Recommend a movie

[Vultural]

Død Snø - 2009 - 6/10
AKA - Dead Snow

Leave it to me to view the sequel first.
First movie much more of a dead teenager flick.
Two carloads of medical students follow a remote mountain road, exit, then hike to a cabin in oblivion.
Inside, they discover stolen Nazi gold, followed by resurrected Nazi zombies.
Gorehounds, take heart.  Though outnumbered, the med types - accustomed to blood - dish it out.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Devil - 2010 - 6/10

Promising horror yarn slides into butterfly kill jar concept.
Five persons get trapped inside elevator on 29th floor.
On of ‘em is the devil in disguise.
Amidst flickering lights, claustrophobia, mounting accusations, and helpless surveillance, bloody killings begin.
Watchable pizza movie, definitely creepy at points, with many almost recognizable faces.
Perhaps better if you suffer fear of tight places, concerns of air running out, or anxieties when lights snap out, wondering whose hands crawl your body.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

The Pact - 2012 - 6/10

After ma dies, wild child daughter returns to her sister’s home and the funeral.
Straight away, she realizes something inside the house is not right.
Usual creaks, blacker than black dark regions, silent blurs.
Plot steps up, however, as the younger sister (Caity Lotz) starts investigating mom’s secret past.
Along the way, she get some help from local sheriff (Casper Van Dien).
Movie notched poor ratings, fair reviews, which I tallied to gorehounds mad at low gore, and no T n A.
Probably a good “date” horror or thriller film.  Chick horror, is that a subcategory?

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

The Phantom - 1943 - 6/10

Classic Columbia serial, perhaps their best.
Tom Tyler stars as the Ghost Who Walks.  Phantom helps jungle expedition search for lost city of Zolos.
Opposition includes evil saboteurs, zealous tribal leader, treasure hunters.
Fairly decent cliffs include lion, alligator, tiger, gorilla.  Luckily the Phantom has a great dog, Devil.
Tyler excellent in title role.  Athletic and muscular.  Perhaps the template Bionic Bob had in mind for Strikes!
Credits only list two, but also starring Frank Shannon (Dr Zarkov from Flash Gordon) and the ever wily, Kenneth MacDonald who was a stellar villain.

Hard to tell where this was set.  Expedition members all wear pith helmets, porters seem to be South American, natives appear South Pacific, then there’s a Mongol ruler.
Wholesome matinee fare, though many more killings than anticipated.

Note:  Though helmed by SPCA poster child B Reeves Eason, animals seemed to fare OK in this series.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Sumo Vixens - 1996 - 5/10

One of the questionable delights of the Kei Mizutani box set.
Minor yakuza gang, the Domino agency, covets land owned by ailing auntie of closed Women’s Sumo group.
His men cannot handle the wrestlers so he hires ruthless female squad.
Film climaxes with major female sumo tournament.
Silly comedy, forced to farcical stupidity.
Technical note - The video transfer on the DVD is terrible.
On the other hand, these are “topless” female sumo wrestlers, and all very thin.
Puritans beware, copious nudity abounds.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Snowpiercer - 2013 - 4/10

Need to affix piece of paper to my backside.
Paper reads:  Just watched Snowpiercer.  Kick me.

Opening credits reveal planet earth reeling from global warming.
Desperate nations seed the skies with solar reflective clouds.
Before humans can say, ahhh, surface completely freezes over, life goes extinct.
Except - -  for one train!  Rolling nonstop, high speed, for seventeen years!
Passengers are all class based, think Elysium on rails.
Our hero is in back of train with sewage steerage.  Front sections more luxurious.
Video game plot.  In order to advance, hero must overcome obstacles.

Generous amount of action, though film way too long (slightly over 2 hours), with tiresome monologues.
Aimed at what audience?  Non-demanding twelve year old boys?
Though even at that age I would have wondered:  How come the train never runs out of fuel, water, food?  How come it never breaks down?  How come tracks - the world under sheets of ice - never need repair?  How do compartments stay warm?  Are there showers, soap?  Where do folks get (obviously) new clothes?
The train itself, as our hero advances, grows larger and larger.
Utterly preposterous.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Tokyo Fist - 1995 - 7/10

Salaryman invites boyhood friend, now a boxer, home for dinner.
The more virile friend quickly charms, seduces, and swipes the wife.
The business man, showing some steel, hits the boxing gym, starts running, builds his stamina and endurance.
Sparring matches turn ugly, while the wife discovers her own steel fetish.
Glorious, blood spurting fights throughout.
Same crew that did Tetsuo films.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Austenland - 2013 - 6/10

Rom com finds crazed Jane Austen Yank buys ticket to Regency theme park in England.
Hopes to meet a gentleman of quality.
The experience is based on ability to pay.  She goes budget and gets treated accordingly.
Funny, predictable, often cringe worthy, satire  of obsession and expectation.
Jane Seymour is the merciless and mercenary proprietress.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

The Foul King - 2000 - 7/10

Alright fight fans!
Meek, lower tier bank clerk enters the wrestling arena.
Trains to be the masked villain!
By turns funny and sad, the latter involving his depressing workplace and the way others view him.
Once that mask is donned, though, beware the tiger.
Laugh out loud film with outrageous main event.
Early film of Kang-ho Song whose profile swiftly climbed in the West thanks to Sympathy For Mr Vengeance, The Host, The Good, The Bad, And The Weird, even Snowpiercer.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Hunky Dory - 2011 - 6/10

Minnie Driver as high school drama teacher in 1976 Wales.
Hounding her class to put on the big, end of year, musical show.
Part Glee, part Busby Berkeley “let’s put on a show!”
Scattershot view of pupils, though it does not suffer from the tokenism that plagues Glee.
Interesting mix of tunes, all circa 1976, preponderance of ELO and Bowie (ref title).
Not too schmaltzy, could sit through this without feeling restless.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

The Borderlands - 2013 - 5/10

Horror yarn using the found footage template.
Pair of church techs arrive at tiny parish to substantiate claims of paranormal activity.
Set up recording gear, motion capture triggers, etc ...  Investigator priest soon shows.
Most claims are scams, trying to lure media, spike attendance.
First half sluggish, with unsympathetic characters (one being a prime twat).
Accelerates hard at the end.
All handheld.  Expect out of focus, jerky pans, dim lit.   
Never bought the doc angle for one minute.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Inside Llewyn Davis - 2013 - 5/10

Glorified indie film, overhyped because it hailed from the Coen Brothers.
Early 60s, third rate folkie specializes in depressing downers.
Career going nowhere, he bums from everyone, antagonizes colleagues.
Worse, he’s getting old.
The Coens made a spectacular error early on.
They put a pet - a family cat - in uncertain jeopardy, and left that plot point dangling.
Most of the film, I heard whispers around me,  “What about the cat?”  “Where’s the cat?”  “That cat better be OK.”
People were so distracted they lost focus, and took everyone around them out of the film.
That, and characters kept referring to Grossman, whom anyone who knows a lick about folkie or 60s music assumes to be Albert Grossman, legendary manager.  Wrong.  So that pissed off music know-it-alls.
Misfire for me.  Doesn’t happen often with the Coens.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Scatter My Ashes At Bergdorf’s - 2013 - 6/10

Sometimes you sit through films selected by other team members . . . just cuz.
High sheen, congratulatory documentary on glittering, high priced department store catering to the very rich.
Stunning to look at, though prices never shown (it is revealed a good sales clerk - excuse me, personal buyer - can earn $400,000 - $500,000 a year).
Much attention is given to the annual holiday display windows.
Everyone is either an employee, a designer whose fashions are there, or a designer who wishes their fashion line to get picked up.
Balanced documentary?  Not so much.
Fashion porn.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

I Used To Be Darker - 2013 - 6/10

Indie fare, as Northern Irish runaway lass makes her way to aunt & uncle’s home in Baltimore.
The adults, both in late 40s, are splashing toward divorce.
Both were musicians when they were younger.  One took the yoke of employment, the other still chases the muse.
Quiet slice film, as the runaway observes the rocky home she had hoped was sanctuary.
Slow, moody, though enjoyable enough.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Page Eight - 2011 - 6/10

First part of espionage chess match.
Bill Nighy plays Johnny Worricker, career intelligence analyst.
His boss reminds him to focus on another “the usual classified report.”
One brief sentence on page eight reveals a hitherto hidden piece of rot.
Then all the pieces begin to shift, cover, blame.
Also with Michael Gambon, Rachel Weisz, Ralph Fiennes, Judy Davis.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Turks & Caicos - 2014 - 6/10

Second part of Johnny Worricker spy chase.
More secrets begin to surface, making a fall guy essential and inevitable.
Worricker slips to the Caribbean isles of Turks & Caicos, encounters characters both shady and sinister.
As in the earlier film, very limited action, the plot comes through dialogue and observation.
Another powerhouse cast with Christopher Walken, Winona Ryder, Helena Bonham Carter, Rupert Graves.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Salting The Battlefield - 2014 - 6/10

Finale of the Worricker espionage trilogy.
Nighy’s character continues to elude, while releasing “innocent” data to press outlets.
Shifting locations, replacement cellphones, and unlikely allies notwithstanding, the mesh tightens.
Omnipresent cameras and GPS tracking prove double edged.  Stakes are career ending.
Great series for adults.  Cynical, intelligent, sharp.  Not one shooting or explosion through three films.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Joan Rivers - A Piece Of Work - 2010 - 7/10

Documentary following the comedian for a year.
I had viewed this when it came out, but watched this time with her audio commentary.
In many ways, funnier and offered additional insight.
Rivers packs the commentary with jokes, one-liners, sarcasm, and confessions.
Sensitive souls, beware, there is foul language galore, as well as an early sequence of her sans makeup.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Killer Toon - 2013 - 7/10

Arresting mix of live action and manga panels.
Selected viewers of a web artist’s preview installment find life imitating art.
As characters in the strip live - or in this film - die, so do they.  In the same, gruesome manner.

Police get involved, undecided whether the artist is culprit or pawn.
Then they begin trawling through the past.
Perhaps a bit too clever and convoluted for its own good, but rarely boring and beguiling throughout.
Enough in this to watch a couple times.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural

[Vultural]

Grand Budapest Hotel - 2013 - 6/10

Is it just me?  How is this shaggy dog tale such a critical darling?
Narrative supposedly shows hotel in its glorious heyday, especially the ever attentive manager, and how it came to fall into the possession of the current, and possibly final manager.
Story itself is a series of onion like recollections, each more stylized, more fabricated the deeper memory probed.
Stunning set design counterbalanced by mannered performances of oddballs and kooks.  
Anderson’s films are always worth a look, but the overall look and tone are beginning to feel repetitive.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Vultural