What Movie Did You Just Watch

[talonmalon333]

I just watched another horror film, this time of a more psychological nature, The Babadook. It was great, IMO, and incredibly well-acted. While I wasn't really scared by it, the story kept me constantly intrigued and not knowing what to expect. It also relies on very little violence and basically no jump scares, which is very refreshing.

I saw that as well. Call me a wimp, but I was actually scared by it. The look of the monster was creepy, and the way it moved was just unsettling. I also liked the ending. Didn't expect something like that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

It was definitely very unsettling. When I said that I wasn't scared by it, I simply meant that most horror movies don't scare me anymore on a visceral level. Probably because I'm older now. That said, the best ones can still resonate with me long after I watch them, and while it won't exactly make me scared to peek into the closet, it will give me an uneasy feeling when I'm reminded of the film.

Anyways, I think that we can both agree that this is probably one of the best modern horror movies around, at least of the English-language variety (this is also one of the only Australian films that I've ever seen).

The genre has had a lot of misfires, especially in the last two decades or so, but there have been some good ones in recent years, IMO. I have particularly enjoyed Insidious (2011) and The Conjuring (2013). While it was very flawed and not really scary, I did like Sinister (2012) to a degree, and while these two other films were a bit over-hyped IMO, both The Cabin in the Woods (2012) and It Follows (2015) were good times.

I still need to get around to seeing Black Swan as well as Oculus, one of these days.

::EDIT::

Oh, and Mama (2013), was also kind of decent. The CG monster looked like crap, though.

[talonmalon333]

I can agree with that. Some of the parts I especially found unsettling were the images in the book. The stylistically it looks great. Overall, easily one of the best modern horror movies I've seen (though I admit I haven't seen a while lot of them lately because I find myself put off by a lot of recent movies). Apparently it also got some good critical reception, which is nice for a horror film.

[gunswordfist]

I need to see if Netflix has any of these.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

That pop-up book was legitimately creepy as fuck. I loved the dialogue to go along with it. I got the sense of it being like a very dark and twisted version of a Dr. Seus book.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I just re-watched two films.

The first was Tombstone, which still holds up as a great Western, with one of the greatest movie characters of all time in Doc Holliday. Also, this was back during a time when Bill Paxton was actually a decent actor, so there's that.

I also re-watched Hardboiled. Good god, the action scenes in this movie are still mind-blowing. It's sad that a lot of modern movie-goers probably wouldn't be able to appreciate it even if  they watched it, but the camerawork is brilliant, and really shows you how to do good action without terrible shaky cam or an overuse of cut-aways. And man, that hospital shoot-out scene is still arguably my favorite action scene in any movie to this day.

My only real criticism of the film is that, while the story is actually quite good with way more nuanced characters than your standard action movie, it sort of loses the plot in the hospital scene which focuses so much on the action and goes on for so long that there isn't really much story in the third act. By the time the main villain comes back into view by the end of the film, my reaction was "oh yeah....that guy....I kind of forgot about him."

Still, it's one of the few times that I'm willing to excuse something like that because the action really is just that engrossing, IMO.

This also makes me want to re-watch John Wick, since that has some of the best action scenes that I've seen in an American film in a long time. It proves that there are directors out there who know how to actually use a camera and properly capture good action that's easy to follow.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I still regret not seeing John Wick in theater. I'm digging how more and more movies and shows are going back to old school fight scenes again. They've been missed, I tell you.

[gunswordfist]

We know how much you love shaky cam, Spark.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I still regret not seeing John Wick in theater. I'm digging how more and more movies and shows are going back to old school fight scenes again. They've been missed, I tell you.

I got free tickets to see it with my Dad. I'm so glad that I got to see it on the big-screen.

[gunswordfist]

I'm going to watch it soon.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Whiplash. It was excellent. I haven't seen too many movies from 2014, sadly, but with the exception of TASM2 (which I didn't even hate), literally all of the ones that I did see ranged from good to great. And I still have more to see, like Big Hero 6, Birdman, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, among others.

[Avaitor]

Whiplash is the most intense movie that I've seen in so long. It isn't remotely a suspense film, but it's easily the most thrilling film made in the past 5 years, at least.

And it's really fucking funny, to boot.

[gunswordfist]

I keep on thinking about the video game for some reason.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

J. K. Simmons easily gave one of the best performances that I've seen from any actor in the past few years. Whiplash is probably my second favorite movie of 2014 that I've seen so far. Since it's so rare to get a legitimately excellent horror film these days, I have a really biased admiration for The Babadook, and if there's any other performance from last year that could even hold a candle to Simmons' role in Whiplash, it'd have to be Essie Davis in The Babadook, IMO.

Those are the two best films of 2014 that I've seen so far, followed by Captain America: The Winter Soldier as my third favorite.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I finally got around to seeing Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (that's a really stupid title, BTW). Overall, it's much better than the first movie, which I was just sort of "meh" on, myself. I really actually gave a crap about Caesar in this one, and Koba was actually a pretty good villain.

Next up for me is probably going to be BH6, which I'm going into with mixed expectations. I loved Wreck-It Ralph, but was very "meh" on Frozen, so I'm hoping that this one is more up my alley like the former.