The Movie Review and Discussion Thread

[jvince]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Arg!!!!! Stupid tests won't let me finish my review/appreciation for The Cell.

If you liked The Cell, watch The Fall. It's even better.

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

If you like The Cell, see Triangle. Just rent it man.

Lol...And how is Triangle similar to The Cell?

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by jvince

If you liked The Cell, watch The Fall. It's even better.

Lol...And how is Triangle similar to The Cell?

I almost replied to that too, because they do feel like different movies to me. The similarities I see is that they're both horror movies, and they both deal with alternate realities.

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

^^^
Sweet

I thought the film was pretty darn hilarious.

"Closely Watched Trains" is very similar but a bit more subdued.

Right on.

[jvince]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

I almost replied to that too, because they do feel like different movies to me. The similarities I see is that they're both horror movies, and they both deal with alternate realities.

The Cell is kinda unique. I can't think of one film that's has the same mix of genres. The closest would be Inception, but he has probably seen that already.

[Abdrewes]

Jvince,
Come on now, if I have seen The Cell several times now, you know I've seen the other two. I actually write about how differently the subconscious is explored in The Cell vs. Inception. I hope I can finish the write up today after my tests.

The Fall is spectacular too (Netflixed it two years ago), but I felt the extravagance wasn't as deftly integrated as it was in The Cell. I have yet to see my Sony BD, I hear it is an absolute stunner.

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by jvince

The notes shouldn't accumulate just because they were detached from the pad. By that theory, there should be lots of stuffing from the seats on the theater floor.

notes = embedded artistic input from outside the boat (dried ink lettering)

stuffing = no embedded artistic input from outside the boat

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by jvince

But seriously, I don't hate the movie. I really like the story. It's got that Twilight Zone vibe going on, and you all know how much I love that show. But like I said earlier, it is also a "sci-fi" movie, and that part is pretty wonky to me and it kept me from really enjoying the film. If they kept it simple like in the Twilight Zone episodes, I might have liked it more. But Smith clearly wanted to make it detailed, and for me, if you make something detailed, it has to be airtight, and it wasn't.

I dunno. To me, the film took place in a non-real world context, so IMO it made no sense to apply real-world science/logic to the events (ie. how ax got replaced, etc). It would be like asking how Danny could see the twin girls in The Shining? Or how wearing the ring in LOTR could possibly alert nearby Nasgool? If a film is in a fantasy/non-physical realm, its ok for science/logic not to apply (in fact, they MUST not), as long as there are some set of rules that make sense. Here, as Squid pointed out, the

[Show spoiler]loop

seemed to have a consistent set of rules. Made sense to me .

I'm pretty sure the ax thing is also an error, but I couldn't give a thorough and convincing explanation why it shouldn't work like that. Maybe those who've seen the film and are well-versed in time travel can chime in.

[Show spoiler]

you said:
"The ax shouldn't go back to its original place because it is inside the ship. By that logic, every object that was moved inside the ship should reset as well, and if Main Jess keeps holding the ax and doesn't put it down, it should disappear from her hand. However, I remember the reset happens before she puts the ax down. The exact order of events is: (1) Main Jess swings the ax at Masked Jess and she falls overboard, (2) Main Jess realizes the wind stops blowing which means the loop has already reset, (3) Main Jess puts the ax down, (4) We see the clock has already reset as Main Jess notices the record player, (5) Main Jess sees Boat Jess and friends. So, if Main Jess puts the ax down after the reset, then the ax should still be right where she left it."

My response:
it all comes down to when the "reset" takes place. I don't think its until after (3), and probably not until between (4) and (5). why?

in between (4) and (5), we actually see the film ACTUALLY RESET - in fact, it goes through 3 resets in 6 seconds (in "movie time" it takes 6 seconds, in actual time, it would take 3x the length of the movie). That's right. Watch it closely. Jess goes into the record player room at (4). But BEFORE (5), we see the WHOLE FILM skip three times in about 6 seconds = the whole loop resets three times. So the axe has been replaced, taken, replaced, taken, replaced, taken and replaced, in that 6 seconds (not literally in that 6 seconds...the director is just showing a sped-up time warp of 3 loops in 6 seconds via the record skipping).
So when Jess emerges from record room in (5) IN THE MOVIE, the axe has been taken&replaced 3 times relative to the part of the movie prior to that.

[jvince]

Only God Forgives (2013)
dir. Nicolas Winding Refn

The Good: Visually arresting camera work by Larry Smith that strongly evokes Stanley Kubrick's obsessively symmetrical compositions as well as the grit, grime, and bright neon lights of Gaspar Noé's works. Stylistically, it's like the 2001 of revenge flicks. You most likely won't see a more beautiful film this year. Incredible musical score by Cliff Martinez, who's fast becoming one of my favorite composers working today. His music paired with Smith's mesmerizing photography forms one of the most awe-inspiringly spectacular audiovisual displays commited to film. Kristin Scott Thomas delivers a tour-de-force perormance worthy of accolades. Intense, ominous atmosphere. Glouriously excessive gore and violence. Fascinating from start to end. A number of unforgettable moments, particularly the fight scene between Julian (Gosling) and the cop (played by Vithaya Pansringarm), the dinner scene, and the torture scene. Memorable one-liners: "Take it off!!!" "If the tables were turned, your brother would have found your killer and brought me his head on a f*cking platter!"

The Bad: The screenplay is the film's main weak point. Some of the lines sound pretty silly. And why the f*ck does everyone walk so weird in this film?

The Bottom Line: I could see why this film has been dividing audiences. It's unapologetically brutal, it shamelessly bathes in blood, and the plot seems deceptively simple, but there's something deeper going on there. It may be ugly and it's not something audiences are used to seeing from their protagonists, but it's definitely there. Only God Forgives is far from perfect and not bereft of flaws -- Refn's previous work, Drive, is a much tighter film -- but for some reason, I have a sneaking suspicion those who panned it will soften their stance upon future reevaluation. Maybe the timing was wrong or expectations weren't met, but people will come to appreciate this in time.

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by bluearth

Just another film critics chose to prop up on an undeserving pedestal. .

yeah, I mean, it only inspired the Star Wars franchise

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

yeah, I mean, it only inspired the Star Wars franchise

Star Wars: A New Hope is based off of The Hidden Fortress, not Seven Samurai.

[surfdude12]

Originally Posted by kpkelley

Star Wars: A New Hope is based off of The Hidden Fortress, not Seven Samurai.

George Lucas has acknowledged his debt to Akira Kurosawa, and several homages and allusions can be found throughout the Star Wars series. In Star Wars (1977), the robot C3PO echoes the comments of the Japanese peasants when he says, "It seems we are made to suffer. It's our lot in life." Luke Skywalker also bears similarities to both Kikuchiyo (the farmer's son aspiring to warrior status) and Katsushiro (the young man yearning to be a disciple to a master). In The Phantom Menace (1999), the shot of Federation tanks coming over the hill is a direct tribute to the horizon shot of the marauding bandits. Lucas has said Yoda rubbing his head while thinking was a conscious homage to Kambei's head-rubbing gesture. Lucas has also said in interviews that while he was in Japan he became familiar with the cinematic genre jidai-geki ("period film," a category to which Seven Samurai belongs), so it is widely assumed this was an inspiration for his invented word "Jedi" (rebel warrior). Lucas has also employed the rarely seen wipe effect as a scene transition, which Kurosawa uses frequently in The Seven Samurai.
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/articl...n-Samurai.html

[kpkelley]

Originally Posted by surfdude12

[Show spoiler]George Lucas has acknowledged his debt to Akira Kurosawa, and several homages and allusions can be found throughout the Star Wars series. In Star Wars (1977), the robot C3PO echoes the comments of the Japanese peasants when he says, "It seems we are made to suffer. It's our lot in life." Luke Skywalker also bears similarities to both Kikuchiyo (the farmer's son aspiring to warrior status) and Katsushiro (the young man yearning to be a disciple to a master). In The Phantom Menace (1999), the shot of Federation tanks coming over the hill is a direct tribute to the horizon shot of the marauding bandits. Lucas has said Yoda rubbing his head while thinking was a conscious homage to Kambei's head-rubbing gesture. Lucas has also said in interviews that while he was in Japan he became familiar with the cinematic genre jidai-geki ("period film," a category to which Seven Samurai belongs), so it is widely assumed this was an inspiration for his invented word "Jedi" (rebel warrior). Lucas has also employed the rarely seen wipe effect as a scene transition, which Kurosawa uses frequently in The Seven Samurai.
http://www.tcm.com/this-month/articl...n-Samurai.html

Here is the plot summary of The Hidden Fortress:

Akira Kurosawa directs this spirited period action-adventure in which two conniving peasants are tasked with smuggling a general, a princess and the remains of her family's wealth through mountainous, hostile territory in feudal Japan.

Any allusions to other films are undoubtedly intentional, but the structure of the film is based off of The Hidden Fortress. Sort of like how Spaceballs is based off of It Happened One Night.

[Abdrewes]

The Conjuring

Note: a version of this review was originally published for the UTEP Prospector on July 22, 2012.

Though not without its share of effective moments, James Wan's follow up to 2011's unexpected smash hit, Insidious, is more of the same—nimble storytelling neutered by haphazard visual construction.

The Conjuring lays much of its backstory deftly in the first few minutes. We are introduced to its subjects Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga)—two prominent Rhode Island demonologists, and the young upper middle-class Perron family. They soon discover that malevolent spirits inhabit their new home. As is par for the course, it is only a matter of time before they contract Ed and Lorraine's high tech (for the 1970's) Poltergeist crew to clean the place out, until of course the inevitable sequel hits theaters in two years.

Economic set up, engaging performances, and unassuming tone aside, The Conjuring is yet another James Wan frustration. He clearly knows how crowd-pleasing horror films should feel, but he hasn't much of an idea how to construct them. I'll grant that the film is a significant step up from Insidious, but his sensibilities are too frenetic to envelop me in a threatening atmosphere. Which is not to say freneticism an horror do not mix, the films of Alan Parker (Angel Heart), Ken Russell (Altered States, The Devils), and Nobuhiko Obayashi (House) have something to say about that. The key distinction, however, is that those films had memorable compositions and a tight grip on furious montage. The Conjuring unfortunately sports rough camera work, choppy editing, and a washed out color palate. The desaturated sepia tone is meant to add a layer of authenticity to this film claiming to be based on a true story, but it in turn becomes a layer of deceptive artifice.

Amidst the drab look, cinematographer Joseph Bisham manages to orchestrate a few shots of momentary interest. Chief among them is a graceful Steadicam take capturing the Perron family moving into their spacious spacious American Foursquare abode. The camera glides from the driveway, under a couch two movers are hauling in through the front door, darts across the hallway into the back porch where one of the girls is mounting a back porch. It's awesome, yes, but when adjoined with the rest of them film, it strikes as an empty flourish.

When sequences are stitched together, the results are singularly tensionless. There is a key scene early on when things start to go bump in the night. Patron Roger Perron (Ron Livingston sporting a wig) hears noises coming from the hallway past the door. There is a brief moment collecting his paranoia as he gazes in the direction of the door, then all tension dissipates. The subsequent shot is a revealing perpendicular shot from the perspective of the hallway. It reveals too much, leaves nothing to the imagination. We are given too omniscient a vantage point to identify or cower along with these characters.

In complete candor, when it comes to the genre, I prefer a slow, brooding atmosphere captured by languorous takes with slow push-ins. The Conjuring is the antithesis to that. It favors loud jump scares, "fridge scares" and false scares for effect. Some of the false scares are actually quite clever in and of themselves. We think we know exactly where the threat will appear, where the "boo" will come from, then it comes a beat later from an unexpected angle. The first time I had been misdirected, I welcomed the surprise with a full grin on my face, but by the tenth time, I wanted to throw something at the screen. There is repetition, then there is lazy and uninspired.

Just as eye rolling is the over-cranked sound mix. Not only are the sound effects piercingly loud—door slams and screams are amplified by a factor of five at least—, they are coupled with an overbearing score. The blasting, generic soundtrack, tries to compensate for the ineffective staging by queuing us when to be scared. It's cheap and it constitutes one of the key ills of modern horror. What we need are talented visual storytellers, not filmmakers that eschew genuine suspense for noise.

My audience, on the other hand, was fully engaged. They met each scare with jeers, jumps, and self-deprecating laughter. I felt like the lone fan sitting in the front row watching his favorite professional sports team receive a beating at an away game. So I will raise this applicable quote by the venerable Jonathan Rosenbaum, critic of the Chicago Reader, "I give ratings, descriptions, and evaluations of movies in the hope that readers will use them selectively and critically, weighing their biases against mine." For all considering purchasing a ticket I think the deciding factor is whether you like your horror slow and atmospheric or fast paced and brimming with incident.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by jvince

If you liked The Cell, watch The Fall. It's even better.

The Fall has great storytelling and cinematography.

Lol...And how is Triangle similar to The Cell?

Vibe. Mood and atmosphere. The sense of being stuck in a place (nightmare) that you have no control of. The protagonist has to deal with something that there is no prior similar experience from which to draw from in order to make choices. Continuing to go back for "another attempt". Very similar.

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

I almost replied to that too, because they do feel like different movies to me. The similarities I see is that they're both horror movies, and they both deal with alternate realities.

Personally, I dont categorize either as horror. I dont feel like the intent of either one is to scare the audience, rather to make them uncomfortable and to think. To me they are psycho-thrillers, not scary.

[Al_The_Strange]

Originally Posted by SquidPuppet

Personally, I dont categorize either as horror. I dont feel like the intent of either one is to scare the audience, rather to make them uncomfortable and to think. To me they are psycho-thrillers, not scary.

I have a sub-category on my shelf in the horror section for movies that deal with dreams, alternate realities, and other weird stuff like this. So far, I put The Cell, Donnie Darko, Nightmare on Elm Street, Dreamscape, Re-Cycle, and I think Altered States into that category. I probably threw Triangle in with all the serial killer movies, given that Jess gets chased around a boat by an axe-wielding murderer for a good while. But yeah, I should move it in with all the other surreal ones; it's most fitting among that lot.

In short, I agree, they're not scary per se, just atmospheric, enigmatic, and psychological.

[SquidPuppet]

Originally Posted by Al_The_Strange

I have a sub-category on my shelf in the horror section for movies that deal with dreams, alternate realities, and other weird stuff like this. So far, I put The Cell, Donnie Darko, Nightmare on Elm Street, Dreamscape, Re-Cycle, and I think Altered States into that category. I probably threw Triangle in with all the serial killer movies, given that Jess gets chased around a boat by an axe-wielding murderer for a good while. But yeah, I should move it in with all the other surreal ones; it's most fitting among that lot.
In short, I agree, they're not scary per se, just atmospheric, enigmatic, and psychological.

That would be wrong as well. It should go on the documentary shelf, under Yachting ans Sailing.

[MrBlonde]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

The Conjuring

Note: a version of this review was originally published for the UTEP Prospector on July 22, 2012.

Though not without its share of effective moments, James Wan's follow up to 2011's unexpected smash hit, Insidious, is more of the same—nimble storytelling neutered by haphazard visual construction.

The Conjuring lays much of its backstory deftly in the first few minutes. We are introduced to its subjects Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga)—two prominent Rhode Island demonologists, and the young upper middle-class Perron family. They soon discover that malevolent spirits inhabit their new home. As is par for the course, it is only a matter of time before they contract Ed and Lorraine's high tech (for the 1970's) Poltergeist crew to clean the place out, until of course the inevitable sequel hits theaters in two years.

Economic set up, engaging performances, and unassuming tone aside, The Conjuring is yet another James Wan frustration. He clearly knows how crowd-pleasing horror films should feel, but he hasn't much of an idea how to construct them. I'll grant that the film is a significant step up from Insidious, but his sensibilities are too frenetic to envelop me in a threatening atmosphere. Which is not to say freneticism an horror do not mix, the films of Alan Parker (Angel Heart), Ken Russell (Altered States, The Devils), and Nobuhiko Obayashi (House) have something to say about that. The key distinction, however, is that those films had memorable compositions and a tight grip on furious montage. The Conjuring unfortunately sports rough camera work, choppy editing, and a washed out color palate. The desaturated sepia tone is meant to add a layer of authenticity to this film claiming to be based on a true story, but it in turn becomes a layer of deceptive artifice.

Amidst the drab look, cinematographer Joseph Bisham manages to orchestrate a few shots of momentary interest. Chief among them is a graceful Steadicam take capturing the Perron family moving into their spacious spacious American Foursquare abode. The camera glides from the driveway, under a couch two movers are hauling in through the front door, darts across the hallway into the back porch where one of the girls is mounting a back porch. It's awesome, yes, but when adjoined with the rest of them film, it strikes as an empty flourish.

When sequences are stitched together, the results are singularly tensionless. There is a key scene early on when things start to go bump in the night. Patron Roger Perron (Ron Livingston sporting a wig) hears noises coming from the hallway past the door. There is a brief moment collecting his paranoia as he gazes in the direction of the door, then all tension dissipates. The subsequent shot is a revealing perpendicular shot from the perspective of the hallway. It reveals too much, leaves nothing to the imagination. We are given too omniscient a vantage point to identify or cower along with these characters.

In complete candor, when it comes to the genre, I prefer a slow, brooding atmosphere captured by languorous takes with slow push-ins. The Conjuring is the antithesis to that. It favors loud jump scares, "fridge scares" and false scares for effect. Some of the false scares are actually quite clever in and of themselves. We think we know exactly where the threat will appear, where the "boo" will come from, then it comes a beat later from an unexpected angle. The first time I had been misdirected, I welcomed the surprise with a full grin on my face, but by the tenth time, I wanted to throw something at the screen. There is repetition, then there is lazy and uninspired.

Just as eye rolling is the over-cranked sound mix. Not only are the sound effects piercingly loud—door slams and screams are amplified by a factor of five at least—, they are coupled with an overbearing score. The blasting, generic soundtrack, tries to compensate for the ineffective staging by queuing us when to be scared. It's cheap and it constitutes one of the key ills of modern horror. What we need are talented visual storytellers, not filmmakers that eschew genuine suspense for noise.

My audience, on the other hand, was fully engaged. They met each scare with jeers, jumps, and self-deprecating laughter. I felt like the lone fan sitting in the front row watching his favorite professional sports team receive a beating at an away game. So I will raise this applicable quote by the venerable Jonathan Rosenbaum, critic of the Chicago Reader, "I give ratings, descriptions, and evaluations of movies in the hope that readers will use them selectively and critically, weighing their biases against mine." For all considering purchasing a ticket I think the deciding factor is whether you like your horror slow and atmospheric or fast paced and brimming with incident.

BOOOOO!

[Show spoiler] Nice review.

I should really watch House of the Devil, I know a lot of people love it and The Innkeepers, but the two shorts I have watched from Ti West (VHS and ABCs of Death) are pretty bad.

[CoolRanch]

Red 2


My Two Cents:

While not quite as sleek and well-paced as the first, Red 2 is still stylish good fun, utilizing its comic book origins in its style. Good action, good humor, pure entertainment. 7/10

[legendarymatt92]

Originally Posted by MrBlonde

BOOOOO!

[Show spoiler] Nice review.

I should really watch House of the Devil, I know a lot of people love it and The Innkeepers, but the two shorts I have watched from Ti West (VHS and ABCs of Death) are pretty bad.

You should definitely check out both of West's films if you like old-style horror; The House of the Devil is one of the most insidious and engrossing horrors I've ever seen, whilst The Innkeepers is just great, tense fun.

[Abdrewes]

Originally Posted by legendarymatt92

You should definitely check out both of West's films if you like old-style horror; The House of the Devil is one of the most insidious and engrossing horrors I've ever seen, whilst The Innkeepers is just great, tense fun.

Agreed.

Mr. Blonde 2/4 is mixed, I definitely could have talked about the great performances a bit more.

[MrBlonde]

Originally Posted by Abdrewes

Agreed.

Mr. Blonde 2/4 is mixed, I definitely could have talked about the great performances a bit more.

Vera Farmiga is always