Last movie watched...

[Keef Monkey]

Was at Frightfest Glasgow on Saturday (had to miss the Friday annoyingly!) and saw some good stuff (and some not so good stuff).

The Wave - Really tense Norwegian disaster movie. Seen Hollywood do this sort of thing a million times but this was the most effective I can remember, probably because it really took its time to develop attachments to the characters before the destruction starts, I genuinely gave a crap what happened to these people!

Southbound - Really liked this, it's an anthology movie with a horror Twilight Zone vibe, where stories bleed into the next. A lot of very cool, and varied ideas. Liked the idea of the radio announcer, gave it a good Night Springs atmosphere.

SPL2: A Time For Consequences - Actually the first proper Tony Jaa movie I've seen (other than the last Fast & Furious), my main takeaway was that he really, really liked elbowing people in the head. He does it a thousand times! The fight scenes are incredibly elaborate in this, but nowhere near as readable as something like The Raid, loads of fast cuts spoiling the view of the action. Thought the story was very over-baked too, it took itself very seriously for the bulk and felt a bit dreary when people weren't being punched. The last showdown is really over the top and cartoonish and brilliant fun, made me wish it had all been so riotous. Noticed two directors were credited (director of action and director of story) so maybe that lead to that jarring element.

The Other Side of The Door - This really didn't work for me. The story is essentially Pet Semetary relocated to India, and feels like just another generic, slick studio horror film that's still stuck trying to emulate J-horror tropes and ideas. So many of the scares are of the 'person's face warped by CGI while a loud noise plays' variety that US commercial horror is so obsessed with. Really not good, although it didn't seem to go down too badly so will probably do well.

Baskin - Jings. This is mental. It's a surreal Turkish art horror, with a nicely Lynchian nightmare logic, incredible atmosphere, fantastic music and really disturbing and haunting visuals. This one will be a cult classic, and probably the most memorable film of the day.

Martyrs (remake) - The original is such an intense watch that I don't think I'll ever go back to it, but it stuck in my mind for weeks afterwards and it's rare something lingers that much. Still not totally sure how I feel about it, but it's certainly incredibly powerful. This is none of those things, a real botch job that's weaker in every way. A lot has been changed to sanitize it and make it more palatable, and those changes misfire terribly and rob it of the gut punch that made the film special. Even when it's faithful it does a much worse job of conveying story and ideas, so those things just don't come off the way they should. The ending to Martyrs is stuck in my head for life, the ending to this actually got guffaws from several people. It would be a real shame if someone stumbled on this instead of the original, really poor.

The Devil's Candy - The new film from the guy who made The Loved Ones, which I loved, so had high hopes for it and it didn't disappoint. There are one or two ideas in it that could have been more developed but other than that it looks incredible, the character work is fantastic (again, I really cared about these people and that makes an amazing difference to how effective something like this is) and while it's dark as hell when it needs to be it's also got a great sense of fun. This and Baskin were my top picks!

[ThryllSeekyr]

Saw Gods of Egypt this afternoon and I thought it was better than expected.

Couldn't see the books for all the Thoth's wandering around. Like I couldn't see the forests for the trees and this one became favourite of mine.

[spoiler] Brian Brown makes surprise cameo as Osirus, who I thought make great Chief Crudnew or Ragnall as he's really brother of Set (Gerard Butler) who would make a good Slaine even though he's the villain had already made comparison with Horus merely because he had a mortal thief for a companion and as I pointed out on related thread here. The gods are significantly taller than humans, can take beast form related to their......well, you know Horus is a large winged man with the head of a falcon and in this film looks like he's wearing a suit of gold armour in the shape of this birdman and Set looks like some sort of demonic chimerical beast man. (Really, I think he should be a snake man.) It says in Egyptian records that he is the son of Gleb & Nut who brother and sister. They're always been shown in piece of well known Egyptian heiro-porna--glyphics about to copulate. Something I always found highly arousing.


Btw Horus is son of Osirus, while Ra (Geoffery Rush) is the head god of the sun and also referred to as grandpa by Horus & Set even though he's not a direct grand ancestor.

There is a Anubis who is completely toonish & always in beast form, but otherwise cool. Haven't seen the likes of this since that sequel to The Mummy.....

[spoiler] I thought this was cool at the time, but something was always missing, because these were how the Silent Strider werewolves appeared in that Werewolf the Apocalypse game I keep mouthing off about and I thought it was cool that those were modeled in appearance after that Egyptian god as they were banished from their homeland, cursed to endlessly travel and live transitory lifestyles. yet, never truly accepted them as Wolves since they are Jackals. I thought Anubis was awesome, but wish they had made look as real as everything else in the film and that's where this film falls down for me. They're making these epic fantasy films that look for all the work put into them look phoney still on many levels. 

Did you know that the Egyptian gods have gold coloured blood. Just don't tell the dwarves or Erebor that may have been why Egypt is no longer known to be Egypt if Middle-Earth had anything to do with it.[/spoiler]   

[radiator]

Room.

We put this on at about 11pm last night and, despite having to be up early for work today, we stayed up until 1am to see it through to the very end.

Pretty much an astounding film start to finish, and a very experiential one, so its best to go in knowing nothing at all about it. So I won't say anything else other than Brie Larson's oscar win is totally deserved, and the film also features what is beyond any shadow of a doubt the best performance by a child actor I have ever seen.

Highest of recommends.

5/5

[Link Prime]

As a librarian

Didn't know that was your profession Colin- something I fancifully always wanted to do.

I'm sure it's just pretty much walking around a quiet, clean, organised area and putting books and documents neatly back into their proper place, occasionally gently clearing your throat when some well mannered members of the public drift towards a load whisper in conversation. Ahhhh.


Cheers for the Frightfest round-up Keef, Southbound is now on radar.

[ThryllSeekyr]

Horus is son of Osirus, while Ra (Geoffery Rush) is the head god of the sun and also referred to as grandpa by Horus & Set even though he's not a direct grand ancestor.

Not implying, Horus & Set are brothers & forgot to mention [spoiler]Ra's (Who reminds me of the dark god the Aten) constant battle with Apothiswho's a bloody giant worm like some else.[/spoiler]

[spoiler]They had fire staves.[/spoiler] That was all cool!

[The Adventurer]

Rewatched Evangelion 2.22 as I hadn't watched in a few years, and I wanted it's events fresh for when I watch Evangelion 3.33 next. I've always disliked the original anime, but these rebuild films have kept my interest. So mental.

[Colin YNWA]

As a librarian

Didn't know that was your profession Colin- something I fancifully always wanted to do.

I'm sure it's just pretty much walking around a quiet, clean, organised area and putting books and documents neatly back into their proper place, occasionally gently clearing your throat when some well mannered members of the public drift towards a load whisper in conversation. Ahhhh.

For the last 16 years (and next month) I've worked in an FE College supporting mainly 16-19 years in Rotherham... you pretty much got it!

[Link Prime]

For the last 16 years (and next month) I've worked in an FE College supporting mainly 16-19 years in Rotherham... you pretty much got it!

Well you're not normally one for sarcasm- so nice one!

[Hawkmumbler]

Rewatched Evangelion 2.22 as I hadn't watched in a few years, and I wanted it's events fresh for when I watch Evangelion 3.33 next. I've always disliked the original anime, but these rebuild films have kept my interest. So mental.

Christ, so Manga Entertainment FINALLY released Evangelion 3.33?! I had that pre-ordered like five years ago but it kept getting with drawn from amazon! Must chase that down, as i'm in the same boat as you, the original series has aged poorly but good gravy if these reboots aren't just the darndest things.

[The Adventurer]

I don't know about the UK (Manga Ent) release, but the US release was also super long in coming.

[Professor Bear]

I am amazed that Manga are still going - this is the company that capitalised on Akira's critical acclaim with western movie boffins by releasing Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend and Fist of the North Star.

[The Adventurer]

To be fair, Fist of the North Star is amazing.

I think Manga Entertainment gets by by being the UK's biggest anime distributor. They seem to get all of the big releases that Funimation gets over here. Manga's US branch is basically dead, though you still see their logo on every Ghost in the Shell release since they own a piece.

EDIT: Oh yeah, finished Evangelion 3.33. I had heard that the film was kind of a mess, and it was. But it sure was bonkers. Not as good as 2.22 IMO.

Now the wait for the final film, which doesn't even have a theatrical release date yet.

[ThryllSeekyr]

To be fair, Fist of the North Star is amazing.

I like cartoon FOTNS better than the live action film where they found this mostly unknown martial artist who looked nothing like NorthStar, but at least they got the exploding head execution moves right.

Steven Segal might have been a better man.

[JamesC]

I've never enjoyed an anime film and I've watched a few. I don't think the stories are very good.
I watched one of those Evangelion films and it was about a monster that attacked, which they fought, and then another monster attacked and they fought that, and then another and another. I was bored shitless by the end of it.

[Hawkmumbler]

I've never enjoyed an anime film and I've watched a few. I don't think the stories are very good.
I watched one of those Evangelion films and it was about a monster that attacked, which they fought, and then another monster attacked and they fought that, and then another and another. I was bored shitless by the end of it.

You sir, need to watch Paprika. It's the one anime movie I think every sci-fi fan should watch.