I did not make these.
Pictures taken from a legendary Thread at RT:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=609819
By Death Proof Stuntman Mike
By Cunning Linguist
By Marty McSly
By Marty McSly
By Sleepy Weasel
By SleepyWeasel
By bmoviebuff
By bmoviebuff
By pluckylump
By Cunning Linguist
bmoviebuff
By SleepyWeasel
I have been avoiding a review for Inception, because it is an immensely complicate film that would take extensive analysis and perspective. I’m too lazy at the moment.
I leave my few readers with this.
9/10
Quite possibly one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever viewed. Ever see a sketch on TV where some adults try and make an educational film for kids about how not to do drugs, and the adults, as part of the comedy, play the teenagers and manipulate awful stereotypes? Well it’s based off of this. This film is mad old though. 1936. Luckily, they had sound in motion pictures back then. There really is nothing that good about this film. Production values are ass, and adults posing as teenagers can’t be the best actors. But that’s the beauty of the film. It’s all so ridiculous. The adult actors are simply, hilarious in there emulation of stereotypes and obvious attempts to peach studying, Shakespeare , and America to the youth group. But the true gem of this beauty, is how they treat the star drug on display here, “Marihuana”.
In a speech by a school principal, it states, “Though these deadly narcotics, Opium and Heroine, are mere trifles in the face of this new deadly drug, Marijuana.”
Let that sink in for a moment.
Over the course of the film, People are driven to insane, mad, over the top laughter, a “sex orgy”, a killing spree, and madd happy piano playing. All from the use of Marijuana. The ridiculous over the top bullshitting, and inaccuracy make this film a hilarious, cult gem, for the stoner.
7/10
The new, stylized Godzilla design has appeared at this years Comic Con, in San Diego. The images were placed on shirts that were handed out to fans. (Why the FUCK was I not there?) The cool thing about these shirts is that they utilize something called augmented reality. When the shirt is filmed on a webcam, Godzilla’s Thermonuclear breath erupts form his mouth.
THAT’S FUCKING HORRORSHOW!
The shirts were championed by a ten second trailer off a city in flames, a flash of blue light, and the “Godzilla” logo. Wish I could’ve seen it, even tough it doesn’t sound like much.
As a real Godzilla fan, and a fan who loathes the 1998 abomination with all the hatred he can muster, I was doubtful of what ANOTHER American entry into the franchise was going to do to an ALREADY struggling franchise, which I love. So far it seems, it’s going in the right direction, considering the design, and that’s really half the battle to make a real entry in the franchise.
I hope you’re reading this, Roland Emmerich. (Though you most likey aren’t.)
WHEN YOU MAKE A MOVE ABOUT A RECURRING CHARACTER, IT’S BEST NOT TO CHANGE THE CHARACTER INTO SOMETHING STUPID. FANS ARE NOT A FAN OF A CHARACTER THAT ISN’T THEIR’S.
But I digress. I like the fact that he’s bipedal. I like that fact that he has the forked spikes along his spine. I always preferred a tail that came to a point rather than a rounded tail tip. I like that the overall design is the classic make up, but still modernized (Reminding me of the Godzilla 2000 design.) And I like that he obviously has his Thermonuclear Breath intact, and is lording over a destroyed city. Not hiding behind a building roaring really loud. (EMMERICH, YOU FUCKER!)
I can only hope that this is a sign of good things to come.
“The Last Starfighter”. This cult classic is probably not heard off much in my generation, but it should be. This cult classic was probably, like, the “How to Train Your Dragon” of the 80’s. It’s got that same optimistic feel of adventure and heroism. It’s got the classic story of a small town boy going no where, who stumbles on something great that leads him to greatness. And of course, It’s a Space Opera. Space Opera and cult classics go together like cheese and wine. It’s a damn shame that there aren’t many of them. You could call Star wars and Star Trek fans “cults”, in fact, I’m sure they are, yet they are far to mainstream to be considered “culty” movie. Cult movies go outside the norm and try stuff new. Cult movies are made to entertain a select group of people, or happened to have entertained a select group of people. The Last Starfighter achieves this. It follows in the footsteps of the former Space Opera classic, “Flash Gordon”, (which I will review later on) and has the same campy/corny fun that it entails. Which in my book, is a GREAT thing. Though while Flash Gordon was simple escapist entertainment at it’s highest form, that’s really all it was. The story never aspired to speak to anyone in particular, just entertain. The Last Starfighter tries to be more than that. It sports that classic underdog tale of a kid that, through will, achieves the impossible. A main character I’m sure many, including myself, could relate. Not so much anyone outside my demographic though, (Teenage gamers who hate where they live) probably the reason it’s such a cult smash. It’s a moral point echoed, I find, in the Pixar film “Ratatouille”, where the audience learns towards the end that, “Not anyone can be a great artist, but great artists come from anywhere.” We’re just substituting “artist”, here, for “Starfighter”.
The plot, of course is straight forward by today’s standards. A boy who grows up in a trailer park, yearning for the time when he and his girlfriend can blow the joint for bigger and better things, wastes his time at the local diner playing an arcade game called “Starfighter”. One day, he breaks the all time score record. These games (of course) are in actuality, aptitude tests for hopeful Starfighters. This one got shipped to earth by accident. But of course, breaking the all time record is nothing to get sniffy about. People are sent to collect the boy, and take him to the “Starleague” to fight against “Evil Emperor Xur” and save the galaxy.
The thing new, that this cult classic brings to the table, is one of the earliest uses of computer animation in film history, alongside Disney’s “Tron”, of which the film was competing against, and of which has a sequel coming out next year. The film, to be honest has not aged as well as Tron has, which is sad considering I like the story of “The Last Starfighter” a lot more. It has a certain charm to it. First time viewers, though, may be put off by how dated it looks. But, hey, It didn’t bother me. If you can appreciate my taste, I’m sure you will find something in “The Last Starfighter that you can enjoy.
9/10
Bad news. Sad news. Peter Fernandez was pretty much the voice we’d hear in any foreign film/TV show pre 80’s.
Including Ultraman, Speed Racer, Sergio Leone westerns, and of course, a plethora of Godzilla films, includin Mothra vs. Godzilla.
His obituary…=[:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/17/arts/television/17fernandez.html
So, I’ve been on a Miyazaki binge lately. Ponyo and Porco Rosso being the only two films of his I had yet to see, I decided to download and watch Ponyo. There’s honestly not much I can say about this movie. Honestly, and this is crazy coming from me, but I think it’s overrated. Visually it’s probably Miyazaki’s most beautiful film. The visuals actually probably surpass anything I’ve ever seen in an animated film, maybe even any film. It’s just glorious. Miyazaki makes his fantastical ocean really come alive with primeval creatures and colors galore. It’s almost depressing when you think about how not fantastic and abundant with life our oceans are anymore. It made me thin alot about the oil spill too. This film also has the highest frames per second of any Miyazaki film I’ve seen. This animation is smooth, and I mean, like unbelievably smooth. Like “Bambi” smooth. Miyazaki also takes his land environments and colors them in a a strange, yet elegant, pastel shading. Giving the film a story book feel. And indeed, every shot in the film does look like a picture in a story book. A very beautiful story book. I get the feeling Miyazaki had his animators play “Yoshi’s Island”, for the SuperNintendo, quite a lot before this film went into production.
The chink in the armor though, is the plot. It starts out pretty good. It seems a bit dark, not as dark as his other films for sure, but dark for kids movie. Despite what a lot of critics said, though (The film being directed at the extremely young), I found quite a bit of adult focused humor in there. One scene involving light signals had me cracking up laughing. In fact adults in this film probably have more to do with the plot than most purely child focused fare Miyazaki has done. Even to the point where they’re progressing the plot. In fact, main character, Souseke’s, mother, is the most developed and believable character in the piece. Now it sounds like nothing but praise so far, but to me, the whole film just comes to a screeching halt in the third act. The plot thus far has been fairly complex and has offered a lot of promise for a climax. Well…There isn’t as climax. For some reason, Miyazaki decides to take the more serious adult characters and just clump them with the Wizard (played by Liam Neeson) and the Spirit of the Ocean. There’s no scenes leading up to this explaining how this happened to make the transition more believable. You just cut to Souseke’s mother, whom the viewer was left worry about last time you saw here, chatting it up with the magical deities deep under water.
It’s just too simple. I found it ridiculous to believe, me being a cynical youth I suppose, but still, the jump between atmospheres was just too jarring. It’s worsened by the fact that there is no climax. We are shown a discussion where we are told Souseke must pass a test in order to secure Ponyo’s humanity. There’s no test. All that happens is that he’s asked if he loves her. I’m sorry but, I just hate that. IT’s leading us up to no satisfaction. It just ends to perfectly and conveniently for everyone, and it almost ruined the movie for. The argument could be made that it’s perfect logic for a film focused at 4-6 year olds, But a 4-5 year old wouldn’t have an easy time following the first half of the film. (Unless Japanese children have access to ultra comprehension that I’m not privy to…) Not to mention, Miyazaki should know by now that adults love his films too. He should’ve tried harder to please us, I suppose. But I could be being selfish. My theory is, that the ending felt so rushed and slapped together was because of low budget. The animation is possibly the smoothest I’ve ever seen, and it must have cost a lot of time and money to produce. That could account for the shorter than usual run time too. I can only hope Miyazaki puts as much effort into making his next animation epic (Hopefully) as beautiful and gorgeous as it’s done here. I would suggest seeing it. Strictly for the visuals, which will not disappoint in the slightest. It’s like the “Avatar” of Studio Ghibli. If you’re a child though, One, it’s a flawlesss film, Two, get the fuck off this blog. It’s rated PG-13.
6/10
I’ve been waiting MONTHS for word on a Release date for this movie. I mean come on now, that shit heap remake “Clash of the Titans” was released AFTER “How to Train Your Dragon”, in theaters, and It got it’s DVD release months ago!
What the FUCK, Dreamworks!?
I watched “Near Dark” (1987) for the first time today. I’ve never been one for vampire movies, but this one intrigued me for some reason. I guess it was the setting. Breaking a lot of cliches, Near Dark is a light in the darkness, a shining testament of yester-year, when vampire and werewolf movies never conformed to the disgusting “Twilight” ruled dogma that rules vampire and werewolf films today. Which is ironic because the main idea of the film is basically the same as the books, except the leads’ sexes are flipped. Guy falls in love with a seemingly normal girl, girl in reality is a vampire, there love is difficult to manage, and eventually the other vampires get pissed and try to fuck shit up. Where this film differs from trash is that it’s actually realistic, dramatic, well written, mature, and fun to watch. So in a nutshell…It’s different because it’s good.
First thing good about it, the setting. It takes place in a violent, bar filled, trailer ridden, southwest. Director, Katheryn Bigelow, paints the screen with great western vistas, and shots of dawn and dusk. The shots you see have an authentic and real looking quality to them, which a lot of movies lack, for some reason. It’s hard to explain. Katheryn fills this landscape with stereotypes associated with it. Revolvers, Biker Bars, Farms, Incompetent State Troopers, etc.
Second thing good about it, REAL feeling characters, played by REAL actors. While Adrian Pasdar does a good job in the lead role, the true great performances are Bill Paxton’s and Lance Henriksen’s. They live their characters. So well, that it’s a joy whenever they are on the screen. After seeing this, I feel Bill Paxton was a very underused actor in his time.
Third thing good about it, the movie has balls, especially when compared to modern day “vampire films”. Full of some awesome situations and action set pieces, that don’t detract from the maturity of the script, the film manages to pull off some really out there ideas and images. I would love to give specific examples, but most of them are in the latter half, and I do not want to spoil anything.
Fourth thing good about it, the vampires are REAL vampires. They have fangs, inhuman strength, kill people all the time, and burn when they’re in sunlight. Non of this “sparkle” bullshit. The real set piece of special effects is the burning effect the filmmakers have for when the vampires are in sunlight. It’s an extremely convincing, almost painful to watch effect. Also, these vampires are pretty badass. =]
So, yeah, a VERY refreshing film. I wish there were more vampire/werewolf films like it in my time. I thought the whole point of the “future” was to improve upon the past. Not to make the past looked back on forlornly. I would strongly suggest any big vampire fans, or movie fans in general, take a step back from Stephanie Meyers steaming shit, and embrace what once was. And if enough people embrace it, maybe it will be a gain. =]
8/10
I’m compiling a list of my all time favorite movie monsters, considering how much I love monster movies. The list is a discussion thread on RT where I will post Monster periodically. Go check it out!
=]
http://members.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=2255242
