Movie Tab II

Never found it scary I found it brutal but not over the top gorno, as there was a definite psychological element to it. I'm glad I watched it but I doubt I shall ever feel the need to see it again.

Another problem I had with the film were the simulated phone calls using cartoons. Could the film-makers look anymore childish and amateur?

Audition is indeed a memorable film.

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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

Same here. I thought it a long, slow, dull build-up to get to one scene that was okay for a few seconds.

Give me "Ichi", "Visitor Q", "Fudoh", "Full Metal Yakuza" and Dead or Alive" any day.

Agreed. The final scene of Audition is incredibly brutal, but it's a long, very slow road getting there. On the other hand, I enjoy the almost cartoonish violence of Ichi. Visitor Q is okay, and I haven't seen the other two you mentioned.

I love Battle Royale, although it is by no means a horror film.

Berlin Express ( Jacques Tourneur, 1948 ) - The movie is shot very well and the early scenes are excellent.

Unfortunately the script is weak. Towards the end I realized that I just wasn't clear on why things were happening as they were. It felt like the plot was just a backdrop to the ambiance, which was fine in the beginning but became a problem as the plot moved its wobbly self to center stage. I can't entirely blame the script though; I think Tourneur's greatest failing as a director is that while he had a lot of style and could always make things interesting, he could be sloppy in terms of telling a story. Of course he wasn't the only director who believed you could gloss over a lot if you just kept things moving, but that works better with a good muddled script like The Big Sleep rather than the distinctly ordinary but muddled script he worked with here. Still worth seeing though.

Coma (Michael Crichton, 1978) +
This is one of those movies I always happened upon half way through whilst channel hopping. It used to get shown a lot on UK TV in the 90's, but I never really knew what was going on and just assumed it was a run-of-the-mill pot boiler. In reality Coma is a grade-A thriller with a fantastic cast, and the kind of queasy premise that really gets under your skin. Genevieve Bujold is great as a young doctor who thinks she's stumbled on a hospital conspiracy to deliberately render patients brain dead in order to sell their organs on the black market. Naturally no-one believes her, including on-off doctor boyfriend (Michael Douglas), and skeptical boss (Richard Widmark) who puts it down to the trauma of having recently lost her best friend (rendered comatose after a routine operation). Bujold wont let it lie though, and is soon being chased all over the hospital by an assassin (Colonel Decker from the A-Team) out to silence anyone close to the truth.

Coma is a delightfully tense affair that grips like a vice from the outset, and consistently sustains the nail biting suspense throughout. Bujold is pitch perfect as the conscientious doctor out to expose the truth, finding the perfect balance of gritty determination, and feminine vulnerability. This is effectively offset by Widmark's sinister turn as her concerned boss; all thinly veiled threats and mock sympathy. The scenes in which she's chased through the hospital, and later a hi-tech clinic are thrilling to say the least (particularly the morgue freezer sequence), and Jerry Goldsmith's superb score adds a chilling edge to the proceedings. Thumbs up.



House of Whipcord (Pete Walker, 1974)
Penny Irving plays a gullible French exchange student-come-model (Anne-Marie) who gets a slap on the wrist from the law after exposing herself in public for a photo-shoot. Soon she's being seduced by sinister lothario Mark E. Desade (Geddit) played by Robert Tayman who couldn't look any more evil if he donned plastic horns and took to carrying a trident around. After the obligatory wining and dining Mark's whisking her off up north for the weekend to meet his parents. Unfortunately for Anne-Marie Mark's parents are a couple of crackpots who run an illegal women's prison in which they sadistically readdress the failings of the British justice system...

What could have been a smart satire, and social commentary on the erosion of justice in modern society is sadly given a mundane, and dare I say it, dumb treatment here. Irving (who's French accent is no more convincing than Dick Van Dyke's English patter) is awful, but the rest of the cast are fine; especially Sheila Keith who steals it as the sadistic warden, Barbara Markham as the loony-bin Governor, and Patrick Barr as her well meaning, but senile husband. Unfortunately the film is sluggishly paced, and most unforgivably; rendered completely ridiculous by the fact the young prison inmates never think of overpowering the three middle aged female guards, and casually walking out of the prison. Add to that Irving's unsympathetic lack of brain cells, and a third act that lapses into escape attempt cliche, and you're merely left with Keith, and the interplay between Markham and Barr who provide the film's conversational bright spots. Disappointing considering the intriguing premise.



The Fifth Cord / Giornata nera per l'ariete (Luigi Bazzoni, 1971)
Franco Nero plays Andrea; an alcoholic journalist on the trail of a killer who only strikes on a Tuesday, and leaves a glove behind with a finger cut off for each of his victims. At first Andrea is on good terms with the police, and making progress with his investigation, but each of the victims are people he knows, and his lack of an alibi soon makes him a prime suspect. Matters take a turn for the worse when he deduces the killer's victims are all linked by their zodiac signs; the same sign shared by his estranged wife...

The Fifth Cord is a text book giallo in that it has a meaningless title, poorly drawn supporting characters, the obligatory gloved killer, and a convoluted cliched plot (which isn't helped by one of said supporting characters changing wigs so you don't recognise her). Typically it also sports some excellent set pieces; not least a scene in which an invalid woman (Rossella Falk) is stranded without her wheelchair, and reduced to crawling around her mansion with the killer lurking. The coup de grace however comes with a genuinely frightening climactic sequence in which a young boy at home alone is stalked after laboriously closing a series of automatic window shutters. These sequences (like the whole film) are made all the more atmospheric and satisfying by cinematographer Vittorio Storaro's (of Il Conformista, and Apocalypse Now fame) wonderful compositions and lighting. I'm not exaggerating when I say The Fifth Cord is one of the best looking thrillers you will ever see; all angular shadows, blue gel lighting, silhouetted figures, and stunning architecture. Sadly the substance isn't there to match, but Nero is always watchable, and does good job here as the womanising alcoholic protagonist. Giallo fans on the look out for the obligatory bottles of J&B will also no doubt find the shot of Nero swigging from one at the wheel of his car highly amusing. Good for genre fans only.

other stuff I watched...



Prison (Renny Harlin, 1988) +
Before he went all Michael Bay Hollywood, Renny ''Die Hard 2'' Harlin turned out this decent low budget horror flick for Charles Band's Empire Pictures. Here, pretty boy jail bird, Burke (Viggo Mortensen who looks like he's just stepped out of a Calvin Klein advert) is shipped off to an old recently reopened prison governed by hard case Warden Eaton Sharpe (Lane Smith). Before you can say 'don't pick up the soap' Burke is ordered to knock through a wall to an old Electric chair chamber in the basement, unwittingly releasing the spirit of wrongly executed prisoner Charles Forsythe (also Mortensen). Naturally all hell breaks loose, as the bodies pile up, and a trail of corruption is exposed leading to Warden Sharpe and bloody retribution...

Prison impressed me with it's moody direction from Harlin that makes excellent use of the bleak setting, and delivers some cool special effects that still hold up today (the razor wire sequence is especially good). The film has an impending air of dread about it, and riffs on, as opposed to lazily exploiting the cliches that come with the prison flick genre. On the downside Mortensen is far too pretty to convince as a tough guy convict, and delivers his lines with all the gusto of a church mouse (the scene in which he grabs the crotch of a man mountain adversary who subsequently turns chicken is painfully unconvincing). The support from the likes of Lane Smith however is great and the film is action packed and generally very entertaining. Much better than Wes Craven's similarly themed Shocker, released the following year. Recommended.

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100 Favourites From The Future: REWIRED

I'd have to give "Whipcord" another mate.

What with all the blood curdling screams of the punished, the silhouette of the ever ready noose, the broken, whipped bodies of the prisoners (and the severe mental breakdowns they experience) all these visual/audio ingredients are expertly crafted by Walker to make a very powerful, dark and disturbing look at what horrors the Human mind can create when fanatical beliefs mix with outright psychosis.

Keith is great isn't she? She never fails to deliver. One of the most underrated horror stalwarts ever.

Don't get me wrong I enjoyed House of Whipcord; it's just I wanted more from the subject matter than boobs, torture and sadism. I wasn't expecting anything more than exploitation, but found the film underwhelming because there was a fantastic opportunity for some great satire there, and I don't think Walker nailed it.

The best part of the film for me was E. Desade's seduction of Anne-Marie at the beginning. I thought it was both creepy and blackly comic because Irving's character was so gullible, and Tayman's so sinister and predatory. It was almost like watching Peter Cook in Bedazzled.

Then Tayman disappeared (talk about wasting a great character) and the film entered run-of-the-mill women in prison territory for me. I agree Keith is sensational and I'd like to see more of her films, but the only other scenes of merit were between Markham and Barr in which they debated the morals of their actions. Sadly these were too few, and the rest of the film just didn't stand up to scrutiny for me. Media Blasters' transfer sucks too. I assume you've got the spiffing UK boxset.

French Kiss (Lawrence Kasdan, 1995)



Cute romantic bauble which allows Kevin Kline to play Luc, a Frenchman with a sometimes full-blown Monty Pythonish French accent. Meg Ryan basically plays herself while trying to retrieve the fiance (Timothy Hutton) who jilted her, and she gets involved with the Kline character who's stolen a necklace and planted it in her bag aboard a plane flying into Paris. Multiple problems arise when the bag is stolen, the fiance is already engaged to a younger Frenchwoman (Suzan Auban) and a police inspector (Jean Reno) wants to bust Luc for the jewels and a grapevine he snuck into the country. The chemistry between Ryan and Kline is excellent and the beautiful French locations add to the air of romance and mystery which permeates this lightweight charmer. Be sure to stay for the credits to hear Kline sing "La Mer" in French which Bobby Darin popularized in America as "Beyond the Sea".

God Forgives... I Don't (Giuseppe Colizzi, 1967)



Acceptable spaghetti western with a solid cast comes across as a lite version of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. When a train rolls into town with all the passengers murdered and $100,000 in cash missing, Cat Stevens (!) aka "Pretty Face" (Terence Hill) and his hulking sidekick Hutch (Bud Spencer) realize that it seems to be the work of outlaw Bill San Antonio (Frank Wolff). The strange thing about that is that Cat killed Bill months earlier during a duel in a burning building, but maybe it was just a set-up. This is the first teaming of Hill and Spencer and it offers plenty of fist fights and gunplay. Wolff is an impressive villain, and the whole thing has a modicum of wit although it does play out quite a bit darker than you may expect from having watched the Trinity films.

Putney Swope (Robert Downey, 1969) +



Robert Downey Jr.'s dad directed this satire on corporate advertising during the height of the Black Power movement, and although it has quite a few laugh-out-loud commercials in it, it's a bit too one-note to qualify as a success. Putney Swope (Arnold Johnson) is the token black man on the Board of Directors of a huge advertising agency, but when the President dies, he's accidentally elected to take his place and quickly changes the company's white bread traditions to those of his Soul Brothers and Sisters. Some of his ad campaigns are hilarious and the entire flick is refreshingly un-P.C. However, there are few things which hurt the overall effect of the film, and for me, number one is that Putney's voice is dubbed by none other than the director himself. At first, it provides some weird comedy to the mix, but once it becomes clear that we're hearing a white guy's voice substituting for the new Black "Prince", it somewhat blunts what I think was the intended effect. Another flaw I find with the film is that it gets awfully repetitive, so if you think it's overall funnier than I do, then you'll probably think even the repetitious parts are funny, but I didn't find them to be. I also wish that Antonio Fargas's "Arab" character had more screen time. Even so, I'm going to rewatch this film again because when it started I was somewhat caught off guard by Downey's absurdist leanings even though I was smiling quite a bit and obviously should have been prepared since I'd already seen his Greaser's Palace.

Mr. Brooks (Bruce A. Evans, 2007)



The writing team that brought us Starman and Stand by Me are back with one of them directing a different kind of flick, one where Kevin Costner convincingly plays a fastidious serial killer who, although happily married (to Marg Helgenberger), with a college-aged daughter (Daniele Panabaker) and "Man of the Year" in his local business community, just has to periodically let off steam by becoming the Thumbprint Killer, aided and abetted by his imaginary sidekick Marshall (William Hurt). This latest murder committed by Mr. Brooks was witnessed through an open window by an up-and-coming psycho photographer known as "Mr. Smith" (Dane Cook), who basically blackmails Mr. Brooks to take him on his next murder. There's also a millionaire policewoman [don't ask] (Demi Moore) who's in the middle of a nasty divorce and takes an active interest in trying to again solve the case of the Thumbprint Killer. Mr. Brooks isn't campy at all and it delivers a surprising amount of sex and violence to go along with a complex cat-and-mouse plot. In fact, there seems to be about four cats and maybe eight mice in the film, so along with delivering some mostly-intelligent psychology and suspense, Mr. Brooks always keeps you guessing when and if the various shoes set up during the flick will drop and in what order. This film should even be solid entertainment for any Costner haters out there... I dare say.

Time After Time (Nicholas Meyer, 1979) +



I realize that 42ndSt reviewed this recently in here, and I pretty much agree with what he said about all the charm, suspense and humor which this film has to offer. My wife loves romantic adventures and murder mysteries, so this film, with one of the greatest plots I can think of, is obviously right up her alley. The acting by the three principals is all outstanding, with Malcolm McDowell (Victorian H.G. Wells) and future real-life-wife Mary Steenburgen (liberated 1979 San Francisco woman Amy) a perfect fit as a couple totally unsuited for each other who are still destined to be together, and David Warner is suitably menacing as a Jack the Ripper who finds San Francisco's Tenderloin District a perfect amusement park for his metallic predilections. The film is propelled by Miklos Rozsa's rich romantic suspense score just as much as its race-against-time plot, especially when Jack sets his sites on Amy, and the couple learn that according to one of the local newspapers from the future, he successfully kills her! This is one of those films which is just right the way it is. Please don't remake it and ruin all the thrills and romance with a lot of pointless CGI effects.

The Witches (Nicolas Roeg, 1990) +



You should already know that I'm a heretic around here (and elsewhere) and often say things which other film buffs/historians can only shake their heads at. Well, here comes another one. This is my fave Nic Roeg film. I was hooked right from the opening credits, flying over the snowy Scandinavian mountains and ending in a spooky Norwegian village where the wise Grandma (Mai Zetterling) of young Luke (Jasen Fisher) tells him scary warnings on how to protect himself from murderous witches. This being a Roald Dahl story, three people die in the first ten minutes, and the majority of the film is set at an enormous hotel at the English seaside where Granny, Luke and Luke's two pet mice just coincidentally come to stay where a convention of witches is meeting under the auspex of the Grand High Witch (Anjelica Huston) herself, who once cut off one of Granny's fingers. Luke makes friends with Bruno (Charlie Potter) and eventually both boys are turned into mice by the witches whose ultimate plan is to turn all children of the world into mice and then destroy them. The film begins as a dark, suspenseful thriller and then turns into something resembling a kid's version of an Indiana Jones movie with expert special effects and makeup. The supporting cast is full of familiar faces and farceurs, including Rowan Atkinson as the hotel manager, Bill Paterson and Brenda Blethyn as Bruno's parents, Jane Horrocks as the High Witch's secretary, Jenny Runacre as an English witch working in the hotel and Jim Carter as the Head Chef who would like nothing better than to cut off one of the boy's tails with a carving knife. Sure, one could quibble about such details as using rat stand-ins for the mice, but I'm not going to do that here.

Keetje Tippel (Paul Verhoeven, 1975)



I saw this and Verhoeven's earlier Turkish Delight at the theatre in the mid-1970s and subsequently watched his epic Soldier of Orange at the art house. Turkish Delight was a self-imposed X rating here in the U.S. and this film got an R even though it has a shadow of a fully-erect penis seen on a wall right next to the face of the lead character who then proceeds to lose her virginity to the guy attached to said hard-on. Keetje Tippel is about an impoverished Dutch family who moves to Amsterdam in 1881 to try to find work and make a living. Keetje (Monique van de ven) is the family's beautiful, eldest daughter, and she proceeds to take several poor-paying jobs where she's always taken advantage of. Eventually she becomes a prostitute and her eyes are awakened as to the pitiful working conditions for almost the entire proletariat. So yes, although Verhoeven was always obsessed with sex and violence, he shows a political awareness in some of his Dutch films which is mostly lacking from his mainstream American entertainments. This film does feature Rutger Hauer as a man whom Keetje wants to grow old with and is gorgeously photographed (slums and all) by Verhoeven regular, Jan de Bont. What seems the most incredible of all is that Keetje Tippel is based on an autobiographical novel by Neel Doff who became a very popular socialist author and this film claims was nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature although the veracity of that claim is open to question.

The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (Delbet Mann, 1960) +



William Inge's play is turned into superb, honest entertainment. Even though it's almost 50 years old and set in the 1920s, this film really seemed to be about important issues which are affecting most everybody today. For example, how is Dad (Robert Preston) going to find a job to take care of his family? He had a traveling salesman job which supported them but his business is becoming extinct (he sells supplies for horses and the internal combustion engine has taken over). Now, since Mom (Dorothy McGuire) and Dad are having difficulty with their lovemaking because he's gone too often and they don't have as much money as she thinks they need, how is he even going to tell her that he lost his job? They quarrel and he goes off to see a lifelong friend (Angela Lansbury) who has carried a torch for him since school days, but he's never been unfaithful to his wife, so they just talk and she gives him a place to sleep. Mom calls her older sister (Eve Arden) and her milquetoast husband (Frank Overton) over to try to comfort her when Dad storms out of the house. Meanwhile, their daughter (Shirley Knight) is scared to death to wear her fancy new dress to a country club dance, but she feels much better when she learns who her blind date is, but even these kids can't even get a chance to have a childhood because of adults' petty prejudices. Then there's the family's younger son (Robert Eyer) who enjoys collecting photographs of silent movie stars, fireflies and bullfrogs. He seems like maybe he can be a kid, but wait a minute.... This flick still retains all the plainspoken honesty, tragedy and humor about what it means to be alive, and Robert Preston in particular is in standout form, fresh from his Broadway popularity in The Music Man. There are no simple answers to life's problems but everyone has to go through them no matter how difficult they can be, but this wonderful film does illuminate that there's more than just dark at the top of the stairs.

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It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Loving this stuff guys!!

Mark - Top thoughts there on "Time after Time". Glad to see some love for this film.

Nice to see you liked the rather overlooked "Mr Brooks". I thought this was a wonderful little film that delivered a good plot, fine performances, some good violence and some nice little twists.
Pretty much ignored because it seems Costner can do no right any more.


Used - No worries my friend.
I love your insights and we share an appreciation for similar movies.
I do agree with some of what you say...there was a formula here. But I guess I can forgive some of this 'let's just get to the whipping' attitude because it's done so well and for it's time this was pretty groundbreaking stuff as far as UK horror goes.

I agree that, some top notch Keith rants aside, any social/justice (social justice even) remarks and points were pretty much left until the very end scroll (this stance on rehabilitation is something Walker and McGillivray cover in a lot of their movies as you probably know, including the weak "Schizo", the fine "The Confessional" and the damn fine "Frightmare") but the pure Exploitation sequences were handled so well I'd have to give it 3 popcorn boxes.

Er.......as far as versions go, I have the Uk 'Redemption' DVD actually. I picked up the films over a time as separate releases. I've not got the boxset.

"Nowhere to Hide" -

The under-appreciated Amy "Streets of Fire" Madigan (one of those forgotten Oscar winners) stars as the tough wife of a murdered Airforce Major, who was killed because he was investigating a series of mysterious helicopter crashes.
On the run for her life,with her little boy, she fights to discover the truth....


Dreadfully overlooked little action thriller from (I assume) Canada.
Low budget it may be, but thanks to a stirling cast, fine acting, a tight pace and well staged action this conspiracy thriller has been a favourite of mine for many years.

While not overly violent it does have its moments, the strongest being the blood spattered shooting of the Husband (well played and who could easily have been a likeable lead hero) that ends on a genuinely disturbing note when his body drops onto the bed where his Son is hiding, meaning the child has to look right into the blood smeared face and staring eyes of his dead father.

Madigan is great here and does a superb job essaying a tough, resilient woman, a grief stricken widow, a terrified victim and a determined Mother throughout the movie.
The film makes her a strong nemesis for the bad guys (she despatches them with everything from guns to a blowtorch), while never (until the rather OTT finale) moving her away from what she ultimately is...A realisticlly scared, grieving, woman trying to protect her child.

Lots of tense moments and action is spaced nicely into the opening hour, and one of the best parts of the film has yet to even make an appearance...Michael Ironside!
The always welcome and wonderful Mr Ironside plays an ex-Army family friend, who now lives as a recluse in the mountains, who Madigan turns to for help when all seems lost, and he does a lovely job in a (sadly) too short role.
But he has a chance to shine as he takes out bad guys with his doberman dogs and deadly bow and arrows!

Should be better known and available.
Check it out for some solid, no nonsense, well acted, very 80's (bad 'military' synth score included) action funstuffs.

Serenity
I loved the TV show Firefly, and this feature film is a nice coda to the series. Part western, part sci/fi adventure, it should please both fans of the show and newcomers to the Serenity universe. The fast-paced action (especially in the third act) and smart dialogue hearken back to Star Wars: ANH (think of a spaceship full of Han Solo-like characters). it also provides a bit more of a back story to the mysterious prodigy River. My only complaint is that they didn't make much use of Ron Glass' character. Whether that was a decision by Mr. Glass or the movie's producers, I don't know, but he was missed.





Spiral
A weird littler indy film about a disturbed telemarketer who is befriended by a charming female coworker. He starts sketching her, then painting her, becoming more and more obsessed as the movie progresses. Although it's not a great film by any means, it did hold my interest and kept me wondering where it was going to go.
NOTE: This was listed as a horror movie. It is NOT HORROR. I'd call it more psychological suspense. Not great, but not bad, either. The acting from the entire cast was superb.





Bell, Book, and Candle
I saw this nmovie when I was a kid (my pet dinosaur watched it with me), and I remember loving it. Unfortunately, it hasn't held up too well. Book publisher Jimmy Stewart meets witch Kim Novak, and is introduced, unbeknownst to him, to her circle of witchy friends. Hilarity ensues. Ummm...yeah. With a cast including, besides Stewart and Novak, Jack Lemmon, Elsa Lanchester, and Ernie Kovacs, you'd think this would be a can't miss proposition. Unfortunately, due to ham-handed directing by Richard Quine and overacting by Stewart, it doesn't exactly hit the mark.

Oh well, I'll slot this next to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang under Memories Best Left Undisturbed.

"Drag me to Hell"

Nice to see our Sam getting back to his whacked-out horror roots with a fine little film that manages to mix his hyper-kinetic, slapstick, horror violence (though no real gore sadly) and sticky fluid throwing with top notch FX work and high tech gloss.

Nicely played by all, this is packed with memorable moments, but perhaps it does blow its load too early with the truly stunning, laugh out loud funny, gross, exciting, creepy as hell car park fight scene, as our heroine, Christine, fights off the rampaging power of a pissed off old Gypsy woman with a grotesque eye and even worse dentures.
This is easily one of the finest moments in Raimi's career.

From then on we have some good and well crafted scares and smackdowns as Christine's 'dragged to Hell' possible fate gets nearer.
Raimi astutely plays these fright scenes for (for the most part) black comic laughs and the chance to pile on the slapstick violence.
This ensures the incidents become purely entertainment, instead of seriously delivered false scares, which would have been a huge and costly mistake as the plot has explicity told us that actually...she's not in the slightest bit of real danger yet.

Fans of his early work will relish the muck, filth, vomit, goo and blood plastered all over these scenes as well as the 'Three Stooges' level of bodily abuse.
And almost all the effects are expertly rendered and imaginative.

And if it wasn't for one easily avoidable cock-up near the end involving far too much (needlessly and easily avoided) fuss being made about something happening that should barely have got any coverage at all...The film would also have ended as effectively as the journey to that ending most certainly was.
The ending itself is perfectly fine...Raimi just blew the possible effectiveness of it by foolishly telling us pretty much what was going to happen 10 minutes or so before.

There were also a few other niggles.
Much is made of Christine's bashed up lip in one sequence, only to have said bashed up lip in the very next scene (in huge close-up no less) then shown to be absolutely unmarked in any way! Boy, frozen peas are a miracle cure!

We are also informed about the Seer who Christine goes to visit offering to refund money paid for her aborted fortune reading.
Yet, in one continuous scene, all the Seer ever does is take hold of the credit card, walk into a room, turn the light off and sit down at the table to do the reading.
Unless the guy is not just a palm reader but also Human credit card reader...he never took any money!

The film also has some plot hiccups as far as huge jumps in the narrative go, which makes me think a number of bridging scenes were cut.
For example Christine goes from walking out of a dinner, to a bust up at the Indian Seer's shop, to her trying to gather money together to pay for help when all of a sudden her boyfriend comes in and says he has paid the Seer!
But as far as we are shown the boyfriend was never with her during any of these scenes, she has had no contact with him and has no idea at all about the need for money or what it's for.
And seeing as only Christine can see and hear what she does...there is actually no sense in her uber-sceptical boyfriend suddenly becoming uncertain about what he believes.
It seems some kind of rushed editing of screenplay or actual footage shot was the order of the day.

Al this aside though..."Drag me to Hell" was a nice return to his roots for Raimi and, although disappointingly low on gore, it delivers tons of fast paced, slam bang supernatural violence, laughs and thrills.

I saw this a while back an loved it. Veidt's performance is amazing, as he imbues his character with every human emotion, even though his face is always fixed in the same expression.

It was also nice to see him as something other than a villain, as he was in Casablanca and The Thief of Bagdad.

Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1972)

Up (2009)

Nineteen Eighty-Four (Radford, 1984)

I'm quite the fan of Orwell's original, so naturally Radford's approach agreed with me. Very honest translation, with all the right nods and voice-overs to streamline the experience of reading the book. Doubleplusgood.




Sunshine Cleaning (Jeffs, 2008)

Really taken with this one. Like any great Indie, Sunshine Cleaning is quirky and sincere, and takes its concept a little deeper - never forgetting its audience's desire to relate to the characters and their experiences. The way the "job" is treated was wonderful, but doesn't floor me nearly as much as the girls' search to know their mother. Incredible film.

And I'm in love with Amy Adams.

"In love", get in line...



(I love you Brenda.)

Sorry you didn't like Up! more.
That's my second favorite Pixar film after Toy Story.