Finally getting round to watching Shinya Tsukamoto’s Killing and instantly I’m reminded that it’s pretty much just him, David Lynch and Michael Mann who can pull off digital camera or show actual interest in it as a medium unto itself.
5 Likes
Broke things up a bit with Stand Up Guys. Which is the final film for Al Pacino, Christopher Walken, and Alan Arkin even if it isn’t. They play the parts they are known for in one final encore.
The first half is is about Pacino’s wood. Then it is about justice. Then it is about death.
With the three mains acting at their full ticks the three side character women are also acting at strange unknownable ticks. Like you are just to accept these are the characters they always play.
It’s a pile of cliches and seen before arranged nicely. It made me cry at one point in earnest.
And it was directed by Fisher Stevens?
Film rules, by the way. A period drama setting does not in any way manage to rein in Tsukamoto’s obsessive pathological repression and reality shattering violence.
R.I.P. Chu Ishikawa
4 Likes
I was feeling ill and watching Poltergeist again for the first time in probably decades, and I realized just how much franchises like Paranormal Activity (especially part 2, which is basically just Poltergeist but everything takes a lot longer to unfold) and Insidious owe to Poltergieist. It’s not a perfect movie by any means – they really ruin the tension by showing us what’s supposed to be scaring us and by representing them with goofy, animated whisps of light and electricity. But you quickly start to feel like you know the family and who they are (excluding the teenage daughter), so there’s still some tension there even though you’re not particularly frightened.
also they did a real good job, maybe overdid it a little, with craig t. nelson’s haggard transformation. he looks like shiiiiiiiiiiiiiit, way worse than the mom who seems to be taking it a lot worse than t. nelson is.
i always remember and expect the tree scene as a dream sequence. it’s just so goofy how it reaches in and pulls the kid out of his bed and then tries to literally eat him! i’m not complaining because that sequence is essentially where the movie shifts into second gear, but i think it would’ve been more effective if they had figured out a way to get the kid into the tree without it having to pull his ass out of bed.
my favorite scene is when craig t. nelson and his wife are smoking weed in their bed. that seems like a good time.
i don’t think i’ve seen any of the sequels all the way through, but Poltergeist III’s poster is one of the coolest.
actually, poltergeist’s itself is pretty wicked.
ALSO how is Poltergeist rated PG when there’s a scene where a guy pulls the flesh off of his face to reveal his bloody skull underneath? What the fuck?
5 Likes
PG was a very different rating before they introduced PG-13 and changed things dramatically.
1 Like
For my gf’s birthday I’m renting a car and we’re going to a drive-in movie for the first time in our lives! There’s a drive-in theater about an hour away from Boston. They’re showing a double-feature of Jaws and Jurassic Park, but we’re skipping Jaws to save on car rental fees. And don’t sue me but we’re both kind of lukewarm on Jaws anyway. Jurassic Park is one of her favorite movies though, so it should be a good time.
I can not WAIT, I’ve always wanted to experience a drive-in theater! I’m prepping a big playlist of disco-soul-funk in preparation because it’s my favorite night driving music and I so rarely get to drive these days.
5 Likes
I was randomly thinking about this movie again today because of the scene where they invite the television crew over, I think before the medium even makes an appearance, and the fact that their daughter is stuck in a television set has kind of become normalized. The way that scene begins, where they’re going to demonstrate how they talk to her, is so nonchalant. They get into position, turn off the lights at the right moment, turn on the television like they have it down to a science, and it’s just the least normal thing you could see a suburban American family do lol - it’s really kind of scary to see that!
Poltergeist is a little too Spielbergy, despite Tobe Hooper, to be a really great horror movie, but it has moments of brilliance like that.
Oh, and as for what movies I’ve been watching. Last night I watched Bacurau and totally recommend it.
I remember Poltergeist 3 being way better than it could have been, but probably still not like… a great movie or anything. I feel like it might pair well with Beetlejuice for movies about Haunted Modern Architecture. I never saw the second one.
What kind of dystopian gig economy car rental place charges by the hour
1 Like
poltergeist 3 is a bit of a grisly enterprise considering that the entire back half of the film was finished with a heather o’rourke body double, but it does have the wonderfully cast couple of tom skerritt and nancy allen
2 Likes
tom skerritt is a true michigan guy, I love when he shows up in shit
2 Likes
zipcar
Yup, it’s zipcar.
i watched this evangelical christian movie made in the 70s about life after the rapture called A Thief In The Night. It’s hokey and totally paranoid about technology and big government in a very American way. But it has this great opening I had to upload. It’s eerie, but also kind of like the shaggs lol
4 Likes
Miserable.
Zipcar is kind of miserable, but when I can’t safely take public transit to a car rental company, being able to walk 5 minutes to a car and just use it is pretty nice.
1 Like
For some reason, that and A Clockwork Orange’s “tryyyyyy the wiiinneeeee!” are my parents most quoted movie lines.
1 Like
a scene I couldn’t stop laughing about from the sequel to that rapture movie, A Distant Thunder: ‘A Thief in the Night’ Part 2. These people have been left behind, it is a few weeks past the event and the woman is reading letters which have finally arrived after a long delay. This one was much better, actually entertaining and worth seeing if you like genre exploitation movies.
3 Likes
Going to watch this compilation documentary, Ask Any Buddy, about the culture around the gay porn industry in America in the 60s and 70s my friend saw and really liked. It looks really promising. I guess it’s edited from over a hundred different films down into a narrative about a single man going about his business. It is available through Wicked Queer until 7pm tomorrow, for $10.
4 Likes
Gladiator is like a 90 minute good movie about Russel Crowe’s journey and an hour long shit movie about Joaquim Phoenix being mad his dad didn’t hug him enough. Amazing that in 2020 my patience for that sort of thing would be zero.
Oliver Reed was the best part and he died during the making of for drinking an unbelievable amount till he had a heart attack. Then they animated his corpse.
Then it circles repeating themes without anything new happening. I will be mad for weeks that a Academy Award BP had the same scene repeat for no thematic or plot benefit (revealing Rome.) It works so much better the second time with Russel.
The opening battle is cool. Two Out of Five Modern Australian Sheepdogs.
3 Likes