Reynolds was fantastic in Buried. Really surprised me because he's not relying on his charisma (which usually pulls him through most performances).
Saw MiB3. It was entertaining but man if they do 4 they gotta figure how to do it with Smith and Brolin. Tommy Lee Jones just drains the life out of every scene he is and looks miserable.
I recently obtained the criterion edition of Equinox, a 1970 supernatural horror/adventure film. It reminded me somewhat of LOST(possibly an influence in this regard), in that it involved seemingly endless wandering around forests, a mysterious shapeshifting (evil)man, and a general tone of mystery.
I wanted At the Mountains of Madness to get made and do really, really well so that there would be Lovecraft "sequels" that would also do so well that someone would eventually be insane enough to green-light a super high budget trilogy based on Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. It would be the most insane trainwreck of all time, but the one scene with the cats would be so amazing that people wouldn't even care.
And Mountains of Madness would have made a fine film. Most of the out-there backstory isn't necessary for the plot, which is very straightforward - a team of researchers tries to find a lost expedition, discovers that they've vanished, there are frozen aliens in the snow and a creepy lost city. It ends with a chase by a monster.
I feel exactly the same way. It's not even my favorite of his works, but I feel like a lot of what made me lose interest in At The Mountains of Madness would have been pretty easy to chop out in a film adaptation. Things like how Lovecraft's penchant for extreme wordiness really stuck out in the story, or how long he lingers on explicitly detailing the largly-irrelevant-to-the-plot history of the lost city.
Mostly, though, I just got kicked into mega hype mode when Elder Things made a cameo in Hellboy 2, and it's a tragedy for me that it's the only time Del Toro will be able to bring them to the movies. I want my insane CGI Shoggoth god damn it.
It was not a good movie. It was not even a good found-footage movie.
Hey now, I liked Apollo 18.
It was a little slow-paced at times but for me it seemed to jive well with the overall mood of the film. I also thought the monsters were a neat spin on things.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Apollo 18 is a really, really bad movie, not least because it was edited to shit.
I wanted At the Mountains of Madness to get made and do really, really well so that there would be Lovecraft "sequels" that would also do so well that someone would eventually be insane enough to green-light a super high budget trilogy based on Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath. It would be the most insane trainwreck of all time, but the one scene with the cats would be so amazing that people wouldn't even care.
The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, like the rest of the dream cycle, is mind-blowingly bad and you should feel bad for reminding me that it exists.
That said, Mountains of Madness could have made an excellent movie, but it's a losing proposition for any studio that makes it--to do it right, you need an R rating and more money than an R-rated movie will make.
There's also 'Cast a Deadly Spell' with Fred Ward as a 1940's private eye seaching for a book that can unleash eldrich horrors from beyond the... and yada yada yada. Supposedly fun, but I've never watched it.
This post was sponsored by Tom Cruise.
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
Well, the thought is nice, but in my opinion, that faux-serial silent movie version of Call of Cthulhu is probably all I really want or need. The absence of human speech, plus the need to imagine the sounds of Chully and the sunken city rather than know them, makes it a much better way to handle Lovecraft, in my opinion.
Whatever Del Toro had planned, well...I'm just fine with this version. It tells no lies and has no meaningless extra stuff not in the original body of work. Somehow I suspect the Mountains of Madness would have some pointless stuff in it to show how INTERESTING and CREATIVE Del Toro is.
I think it would be a waste to film it to be honest. There's just not enough actual scary parts in it; it's 95% build-up with a brief delivery. I don't think it's something that could work in the film medium.
When people mention "trimming the fat", they're basically suggesting trimming vital plot lines. The whole bizarre crazy history practically is the story, with the murder mystery and exploration a simple by-product tacked on the side.
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DeadfallI don't think you realize just how rich he is.In fact, I should put on a monocle.Registered Userregular
I think you'll hear 'better than 2, not as good as 1' a lot.
Saw it last night.
This is exactly what I was going to say. It starts out...weird. Like it didn't feel like a MiB movie. Too slow, or not silly enough, I don't know. But when he jumps to 1969 it starts to get better. Brolin steals the show, I thought he did a spot-on young Tommy Lee Jones. And Griffin was a surprise for me, he was a fantastic character. There's a scene involving the Mets that is, I thought, astounding.
I saw Chernobyl Diaries last night and enjoyed it. (Shocking, I know)
You've seen the movie before if you've seen any other horror movie ever, but it's handled well and the characters aren't super dumb and make terrible decisions all the time.
The biggest thing for me was the locations and set design. If you like abandonments, you'll love the places they go in this movie.
It's obviously not filmed in Pripyat, but they did find some abandoned places to film in and it looks fantastic and gives a great forboding to the surroundings.
If you're in the mood for a horror movie, you could do worse.
I saw Chernobyl Diaries last night and enjoyed it. (Shocking, I know)
You've seen the movie before if you've seen any other horror movie ever, but it's handled well and the characters aren't super dumb and make terrible decisions all the time.
The biggest thing for me was the locations and set design. If you like abandonments, you'll love the places they go in this movie.
It's obviously not filmed in Pripyat, but they did find some abandoned places to film in and it looks fantastic and gives a great forboding to the surroundings.
If you're in the mood for a horror movie, you could do worse.
Anyway, I'd give it a B-.
It wouldn't be that unusual for them to film it at Pripyap. The Door, an Oscar-nominated short film, was shot there. It's a great little film. The producer put it online here:
Most of the buildings in Pripyat have pockets of radiation that are too high to enter (from what I've heard) not to mention I am sure Russia would consider it exploitative.
Also, reactor number 4 is encased in a large, concrete dome, which is lacking from the movie. (An odd oversight)
Most of the buildings in Pripyat have pockets of radiation that are too high to enter (from what I've heard) not to mention I am sure Russia would consider it exploitative.
Also, reactor number 4 is encased in a large, concrete dome, which is lacking from the movie. (An odd oversight)
You can get around there pretty safely as long as you're with a guide that knows where the high radiation zones are and with a geiger counter, however once you get a crew of idiots running around with cameras and lights you're bound to get a few people with a higher then recommended exposure and that's not something you want to happen when you're paying for everyone's health insurance.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I think it would be a waste to film it to be honest. There's just not enough actual scary parts in it; it's 95% build-up with a brief delivery. I don't think it's something that could work in the film medium.
When people mention "trimming the fat", they're basically suggesting trimming vital plot lines. The whole bizarre crazy history practically is the story, with the murder mystery and exploration a simple by-product tacked on the side.
Plenty of horror movies work on the "long slow build-up of dread culminating in explosion of horror" model. Don't Look Now is one of the greatest horror films of all time precisely because it eschews regular scares in favor of oppressive dread. The tension of Mountain's scientific exploration into the mysteries of the place they've found is the best part of the story, IMO, and part of what could elevate a film adaptation.
Also, the best Lovecraft adaptation to date is Alien.
I think it would be a waste to film it to be honest. There's just not enough actual scary parts in it; it's 95% build-up with a brief delivery. I don't think it's something that could work in the film medium.
When people mention "trimming the fat", they're basically suggesting trimming vital plot lines. The whole bizarre crazy history practically is the story, with the murder mystery and exploration a simple by-product tacked on the side.
Plenty of horror movies work on the "long slow build-up of dread culminating in explosion of horror" model. Don't Look Now is one of the greatest horror films of all time precisely because it eschews regular scares in favor of oppressive dread. The tension of Mountain's scientific exploration into the mysteries of the place they've found is the best part of the story, IMO, and part of what could elevate a film adaptation.
Also, the best Lovecraft adaptation to date is Alien.
I think it would be a waste to film it to be honest. There's just not enough actual scary parts in it; it's 95% build-up with a brief delivery. I don't think it's something that could work in the film medium.
When people mention "trimming the fat", they're basically suggesting trimming vital plot lines. The whole bizarre crazy history practically is the story, with the murder mystery and exploration a simple by-product tacked on the side.
Plenty of horror movies work on the "long slow build-up of dread culminating in explosion of horror" model. Don't Look Now is one of the greatest horror films of all time precisely because it eschews regular scares in favor of oppressive dread. The tension of Mountain's scientific exploration into the mysteries of the place they've found is the best part of the story, IMO, and part of what could elevate a film adaptation.
Also, the best Lovecraft adaptation to date is Alien.
IIRC Prometheus will have a story inspired by Lovecraft. So much that del Toro has officially given up on ATMOM.
Ok you can say what you want about Alien, but The Thing is not a lovecraft anything, its based on its own source material the novella "Who Goes There." Which you can get free right now.
Ok you can say what you want about Alien, but The Thing is not a lovecraft anything, its based on its own source material the novella "Who Goes There." Which you can get free right now.
I know everyone wants to dine on lovecrafts cock about horror, but lets be reasonable.
It's really hard not to draw parallels to the earlier At the Mountains of Madness, which is also about an expedition to Antarctica finding an incredibly ancient frozen alien corpse which revives itself and starts murdering people. Especially since Who Goes There was published just two years later in the exact same magazine. It's not hard to imagine that Campbell took inspiration from the story.
Edit: Anyway that's beside the point people were trying to make that these movies work loosely as "Lovecraft movies" because they feature really strong similarities in themes to a lot of his work, not because they're actually adaptations of anything he wrote. Even Aliens is like this, despite being really action-heavy.
Did anyone catch Moonrise Kingdom? Supposedly it was released yesterday, but I don't see it playing anywhere here in Seattle until 6/5 as part of the Seattle International Film Festival.
I'm kind of surprised by that, actually. I have felt pretty lucky, after growing up in a smaller city that just wouldn't get some of the small yet great films, that most everything seems to open here right alongside the other big metro areas.
Maybe my love for Anderson is just inflating his mainstream popularity seen through my eyes.
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Did anyone catch Moonrise Kingdom? Supposedly it was released yesterday, but I don't see it playing anywhere here in Seattle until 6/5 as part of the Seattle International Film Festival.
I'm kind of surprised by that, actually. I have felt pretty lucky, after growing up in a smaller city that just wouldn't get some of the small yet great films, that most everything seems to open here right alongside the other big metro areas.
Maybe my love for Anderson is just inflating his mainstream popularity seen through my eyes.
It's in super-limited release right now. Chicago doesn't even get it until next Friday, to my great dismay. It's supposed to get up to 97 degrees tomorrow, and I desperately wanted to make Moonrise Kingdom part of a 2-3 movie day so I could relax in sufficient air conditioning. Now I think Bernie is the only movie out that I kind of want to see, but haven't yet. New releases the last couple weeks have been pretty abysmal looking.
Most of the buildings in Pripyat have pockets of radiation that are too high to enter (from what I've heard) not to mention I am sure Russia would consider it exploitative.
Also, reactor number 4 is encased in a large, concrete dome, which is lacking from the movie. (An odd oversight)
It seems odd that Russia would find it exploitative to film in another country but I suppose maybe they will take offense at anything?
I saw Slackers last night for the first time. I thought it was pretty neat but I don't know if I have much to say about it. Does it inspire any thoughts in anyone?
Did anyone catch Moonrise Kingdom? Supposedly it was released yesterday, but I don't see it playing anywhere here in Seattle until 6/5 as part of the Seattle International Film Festival.
I'm kind of surprised by that, actually. I have felt pretty lucky, after growing up in a smaller city that just wouldn't get some of the small yet great films, that most everything seems to open here right alongside the other big metro areas.
Maybe my love for Anderson is just inflating his mainstream popularity seen through my eyes.
It's in super-limited release right now. Chicago doesn't even get it until next Friday, to my great dismay. It's supposed to get up to 97 degrees tomorrow, and I desperately wanted to make Moonrise Kingdom part of a 2-3 movie day so I could relax in sufficient air conditioning. Now I think Bernie is the only movie out that I kind of want to see, but haven't yet. New releases the last couple weeks have been pretty abysmal looking.
Good to know it's not just us that don't have it yet!
From what I hear, Bernie sounds like it would be a nice reprieve from 97 degree heat. Yeesh, talk about an early summer!
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HacksawJ. Duggan Esq.Wrestler at LawRegistered Userregular
Just saw Source Code. Much better than I was expecting. They didn't really market it well, I think.
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Apothe0sisHave you ever questioned the nature of your reality?Registered Userregular
Most of the buildings in Pripyat have pockets of radiation that are too high to enter (from what I've heard) not to mention I am sure Russia would consider it exploitative.
Also, reactor number 4 is encased in a large, concrete dome, which is lacking from the movie. (An odd oversight)
It seems odd that Russia would find it exploitative to film in another country but I suppose maybe they will take offense at anything?
I saw Slackers last night for the first time. I thought it was pretty neat but I don't know if I have much to say about it. Does it inspire any thoughts in anyone?
Is that the weird old comedy starring Jason Schwartzman, James King and Jason Segel? And James Franco maybe? Or was it Devon Sawyer? Who was the lead?
I found Schwartzman's character profoundly disturbing and loved the crazy anarchist's rant about having sex with each other in a non-gay way to fight the power of women.
Moonrise Kingdom is fantastic guys, even my "i dont like weird wes anderson shit" friend loved it.
also best random cameo ever, shame imdb spoils it easily.
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Linespider5ALL HAIL KING KILLMONGERRegistered Userregular
I saw The Cabin in the Woods last night. And, well, I didn't hate it, but, it's really not that hard for me to understand why this movie was delayed release for several years. My guess is Thor is the reason we're seeing this movie at all.
At this point someone half my age will probably accuse me of having no soul, like the time I didn't find (GEEK ACTRESS HERE) so incredibly moving as a unicorn-grade human being I didn't immediately bury my dick in the garden and spend the entire marketing period of her latest film thinking about how I would be the one who could protect her and treat her right, or whatever, so...
Yes. Cabin in the Woods.
I liked they used an Iggy Pop song from 2009 in the Wolf's Head Scene.
Just about everything else it wasn't hard to find a reason to hate. There was some decent dialogue, and I suppose a number of the scenes were shot well enough. But a lot of it, quite a lot of Cabin felt like A version of a movie, and a movie you've already seen done better or a movie you haven't seen yet but know it really won't be hard to find. Cabin didn't really have anything of its own in it, and some might say, well, Linespider, that's the point, it's a genre deconstruction and you know this. I don't think that really excuses the fact that so much of the movie is borrowed and so little of what is borrowed is being used in an interesting way. It's like going to see a stage magician with no tricks of his own and also only does shit you've seen 50 times on television already.
And that's just a different kind of problem too. If I could hate it, it would at least have that going for it, but except for two or three scenes, mainly involving the Blonde Stick Figure, this movie sure as shit doesn't have a whole lot to say or a whole lot of unique ideas. About the most interesting stuff the movie has to offer are in the way of plot holes involving how this whole great game fucking works to begin with, and christ do I have better things to do with my time, especially since those conversations will inevitably just lead to someone petitioning ThinkGeek to sell a collapsible bong. Or a Blade 1 blood chamber hourglass, I suppose.
I'd rather love something or hate something. Cabin in the Woods. Too dumb to love, too competent to hate, too unremarkable to admire. It's a C+ movie. Thanks, Thor.
Most of the buildings in Pripyat have pockets of radiation that are too high to enter (from what I've heard) not to mention I am sure Russia would consider it exploitative.
Also, reactor number 4 is encased in a large, concrete dome, which is lacking from the movie. (An odd oversight)
It seems odd that Russia would find it exploitative to film in another country but I suppose maybe they will take offense at anything?
I saw Slackers last night for the first time. I thought it was pretty neat but I don't know if I have much to say about it. Does it inspire any thoughts in anyone?
Is that the weird old comedy starring Jason Schwartzman, James King and Jason Segel? And James Franco maybe? Or was it Devon Sawyer? Who was the lead?
I found Schwartzman's character profoundly disturbing and loved the crazy anarchist's rant about having sex with each other in a non-gay way to fight the power of women.
Uh, whoops. I mean Slacker. I always get the title wrong.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Slacker is great, I've seen that movie a few times. To be fair, though, I grew up in Austin, so I'm probably biased towards such a funny, innovative, and laid-back time capsule of my hometown and its weird, weird people.
I saw The Cabin in the Woods last night. And, well, I didn't hate it, but, it's really not that hard for me to understand why this movie was delayed release for several years. My guess is Thor is the reason we're seeing this movie at all.
It was delayed because MGM went bankrupt and couldn't release anything (same reason we didn't get a new Bond film in 2010). We are seeing it now because it's when they could finally manage to get it out. It was complete, so it was always going to come out at some point.
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TexiKenDammit!That fish really got me!Registered Userregular
A good weekend for movies, with all three getting at least above average or better grades.
War of the Arrows, aka Ancient Korean Hawkeye Shoots a lot of Mongolians, is up on Netflix. It's a good action film that follows a standard premise (brother and sister orphaned, sister gets kidnapped on wedding day, brother gets her back and saves the pillaged village, noble antagonist) and gets really good after the first 15 or so minutes. It even has the equivalent of trick arrows for the 17th century, which was cool, and he can warp the arrows like bullets in Wanted! It actually works in the film, and everyone does a good job acting, but the worst thing is that the film uses shaky cam a bit, which means this infection has spread to Asia. I get a feeling that it was only done in order to copy western films, as it adds nothing when it's used. Yet at the same time it has some really nice camera shots that go with the different archery scenes that kind of make up for it (this is why shaky cam makes no sense, because you have to be calm to fire an arrow correctly). It does have one of the most unintentionally hilarious scenes I've seen, where the mongolians are pillaging the town, and one takes a lady's baby, and just throws it in the well and the mother doesn't even have time to scream. If you liked Red Cliff or 13 Assassins, give this one a look.
Killer Elite, really liked this film, and I'm hella confused why it has such a bad RT score (25%). It's a film based on the book the Feather Men that was said to be true but Fiennes said some was fiction, and it's a good film that succeeds in having 2 protagonists instead of a protagonist and antagonist. It's more of a thriller than an action film, it's somewhere between the Bank Job and Transporter 1 in terms of action on the Statham scale, and all the actors do a good job. DeNiro seemed to phone it in but he does that in every film for the past 20 years, more Strahovski in films please. I think the person who was the standout was Dominic Purcell, as he knows how to be a character who is supposed to be comfortable with the hitman job but at the same time he's not completely so far gone like is usually the case in these type of films (the loose cannon). In fact all the characters are like that, which again makes me wonder if that's what the reviewers wanted to see, if so screw you guys. It does have a generic "all for oil" moment that felt tacked on, but it's not as grating or annoying as in other films. And I now know what MFWIC stands for (mother fucker what's in charge). Really recommend this film, 10 panda paws up.
The Iron Lady, this is the weakest of the three, because the film is a) only 90 minutes for some reason and therefore b) spends too much time focusing on senior citizen, modern day Thatcher. It uses her dementia and senility in a way I'm not too comfortable with, because the actual scenes where we see young Thatcher and 80's Thatcher are really good and worth seeing much more of instead of Olivia Colman wearing a fake nose (seriously, just get another person to play her daughter). I really wish we saw more of young Thatcher, as the scenes with her father (Ian Glen, Jorah from Game of Thrones) seems like a missed opportunity. And the film skips over a lot of stuff I would think a Thatcher film should talk about, like the unions and the boom of the 80's and more of her relationship with President Reagan. You can't just sync those up to a montage over punk rock, you're cheating. Streep does a good job, and it's not one of those films where she gets praised just because she's Streep, she actually does a good job. You see this in scenes where she's getting PR help for running for head of the party, and in scenes where she's defending her position (and I think it gets a little too biased in trying to make her be senile in her later PM years, it just doesn't feel right how it's presented. And really the film does have a bit of mean spirited-ness to her in modern times, as they play up how far gone she is which just doesn't seem right when she is still alive. It has nothing to do with politics, you're picking on an old lady, give it a rest, you know? It's still a film to see, but it could have been a lot better.
It's obviously not filmed in Pripyat, but they did find some abandoned places to film in and it looks fantastic and gives a great forboding to the surroundings.
I saw the trailer, and the instant thought in my head was "STALKER: the game: the movie."
Slacker is great, I've seen that movie a few times. To be fair, though, I grew up in Austin, so I'm probably biased towards such a funny, innovative, and laid-back time capsule of my hometown and its weird, weird people.
I tried to watch it right after it hit video and I was in the height of my indie film phase. I finally gave up on it exhausted at trying to bend my viewing watching expectations to the movie and stopped it for the night. In the morning I went to finish it and realized I was literally 45 seconds from the end credits.
I like what he did and think it's an indispensable time capsule for both indie film and the period of time the movie was made, but I think he captured so much of what he was tying to do (just everyday collection of people and conversation and nonevent) unintentionally in A Scanner Darkly (like the whole bit about the stolen bike).
I was somewhat underwhelmed by A Separation. Great acting, but it felt overly constructed to me - every plot development seemed scripted rather than emerging organically from the characters and situation. I don't necessarily mind films that show the strings, but this one was going for something more realistic, I'd say. It's a good film, but I don't think I quite understand the hyperbolic praise it got.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Most of the buildings in Pripyat have pockets of radiation that are too high to enter (from what I've heard) not to mention I am sure Russia would consider it exploitative.
Also, reactor number 4 is encased in a large, concrete dome, which is lacking from the movie. (An odd oversight)
Also, the Chernobyl plant is hardly abandoned. They ran the undamaged reactors until about 2000 (they needed the electricity and building a new plant wasn't financially viable), with upgraded safety protocols. Also, the containment dome over reactor 4 was thrown up as fast as possible, and was never meant to last. I believe they are in the process of building a new one. Pripyat is abandoned, but the power plant is not (yet).
I think it would be a waste to film it to be honest. There's just not enough actual scary parts in it; it's 95% build-up with a brief delivery. I don't think it's something that could work in the film medium.
When people mention "trimming the fat", they're basically suggesting trimming vital plot lines. The whole bizarre crazy history practically is the story, with the murder mystery and exploration a simple by-product tacked on the side.
Plenty of horror movies work on the "long slow build-up of dread culminating in explosion of horror" model. Don't Look Now is one of the greatest horror films of all time precisely because it eschews regular scares in favor of oppressive dread. The tension of Mountain's scientific exploration into the mysteries of the place they've found is the best part of the story, IMO, and part of what could elevate a film adaptation.
Also, the best Lovecraft adaptation to date is Alien.
Alien has a great slow build-up, several, actually. The reason people these days find the film boring is because the popularity of the series has ruined the suspense - you already know Signourney Weaver's character is going to survive, but the audiences of 1979 had no clue who was going to live and who was going to die. This is why I'm so excited to see Prometheus - it's like getting to see the first Alien film without knowing about the sequels or anything.
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Saw MiB3. It was entertaining but man if they do 4 they gotta figure how to do it with Smith and Brolin. Tommy Lee Jones just drains the life out of every scene he is and looks miserable.
Anyone want to beta read a paranormal mystery novella? Here's your chance.
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It was not a good movie. It was not even a good found-footage movie.
I feel exactly the same way. It's not even my favorite of his works, but I feel like a lot of what made me lose interest in At The Mountains of Madness would have been pretty easy to chop out in a film adaptation. Things like how Lovecraft's penchant for extreme wordiness really stuck out in the story, or how long he lingers on explicitly detailing the largly-irrelevant-to-the-plot history of the lost city.
Mostly, though, I just got kicked into mega hype mode when Elder Things made a cameo in Hellboy 2, and it's a tragedy for me that it's the only time Del Toro will be able to bring them to the movies. I want my insane CGI Shoggoth god damn it.
Hey now, I liked Apollo 18.
It was a little slow-paced at times but for me it seemed to jive well with the overall mood of the film. I also thought the monsters were a neat spin on things.
The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath, like the rest of the dream cycle, is mind-blowingly bad and you should feel bad for reminding me that it exists.
That said, Mountains of Madness could have made an excellent movie, but it's a losing proposition for any studio that makes it--to do it right, you need an R rating and more money than an R-rated movie will make.
Whatever Del Toro had planned, well...I'm just fine with this version. It tells no lies and has no meaningless extra stuff not in the original body of work. Somehow I suspect the Mountains of Madness would have some pointless stuff in it to show how INTERESTING and CREATIVE Del Toro is.
When people mention "trimming the fat", they're basically suggesting trimming vital plot lines. The whole bizarre crazy history practically is the story, with the murder mystery and exploration a simple by-product tacked on the side.
Saw it last night.
This is exactly what I was going to say. It starts out...weird. Like it didn't feel like a MiB movie. Too slow, or not silly enough, I don't know. But when he jumps to 1969 it starts to get better. Brolin steals the show, I thought he did a spot-on young Tommy Lee Jones. And Griffin was a surprise for me, he was a fantastic character. There's a scene involving the Mets that is, I thought, astounding.
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You've seen the movie before if you've seen any other horror movie ever, but it's handled well and the characters aren't super dumb and make terrible decisions all the time.
The biggest thing for me was the locations and set design. If you like abandonments, you'll love the places they go in this movie.
It's obviously not filmed in Pripyat, but they did find some abandoned places to film in and it looks fantastic and gives a great forboding to the surroundings.
If you're in the mood for a horror movie, you could do worse.
Anyway, I'd give it a B-.
It wouldn't be that unusual for them to film it at Pripyap. The Door, an Oscar-nominated short film, was shot there. It's a great little film. The producer put it online here:
Also, reactor number 4 is encased in a large, concrete dome, which is lacking from the movie. (An odd oversight)
You can get around there pretty safely as long as you're with a guide that knows where the high radiation zones are and with a geiger counter, however once you get a crew of idiots running around with cameras and lights you're bound to get a few people with a higher then recommended exposure and that's not something you want to happen when you're paying for everyone's health insurance.
Plenty of horror movies work on the "long slow build-up of dread culminating in explosion of horror" model. Don't Look Now is one of the greatest horror films of all time precisely because it eschews regular scares in favor of oppressive dread. The tension of Mountain's scientific exploration into the mysteries of the place they've found is the best part of the story, IMO, and part of what could elevate a film adaptation.
Also, the best Lovecraft adaptation to date is Alien.
With The Thing placing a firm second.
IIRC Prometheus will have a story inspired by Lovecraft. So much that del Toro has officially given up on ATMOM.
http://www.joblo.com/horror-movies/news/guillermo-del-toro-says-at-the-mountains-of-madness-dead-because-prometheus
cant fucking wait!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_Goes_There?
I know everyone wants to dine on lovecrafts cock about horror, but lets be reasonable.
pleasepaypreacher.net
It's really hard not to draw parallels to the earlier At the Mountains of Madness, which is also about an expedition to Antarctica finding an incredibly ancient frozen alien corpse which revives itself and starts murdering people. Especially since Who Goes There was published just two years later in the exact same magazine. It's not hard to imagine that Campbell took inspiration from the story.
Edit: Anyway that's beside the point people were trying to make that these movies work loosely as "Lovecraft movies" because they feature really strong similarities in themes to a lot of his work, not because they're actually adaptations of anything he wrote. Even Aliens is like this, despite being really action-heavy.
I'm kind of surprised by that, actually. I have felt pretty lucky, after growing up in a smaller city that just wouldn't get some of the small yet great films, that most everything seems to open here right alongside the other big metro areas.
Maybe my love for Anderson is just inflating his mainstream popularity seen through my eyes.
It's in super-limited release right now. Chicago doesn't even get it until next Friday, to my great dismay. It's supposed to get up to 97 degrees tomorrow, and I desperately wanted to make Moonrise Kingdom part of a 2-3 movie day so I could relax in sufficient air conditioning. Now I think Bernie is the only movie out that I kind of want to see, but haven't yet. New releases the last couple weeks have been pretty abysmal looking.
I saw Slackers last night for the first time. I thought it was pretty neat but I don't know if I have much to say about it. Does it inspire any thoughts in anyone?
Good to know it's not just us that don't have it yet!
From what I hear, Bernie sounds like it would be a nice reprieve from 97 degree heat. Yeesh, talk about an early summer!
Is that the weird old comedy starring Jason Schwartzman, James King and Jason Segel? And James Franco maybe? Or was it Devon Sawyer? Who was the lead?
I found Schwartzman's character profoundly disturbing and loved the crazy anarchist's rant about having sex with each other in a non-gay way to fight the power of women.
also best random cameo ever, shame imdb spoils it easily.
At this point someone half my age will probably accuse me of having no soul, like the time I didn't find (GEEK ACTRESS HERE) so incredibly moving as a unicorn-grade human being I didn't immediately bury my dick in the garden and spend the entire marketing period of her latest film thinking about how I would be the one who could protect her and treat her right, or whatever, so...
Yes. Cabin in the Woods.
I liked they used an Iggy Pop song from 2009 in the Wolf's Head Scene.
Just about everything else it wasn't hard to find a reason to hate. There was some decent dialogue, and I suppose a number of the scenes were shot well enough. But a lot of it, quite a lot of Cabin felt like A version of a movie, and a movie you've already seen done better or a movie you haven't seen yet but know it really won't be hard to find. Cabin didn't really have anything of its own in it, and some might say, well, Linespider, that's the point, it's a genre deconstruction and you know this. I don't think that really excuses the fact that so much of the movie is borrowed and so little of what is borrowed is being used in an interesting way. It's like going to see a stage magician with no tricks of his own and also only does shit you've seen 50 times on television already.
And that's just a different kind of problem too. If I could hate it, it would at least have that going for it, but except for two or three scenes, mainly involving the Blonde Stick Figure, this movie sure as shit doesn't have a whole lot to say or a whole lot of unique ideas. About the most interesting stuff the movie has to offer are in the way of plot holes involving how this whole great game fucking works to begin with, and christ do I have better things to do with my time, especially since those conversations will inevitably just lead to someone petitioning ThinkGeek to sell a collapsible bong. Or a Blade 1 blood chamber hourglass, I suppose.
I'd rather love something or hate something. Cabin in the Woods. Too dumb to love, too competent to hate, too unremarkable to admire. It's a C+ movie. Thanks, Thor.
Jesus christ, every one of these interviewers need to get a grip already.
It was delayed because MGM went bankrupt and couldn't release anything (same reason we didn't get a new Bond film in 2010). We are seeing it now because it's when they could finally manage to get it out. It was complete, so it was always going to come out at some point.
War of the Arrows, aka Ancient Korean Hawkeye Shoots a lot of Mongolians, is up on Netflix. It's a good action film that follows a standard premise (brother and sister orphaned, sister gets kidnapped on wedding day, brother gets her back and saves the pillaged village, noble antagonist) and gets really good after the first 15 or so minutes. It even has the equivalent of trick arrows for the 17th century, which was cool, and he can warp the arrows like bullets in Wanted! It actually works in the film, and everyone does a good job acting, but the worst thing is that the film uses shaky cam a bit, which means this infection has spread to Asia. I get a feeling that it was only done in order to copy western films, as it adds nothing when it's used. Yet at the same time it has some really nice camera shots that go with the different archery scenes that kind of make up for it (this is why shaky cam makes no sense, because you have to be calm to fire an arrow correctly). It does have one of the most unintentionally hilarious scenes I've seen, where the mongolians are pillaging the town, and one takes a lady's baby, and just throws it in the well and the mother doesn't even have time to scream. If you liked Red Cliff or 13 Assassins, give this one a look.
Killer Elite, really liked this film, and I'm hella confused why it has such a bad RT score (25%). It's a film based on the book the Feather Men that was said to be true but Fiennes said some was fiction, and it's a good film that succeeds in having 2 protagonists instead of a protagonist and antagonist. It's more of a thriller than an action film, it's somewhere between the Bank Job and Transporter 1 in terms of action on the Statham scale, and all the actors do a good job. DeNiro seemed to phone it in but he does that in every film for the past 20 years, more Strahovski in films please. I think the person who was the standout was Dominic Purcell, as he knows how to be a character who is supposed to be comfortable with the hitman job but at the same time he's not completely so far gone like is usually the case in these type of films (the loose cannon). In fact all the characters are like that, which again makes me wonder if that's what the reviewers wanted to see, if so screw you guys. It does have a generic "all for oil" moment that felt tacked on, but it's not as grating or annoying as in other films. And I now know what MFWIC stands for (mother fucker what's in charge). Really recommend this film, 10 panda paws up.
The Iron Lady, this is the weakest of the three, because the film is a) only 90 minutes for some reason and therefore b) spends too much time focusing on senior citizen, modern day Thatcher. It uses her dementia and senility in a way I'm not too comfortable with, because the actual scenes where we see young Thatcher and 80's Thatcher are really good and worth seeing much more of instead of Olivia Colman wearing a fake nose (seriously, just get another person to play her daughter). I really wish we saw more of young Thatcher, as the scenes with her father (Ian Glen, Jorah from Game of Thrones) seems like a missed opportunity. And the film skips over a lot of stuff I would think a Thatcher film should talk about, like the unions and the boom of the 80's and more of her relationship with President Reagan. You can't just sync those up to a montage over punk rock, you're cheating. Streep does a good job, and it's not one of those films where she gets praised just because she's Streep, she actually does a good job. You see this in scenes where she's getting PR help for running for head of the party, and in scenes where she's defending her position (and I think it gets a little too biased in trying to make her be senile in her later PM years, it just doesn't feel right how it's presented. And really the film does have a bit of mean spirited-ness to her in modern times, as they play up how far gone she is which just doesn't seem right when she is still alive. It has nothing to do with politics, you're picking on an old lady, give it a rest, you know? It's still a film to see, but it could have been a lot better.
I saw the trailer, and the instant thought in my head was "STALKER: the game: the movie."
I tried to watch it right after it hit video and I was in the height of my indie film phase. I finally gave up on it exhausted at trying to bend my viewing watching expectations to the movie and stopped it for the night. In the morning I went to finish it and realized I was literally 45 seconds from the end credits.
I like what he did and think it's an indispensable time capsule for both indie film and the period of time the movie was made, but I think he captured so much of what he was tying to do (just everyday collection of people and conversation and nonevent) unintentionally in A Scanner Darkly (like the whole bit about the stolen bike).
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Also, the Chernobyl plant is hardly abandoned. They ran the undamaged reactors until about 2000 (they needed the electricity and building a new plant wasn't financially viable), with upgraded safety protocols. Also, the containment dome over reactor 4 was thrown up as fast as possible, and was never meant to last. I believe they are in the process of building a new one. Pripyat is abandoned, but the power plant is not (yet).
Alien has a great slow build-up, several, actually. The reason people these days find the film boring is because the popularity of the series has ruined the suspense - you already know Signourney Weaver's character is going to survive, but the audiences of 1979 had no clue who was going to live and who was going to die. This is why I'm so excited to see Prometheus - it's like getting to see the first Alien film without knowing about the sequels or anything.
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