Movies We've Seen Recently

[OrganGrinder]

I just watched Kumare (rather, am watching it)

its pretty good, guy pretends to be a prophet to expose prophets and the whole thing is filled with people that would write the shit that FP reads except they're saying it out loud themselves

also wtf is with young chicks throwing themselves at the hairy religious guy

[Delcat]

We went to After Earth yesterday.  Pretty sweet, albeit with some questionable science.

I watched Kevorkian the other day and good God, what a batshit egomaniac.  He was big news when I was growing up, especially since he was in my home state, so it was fascinating actually learning about the stuff that was vaguely alluded to when I was three or four, but holy shit is he hard to watch.  I'm honestly surprised his shenanigans didn't set the right-to-die movement back by a good thirty years.

I watched Riverman because I wanted some white noise while playing Animal Crossing, and it was worth exactly that much: white noise.  Bundy spouting Quantico-level criminal profiling made my head hurt, but it was so aggressively mediocre that I couldn't be fussed about it.  I switched to Twin Peaks after that and it was much more satisfying.

[Goose Goose Honk At Me Now]

I'm almost done watching Room 237, which is basically an exploration of several in-depth monster cockyses of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining.

Here are some things The Shining is apparently about:
* The Holocaust
* The European genocide of Indians
* The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur
* Fuckin'
* Kubrick confessing to having faked the Apollo 11 moon landing

[A Whirring Bone-White Gleech]

Yeah, some people have Some More Theories about the proper interpretation of the Shining.  I basically look at it mostly as a character piece; the point is to really take our time and watch Jack Torrance slowly unravel, watch the evil in him slowly take over.

I fucking love that movie, should I watch Room 237?

[Goose Goose Honk At Me Now]

I fucking love that movie, should I watch Room 237?

Although the guy who thinks it was totally about the faked moon landing is incredibly irritating, the rest of the movie is very much worth watching. The non-Shining visuals are entirely taken from other movies (many of them Kubrick's other works), which is a neat concept, and if nothing else it becomes pretty clear that Kubrick was a total mad genius. And also possibly doing All The Cocaine.

Edited to add: If you watch it, try and spot the one thing that's inexplicably omitted from everyone's monster cockysis.

Today I also watched Resurrect Dead: The Toynbee Tiles Mystery, which blew me away. It's relatively short but it packs a hell of a punch.

[Ansemaru]

It's so weird to hear about the Toynbee Tiles from outside sources, since they were something I used to see every day on my commute. I always assumed art students were the ones responsible.

[Goose Goose Honk At Me Now]

Less an art project, more a very weird method of self-expression. I don't want to spoil anything, but the investigators do come up with a really plausible suspect and explanation, and it's fascinating. (Unfortunately they don't cover any of the copycats or their tiles, but hey, it's such a great movie otherwise that I can't really complain.)

[Goose Goose Honk At Me Now]

Just saw World War Z. It has made me want to get to higher ground with a stolen truck of drinking water and barricade the doors.

[Psammetichus]

Just saw World War Z. It has made me want to get to higher ground with a stolen truck of drinking water and barricade the doors.

I saw WWZ too. What did you think of it overall? I've read the book but that was like seven years ago and I forgot everything about it.

The one thing I liked about the film was the focus on how the zombie outbreak affected people around the world and not just one single group of people like in most of Romero's films.

And if I remember correctly, I think Cuba also survived the zombie apocalypse rather well in the book, since they're and island and the US has a travel embargo with them. I'd still like to see a film that deals exclusively with the politics and world reaction to a zombie apocalypse and how it affects different countries and how different regimes deal with the threat, etc.

And I normally don't enjoy PG-13 movies since they tend to tame down and simplify things, but I thought the film managed to show the entire chaos surrounding the zombies very well. There was a group of four old, gray-haired ladies sitting infront of me in the theater, so maybe that is a testament to the film's diversion from the typical zombie movie where intestines are ripped out and buckets of blood drench everyone; I wouldn't imagine these old ladies attending such a film.

[Delcat]

I was too tired to go see WWZ with everyone else, but hearing it described and seeing clips makes me sad.  I was hoping it was going to stick to the documentary format and be an intellectual pandemic movie, but instead I understand it's Brad Pitt vs. the Yakety Sax-Fast Zombies That Make Velociraptor Noises.

[Goose Goose Honk At Me Now]

I loved the book, so initially I was expecting to be really disappointed, but I actually thought the small-and-personal approach to the story was very much in the spirit of the book. The movie paints a bleaker picture (especially with how impossibly powerful the virus seems to be) but where I was expecting a "single white guy saves the entire world single-handedly" movie, I got a movie that was equal parts "teamwork is awesome" and "holy shit an outbreak like this would be terrifying on a fucking existential level".

Also, while I'm not a fan of Yakety Sax zombies (thanks Delcat!), there was something about the sheer number of them that made them even more horrible. There's nothing quite like sitting in a movie theater and realizing that if this were to happen, I would not only die, I would die overcome by the horrible knowledge that a literal tidal wave of people is bearing down on everything I hold dear.

[Delcat]

Yeah, I guess I should save judgment for when I see it myself.  Part of the terror of the book for me was the sheer numbers with the slowness, though.  The Yonkers battle is terrifying because it's so slow.  Same when you realize in the later one, when they do it right, it takes them over ten non-stop hours, dropping zombies every second, to kill them all off.  I can't even begin to imagine that, except I can, because it describes digging them out from the zombie pile.

also no Donner Party or underwater zombies boo

[Goose Goose Honk At Me Now]

This weekend's viewing!

Some Guy Who Kills People
Underneath the serial killer bits (and there are serial killer bits) there's a wonderful little comedy about a guy finally breaking through the fog of really deep depression. I appreciate that this movie's portrayal of depression isn't all sadness all the time, just the kind of dull apathy that a really profound episode can cause. However, even if that's not something that interests you, you should watch it because Barry Bostwick is amazing in it. Like Gary Busey levels of amazing. I don't know how much of his performance is ad-libbed but it's got a great genuine feel to it.

Perfect Blue
Not at all what I was expecting. In the earlier days of the internet (God bless, there's actually a poster in the subway or something that says "MAKE YOUR OWN HOME PAGE!! ON THE INTERNET!!!"), a young pop idol who's trying to break into acting discovers that her old image has a life of its own. I imagine that when it first came out it was much more shocking, because of how little people knew about how batshit insane stalkers can be and just how much information they can get their hands on if they apply themselves. 

End of the Line
A bunch of people get on the subway for the last train home, when suddenly, a doomsday cult. I think I like the dynamics among this little group of survivors better than a lot of the movies I've seen--even though there aren't really a lot of "this is who I am and what my life is like" monologues, you get the sense that they're all real people. It also uses its shoestring budget to its advantage; most of the horror comes from the situation and the way people react to it rather than gross things and jump scares (although there's a jump scare right at the beginning that made me shriek).

Splinter
NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE N O P E
I mean if you like John Carpenter then go for it I guess but I have to take a chemical shower now

[Delcat]

End of the Line
A bunch of people get on the subway for the last train home, when suddenly, a doomsday cult. I think I like the dynamics among this little group of survivors better than a lot of the movies I've seen--even though there aren't really a lot of "this is who I am and what my life is like" monologues, you get the sense that they're all real people. It also uses its shoestring budget to its advantage; most of the horror comes from the situation and the way people react to it rather than gross things and jump scares (although there's a jump scare right at the beginning that made me shriek).

End of the Line!  I remember how watching that went!

Me (in the video store): Oh my God, look at this one.

Megan: Hahaha, oh my God.  We have to rent this.
Me: I can't wait, this is going to be so bad.
Megan: SO bad.

WITHIN THE HOUR:

Both of us: JFC WHAT
Me: OH GOD THE MONSTER IS US EXCEPT US IS THAT CHURCH WE WENT TO AS KIDS

Can't judge a book OR movie by the cover, apparently.  They apparently did realize their mistake and revamped the cover to reflect the contents, though.

Splinter
NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE N O P E
I mean if you like John Carpenter then go for it I guess but I have to take a chemical shower now

I'm going to assume you mean this one:



And yes, if you like Carpenter or Cronenberg this is fantastic but jfc will it make you itchy.

[Goose Goose Honk At Me Now]

Yeah, that's the one I meant. Brrr. All those wiggly lumpy things squirming around in black blood. Gross, man.

Also today I have watched:

Dead End (2003)
Do you want to see what happens if creepypasta farts on Vampire's Kiss? Then boy howdy is this the movie for you. I honestly couldn't tell if it was meant to be a comedy or not, because it kept swinging back and forth from trying very hard to be horror and just rolling along its (significantly better) track of being a black comedy about a dysfunctional family. Had the most improbable appearance of weed I've seen in a while, but then thanks to my upbringing I tend to feel like it's super rude to bring marijuana to a family function.