Last movie watched...

[judgefloyd]

checked out Hancock last night, as a way of relaxing with the family.  Will Smith was surprisingly good, as was the story, but I just couldn't get interested in the supporting character or why Hancock would give a rat's rear end about him - there's a scene in which the advertising-dude-with-a-heart-of-gold spends ages asking Hancock to be polite to police, which is supposed to show us that this guy is a really good bloke and  made a big difference to Hancock.  Neither idea was convincing, but it's in line with the popular movie idea that what black people really need is to be told how to get it together by the nice white people. 

yours, not off to lecture some Sudanese-Australians on how to behave themselves,

Floyd

[DeFuzzed]

checked out Hancock last night, as a way of relaxing with the family.....but it's in line with the popular movie idea that what black people really need is to be told how to get it together by the nice white people. 

You gets what you gets, I guess, but speaking as a non-white person, that's not what I got from the movie.

The movie had its faults, one of which was it could have been so much more, but despite that I enjoyed it. And I usually don't like movie/tv bleeding hearts, makes me want to grab their necks, pull it out of that unicorn's ass and rub their noses in stinking reality - but Bateman played it so well, like yeppers he sees stinkng reality but regardless, he chooses to push that boulder uphill, all brave and steadfast and hell yeah, I'd paint the moon for him too.

Also, this movie made me crave meatballs and spaghetti.

[brendan1]

checked out Hancock last night, as a way of relaxing with the family.  Will Smith was surprisingly good, as was the story, but I just couldn't get interested in the supporting character or why Hancock would give a rat's rear end about him - there's a scene in which the advertising-dude-with-a-heart-of-gold spends ages asking Hancock to be polite to police, which is supposed to show us that this guy is a really good bloke and  made a big difference to Hancock.  Neither idea was convincing, but it's in line with the popular movie idea that what black people really need is to be told how to get it together by the nice white people. 

yours, not off to lecture some Sudanese-Australians on how to behave themselves,

Floyd

Is there a word that is like "cringe" but more extreme?

Fuck me

[SmallBlueThing]

House of Frankenstein (1944)

"From an original story by Curt Siodmark" it says. Siodmark, if you didnt know, was the Universal genius who invented everything you know about werewolves. However, i can only assume when it came to House, he was having a bit of a laugh. Perhaps obligated by contract, this is what he wrote:

There's this mad doctor in jail with his hunchback assistant, see? He was jailed fifteen years ago for trying to put human brains into dogs. (for giggles, we'll have him played by Boris Karloff, despite everyone really wanting him in the monster makeup one last time). The prison is hit by lightning, collapses, and the mad doctor and hunchback escape...

...and run into a travelling horror show that just happens to have Dracula's staked skeleton as an exhibit. The hunchback murders the showman, and they set off under new aliases swearing revenge upon those who put them in jail.

They bring Dracula back to life to kill one of their jailers, but the count (played by a gaunt not-lugosi)
(cont)

[Mardroid]

...so far I think I'd quite like to see that but do go on... 

[SmallBlueThing]

(cont) is destroyed soon after the deed, while the doctor and his hunchbacked friend head off to 'frankenstein' (which is now the name of a town, as well as the monster and his creator- oh, and the mad doctor 'used to work with baron frankenstein' and wants his notes so he can continue his experiments on dog brain men. With me?) they get to Frankenstein, where the hunchback falls in love with a wild gypsy woman, who joins them on their travels. Up at the castle, they discover the frankenstein monster and the wolf man frozen in ice. They then decide to thaw them out as 'they will help in our quest'.

At this point even my youngest was heard to say 'yes, that'll work well.'

The creature is played by Glenn Strange, who always looks wrong, but the wolf man is Lon Chaney (jnr) so there is some versimilitude with the earlier films.

House is like being licked all over by a demented horror puppy. Presumably one with a human brain. But even that cant save it from being in final analysis, not very good.

SBT

[Mardroid]

Okay. Maybe not. I was hoping they'd do something with those bones, but I suppose you could argue that would be predictable. They did include all the other monsters though.

[Greg M.]

Well, I dunno about you, but even with the 'not actually any good' caveat, he's still pretty much sold me on it. Besides, I'm a sucker for John Carradine.

[SmallBlueThing]

John Carradine! Yes, of course- thanks! But it's J Carrol Naish as Daniel the hunchback, who really impresses.

Although it's not very good- at least in direct comparison to Bride and Black Lagoon (watched over the weekend too), it still remains impossible not to love, if only for the incredible sets, backdrop paintings and character actors milling about. There's a studio shot of the town of frankenstein in this, which id love to know how it was acheived. The remnants of Castle Frankenstein loom over the actors and appears completely real. Painting? Glass shot? Dunno. Fantastic though. And as ever, Chaney jnr appears to be warping not into a wolf, but into walter matthau before your eyes. His Larry Talbot is so bloody miserable, it's a relief when he... No, i wont ruin it.

SBT

[Greg M.]

Although it's not very good- at least in direct comparison to Bride and Black Lagoon (watched over the weekend too), it still remains impossible not to love

At the risk of sounding like I'm film-stalking you (again), I happened to buy 'Creature from the Black Lagoon' recently (I'd run into it on tv a couple of weeks back and been so enthralled I had to get hold of a copy asap) and it has sparked something of a renewed penchant in me for the Universal Monsters and their foul ilk, so 'House...' may be another one for the list. Anything would suffer placed next to 'Black Lagoon', mind you, it really is stunningly good - a high-water mark of the genre (pun intended.) Impossible not to be cheering the Gill-Man on, particularly when he grapples with Richard Denning. Yet to see the sequel though.

[SmallBlueThing]

My wife and i were talking about this yesterday. We both watched all the universals as kids, then again- but on very late night tv- as teenagers, and as a result we have it in our heads that a) we love them, and want the kids to love them too, but b) they can send us to sleep at times. Thing is, we are beginning to realise that b) is entirely a result of those late night teenage viewings and that actually, theyre mostly well-paced, quick and hugely entertaining. We're going through them at a rate of knots. Youngest has Frankenstein requested for tuesday night, and has gone to bed overlooked by his model gillman, julia adams in her racy swimsuit and karloff as the mummy. His bedroom is beginning to look like the kid's from salems lot.

Thankfully, HMV has a bunch of universals at between three and six quid- but still has revenge of the creature at twenty-two! And no Ghost of/Son of Frankenstein or my personal favourite of them all, Dracula's Daughter- with the gorgeous Gloria Holden.

SBT

[SmallBlueThing]

Oh, and if the universal bug bites deeper, id strongly recommend picking up a copy of David J Skal's 'The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror'. I did have two copies until recently, but i stupidly left it outside in one of my ocassional book-purgings, otherwise idve sent it to you. It's everything youve ever wanted to know about the early days of horror in one fabulous book, and along with marc scott zicree's twilight zone companion, one of my most prized possessions. Im about to get it down now and seif it knows about the castle shot in 'house'...

SBT

[Greg M.]

Thanks for the recommendation - sounds cracking! I might just see about tracking a copy down.

[radiator]

The Hunger Games.

It was ok, very silly in places - Peeta's camoflage looked like something out of The Mighty Boosh - and rather contrived/nonsensical in others. I thought it was a bit of a shame that the filmmakers felt the need to spell everything out for the audience - I thought the tournament worked better in the book where we never see anything outside the arena, there's something a lot more menacing about unseen hands pulling the strings.

It's a nice looking film with a pleasing colour palette and I really liked how the hallucinatory bee sting sequence was handled. I was pretty shocked/impressed with the level of violence, and the casting was absolutely spot on, for the entire cast. I really like Jennifer Lawrence - she is very attractive but has a refreshing naturalness about her - I find a lot of actors these days look like Calvin Klein models, and I often find it hard to buy into them as believable characters.

Overall a bit too long, but a decent enough way to spend a couple of hours.

3.5/5

[HOO-HAA]

My review of indie horror flick, SPLINTERED:

I'm a huge fan of old-school horror cinema. Franchises like FRIDAY THE 13th and HALLOWEEN entertain the hell out of me. I love the slasher genre, how those films take elements of Noir cinema, such as the damsel in distress and the mysterious killer, and give them a gore upgrade. I love the suspense, the twists and turns, the hack and slash: all of it works for me.

SPLINTERED, the first feature-length production by co-writer and director, Simeon Halligan, is by this definition old-school horror. It's a final girl movie. The set-up is familiar: five teenage friends go to the woods where a mysterious killer is known to lurk. One of the five, troubled goth Sophie, finds herself isolated and must confront her fears – as well as the ghosts of her past – in order to survive.

But there's more to SPLINTERED than meets the eye. The story flirts with a variety of tropes within the horror genre, from werewolf mythology to rape revenge. It feels very much like a film made by fans of horror for fans of horror; paying homage to the genre as much as being a strong entry in its own right.

Famed as the first UK production to use the new Red Camera technology, SPLINTERED has the look and feel of a movie that vastly exceeds its budget. The children's home where most of the action takes place provides an eerie moonlit set, albeit at times a little on the dark side to make out what's happening onscreen. Action sequences are slick and tense. Special effects are solid, use of CGI subtle and effective.

Holly Weston puts in a great performance as our leading lady. Development of the remaining cast, with the notable exception of Stephen Martin Walters' antagonist, may be light, but it's Sophie's emotionally charged journey that drives this story towards its conclusion, and the payoff is both powerful and rewarding.

The bottom line: SPLINTERED is an entertaining slasher film, packing an emotional punch more powerful than many of its peers.

(originally posted: http://waynesimmons.org/blog/?p=1205)