Rate The Last Movie You Saw

This prequel has no business being as good as it is. The first Ouija film came out in 2014 and quickly faded away into obscurity. So imagine my surprise when they decide to make a 'prequel' of all things. I hunch is that The Conjuring films have been pretty successful and they are set in the 70's, when things were a little creepier, no cell phones and genuine scary aesthetic. Imagine my surprise again when up and coming horror filmmakers Mike Flanagan was the man behind the camera. The underrated mirror horror flick Oculus and deaf home invasion flick Hush were two of his recent outings. Things were looking not too bad for this flick and to top it off, it received some pretty decent reviews.

Alice and her two daughters run a scam business in which they "speak to the dead". The mother justifies this business by telling her youngest daughter, Doris, that it helps people move on and get closure. When her eldest, Lina, plays the new Ouija boardgames at a friends house, she tells her mother to incorporate it into her act. She does and things take a sinister turn when they scam becomes reality.

It's hard to make a game board scary. The first film tried, failed and this one tries and succeeds for the most part. Any non-horror fan might balk at the idea that this film is good, but I consider this movie to be one of the most underrated flicks of the year. Flanagan knows how to build solid tension and he doesn't rely on cheap scares or an obscene amount of gore. This film has none of that. Careful framework and lighting is all he needs to create an unsettling atmosphere. Whenever someone decides to look through the ouija glass piece, you feel yourself tense up expecting something to happen.

Kids in horror films are the go to for anything scary. Most movies tend to cast children horribly and they end of ruining the film. Doris, played by Lulu Wilson delivers an innocent and somewhat chilling performance as the youngest daughter. Her goodbye message to a young boy about what it feels like to be strangled to death is an excellent scene to send chills down your spine. No scary images, sounds or blood needed. Just a child delivering one monologue about suffocating you.

Obviously the film is far from perfect, but it doesn't cater to the happy ending crowd either. It takes some chances and for the most part, lands them. I was surprised by how much I liked this film, which may be why the rating is higher than what others would tend to give a film like this. Had the first film never existed, this would be a bigger hit.

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"A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."

Suspect's Reviews

Rango - 10/10 - It's amazing that Nickelodeon actually made such an awesome movie, though I guess that can be expected when they use a winning trio from Disney (Gore Verbinski directed and Johnny Depp and Bill Nighy voiced the hero and villain respectively...sound familar?).

The voice acting is terrific, as is the goofy plot and the dialogue. The animation is perfect, given that this movie is a western. Speaking of which, I'd honestly rank Rango among my top 25 best western movies at this current moment, but that can change as there's so many to watch still.

Anyway, highly recommended to watch this movie, but it may not be for the youngest kids due to mild adult language.

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Coming in 2017: two short films and (maybe) another feature-length film. More details another time.

Elle (2016)



Paul Verhoeven's new film deals with a few delicate issues, and tells them from the viewpoint of the female lead played brilliantly by Isabelle Huppert. It's a movie that has awkward scenes to watch, and although it has a few subplots that are a little tenuous it's a very interesting film in that it deals with subject matter in a very unusual way. It's difficult to describe without making spoilers but I would definitely recommend it if only for it's uniqueness. Some critics have given it rave reviews calling it a masterpiece. I wouldn't go quite that far, and I'd give it 8/10.

Blue Jay (2016)



This on the other hand blew me away. It made me weep like a 4 year old girl who just dropped her chocolate bar into a puddle. Mark Duplass has nailed it. He wrote it and got the brilliant Sarah Paulson to co star with him. And she delivers. Big time. It's a relatively short movie about a nostalgic look at a couple's relationship after a chance meeting years later. Hence the monochrome feel. Every once in a while, a movie comes along that rips your guts out. Derek Cianfrance's 'Blue Valentine' did this to me a few years back, and Blue Jay has done the same. The couples' relationship just feels so candid and exposed. It just got to me. It's not dis-similar to Richard Linklater's 'before' trilogy, although it's more of a neatly packaged powerpunch and it works. 9/10

This had a lot of similarities to War Dogs, which I watched the night before. I thought this movie was a bit more uneven when it came to blending genres, and I do think it fell short of it's potential, but I still enjoyed myself quite a bit.



Classic short film that's a collection of odd scenes that don't seem to go together. This had to be shocking for it's day. I'm not sure what to make of it, but it certainly wasn't boring and I appreciate it's place in history.

It was pretty disappointing to me too. The acting was good of course I just didn't dig the story.

45 Years (2015) -
The Valley of Gwangi (1969) -
Ray Harryhausen:Special Effects Titan (2011) -
Might Joe Young (1949) -
Hardcore Henry (2015) - +
The First Avenger (2011) -
Hands of Stone (2016) -
Scrooge (1951) - +
A Christmas Story (1983) - +

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Too weird to live, and too rare to die.

My first film of 2017 and a film that once was on my Top 10. I didn't feel the same magic I did the first time I watched it but I still liked it a lot!
Kevin Spacey is great as always, the directing is very stylistic and has Sam Mendes written all over it, and the story unfolds in a real natural way. I like the fact that we know Lester is going to die right from the beginning of the movie and we see him changing so much while he's unware of what's about to happen!
I didn't feel the same motivation to change everything about my life as in the first time I watched it, maybe because I'm in a better place now that I was or maybe because the movie didn't feel as inocent as once did...

The Green Mile (1999)






Convict with magical powers lands on Death Row.

Just saw this again, what a tremendously good movie. Something about the camaraderie and drama, life and death, good and bad, all taking place in this small space, makes it so intimate and intense, like a close up photo.

The acting is phenomenal, standouts are Sam Rockwell as psychotic evil Wild Bill, and Doug Hutchinson as the mean little runt of a guard Percy. I love the dynamic of the 4 guards too, all good men, dealing professionally with the hardest situations.

Stephen King says this is his favorite adaption of any of his stories.

I would say this movie is as close to perfect as you can get.

5 chewed-up-moonpies-out-of 5

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Under-the-radar Movie Awesomeness.
http://earlsmoviepicks.blogspot.com/

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"I may be rancid butter, but I'm on your side of the bread."
E. K. Hornbeck

Hated this movie...for my money, Denzel's weakest work...there's a review of it in my thread somewhere.

Inside Man was excellent.

I'd say Courage Under Fire, 2 Guns, and Unstoppable are his weakest.

Quite a few Denzel I haven't seen but I hated 2 Guns. Safe House and Virtuosity are pretty terrible as well. I thought Unstoppable was a nice little thriller. I like him and Scott together a lot.

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Letterboxd

Scott and Denzel are a great 1-2 punch. I didn't greatly care for that one though.

In my view, it didn't really need Denzel. Almost anybody could have been in that supporting role. Him and his partner cop were just cast fillers. Owen, Foster, Plummer, Dafoe carried the film very far, over and above Denzel's pay grade. I do own a copy on DVD and it is a favorite for me, but, I don't consider it to be a Denzel film, he just happened to be in it.



Madeliene White: Well detective, there are matters at stake here that are a little bit above your pay grade. No offense.
Keith Frazier: Well, why don't you just tell the mayor to raise my pay grade to the proper level, and problem solved.

Which ones do you like as his 3 best? I like American Gangster, Man on Fire and The Hurricane. Fallen and The Bone Collector would round out my Denzel Top 5.

The Terminal
A nice wee movie. I cannot believe this was based on a real thing!

Money Monster would be a better film if it were a little bit more interesting and a little less boring. My biggest complaint wit this film is that it doesn't feel like it really accomplishes anything. Even by the end, when things are revealed, I couldn't help but simply not care about any of it.

Lee Gates is a flamboyant television financial expert and recently called the stock on a company known as IBIS a SAFE BET. That safe bet wasn't exactly true, as the company lost 800 million dollars and some of that money belonged to down on his luck delivery man Kyle. He decides to take matters into his own hands and demand answers. So the logical thing to do is hold Gates hostage at his studio. It's up to Patty, Gate's studio producer, to calm him down and talk him through the situation while Kyle demands answers to questions no one seems to be asking.

I guess big name celebrities don't sell movies as well as they use to. George Clooney and Julia Roberts would have been a slam dunk success a decade ago. Now they are relegated to this mess and no one seems to care. It's not like they do a terrible job here, they are serviceable to the mediocre story. If you wanna see George Clooney act like a fool dancing around with a big gold chain around his neck and a gold top hat, you're in luck!!! Money Monster is a film for you!!!

A lot of the film centres around Clooney and Jack O'Connell standing around waiting for other things to happen. Hostage flicks have the disadvantage of being limited to the specific location where the hostages are. Yet so many of those films remain thrilling. The Negotiator for example, is an excellent film about a hostage situation. Money Monster is not. The fault might lie with the director, Jodie Foster, but I blame the script. The characters are not interesting enough, the situation does nothing to engage the viewer and the final act fails to bring any tense action to this lacking thriller.

There are many questionable moments here, but the main one is the primary focus of the film. There is no way that the producer would keep the live broadcast going through this situation. Even with the threats from the gunman, it would have been cut. For a film about the financial industry, it doesn't seem to know it very well. Nor does it seem interested in educating the viewer on how things happen. How about when they leave the studio, bomb strapped to Clooney's chest and the dozens upon dozens of civilians just standing around. The NYPD seem very stupid in this film.

I can't really recommend this film, especially when it thinks its such a smart film too. It feels like Jodie Foster had a great time on Inside Man and thought "Hey, I can pull this off"


No, you can't.

Virtuosity.

I like Denzel Washington but i don't like most of the films he is in. I think he is probably the worst "good actor" for me in Hollywood at picking his roles.