Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Guardians of the Galaxy. Always a classic, glad Marvel took a risk and made it

 

Zootopia. Glad I took a chance on that one. Highly recommend.

 

Marathon Man. One of the better seventies paranoid thrillers. It's a weird, off-kilter film, doing a nice job of balancing Hoffman's semi-functionality with Scheider's tense, mysterious storyline before bringing Hoffman into this nightmare world of ex-Nazis and William Devane doing whatever the hell he wants. Atmospheric and creepy, with some great performances, especially from Olivier, who was gravely ill with cancer but leaves no trace of it onscreen.

 

Nerve

 

There's a nice all region limited edition blu ray from Nova Media Korea that I picked up. A little pricey but worth it and it was great to get a couple of little post card images of Lam Ching-Ying too. Definitely watching this again next weekend with some other fun Halloween stuff (Legend of the Seven Golden Vampires is also on the bill). I think I'll have to watch the English dub of this next time.

Slightly bummed because I completely spaced on TCM screening Rasputin the Mad Monk last night, so I watched Prince of Darkness instead. Well that became a MST3K romp between my mom and I. Can't believe it took almost 50 minutes for Drac to show up. I'm all for developing character and dread, but that's pushing it even if it was made 50 years ago.

 

They Live

 

'Prince of Darkness' is my choice for probably the weakest Hammer Dracula film. Supposedly Lee read the script and said he'd only be in it if he didn't have to deliver a line of dialogue. It desperately misses the presence of Cushing's Van Helsing.

 

Hot Fuzz: My first time seeing it, and I liked it. The only parts I didn't like were one of the deaths and what happened to Timothy Dalton's character. That was just a little too much for me.

 

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. A fairly gentle comedy, without a whole lot of big laughs but amusing throughout. Michael Caine plays a wealthy old con man who, with the cooperation of the chief of police, fleeces wealthy female tourists in the French Riviera. Steve Martin plays the dumb, loud, low-rent scammer who drifts into Caine's town. Caine spends some time trying to get rid of him and keep him from spoiling his game, before finally training him as a protege in the hopes of getting him to leave after making some use of him. Finally, they end up betting over who can con a particular mark first, leading to an escalating battle of wits. It's a sort of low-stakes diversion rather than being particularly hilarious, but it's fun to see Caine having debonair fun (Martin can be fun but generally plays too broad). There's also a nice dynamic, where initially Caine keeps getting one over on Martin but Martin always somehow weasels out of it and comes back, and in the second half, where they're competing over the woman, Martin keeps getting one over on Caine only to have Caine effortlessly outmaneuver him. Also, thanks to Ian McDiarmid's inclusion in Frank Oz's cast, it can accurately be described as a film in which Yoda directs Emperor Palpatine.

 

Chopping Mall. There's nothing like a bad 80's horror movie. 2 thumbs up.

 

Ouija: Origin of Evil

Found it very well made with characters I was interested in. The films suffers in the 3rd act however when **** starts to hit the fan, and instead of being scared you're trying to figure out the why's of what's happening and how the rules of what's going on works. Nothing is real clear. Confusing.

I'll give it a C. Still probably one of the better horror films to be released this year, which probably isn't saying to much.

I'm a firm believer in that you really have to make clear how the rules in your world work. IT FOLLOWS was a very good movie, but it couldn't stick to the rules it laid down in the premise. People do pay attention and if something doesn't add up, it can take you out of a movie. Anything really.

 

Magnificent Seven: This is a cowboy movie. It has cowboys. That's really all there is to say about it.

 

That is really interesting that you say that. I feel like even just in the last few years, we've had this flood of great horror like we haven't had in ages. The Babadook, It Follows, the Conjuring films, The Witch . . . I mean, there was a time when getting one horror film as good as any of those in a period of like five years would have felt like a gift.

The lukewarm reception by both critics and audiences has kind of put me off, but I may still check this out. Mr. Turner blew me away, so I'm always up for a chance to see Timothy Spall.

I was privileged to get to see this on the big screen a couple of years ago when it came out on a remastered blu-ray or something of that nature. It is absolutely terrible in all the right ways. Those late night screenings of awful horror movies are always a blast.

 

Training Day. The film that enabled the otherwise undistinguished ongoing careers of Antoine Fuqua and David Ayer, it's good enough to see why they're still going. The way Hawke is slowly suckered deeper and deeper into Washington's web of corruption is outstandingly handled. Hawke is very good as a rookie trying to keep up with everything going on around him, and Washington exudes this dark, twisted magnetic effect that makes it totally understandable how Hawke would find himself drawn along with him.

 

Well it could go to preference too. I think paranormal films are the least interesting. I'm willing to give The Conjuring another try though

 

Furious 6. Is there a word for something that's more ridiculous than ridiculous? I could go on at length just about the grand finale with the big Antonov transport plane, but why should I bother?

 

Speaking of length, that runway was ridiculously long, wasn't it?

 

Sarge PCCViking they've done the math, and it's said that the runway in Furious 6 would have to have been approx. 26 miles long (estimating that they averaged a speed of 120 MPH; or 2 miles per minute). I believe the longest runway in the world is Edwards Air Force Base (partially paved, partially unpaved), which is about 7.5 miles long. There's a runway in China fully paved about half that length.

Romancing The Stone (1984) - Plot; A romance novelist goes to Columbia where she teams up with a mercenary to rescue her Sister and find a priceless treasure.

Romancing The Stone is a prime example of talent working together to lift the material. That's not to say that it's a bad script (a tad politically incorrect at times, but not bad). In fact, it's reasonably witty and evokes classic movies like The African Queen. But thanks to sure direction by Robert Zemeckis and great chemistry between charming leads Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner (and a humorous turn by Danny DeVito as one of the baddies), it rises above what in lesser hands would've been disposable, B-movie fare. It's certainly no Raiders Of The Lost Ark, but then what is? - 6.5/10

 

Sarge
If you think the runway scene in Furious 6 is ridiculous, the next movie ups the silly factor even more in at least two places.

 

There's another one? I thought I was done.

 

Nope, they're planning to go through #10 at least. #8 comes out in April.