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6/10. The acting really hurt this one.
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There has been an awekening.... have you felt it?
There has been an awekening.... have you felt it?
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Lover Stalker Killer
I saw Phoenix mention this Netflix true crime documentary in this thread. My wife and I always watch shows like 20/20 and 48 Hours so this was right up our alley. We watch so many of these that we can quickly see where they're going but that doesn't hurt our enjoyment at all. This particular story features an especially crazy person and unfortunately some not so uncommon shoddy police work in the beginning. If this is your thing then it's a good watch.This is one of the most impressive documentaries I've seen in the past several years. It's a complex and almost unbelievable love triangle story that is definitely stranger than fiction!
But beyond the unique and strange tale itself, it's a very well put together documentary that keeps the viewer glued to the screen for every minute to the end. There is a twist that completely sandbagged me.
The direction by Sam Hobkinson is superb, and the very effective music score by Nick Foster perfectly sustains the various moods throughout.
If one likes true crime documentaries, this is one of the best.
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Really appreciate the tip on this one! I must have missed Phoenix's recommendation.
This is one of the most impressive documentaries I've seen in the past several years. It's a complex and almost unbelievable love triangle story that is definitely stranger than fiction!
But beyond the unique and strange tale itself, it's a very well put together documentary that keeps the viewer glued to the screen for every minute to the end. There is a twist that completely sandbagged me.
The direction by Sam Hobkinson is superb, and the very effective music score by Nick Foster perfectly sustains the various moods throughout.
If one likes true crime documentaries, this is one of the best.
This is one of the most impressive documentaries I've seen in the past several years. It's a complex and almost unbelievable love triangle story that is definitely stranger than fiction!
But beyond the unique and strange tale itself, it's a very well put together documentary that keeps the viewer glued to the screen for every minute to the end. There is a twist that completely sandbagged me.
The direction by Sam Hobkinson is superb, and the very effective music score by Nick Foster perfectly sustains the various moods throughout.
If one likes true crime documentaries, this is one of the best.
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They do us all a service. Humans need constant reminding that they should not take so many things so seriously. Movies like The Crawling Eye, or The Crawling Hand, or The Slime People certainly rank pretty low on my cinematic scale.
The Slime People (1963)
Very atmospheric, especially in scenes with the ubiquitous fog. At times, the fog is so thick, you can hardly see a thing. It creates an amazing fuzzy layer on the image. I watched it on my laptop in the middle of the night, the screen some 40 centimeters from my face. At times, I felt as if the mist was cloaking me!
The eponymous slime people look really badass, too. The slime men attacking through the roof windows or one of them coming out of the trash bin was genuinely surprising. The slime man trying to get through the door and one of the protagonists forcing the door to close while the monster was pushing in was genuinely scary. I had this sort of nightmare many times as a child, though the ones trying to enter the flat weren't monsters but robbers in my dream.
A tunnel shot in The Slime People (1963) and Le révélateur (1968)
Most of the bad sides work in the film's favor.
The stilted acting during the romance scene early on was a good thing, as it successfully underscored the awkwardness of the start of something "more" between two people.
There's a wonderful sense of artifice at times. For example, a shot showing the inside of the car is obviously not a real car but a car machine that jerks in a weird, unnatural way. This is one of those moments when something that's badly made/awkward becomes an advantage, as it heightens the sense of artifice and as such, the meta side of the film. We're watching a dream unfold in front of us while realizing this dream is artificial. This requires a higher level of suspension of disbelief and trying to achieve it only puts you into an even higher state of psychotronic hypnosis. I don't see much difference between this and arthouse/avant-garde movies.
The monster kidnapping the woman reminded me of Robot Monster! Too bad there was no kinbaku and off-screen rape in the cave this time!
A great example of what you can do with a bunch of people and a fog machine: much more than many contemporary filmmakers can do with multi-million dollars of budget.
I prefer this to any Nolan, Gerwig, Garland, Tarantino, you name it.
Very atmospheric, especially in scenes with the ubiquitous fog. At times, the fog is so thick, you can hardly see a thing. It creates an amazing fuzzy layer on the image. I watched it on my laptop in the middle of the night, the screen some 40 centimeters from my face. At times, I felt as if the mist was cloaking me!
The eponymous slime people look really badass, too. The slime men attacking through the roof windows or one of them coming out of the trash bin was genuinely surprising. The slime man trying to get through the door and one of the protagonists forcing the door to close while the monster was pushing in was genuinely scary. I had this sort of nightmare many times as a child, though the ones trying to enter the flat weren't monsters but robbers in my dream.
A tunnel shot in The Slime People (1963) and Le révélateur (1968)
Most of the bad sides work in the film's favor.
The stilted acting during the romance scene early on was a good thing, as it successfully underscored the awkwardness of the start of something "more" between two people.
There's a wonderful sense of artifice at times. For example, a shot showing the inside of the car is obviously not a real car but a car machine that jerks in a weird, unnatural way. This is one of those moments when something that's badly made/awkward becomes an advantage, as it heightens the sense of artifice and as such, the meta side of the film. We're watching a dream unfold in front of us while realizing this dream is artificial. This requires a higher level of suspension of disbelief and trying to achieve it only puts you into an even higher state of psychotronic hypnosis. I don't see much difference between this and arthouse/avant-garde movies.
The monster kidnapping the woman reminded me of Robot Monster! Too bad there was no kinbaku and off-screen rape in the cave this time!
A great example of what you can do with a bunch of people and a fog machine: much more than many contemporary filmmakers can do with multi-million dollars of budget.
I prefer this to any Nolan, Gerwig, Garland, Tarantino, you name it.
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And for an album to lull me to sleep, I chose the following raw, ear-piercing children's music blues.
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Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.
Look, I'm not judging you - after all, I'm posting here myself, but maybe, just maybe, if you spent less time here and more time watching films, maybe, and I stress, maybe your taste would be of some value. Just a thought, ya know.
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This Never Happened
Dont see this movie. The trailer essentially shows off the best parts of the movie and inbetween demon girls, it tries to pretend to be something its not.
Dont see this movie. The trailer essentially shows off the best parts of the movie and inbetween demon girls, it tries to pretend to be something its not.
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Last Movie Watched: The Banishing (2020).
Last TV Show Watched: Resident Evil (S1:E7).
Last TV Show Watched: Resident Evil (S1:E7).
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Mother of the Bride (2024) I watched this today on Netflix. This is generic and formulaic and is pretty much what you expect. Brooke Shields and Benjamin Bratt do a decent job, although I didn't care for Miranda Cosgrove's performance. The screenplay is mediocre, but the film is mildly amusing in spurts. It's the type of Netflix film you watch once and then forget about.
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Umpteenth Rewatch...The number two box office champion of 1977 behind Star Wars, is a brainless and breezy comedy starred the late Burt Reynolds, at the height of his, sexy charm, as a former rodeo star who is offered $80,000 to get a truck filled with 400 cases of Coors beer across state lines for a millionaire's birthday in 28 hours. Throw in a runaway bride (Sally Field) and a redneck sheriff (the late Jackie Gleason) and you have all the ingredients for the comedy smash of 1977 that is as entertaining now as it was then. All the CB radio lingo dates it a bit (whatever happened to CB radios?), but this movie is still all kinds of fun. It was also the genesis of one of the great offscreen Hollywood romances with Burt and Sally Field.
Last edited by Gideon58; 4 days ago at 12:54 PM.
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1st Rewatch...This edgy and compelling melodrama is a look at the relationship that developed between writer Thomas Wolfe and his editor, Max Perkins of Scribner Publishing, who before meeting Wolfe was also behind the publishing of "The Sun Also Rises" and "The Great Gatsby". According to this screenplay, a bizarre triangle develops between Wolfe, Perkins, and Aileen Bernstein, a married theater designer who was keeping Wolfe and was not happy with the time Wolfe was spending with Perkins. More interesting though was the working relationship between Wolfe and Perkins, which found Wolfe agreeing to anything Max suggested, but fighting him on any word that Perkins attempted to edit. The story strains credibility at time, even if we are talking about real life people but director Michael Grandage is to be applauded for first rate production values and the extraordinary performances he gets from his stars. Dominic West and Guy Pearce offer great guest appearances as Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald, respectively and Colin Firth turns in another one of his beautifully understated performances as Max Perkins . Jude Law gives the performance of his career as an unhinged Thomas Wolfe, but the one you walk away from this film remembering is Oscar winner Nicole Kidman in a bone-chilling performance as Mrs Bernstein that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Her performance alone makes this film worth a look.
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Last night, it was an old favorite, the 1980 version of The Fog.....not the later remake. It's John Carpenter at his auteur peak, modest production, only a few actors you've heard of, but it's set in a real place where I've been. "Spivey Point" is the lighthouse at Point Reyes, north of San Francisco, a lonely, windy spot that is perfect for spooks and storms. It has not just one scream queen, but two....Jamie Lee Curtis AND Adrienne Barbaux.
Carpenter wrote and directed the movie, did a bit of acting and composed the minimal background music. It's a perfect movie for the actual place, and the perfect plot line for an isolated lighthouse. Now and again, I need to go back and watch this.
8/10
Carpenter wrote and directed the movie, did a bit of acting and composed the minimal background music. It's a perfect movie for the actual place, and the perfect plot line for an isolated lighthouse. Now and again, I need to go back and watch this.
8/10
Last edited by skizzerflake; 1 week ago at 03:05 PM.
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The Meyerowitz Stories (2017)
This was a decent watch but I found some of the characterisation somewhat effected. Although I don't mind either of them I found Stiller and Sandler to be irritating and their "meaningful" conversations a bit vapid.
This was a decent watch but I found some of the characterisation somewhat effected. Although I don't mind either of them I found Stiller and Sandler to be irritating and their "meaningful" conversations a bit vapid.
Phantom from Space - This 1953 barely there scifi was directed by Billy Wilder's older brother W. Lee Wilder and co-written by his son Myles. If those names sound familiar it might be because they were also responsible for Killers from Space with Peter Graves squaring up against a bunch of aliens with ping pong balls glued to their eye sockets. This one makes that one look polished by comparison. A UFO is spotted on radar flying over the Arctic Circle, Alaska and finally lands somewhere in Southern California. There's like 20 or so minutes of exposition involving a FCC investigators trying to track the downed ship. They eventually run across a woman claiming she and her husband and friend have been attacked by someone wearing what looked like a deep sea diving suit. One of them ends up dying which brings the police in. The alien is invisible when he takes the suit off which he does to elude capture. But then he needs to get it back in order to survive in Earth's atmosphere. The suit is also highly radioactive which doesn't stop the assorted scientists and cops from manhandling it. The whole thing is an ideal candidate for the MST3K treatment. Those first 20 or so minutes are enough to discourage a lot of viewers but it eventually eases into second gear. And stays there the rest of the way. Check this out if you're having trouble sleeping.
30/100
Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist (D)
Sequel (I think?) to the horrendous Nicolas Cage movie that basically called you an ******* if you weren't a christian. This one isn't quite so abrasive in that specific way, but is insufferable in others.
The Kirk Cameron movie, whatever faults it may have had, stayed on topic as a standalone story focusing on its own actual plot. This movie lays it on 4 foot thick that Kevin Sorbo has issues with the UN, the WEF, the WHO, covid, etc, etc. The way the main character is used as this lone rebel questioning the narrative (including a FAKE SECOND WAVE of vanishings! Get it?) somehow makes the apocalyptic plot seem like a side story.
The whole thing is also given a terrible narration that only serves to emphasize what you're going to see. That's about it. Also Neal Mcdonough doesn't play the antichrist. Shoutout to that dream/hallucination with the dollar store Jesus. That was a choice.
I don't give it an F because it's, as usual, carried by the awesome plot, but I'm gonna read the books one day for the rest of it. I don't have much faith that good movies will be made from the material at this point.
Sequel (I think?) to the horrendous Nicolas Cage movie that basically called you an ******* if you weren't a christian. This one isn't quite so abrasive in that specific way, but is insufferable in others.
The Kirk Cameron movie, whatever faults it may have had, stayed on topic as a standalone story focusing on its own actual plot. This movie lays it on 4 foot thick that Kevin Sorbo has issues with the UN, the WEF, the WHO, covid, etc, etc. The way the main character is used as this lone rebel questioning the narrative (including a FAKE SECOND WAVE of vanishings! Get it?) somehow makes the apocalyptic plot seem like a side story.
The whole thing is also given a terrible narration that only serves to emphasize what you're going to see. That's about it. Also Neal Mcdonough doesn't play the antichrist. Shoutout to that dream/hallucination with the dollar store Jesus. That was a choice.
I don't give it an F because it's, as usual, carried by the awesome plot, but I'm gonna read the books one day for the rest of it. I don't have much faith that good movies will be made from the material at this point.
Daddy Daughter Trip (2022) Watched on Tubi. Rob Schneider co-directed this family comedy and stars alongside his real life daughter. This was pretty cute. Miranda Scarlett Schneider is a better actor than her dad and gives a charming performance. There are some amusing and fun moments.
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1st Rewatch...This edgy and compelling melodrama is a look at the relationship that developed between writer Thomas Wolfe and his editor, Max Perkins of Scribner Publishing, who before meeting Wolfe was also behind the publishing of "The Sun Also Rises" and "The Great Gatsby". According to this screenplay, a bizarre triangle develops between Wolfe, Perkins, and Aileen Bernstein, a married theater designer who was keeping Wolfe and was not happy with the time Wolfe was spending with Perkins. More interesting though was the working relationship between Wolfe and Perkins, which found Wolfe agreeing to anything Max suggested, but fighting him on any word that Perkins attempted to edit. The story strains credibility at time, even if we are talking about real life people but director Michael Grandage is to be applauded for first rate production values and the extraordinary performances he gets from his stars. Dominic West and Guy Pearce offer great guest appearances as Ernest Hemingway and F Scott Fitzgerald, respectively and Colin Firth turns in another one of his beautifully understated performances as Max Perkins . Jude Law gives the performance of his career as an unhinged Thomas Wolfe, but the one you walk away from this film remembering is Oscar winner Nicole Kidman in a bone-chilling performance as Mrs Bernstein that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. Her performance alone makes this film worth a look.
The Meyerowitz Stories (2017)
This was a decent watch but I found some of the characterisation somewhat effected. Although I don't mind either of them I found Stiller and Sandler to be irritating and their "meaningful" conversations a bit vapid.
This was a decent watch but I found some of the characterisation somewhat effected. Although I don't mind either of them I found Stiller and Sandler to be irritating and their "meaningful" conversations a bit vapid.
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I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.
I’m here only on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays. That’s why I’m here now.