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

Ancient_of_MuMu wrote: The Frighteners gets watched regularly in our house, solely for Combs as Agent Dammers.

Someone asked him if he enjoys playing the intense, weirdo characters like West and Dammers, and he said he loved it. That playing a regular guy is kind of boring.

Extraordinary Tales is an animated anthology of five Edgar Allan Poe stories, each animated in a very different style, and with a different narrator (Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi, Del Toro, etc.) The animation in all of them was very good, and definitely worth a watch. ( trailer )

Black mountain Side is a horror movie in the vein of The Thing, but not just a re-hash of it. It does its own, different thing that works really well, and does a great job of being creepy. ( trailer )

I found The Royal Tenenbaums to be a perplexing movie. I understood everything that was happening, but it seemed to be the triumph of good actors over a weak script. Film is a visual medium, and it is generally understood that the director should try to show instead of tell whenever possible. But there was a lot of back story to cover, and so many characters to introduce, so I can understand why Wes Anderson leaned so heavily on narration at the beginning of the movie. And there were just enough supporting visuals for the narration to clearly set everything up. But even after the movie gets into gear after the lengthy prologue, it was choppy with so many short scenes with so many characters.

In spite of all that, The Royal Tenenbaums really delivered at key moments, though it didn't feel like the storytelling had earned those moments, especially with such brief scenes and relatively minimal dialogue at times. Even some of the individual performances shouldn't have worked. Gwyneth Paltrow seemed to mainly express her character through a limited range of neutral or unhappy facial expressions. Bill Murray had an uncharacteristically flat performance, while Gene Hackman seemed to excel at playing Bill Murray's character from Rushmore. Ben Stiller overacted as usual, but at least his character had a strong motivation for extreme behavior. Owen Wilson felt like a waste of screen time, though I generally like him in other movies. And yet all of these performances somehow hang together and really work.

When they pitched the idea to gwyneth, I wonder if they sold it as her not having to do anything

I saw The Babadook because of the review Josh gave. He wasn't shitting. What a fantastic film. Truly disturbing, and I found that the sound was worse than the visual.

Finally saw Age of Ultron. "Workmanlike" would be my best characterization of it. It was better than The Avengers but not great nonetheless. Entertaining, mostly, and as usual, about 20-30 minutes too long. The best part was realizing that Ultron is just a metal version of Red Reddington, right down to the mannerisms.

I watched the horror anthology film Creepshow the other night. Damn, they don't make em like this anymore! First off, I love the anthology format. It's like getting 5 bite sized films for the price of one! Plus, something like this is perfect for Halloween because it runs the gamut of different horror tropes. You've got creatures, gross out horror, revenge horror and more. While watching I couldn't help but notice that the movie is so goddamn colorful. It's not uncommon for the entire screen to become red or blue during a pivotal moment. Given how damn dark horror films have become in recent years it's refreshing to see the rainbow colored effects of Creepshow.

The film itself isn't very scary and certainly isn't going to top any "Best of" lists. However, it's hard not to be charmed by Creepshow. From the animated intros, to surprising cast of well known actors it's just entertaining from start to finish. Plus, one of the shorts features author Stephen King acting and he really hams it up. That alone might be worth the price of admission. No wait...seeing Leslie Nielson as a ruthless son of a bitch is. No the crate is...oh fuck it, it's all worth it. The film is like a precursor to HBO's Tales from the Crypt series.

Like Tales from the Crypt, Creepshow is obviously paying homage to the old EC Comics. In fact, director George Romero seemed to be trying to craft a live action comic book. At first the comic panels and animations are jarring, but I think it works. It gives the film a distinct look and feel which helps it stand out. Creepshow isn't a masterpiece but it's from a time in horror history where the films weren't afraid to be fun.

The second one kept me up for an entire summer when I was a kid

The short with Mr. Pratt and the roaches still squicks me out. Bleh. As one that practices aggressive insect eradication in my house, that infestation is a horrible nightmare scenario.

Also, Adrian Barbeau.

My parents were big fans of the M*A*S*H movie, so I was raised as a big fan of the tv show and the OST. But when I saw Catch-22 at age 19, it was too dark and weird for me.

Many years later, I am cynical enough to enjoy Catch-22, or at least the first 3/4 of it. Now M*A*S*H seems like a weak imitation, compared to the bold, experimental and even nihilistic experience of Catch-22. And Catch-22 had a much better cast, including Orson Welles, Martin Sheen, and Bob Newhart. Alan Arkin is great in the lead role, and Art Garfunkel was a pleasant surprise.

Just watched Southpaw. It was great, and much more emotional than I was expecting. It should be no surprise that Jake Gylenhaal turns in another excellent performance.

The physical transformation between Nightcrawler and Southpaw is amazing.

So we went to Regal Cinemas and had a professional security specialist, I mean a naive looking nineteen year old boy, "search" my girlfriend's purse for guns or IEDs after taking our tickets. At first I was just plain annoyed. Now I'm just saddened by it.

Hex Sinister wrote: So we went to Regal Cinemas and had a professional security specialist, I mean a naive looking nineteen year old boy, "search" my girlfriend's purse for guns or IEDs after taking our tickets. At first I was just plain annoyed. Now I'm just saddened by it.

That *is* deeply upsetting.

Our Regal started doing the same thing a couple months ago. Curious that they didn't bother to search under my jacket, which seems like a more obvious place for a gun.

It's not about actually finding a gun, it's just about the level of violation of personal privacy that makes other people feel secure.

I'm not afraid of a terrorist but I sure am scared of being in a theater with a dozen Bernie Goetzes, all strapped and waiting to get spooked and unload as soon as someone accidentally drops his Pepsi.