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Post by abisai on Jan 24, 2005 23:50:27 GMT -5
I work a couple nights a week at the Carolina Theatre - www.carolinatheatre.org/. It’s fun and easy. Sometimes there are film festivals and recently I got to see their Nevermore Film Festival - www.carolinatheatre.org/nevermore/, which is a collection of horror movies. On with the reviews: Friday I saw House of Flying Daggers. Two nuts. I think this was only playing because its new release coincided with the film festival – it is not a horror movie, it’s a Chinese movie like Crouching Tiger. My wife agreed to go, which made it a cheap (free) date for us. I did not take away a great appreciation of the movie, but Lisa liked it. She was expecting crap and was surprised it was not and liked the beauty of the film. I was expecting action and was disappointed. The movie is beautiful and memorable several times over. But it’s just not a good movie. The first half hour, for instance, I was mostly struck with their costumes and hair-do’s. I don’t ever notice that stuff and don’t go to see movies for it, so that is very telling of the lack of engaging plot/acting/story at the on-set and plaguing the movie throughout. It looks great, but the meat is thinly sliced and leaves you hungry. I found the fighting disappointing. There are very obvious parts filmed in slo-mo and sped up to normal speed (I thought) and the computer animated flying daggers to the most insane, unreal, so far over the edge it begs to be laughed at, tricks. Plus, the movie is basically a love story wrapped in kung-pow dressings. Even worse, the movie dodges large battles for this lover’s quarrel it throw in the middle. It denies a look at the overall plot for this unbelievable and uncomfortable love line. The largest forces at work are literally never shown. The ending is goofy and our audience laughed at the movie several times over, especially at the ending. There’s a reason films don’t try and combine Romeo and Juliet, Robin Hood, Tale of Two Cities, and Enter the Dragon together. Much is lost in the mix. There’s some tidbits that are good, very memorable because of the crystal clear film quality and direction, but it’s just a below average movie. If not a foreign film I wonder if it would have gotten any hype at all. I recommend no one see it unless you thought Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was the best. Saturday I worked from 4-10 PM. As a co-worker put it, “I have never felt so normal in my life.” Plenty of goofy, quirky, weird people in various varieties of oddness, exactly what you would expect from a horror film festival – especially one playing mostly only movies no one ever heard of before. At the end of my shift I checked out the last 15-20 minutes of Darkness, by Leif Jonker, who is from North Carolina. I thought I recognized people from the film as those buying beer from me earlier… This movie is ont lumpy ass nut. Basically this dude was 19 at the time and filmed a bad zombie movie. It is exactly what you would expect from that. Everyone is teen to early twenties tops. Acting is comical and script left much to be desired. I did think the production and directing was good for a kid though, especially the sound effects and shot angles. But basically I saw the ending that was 20 minutes of close-up shots of zombie/vampires(?) melting as the sun rose until they exploded buckets of blood everywhere. Disgusting, revolting, unnecessary. Anyhow, there were cameras set-up INSIDE the theatre filming the crowd in the dark. There was also a Q&A before the movie (missed that) that they will be using as an addition to their DVD release they will be doing for the film. I was like third guy out and there was a camera guy in the hall with an interview guy who asked me what I thought. “It grossed me out.” I said. They asked if it was the only film I came out to see for the festival and I responded that I worked there, which I hope leads to them editing my unenthusiastic blah review to be removed from their reams of extra film. I immediately felt bad for them and hastily said that I liked the special voice effects. No one should ever see this movie under any circumstance. But if you do, it looked like you could make it through without wishing you had committed suicide instead. One nut. Oddity: I look on IMDB - www.imdb.com/title/tt0106669/maindetails and a link from there to www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1082349-darkness/ lists the film editing as by JOHN CARPENTER under a pseudonym of his (John T. Chance)? Amazing, I wonder if he hooked them up with the audio features. Sunday I slept in and spent the better part of the day covering from whatever illness I had contracted from someone the night prior. This meant I missed Ong Bak, which by all accounts was the highlight of the festival. It stars a former stunt man - Tony Jaa, no relation to Ja Rule - breaking out as a headliner straight action movie with supposedly no special effects. The trailer looked dope. I later went in for Dead and Breakfast. Three goofy nuts. We’ve all seen this movie before. Young adults, zombies show up, they fight. It was good though and I would dare to say we’d all like it. It had real actors and direction, which David Carradine appearing as his niece had a feature role. There’s an annoying singing narrator, but the rest makes him worth withstanding. Check for the Evil Dead poster in the closet when the sheriff finds the chainsaw. Worth seeing this nugget. Reminded me of that Tales from the Crypt Demon Night movie for some reason. People said it was like Shaun of the Dead or better, but I had not seen that, so here’s IMDB link for this film: imdb.com/title/tt0350774/If you have ever thought that zombies line dancing could be funny, check out Dead and Breakfast. Perhaps the highlight for me was the trailers before the films. My boss collects not only reel to reel films, but also trailers for all this shit. I nearly came out my chair and screamed when I saw Monster Squad and laughed like a little kid again when they reissued the classic line “wolfman don’t have nards.” Also some other funny shit like American Werewolf in London trailer, etc.
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Post by abisai on Jan 25, 2005 0:01:14 GMT -5
Almost forgot. There was a comic book dude at the festival. I talked to him and discovered they are now selling an Army of Darkness comic book. It takes place after the film, with Ash continuing to fight deadites. There's multiple covers for each issue, some with shots from the film. www.dynamiteentertainment.com/htmlfiles/
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Post by Rob G on Jan 25, 2005 5:10:39 GMT -5
This is great. I will try to find and read these.
The video games alos continued the story and "Evil Dead: Hail to the KING" was awesome video game.
More movies please. Tell raimi to stop making those low budget spiderman films and return to true film making
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Post by abisai on Jan 27, 2005 0:52:34 GMT -5
Dude at work loaned me this animation film called Ninja Scroll. I was like, what the fuck is this? Then I plopped it in and realized I had seen this years ago when a man named Ring brought it to the Gault household. Anyhow, I love this type of shit. Four DnD nuts. Man with stoneskins. Ninjas. Shadowleaping. Coolness. But women should be locked out of whatever room this sort of a thing is appearing in, for there is much blood and sever mistreatment of the fairer sex. Film cut from the same cloth as Fist of the North Star. Actually the box says Manga, so I think it's the same company. Looks a lot alike with the giant square chins. PS Check Bruce Campbell's website: www.bruce-campbell.com/projects/evil-dead-4.htm
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Post by abisai on Feb 15, 2005 0:11:31 GMT -5
Last Monday I worked a slow ass shift. We had three movies playing at once and two showings for a total of six screenings. I think they sold eight total tickets.
I totally went in the theatre for the last hour of a trash heap called Tale of Two Sisters. It is basically a Korean version of the American film The Sixth Sense. This one was creepy and basically a bizarre film from where I had jumped in. It was disturbing for quite a long while, replicating a film about child abuse. There's more to it than that, but not enough to make it worth sitting through that shit. No one should ever see this movie, that's why I had no problems giving away the supposed "secret". For good measure here's the entire underlying plot so that you can never see the damn thing and can act like a genius for avoiding it: the one daughter discovers her mother killing herself in a closet. She screams, the cabinet calls on her, they both bleed. The father's new wife and other sister have an argument in the hallway. Neither go help the dying people, one because she is evil, the other because she did not hear. Struck with guilt for not hearing them, the other sister imagines they still live and see thems kill each other over and over and over. Get it? Sick. Sick. Sick. Crappy ending too. Avoid at all costs, but now you can tell everyone the storyline and then no one will ever waste their time.
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Post by abisai on Feb 19, 2005 12:38:59 GMT -5
Retrofantasm film series started last night and I went. The entire thing - two movies, parking at the garage, two beers, cost be $3.60. my expectations were a freak crowd and bad movies. This was pretty close. First, there were way more people than I thought could ever have appeared. Most were oveweight and unstylish, but not the absolute filth I expected. If alone, most would seem just a little off. As a group, the bizarreness became collectively apparent. And yes, there was the obligatory cross-eyed fat man with blue dyed hair down tohis asshole. As a nice bonus for the first film, my boss - who arranges this whole thing out of movie reels that he collects and trades personally - had a little free raffle for some T-shirts and collectible figurines. Then he talked up a few of the movies coming and reminded us every preview that night was for a film coming up in the series. That was an experience in itself, people cheering at movies they wanted to see, laughing at silly lines. I quickly realized that this was a slightly interactive experience. Whenever you might chuckle to yourself, a hundred other geeks are too, for a larger laugh AT the movie than the standard movie crowd. The first film rolled out and I also realized the film quality of these old things was not what it is for a modern film. Surprisingly, I stopped noticing it after only a couple of minutes. HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY was the first film: imdb.com/title/tt0082966/This is an Italian film dubbed into English, which was not apparent until the young boy starts talking. If you can keep a straight face while this voice is supposed to be linked to this kid, you're a better man than me. This was one of the endearing points: everytime this kid talks is practically a riot in itself. The movie starts with a girl with her shirt off calling for her boyfriend and people clapped. She walks around the old house looking for him, when a monster appears behind her and stabs a knife clear through her head. Jump to the family that is moving to HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY and there you go. There is so much of this movie that makes no sense within itself, at the time, nor in hindsight. But that also makes for amore enjoyable experience as you can freely laugh at these people. There's a door to the cellar that is barricaded, but they never explore the cellar. The wife discovers a tomb under the rug ON THE SECOND FLOOR and her husband tells her many houses in the area are like that and they just have to get used to it after a while. Yup, something tells me this Italian dude knows nothing about USA and doesn't care to try and learn anything. He just rolls it out there. There were some neat parts of the movie, like the close-up of eyeballs when the husband and the nanny share a look until the wife's eyeballs make the husband's eyes look away. And yes, there is a payoff after all the build-up in this movie, which was better than I expected. Makes no sense in terms of plot and all that, but the monster is worth waiting to see. Except for the noises he makes that is. Anyhow, 2 nuts here. This is a movie I recommend for people wanting to laugh directly at a movie. I wondered if the film was inspired by Lovecraft, especially in its setting in Massachusetts and the theme of old books and old research turning up foul things. The seting of the next film was in Dunwich and I figured there has to be some connection to Lovecraft by this Italian dude - same guy as from first movie. THE GATES OF HELL: imdb.com/title/tt0081318/The movie starts with a priest committing suicide in a graveyard in Dunwich. This apparently opens the gates to hell. I don't know why. The next scene is people far away having a seance. One dies. She is buried. A newspaper reporter who was told two years prior that he would find a dead girl buried a live goes to her grave. He frees her with a pickaxe and they set about trying to prevent what she saw in her vision. I don't mind going with the idea that this chick was buried alive. But they totally show you other dead people being drained of all their blood in another sequence and this chick is not done up to look dead at all. She's more vibrant than most the living in fact. The dead jump around like nobody's business and it's all unclear what power they do and don't have. Or what they are up to. People really liked that they blamed the killings on a retarded guy called Bob and a father kills him with a drill through his head. The ending of this trash I will give away, since you should never see it. Two make it through the actual gate to meet the priest and face him off. The man picks up a wooden cross (from where it came from I don't know) and stabs the priest in the crotch (why there?) which sets all the dead on fire (?) and apparently closes the gate to hell. They crawl out and a little kid comes running up to them and the lady screams as if he or they were in trouble and the movie ends. It makes NO sense AT ALL. Anyhow, this was a movie that was not as funny, more boring, and less interesting. I give it 1.1 nuts. .1 for the man using a pickaxe instead of opening the coffin with his hands. A coffin the gravediggers put two feet under the ground. And left without covering in dirt. In a city where the nighttime sounds are clearly jungle sounds, complete with apes screaming. Italian people should at least talk to one person about a place before they make a movie about it. I do have do point out props for him throwing live maggots on the faces of his actors and showing close-up a couple instances of ladies crying blood. It looked realistic that effect, not sure how they did it even. Here's the schedule for the rest of the series: March 18: RABID & THE BROOD Aoril 22: MONSTER SQUAD & BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA May 20: THE AWAKENING & THE BOGEYMAN June 11: CITY OF THE WALKING DEAD & BURIAL GROUND August 19: KILLER FISH & BLOOD BEACH September 23: GALAXY OF TERROR & HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP October 21: CONAN THE BARBARIAN & THE DARK CRYSTAL November 18: THE CHANGELING & DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK Link to the official site for the festival: www.carolinatheatre.org/retrofantasma/index.html
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Post by abisai on Feb 20, 2005 22:54:05 GMT -5
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Post by abisai on Feb 27, 2005 14:11:18 GMT -5
March films will be The Brood (http://imdb.com/title/tt0078908/) and Rabid (http://imdb.com/title/tt0076590/); both are by this guy David Cronenberg. This is the guy who directed the 1986 version of The Fly.
Courtesy of my boss Matt, here is a tidbit about the main star of Rabid: "OK, finally, Ms. Marilyn Chambers. Marilyn Chambers was a young model in her early 20's who achieved some fame by being the model holding the young baby on the "Ivory Snow" box in the early 70s. BUT- the reason she is most famous is that she was the attractive young starlet who was the lead actress in the legendary porno film "Behind the Green Door" in 1972! That film came out right after "Deep Throat", and was a huge moneymaker. She had posed for the Ivory Snow box about a year before the film came out, but the Ivory Snow people didn't know about her appearance in the film, so the box art she was featured in didn't hit shelves until AFTER the X rated film was released! Needless to say the folks at the Ivory Soap company were mortified, and the film became a monster success. In the mid 70s she attempted to move out of adult films into mainstream acting, and she was actually a fairly decent actress who probably could have been somewhat successful in doing this. She made a couple of "legit" films (including 'Rabid' with David Cronenberg) but by 1980 she had returned to hardcore films by appearing in "Insatiable" with John Holmes."
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Post by abisai on Mar 14, 2005 9:56:43 GMT -5
Born Into Brothels. One respected nut.
This is the documentary that won the Oscar this year. The entore point is a photographer goes into Indian brothels and gives the children there photography lessons and tries to get them to not grow up to be prostitutes and drug dealers. It is mad real. Entirely too much photography for my tastes. Like life, there is no plot. Just endless suffering. It was good, but worth no more than one nut.
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Post by abisai on Mar 18, 2005 22:30:54 GMT -5
Rabid 1.3 nuts www.imdb.com/title/tt0076590/This movie is not worth a review really. It is stupid. There are things here or there that are amusing. But overall it was BAD. Synopsis: woman in car crash near a plastic surgery clinic in middle of nowhere. They need to help her so they try experimental surgery. The first half of the movie is her becoming a killer because of what this surgery did to her body. It gave her a vampit. She sucks blood through a stinger in her armpit. Even better, this causes a rabies like virus in her victims. The second half is her playing typhoid Mary spreading the disease and Canada going into a state of martial law. I did not bother staying for the second movie. They put the better ones first and I did not really like this one. Maybe I was too sober. The REAL news was the announcement for the next Retrofantasma event. Details to come. Plenty of details.
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Post by abisai on Jun 27, 2005 0:18:00 GMT -5
July 15 will be a one-time showing of Bubba Hotep. They claim that they ran the film when it was released and sold out the 1000 seat main stage theatre. I don't know if they realize it, but that Friday is the same weekend that a DnD convention starts in the neighboring Marriott Hotel. I cannot bring myself to admit to them how I would happen to know this piece of information.
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Post by abisai on Jul 18, 2005 10:47:53 GMT -5
At the Bubba Hotep screening, the writer (Joe Tinsdale I think is the name) talked for half an hour before the film. He was mad old and not impressive. Only a little over a hundred people showed up too.
The big fun thing was the trailers beforehand. I caught Dungeonmaster up there (I thought I was the only person on the face of the planet that knew about this), Moontrap with the Russian from Star Trek (looked good, never heard of it), and a couple more. I talked to the guy that puts together the trailers -my boss- and he claims to own over 900 hundred trailers. Funny shit is out there. Like the one he had about gymnstics and karate combined into Gymkata or something outrageously stupid like that. Funny shit.
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Post by abisai on Aug 13, 2005 2:40:30 GMT -5
Murderball. 3 legitimate nuts.
Handicapped guys in wheelchairs playing rugby sounds like the absolute worst idea ever conceived. The movie quickly points out though that these guys were and are assholes, regardless of whatever mishaps landed them in a wheelchair. So they put together gladiatorial armor on specifially modified chairs and compete on basketball courts in their version of rugby. Decked out with nationalism too, vying for gold medals. Anyhow, the movie intersplices slice of life imagery of these guys basically being mostly normal with some severe physical handicaps, all the drama of athletes competing, with the hardcore realism of the limitations of being handicapped and a story arch following a guy right out of reconstructive surgery from a motorcross accident. It gets a little heavy at times, with that documentary zeal for capturing the ultimate of all human suffering, but the film is largely light and entertaining. I found it very enjoyable.
The best case to depict the film is the old guy Joe who defected the US team after being cut to coach Canada. He is called a traitor by his countrymen who do nothing short of threaten to kill him. His success is Canada is villified by the Americans and celebrated by guys from all the other countries. Mad funny, most especially because Joe as it turns out is nothing but a complete and total raving asshole competitor who talks mad shit. But then they cut back to his poor kid who is a girly man playing the violin, not athletic, and almost ignored by his father at the age where he is absolutely adoring his father. I guess the point is that, regardless, these are just dudes who are not much different than the rest of us. The murderball is secondary to this core message, but still a little engaging, mostly because it was so damn foreign an idea to me that handicapped people could have any sustained athletic activity, let alone contact sports.
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Post by abisai on Aug 21, 2005 14:08:59 GMT -5
Broken Flowers, starring Bill Murray. 1.5 nuts This is what happens when people try and be cute with random characters and scenes in movies. The directing was trash and the story was crap. I left feeling no different than I entered, with nothing to think about and no reason for me to tell anyone to see this movie. The director liked to focus on things unrelated to telling the story (like planes flying in the air) which is a surefire way to bore an audience. Even worse and more aggregious, he closed almost every sequence with a fade to black. This damn near put me to sleep. The story itself was an old man who receives a letter that makes him think an old flame from 20 years ago bore him a son. Hardly new ground as far as plots go. He goes back and glimpses into what became of these few women from so long ago to varying degrees of success. There is literally no conclusion other than his entire trip through time was a total fucking waste of his time and effort. The redemptive qualities of the film are rare. The neighbor of Bill Murray is the only "interesting" character that actually is interesting. An African dude that smokes dope and likes mysteries. The rest of the characters, including the well-acted and under-developed roles of the former flames, are not substantive enough to warrant any real reactions. The one character that earns the most attention in a number of respects is the first flame's young daughter, appropriately named Lolita. Living up to her name she shows everything off from all angles for old Bill Murray. Quick shockingly. Anyhow, the entire film revolves around Bill Murray sitting or standing around with no emotion. His character is a douchebag and his romp through old loves does nothing to redeem him or change him. There are no character arches, just slice of life shots at people we don't care about and learn nothing about in the process. Quite a waste of time really. I would avoid it unless you wanted to see Lolita's goods.
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Post by abisai on Nov 25, 2005 23:18:37 GMT -5
Capote, 4 nuts Goodnight and Goodluck, 1.5 nuts
Capote is an excellent film. Best film about murderer on deathrow I have seen since Shawshank. Entirely different of course! Best show I have ever seen that featured gayness. This chronicles the writer of this first novel to question the death penalty and pity the troubled history of the murderer. This is true history that made a big ripple, my father in law remembers the stink this book made. This movie does not really get into what happens after the book is written and the effect on the nation's collective pysche. It sticks to the murderers and the writers. Very well done. Warning: Phillips Seymour Hoffman has the most annoying accent, takes a few minutes to get used to it. Again dude rocks the acting, I love that guy.
Good Night and Good Luck is ASSSSSSSSSSS. If you know that McCarthy tried to eliminate Communism and used dubious methods, you don't need to watch this as it brings NOTHING more to the table. The perspective of the Morrow character and his producer is never one where you believe they will be thrown into jail or fired even. So there is no risk. In fact, the movie strays far from the actual people affected by McCarthism in the field and relegates them to newslines. Sure that is the perspective of a newsman, but we already know the story so what is the point of this movie? NO drama, nothing compelling. The only thing compelling are the clips of McCarthy speaking and scenes from his investigative hearings. You know, things that this movie can take no credit whatsover for having on the screen. In fact more of that documentary and less of the movie would have been more compelling and interesting. This movie was absolutely a waste of time.
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