What Movie Did You Just Watch

[Spark Of Spirit]

Who knows, maybe the new one will surpass it?

....Right? *misses smiles*

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Yeah, while I have high respect for the original, John Carpenter's interpretation of the story (which to be fair is closer to the original book than the original film, anyways, even if its still not really accurate to the source material) simply just has a bigger impact on me in general. I'm not just talking about how amazing the effects are (even if they are pretty grotesque) even by today's standards, but it holds up in all departments: The writing/dialogue, the acting, the scary and isolated atmosphere, the tension building up as characters start disappearing and people start losing trust between one another, and the fittingly eerie and ominous music that plays in the background. This is hands down one of the only few remakes of anything that is not only great and a classic itself, but to me also surpasses its original inspiration (the movie, at least, as I can't comment on the book being that I've never read it, myself). Its also one of my all-time favorite horror movies in general (probably coming in 2nd only to The Shining).

[Pharass]

The last movie I watched was Rififi, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest (if not the greatest), heist-films ever done. Having watched it, it's easy to see why: Rififi is one of those movies that does everything right. Everything, from the acting to the cinematography is splendid. The absolute high-light of the movie though is the heist-scene itself, which takes about thirty minutes, contains no music or dialogue and is one of the most intense scenes I've seen in a movie. Highly recommended.

[Avaitor]

Some more movies I've caught:

The Red Shoes
Seven Days in May
Network
Ball of Fire
Life is Beautiful

Another good haul.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Uh... I just watched UHF...

It's hard to compare to you guys sometime. ;P

[Avaitor]

Another set, and this time, I'll try to add a little commentary to each film:

Carrie

This is a really tight horror movie. Completely well done in just about every aspect. I can see what Dalek means when he says that De Palma takes a lot from Hitchcock, though, if only in the music. The soundtrack takes so many cues from Psycho.

Escape From New York

Fucking Kurt Russell. Perfect as Snake Pissken. My only complaint about the film is I feel that it could be a little longer, but otherwise, it's a classic sci-fi/action flick.

Sullivan's Travels

This one loses me a little near the end, when Sullivan gets arrested, but redeems itself with the finale. It's a great screwball comedy that does just about everything it sets out to do.

Gunga Din

Takes a decent Rudyard Kipling poem and turns it into a thrilling adventure piece. For it's time, this is a perfect adventure movie, and one of Cary Grant's first great leading roles. I think it might be my favorite film from 1939.

Four different movies, each very good in their class of film.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Hmmmm....Carrie. Its been a while since I've seen that movie. The funny thing is that I don't really consider it a horror movie until the last 15-20 minutes or so (it has creepy elements to it, but it feels more like a high-school drama with supernatural elements most of the time). Also, while Carrie is basically the "killer" in the film at the end, she's also the one that you probably sympathize with at least a little bit, as of course Chris and her friends are pretty much the real "villains" of the movie (of course they get killed off by Carrie as well).

I should mention that the very last scene of the movie really freaked me out as a kid. I usually find jump scares to be cheap but that's one of the rare instances in which I find it to be pretty well-done, personally.

[Avaitor]

I went up going to see the remake of The Thing tonight with a bunch of friends.

It was a lot better than I was expecting, and if I hadn't seen Carpenter's take on the story, I probably would have enjoyed it more. I mean, the characters were fine enough, some of the action scenes were rightfully intense, and there were a couple of good twists here or there. But it couldn't match the tension and craft of said film, and the effects were a little lame. There's also a couple of weird plotholes that we pulled out of it right after we saw it, but it's too late for me to recall any of them.

I guess if you're really a fan of the original story and the previous two adaptations, this is worth a look. I wouldn't recommend it to all of you guys though, since it isn't that special at what it does.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Interesting. I still don't think that I'll like it very much, especially since there's no way that it can either compare to the original or John Carpenter's remake (which I personaly consider to be the better interpretation of the story, myself), but maybe if its not as bad as I expected it to be (or at least not as crappy as most other remakes these days), then I will possibly give it a shot when it comes out on DVD.

[Avaitor]

Hey guys, I'm thinking of starting up a Film Club on here, where we get assigned various different movies to watch, one at a time, and talk about and reflect on them. If you guys are interested, I'll think of a couple of choices, and we can see what we want to do.

I'll try to pick choices that are easily available for us to (re)watch, and the first is definitely going to be Halloween-appropriate.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'd be all for that!....Except my brother cancelled his NetFlix subscription so the movies I could write about would mostly be limited to stuff that I've either already seen or stuff that I can plan to see in advance. Still, if there's anything you think I can do a write-up for I'd be totally for it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Just saw Tombstone for the first time in ages, so I barely remembered the movie. Great western. I love the whole classic feel of the film and the whole experience is basically just really entertaining from start to finish. The beginning is mostly about building up the main characters while the last quarter of the movie is an awesome montage of the Cowboys getting shot-down like crazy, which is really satisfying after all the shit they did and got away with during the rest of the film. REally, the movie just has a classic feel to it. Its a highly glorified Western and obviously not really realistic or historically accurate in the least, but I don't care about that sort of stuff when the movie is made to be so enjoyable.

[gunswordfist]

Yeah, while I have high respect for the original, John Carpenter's interpretation of the story (which to be fair is closer to the original book than the original film, anyways, even if its still not really accurate to the source material) simply just has a bigger impact on me in general. I'm not just talking about how amazing the effects are (even if they are pretty grotesque) even by today's standards, but it holds up in all departments: The writing/dialogue, the acting, the scary and isolated atmosphere, the tension building up as characters start disappearing and people start losing trust between one another, and the fittingly eerie and ominous music that plays in the background. This is hands down one of the only few remakes of anything that is not only great and a classic itself, but to me also surpasses its original inspiration (the movie, at least, as I can't comment on the book being that I've never read it, myself). Its also one of my all-time favorite horror movies in general (probably coming in 2nd only to The Shining).

Such a beautiful post. The Thing is my favorite horror movie, the movie I consider to have the most replay value, the only film that scares me and one of my top 5, if not top 3 favorite movies of all time. It has stayed in my top 5 while almost all of my favorites have changed.

Okay, over the last two weeks I've watched:
Jurassic Park- Haven't seen this in its entirety since I was a kid so it was good to do so.
Black Dynamite- Some of the funniest shit I've seen in a long time and of course Michael Jai White is one of the only Hollywood actors that can do screenfighting right.
Blood And Bone- Another Michael Jai White movie except it's not that good. Even with the bad editing and choreography, MJW's kungfu still looked good.
Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers- The original. I've been trying to watch it for years. Like Death Wish, it's a movie that's been ripped off multiple times and it's ending is different from all the ripoff that do the same damn kind of ending.
The Losers- Decent action flcik with decent comedy. Extra credit for giving all the heroes a good personality though.
Justice League Crisis On Two Earths- 2nd time I've watched all of this movie. The replay value is so high. Not deep at all but this film is so entertaining. I also felt stupid that I didn't notice the president was Deathstroke The Terminator the first time around so I had to see it again.
Eagle Eye- Solid action/suspense movie. To me, it was like Enemy Of The State with a scifi twist.

[gunswordfist]

Yesterday night I watched Inglourious Basterds for the first time. Two things:
Tarantino loves writing scenes where a character leaves behind irrefutable evidence that they were at a massacre.

Once I thought about it after the movie, it made perfect sense why Landa killed a certain character.

[gunswordfist]

Watched Planet Terror for Halloween. That film is lots of fun.