Films Recently Watched

damning expose on russell simmons and la reid (sort of) alleged rape accusations. 

  On 6/5/2020 at 5:04 AM, auxien said:

i'm definitely into Lovecraft/cosmic horror stuff, but this was just a silly sci-fi/horror B-movie with too much of a budget and about 2 minutes of hints of the 'weird' tacked on. i never saw Mandy, heard mostly good about it but i'm not often into 'over the top' for the sake of it, and i got the impression that was what i was gonna get so...never gave it a try. 

i wasn't keen on Annihilation at all, felt it failed in many ways...definitely thought about it when watching this, assumed they sold the pitch for this to producers right after Annihilation was getting recognition. 'oh cosmic weird stuff is SO IN VOGUE right now! Natalie Portman!' 

the Lost Soul doc was interesting yeah, real life is stranger than fiction

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I still don't know what exactly defines something as lovecraftian, definitely cause I'm a lazy dumb who never read a book but anyway... 

Also:

Gonna start a thread for lovecraftian/cosmic horror movies, or maybe i won't i don't know... 

^Untamed looks pretty interesting actually. Spring looks okay...ish. probably a good trailer for a relatively meh film if i were guessing (which i am lol)

Lovecraft's works were almost entirely short stories, with a few poems and a handful of longer works sometimes marketed as novella-length. a bunch can be found easily online if you want, but don't just read one and think 'oh, okay i get it' cause there's definitely lots of blunders even in the stronger stories and weak stories are there too of course. and a fair chunk of racism in some stories.  

that said, 'Lovecraftian' gets tossed around a lot over the last few decades, and usually what they mean is 'not quite horror, not quite sci-fi, definitely a bit from the Weird' hell, The Lighthouse had a bit of that Lovecraft influence imo, dunno if that was intentional or what tho ...most/best 'Lovecraftian' film i've ever seen was In the Mouth of Madness. but even it is very much a movie...a true film take on a Lovecraft/Lovecraft-type story could be great on film but would have to be played absolutely perfectly, would have to be slow and plodding and really take its time to build for the most part...obv no the easiest thing to do well on film. most of his actual stories would work better as tv-length stuff (i think maybe one or two got adapted in this way at some point? could be wrong) but the films that have tried to adapt his actual stories have failed to varying degrees. at least Re-Animator is a fun as hell movie...just loses a lot of what Lovecraft was trying to go for in that story in particular but that's okay of course. good movie. really wish del Toro had been able to go ahead with the At the Mountains of Madness film he was going to do with Tom Cruise. could've been interesting (probably would've been ruined by the studio wanting dumb bullshit changes tho so i guess it's for the better it was canned)

trailer for Lovecraft Country looks really interesting, curious to see what they're really doing with that show. 

anyway Lovecraft's influence (specifically cosmic horror, the mythos he created, and as a posthumous beacon for the Weird) is probably far greater than his actual works....if that makes any sense. he does have some really good stories tho, but he's often his own worst enemy on the page.

Untamed was good. picks up where Possession left off

Untamed is good!

Curious to see this, score by Carpenter Brut:

  On 6/5/2020 at 6:25 AM, auxien said:

^Untamed looks pretty interesting actually. Spring looks okay...ish. probably a good trailer for a relatively meh film if i were guessing (which i am lol)

Lovecraft's works were almost entirely short stories, with a few poems and a handful of longer works sometimes marketed as novella-length. a bunch can be found easily online if you want, but don't just read one and think 'oh, okay i get it' cause there's definitely lots of blunders even in the stronger stories and weak stories are there too of course. and a fair chunk of racism in some stories.  

that said, 'Lovecraftian' gets tossed around a lot over the last few decades, and usually what they mean is 'not quite horror, not quite sci-fi, definitely a bit from the Weird' hell, The Lighthouse had a bit of that Lovecraft influence imo, dunno if that was intentional or what tho ...most/best 'Lovecraftian' film i've ever seen was In the Mouth of Madness. but even it is very much a movie...a true film take on a Lovecraft/Lovecraft-type story could be great on film but would have to be played absolutely perfectly, would have to be slow and plodding and really take its time to build for the most part...obv no the easiest thing to do well on film. most of his actual stories would work better as tv-length stuff (i think maybe one or two got adapted in this way at some point? could be wrong) but the films that have tried to adapt his actual stories have failed to varying degrees. at least Re-Animator is a fun as hell movie...just loses a lot of what Lovecraft was trying to go for in that story in particular but that's okay of course. good movie. really wish del Toro had been able to go ahead with the At the Mountains of Madness film he was going to do with Tom Cruise. could've been interesting (probably would've been ruined by the studio wanting dumb bullshit changes tho so i guess it's for the better it was canned)

trailer for Lovecraft Country looks really interesting, curious to see what they're really doing with that show. 

anyway Lovecraft's influence (specifically cosmic horror, the mythos he created, and as a posthumous beacon for the Weird) is probably far greater than his actual works....if that makes any sense. he does have some really good stories tho, but he's often his own worst enemy on the page.

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Nowadays, "lovecraftian" mostly just means "you don't see the monsters".

Anyway, would be interesting to hear what the ol' racist would have thought of Lovecraft Country ...

^there’s been a lot of that with the recent Lovecraft-related content, sorta taking the good parts of his ideas and stories and trying to directly counter the racist undertones (or occasionally overtly racist shit) in some way....but i’m speaking mostly of stuff i’m not actually familiar with and only heard this about second hand tho. Lovecraft himself was actually progressive in some ways but was ridiculously blind in the areas of race/class and such. very odd combo of beliefs tbh...but that’s many people of course. 

further tangential and i’ll shut up about it... the Voluminous: The Letters of Lovecraft podcast is really interesting. readings of portions of his vast correspondence and picking apart the surface stuff and some of the deeper things he mentions of course. interesting insight, and lord knows i’d never actually just sit down and read all these letters so the podcast is a bit of a gift as far as i’m concerned

Just to complete the media trias, Houellebecq's book on him, Against the World, Against Life, is tops as well.

But who reads, right?

There's also this one:

... which i didn't find particularly good or anything but the rest of the movies from this group of directors all are in my favorites list:

https://mobile.twitter.com/astron6

For more on Lovecraft watch: Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (2008)
"A chronicle of the life, work and mind that created the Cthulhu mythos."

I guess my main problem with old horror movies like the thing and possession is how explicit and graphic they are, I don't think the vfx aged well and i find them quite laughable (the vfx) which ends up ruining the tone of the movie imo... I remember enjoying possession quite a lot until the actual ending where i couldn't help but facepalm and find it off-putting... I like my horror campy... 

Like IDEM said, lovecraftian is mostly stuff that leaves space for the viewer's imagination... I think it can be way more suspenseful and effective when done like that... 

this film plays like an early 70s porn with no sex, no bad language, no violence (blood, gore etc). it's basically a made-for-television (when they were drive-in movies) drama so insanely vulgar, that you're left grateful it didn't have any nudity. i actually feel demoralized to have watched it. 

^HAHAH!

Have any of you watched Robo Vampire? I thought I had cancelled my Amazon Prime Video subscription but apparently I hadn't. Anyway, the only thing that streaming service is good for is terrible horror movies and ridiculous schlock.

Actually hyped.

  On 6/8/2020 at 3:59 PM, Squee said:

^HAHAH!

Have any of you watched Robo Vampire?

yes. that's by auteur godfrey ho and it's a great example of his style of piecing together two completely unrelated films and trying to make something utterly incompetent. in this case: hopping zombies vs a robocop mercenary, both doing something unrelated to the other. 

my favorite part in the film is when they're putting robo vampire together and the machine only shows a plus and minus. when it blinks on the plus, they say "he's going to be okay". i love that director godfrey ho didn't waste time with medical jargon and just cut to the chase on the fate of our protagonist

surprisingly entertaining- though slightly less complicated than castle of cagliostro, this is more juvenile, despite an awkward habit of the little girl referring to lupin as "pedophile" constantly and this label being treated as comic relief 

  On 6/9/2020 at 4:34 PM, ManjuShri said:

Actually hyped.

 

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Sacrilege.

  On 6/9/2020 at 4:34 PM, ManjuShri said:

Actually hyped.

 

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Keanu looks like he's struggling a little bit there to get back into character...hope there's enough Ted-ness left in him to pull it off.

and damn...that Orion logo and "coming this summer" brings me back to 1991. that summer was all about Bill & Ted 2, Terminator 2, and Point Break.

Ready or Not (2020): Loved the concept. Solid film, not exceptional. 

The Gentlemen (2020): Colin Farrell not even trying runs circles around the rest of the actors in this one.

  On 12/5/2019 at 3:45 PM, caze said:

Watched Ad Astra last night, what a waste of a beautiful looking film, terrible script and lots of dodgy science (the bit through ring of Neptune at the end was particularly dumb for about 5 different reasons).

There was a Jordan Peterson meme posted one time and the name of the file was: "rescue your father from the underworld bucko.jpeg" or something like that. I remember laughing so hard at that and then this movie literally became that filename and I could barely contain myself for the duration. I can't remember a time that I both cringed at and admired a movie; cinematography was incredible.

Watched Back to the Future at the cinema a couple of days ago. It might just be one of the best movies ever made.

Finally got around to seeing Uncut Gems. I liked how it sustained the sense of everything just continually going down the drain, even if some things seemed a little far-fetched. A bit disjointed all in all, could have been 20 minutes shorter, and I saw the ending coming. Despite all this, I felt entertained. Dialogues were good.

Edit: Music by OPN was good too, and whoever picked that Gigi D'Agostino song for the end credits is a genius. Perfect fit.

have you ever known a person who takes forever to get to a point, so you avoid asking them a question, or regret doing so, because you know it will take them forever to give you an answer? that's this film. it's 2 and half hours long because the first hour and a half is spent meandering, drinking, reciting lyrics, yapping, preaching and occasionally showing you stock footage that by the time it gets "going" it's so distracted it's another film entirely. 

and if you do actually (somehow) make it past that first 1.5 hrs, you will then begin questioning what exactly the point of the film is. 

  On 6/8/2020 at 3:59 PM, Squee said:

^HAHAH!

Have any of you watched Robo Vampire? I thought I had cancelled my Amazon Prime Video subscription but apparently I hadn't. Anyway, the only thing that streaming service is good for is terrible horror movies and ridiculous schlock.

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omg yeah there's so much z-grade horror on prime, I fucking love it

  On 6/13/2020 at 6:37 AM, Nebraska said:

have you ever known a person who takes forever to get to a point, so you avoid asking them a question, or regret doing so, because you know it will take them forever to give you an answer? that's this film. it's 2 and half hours long because the first hour and a half is spent meandering, drinking, reciting lyrics, yapping, preaching and occasionally showing you stock footage that by the time it gets "going" it's so distracted it's another film entirely. 

and if you do actually (somehow) make it past that first 1.5 hrs, you will then begin questioning what exactly the point of the film is. 

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I really wanted to like this film. I was VERY excited for it to drop.

It started off really strong and just skipped any valuable character development until the end, so through the whole thing I was just asking myself what the point was. Also, the plot got a bit convoluted with wondering what they were actually there for: to find gold or to find the remains of their old friend.

I guess that's spike for ya. Some hits / some misses.

Just saw this last night...

Definitely worth checking out.  

It kinda felt like a 2 hour Aphex Twin video with no music.