TV/Movies Megathread

[viper37]

It's not fundamentally incapable of being good, like Salvation arguably was.

Salvation wasn't so bad.  It was better than #3, wich was extremely bad.

[celedhring]

3 wasn't so awful, imho, it's just not up to the previous 2. But as an action blockbuster, it's definitely above average.

Salvation was a mess but there were some interesting ideas in it.

[11B4V]

Watch some stuff

Getaway: D Come on Ethan WTF
End of Watch: B-
Page Eight: C

Next; A Most Wanted Man

Going to rewatch Tinman

[Ideologue]

Funny thing about Getaway is, it probably looked halfway cool at one point.  Ethan Hawke was probably like "Hey, this movie had some rad car stunts, didn't it?"  But then they decided to put about 7000 cuts in the movie (legitimate figure).  It was a real bummer since it had everything it needed to be a really awesome B-movie.

[Admiral Yi]

katmai, super tricky trivia for you.

Just channel surfed The Blob, 1988 vintage.  The waitress in the diner, her voice is super familiar to me but I just can't place her.  Do you know what else she was in?

[Admiral Yi]

I think I got it: the hottie in American Graffitti.

[katmai]

You would be correct.

[Syt]

I'm mildly impressed by Netflix:

The Walking Dead - 3 Seasons
Sherlock - 3 Series

[Eddie Teach]

Halloween. I don't get the big deal. Not scary.

Funny thing, even when she was playing teenagers, Jamie Lee Curtis sounded like a mother.

[Savonarola]

The Cat and the Canary (1927)

Twenty years after eccentric millionaire Cyrus West death his family gathers at the reading for the reading of the will.  The will is to be read at midnight and there are two other sealed envelopes, one which will give the heir the location to the fabulous West diamonds and the other that reveals the next in line heir if the heir is discovered to be insane.  The reading is to take place in an old, dark mansion that's loaded with secret passages.  Hilarity ensues as people start disappearing.

Paul Leni was hired to direct the film as expressionism adapted for American tastes.  He does a good job of creating a spooky atmosphere without the weird angles and nightmare elements common in German expressionism.  There are problems with the film: the plot is a cliche; it's a horror-comedy, but the comedy isn't funny and an expressionist comedy isn't going to work anyway.

The film was a big influence on "The old dark house" genre.  The film resembles an early talkie much more than it does a late silent film.

[Martinus]

Started watching "Constantine". Looks pretty neat so far.

[Ideologue]

The Cat and the Canary (1927)

Twenty years after eccentric millionaire Cyrus West death his family gathers at the reading for the reading of the will.  The will is to be read at midnight and there are two other sealed envelopes, one which will give the heir the location to the fabulous West diamonds and the other that reveals the next in line heir if the heir is discovered to be insane.  The reading is to take place in an old, dark mansion that's loaded with secret passages.  Hilarity ensues as people start disappearing.

Paul Leni was hired to direct the film as expressionism adapted for American tastes.  He does a good job of creating a spooky atmosphere without the weird angles and nightmare elements common in German expressionism.  There are problems with the film: the plot is a cliche; it's a horror-comedy, but the comedy isn't funny and an expressionist comedy isn't going to work anyway.

I liked Batman Returns.

Anyway, Paul Leni sucks.

The film was a big influence on "The old dark house" genre.  The film resembles an early talkie much more than it does a late silent film.

The old dark house genre is weird.  Is The Haunting really the first legit haunted house movie, or what?  It seems impossible, but Monster ('26), Cat and the Canary, Old Dark House, and so forth aren't about ghosts.

[Ideologue]

Halloween. I don't get the big deal. Not scary.

Funny thing, even when she was playing teenagers, Jamie Lee Curtis sounded like a mother.

Indeed.  It's not even the best seminal slasher: Black Christmas is markedly superior.  It's just Halloween hit it big.  I mean, we can be glad, because it ensured John Carpenter's career, and without it, there's no The Thing, or Christine, or Prince of Darkness, or whatever.  But it's just not that good: every other slasher film I've ever seen from the Axial Age of Horror is better.  (That said, slashers from the post-2000 era have largely been much, much worse.)  Halloween also starts the cycle of Jamie Lee Curtis failing to confirm her kills, which is annoying in Terror Train as well.

I'll give Halloween this much credit, though: it doesn't feature a Dumbassed Twist Ending, which defines like 80% of the things thanks to Friday the 13th.

[celedhring]

My Halloween selection was:

- Let Me In (the yank version, which is more of a horror film than the Swedish original)
- The Conjuring
- Abe Lincoln Vampire Hunter

The idea was to diminish the quality and complexity of the film as alcohol kicked in. That said, not even the most extreme altered states could make the Lincoln flick watchable. I thought this kind of exploitation flicks were supposed to be fun?

[Ideologue]

It's hardly surprising.  Possibly the worst thing about media in the 21st century is our irony-poisoned inability to be earnestly trashy, and a metajoke high-concept like Abe Lincoln hunting vampires pretty much typifies this fallen era.  Admittedly, I've never seen it, maybe I'd love it.  Hard to say.