Last Movie You Watched and Rate It | Part#: Some High Number +5

[Langdon Alger]

The Sweet Hereafter (1997) - 6.5/10

This one was a disappointment because it felt like a TV movie. I was expecting this really good well-made drama but it had all the elements of a TV film from the uneven acting and pacing to the over-dramatization of certain lines and feeling just good enough to keep you interested but never truly good. Which is a shame because I bet the book this is based on is probably good and it could've been better made today maybe even by the same director with a bigger budget.

This is considered to be one of the greatest Canadian films of all time, and got great reviews. I need to re-watch it soon. When I do, I’ll post my thoughts.

 

[Soldier13Fox]

The Witch is still the only horror film I've seen that I liked, it is easily my least-favourite genre.

Under the Skin was very good too, if one wants to count that as a horror film.

The Witch is fantastic. Definitely a slow burn, but I really liked it.

 

[kihei]

I know you didn't ask me, but I'll still point out I can't even name 5 good horror films from this (I haven't seen 80% of this very bad list - I mean, if you have to put The Crow down as a horror film, you might want to make a shorter list). If you haven't seen The Evil Dead, just go with that one. Under the Shadow, just recently saw, is very good. Session 9 is a good modest film.

I thought Session 9 was made-for-TV crap.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

I thought Session 9 was made-for-TV crap.

Limited means and limited ambitions. Still would put it in my top-5 horror films from the list. After that what? Killer Klowns?

 

[ProstheticConscience]

The only reason I'm not putting you on ignore after this is that I want to know more about your wife!

She generally doesn't like me talking about her online. The occasional movie recommendation is the best I can do.

As I remember she's been mentioned a couple of times before, and she really seems to know her stuff.

Depends on the stuff.

For horror fans, lots of good Netflix suggestions including movies off the beaten path:

The 50 Best Horror Movies on Netflix Right Now

Seen almost all of those, some decent stuff on the list. Aside from the major known stuff like Silence of the Lambs, Pan's Labyrinth or The Crow:

Apostle
Cargo
The Girl with All the Gifts
He Never Died
Raising Cain
The Ritual (just watched that again last night with the family after a big Italian dinner out, in fact)
Train to Busan
^^^^These are good.

1922
Anaconda
Bird Box
The Endless
It Comes at Night
The Platform
Underworld (and sequels)
Green Room
^^^^These are boring, meh, not as good, or tedious. I include Underworld only because it features Kate Beckinsdale in form-fitting leather.

House of 1000 Corpses
The Invitation
Splice
^^^^These are shit.

Haven't seen some of the others.

 

[kihei]

Jo Pil-ho: The Dawning Rage (2019) Directed by Lee Jeong-beom 5A

I wouldn’t want to sell this one too strongly. In one way it is proof positive that not every South Korean genre film is a masterpiece. But as bad movies sometimes do, Jo Pil-ho: The Dawning Rage was certainly watchable despite the odd cringe-worthy moment here and there, like its final shot, unfortunately. Jo Pil-ho is a bent Seoul cop. Everybody knows he’s bent. He's past caring, if he ever did. He kind of scuttles along in his thoroughly undistinguished way, helping a young friend pull off burglaries to make a few bucks on the side. On top of being bent, he’s a screw-up, which means he gets beat up a lot because the man has no sense of what might backfire on him or when he is doing something truly stupid. This character is played by veteran South Korean actor Lee Sun-kyun with a kind of cheerful, casual resignation. Bouncing haphazardly from one crisis to the next, Jo more or less stumbles on a major corporate crime that puts him in way over his head. The twisty story also involves an adolescent girl who gets mixed up in the shenanigans and is, as a result, in serious danger. Again, the story is nothing out of the ordinary, but Jo Pil-ho is a mildly pleasing twist on the lone-wolf detective formula.

subtitles

Netflix

 

[TD Charlie]

She generally doesn't like me talking about her online. The occasional movie recommendation is the best I can do.


Depends on the stuff.


Seen almost all of those, some decent stuff on the list. Aside from the major known stuff like Silence of the Lambs, Pan's Labyrinth or The Crow:

Apostle
Cargo
The Girl with All the Gifts
He Never Died
Raising Cain
The Ritual (just watched that again last night with the family after a big Italian dinner out, in fact)
Train to Busan
^^^^These are good.

1922
Anaconda
Bird Box
The Endless
It Comes at Night
The Platform
Underworld (and sequels)
Green Room
^^^^These are boring, meh, not as good, or tedious. I include Underworld only because it features Kate Beckinsdale in form-fitting leather.

House of 1000 Corpses
The Invitation
Splice
^^^^These are shit.

Haven't seen some of the others.

I liked bird box, the platform, and the invitation.

Solid "good" list

 

[ProstheticConscience]

I liked bird box, the platform, and the invitation.

Solid "good" list

I thought Bird Box was basically a worse version of A Quiet Place, The Platform was decent but got lost in its own heavy-handed messaging, and The Invitation is up there with the most excruciatingly tedious and annoying movies I've ever seen.

 

[kihei]

Binge-y Monday on New York Magazine's Horror List

Apostle—Set in the 19th century our hero ventures to an island to save his sister from the clutches of a sinister cult. While the movie has an interesting approach to the evil being, Apostle is otherwise numbingly conventional and overlong. Gareth Evans is one of the best action directors in the world right now but he doesn’t play enough to his strength in this film. 5A

Session 9—Just bad. A made-for-TV movie with TV actors about a crew cleaning up an abandoned asylum. There is a couple of predictable scares, a fair amount of overacting (David Caruso strikes again) and a wholly implausible finale. 3A

CAM—Lola is a cam girl and rising up the charts fast in the world of webcam pornography. However, she is angered beyond belief when an exact replica takes over her show and shuts her out completely. CAM made me feel like a dirty old man while watching parts of it, but this is a truly original take on horror. Though the premise is terrific, there is not much of a payoff. 6A

Creep 2—Something really different in the hand-held camera/found footage sweepstakes. A serial killer hires a documentarian with her own internet show to film his story. He’s having something of a mid-life crisis and the thrill of killing is gone…...well, maybe not completely gone. A very intelligent, very funny little two-hander with fine acting by both leads, Desiree Akhavan and, especially, Mark Duplass 7A

The Invitation—when his ex invited him and his new girl to a party it doesn’t take long before Will realizes that there is something wrong going on. Trouble is, can he get any of his old friends to believe him? A good, tense, well made horror/thriller that relies way more on suspense than on gore. 7A

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Binge-y Monday on New York Magazine's Horror List

Apostle—Set in the 19th century our hero ventures to an island to save his sister from the clutches of a sinister cult. While the movie has an interesting approach to the evil being, Apostle is otherwise numbingly conventional and overlong. Gareth Evans is one of the best action directors in the world right now but he doesn’t play enough to his strength in this f ilm. 5A

Session 9—Just bad. A made-for-TV movie with TV actors about a crew cleaning up an abandoned asylum. There is a couple of predictable scares, a fair amount of overacting (David Caruso strikes again) and a wholly implausible finale. 3A

CAM—Lola is a cam girl and rising up the charts fast in the world of webcam pornography. However, she is angered beyond belief when an exact replica takes over her show and shuts her out completely. CAM made me feel like a dirty old man while watching parts of it, but this is a truly original take on horror. Though the premise is terrific, there is not much of a payoff. 6A

Creep 2—Something really different in the hand-held camera/found footage sweepstakes. A serial killer hires a documentarian with her own internet show to film his story. He’s having something of a mid-life crisis and the thrill of killing is gone…...well, maybe not completely gone. A very intelligent, very funny little two-hander with fine acting by both leads, Desiree Akhavan and, especially, Mark Duplass 7A

The Invitation—when his ex invited him and his new girl to a party it doesn’t take long before Will realizes that there is something wrong going on. Trouble is, can he get any of his old friends to believe him? A good, tense, well made horror/thriller that relies way more on suspense than on gore. 7A

I liked how not every supporting character got smoked in The Invitation and just how incredibly fast the ones who did, did, at the right moment. It felt fresh.

 

[Franck]

The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) - Sweden - Dir. Tarik Saleh

"This isn't Switzerland"

A singer is found murdered in a luxurious Cairo hotel room, a corrupt policeman (Fares Fares) is tasked with investigating a crime nobody wants solved, putting him in conflict with powerful people. Meanwhile a revolution slowly unfolds in the background.
An interesting exploration of how a howcatchem scenario plays out in a country with rotten and thoroughly corrupt institutions, as well as an examination of how those institutions react when put under pressure.

3.5/5

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Elevator To The Gallows (1958) - 8/10

Nice to see a French new wave film that doesn't disappoint. This is a bit of a noir but not overly stylized like some of the b/w stuff that Melville did. More suspense and less silliness than in most French new wave films, the direction feels tighter, the characters act very French without being blabberingly insufferable, its direction as a whole is just a lot tighter while still feeling like a French film of that time.

 

[BostonBob]

When did TV listings start to become so PC ???? I was looking through my on-screen listings for the night and came across this:

Includes themes and character depictions which may be offensive and problematic for contemporary audiences.

Any guesses as to what all-time classic film this is for ????

 

[nameless1]

The Nile Hilton Incident (2017) - Sweden - Dir. Tarik Saleh

"This isn't Switzerland"

A singer is found murdered in a luxurious Cairo hotel room, a corrupt policeman (Fares Fares) is tasked with investigating a crime nobody wants solved, putting him in conflict with powerful people. Meanwhile a revolution slowly unfolds in the background.
An interesting exploration of how a howcatchem scenario plays out in a country with rotten and thoroughly corrupt institutions, as well as an examination of how those institutions react when put under pressure.

3.5/5

This was one of my favourite from the 2017 version of VIFF. I am impressed by how tight the script is, and I like that there is a message beneath the surface story. Your grade is exactly what I have too, as I rated it 7/10.

In the program guide, it listed Egypt as its place of origin, and thus, I was shocked when I saw nudity from one of the actress in it, and I thought Egypt really opened up now. It was only afterwards that I I realized it was an international co-production, and I became curious if this movie actually got released in Egypt.

 

[nameless1]

When did TV listings start to become so PC ???? I was looking through my on-screen listings for the night and came across this:

Includes themes and character depictions which may be offensive and problematic for contemporary audiences.

Any guesses as to what all-time classic film this is for ????

I am curious. Any more clues?

 

[BostonBob]

I am curious. Any more clues?

This picture was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and ended up winning in 8 categories.

 

[Langdon Alger]

This picture was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and ended up winning in 8 categories.

Gone with the wind.

 

[BostonBob]

Gone with the wind.

Frankly Darcy Loewen I don't give a damn. Yeah - you got it.

Anyway - I still think it's ridiculous that they feel it's necessary to add that to this ( or any other ) movie listing.

 

[Langdon Alger]

Frankly Darcy Loewen I don't give a damn. Yeah - you got it.

Anyway - I still think it's ridiculous that they feel it's necessary to add that to this ( or any other ) movie listing.

I had to look it up, so I cheated.

 

[BostonBob]

I had to look it up, so I cheated.

Please return the winning prize immediately !!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Osprey]

Eraserhead (1977) - 5/10 (Didn't like or dislike it)

What a bizarre film. David Lynch's first feature film is a heavily Kafka-inspired nightmare with little dialogue and lots of strange imagery. In the first 6 minutes, we see a sperm-like creature fly into an egg-like object before the camera travels through a tunnel into a bright light. This, I take it, is a first-person perspective of our protagonist being born . Now an adult (with Kramer-like hair), he and his girlfriend bring home an alien baby that looks like the sperm, only bigger, and neither of them knows how to take care of it. I guess that it's about fears of parenthood. I've just described everything that I understood. The rest was too bizarre to make much sense of. For example, there's a dancing girl with a face deformity that randomly shows up a few times. At least it gave me some insight into why he might've been given The Elephant Man next. Also, I'm finally starting to understand why a vaguely erotic-looking alien squid was in Dune that wasn't in the original novel. Anyways, it was too weird for me to like it, but at least I think that I now have a better understanding of Lynch. Besides him, though, I kept thinking about a certain poster here and saying to myself, "This has body horror and a distinct style, it's bizarre and it makes no sense. I bet that it's one of @Pranzo Oltranzista's favorite films" .

 

[Mr Jiggyfly]

When did TV listings start to become so PC ???? I was looking through my on-screen listings for the night and came across this:

Includes themes and character depictions which may be offensive and problematic for contemporary audiences.

Any guesses as to what all-time classic film this is for ????

Gone With The Wind has been a controversial film for decades, so this isn’t exactly surprising.

I believe HBO just pulled the film from its library this summer. They then added the film back with an introduction about how it depicts slavery.

 

[Pranzo Oltranzista]

Eraserhead (1977) - 5/10 (Didn't like or dislike it)

What a bizarre film. David Lynch's first feature film is a heavily Kafka-inspired nightmare with little dialogue and lots of strange imagery. In the first 6 minutes, we see a sperm-like creature fly into an egg-like object before the camera travels through a tunnel into a bright light. This, I take it, is a first-person perspective of our protagonist being born . Now an adult (with Kramer-like hair), he and his girlfriend bring home an alien baby that looks like the sperm, only bigger, and neither of them knows how to take care of it. I guess that it's about fears of parenthood. I've just described everything that I understood. The rest was too bizarre to make much sense of. For example, there's a dancing girl with a face deformity that randomly shows up a few times. At least it gave me some insight into why he might've been given The Elephant Man next. Also, I'm finally starting to understand why a vaguely erotic-looking alien squid was in Dune that wasn't in the original novel. Anyways, it was too weird for me to like it, but at least I think that I now have a better understanding of Lynch. Besides him, though, I kept thinking about a certain poster here and saying to myself, "This has body horror and a distinct style, it's bizarre and it makes no sense. I bet that it's one of @Pranzo Oltranzista's favorite films" .

Ahah, thx for the laugh! I didn't get a notification for the tag and I started to giggle as soon as I saw "a certain poster". Honestly, I do think that it's a great film, but it's not of my favorite, not even in my top3 Lynch films (probably 4th). I really should watch it again now!