Last Movie You Watched? (Part 3)

Well it was Halloween last night so I decided to throw a few horrors on

Halloween
Haven't seen it for over 20 years and tbh I found it slightly underwhelming. It's very overrated, I can happily acknowledge it's place in the history of horrors but the film itself is very dated. I didn't find it remotely scary. The acting was a bit suspect too, particularly Jamie Lee Curtis, who looked about as genuinely scared as I did. It's a decent enough film but nothing really special.

6/10

Encounters Of The Spooky Kind

1980 bonkers Honk Kong Kung Fu film about a fat loser whose wife's secret lover pays a Wizard to attack him via zombies, ghouls and the spirits of ancient fighters. It's choc full of humour, slapstick, some absolutely jaw dropping fight scenes (in particular the 'wooden stool' restaurant fight) and a completely crazy story unique to this genre. It also boasts the most insane ending to a film EVER.

7/10
 
The Boys From Brazil ! ...good film but i always laugh when i hear Gregory Pecks terrible german accent ! :D and the make up on his face is like something out of a horror movie ! :) ....theres a small role for a very young Steve Guttenberg in his pre Police Academy days !
 
Sin City

Eye-popping, absurdly stylized violent comic book adaption. The sort that could get old very, very quickly, but by some miracle doesn't. 8/10

Blood Simple

Coen Bros. debut. Looks a little too mannered and stilted these days, and the plot never quite clicks. However, the fastidious attention to detail, and the outlandish but finely honed performances, are still to be marvelled at. 7.5/10

Taken

Smack, punch, thwack, crack, smash, biff, bang etc, etc. Liam Neeson briskly dishes it out in slickly-handled time-waster. 7/10

Scanners

Slightly disappointing early eighties Cronenberg. A slew of interesting themes as expected, but it's fashioned like a cheap action thriller shot in a fortnight* And like a student essay, the true point of interest arrives just at the end. Still, the impressive gooey FX made me all wistful about old grubby issues of Fangoria and the like. 6.5/10

*De Palma's similar, underrated The Fury was much better in this respect.

Robin Hood

Dreary, pointless retelling that presents Hood as some sort of reality rather than myth. Isn't it more fun as myth? Crowe doesn't seem too intersted, and Scott proves once again what a dull and pedantic director he's become. 4.5/10
 
Terminator Salvation

Hmm... mindless action movie. It's OK if you want to turn your brain off for two hours, but it's far from the original Terminator film or even its two inferior sequels. It's just about watchable with its multitude of explosions, running about and gruff voices, but it has little else other than that. Not sure what actors like Christian Bale and Helena Bonham Carter were thinking about when signing up for this one, especially since McG was the one directing this, but I suppose you have to make a living. Still, I had two hours spare and I suppose it beats watching reality TV shows.
 
Only 2 loudmouth couples? You got off easy. In my screening i had about 40 restless teenagers with the attention spans of goldfishes that kept saying how crap they thought it was. Needless to say, my blood pressure was sky high! lol.
 
The Hours

Quite a sad film starring Meryl Streep, Nichol Kidman and Julianne Moore. Laura is a bored housewife in 1950s America, who is busy reading Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. In 2001, Clarissa is a New York writer busy organising a party for her award winning ex-husband writer who is dying from AIRAB. Her ex-husband feels that his award was merely given due to pity rather than for his literature, which eats at him. The third story in the film is about Virginia Woolf in the process of writing Mrs Dalloway while suffering from crippling mental illness, herself feeling suicidal. The three stories are linked together (the film reflects parts of Mrs Dalloway itself) and are mostly quite moving. My major problem with it was the lack of character development, particularly the Julianne Moore section, but the film was still worth watching despite this and partly made up for it with some moving scenes.
 
The Girl Who Played With Fire

Not as gripping as it's prequel "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" but an interesting thriller nevertheless. It meanders a bit in the middle but the final third is excellent and it has a really interesting villain.

7/10

The Quiet Earth

Superb sci-fi from New Zealand, a man wakes one morning to find he's the only person left alive on earth. Or is he?

8/10
 
Back
Top