It's 40 degrees here (104 for Americans), and I have nothing much better here, so time to pick apart my brain and try review all that I've watched since I last wrote here. I bet I'll struggle.
You know what **** it I'm going backwards, most recent to long ago.
Lost Highway - What in the fucck just happened. 8/10
Patrick - Picked up the Aussie blu ray cheap. Very good PQ bar the dark scenes in the elevator. There is never an excuse for a 4 mb/s bit rate on a blu ray, no matter how dark a scene. Looked worse than a dvd for the 5 or so seconds. Anyway, very interesting idea for a film. Develops it's characters well, presents some interesting elements and shocks, some good suspense, and some very creepy unsettling moments, the biggest being the job interview with the head mother. Look forward to trying more Ozploitation. 7/10
Big Hero 6 - Had been dying to see this, as Baymax looked absolutely precious, and the city design very good. And I wasn't disappointed. Baymax was one of the cutest and funniest characters I've seen all year, and San Franokyo was a flawless intergration of San Francisco and Japan without a bit of stereotyping. Hell even the crossing and path outside the cafe was identical to Japan. Now the actual movie. Heart breaking and dark, but cute and fun at the same time. Moves very very fast with development, and can get very sad at points (GF cried twice, I nearly did once). The characters are all fun, and it pokes fun at superheroes whilst also being a very good superhero movie. This is the kids film to see this year (Yes and I saw LEGO movie and Peabody and Shermon). 9/10
Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo - Had my girlfriend choose one from the set for me to start with, and she chose the one I was most interested in. However, the actual plot doesn't come in until about 40 minutes, and isn't executed until the last 20. For the most part it's an odd job Japanese gang fooling around and having fun, with some good music, and quite funny to watch. However the ending got seriously dark, but I kind of expected it. 8/10
The Final Terror - Wow. Long have I longed for another film like Just Before Dawn. A believable forest slasher, that's well directed, likeable realistic characters/scenario, and a very good sense of hopelessness and dread. I had low expectations for this based off IMDB and how predictable the whole film was (picked the ending during the bus ride). But still, this film had me gripped, it was a really really good watch, and I recommend it to everyone. 10/10
The Sentinel - This really exceeded my expectations. It seemed like it would be silly, but it was genuinely creepy a lot of the time, had some very nice twists, and almost played like a low key Omen rip off, but was very cool. One or two scenes (the ghost father and the ending) are honestly chilling and freaky as hell. And most disturbing of all, the "fondling"
8/10
Solaris - I really wanted to enjoy this, it had so much potential and I really liked Stalker, but boy this threw it all away. Watched the blu, and the first hour really had me, with a fascinating concept, great cinematography and design, and a nice creepy intro to the station. Then they threw it all away on a love story. The girl was annoying, the dialogue boring and frequently feeling irrelevant. I sided with the scientists in asking what was the purpose of it all. The ending twist was nice, but by that point, I was so out of it. Still, the first hour gets it a good score (just). 6/10
Blue Velvet - This is honestly one of the best films I've ever seen. Right from the opening everything is thrown off, and from there it slowly unravels like a mystery. Then it explodes with the lengthy disturbing scene in Dorothy's apartment. Then it gets absolutely wild. Frank's joyride was Lynch at his finest and the movie truly is wild, fascinating, haunting, and amazingly made. Everyone gives good performances, it remains extremely Lynchian whilst remaining a fairly normal neo-noir. I actually loved this. 10/10
Razorback - Borrowed the blu ray as JB was out of stock. It still looked fairly good despite the strong colour shift and 1080i. As for the film, it's very hit and miss but ultimately enjoyable. Characters like the human villians dampen the plot significantly, being absolutely ridiculous in how psychopathic they are (not to mention running a dog food factory extremely unhygenically and unchecked as a two man operation). However Iva Davies from Icehouse's score, the cinematography (including a great dream sequence), and one or two other elements make it an ultimately enjoyably film, if not an odd one that doesn't quite know it's focus or aim. 8/10
How The West Was Won - Watched in Smilebox. An absolutely sprawling epic with an all star cast, telling all kinds of tales, in all kinds of settings, with great set pieces and more. The entire western genre is covered here, I swear. Long, but great fun, extremely pretty to watch, and an all round fascinating experiment. I highly recommend it. 10/10
The Haunted Palace - I really wanted to like this. HP Lovecraft, Seaside town, haunted mansion, fish monsters, Vincent Price, what could go wrong? But like other Price/Corman films, it falls a bit heavy on dialogue and light on scares or sights. None the less, it's still a very interesting telling of Lovecraft's only full size novel, and a well made and shot one. 7/10
Tales of Terror - Here's how these films should be, because they work so well. In the short format, the pacing is perfect. The first tale follows the Pit/Usher formula to a T. City fella visits spooky run down house in a horse and carriage inquiring about a relation. Gets snubbed and the story doesn't quite fit right. Weird shit happens, people change, places are destroyed. Worked nicely being much shorter. The second tale is by far the best. Two amazing performances a fun tale, a classic Poe ending, and one of the funniest scenes I've seen in a while, a wine drinking contest of comic proportions. The last tale was rather eerie and worked rather well, but if you've seen Two Evil Eyes, well you've pretty much seen it. 8/10
The Night Child - A really interesting concept with some creepy scenes, but the little girl gets annoying fast. 7/10
Deadly Outlaw Rekka - Miike does these films so well. Amazing music, over the top action, crazy ending, cool plot, very very cool. Also did I mention really really funny, the surprise appearance in the ending had me in hysterics. A lot of really really really good fun, between silly scenes like cling wrapping hair, RPGing rival HQ's and mechanized self mocking LMG battles, and serious scenes of shoot outs and assassinations. Not perfect in anyway, but the most fun I've had in ages. Pick it up, it's dirt cheap on amazon. 9/10
Remo Williams: Your choice of subtitle (I'm looking at you
Stephen) - This feels like part failed TV show pilot, part failed family blockbuster/character maker. None the less, it works for what it's attempting. A hell of a lot of training for what felt like a small scale ending, but it's entertaining the whole way through, packs laughs and action, and seems like the kind of thing you watch with nothing else to do, with movies like The Goonies and Gremlins. 8/10
Robin Hood - The Disney one. Girlfriend made me watch it, and well I was pleasantly surprised. It's funny, the songs are catchy, the characters are all fun and likable, just a good bit of low scale fun. 9/10
The Prowler - Finally finished this after starting it eons ago. Impressive effects and some very very good scenes (the opening, the endings, the infamous white eye scene), but for the most part a kind of average wild goose chase, with constant tension. 6/10
Nekromantik - Ugh. Don't get me wrong, I was impressed, but man you feel like you need a shower after watching this. 2 pissing scenes I felt were unnecessary, and the slime fondling scene, the eye ball sucking, and the ending (Jesus christ why) all made me audibly groan with disgust. Besides that, it was really well made, with a cool score, a interesting plot and more. It was like a really cool art film, but way too gross in some scenes. Overall, for a blindbuy, I was impressed and liked it. 9/10
Jaguar Lives - Wow that was bad. Boring, slow, all over the place plot, very few action scenes, predictable. Just a mess. Hell the scene with the villians toasting their acts of evil is near identical to one in Toxic Avenger 2, which really says something. Avoid, the cover art is cooler than the movie. 3/10
Carrie - The original. One extremely well made impressive scene does not make a good movie. This felt very uncomfortable and slow, every single character was annoying, and everything just felt over the top. Yes the prom scene is very Brian DePalma and very very good, the rest really isn't. 6/10
Nightbreed - The directors cut. This was a long while back now. Look I'm sure the extra scenes helped a lot, but this really can't be saved in my opinion. Cool in concept and design, but I wasn't overly thrilled. 6/10
Well that's going back a long time now, I've impressed myself even. Got a shit ton more to watch, so expect more soon.