Dick Laurent

I think I'm hitting my breaking point! This must be the "hill" in the challenge, so many movies still to go. It doesn't help that I have company in town and I spent all day smoking cigars on the Riverwalk (San Antonio). It also doesn't help that my friend only wanted to watch Iron Man last night. He didn't really care about my list...

wlverinefactor

Damn you! I was too busy watching her die and missed the typo Film 7 is running into Tuesday list. And I have 2 more. i figure I can get those in before work... Who needs sleep.

I'm starting to feel drained though. My pile doesn't seem to be going down (granted a lot of these are online viewings so...) but still even at 107 or whatever I feel like my brain is turning to mush. I also want the Indiana Jones w/ skull but I think I'd prefer the bluray so me not driving out to get either saves me time :/

NoirFan

I'm sure I've said far more ridiculous things while having sex.

edwardnortonfan

Yeh, a million times. I hated the original. I thought the acting was terrible and I didn't get what all the hype was about, but I rented the second because of its association with the guys who made "The Butterfly Effect" (another movie that I loved that I get a lot of flack for) and the second one just blew me away. It had its times of cheesiness, but the acting was so much better in my opinion. AJ Cook did a great job with her character, I felt for her story, the deaths were much cooler in this one, I just loved it all around. The third one was less successful for me, but the gore was so great and again, the lead actress was so likable that I forgive its shortcomings. I like the orignal now better because the second and the third have softened me toward the whole series, but I still think it pales in comparison to the sequels.

edwardnortonfan

I'm glad someone else likes part 3, it seems to be universally hated and I don't get it, I think the opening roller coaster scene is spectacular and the fast food drive thru scene is great, and the scenes at the carnival in the end really blow me away. I don't get why there's so much hate for the third. but I guess if you really loved the first one then you might feel an aversion to the sequels the same way I love the sequels and therefore dislike the original, I don't know. I think the sequels are a lot darker and more horrific for me. The original just has the feel of a teen horror flick made to cash in on the name recognition of its stars, whereas the sequels take the idea and build on it. Plus I really hate Devon Sawa, that probably helps aid my hatred of the original.

Numes

Not to digress too much, but you get flack for liking The Butterfly Effect? That movie was great. I always suggest it if people haven't seen it before and let people borrow the DVD. Everyone, so far, has enjoyed it. I tell them to watch the director's cut and then watch just the end of theatrical cut.

As for Final Destination. I own the first one and I wasn't terribly impressed, so I didn't even bother with the other 2. All this talk about the other 2, though, I may have to check them out. FWIW, I see that Final Destination 4 comes out next year.

stonecountry

I'm having some trouble finding G-rated films that would count, particularly things I already may own. Would either of Disney's Escape or return to Witch Mountain films count? I mean, evil people are chasing kids with supernatural powers, and Donald Pleasance and Christopher Lee are in them.

Giles

and in 3D no less

clckworang

It's not nice to make fun of an actor's dyslexia.

clckworang

I don't remember the Witch Mountain films well enough to comment on those, but after looking at your collection, the one I would recommend is Wallace and Gromit in The Cure of the Were-Rabbit. I watched that one for my animation requirement, and then as a bonus I remembered that it won an Oscar. And of course it's also rated G.

Giles

Interestingly 'The Watcher in the Woods' which



one could easily add the Witch Mountain movies. I was a kid in the mid 70's my sis and I dug those movies.

Pizza

Does the ending in the director's cut totally suck or is it the other way around? What's the deal?

Trevor

No one should give you flack for liking The Butterfly Effect, I loved it.

I might have done this last year, but I want to briefly digress and tell my butterfly effect story/theory. Briefly/simply, the theory is that a butterfly flapping it's wings in South America changes the weather in Europe. I'm a firm believer that every little thing that happens changes your life from that point on. All of us reading this post have had our lives changed. You'll get to your next thread/thing to do slightly later, and every action after that is slightly different. Little changes add up, you'll get slightly different sleep, get in your car at a slightly different time, etc etc.

My best example of this is my friend Marla. I met Marla about 12 years ago and she became one of my best friends. Thru her I met a girl I almost married. I live in the condo that she owned. My live is completely and totally different because I met her.

Back in high school, when taking the SATs in Alaska, in the spots where you get to send your scores to a couple of schools, Marla made a slight mistake and had her scores sent to Auburn in Alabama instead of an Alaska school, which was one letter off from Auburn. Marla never had any intention to leave Alaska. But Auburn liked her scores, gave her a scholarship, and history for her and everyone she ever encounters is drastically different because of one small mistake on that test.

Sorry for the digression. But the butterfly effect is a concept that I can totally get behind, and I think I'll go dig out that movie now.

edwardnortonfan

I watched it and loved it, and it shocked me because I pegged it as one of those throwaway supernatural thrillers and then within ten minutes things got so intense I couldn't believe the movie was "going there" and discussing things like this, so I was really impressed with this. I ended up watching it twice the first time I watched it, the second time with commentary, and that's how I found out that the director's cut and theatrical cut had different endings (I usually watch the director's cut by default, I didn't realize they were so different) so then I watched the theatrical cut (marking the third time I watched the movie that day) and I love comparing the two (though the director's cut is far superior in my opinion). I thought about it for days, how I always wish I could go back and change the past, but even if I did, things could still end up screwed up because people have free will and I can't control what others do. I loved the movie, and then I reviewed it and found out that a lot of people hate that movie. The guy who runs the website for which I write reviews HATES the movie; he constantly mocks me for liking it

edwardnortonfan

The director's cut has a really powerful and shocking ending, and the theatrical cut has a smarmy ending that tries to oversimplify things way too much for my taste. They both have merits, but I definitely prefer the director's cut ending.

Numes

I wouldn't tell someone to watch the director's cut unless it was the intended ending The Director's cut ending was the version that the directors wanted but the studio forced them to put in the theatrical ending. That's why I tell people to make sure and watch the director's cut first, but I think it is interesting to watch the theatrical ending to see what they changed. And to answer your question, let's just say the director's cut ending was way way better.

Note: I think technically it should be directors' cut since there were two directors. I'll have to check the punctuation on the DVD case.

edwardnortonfan

That's how I felt; I had no intention of watching FD2 when it came out, but then I heard the directors of The Butterfly Effect were involved with it, so I gave it a chance. It's a lot darker and the deaths are better and the acting is better. Pretty much everything that made the original so boring and worthless is fixed in the sequel, IMO. A lot of people seem to like the original, but I think the second and the third are much better (that's why those are the only two I own). I'm excited to see part 4.

Giles

I know this is extremely vague, but I'm trying to find a film on dvd, I think it's a Spanish horror film from the seventies, but the famous still is of a screaming woman with the murderer in the foreground (unseen) with a four or five pronged rake like thing about to be used on her face

anyone, anyone ??

Mondo Kane

This?

Giles

no... the weapon was more handheld not an actual fist... I think Blue was somewhere in the title.

wlverinefactor

Anyone else checking out the ghosthouse horror series? pretty horrid. I just finished my 2nd one (The Substitute) and it's one of the worst I've seen in this challenge, the dub alone made me want to turn it off.

Chad

How about this?



The cut U.S. version is known as "House of Psychotic Women":

Numes

Normally I'd just leave this up to my notes in my list, but this was a HUGE disappointment after Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. I was surprised to see it rated 6.9 on IMDB and a lot of love for this movie. The special effects were pretty unbelievable, but the plot, pacing, acting, and the sheer amount of ridiculous exposition was unbearable to me (and I don't even mind exposition.) The whole Bub thing was ridiculous, but not in a good way. For the most part, people on the IMDB message boards are pretty much the worst on the web, so that is why I thought I'd ask people on this board whose opinions I actually respect.

Am I on the right track, or is there something I missed? I was going to check out the other two movies, but now I'm not sure anymore.

stonecountry

It's by far the weakest of the original trilogy, but when you've practically revolutionized horror and created a sub-genre, it's kind of hard to exceed that. Romero has said he played the thing with the whole mad scientist gimmick as over the top on purpose. The thing that's always annoyed me the most in the movie was that one military guy who takes charge being such a psycho for no apparent reason...well unless you count the zombies taking over the world and living underground waiting to die as a reason...LOL. He intended originally to have a whole army of fighting zombies but didn't have the money to make it happen. So they were forced to rework the idea on a much smaller level and decided to make it a little more farcical I guess in the process. There are some nice gore moments in this one that are every bit as good as Dawn. I think that's still Romero's problem, not being able to fully decide between straight up horror or more satire. The satire of the first two films was much more understated and doesn't even need to be read into them to enjoy them at face value. Maybe he just needs to get somebody else to write scripts for him. That's what I've always said about Dario Argento, another good director but not so great writer, especially given the language barrier he has to overcome with making movies in English. We owe a lot to Dario though cause without him there would be no Dawn of the Dead or its sequels most likely. He was the one who approached George about making a sequal to Night of the Living Dead and even paid him and set him up in Italy for a while I think to work on the script. That's why he got to make the inferior European cut of the film.

riotinmyskull

maybe watch it in it's original language?