What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

Egg Shen wrote: Curse of Frankenstein - I love me some Hammer Horror and this is upper echelon Hammer. Peter Cushing plays a great Frankenstein...he pulls off that obsessed madman perfectly. Christopher Lee as "The Creature" has some really great makeup that is really quite a haunting visage. Lee doesn't have a whole heck of alot to do, as Cushing is the real monster in the film. Great stuff.

I find that one to be more "important" than great, to be honest. To me, it feels almost like a test fire of the Hammer approach to revitalizing/sexing up the old Universal stable. It's easy to forget now that when it came out in 1956, Curse of Frankenstein was 10 years removed from the Universal cycle, which had petered out in diminishing returns. And by that time, horror was largely regarded as a "kiddie" genre, Saturday matinee junk. Which would have been the only way to see the original films. So here comes Hammer with this MUCH more adult, slightly more seedy, BLOODY movie with boobs about to pop out...and it was in COLOR. That was huge, and those qualities to me are more significant than anything else in it.

I think Dracula (Horror of Dracula) is really where they nailed the Hammer formula. I think that was where Terence Fisher's restraint and measured professionalism developed this subtle tension with the sexy, bloody wildness of the material. Watch that fight at the end between Van Helsing and Dracula...prior to that, the big showdown was this quiet event punctuating a bunch of Victorian drawing room dialogue scenes, end credits. In Fisher's hands, it's this intensely (for its time) PHYSICAL fight totally sold to the hilt by Cushing and Lee.

I like some of the later Hammer Frankenstein films much better...Evil of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed...I think Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell is actually underrated. They really did well in developing Frankenstein's character- totally an amoral villain, and Cushing just completely owns the role. It's kind of ironic that they did so well with Frankenstein as a character but completely fumbled Dracula, whom they didn't even bother to write dialogue for in a couple of the films.

The Devil Rides Out/The Devil's Bride...now that is some prime Hammer. But Brides of Dracula is the hands-down favorite.

A Halloween double feature. My Bloody Valentine 3D, which was fairly decent, combining the basics with a hint of mystery, some great 3D cinematography, and a better plot than the original.

And...The House at the End of Time. The first horror movie from Venezuala. It is interesting, and very old fashioned, but with a pretty decent script. The production is also clunky, with some awful old age makeup, and a soundtrack which seems just off. The star of the show is the titular house. A crazy ancient crumbling Masonic lodge.

The lighting is odd as well. Everything is brightly lit and even the few night shots look like a clumsy day for night filter. The end result is compelling, but feels almost like an odd 50's or 60's kind of pacing and sensibility.

I watched the 2010 remake of The Crazies. It was an excellent flic, but, I much preferred the Romero 1973 version since the remake left out too much of the story. The remake just didn't carryover the message that the "Trixie" project was the beginning of the zombie apocalypse where the Guv even had the cure staring them in the face at ground zero.

Black Barney wrote: that's cool. I think at $1.49 it's about a thousand dollars too expensive for that, but if it caused a conversation, that's always a good thing.

Speaking of which, okay Grud, you've convinced me. Room is my number one movie to watch (it's bumping Jafar Panahi's Taxi and The Second Mother down on my must-see list). I'm working out a date to see it next week, then go to some kick-ass new restaurant after just to talk about it together. Sounds awesome. Thanks a ton for making me aware of it.

All I can say is that I think the book was overhyped.

For a few years I've owned Mad Monster Party?, but for some reason I had never sat down and watched it all the way through.

After Halloween the other night my son sat down with his giant bag of candy and we put on Mad Monster Party? for some Halloween fun.

The movie started out well enough. Dr. Frankenstein is inviting all the big famous monsters of the last hundred years to drop by for a big party where he will announce his retirement. There were some ok songs and everything was fine. It wasn't the best Rankin Bass thing I had ever seen but it was enjoyable enough and I was having fun plus my son was learning about all the big name monsters from cinema. So it was all ok. Then the ending, like the last 30 minutes just started picking things up considerably and the very ending.. holy shit! It blew my mind, in a kids film!?! - I couldn't believe it. Highly recommended. I will definitely watch this again. Great kids monster movie.

Finished reading Herbert West - Reanimator.

Now that would have made a hell of a movie. Not the schlock they actually made.

It took me a couple of days to recover from drinking with Loter. During day 2 I tried to watch Avengers Age of Ultron. It took me 4 goes to make it to the end as I kept falling asleep. I think that has more to do with the movie than my mental state but I can't be sure. I spent the whole film desiring Fury Road style effects.

Instead you got to watch an hour of CGI superheroes beating up thousands of the exact same characterless robot.

I'm so glad I skipped that one.

Last night I left work later than usual and thought of seeing one of two foreign films on the way home. Then I thought how hungry I was and how nice playing Duels Origins sounds and went for that instead. I sort of regret it, I need to see a movie a week. It's fun writing reviews too. I won't be able to watch as many movies in a year once I get full custody of my little girl either.

Gary Sax wrote: Instead you got to watch an hour of CGI superheroes beating up thousands of the exact same characterless robot.

Quantity = Intensity.

You'll never get into the Michael Bay Academy of Awesome with comments like that.

I have not been seeing the Avengers movies.

This surprises my friends, because I am a huge fan of Iron Man and the Avengers in comics. I also enjoyed Captain America and Thor comics, and for years, my favorite superhero was Hawkeye. I also enjoyed both Thor movies and the first Iron Man movie. I also like nearly everything that Joss Whedon has worked on. And I think that Tom Hiddleston is an excellent actor.

I haven't bothered to see the Avengers movies so far, because I haven't liked what I've been hearing. First of all, with all the good villains in the Marvel Universe, it is perplexing that they went with an alien invasion in the first movie. Second, the Avengers movies seem more based on the Ultimates than on the Avengers, and I consider the Ultimates to be the Asshole Avengers. Third, I tend to get bored during long CGI fight scenes. Fourth, I heard disappointing things about Ultron in the second movie, even though he was the villain in several great issues of the Avengers, especially during the Busiek/Perez run.

I'm sure that I will eventually get around to watching both Avengers movies, but that is pretty low on my long list of things to do.

Shellhead wrote: I have not been seeing the Avengers movies.

This surprises my friends, because I am a huge fan of Iron Man and the Avengers in comics.

This doesn't surprise me. I'm not a fan of Marvel comics, or superhero comics in general, but because I have other nerdly interests it's assumed I am completely invested in these movies. I saw the first Iron Man on Netflix and it was fun, but I wasn't moved to continue with the rest of the stuff. But I still know people who supposedly know me and yet are gobsmacked that I haven't seen any of the others, or any of the TV stuff.

As for what I {i]have[/i] seen lately, I watched Edge of Tomorrow (aka "Live Die Repeat") and found it to be pretty fun. Cruise did a really good job in it and it was fun and exciting without being crushingly stupid. Except for the final two minutes or so, which make absolutely no sense and seem obviously tacked on to please an assumed audience of idiots. Ignore that and it's fine. Emily Blunt didn't wow me, though. I'm not sure what was supposed to be so amazing there.

Last night I was going to finally watch the last movie on my movies to watch list for 2015 , Buckaroo Banzai. I'm not looking forward to it and am regretting putting it on that list, but I was going to get it done. Unfortunately the copy I swiped off the Internet is an AVI file and my media server was having none of it, so I either need to watch it on my computer, get a different copy, or forget it. I'm tending towards the third option. I already had my popcorn ready so instead I watched the James Randi documentary An Honest Liar and it was pretty good, but I've been following Randi for some time and there was nothing particularly revelatory about it, other than seeing a more human side of him.

Lego, let's talk about the last two minutes of Edge of Tomorrow. What didn't you like? I absolutely LOVED the epilogue and that's something that frequently disappoints.

I thought Emily Blunt was a blast. I totally believed her as a willful soldier. Cruise's performance is obviously better but she's perfect in that role. Great casting choice.

Legomancer wrote: Last night I was going to finally watch the last movie on my movies to watch list for 2015 , Buckaroo Banzai. I'm not looking forward to it and am regretting putting it on that list, but I was going to get it done. Unfortunately the copy I swiped off the Internet is an AVI file and my media server was having none of it, so I either need to watch it on my computer, get a different copy, or forget it. I'm tending towards the third option.

Buckaroo Banzai is truly one of the worst movies that I have ever seen. The fact that it is deliberately awful doesn't absolve the awfulness. Weak writing, lousy acting, terrible stuntwork and special effects. Dumb dialogue. I saw it in the theater way back in the day, except that I fell asleep after the first 20 minutes and woke up near the end. During a long stretch of employment in 2014, I watched Buckaroo Banzai again, hoping to see some reason for its cult movie status. This time, I stayed awake for the whole movie, and it still sucked. If you ever feel the urge to watch Buckaroo Banzai, you should do yourself a favor and watch Big Trouble in Little China instead. Big Trouble successfully does everything that Buckaroo Banzai tried to do, using a better story, a better director, better actors, better effects, better cinematography, and a better script.

I hated and loved that movie.

I just watched THE MIST for the twentieth time. My wife's aunt is in town and had never seen it. Absolutely the best ending of any movie in recent memory. Love it. Great film.