Movies I Have Seen Lately

[The Baron]

Saw a Takashi Miike picture called The Great Yokai War. "Yokai" is a Japanese term for monsters from folklore, as opposed to the more familiar kaiju. It's a kids' picture, about a young boy from Tokyo sent out to live in the countryside with his older sister and his intermittently senile grandfather. When a vengeful spirit appears, the boy gets caught up in a war between warring groups of yokai and must find his courage to become the "Kirin Rider", the hero who will set everything to rights. It's not a bad picture - nothing deep, but an amusing story. Some of the yokai are really trippy, Japanese folklore can get pretty "out there", apparently.

[The Baron]

Saw The Twelve Monkeys yesterday. I thought it was pretty good. I hadn't known that Frank Gorshin was in that picture.

[Mark Stanislawski]

The Baron said:

Saw The Twelve Monkeys yesterday. I thought it was pretty good. I hadn't known that Frank Gorshin was in that picture.

12 Monkeys is an awesome movie! I love it!
Just saw Saints and Soldiers. Another good movie. Although I am partial to WWII movies, this one bordered on being a spiritual movie like Facing the Giants. Good action scenes, also.

[Mark Stanislawski]

Finally saw The Incredible Hulk. I liked it better than Ang Lee's Hulk. I loved the Tony Stark cameo at the end. Nice way to show the movies are all in the same "Universe."

I saw X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Decent. Not sure if I like the way he lost his memory, though. Kind of lame. Definitely don't like what they did to Deadpool at the end. Other than those two things it was an all right movie.

[Jason Marconnet (Pint sized mod)]

Saw High Plains Drifter for the first time this weekend. That was a great movie.

[The Baron]

I recently picked up a copy of the 1931 Fritz Lang film, M. Without giving too much away, it features a young Peter Lorre as a serial killer who terrorizes a German town when he begins murdering small children. (That's not a spoiler, by the by, his identity as the killer is revealed to the audience very early in the picture.) The suspense in the picture derives from the massive manhunt as the police desperately try to uncover and capture him. The police crackdown disrupts the criminal element so much that the local syndicate launches their own hunt for the killer, and Lang makes good use of showing the comparison and contrast between the "legitimate" and "illegitimate" segments of society. This was apparently, Lang's first sound picture, but you'd never've known it, he uses sound very well.

Lorre is unbelievable in this picture. It occurred to me me while watching that I've more imitations of Lorre, than I have films with him in them. But this picture by itself would establish him as a top-level actor. You really believe in Lorre's character as someone capable of doing unspeakable things. There's next to know overt violence in the picture, but Lang uses suggestion so well that you shudder watching this film. The cover copy describes this picture as the seminal psychological thriller movie, and I can believe it.

The picture is in German with subtitles - I mention that only because I know a number of people that can deal with subtitles.

Also, there's at least three guys in this picture who sort of vaguely remind me of Kenneth MacDonald, the guy who was always playing the Three Stooges' crooked lawyer. Must've been a common look back then - I keep waiting for someone to say, "The estate of Uncle Ambrose Rose - and we thank you."

Anyway, I heartily recommend this picture - both as an "historical document", and as a very interesting movie to watch.

[PowerBook Pete, the Mad Mod]

"Angel. Strangers in the house."

[Figserello]

The Baron said:

I recently picked up a copy of the 1931 Fritz Lang film, M. Without giving too much away, it features a young Peter Lorre as a serial killer who terrorizes a German town when he begins murdering small children. (That's not a spoiler, by the by, his identity as the killer is revealed to the audience very early in the picture.) The suspense in the picture derives from the massive manhunt as the police desperately try to uncover and capture him. The police crackdown disrupts the criminal element so much that the local syndicate launches their own hunt for the killer, and Lang makes good use of showing the comparison and contrast between the "legitimate" and "illegitimate" segments of society. This was apparently, Lang's first sound picture, but you'd never've known it, he uses sound very well.

Lorre is unbelievable in this picture. It occurred to me me while watching that I've more imitations of Lorre, than I have films with him in them. But this picture by itself would establish him as a top-level actor. You really believe in Lorre's character as someone capable of doing unspeakable things. There's next to know overt violence in the picture, but Lang uses suggestion so well that you shudder watching this film. The cover copy describes this picture as the seminal psychological thriller movie, and I can believe it.

The picture is in German with subtitles - I mention that only because I know a number of people that can deal with subtitles.

Also, there's at least three guys in this picture who sort of vaguely remind me of Kenneth MacDonald, the guy who was always playing the Three Stooges' crooked lawyer. Must've been a common look back then - I keep waiting for someone to say, "The estate of Uncle Ambrose Rose - and we thank you."

Anyway, I heartily recommend this picture - both as an "historical document", and as a very interesting movie to watch.

Its a total classic. That scene with the mother setting the table for her little girl is just terrible! I'm affected just thinking about it sitting here.

Those guys knew what they were doing.

I pointed out recently that Morrison stole the set-up of this movie as the back-story for his Batman 'Gothic' story. The idea of the gangsters tracking down the serial killer out of nessecity rather than any moral reasons.

And it ends in that weird moral-philosophical debate. The equivalence of the gangsters' society and so-called civilised society.

They don't make em like that anymore.

[Figserello]

Jason Marconnet (Lime_Coke) said:

Saw High Plains Drifter for the first time this weekend. That was a great movie.

You can never go wrong with Clint

WELCOME TO HELL - indeed!

[Doc Beechler (mod-MD)]

We watched Danny Boyle's "Millions" yesterday. It's his all-ages, holiday film, but it's still Danny Boyle...so it's pretty brilliant.

[Alan M.]

Doc Beechler said:

We watched Danny Boyle's "Millions" yesterday. It's his all-ages, holiday film, but it's still Danny Boyle...so it's pretty brilliant.

Y'know... I don't know as I knew that was Danny Boyle. I've been meaning to see that film...

[Jason Marconnet (Pint sized mod)]

I know the common thought is he was a ghost. Watching the movie I had no idea it was a revenge movie. I'm still undecided if it was the ghost of the marshal or if it was actually the marshal himself. He could have survived gone off in the wilderness changed his life and come back to the town for revenge. Either way it's a great movie.

Henry R. Kujawa said:

"Saw High Plains Drifter for the first time this weekend. That was a great movie."

With your having just seen it for the 1st time... I'd like to hear your (ahem) "interpretation" of what went on in it.

:)

"I never did know your name."
"YES, you do..."

[Jason Marconnet (Pint sized mod)]

I just watched Zero Effect. It's a quirky little mystery film from the late 90s starring Bill Pullman and Ben Stiller. While it drug at times it was a pretty entertaining film with some good performances by Pullman and Stiller.