spends half the film crying her bodyweight in tears, the best parts of her performance come when she's dazed and alone after the assassination, and as she dominates the reporter (no, not in that way) during the interview.
5/10

[Ghost]

Just checked out maniac cop 2 after many years. Still holds up. Shame that films like this will disappear in years to come because they're not famous enough for the kids to check out.

Might watch class of 84 and 99 again at some point

[Haldamir319]

The Lego Batman movie is fun! There's a bunch of neat call backs to other Bat movies, plus they don't hold back having a dig at the modern stuff either. I also saw it in 2D, but I can imagine it being impressive in IMAX 3D.

[Jobdone]

I've lost control of my life so over the past 2 days me and a mate have watched 5 Amityville movies that are vaguely in the franchise. I'm going to sneakily include Amityville 2 because we watched it on Tuesday and that's what caused the entire marathon. And we skipped 3-D because we don't have the glasses.

In release order:

Amityville 2:

Realistically pretty awesome for like an hour/hour and ten minutes. After that we get into the full possession/exorcism stuff that drags and drags and is kind of disappointing. The first part was ramped up with tension and weird creepy incest though, so enjoyed.
6/10

Amityville 4 The Evil Escapes:

6 or 7 priests exorcise the Amityville house and then they fucking have a carboot sale with all the furniture because money I guess. However the exorcism got rid of every evil spirit except ONE THAT LURKED IN A LAMP.
It's about an evil lamp. Woman buys lamp. Lamp kills a woman because she cuts herself on it and gets tetanus. Satan lives.
It gets sent to some old lady, whose daughter and kids move in, shit goes whacky, daughter thinks dad is in the lamp, couple of people die in surprisingly boring ways except for one gory food disposal scene, old lady just throws it out of the window. Really could've done that from the start.
2/10

The Amityville Curse:

Legally distinct from Amityville Horror. Group of friends fix up a house in amityville, but in the basement is the confession box where a priest was killed. It's there because reasons I don't fucking know. People die. It's awful. Only highlight is Kim Coates getting his shit fucked up for about 15/20 minutes straight at the end.
1/10

Amityville 1992 It's About Time:

Directed by the same fella as Hellraiser 2 and Ticks. The best of the lot. Tons of awesome physical effects, mental shit, people being slags. It's about an evil clock, but don't let that put you off. I'm actually not gonna reveal much of the plot cos it's great fun.

7/10

Amityville A New Generation:

Hilariously convulted attempt to link our main character (A shit artist) back to the original Amityville murders. It's about an evil mirror given to him by a homeless guy who turns out to be his absentee father who MURDERED HIS WHOLE FAMILY IN THE AMITYVILLE HOUSE. John Locke as a detective reveals this link to the main character who starts spiralling and for some reason assuming he'll also kill everyone he loves. It's dumb as fuck. Just smash the mirror. Still better than Curse or evil lamp.
4/10

Amityville Dollhouse:

The movie that killed the original franchise, but not even the worse. Guy builds a house, and I think the fireplace is from amityville or something? Made a saving apparently. There's also a dollhouse that is a copy of Amityville. It's fucking all over the shop with shit going wrong with everyone for various reasons.
Tries to link all this back to some demons and a hilarious scene where two demons walk slowly forward in an attic in poor lighting cos the costumes were awful.
Kinda trash, but fun enough to not be terrible.
Also Starr Andreeff touching herself in one scene so I got a quick wankbank out of it.
5/10

You'd figure this would put us off, but next on the docket is a bunch more movies in Amityville in the name that aren't really related. We had to vet the remaining ones because some of them are legit bad student movies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Amityville_Horror_(film_series)

[Ghost]

The only one out of that lot Ive seen is Amityville 2. Watched it countless times as a kid.

"My panties! But why?"

[Jobdone]

The only one out of that lot Ive seen is Amityville 2. Watched it countless times as a kid.

"My panties! But why?"

"You're the most beautiful girl in the world"

So fucking greasy. I loved everything about the family and them falling apart, it's just the last chunk that ruined it for me.

[Ghost]

I doubt those lines would work on a girl you're not related to.

Yeah the film falls apart after the deed is done. Got Burt Young in it who is a very under rated actor.

[Ghost]

Considering how bad freddy vs Jason could have been it's actually a good movie.

[Darkweasel]

On the subject of vs...


SADAKO vs KAYAKO



With a long history of incorporating "versus" or "vs" into the titles of their films (Mothra vs Godzilla, Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, and, well... Versus), the Japanese have turned their attention to the Ring and Ju-on series for their latest crossover battle.

With digital media having replaced those clunky boxes of easily damaged tape a long while ago, the story of the haunted video cassette has been relegated to that of an urban legend along with "The Slit-Mouthed Woman", and the fabulously named "Hanako of the Toilet". A university lecturer intent on recovering the tape gets his wish when two girls wanting to transfer a wedding video to DVD go to a second hand shop and find it safe and secure inside an old video recorder.

Wondering if it could actually be the genuine tape, the two girls decide to gamble and watch it. However, one gets distracted by her mobile phone and narrowly misses being cursed to die in a couple of days while her friend isn't so lucky. After receiving the spooky phone call which always follows the video viewing, the one girl panics and both of them go back to the shop where they bought the VCR only to discover that the shop assistant who sold it to them (and who admitted to watching the tape herself a couple of days before) is now very dead indeed.

Meanwhile, when a teenage girl realises the four schoolkids she saw entering the supposedly haunted abode from the Ju-on (The Grudge) films have gone missing, she begins to wonder if the story about a ghost girl with a creaky voice and a spider-walk, a white ghost-boy with a wobbly tongue, and a phantom moggy are actually real.

But seeing as the Ring plot is clearly the dominant story here, that's quite enough of her for now.

When the two girls visit the slightly obsessed university lecturer to see if he can help them, the silly sod only goes and watches the video himself, willingly giving himself the curse for some reason or other. From this point on, things get a little odd. Obsessed teacher, cursed schoolgirl, and her friend visit an old lady exorcist who proceeds to force the girl victim to drink enough water to almost drown her before slapping her about a bit. Sadako (the girl with the long black hair and white dress who appears on the cursed video) makes a surprise appearance from inside her host, briefly possessing the girl, forcing her to kill the old lady, her lackies, and the unhinged lecturer. Before she dies, the old lady tells the two girls to get in touch with someone called Keizo and give him a load of money.

So who's this Keizo then? Well, entirely as you would expect, he's a good looking, powerful psychic with a nifty trick of being able to capture demons with swishy movements of his fingers, and a psychic sidekick in the shape of a blind psychic girl called Tamao. Deciding the best way to get rid of the curse is to fight fire with fire, Keizo and the blind girl decide to pit Sadako against the vengeful spirits in the Ju-on house.

Anyway, it all goes a little bit mental from here, with attempted suicides, curses being passed from one person to another, the girl from earlier suddenly becoming the most important character in the whole thing, the flimsiest well covering ever, and the two nasty entities facing off against each other in a battle to the (un)death.

Sadako vs Kayako might not be the best idea ever, but it's still quite a bit of fun. It's not really scary, it's only mildly gory, has more than a touch of Western influence, and the acting is more than a bit suspect in places, but it's just daft enough to keep you entertained. Disappointingly, although not unexpectedly, the weakest part of the film is the titular climactic showdown itself. Leaving itself barely ten minutes to resolve matters, you know it's never going to happen and it just happy to leave itself open for a sequel which will probably never happen.

6.5/10

[Darkweasel]

RINGS



And so, all rather predictably, we move from the Japanese Ring/Grudge crossover to a sequel to the US made Ring movies. And seeing as the most recent of those two films was released twelve years ago with no-one since then appearing all that eager for any more, you do have to wonder why they've even bothered bringing them back.

Well, it would seem Rings is actually more of an attempt at a reboot rather than a direct sequel. After a pretty decent teaser sequence on board an aeroplane, the story basically remains the same, but little things like the images on the videotape are changed here and there. Bringing the story into the digital age seems to be another motive, like Sadako vs Kayako, a character ends up uploading the contents of the haunted tape onto the internet.

From there, a computer nerd (Johnny Galecki from The Big Bang Theory) discovers there are actually images within the images, which actually turn out to be portents of the future. The sexy heroine (some girl from things I've never heard of) then takes her hunky boyfriend (some square chinned bloke who was in an episode of Hollyoaks a few years ago) to a small town to try and escape the curse by discovering the story behind Samara's vengeance and laying her spirit to rest.

As well as a reboot, Rings also works as remake of the Japanese Ringu (the third film in that series) which gave the character of Sadako (changed somewhat unremarkably to Samara for the US market) a back story to her vengeance. However, in keeping with the two other American remakes, this one falls so far wide of the mark it almost belongs in another film. The sudden addition of Vincent Donofrio to the story when there's only half an hour left is a massive red flag, and everything winds up in the same typical Hollywood ending territory as you would expect. characters revealed to be not who they say they are, last minute attempted rescues, misunderstood vengeful spirits who are really only after a peaceful afterlife, and a completely predictable tagged-on ending which goes some way to actually undermine the point of the story it tried to tell in the first place.

4.5/10

[Ghost]

And the rumour is that Rings poor box office performance contributed to the next Friday the 13th movie being cancelled. For whatever reason.

[Ghost]

Anyone watched the house franchise since they were a kid? I notice a blu ray set coming out. Don't think I liked the films much as a kid. Might rewatch though.

[Darkweasel]

Anyone watched the house franchise since they were a kid? I notice a blu ray set coming out. Don't think I liked the films much as a kid. Might rewatch though.

Watched them again last year.
Didn't include House 3 because it's nothing to do with the series. It is actually quite decent though.



HOUSE
(1986)
Blonde, curly permed William Katt (Carrie) plays horror novelist Roger Cobb, who after moving into his recently deceased Aunt's house to start work on a new book, begins to think the place might be haunted. Estranged from his wife since the bizarre disappearance of their young son, Roger tries to bury himself in his work but keeps getting distracted. Firstly by over-friendly neighbour, Harold, and secondly by the stupid amount of ghosts and monsters which start appearing from inside bathroom mirrors and closets.

As he continues writing his book, a non-fiction story about his time in Vietnam, the ghostly appearances become more frequent, scarier and nastier. After setting up ghost traps with his disbelieving neighbour, one of them goes wrong and it sends Roger into the heart of the house - a dimension filled with his darkest fears and secrets.

Of course, you know his son is going to be in there and that there will be a suitably scary central villain to defeat (and that won't take much working out either), but everything moves along quickly, wittily, and with the odd scary (but never too scary) moment until it reaches the ending you want it to have.

Katt is great as the bewildered Cobb, and bargain basement Farrah Fawcett, Kay Lenz, plays the estranged wife to the best of her average ability, but it's George (Norm from Cheers) Wendt who owns the movie as Harold.
The puppets/man in rubber suit special effects are as brilliant as they are stupid and everyone really looks to be having a good time. The only negative is Harry Manfredini's lacklustre soundtrack, a score so lazy that you can pick out cues from every one of the Friday the 13th movies he scored before this.

"Damn! Come back from the grave and ran out of ammunition".
8/10


HOUSE 2 - THE SECOND STORY
Leaving Roger Cobb and his amazing disappearing/reappearing son behind, House 2 moves location and changes stories entirely. This time out, young business type Jesse (Arye Gross) and his talent scout girlfriend move into the house where Jesse's parents were murdered by a ghostly cowboy when he was a baby. When Jesse's best friend, Charlie, turns up with a wannabe pop singer girlfriend (a lovely and young Amy Yasbeck), Jesse starts rooting around the place and discovers an old story about a crystal skull that makes its owner immortal. Getting Charlie to help him search, Jesse tracks the skull down to the grave of his Great Great Grandfather, which is conveniently placed just outside in the garden.

Inside the coffin, they find not only the crystal skull, but also the still-not-dead remains of Jesse's Great Great Grandfather (also called Jesse, but who prefers to be called "Gramps"). Upon setting the skull back in its rightful place in the house, the place goes utterly bonkers, opening up portals to other dimensions with cavemen and Mayan priests descending upon the old house to claim the skull for themselves. After retrieving the skull from some sort of Jurassic barbarian, Jesse and Charlie end up bringing back a baby prehistoric bird and a little green creature (I suppose you'd have to call it a Dogerpillar) with twenty-odd legs and puppy's face, and when "Electrican and Adventurer" Bill Towner (John Ratzenberger from Cheers) inexplicably turns up, the film completely loses any semblance of sanity it might have previously possessed.

After beginning promisingly, House 2 rapidly descends into confused, directionless chaos. There are no scares, the dogerpillar is cute but stupid and although the baby dinobird puppet looks great, like the other creature, it serves no actual purpose. There's a sexy virgin sacrifice who does nothing but look pretty and requires rescuing a lot, Bill Maher, still firmly in his "I can act. No, really" phase, plays a smarmy record executive, and Jesse's girlfriend, Lar Park Lincoln (Friday the 13th Part VII - Jason Kills Even More Teenagers) is just awful.

It's not all bad though. Gramps (Royal Dano) is a great character, John Ratzenberger's appearance is bizarre but funny, and the the film does actually remember to be good for the final fifteen minutes. The showdown between Jesse and the baddie cowboy ghost coming close to almost saving the film by itself. Unfortunately though, the rest of the film is all over the place. An occasionally entertaining mess that has no clue what it's actually meant to be.
5/10


HOUSE 4
Ignoring the third entry in the series, which was about a ghostly serial killer, I thought it was about time I got around to watching fourth and final instalment.
Sometimes I really should trust my instincts. For nearly 25 years I've not bothered with this one, and now, like the day after an embarrassing one night stand, I just wish I could take it all back and pretend it never happened.

First, the good news. Curly permed Roger Cobb (William Katt) is back. Hooray! The problem is that he's back with a brand new, and completely unexplained new family. All of a sudden, he's acquired a brand new wife and a teenage daughter with not one mention about his (presumably) ex-wife and miraculously disappearing, reappearing (and now disappearing again) son. In house IV, Roger is left another big spooky house, this time by his father (the old version of Tom Hanks in The Green Mile) but his nasty step-brother has promised to sell the property to a local gangster instead.

In a completely unshocking turn of events, Roger is killed in a mysterious car accident (William Katt only has an "And" credit in the titles, thus automatically signposting an early departure from proceedings), leaving his wife unharmed but their daughter paralysed from the waist down. It's also quite a spectacular crash too for a car which must have only been travelling at around 30mph.

Much to the step-brother's annoyance, the rather milfy red haired wife (Terri Treas) decides to move into the old house with her daughter, even though the arguments from the slimy step-brother actually make sense. The house is miles from anywhere, there are no schools, and there's no way for anybody in a wheelchair to get up and down the old rickety stairs. Any sensible woman would have agreed to sell the property, taken a shitload of cash for it and have actually been able to bring her daughter up in a safe environment with education, support and friends. But no. Keeping a virtually derelict old building because her dead husband liked it is far more important to her so she moves in and, almost immediately, the ghosts start having their fun. The first ghost is a not-scary-at-all face in a pizza, and another one is a dog-lamp. You get the idea.

We meet a native American spirit guide who tells the wife there is something spooky going on, a plumber who lets himself in and works in the basement alone without even telling anyone, a hopeful housekeeper who appears out of nowhere and gets a job despite presenting no credentials, and a disgusting midget gangster called Mr Grosso. There are more spooky shenanigans, the wife gets her kit off for a gratuitous shower scene, and then the ghost of the husband tries to make her feel better.

The spirit guide then reveals the huge twist (as entirely predicted from the moment it happened) that the step-brother was behind the "accident" in the first place. Wow. What a shocker. Anyway, the bad guys get what's coming to them in the form of a really badly misjudged comedy scene where their heads turn into a bug and a snake, the housekeeper turns out to be FBI, a load of onlookers materialise from out of absolutely fucking nowhere to watch a burning house, the wife somehow overcomes the effects of smoke inhalation by talking to a ghost, the daughter miraculously ends up being able to walk again, and Roger makes a final appearance at the end before shooting off into space accompanied by a comedy sound effect.

Why the fuck do I keep doing this too myself?/10

[Haldamir319]

Saw Moonlight last night. It's good, bordering on very good with some excellent performances. However, it didn't blow me away and - gasp - I thought La La Land was a smidge better / well rounded.

[Ghost]

Great so as I suspected I should just check out House. Although I seem to remember liking House 3 as a kid but I maybe getting it mixed up with scenes from the film Shocker.

Saw Greasy Strangler recently. Anyone seen that? Bizarre film that I found strangely addictive. Old people with big fake cocks shouldn't really be entertaining but they are it seems.

Will checkout Moonlight when it's on Blu Ray, I'm sure it won't be as classy as The Greasy Strangler though ha ha. Will avoid La la land and it's musical ideas like the plague. Can't stand singing in films.