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Started by SmallBlueThing, 04 February, 2011, 12:40:44 PM

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JamesC

Project Almanac

An MTV time travel movie.

Started off well, then turned all shit.

Theblazeuk

Apostle on Netflix, starring your man Dan (Stevens) and Michael Sheen, directed by Gareth Evans of the-movie-that-stole-Dredd's-Thunder.

I really rather enjoyed this. The foreboding rural gothic tone, the cultish feel of the island settlement, the tension of violence and danger in every scene, and Dan Steven's turn as a pathologically driven man lurking within the cult's naive yet sinister flock carries every moment of discomfort and fear. He never comes across as anything more or less than capable, fragile but determined in the middle of the enemy. Balanced out with some humanity in the form of the supporting cast, it might well be my favourite horror movie of the year (though I'm still to catch The Endless, a Quiet Place or They Remain).

Short on the explanation but long on what is often referred to as 'Mythos' (i.e. weird, dark supernatural stuff), it's perfect fodder for a Call of Cthulhu game. I'd love to see more of this stuff from Gareth, and more genre from Dan Stevens - with this and The Guest he's winning lots of favour with me - but it's Michael Sheen's passionate prophet that gives the best performance, along with Mark Lewis Jones (Letho of the Witcher, an AT AT captain in Last Jedi) as an absolute drokking madman of menace.

Smith

The Wrestler.Sort of like The Hero but about pro wrestling.Actually,this came before,so...

Link Prime

Quote from: Theblazeuk on 24 October, 2018, 05:09:52 PM
Apostle on Netflix, starring your man Dan (Stevens) and Michael Sheen, directed by Gareth Evans of the-movie-that-stole-Dredd's-Thunder.

I really rather enjoyed this.

I did too, but something about the set-up just didn't sit right.
I think it was the scale of the island settlement I just couldn't get straight in me head.

IAMTHESYSTEM

The Fog, John Carpenter. [Horror Channel] Some genuine scares I forgot its subtext of Colonial guilt for the founding of America on a lie. Very prescient considering Black Panther and others have mentioned such, Hollywoods understandable fear at what's happening in the world. Carpenters film is worth a rewatch despite its seventies dress code. However, the moment where one of the dead sailors gets up and wanders around to collapse at Jamie Lee Curtis's feet- AND then write the number 3 onto the Hospital floor using a scalpel is daft and adds nowt to what went before.     
"You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension."

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wedgeski

Quote from: IAMTHESYSTEM on 25 October, 2018, 08:45:42 AM
The Fog, John Carpenter. [Horror Channel] Some genuine scares I forgot its subtext of Colonial guilt for the founding of America on a lie. Very prescient considering Black Panther and others have mentioned such, Hollywoods understandable fear at what's happening in the world. Carpenters film is worth a rewatch despite its seventies dress code. However, the moment where one of the dead sailors gets up and wanders around to collapse at Jamie Lee Curtis's feet- AND then write the number 3 onto the Hospital floor using a scalpel is daft and adds nowt to what went before.     
Second only to The Thing in my top Carpenter films. I love the opening ten minutes in particular -- wonderful, slow-burn creepiness. And of course the soundtrack, as always: brilliant.

Mattofthespurs

Quote from: wedgeski on 25 October, 2018, 09:17:45 AM
Quote from: IAMTHESYSTEM on 25 October, 2018, 08:45:42 AM
The Fog, John Carpenter. [Horror Channel] Some genuine scares I forgot its subtext of Colonial guilt for the founding of America on a lie. Very prescient considering Black Panther and others have mentioned such, Hollywoods understandable fear at what's happening in the world. Carpenters film is worth a rewatch despite its seventies dress code. However, the moment where one of the dead sailors gets up and wanders around to collapse at Jamie Lee Curtis's feet- AND then write the number 3 onto the Hospital floor using a scalpel is daft and adds nowt to what went before.     
Second only to The Thing in my top Carpenter films. I love the opening ten minutes in particular -- wonderful, slow-burn creepiness. And of course the soundtrack, as always: brilliant.

That's my top two Carpenter films as well. Then Followed by Escape to New York and Assault on Precinct 13.

Eamonn Clarke

The Thing
Halloween
Assault on Precinct 13
The Fog
Escape from New York

That order will vary from month to month.


Apostle:
Grisly but good.

Hawkmumbler

The Thing
Prince of Darkness
The Fog
Halloween
Escape from New York
In the Mouth of Madness
Assault on Precinct 13
Big Trouble in Little China
They Live
Body Bags

In descending order

Andy Lambert

The Fog, The Thing and Prince Of Darkness are my top three from Carpenter.
Halloween for me is tedious and overrated.

SmallBlueThing(Reborn)

Carp is BY far my favourite filmmaker working today, which is sadly easier to say after the death of George A Romero. There's something magnificent in all of his films, even when he's battling a shitty idea or not firing on all cylinders.

I'd put my favourites as:

The Thing
The Fog
Halloween
Cigarette Burns
In The Mouth of Madness
Prince of Darkness
They Live
The Ward

SBT

Greg M.

Since we're all doing it... my top three are the Apocalypse Trilogy, albeit not in the usual order.

1: Prince of Darkness: maybe not objectively the best, but it is my favourite. Dennis Dun is trapped in the closet, and he will not be saved by the god Plutonium.
2: The Thing: probably objectively the best, and one that always has me tied to the couch.
3: In the Mouth of Madness: A slow-burner, but once the movie cranks up a gear about halfway in, it's superb.
4: Assault on Precinct 13: Darwin Joston should have been a bigger star than he was.
5: Big Trouble in Little China: Just because.

Professor Bear

#12672
My go-to Carpenter movie is Ghosts Of Mars.

Well anyway, moving right along - I Kill Giants.  The book presents a cute metaphor for dealing with things beyond your experience, but the film bets hard on only one interpretation of that material (that the fantasy elements are all imagined), thus changing it from a whimsical tale of a young girl learning to grieve in her own time and turning it into a story about a bullied child's struggle with dissociative paranoia that leads her into violent outbursts, self-harm, arson and life-threatening situations, and the film offers no resolution to this new interpretation of the material rather than a slightly disturbing allusion to an offscreen visit to some kind of Pray The Gay Away camp from which the protagonist has returned with a more socially-acceptable attitude and appearance.  The book gets away with a trite wrap-up that the film can't replicate, so they don't try, thus lots of characters and subplots are just abandoned and never resolved, like the school bully or the bratty brothers who just disappear from the film at some point.  The kid actors are good, but the adults are... uhhhhh... well, the kid actors are good.
I get the feeling they just tried to replicate other entries in this kind of slightly depressing subgenre of literary adaptation (Bridge To Teribithia, Where The Wild Things Are), but while that might work in the realm of saturday morning cartoons where screenwriter Joe Kelly (who wrote the original book!) usually plies his trade cobbling ideas, scenes and jokes from other things together and calling it a day, in practice with something that demands more focus and a tangible start and end point and a director not keen to replicate any of the book's more memorable fantasy visuals, it results in a drab, unfocused and joyless film.

Apestrife

Saw Halloween yesterday. Enjoyed it very much. A really good slasher. The killing managed to be both funny and scary. Characters making stupid decision getting them killed felt right at home. The ending was brilliant, with some really cool twists. People in the cinema applauded bunch of times towards the end, and it was one of those times when I actually agreed with it happening.

Meyers felt really heavy in every scene he was in. Equal parts terminator and evil cat. He had a bizarre quality to him. Things he did to people. What's even better is that the film doesn't go in trying to explain everything, rather it feels like it's putting it into question: why people are so obsessed with evil getting explained, sometimes almost rationalized.

Laurie's trauma felt like real weight. Having recently seen what trauma can do to a person (esssentially destroying them) I really felt for her. It didn't turn her into some hero or something, it's something she has to carry and deal with, as is her family. Cool to see something else than someone becoming Batman or Lisbeth Salander.

They're apperantly making another one. Regardless how it turns out, I'd be really good with this being an ending to Laurie and Meyers.

Tiplodocus

FIRST MAN - loved it. Like Dunkirk, a masterpiece at building tense scenes (even though and especially because you know the outcome). And I love the way they save the showy special effects  for something very special. Utterly immersive. I forgive him for La La Land.
Be excellent to each other. And party on!