The Return of Torgo and Wooley's September Excite-o-rama!

It smells here...

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I'm certain I saw Legend back when I was a kid, but I literally don't remember anything. Need to check it out again. Same with the Conans.

Hahahaha!

Today I learned that Don Coscarelli directed a Dio video, and this seems like the appropriate thread to share this news.

Oh Hell yeah.

Of course, now I have to post Rainbow In The Dark.
Because this thread is about fantasy and sci-fi and magic and lightning and shit, so any song where Dio sings, "I cry out for MAGIC!" must appear here.

Europa Report -

If there’s anything to be said about space exploration, it’s that it’s really expensive. If it's not the millions if not billions it takes to fund such projects, Gemini 9 and Apollo 1 remind us that they can also cost human lives. Sebastian Cordero and company managed to make a pretty cool thriller that always has this point in mind. Filmed like a documentary, it's about a project to travel to the titular moon of Jupiter to discover if life exists under its icy surface. If you think everything goes according to plan, then I have a space shuttle I want to sell you.

Applying a documentary format to a genre movie must be difficult due to its varying degrees of success (I have issues with District 9's attempt, for instance). This one does a pretty good job of it, though. It splices interview clips into every act in a way that adds suspense and that doesn't slow the pace. Speaking of District 9, Sharlto Copley is a standout in an ensemble cast of performers I'm always happy to see like Michael Nyqvist (R.I.P.), Daniel Wu and Embeth Davidtz. Copley's endearing, wisecracking family man adds welcome comic relief and he nails an American accent, with it sounding like he watched all of Tom Cruise's movies in preparation. As for the good stuff, i.e., the thrills and chills, they worked for me more often than not, especially since the movie makes it clear that everyone in the ship's crew is fair game. Oh, and that it's parked on a thin layer of ice with a completely dark ocean underneath definitely helps.

As much as I enjoyed this movie, if I were asked to rank it with other claustrophobic space thrillers, I'd put it somewhere in the middle. I'd describe it as a lite version of the best ones I've seen and not just because it has an obviously low budget. In other words, it's as if the producers were very careful about maintaining a PG-13 rating. Also, the ending is also a little too pat, abrupt and left me wanting. I still give it credit for making me think twice about the extraordinary costs of discovering what is or isn't out there. As Daniel Wu's captain puts it, "even if we found nothing, it's an effective discovery."

My rating: 3 unexplained underwater flashy things out of 5

My guy (or gal): Andrei Blok (Michael Nyqvist), a guy we all know who seems irascible at first, but who will bend over backwards to get the job done or give his friends a helping hand.

I thought that one was decent. I liked it slightly more on a rewatch, but I'm still not a fan of it.

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Your ratings are great.
I meant to watch this movie years ago but it just kinda fell by the way-side. May re-add it to the list. But I need to see High Life first. And probably Moon. After I finish all my low-budget 80s post-apocalypse action movies.

Moon is great. I would watch that one first. I haven't seen High Life, but I've heard it's one of those love it or hate it movies.
For what it's worth, the writer of Europa Report also co-wrote last year's The Spine of Night, which is a really good animated fantasy movie from last year that's sort of a tribute to Ralph Bakshi movies like Fire and Ice.

I like Claire Denis a lot though, so I'm excited for that one.
I heard Spine of Night was interesting, I think maybe Cap sort of recommended it. It's in one of my queues somewhere.

Below are pictures of some of the best cosplayers I saw at DragonCon this year.

Odd Boba Fett mashups was a trend this year:





Here's a pretty good Colin Robinson from What We Do in the Shadows (the character in my avatar):



Some more good ones:







The clear winner:

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I highly recommend both of those.

I really need to rewatch that one (High Life). It was my first Denis and it probably wasn't a good entry point. Obviously I really clicked with Beau Travail when it finally showed up on the Criterion Channel.

Fwiw, The Next Picture Show is pairing The Thief of Baghdad (1940, not the 1920's one) with 3000 Years of Longing.


I thought of this thread when listening.

Oh that's cool. I like tToB and I been meaning to see Longing.

"A crazy journey into the future!"

Ok, so, full disclosure here. I only made it about 40-50% of the way through She.
It’s not always easy to watch ultra-low-budget genre movies back to back to back to back and this one, despite Sandahl Bergman, was just a bridge too far. It brings up a thing I've been thinking about while I do my viewing this month which is that I have no issue watching very low-budget movies, as we will continue to see, as long as they have realistic goals. When I struggle, as we saw with Krull, is when movies get caught between ambition and economic reality. This is true of She.
The only interesting thing to come of my time with this film is that nugget and, on a positive note, that I was reminded that Sandahl Bergman was actually a professional dancer on Broadway, picked out by Bob Fosse no less for his legendary production of Pippin, who was cast in Conan after appearing in Fosse’s All That Jazz. Due to her athleticism from dance, and that fact that she’s SIX FEET TALL (so they couldn’t find a stunt-woman to match her size on screen) she became her own stunt-woman on the film.

Sandahl Bergman seems like a pretty cool lady. That’s what I took away from the 45 minutes I spent on She.

She is one of those movies that sounds a lot more fun on paper than it is actually watching it. Its pretty dull even though the plot summary includes stuff like