Amph What was the last movie you saw?

Silence, I really enjoyed it!

 

Highlander - Never saw this cult classic before so decided to check it out and loved it. For a low budget, they did extremely well and Queens soundtrack really sells certain scenes. Lambert was born to play this role too, you can see it.

The Arrival - A smart, well written, thought provoking sci-fi movie. I was enthralled with this to the very end. This was a much better movie in every way to Contact. I hope it wins some awards.

Knight & Day - Pretty generic action movie which reminded me of a silly version of Mission Impossible. It had a couple of laughs in it.

Critters - A very poor rip off of Gremlins I thought despite what the director has stated in the past.

 

Watch Moonlight. I agree that many of the awards contenders/critical darlings from 2016 are underwhelming, but I think that film mostly lived up to the hype.

 

The Blair Witch Project
It takes little for the experience of this film to be ruined because it is heavily dependent on atmosphere. That is, the atmosphere of which it is being viewed. The only way to truly become immersed into this film is in a darkened room, alone and wearing headphones. Otherwise, it plays like a documentary if you are viewing it in a lit environment with people sitting near you where the slightest fidget can be of a distraction. But, this film works because the characters are (mostly) portrayed as believable with the exception of some of their more erratic and scream laden moments where the situation does not quite call for their outbursts. What serves as more of a disruption to the film's logic is the fact that filming is always taking place. If a situation such as the events in The Blair Witch Project occurred, even the most avid film student would switch the camera off and evade the perils of their location. Instead, the film is lead by Heather who is so obsessed on making her film that we even see her film her final fateful moments.

This is why the characters, despite their believability, make not seem so likeable because of their incessant narcissism of staying faithful to their craft by continuing to film. There is even a point in the film where one member of the three campers go missing only for there to be a shot of the remaining two campers hugging. Sure, the camera was possibly perched on a branch but the guerrilla style of filming can feel gimmicky and stylistic more than it does to further the story telling in places. Overall, The Blair Witch Project does a fine job of at least establishing the exposition of the story, "legend", characters and settings while there is enough build up to make the final twenty minutes of the film genuinely terrifying (particularly in the last five minutes). The Blair Witch Project does a sound job of being scary without obvious jump scares or gore. But, it is only a film you can enjoy once and within the appropriate setting. Perhaps Cannibal Holocaust will stand the test of time.

3 out of 5

 

Mortal Kombat - This movie hasn't aged well at all. I remember parts of it as a kid and the classic theme song by The Immortals but that's about it. I'll stick with the games.

Good Will Hunting - Never seen it, decided to see what the fuss was about. A very well made movie in all aspects and deserving of its awards. One thing struck me though whilst watching it, I really miss Robin Williams.

 

Spoiler

Most of those haven't aged well either.

 

To Be or Not to Be 1942

Great comedy and performance of everyone! Sadly it was Lombard's last movie. Such a wonderful actress.

 

Oh, it's super heavy. The whole ending dream sequence is right out of Singin' in the Rain/American in Paris. The observatory scene is, um, well, I'm not sure. Is it The Red Shoes that reminded me of? The Waste of a Lovely Night bit is a riff on Dancing in the Dark from The Band Wagon (one of my favorites). Definitely got The Umbrellas of Cherbourg in there too. But just the sheer volume of "elegant" ball-room dancing marks it as having Astaire-Rogers right in its soul.

 

The thing that always bugged me was how poorly rendered Reptile's animal form was.


I didn't mind the rest of the movie, but that monstrosity was always horrible. Even Scorpion's hand-graboid looked okay by comparison.

 

Considering this is 2 years after Jurassic Park and the same year as Jumanji, the CG was woeful compared. Even Goro looked better and that was stop motion.

 

Actually, he was a guy in an animatronic suit.


The lower arms and legs belonged to the stunt performer wearing the suit. The upper arms and facial features were all radio-controlled.

The only time they used a stop-motion figure was in the long shot where he's falling off the cliff.

 

Quigley Down Under. Tom Selleck is a good fit for a Western that relies on a sort of low-key charm and a rather light, humor-centric touch. It's a little cheesy, but basically fun, with Selleck as an American cowboy lured to an Australian job under false pretenses, who finds himself stuck in the Outback with a delusional woman. Alan Rickman is good, but doesn't have enough to work with, as the villainous ranch owner who wanted him to exterminate Aborigines, and now is trying to kill him. And there's an unexpected treat in the form of a very young Ben Mendelsohn as one of Rickman's featured goons. I loved the Australian setting, a great way to make a Western distinct and fresh, and it managed to build some good action scenes around Quigley's sharpshooting prowess. The film's sense of humor is a bit on the cheesy side, but in such a harmlessly goofy way that it only makes the whole thing more fun. At the end of the day, it's Tom Selleck shooting bad guys and acting exasperated and a little smart-assed. That's good enough for me.

 

That's one of my favorite films, and one of the first I remember watching as a kid. I still get shivers when Bogey goes back into the swamp knowing that the leeches are in there. There's nothing braver than carrying on in spite of irrational fear.

 

The Time Machine (1960). I've not read the book so I can't compare them, but as a film I thought it was very good. The special effects in particular are excellent for a film made 57 years ago.

 

Spectral
I was browsing Netflix and this caught my eye. It's a Netflix original and having never seen any before I wasn't sure what the quality would be like. It's never going to win any awards but it was a fun movie about Soldiers fighting ghosts with some good effects.

 

Moana - solid addition to the Pixar parade. Didn't know it was going to be as much of a musical as it was.

 

Robot Overlords - it's actually quite good , Gillian Anderson's in it , she's the mom , it's sort of a young-adult story but it's British and has a bit more of a sense of humor ( which tends to be lacking in the american ones ) , the kids are well played too .

 

Weather is keeping me from seeing "Silence" this weekend, and if I know my local theater and its visitors, it will only be there this one week. The same goes for "The Founder." Those movies will be gone as quickly as they got here.

 

The Terminator. Still a great film after all these years and much better than any of the sequels.

 

Moana isn't Pixar. It's like Zootopia, Big Hero 6, etc.

 

Watched The Prestige last night for the first time in a long time. I'm still picking up on new things. It's such a brilliantly-made film, Nolan's best non-Batman picture. Tremendous craftsmanship, especially given the fact that Nolan gives it all to you up front and, magician-like, still fools you with incredibly effective misdirection.

 

The Six Directions of Boxing (1977) I suppose this would have been a really good indie Kung Fu film if it weren't for the atrocious English dub. David Chiang was beginning to really improve as a martial artist here (he'd become amazing in Shaolin Mantis, The Loot and the Challenger which would all follow) and eventually second string Venoms mob actor/fighter Lung Hsiang-Tien does some great Snake style. Here Chiang's police captain escorts Lung's criminal to the capital, in all due time anyway. This was one of those movies where I just wanted these two to fight each other because they were a joy to watch.

The Ghost Snatchers (1986) - I can't even begin to explain this bonkers Wong Jing Horror comedy, but the crude Alf puppet that kept mocking Chan Wai Man during a round of Mahjong was pretty daft. That scene was fun, but one charismatic actor / fighter in a sea of unfunny peers is not enough to make the movie worth a watch especially when I had no clue of what was going on (no English subs).

 

Annie Hall. Woody Allen is in prime form, with a self-reflexive meditation on the good and bad of relationships, heavily dosed with Allen's unique sense of humor. It's hilarious, and it achieves a kind of poignancy without trying too hard and ruining it. Great movie.

 

Detour. A famous b-movie noir, it's got a simple premise and a short running time. Tom Neal plays a man hitchhiking across the country to see his girl, only to be picked up by a wealthy man who dies during the drive. Neal panics and steals his identity and car, convinced he'd be suspected of his murder, only to then pick up Ann Savage, a psychopathic chiseler who knows the man Neal's claiming to be and immediately starts putting her hooks into him. Savage is compellingly awful, and Neal is pretty great as a frightened sad sack of a spiraling noir protagonist. It's a striking premise, even if the plot never quite makes sense (if she thinks the guy is a murderer, why is she accusing him of this while in his car in the middle of nowhere? Why does Neal never make a genuine effort to get out of his predicament?). One of the more memorable Poverty Row efforts.