gp1086

First viewing of this one. Very good.

riley_dude

Mr. Nobody with Leto. Loved it.

hanshotfirst1138

Jaws- Much has been laid at the feet of Jaws, and in one sense, it's true: it was the blueprint for countless high-concept braindead blockbusters which resurrect old B-movies with millions of dollars in the flash and trash in attempt distract from bad filmmaking and the increasingly conservative monetization of Hollywood, crushing the all-too brief "New Hollywood" resurgence of properly intelligent filmmaking. And though you could make a case like this quite coherently, it would miss the point: Jaws is a brilliant film. Exciting, invigorating, intelligent, and still thrilling after 30 years, it remains Spielberg at his very, very best: lean, raw, hungry (pun intended), and iconic. Still an exhilarating adventure and an intelligent character piece with some of the best popcorn thrills ever committed to film, its imitations have done nothing to diminish its enduring power as a masterpiece. And it's amazing how well its held up too. Saw it at a local horror film club projected on a proper multiplex screen, and wow, is Universal's Blu a real stunner. It looked damn good on a 50-foot screen, and since I'm never going to get the chance to see it in 35mm, this will have to do, and it does very nicely. It's a breathtaking transfer, supervised by Spielberg himself. If only all of Universal's catalog releases were treated with such care. Fingers crossed for a 4K version to circulate for the anniversary next year? Mr. Lucas take note: THIS is how you restore a modern classic. Smile indeed, you son of a bitch.

sharktrager

The Man From Cairo (1953)

EddieMoney

Get Carter (2000)

inri222

With A Friend Like Harry - 4/5

French psychological thriller about a man who while on vacation with his family bumps into an old classmate who he hasn't seen in 20 years. He manages to invite himself and his girlfriend over for dinner with the family and the more time he spends with them, the more they become aware of how disturbed he is. Dominick Moll's film is a nice blend of Chabrol & Hitchcock with a splash of black comedy.

tommyp007

Enemy of the State

Rob V

Captain America - Winter Solider: 4/5

Jory

What do you think of it? Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person in the world who doesn't hate this movie. Yeah, the original's better, but I didn't think this was the insulting pile of garbage that it's made out to be.

SPiRAL

Under The Skin 5/5

Only Lovers Left Alive 4/5

devilshalo

Amazing Spider-Man 2

hanshotfirst1138

Freddy vs. Jason- Much better than it has any right to be monster movie mashup. Those looking for the intelligence found in the Craven films will be most disappointed, but if you've stuck with the franchise this long, that likely won't be an issue. Braindead? Sure. But way more fun than you'd expect. Screenwriters Shannon and Swift are obviously fanboys themselves, and they've clearly done their homework, and Hong Kong-bred director Ronny Yu Yan-Tai infuses the proceedings with lots of kinetic razzle-dazzle and the requisite blood and boobs. The characters are annoying stereotypes who exist solely to be killed off in gruesome ways, but it's very stylish-looking and the final showdown delivers what you expect. It is what it is, it knows what it is, and it doesn't pretend to be anything else. And for once, that's good enough.

Jory

Treasure Planet (2002)

My marathon of Treasure Island adaptations continues.

This move feels like it was conceived over a bong in a dorm room: "Dude, check this. What if, like, there was a movie, like, of Treasure Island, but in space? But instead of, like, spaceships and stuff, it's like, still a bunch of old wooden ships with sails? I know, right? Are there any Funyuns left?"

It's a friggin' mess. Some of it is very good, but the excellent is mixed with the terrible, the brilliant with the stupid, the creative with the trite. It's a collection of ideas that never comes together in a cohesive whole, and it never feels like the filmmakers had any real ambition beyond Treasure Island in Space. I'd rather watch Treasure Island in tha Hood. At least that would have been an enjoyable train wreck rather than this slightly interesting failure.

"(FARTING NOISE)" appears in the subtitles. A lot. It's kind of appropriate.

sharktrager

From dusk till dawn 2

iNCREDiPiNOY

Lumberjack Man - 3/5 - Funny, Laughable, Scary, Bloody, and Nudity.

hanshotfirst1138

Assault on Precinct 13- Brutal, lean, and gloriously analog action flick from John Carpenter. Long before Robert Rodriguez, 1080p consumer cameras, and Final Cut, this was DIY filmmaking. A thinly-veiled modern updating of Rio Bravo, it put the western into an urban context with brutal violence, exploitation thrills, and archetypal characters. Thin? Yes, but that's precisely the point: the base-level thrills are still thrilling, and the dark cinematography, monosyllabic characters, and beautifully grainy 35mm all work with a certain ragtag beauty. Watching an upscaled DVD isn't the same as seeing it in a grindhouse with a beat-up print where the floors are sticky, but damned if it isn't a fun flick that looks more expensive than it is and is way more slick than you'd expect. I just might have to pick up that Shout Blu. Got a smoke?

Your Highness- Sporadically amusing but unbelievably uneven lowbrow comedy would've made a great SNL skit. As it is, the one-joke premise-"let's blend sword-and-sorcery with vulgar jokes and slacker/stoner movie stuff-"does elicit some laughs, but even with its lean runtime, the same gag over and over is still only funny so many times. Some amusing bits and quotable lines though, many of which are likely to find their way into signatures and memes for years to come. To the Fuckening!

sharktrager

Hitchcock's The Wrong Man. Brilliant.

Jory

Predators (2010)

Predators is so insultingly stupid, so absolutely filled with discrepancies and contradictions and implausibilities, that I would have turned it off after 20 minutes had the actors not been so good. Adrien Brody does a fine enough job playing Christian Bale playing John Connor, but it's really Laurence Fishburne playing Orson Welles playing Marlon Brando who's amazing. It's too bad the filmmakers either didn't realize how good he was or didn't have enough money to pay him to stick around, but Brody's supporting cast picks up the slack after Fishburne's early exit. The action is fine, even if the CGI is too obvious and the filmmakers plagiarize the original Predator too much. What ruins it is the fact that the screenwriters thought everyone in the audience was lobotomized. At one point a character actually explains, in dialogue, the double meaning of the title. And people call Alien vs. Predator the stupid one.

asianxcore

Adam Chaplin (2011)

Terrible pacing but tons of Splatter. Not unusual for Italy's 'Necrostorm'.

iNCREDiPiNOY

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - 3/5 - Watched the prescreening last night. I don't think the movie look terrible. Electro is kinda look like Mr Freezer. And there's no ending scene.

EddieMoney

I really didn't find it to be bad. I enjoyed it.

Giles

NOW: In the Wings on the World Stage

with Kevin Spacey in attendance / post film Q&A

Why So Blu?

Escape from Tomorrow - One of the best films Terry Gilliam never directed. It is a surreal flick!

Jory

Alien vs. Predator (2004)

Every film critic who trashed AVP but gave Transformers a pass should be tarred and feathered. It's pure schlock, but it's good schlock, which is more than I can say for anything with Michael Bay's name in the credits. This is the second time I've seen AVP, and the second time I've wondered what the hell everyone's problem is. James Cameron called it the third best Alien film, and I think I agree. I'll have to re-watch Predator 2 before I can say whether I like it more or less than that one, but I can already say that I prefer AVP over Predators. The action scenes are more creative, the effects artists did a better job of blending practical and CGI, and the script isn't quite so idiotic.

The Blu-ray set I bought also came with AVP2, which I've never seen, so I guess that's next on my list.

sharktrager

TARZAN'S MAGIC FOUNTAIN from 1949.