[Hutnicks]

for Blame! the manga and in general anything made by that mangaka has the exact same style and same story basis too, and of course as a result, same special atmosphere. getting answers is typically not that important and somehow it still works(in the manga). I absolutely love the drawing style so as always in such a situation, any attempt to move to another media feels to me like a massive failure. I'm partial on this, I usually prefer the book to the movie, and the manga to anime/movie.


I generally prefer the printed media to film in most cases. Manga has provided me with a few exceptions to that. Blame! Visually has a bit of a Knights of Sidonia feel to it so I wonder if the Manga was done by the same folks.

 

[WraithApe]

Primer (2004) [6.5/10]
Here's the thing about this one. I thought it would be up my alley. And it kept my attention because of the interesting subject matter. And was impressive for how well thought out it was. Really impressive for either lack of plot holes, or confusing enough to hide them. And therein lies the issue. For once, I'm complaining about the focus being unbalanced toward the mechanical aspect of the story. It felt less like a decision to not hold the audience's hand and more of a decision to purposefully obfuscate or write cryptic dialogue for the sake of making it seem more complicated than it actually really truly is, which is to say still complicated enough. Amazing that this was done on its supposed budget. I think the closest comparison i've seen in this thread was Coherence, which I personally put significantly ahead of this one, and its likely because how how well it balances.

Also, the final version of the box in no way was congruent with what one would expect when looking at the initial device, so much so that it can be folded up. Likely budgetary, but felt like just a budgetary thing, but threw me off.

Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) 7.8/10

This one was a long time coming. This is my first time rewatching it and this was likely the first horror movie I had ever seen. Sort of my own Boogeyman...

And it was nothing like what I remember. What surprised me most was what... hodgepodge of ideas it was. Now I know where John Hughes got his inspiration for the ending of Home Alone. It was kind of... campy, and thus more fun and less frightening than I remember. The theme was a nice surprise. I didn't remember it. But in the end, this was more 80's than I for some reason expected and maybe... better for it.

In a way I did like Primer, but felt it got really bogged down in the mechanics of the plot, to the point where I kinda lost interest in it. Maybe you followed this, but apparently there are up to 9 intersecting timelines going on at one point! Huge swathes of blog-space have been devoted to simply explaining what happens in the film - not on a semantic level, mind, purely in terms of plot structure! Certainly makes Inception look like kindergarten viewing, that's for sure. I also thought Coherence was a better film FWIW.

Spot on with Elm Street - definitely campier than you remember it as a kid, but still a lot of fun and rightfully held up as an 80s horror classic IMO.

 

[castleofargh]

I generally prefer the printed media to film in most cases. Manga has provided me with a few exceptions to that. Blame! Visually has a bit of a Knights of Sidonia feel to it so I wonder if the Manga was done by the same folks.

same artist indeed.

 

[Hutnicks]

In a way I did like Primer, but felt it got really bogged down in the mechanics of the plot, to the point where I kinda lost interest in it. Maybe you followed this, but apparently there are up to 9 intersecting timelines going on at one point! Huge swathes of blog-space have been devoted to simply explaining what happens in the film - not on a semantic level, mind, purely in terms of plot structure! Certainly makes Inception look like kindergarten viewing, that's for sure. I also thought Coherence was a better film FWIW.

Spot on with Elm Street - definitely campier than you remember it as a kid, but still a lot of fun and rightfully held up as an 80s horror classic IMO.

Coherence was certainly better constructed and executed. I quite liked Primer but feel it took on too much for the resources they had.

 

[WraithApe]

More coherent, you might say... (where's an eye-rolling emoji when you need one?)

 

[Hutnicks]

More coherent, you might say... (where's an eye-rolling emoji when you need one?)

Sadly lacking. like a lot of the new site.

 

[Hutnicks]

Alien Covenant (2017) 6/10

Watchable gore fest of a flic that pretty much abandons the Prometheus set up and goes off in a macabre and foolish direction. Ridley obviously really wishes he had made Aliens and takes a stab at it here and misses badly. If it were the first Alien film you ever watched it might impress, but for those of us who have suffered through the franchise it's a ho hum more of the same from the 30 or 40 minute mark.

The "Surprise ending for Dummies" is really a slap in the face. Your cat had it figured out and made the smart choice to go chase a ball of lint rather than see it played out on the screen.

 

[gnosis]

Come and See (1985), dir. Elem Klimov (4.5/5)

This subject matter of this weird, artsy WWII drama is essentially the Russians' own holocaust of sorts begat by the Germans in the country's rural villages. The climax of the film is one of the most devastating scenes I've ever witnessed! There's some scenes I would have omitted or cut short, but there's some incredibly powerful imagery in this film. Add this one to the list of "movies that make you question humanity".

 

[Redcarmoose]

Street Trash 1987


6/10

A classic "melt" sub genre horror movie which centers around homeless drinking a bad batch of wine which melts them after one swollow. Great effects and acting for what it is.

 

[DLeeWebb]

"Deepwater Horizon" [6.8/10]: IMHO a lackluster movie with a compelling story to tell about a tragic and avoidable event. I would compare this film to the recent film "Sully." The story itself was engaging. It almost had a documentary feel to it. The acting was unremarkable, but on the other hand, this story was a story of a tragic event in the lives of otherwise normal people. The film did lack a documentary quality in that it did not go into adequate depth with regard to the causes of the blowout, the background of those people depicted, or the resulting environmental effects. I understand that for a dramatic/entertainment production the film had to be more limited in scope. However, these limitations left me with less of an intellectual and emotional connection to the topic and the people involved. I viewed it on Cinemax. I might have been more disappointed if I had paid for an IMAX ticket at my local cineplex. I will say that it kept me glued to my seat.

 

[WraithApe]

Street Trash 1987
6/10

A classic "melt" sub genre horror movie which centers around homeless drinking a bad batch of wine which melts them after one swollow. Great effects and acting for what it is.

Ha, yeah I've seen that one. Does exactly what it says on the bottle Talking of the "melt" sub genre, did you ever catch Philip Brody's Body Melt? Haven't seen it since it came out and it's probably pretty atrocious, but I remember it being a bit of a chuckle at the time.

 

[Hutnicks]

I worry about you guys sometimes

 

[castleofargh]

melting is such an important aspect of cinematography. just like bodies blowing up or having something grow inside them. would Robocop be Robocop without the guy melting? would the old Total Recall be any good without the 3 tits girl ... I mean the heads enjoying some fun time in low atmosphere? would Poultrygeist be such a .... hmmmm.... something without the toilet scene and other "incredibly good" special effects helping to make perfect sense of the Native American burial ground resulting in chicken troubles? would "the stuff" be the stuff without the bodies doing that weird thing they do after eating too much stuff?
we need good melting in movies as much as we need exploding helicopters. people can't possibly understand the story without them.

 

[Hutnicks]

melting is such an important aspect of cinematography. just like bodies blowing up or having something grow inside them. would Robocop be Robocop without the guy melting? would the old Total Recall be any good without the 3 tits girl ... I mean the heads enjoying some fun time in low atmosphere? would Poultrygeist be such a .... hmmmm.... something without the toilet scene and other "incredibly good" special effects helping to make perfect sense of the Native American burial ground resulting in chicken troubles? would "the stuff" be the stuff without the bodies doing that weird thing they do after eating too much stuff?
we need good melting in movies as much as we need exploding helicopters. people can't possibly understand the story without them.

........and oddly enough your entire peroration conspicuously ignores the true origin of the subgenre held within a film that gestated so much of the horror we see today.

 

[castleofargh]

to be honest when I thik melting I think "Who framed Roger Rabbit?". but little did I know that they stole the scene to Oz. ^_^