Written by Stephen King (his first screenplay) and directed by the late George A. Romero, this horror anthology is a loving homage to the E.C. comic books of the 50s. There are five short films, which range in quality but which all have a distinctive visual style - intense colour filters and cartoonish exaggeration in both the acting and set design, all meant to create the feeling of a living comic book. It's mainly pretty successful, though the stories that stick out are The Crate and Something To Tide You Over, with Leslie Nielsen relishing playing the bad guy. It's over 20 years since I last watched this, but the only story I remembered was the last one, where a guy's apartment is overrun with cockroaches. I'm not sure whether that's my entomophobia or a mark of the story's lasting impact, but it's still the one that really makes my skin crawl!
I actually liked Watchmen which was forever considered unfilmable. Had they gone with A list actors it would have been considerably worse. As it stands it is probably one of my all time favourate super hero films and I does not make me cringe when I go back to the original printed work. The spirit is still there even though the story line departed (and to be fair was more or less hijacked by Marvel)
I agree, I think the actors they chose were great and since they weren't super well known it was very organic. I was also happy with the adaptation even if it wasn't 100% like the graphic novel. I would say more but no spoilers here y'all!
oh not to mention that I really dug the soundtrack. Only issue I had was I feel like it was a little to long.
Written by Stephen King (his first screenplay) and directed by the late George A. Romero, this horror anthology is a loving homage to the E.C. comic books of the 50s. There are five short films, which range in quality but which all have a distinctive visual style - intense colour filters and cartoonish exaggeration in both the acting and set design, all meant to create the feeling of a living comic book. It's mainly pretty successful, though the stories that stick out are The Crate and Something To Tide You Over, with Leslie Nielsen relishing playing the bad guy. It's over 20 years since I last watched this, but the only story I remembered was the last one, where a guy's apartment is overrun with cockroaches. I'm not sure whether that's my entomophobia or a mark of the story's lasting impact, but it's still the one that really makes my skin crawl!
wow I saw that maybe 25years ago. I also remember the cockroaches fairly well, and because mum had already converted me to the church of Kingology, the one where King makes his house green ^_^(what was the cause? some meteorite or something). the others I'm not sure. I have better memories of the second series.
wow I saw that maybe 25years ago. I also remember the cockroaches fairly well, and because mum had already converted me to the church of Kingology, the one where King makes his house green ^_^(what was the cause? some meteorite or something). the others I'm not sure. I have better memories of the second series.
The meteorite yeah - it cracks open and the blue gunk inside turns out to be the seed of some kind of extraterrestrial vegetable matter causing him to come over all Swamp Thing. It was pretty much King's first appearance on screen and it's not hard to see why he didn't make it as an actor, but the cross-eyed hillbilly skit kinda works in this film.
Watched Starwars Rouge One for the second time last night. I was a little drunk when i first saw it in theaters, so i did not really remember the movie very well.
I thought it was a good movie, maybe even better the force awakens?
Watched Starwars Rouge One for the second time last night. I was a little drunk when i first saw it in theaters, so i did not really remember the movie very well.
I thought it was a good movie, maybe even better the force awakens?
I think it was a bit better than Force Awakens. I'm betting this will be the trend, all the spin-off movies will be better than the main timeline sequels.
I think it was a bit better than Force Awakens. I'm betting this will be the trend, all the spin-off movies will be better than the main timeline sequels.
Pretty lightweight by Bunuel's standards and perhaps unsurprisingly, his most commercially successful film. It was based on the novel of the same name by Joseph Kessel, which Bunuel himself dubbed "very melodramatic", but he was interested in the inner life of the female protagonist, Séverine, and the potential for surrealism in showing her masochistic fantasies as a key part of the narrative. The result is curiously cool and detached; despite the erotic imagery, it's not a very erotic film - the camera observes its subjects at a voyeuristic distance and the intriguing absurdity of fetishism is laid bare with amused detachment.
It's not really a plot-driven film - bored housewife Séverine is curious about the secret world of high-class brothels and when she is given an address of one such place by chance (not by chance at all I suspect), she decides to find out from first-hand experience. For the kind of intense character study Bunuel wanted to make here, Katherine Deneuve was a gift - beautiful, but strangely absent - a real enigma. She engages with a number of other characters in the film, but is emotionally detached, preferring the fantasy world in her head into which she eventually retreats for good, where she has complete control and no need to suffer the emotional scarring of real relationships - hers is a beautiful emptiness, which is symbolized by the final shot of the empty carriage, I think.
Compared with the savage surrealism of Bunuel's early work, Belle de jour is almost straightforward, but still draws on some of his favourite themes, particularly the dangerous ennui of the bourgeois and the hypocrisy of the church (although censors forced most of the ritualized 'death' scene to be cut). It's overall meaning is opaque though. The surrealist touches come mainly through Séverine's dreams, like the field of bulls (called Remorse) and in the brothel's bizarre clientele - the most of intriguing of whom is the Asian businessman, who carries with him a small box which sounds like a buzzing fly when opened, but which we never see inside. Of this, Bunuel commented "I can't count the number of times people (particularly women) have asked me what was in the box, but since I myself have no idea, I usually reply 'Whatever you want there to be.'"
Much maligned, though I'm not really sure why. It's certainly not the best film with King's name attached, but still a damn sight better than the likes of Pet Sematary IMO. The basic idea is that there are real beings called Sleepwalkers, who gave rise to the modern day myth of vampires and who share certain traits with their fictional counterparts; they are ageless creatures reliant on the life force of mortals to sustain their immortality. Unlike vampires, Sleepwalkers share their DNA with cats (rather than bats) and suck their prey's life force rather than their blood. In order to prolong his deeply unhealthy relationship with his mother, another Sleepwalker, Charles Brady must find a suitable victim and lure her to their lair.
The mythology is a bit suspect and does smack of basically being a cheap excuse to make yet another vampire movie of a slightly different hue. Some things aren't really explained - why are they derived from cats, and why are cats also Sleepwalkers' nemesis? They can shape-shift but why does that extend to being able to shape-shift inanimate objects (e.g. Charles shifts a Pontiac to a Mustang at one point!)? And why is their true state closer to some kind of reptile? Despite a certain amount of hokeyness plot-wise though, it still just about hangs together, thanks to not taking itself too seriously and having some enjoyable central performances - particularly from the cat, Clovis (the real star of the show!). The effects are a bit dated now, but I still enjoyed the morphing Sleepwalkers; the effects where primitive CG is used, like sucking life force from victims' bodies, is what really lets it down. Kind of a who's who of cameo roles - Stephen King, Tobe Hooper, Clive Barker, John Landis and Joe Dante all put in an appearance!
I think sleepwalkers suffered from the B list casting. Although Alice Krige is always creepily interesting, the rest just do not come up to snuff.
Interesting fact Bodega Bay, they town they initially run from was the setting for The Birds and is today largely unchanged from the way it was back then.
I think sleepwalkers suffered from the B list casting. Although Alice Krige is always creepily interesting, the rest just do not come up to snuff.
Interesting fact Bodega Bay, they town they initially run from was the setting for The Birds and is today largely unchanged from the way it was back then.
I'll have to disagree slightly there; while definitely a B list cast, I actually enjoyed Brian Krause's performance. I think he brought a sort of boyish enthusiasm to the role and a cheesy malevolence that worked for me; he encapsulates what I said about the movie not taking itself too seriously - personally I don't think it was gunning for anything other than B movie territory. Any pretty girl could have played the Tanya role though, it's very nondescript.
Self-styled vampire of the skies, Dwight Renfield, pitches up at various rural airfields in his black Cessna Skymaster and leaves behind a trail of gory destruction. Ace tabloid magazine reporter Richard Dees is soon hot on his trail, determined to let nothing get in the way his story and front page notoriety. As with a lot of my favourite King adaptations there's a comic book sensibility to this one - the visual style is bold and striking, the plotting tight and the acting, while undeniably OTT, hits the mark. Miguel Ferrer's performance as the hard-drinking, chain-smoking, black-hearted Dees is pitched just right for the tone the movie is aiming for. The Night Flier is something of a morality tale about the ruthlessness of the reporter's methods catching up with him as he is slowly consumed by the darkness of his subject matter - in some ways, Renfield is merely symbolic of Dees' descent into madness. I detected certain parallels with Nightcrawler in this and although the message is laid on a lot thicker here and done with less artistry, it still makes for a good sub-plot in what is otherwise a satisfying neo noir style horror.
A true epic in every sense of the word. The cinematic realization of the story of Col. T. E. Lawrence's involvement with the Arab Revolt towards the end of WW1 is a feast for the senses. From Freddie Young's spectacular cinematography through to Maurice Jarre's unforgettable score and star turns from Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif, it's a film that demands to be seen on the big screen - I watched the 70mm print, that would surely have stunned audiences in 1962 with its sumptuous technicolor evocation of the harsh but beautiful landscapes of the Arabian deserts.
The first half of the film charts Lawrence's attempts to galvanize disparate Bedouin tribes into insurgency, culminating in the Battle of Aqaba. The second half focuses on the push north to Damascus, and at this point, the tone begins to shift, becoming colder (literally too - the parched desert gives way to snowy peaks) as politics take centre stage. The backdrop of the taking of Damascus is the Sykes-Picot Agreement, which saw Britain and France carve up southwest Asia into spheres of influence and control with the ultimate aim of defeating the Ottoman Empire. This shifting of scope, from the arena of battle to politics, is reflected in O'Toole's nuanced depiction of Lawrence, who begins to seem increasingly conflicted, failing in confidence and conviction as he is sidelined by his superiors, having outlived his usefulness.
It's a film that operates both on a grand scale and a very human scale, with Lawrence's compassion for individual lives and his personal capacity to inspire devotion counterpointed with the colonial remoteness of his puppet masters, General Allenby, Dr. Dryden and Prince Faisal, pulling the strings at a safe distance, far above the bitter reality of insurrection on the ground, and the human cost.
From the sublime to the ridiculous, and one Lawrence to another - namely Jennifer Lawrence, whose acting in this switches between blank-eyed passivity and screaming hysteria with not a whole lot in between. Aronofsky's latest sees a couples' marital harmony interrupted by a series of seemingly uninvited guests, whose antics begin to drive Lawrence's character to the point of mental breakdown.
Mother! is a deeply symbolic film, the trouble is, the the symbolism is laid on so thick it's hard to focus on anything but the allegory and the point of a good allegory is that it has to function as a straightforward narrative as well. By the last act, the metaphors have become as tortured as the protagonists and it devolves into a relentless assault on the senses, as Aronofsky drills home the film's multiple messages - the main message seeming to be "look how clever I am!"... And what's with the shaky cam? It's not just the final section; right from the off, we're whirling around like a drunk on a carousel. If you suffer from motion sickness, I'd say this is worse for camera gymnastics than quite a few found footage movies I've seen!
Mother is Mother Earth, a kind of Gaia, custodian of the planet, which is the house. Him (with the 'H' pointedly capitalized) is God, the creator. Man, the first guest to arrive at the house, is Adam, followed by Woman, Eve (preceded by a reference to Adam's rib on the first night of his stay), the two brothers are Cain and Abel. The wake, following the slaying of Abel, signals a temporary hiatus before the second wave of guests arrive, presumably representing modern man. Their atrocities - death camps, genocide, pollution - are visited on the house, which symbolizes mankind's abuse of Mother Earth, leading to its ultimate destruction. God's proudest creation, the film seems to be saying, also spells the doom of his first creation. For a director who claims not to be religious, it's a very biblical way of getting across an environmentalist message. The cyclical ending I don't really get - maybe it's saying that man is doomed to endlessly repeat a cycle of destruction and renewal, but that doesn't make much sense within the biblical framework.
I think Mother! works best before the totally OTT last act, as an exploration of public and private space - and how a constant violation of the latter can lead to mental collapse. The action that unfolds would serve as an interesting metaphor for relationships in general, but I suspect that would be too mundane for Aronofsky, who has his sights set on making something far more universal and profound with this film. To me, it's a classic case of overreaching and watching the whole house of cards come tumbling down.
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An effect which Frankenheimer paid extreme homage to in Ronin.
