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

The opening scene was great because it established Christopher Waltz's character. But the rathskellar scene was typical Tarantino self indulgence - the fucking card on the forehead bullshit dragged on way too long IMO.

Basterds was immediately my favorite Tarantino when I first saw it. It has all of his hallmarks, for better and worse, but I thought the boy was demonstrating some introspection regarding violence for the first time in his life. The face of Eli Roth makes as he mutilates the body of Hitler in a burning theater? The joy in beating a prisoner to death and that quick cut to the body trembling? It may not be sympathy for the victims, but it is, at least, a queasiness at the suffering and hate that produced it.

But no. Django and Hateful Eight pretty well proved Tarantino just enjoyed the violence and seeing those who deserve it take it. Not that he’s entirely off base, but it’s the more pat position to take.

Those are my three least favorite Tarantino movies: Django, Hateful Eight, and Inglorious Basterds, in that order. I saw Hateful Eight in a nearly vacant theater (it was a weekday matinee), and these two Asian teenagers kept giggling every time some said the n-word on screen. That hurt my enthusiasm for the movie, and those kids would have probably considered Django an epic comedy. I was still willing to see Once Upon a Time in Hollywood until I heard about the Bruce Lee scene. I've had enough of Tarantino's casual racism and decided to skip it. I still enjoy his earlier movies, all the way up to and including Death Proof.

The Blair Witch Project was a good idea that turned into a bad movie, though I finally caught a brief chill in the final minutes. The Descent was a good horror movie, but for some reason I have only re-watched it once, so something didn't quite sit right with me.

I just finished watching As Above, So Below (2014) on Amazon Prime, and it is a very good horror movie that seems to be influenced by the best parts of both The Blair Witch Project and The Descent. And yet it is very much an original movie. An obsessive archaeologist ventures into the extensive catacombs beneath Paris (which really exist) in search of the legendary Philosopher's Stone. The movie builds suspense gradually but steadily, then plunges into mayhem and madness. It does the viewer the great courtesy of letting you figure things out yourself, and also of leaving others unexplained and therefore more creepy. I don't scare easily, but this movie really had me on edge and managed a couple of real scares near the end. There is one final eerie twist and an ending that is oddly both unsatisfying and yet just right. The one reason why some of you might not enjoy it is that the handheld camera work can feel chaotic at times.

You’ll probably laugh at me, but when I went to see Blair Witch it had just come out, I never heard of it. From what I was told, we were going to see some documentary on a supposed haunting, which I automatically discounted, but was going along on a double date.

The theater was an art theater in Greenwich Village. The lobby had displays of props that were shown as “artifacts collected from the site”. That was in line with the idea of a documentary I thought I was going to see.

The movie scared the shit out of me. I don’t believe in ghosts, I thought I was watching a documentary and that what the “film crew” were experiencing was like some locals that decided to fuck with them and maybe murder them. The entire time the movie got progressively more disturbing in the context of me being completely fooled into thinking I was watching actual footage.

I think other people would probably be embarrassed by this story, 20 something years later. But that turned out to be one of the greatest movie experiences of my life, because my belief in what I was watching was so real. I was bored at first, some stupid documentary that’s going to lead to nothing. And then being increasingly terrified for these people.

That was priceless.

Heather Donahue, the female lead in The Blair Witch Project, was afraid during the filming of the movie. She was worried that it might be a snuff movie, so she brought a knife with her for the camping portion of the shoot.

Saw another good but obscure movie on Amazon Prime last night: Stand Up Guys (2013). Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin play three old retired gangsters. It's mildly funny, mildly sweet reflection on age and mortality, with a surprising amount of action. Pacino isn't shouting and Walken isn't playing his usual self-caricature, which is two big pluses because we get to see them doing decent acting. Arkin steals some scenes, and it's bittersweet because he died in real life this year. Julianna Marguiles is present and accounted for, and some supporting players have some good moments onscreen. I think FAT:ties here are the ideal audience for this comedy.