Topic: Latest Movie You Watched

[goldshirt*9]

  I liked this movie

[6pairsofshoes]

Transsiberian.  Thriller with Woody Harrelson, Ben Kingsley and a talented cast.  Great views of Siberian forests and insights into the continual poverty of the landscape that spans from Moscow all the way to the Pacific coast port of Vladivostok.  I read about the Trans Siberian railway in Dr. Zhivago.  Lots of tiny villages along this line that was started under Tzar Alexander III in the 1890's.

They used real Soviet era trains.  I took the Puskin from Budapest to Athens in the 1980's and the ones in this film don't seem to have changed much.  Woody Harrelson as a Christian missionary midwestern hardware store owner with a penchant for antique trains and rail history just underscores how versatile an actor he is, given he's just as convincing as the porn King, Larry Flint.

The film is stressful and suspenseful, but well done.

[6pairsofshoes]

I still think he peaked with "Cheers".

Funny.  I really disliked his character on Cheers.  The earlier episodes with "Coach" were better.  It took me a while to get over my aversion to him, but now I respect his talent.

[8ullfrog]

That's damning with faint praise. I guarantee Woody knew exactly what his role was in True Detective.

The fact he gave such a thunderous performance is insane. True Detective has NEVER approached the high of S1, even in the theme song.

I'm just glad they haven't tried to do a second Cole/Hart season. That was lightning in a jar, and hitting those highs again seems almost impossible.

[6pairsofshoes]

We really enjoyed S1 of True Detective, but were so warned off re S2 that we never even bothered.

[goldshirt*9]

We really enjoyed S1 of True Detective, but were so warned off re S2 that we never even bothered.

About to watch

[8ullfrog]

Hell House 1-3.

I'm going to ruin it up front, it's "scared to Jesus" bait. There are a couple films like this, and I honestly thought that was the direction the James Wan Warren films were going to go.

 Hell houses are church run scared straight things, sometimes literally (They don't like gays) Jerry Fallwell "Women joining the workforce caused 9/11" came up with the idea to scare kids straight with spooky houses.

The first movie plays coy with it. For the most part it's a straightforward found footage horror film that leaves you with a few questions as to what is going on. Ironically, that's the bait that got me to watch the second movie.

A group of friends (and some hired actors) set up shop in an abandoned hotel to create a Halloween scare house. As the plot unfolds, things don't go smoothly, and there are a few legit scary moments. We know from the outset that 15 people died in the hotel, but not how, or why.

The second movie is less of an unwinding mystery, they flat out reveal the hotel is haunted by demons, and that the hotel acts as a trap, luring "guests" to the hotel, perhaps with the help of local government. There are still some legitimate scares, but there is also a lot of schlock.

I only watched the second movie to try and figure out the plot threads from the prior movie, which also acts as a lure with the new cast of characters, who weirdly seem to know that if you go to the hotel, you're gonna bless'ed die.

Like, don't? Don't go to the hell portal?

The second film ends with the "survivor" mugging to the camera, obviously dead. She didn't make it out at all, GASP!

Third movie: An angel in disguise fights the hotel. Like, that's it. That's the movie. Three guesses how it ends.

Why am I spoiling these movies?

1. I'm bless'ed pissed I watched them
2. They're free to watch on youtube
3. Several horror channels gush about how great they are. And they're not. I'm mad they did such a good job wrapping a turd in a compelling horror premise.

[6pairsofshoes]

That genre is so manipulative.  And it generally doesn't care that you notice the manipulation, which kind of robs it of any artistic pretense.  I would sometimes watch horror movies with my brother on DVD and hit the mute button when they'd get into the repetitive violin strokes that lead up to something bad happening.  He'd get annoyed.  I can figure out enough from the visual cues that I don't need someone banging on aurally announcing HERE'S WHERE THE BAD PART STARTS--GET IT?

I guess that makes me a spoilsport.  This isn't to say that there are not well crafted horror films, but most of them are like cheap porn, predictable and hardly worth the energy.  I've never seen any of the Scream films but I take it that they are spoofs on horror movies.  They're probably pretty amusing.

One other thing, I loved those campy horror movies when I was a kid that would play on the 4 o'clock movie after I got out of school, like Vincent Price in "House on Haunted Hill" and, of course, the endless joy of Japanese monster movies.  Who wouldn't be enthralled to see cars being sucked up in the wake of Mothra? or the high tension wires crackling as Godzilla crashed through them?

[8ullfrog]

No waterphone stings in Hell House LLC, but there are mannequins that aren't where they were left.
Oddly enough, the movie is improved by the lack of it's "money shot". The portal to hell never materializes, and instead we're left with a spooky ghost story for the most part. It is alluded to in the initial youtube video and 911 call. "They went into the wall"

That's what got me to watch the second one. Which does have the truly unfortunate CGI portal to hell and a demon explaining the entire nefarious plan.

Second movie DID answer one of two lingering questions I had from the first one.

Second question was never answered. In the first film we are told there is a basement exit (pretty standard, most basements have two exits if exterior) but we never SEE the basement exit.

Turns out the filming location is a "haunt" in Pennsylvania, and people can rent the whole place out for the night, and even sleep in the evil basement. No exterior exit is shown in their videos, and they're chunky crappy livestream quality, even if you bump it up to 720p.

One interesting thing is that the movies played with claustrophobia, blocking off portions of the house neatly, and honestly smartly. They fenced off the schlock (Giant rubber mutant rat, fake children's room 'o doom)

[8ullfrog]

I've been working my way through the bond films, and I really didn't get much of it as a kid. Not only is Bond a horrible person, but he's also surrounded by assholes. The only person who is decent to him is Moneypenny.

M is constantly annoyed and threatening his best agent. One could argue the destruction and lechery Bond racks up would justify this, but Bond is literally the guy you send when the world is on the line.

Q treats Bond like an itinerant schoolboy, while bond handles his gadgets deftly, and rarely complains when one goes wrong. And they go wrong often.

bless'ed spellcheck. itinerant itinerant impertinent. HAH!

Actually, not that I think about it, Bond is certainly itinerant.

 I'm on Moonraker now, and damn if the moonraker goons aren't my least favorite. These people are clearly highly intelligent, going by the fact they're running a HIDDEN SPACE PROGRAM, but they're totally cool with depopulating the earth and ruling over the ruins. Eugenicist shits.

One wonders how many bright minds died in the moonraker timeline when the secret was revealed to them. The dipshit with an underwater base had less of a devoted cult. It's also strange that back-to-back bonds used the same plot.

Multiple simultaneous space launches!

[6pairsofshoes]

I think that Moonraker is actually a biography of Elon Musk. They obviously changed his name (although not by much!) to Hugo Drax to avoid getting sued.

The one redeeming character in Moonraker is Jaws.  He eventually finds romance.  I confess that I generally enjoy those films.  Maybe because I initially saw them with my father and it was just mindless fun.

I read one Ian Fleming book, Goldfinger, I believe.  As described by Fleming, probably unintentionally, Bond is really a racist, sexist jerk.  And a regular alcoholic, to boot.  One must imagine that Bond villains are even bigger boozers than he is in order for him to maintain anything remotely resembling an edge over those enemies.

[8ullfrog]

I was going to say, perhaps Musk should be more tightly watched in case he tries something like that. But Bezos is the one with DUN DUN DUN "amazon".

[8ullfrog]

But that's diamonds are forever, not moonraker.

So you're saying musk is more of a blofield. I could see that.

I was going to make a joke about how Moore's bond ought to have scooped up those diamonds on the way back to earth, but the movie actually accounts for that! Bond is otherwise occupied up to "reentry" as Q put things.

[6pairsofshoes]

But that's diamonds are forever, not moonraker.

So you're saying musk is more of a blofield. I could see that.

I was going to make a joke about how Moore's bond ought to have scooped up those diamonds on the way back to earth, but the movie actually accounts for that! Bond is otherwise occupied up to "reentry" as Q put things.

Yeah.  I think Jaws appears in Moonraker but doesn't get the girlfriend until Diamonds are forever.  I can't remember which one has Grace Jones as a villain, but by then the franchise was really camp, and for that reason, I continued to watch.  A friend of mine met the son of Albert Broccoli, a producer of several of the films and after he said, "Hi, I'm Tony Broccoli," she replied, "I'm _Sally_ asparagus."

[8ullfrog]

Diamonds are forever Connery's last out... until it wasn't. (Rights issues are weird)

Spy who loved me left Jaws stuck to a magnet, and he fought a shark for survival.
Moonraker had the pretty girlfriend with glasses, when Drax stupidly admitted, yes, he WAS that kind of eugenicist, which led to a change of heart.

I'm watching for your eyes only now, and the camp is extremely heavy, but Bond managed to turn a girl down for being too young.

The movie is very long, like two movies jammed into one. Which is interesting because apparently it is literally two of the books jammed together.