Just Watched Movies (2012)

[slayrrr666]

Ambitious Kung-Fu Girl-After being sold into slavery and forced to marry someone else, a young woman sets out to find the martial artist warrior of her dreams only to be continually shocked at how much better her reality is than her fantasy man. Probably as funny a kung-fu film from HK as you're going to find that doesn't contain Jackie Chan or any of his companions, this one actually surprises by how funny it actually is with several absolutely hilarious scenes including a dream-sequence fight where the combatants are watched over by a gaggle of screaming girls, a gambling match that's played out as if it were a TV Game Show, complete with announcer booth and hosts, as well as a martial arts demonstration that clearly is forged by how inept the winner is compared to the more skilled combatants yet the manner in which they loose is equally hilarious. Aside from this, the light-hearted tone is matched in the brawls which manage to contain a lighter sense of urgency and pace than most others, which is not to say they're all that bad but definitely not as frantic or kinetic as others, which tends to lower this one slightly but overall it's still a highly enjoyable and entertaining effort.

[slayrrr666]

Judgement of an Assassin-When a formerly-respected warlord tries to assert his power into a clan of martial artists with the help of several assassins, a group of warriors set out to find out his nefarious plans and put a stop to them. An incredibly fun and enjoyable 70s-era Shaw Brothers epic, like most of their others I've seen, which is just a lot of fun and highly enjoyable. While the film is incredibly complex, one of the better elements here is the fact that it's just a lot more straight-forward than expected, resulting in a pretty easy-to-follow story amidst all the talking in the early part, which is curiously short of kung-fu action despite a variety of fights. The only problem is the fact that the longest fight lasts about a minute, so we get plenty of fights, just not a lot of them, and it tends to feel a little cheating out of the action. Luckily, that is restored in the finale, which is everything a fantastic kung-fu film should be like, fast-paced and full of action, which includes numerous scenes where we have multiple four-vs.-one fights going on at the same time, which is impressive to watch. It really saves the film tremendously and really makes it enjoyable.

[Fenril]

- The ward. In 1966 amnesiac Kirsten is arrested after burning a farmhouse and brought to an insane asylum that harbors a secret of its own. As other female inmates are killed around her, Kirsten must figure out the identity and motivations of the mysterious killer on her trail --and recover her own shocking secrets.

John Carpenter's fairly recent return to big-screen horror is, IMHO, a very underrated slasher / haunted house movie with a clever script. It takes a while to get going and some of the performances (especially lead Amber Heard) seem wooden at first. But the latter part actually serves a purpose and the third act manages to pull off a most dificult act --a twist ending that is a complete surprise yet makes perfect sense in retrospect (and even explains a few apparent plot holes).

One more thing, but since that one can't be discussed without spoiling the big twist:

SPOILER WARNING

So it's the same twist as in the other slasher movie Identity (2002). Yes, but in Identity I always felt that twist was executed quite poorly whereas here it actually made sense. I don´t know why so many reviewers felt Identity was the better movie. Just my opinion.

SPOILER END

All in all, recommended... not sure if it's on par with Carpent's best / older movies, but it's still a very solid horror entry.

[slayrrr666]

Hmm, you're the first one I've met Fenril who likes the twist in that one. Everyone else hated it, but had other good thoughts about it so maybe I should finally break down and give it a shot. It's one of the big recent ones I haven't gotten to yet.

[slayrrr666]

The One-After finding himself the target of a mysterious identical assassin, a man learns of a killer from an alternate dimension who can claim extraordinary power through killing the various identical personalities in other dimensions, including him. Not nearly as complicated as it really sounds, though there's far too much plot with this one. Either it does a terrible job at explaining it or not well enough, which is odd as it's only in the first part of the film and then ignored while the rest of the film consists of a series of close encounters, shoot-outs and escapes that are immensely fun and enjoyable for the relentless pace they give the film. This is before it gets to the finale where it's a full-on kung-fu fight between Jet and himself, and despite knowing it's obviously not him fighting himself, the visual is still impressive enough to really work quite well and make for a cool sight as the battle rages on, as the length of such a battle is to be applauded. Overall, not as bad as it could've been as they thankfully stop explaining the plot, but it's still far too complex for what it really wants to do.

[Fenril]

Feb 9, 2012 11:41:00 GMT -5 slayrrr666 said:

Hmm, you're the first one I've met Fenril who likes the twist in that one. Everyone else hated it, but had other good thoughts about it so maybe I should finally break down and give it a shot. It's one of the big recent ones I haven't gotten to yet.

Yeah, a lot of people hated The ward's twist, but as I said I felt it was pulled off better than in Identity, which a lot of people *praise* for the same twist.

Really, beyond that it's just an okay slasher movie, or at least I liked it that way.

And just seen:

- Apollo 18. Three astronauts are sent to the moon on a top secret mission and discover that our satellite isn't quite the lifeless rock we thought it to be all along...

As far as "found footage" movies go, this one has the best premise so far (in that the movie is presented as actual NASA footage clandestinely dowloaded to an internet page). Beyond that, it's an okay creature feature, through the characters are nothing special .

I wonder what the upcoming "Chronicle" movie does with its own interesting premise.

- Il gatto a nove code [aka Cat o'nine tales]. A blind puzzlemaker and a reporter team up to solve the mistery behing a break-in at a Genetics research institute, but their quest soon makes them targets for an impulsive murderer.

The second of Dario Argento's "animal trilogy"; this one isn't so much Ghiallo or an horror movie so much as it's a detective story with a couple unusually violent deaths in the mix. Reportedly this is Argento's least favorite of his own movies; and, yeah, fans looking for the usual Argento gore will be dissapointed, but for the rest of us it's a nice enough mistery film presented as a ghiallo.

And a couple Pedro Almodóvar movies.

- Los abrazos rotos. A blind scriptwriter reminishes with his teenage secretary about his last years with eyesight, his turbulent affair with a beautiful actress and the accident that destroyed it all.

Slow moving melodrama with great performances and an ironic use of metacinema (a movie inside a movie inside a movie...).

- La piel que habito. A sucessful surgeon keeps a female prisoner on whom he has perfected his highly illegal artificial skin experiments. But things between him, her and his deranged lab assistant are actually far more perverse than it seems at first sight...

Hailed as Almodóvar's first horror movie; it's actually a drama with some perverse tableaux. This does, however, manage to pull off a twist that has been used in a lot of horror movies, having to do with the true gender of one of its main characters. Or at least this movie actually explores the consequences that that kind of twist could actually have on a person.

[slayrrr666]

The Magic Blade-After initially meeting together to end a long rivalry, two professional swordsman must work together to stop a band of assassins from stealing a mystical weapon that can shift the balance to a warlord looking to gain complete control of his people. A rather typical HK swordplay film, which is to mean that it's incredibly fun as long as you aren't looking for realism, which is certainly the case here since it's almost impossible to find any source of that within the film as the fighters wield fantastic weapons, are able to survive ordinarily-mortal wounds and leap up over two story buildings in a single bound. Beyond that, there's plenty of martial arts acrobatics to wonder at, including numerous sequences where hordes of swordsmen fall victim during the onslaught, a fantastic swordfight finale and the confrontations with several assassins to keep the film going, although it does manage to maintain a slightly sluggish pace than would be expected amidst all the fighting, due mainly by the lack of change from the hero who treats every situation with the same feeling, complete indifference and causes the film to slow down rather than enhance the pace. Still, highly enjoyable and a complete blast.

Hard Luck-A thief finds that his planned heist has the unfortunate coincidence of being ambushed by a second gang of thieves that soon take his partner hostage, leading him to team up with a policewoman to track down their interest in him before they kill him. A decidedly decent effort, not really offering up a lot of anything new as this one's big claim is the twist of the actual informant who sold everyone out, which is a big shocking and isn't telegraphed all that easily, but otherwise there's not all that much in here until we get to the finale. With it taking part as a big showdown shootout at the gangster's hideout, it manages to be pretty entertaining and thrilling with all the different gun-battles and shootouts that are present while also spilling out the plot-twists quite effectively, making this a rather enjoyable outing. While the opening also has it's moments with the antics of the gang doing their robbery of the money and evolving into a spectacular shootout and car-chase soon afterward, the middle segment here lowers this one by how much down time is present which somewhat lowers this one but makes it a pretty enjoyable half-of-a-movie when you take the bookends into consideration.

[slayrrr666]

The 7-A class field trip to a secluded cave in the desert gets stranded in the area when they find the place is home to a vicious legendary creature and must band together to find a way to survive. A rather disappointing creature feature, mainly due to the fact that there's just something about this one that sets it up to potentially be an awesome entry before it all goes south. From a wonderfully contrived and cliche opening to their trek through the cave and finally their antics within the underground, it's got all the ear-marks of a fun time before starts with the attacks. While the first few are decent, it soon slips away and becomes painfully evident that the film is really a survival-horror film about their struggle to get to the surface after the teacher dies, it just so happens to have a creature involved to spice things up, when actually it doesn't when there's only one shot of the creature that lasts for more than a second, when itself is in such poor lighting that you can't make it out despite a clear shot at it, and combined with the film's other problems ends up lowering this one slightly.

[slayrrr666]

In Possession-After an announced trip to Africa, a man and a woman find themselves tormented by various figures in their house reenacting a hideous murder and nearly driving them to the brink of insanity as they attempt to figure out why they're the targets of the events. Not going to say much, as there's nothing here to say. It's almost essentially a Twilight Zone episode stretched out to slightly over an hour, since the film repeats the same exact pattern over and over again of them confronting something creepy, telling others but finding nothing to get upset over despite their pleas, and after the fifth time or so this happens, it grows tiresome. A made-for-TV nature gives it absolutely no violence or kills to speak of, and rather than be creepy, this just gets irritating.

[slayrrr666]

The Mechanik-After escaping Russia following his family's death, an ex-Spetnatz agent agrees to an offer to rescue a kidnapped girl from a friend who was stolen by the gangster who initially killed his family and sets out to take revenge. A fairly simple, direct-to-the-point Dolph Lundgren actioner that delivers the goods when it needs to, which is fairly often with the pacing here since this one just turns on the adrenaline and offers plenty of explosive shoot-outs, chases and hand-to-hand fights that are all well-done, incredibly enjoyable and offer up a lot to enjoy here. While the film does make it somewhat hard to really root for the hero due to his ability to sort of eschew the code of honor and ethics usually seen in these kinds of movies (when he has an advantage, he uses it instead of lowering himself to an even playing field and winning that way as he'll shoot men on the ground or even martial artists on the payroll) so while it might be a somewhat small flaw, it's really the only one here as this is a fairly enjoyable and engaging entry.

[Bartwald]

Fenril - I didn't actually hate the twist ending in The Ward, and I didn't hate the movie itself, either, but I did feel the movie started losing its initial impact in the second half. It started pretty well but when it ended I didn't care about the characters quite as much as 90 or so minutes earlier. In Carpenter's very best movies this just doesn't happen. And as for Almodovar's latest: I enjoyed it and I thought it pays a nice tribute to Jesus Franco's "Gritos en la noche", but it's not one of those movies that I can't stop thinking about and want to rewatch as soon as they're over.

[Fenril]

Feb 16, 2012 16:10:51 GMT -5 Bartwald said:

Fenril - I didn't actually hate the twist ending in The Ward, and I didn't hate the movie itself, either, but I did feel the movie started losing its initial impact in the second half. It started pretty well but when it ended I didn't care about the characters quite as much as 90 or so minutes earlier. In Carpenter's very best movies this just doesn't happen. And as for Almodovar's latest: I enjoyed it and I thought it pays a nice tribute to Jesus Franco's "Gritos en la noche", but it's not one of those movies that I can't stop thinking about and want to rewatch as soon as they're over.

On The Ward -- interesting, I had the opposite reaction. Early on I couldn't quite bring myself to care about the characters, as their motivations (and symptoms) seemed nebulous at best. Once we learned what these characters have in common I started finding them much more interesting.

It doesn't quite feel like a Carpenter movie, trough. For one thing this just didn't have the atmosphere that his best movies had. And yeah, in any case none of the characters were that memorable.

On Almodóvar -- I definitely have to see that movie now. I agree about "La piel que habito" not being quite unforgettable, but for a seasoned director trying his hand at something new I thought he did a remarkable job.

Also seen:

- Monsters. A graphic reporter is hired to escort a rich girl across an alien-infested Mexico.

Talking about this movie's potrayal of Mexico and parts of Central America will probably lead to a rant, so I'll start by saying that this was a fairly boring creature feature, through the last sequence is quite good, practically a short movie on its own. The creatures are nothing special (basically giant glowing octopuses), but their design made sense, the instructional cartoons about them were kind of clever and the leads were... well, they clearly tried, but this is why you don't cast actual real-life couples to play couples. It just rarely works.

Okay, so the premise is that everything south of the border has been invaded by alien creatures and it's got to a point where, really, the creatures themselves aren't that big a problem. That's not a bad start.
Then the movie implies that "Infected zone" doesn't actually refer to quarantined places as such, but rather as places where the aliens might be lurking and that the armies are routinely blasting. Again, not a bad idea, and if this were actually explored it could have made a nice metaphor.
And then we get the actual scenes where the two leads interact with the locals, and it becomes clear that:

a) The scriptwriters did not bother to learn spanish at all [most of the dialogue was reportedly adlibbed, but that doesn't excuse written messages like "Creature brotes en Mexico" or most of the spanish dialogue being gibberish]

b) Latinoamerica (in this case Guatemala, Costa Rica, Belize and south Mexico, not that they are at all diferentiated in the movie proper) is really just an exotic backdrop for the caucasian leads to have adventures in. Monsters is most definitely not the first movie to do this and it won't be the last, but when your characters keep ranting about the poor locals for whom nobody cares, it smacks of hypocrisy.

c) Said locals are really just thieves in disguise [sleep with a local girl and she'll rob you blind; try to buy tickets for an already overcrowded ferry and it's outrageous that they dare charge you $5,000 for a single ticket, etc.] so, who cares if they die once they have fulfilled their purpose.

And so on.

I don't think the people involved with this are racist or xenophobic per se, most likely just well-meaning and ignorant.

I also know that it's possible to make an American movie in an "exotic" locale while stile being respectful to the local culture ["Vampires: los muertos", the american remake of The grudge, to a certain degree...], but there's been a bit too many recent movies with american leads surviving an Hostile Foreign Country [The ruins; Turistas; Hostel; Hostel II; Man on fire, etc. --they aren't necessarily bad movies in themselves, they are just problematic this way].

[slayrrr666]

Vanishing on 7th Street-After finding their streets deserted and the darkness seeming to come after them with more intensity every day, a small group of survivors struggles to find a way to survive and find answers to what's going on before they succumb to it as well. An absolutely terrible release, as there was hardly anything of note in this one that gives it a sense of enjoyment. From the constant and utter inability to answer whatever questions it raises to offering very little in the form of scares, jumps or anything that remotely resembles a normal horror situation makes this one just so incredibly frustrating and painful to sit through. On top of that, there's just so much left that's unanswered that it just grows to the point of being unfulfilled at the end, which is just a sorry excuse for any movie, let alone one with so many other problems. While it does have a spectacular opening and a potentially-promising premise, the fact remains that this one just isn't worth it.

[Bartwald]

Interesting notes on Monsters, Fenril - a movie which I enjoyed but I'd never suspect the makers hadn't even tried to get the LANGUAGE of some of their characters right, that's just crazy!

As for this wave of xenophobia in recent horror movies: yeah, it does bother me a bit, too, but when the movie keeps me on the edge of the seat I can forget about at least some of its stupidity... as I did in the case of Hostel, Part II, for example.

[Fenril]

Feb 17, 2012 14:02:03 GMT -5 Bartwald said:

Interesting notes on Monsters, Fenril - a movie which I enjoyed but I'd never suspect the makers hadn't even tried to get the LANGUAGE of some of their characters right, that's just crazy!

As for this wave of xenophobia in recent horror movies: yeah, it does bother me a bit, too, but when the movie keeps me on the edge of the seat I can forget about at least some of its stupidity... as I did in the case of Hostel, Part II, for example.

Hostel I and II I stil enjoyed, I guess because they are competently made and at least the Evil! Eastern! Europeans! had their own motivations and backstory. Not to mention that part II at least implies that the real problem is very rich people with no scruples.

I guess I ask of movies (any movies) that they be (a) well-made [this isn't a matter of budget, it's a matter of technical compentence], (b) entertaining [but there are lots of way to entertain] and (c) either have something poignant to say, or just not pretending to be something it's not.

In the case of Monsters it didn't quite hit the first two points for me [as I said, the last five minutes or so were the only competent portion of the movie; and it's telling that that had no dialogue in it], so the part about the language really stuck out.

And, sad to hear that about Vanishing on 7th St., as I was kinda looking forward to it.