Films You Have Watched

[fuse]

Before all the Argento movies disappeared off Mubi I also watched Tenebre. I liked it, but whereas Susiria let you consider on what's going on, everything's a lot more explicit in this with a lot of different people chipping away at the mystery, and a lot more people meeting grizzly ends. There's a lot more self-referential commentary in there too which I don't think lands particularly well, but it's still plenty watchable.

Stuck on The Last Night in Soho for us last night (not in Soho), which I did not like. Feels like another opportunity for Edgar Wright to tell us how cool his taste in music is, while he jumps about with neon lights and fast-paced cuts in a way that felt better suited for a music video. Don't feel like it handled any of the subject matter well, the story was sloppy, and generally just found it made mis-steps at every turn.

[prinnysquad]

Seized (2020) - Scott Adkins is a former special op whose son is kidnapped by cartel boss Mario Van Peebles. To secure the release of his son, Scotty A has to perform various hits. It’s a predictable actioner, weaker than something like John Wick, but surprisingly flab-free and tight. It only clocks in at 85 minutes, so it’s pretty much all action. Adkins is very good as usual, and I found it a very entertaining little flick for what it was.

Fatal Termination (1990) - A great cast (Robin Shou, Moon Lee, Phillip Ko, Simon Yam) in a very muddled story of double crossing and weapons shipments. Maybe it’s just me being thick, but I found it difficult to keep track of who was related to who, and whether or not they’d turned good or evil. Nevertheless, you don’t watch these for the intrigue. It has surprisingly little in the way of action in the first hour. There’s some, but not much. Then the girl-hanging-from-the-car-by-her-hair scene appears, and things get going. Moon Lee, who shows no aptitude for martial arts before, busts out some moves, and everything kicks off, in a rather bleak manner. The film is well-lit in a grimy, gritty way, and there’s several good shots involving helicopters. It’s not quite what I expected, but a pretty good example of late 80s/early 90s HK action. Everyone hams it up nicely, and there’s some good action late on. I recommend it for genre fans, but it’ll not be the balls-to-the-wall style you might expect. The first hour is a pretty depressing story of corruption.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Just got home from watching the recently released remaster of Talking Heads' classic 1984 live concert film Stop Making Sense, directed by the late Jonathan Demme.

An absolute joy to watch from start to finish. Didn't realise that Talking Heads had so many absolute bangers, and that's not even counting the hits.

One of the true all-time great music concert films by one of the best bands of the 1970s/1980s new wave. Well worth a watch/re-watch.

[fallenangle]

Damned right ^; musically almost unclassifiable. I'm not a hard core fan but I've loved so many of their tracks since practically day one. One of the great, creative bands of the last 40+ years but so often overlooked.

Nothing But Flowers from their album Naked is practically my creed. It is a sort of flip-side to Joni Mitchel's Big Yellow Taxi, a lament set in an imagined future where the 'greens' have had their totalitarian way and all the joys and pleasures of suburban life consigned to the dustbin of history. I still play it regularly together with And She Was, Girlfriend Is Better, Once In A Lifetime, Psycho Killer, Road To Nowhere, Blind, etc etc. An incredibly good back catalogue.

What other 'pop' group could even begin to think up a song idea like '.....Flowers' then put it to a speeded up rhythmic Caribbean/African sounding beat and make it work? Little known fact is that Johnny Marr of The Smiths played the 12-string guitar on the track and Kirsty MacColl backing vocals.

Also liked Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth's spin off group: The Tom Tom Club's two hits: Genius Of Love and Wordy Rappinghood.

[Baseley09]

One of the best bands, this old boy doesn't mind the odd tiktok binge and it's great too see young folk on there in raptures over this, seen crowds dancing in the Isles etc in USA - show people a bit of decent music and they'll lap it up.

[Nu-Eclipse]

Also liked Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth's spin off group: The Tom Tom Club's two hits: Genius Of Love and Wordy Rappinghood.

Appropriate given that hip-hop is fifty years old this year.

Genius of Love is probably one of the most important samples ever in terms of the influence that it eventually came to have on rap music.

[Neon Ignition]

The Expendables 4
Heard terrible things about it which considering the others aren't amazing felt damning. It's very clunky at the start and despite the posters is very much a Statham vehicle but... it was fine? Nothing great and better at the back end but it was a fine enough film if you've watched the first one and still hung on all this time.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: Secret of the Ooze
I recall this being the better one of the 90's entries but it was a hard one to sit through, rough and dated

Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie
Still better than the series but not as solid as the first film, broadly the same beats less well told

Saw III
Still solid if not quite as good as the first two entry that is also plainly setting up the next few at the same time marking the serialised starting point of the franchise

Saw IV
Not as decent as it probably should be, the main issue being that its tricks have been used before

Saw V
The weakest of the rewatches. Over focused on some under developed characters with little action of interest.


31 Nights of Horror - Night 01
Talk to Me
Nice set up and an interesting film but its horror credentials aren't evry strong with hardly any scares present

[Neon Ignition]

31 Nights of Horror - Night 02
Rec
The second film on our run is one that we've seen before but not in about 10 years. I forgot how lean the film is closing in at a mere 75 minutes of run time, it's well handled and staged though especially considered the amount of long shots required.

[Neon Ignition]

Saw VI
Starts as made for TV as the series had begun to feel by this point but pulls itself back the more it goes along as it becomes clear the writers clocked how to piece the previous three films loose ends together. Along with a decent ending it has some solid weight to the sense that a culmination is coming.


31 Nights of Horror - Night 03
The Wretched
Essentially a played straight Fright Night where a teenage kid visiting his Dad notices that something isn't right about the woman living next door. He spies on her as things start to become stranger and those close to him think he's losing it, he meanwhile worries about where the children are going and why people don't remember them. It's relatively cheap and cheerful, well made though for a budget that apparently came in well below $1m. The back end of the film does a lot of heavy lifting and elevates the film to a higher level though as a horror, again, the scares are very minimal.

[fuse]

I went to go see Stop Making Sense yesterday too! I hadn't seen it before so I can't make the "SAME AS IT EVER WAS" gag I desperately want to, but it is such a hugely enjoyable, joyous, and immensely theatrical 90 minutes.

What a ****ing legacy, man.

[CMcK]

Saw The Creator last night. It was ok. Does drag a little in the middle and is predictable but looked and sounded good. The sound was a real highlight to be fair with really beefy fx.

[Neon Ignition]

Skidamarink
I can appreciate how a guy made this in his own home for just $15,000. Putting that accomplishment aside though... utter rubbish

Saw VII
Better than I recall it being, though still leaving some questions hanging it is a reasonable enough wrap up to the main original story.

Nimona
Animated film on Netflix about a knight framed for murder who befriends a little girl who is also a form changing creature. Quite sharply written and good fun.

Haunted Mansion
First rewatch and first time the kids watched this years version of the film. Another one that is better than its reputation would have it.

The Exorcist: Believer
Add to the pile, this is in no way anything either good or special but there's also a lot of hyperbolic statement around it because of the franchise it's under. Slow, lacking in scares etc but it's still watchable enough and potentially sets up an interesting sequel.

Saw X
The new entry set between the first two films. The reviews are right, it's somehow leaps of quality above most of the franchise with a lot more characterisation in it thanks to a slow opening that re-builds Jigsaw as a human being and his motivations whilst also playing with a couple of concepts such as flaws in his logic. Genuinely worthwhile entry for a franchise that was off the beaten track.


31 Nights of Horror - Night 04
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
The Bram Stoker prequel to Dracula showing what happened to the crew of the doomed ship. It's half an hour too long and critically lacking in suspense or scares which would explain its failure at the box office.

31 Nights of Horror - Night 05
Evil Dead Rise
The first film on our run we'd seen before, still good fun even if knowing what is coming dulls the horror aspects

31 Nights of Horror - Night 06
Malum
A year after her father gunned down fellow officers in a precinct, a new recruit picks up the night guard shift at the now closed down precinct hoping to uncover what tipped her father over the edge. Over the course of the night she discovers his past pursuit of a cult leader as increasingly strange events unfold. The first half is decent but it starts to come undone as it goes on.

31 Nights of Horror - Night 07
The House of the Devil
This film is set in the 1970's and follows a young woman who picks up a babysitting job at a remote house only to be told there's no baby, just an old woman upstairs. Pushing past the creepy guy who hires her, she undertakes her night before discovering what is really going on. This is absolutely, truly, utter garbage. The only way you could enjoy it is if you're idea of horror is mundanity. Up until the final ten minutes you literally watch her mill about the house with nothing happening almost at all - astoundingly misguided attempt at trying to build suspense.

31 Nights of Horror - Night 08
Sick
Two young women head to stay at a large remote cabin during the pandemic but find themselves being stalked. This is actually decent. It's a slasher so scares are non-existent but it is that rare beast - a film where the victims don't make dumb decisions at every turn and actually fight for their lives and try to outsmart the killer. Major hats off to it on that front.

[Dogg Thang]

I had a Creed double bill over the weekend, watching Creed 2 and then Creed 3 and it was interesting that, for both of the movies, I had a different experience than I did watching them the first time around. On first watch, I struggled with 2 because it didn’t know whether it was a Creed film or a Rocky film and I felt it hit muddled somewhere between the two. I didn’t feel that so much on this watch and instead got sucked into the story of legacy, with one of the most interesting aspects being that at no point did it ever feel like Ivan Drago actually wanted to fight. But that was an aspect that wasn’t really explored or paid off. It was just there. I don’t feel the movie is as strong as it could have been but I got more from it on the second watch.

Creed 3 is a very different film. Smaller in ways, more personal. On first watch, I found that the Majors character stole every scene he was in and I wasn’t remotely invested in the Creed character, to the point where I didn’t even buy why there was a fight at the end and I was rooting for the Majors character. Maybe it was watching it right after Creed 2 that did it but, this time, I was much more with Creed’s point of view in the movie. That improved it overall, although I still don’t quite feel the film was strong enough on what that final fight meant. It’s like, given the very personal story and baggage of that fight, I feel like it should have been much more cathartic. One thing to mention is that the score is superb. The score in all the Creed movies are all really great but 3’s score is very powerful.

[Neon Ignition]

31 Nights of Horror - Night 09
The Boogeyman
The recent version in which a creature hides in the shadows, toying with the fears of the people it has latched onto before finishing them off. This was alright, it has a few decent moments even if once again not to the level where you feel any sense of fear yourself.

[cutmymilk]

Skidamarink
I can appreciate how a guy made this in his own home for just $15,000. Putting that accomplishment aside though... utter rubbish

Saw VII
Better than I recall it being, though still leaving some questions hanging it is a reasonable enough wrap up to the main original story.

Nimona
Animated film on Netflix about a knight framed for murder who befriends a little girl who is also a form changing creature. Quite sharply written and good fun.

Haunted Mansion
First rewatch and first time the kids watched this years version of the film. Another one that is better than its reputation would have it.

The Exorcist: Believer
Add to the pile, this is in no way anything either good or special but there's also a lot of hyperbolic statement around it because of the franchise it's under. Slow, lacking in scares etc but it's still watchable enough and potentially sets up an interesting sequel.

Saw X
The new entry set between the first two films. The reviews are right, it's somehow leaps of quality above most of the franchise with a lot more characterisation in it thanks to a slow opening that re-builds Jigsaw as a human being and his motivations whilst also playing with a couple of concepts such as flaws in his logic. Genuinely worthwhile entry for a franchise that was off the beaten track.


31 Nights of Horror - Night 04
The Last Voyage of the Demeter
The Bram Stoker prequel to Dracula showing what happened to the crew of the doomed ship. It's half an hour too long and critically lacking in suspense or scares which would explain its failure at the box office.

31 Nights of Horror - Night 05
Evil Dead Rise
The first film on our run we'd seen before, still good fun even if knowing what is coming dulls the horror aspects

31 Nights of Horror - Night 06
Malum
A year after her father gunned down fellow officers in a precinct, a new recruit picks up the night guard shift at the now closed down precinct hoping to uncover what tipped her father over the edge. Over the course of the night she discovers his past pursuit of a cult leader as increasingly strange events unfold. The first half is decent but it starts to come undone as it goes on.

31 Nights of Horror - Night 07
The House of the Devil
This film is set in the 1970's and follows a young woman who picks up a babysitting job at a remote house only to be told there's no baby, just an old woman upstairs. Pushing past the creepy guy who hires her, she undertakes her night before discovering what is really going on. This is absolutely, truly, utter garbage. The only way you could enjoy it is if you're idea of horror is mundanity. Up until the final ten minutes you literally watch her mill about the house with nothing happening almost at all - astoundingly misguided attempt at trying to build suspense.

31 Nights of Horror - Night 08
Sick
Two young women head to stay at a large remote cabin during the pandemic but find themselves being stalked. This is actually decent. It's a slasher so scares are non-existent but it is that rare beast - a film where the victims don't make dumb decisions at every turn and actually fight for their lives and try to outsmart the killer. Major hats off to it on that front.

I love how you watch 5 horror films but count 1 as your halloween film!