THEY WILL KILL YOU (2026, THEATER) is basically "Ready Or Not 2" (which just came out last week... such bad timing!) with additional layers of exploitation genre paint (blaxploitation, kung-fu, etc.) applied to Radio Silence's template. Ass-kicking Zazie Beetz will stop at nothing to rescue her baby sister Myha'la from a cult of wealthy satanists living in a locked-from-within NYC building. I avoided trailers/ads and had a good time, but the thrills/surprises came with a gigantic sense of déjà vu. Nice to see Heather Graham and Patricia Arquette working, but other than producer Andy Muschietti and co-writer/director Kirill Sokolov "borrowing" Wes Anderson's horizontal/vertical movement style "TWKY" is going through the motions. Worth seeing, eventually... June, perhaps? 😛
The good news for A24's bottom line is that Canadian import UNDERTONE ('26, THEATER) was so cheap to produce (only two on-camera actors, one indoor location, emphasis on sound over visuals, etc.) its already in the black after opening weekend. Bad news is that, like the "Paranormal Activity" series (which writer/director Ian Tuason has already been tasked to reboot), the hype machine overpromised and underdelivered. Despite solid work by Nina Kiri and great atmosphere of dread, the podcast/audio portions of "Undertone" are boring, dull and a chore to sit through. YMMV, but this is a one-and-done for me.
SLANTED ('26, THEATER) would have probably made more waves if "The Substance" (France) and "Grafted" (New Zealand) hadn't already raised the 'body horror for beauty's sake' subgenre pretty high. Instead of crazy science or gore (present but pushed deep into the background) "Slanted" awkwardly tries to be both an immigrant acceptance morality tale and a high school popularity flick. Shirley Chen and McKenna Grace are good as a Chinese teenager who undergoes an operation to make her look/sound Caucasian. Except for the girl's Chinese parents (Vivian Wu and Fang Du, both excellent) every character is a gross caricature of a white people stereotype. While she gets an occasional chuckle and moment of pathos from the parents-daughter dynamic, writer/director Amy Wang's first feature is mostly a well-meaning misfire. 'Prayers and Ammo' storefront? Really? 🤨🙄
How the mighty have fallen. It's well made and echoes his earlier thriller work ("Apt Pupil," "Valkyrie"), but Bryan Singer's MONUMENT ('26, THEATER) can't escape the stench of looking/feeling like not-too-subtle Israel military propaganda. At its core there's a decent drama about an underachieving architect son (Joseph Mazzello's Amnon Rechter) trying to get from under the shadow of his legendary father (Jon Voight's Yakov Rechter) by designing a unique, personal monument to the fallen soldiers of the Israel-Lebanon occupation. Wish the couple of Lebanese builder brothers (Firas Mana and Riyad Sliman) had been given more than token scenes of friendship with Amnon, whose family drama with wife Osnat (Aviv Pinkas) plays prominently. 'It's fine' considering Singer's stuck in movie jail.
Last but not least, watched Zach Snyder's 300 (2006, 4K UHD) and Andrew Davis' CODE OF SILENCE (1985, TUBI) on Discord with refugees from Jury Room 4.0 to celebrate, respectively, our 300th weekly online meetings (l've missed so many! 🥵) and Chuck Norris' career. "300" still kicks butt and entertains (especially with a group of film fans), but Snyder's decades-long descent into a 'dude-bro' touchstone weighs heavily on the film's appeal. Lena Headey stands out, particularly her revenge on Dominic West. 🥳🤠
"Code of Silence" started a strong streak of films for Davis (culminating in 1993's "The Fugitive") and gave Norris a chance to explore more dramatic acting (he actually loses a fight, badly! 😳) by surrounding himself with real talent (Dennis Farina) and real Chicago cops. Even when it lets its freak flag fly (robot cop warehouse shootout), "COS" is one of Chuck's better, more grounded action vehicles. That 80's as eff sax music, though... 😱😭😁
Dude....cray weird coincidence....after watching Lone Wolf last week i watched Code of Silence this week! It follows a similar formula (as so much of cop action flix in the 80s do) but was a pretty solid watch. Love Chicago backdrop.
It was chosen for me by the JR 4.0 group (I'm more partial to "Silent Rage" as Norris' best little-known sleeper hit), but there's a lot to like about "COS." Chicago (specifically Chicago cop culture, which also appears in Andrew Davis' "Above The Law" three years later) is a co-star, the bad guys are a nasty bunch (Henry Silva makes a great bad guy, here and in "ATL") and Chuck plays a great silent type, especially to the mob girl he's trying to protect. Great mid-80's action flick, but the 'B' side no Norris' '85 Cannon opus "Invasion USA." ✊️😎
I had a freaking BLAST with this movie. Its legit great. Its a silly, funny, action, quirky character redemption arc flick with a smidge of Looper/Groundhog Day thrown in. Most of all i consistently laughed throughout the movie. It taps into the best of Vaughns trademark whipsmart sarcastic delivery. Every single character shines in the comedy department.
Intentional Double Feature: Prep for The Furious
If you are a huge fan of action cinema and havent yet, i HIGHLY suggest you check out the new trailer for The Furious. Its very much looking to be this years breakout action movie in the same vein as The Raid was years ago. Caught a couple flix directed by the action director of Furious (Sonomura)
Bad City (prime 2022) I enjoyed this flick. Its sort of one part crime drama with a twisty turny set of events centered around organized crime, yakuza, cops, and evil corporations. And the other part is CRAZY level fighting action. The pacing is a bit weird as it shifts between. The final battle is House of Blue Leaves level action.
Hydra (2019) This one is more of a lower budget drama centered around a retired hitman living a quiet life in a small bar in Tokyo who cannot fully escape his past. Theres little action and its more one on one however the style of fighting is very interesting. Its hand to hand and knife to knife but INCREDIBLY fast movement.
In the end i CANNOT wait to see The Furious this year!!!!!
Spinal Tap - The End Continues (2025): No matter what they did, they could never reach the level of the first movie. Still a funny movie. I'm just annoyed they didn't use the title "This Is Still Spinal Tap".
Invasion USA (1985): Wolverines!... Where's Patrick Swayze?... Ah, wrong movie... I gotta admit, it's much slower to start than I thought, but I forgot that's how they did it in the 80s. Chuck Norris might be the worst actor ever, but his screen presence can be felt every time he's on. Big Daddy Chuck is mostly absent for the first half the movie, but when he shows up, things go boom. If there's one thing I take from this movie, is that communists are bad. Gotta love the town destruction at 38 minutes.
The Lighthorsemen (1987): Following Paul Calvert recommendation from 2 weeks ago, I went straight to eBay and got the blu-ray. It's everything he said it was. Great movie (the director did The Phantom), great desert shots (the cinematographer did The Road Warrior) and the score is very good (the composer did The Road Warrior too).
Chuck wisely stays out of the glorious ham that is watching Richard Lynch shoot Billy Drago's d!ck before throwing a broken-nose wh@re out the window. 😅 Seriously, Kunider, rewatch "Invasion USA" and the slow parts without Norris actually become endearing. And yes, even by 80's outrageous action movie standards the destruction of that neighborhood on Christmas by RPG bazooka is deranged and over the top. 🥵 God, l love this movie. 🥰
This movie isn't great by any means but I had a lot of fun watching it. It's the kind of movie that would be fun to tweet (blue sky?) through during an FthismovieFest
Picked up the 4k discs of The Godfather 1 and 2. Not much to be said about these. They look gorgeous. Something that irks me though is that the subtitles are off for both movies, often replacing spoken words with different words or omitting words altogether. Never seen that before.
I don't remember the subs on my godfather 4k discs. I'll have to check. Also, you need to pick up the 3rd movie, especially the new edit called Coda. I got it in the box set, so i'm not sure if you get both versions of the movie when you get it single. The original version of the 3rd movie is good enough, but it could never live up to the other two.
As someone who a lifetime ago (2012-2015) worked on closed captioning for movies (English and Spanish, mostly the latter) shown on TV pay channels (Starz, Showtime, etc.), different clients demand different forms of CC. Some want as accurate a transcript of spoken words/sounds/music as humanly possible. Others request 'summarized' transcripts that reduce long stretches of dialogue to fewer lines of text so viewers aren't exhausted trying to keep up with both picture and CC. And then there's Guillermo Del Toro, who personally supervises the CC encoding and translating of all his movies so they reflect his intent as close as possible (especially for his Spanish-only movies). 🤓
In "The Godfather" 4K releases it sounds like 'legacy CC summarized' files that haven't been updated since forever were inserted into the encoding. The old "Rambo" movies have similar not-accurate CC text accompanying the recent batch of 4K releases (which match the DVD CC I used to own). That's why when I'm shopping for BD and 4K movies (especially for foreign movies or old martial ars flicks) l look for 'New and Improved English Subtitles' (or words to that effect) as a selling point. That means whoever is publishing the disc went through the effort/expense of contracting out a new-from-scratch transcript and CC timing session for the film's transfer. Most physical media releases, sadly, recycle older CC files that may or may not be accurate to start with. 🤨🙄
I worked in the business too for a while (encoding movies to distribute to plateforms like netflix and cable channels). Mostly with movies translated to english, everytime i got a subtitle file that was evidently translated from a different source than the audio translation, i had to make a comment to make sure it wouldn't come back as a 'problem' from the client. Sometimes it's as stupid as money currency. It's Yen in the dub, but Dollars in the sub. Fun times.
Remember Anchor Bay? That boutique label for early DVD enthusiasts was notorious for having no subtitles or English CC for ANY of their U.S. releases EXCEPT for foreign movies that needed English subs. Talk about cheap-as-eff bastards! 🙄🤑
And they were notoriously plagued with early dvd rot. I don't think i have any of their dvd left, most of what i owned was reprinted by other companies in blu-ray
I've kept a few Anchor Bay DVD's around, either as an excuse to NOT buy a 4K upgrade ("Madman") or for exclusive bonus features NOT carried over to BD/4K upgrades ("Suspiria," "Demons," etc.). 🥸
I recently watched Nuremberg, which, apart from a solid Russell Crowe performance was pretty lousy - more chintzy Hallmark-style WW2 slop à la The Imitation Game for increasingly historically illiterate audiences who need hand-holding. Review here. Alas, judging by the preview, the upcoming Brendan Fraser movie Pressure, a de facto remake of TV's Ike: Countdown to D-Day, which stars Tom Selleck, will be more of the same.
I also watched 1939's The Four Feathers, which is a muddled but interesting period British Empire action adventure released months before the outbreak of WW2. The wonderful Criterion commentary alone justifies giving it a watch. Review here.
I also listened to Fun City Editions' Nathaniel Thompson Blu-ray commentary for 1982's Paradise, which was an entertaining accompaniment for some household chores. (Turns out the San Francisco Library system has a rather large collection of Kino Lorber and other rare/boutique Blus.)
THE MASK OF ZORRO (1998) They just don't make 'em like this anymore.
NIGHTBREED (1990) I don't know. The secret society of monsters living under the graveyard should look more cool and less run down.
FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956) This has become one of my "I could watch it anytime" regulars.
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (2012) and THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (2013). I love me some sword swingin' epic fantasy, but even I must admit a lot of these movies feel like filler. Like, did the whole scene in the creepy spider forest add anything to the plot or characters?
IMO, the best way to watch The Hobbit/LotR in order, assuming one is watching any of The Hobbit at all, would be to watch An Unexpected Journey (theatrical version, of course), then skip over SmaugFive Armies entirely, and dive straight into Fellowship. That way, you get Bilbo's hero's journey arc, his fateful meeting with Gollum and the acquisition of the Ring, and the Smaug encounter remains a Noodle Incident that the viewer can only imagine, much like the kids hearing the story at Bilbo's party. Nothing that follows Journey, including everything pertaining to Legolas, has any substantial impact on The Lord of the Rings, and, since the Nazgûl's Fell Beasts are smaller than Smaug, skipping over him entirely prevents the later action from feeling in any way anticlimactic by comparison. (Heck, maybe one should even go one step further, and watch An Unexpected Journey in grayscale, to allow the colors of the LotR trilogy to hit that much harder.)
Big day today, watching movies from waking up to bedtime...
The Way of the Gun (2000): The most annoying part about this movie is that it goes at the bottom of my shelf in the W. I don't know if this was forgotten for 2000 month, but it is the first directed movie of Christopher McQuarrie after all. Because of this, he eventually brought us some of the best Mission Impossible movies. It's also right when Ryan Philippe star was shining. Unfortunately, it never went anywhere and he went back to doing b-movies and we forgot about him.
Fahrenheit 451 (1966): This is looking more and more like a documentary.
Colossus - The Forbin Project (1970): Movies in the 1970s: AI will k1ll us all... Us in the 2000s: Let's give everything to AI. Thanks Mashke for the recommendation.
Jin Roh - The Wolf Brigade (1999): This is one of my favorite anime, so when I saw Japan was releasing a new 4k, I jumped on it (after making sure there was English subtitles). It's written by the great Mamoru Oshii, of which I bought Angel's Egg a couple of weeks ago. It's light on extras, for the very high price, but I'm crazy enough to not care and just be happy with the restored movie. Also, there's a Korean live action remake from 2018 that's not bad. It was on Netflix back then, maybe it still is.
Drag Me To hell (2009): Arguably the last true Raimi movie. I wanted to rewatch it after seeing Send Help, and now I finally for the 4K. Send Help was a return to form for him, but something was missing. Too much green screen I think, modern movies all look fake and even Raimi can't escape it. Anyway, I only saw DMtH once, when it came out and really liked it. It's very disgusting (not just because of the blood) and that's what make it different and good, if you can stomach it.
Les Furies (2025): Adam piece mentioned Whip it, which reminded me of this movie released recently. My friend said it was good, and I really should watch more local movies. The movie was written by the main actress and it's as funny and full of derby action as expected. Think Dodgeball with Vince Vaughn, but with women and roller derby: the old crazy coach, the fat one, the crazy one, the hot one, etc. Everybody loves an underdog story.
I just found out from Deadline.com that "Send Help" cost $40 million to make and just crossed $100 million at the worldwide box office this weekend. Those obvious green screen shots are the only way Sam Raimi and his team could make the movie NOT cost $50-60 million, which would have made it unprofitable. Sucks, but that only makes me appreciate the handful of practical scenes/work in "Drag Me To Hell" even more. Enjoy your new 4K UHD's, Kuniter. 🙃🙂
I hope some of y'all are watching From over on MGM+. The fourth season starts in a few weeks so it's a perfect time to binge the series if you haven't already. Horror plus mystery box is probably my favorite genre and as long as they don't completely botch the ending, this is gonna to down as an all time favorite for me.
The tax filing season in the U.S. is reaching its conclusion, which means the work load frequently gets crazy. Putting in the time to stay caught up has not left much for movie-watching, but I did find the motivation to go to a screening of EPIC: ELVIS PRESLEY IN CONCERT at the local independent theater. I had a lot of fun with the film and could not help swaying to the music. The man certainly did not hold anything back on stage.
I'm just coming out of Project Hail Mary. I can't say I loved it, but I didn't hate it. I'm a big fan of The Martian, and there's a lot of similarities between the two movies, so I kept comparing them.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHere we go. 😉
ReplyDeleteTHEY WILL KILL YOU (2026, THEATER) is basically "Ready Or Not 2" (which just came out last week... such bad timing!) with additional layers of exploitation genre paint (blaxploitation, kung-fu, etc.) applied to Radio Silence's template. Ass-kicking Zazie Beetz will stop at nothing to rescue her baby sister Myha'la from a cult of wealthy satanists living in a locked-from-within NYC building. I avoided trailers/ads and had a good time, but the thrills/surprises came with a gigantic sense of déjà vu. Nice to see Heather Graham and Patricia Arquette working, but other than producer Andy Muschietti and co-writer/director Kirill Sokolov "borrowing" Wes Anderson's horizontal/vertical movement style "TWKY" is going through the motions. Worth seeing, eventually... June, perhaps? 😛
The good news for A24's bottom line is that Canadian import UNDERTONE ('26, THEATER) was so cheap to produce (only two on-camera actors, one indoor location, emphasis on sound over visuals, etc.) its already in the black after opening weekend. Bad news is that, like the "Paranormal Activity" series (which writer/director Ian Tuason has already been tasked to reboot), the hype machine overpromised and underdelivered. Despite solid work by Nina Kiri and great atmosphere of dread, the podcast/audio portions of "Undertone" are boring, dull and a chore to sit through. YMMV, but this is a one-and-done for me.
SLANTED ('26, THEATER) would have probably made more waves if "The Substance" (France) and "Grafted" (New Zealand) hadn't already raised the 'body horror for beauty's sake' subgenre pretty high. Instead of crazy science or gore (present but pushed deep into the background) "Slanted" awkwardly tries to be both an immigrant acceptance morality tale and a high school popularity flick. Shirley Chen and McKenna Grace are good as a Chinese teenager who undergoes an operation to make her look/sound Caucasian. Except for the girl's Chinese parents (Vivian Wu and Fang Du, both excellent) every character is a gross caricature of a white people stereotype. While she gets an occasional chuckle and moment of pathos from the parents-daughter dynamic, writer/director Amy Wang's first feature is mostly a well-meaning misfire. 'Prayers and Ammo' storefront? Really? 🤨🙄
How the mighty have fallen. It's well made and echoes his earlier thriller work ("Apt Pupil," "Valkyrie"), but Bryan Singer's MONUMENT ('26, THEATER) can't escape the stench of looking/feeling like not-too-subtle Israel military propaganda. At its core there's a decent drama about an underachieving architect son (Joseph Mazzello's Amnon Rechter) trying to get from under the shadow of his legendary father (Jon Voight's Yakov Rechter) by designing a unique, personal monument to the fallen soldiers of the Israel-Lebanon occupation. Wish the couple of Lebanese builder brothers (Firas Mana and Riyad Sliman) had been given more than token scenes of friendship with Amnon, whose family drama with wife Osnat (Aviv Pinkas) plays prominently. 'It's fine' considering Singer's stuck in movie jail.
Last but not least, watched Zach Snyder's 300 (2006, 4K UHD) and Andrew Davis' CODE OF SILENCE (1985, TUBI) on Discord with refugees from Jury Room 4.0 to celebrate, respectively, our 300th weekly online meetings (l've missed so many! 🥵) and Chuck Norris' career. "300" still kicks butt and entertains (especially with a group of film fans), but Snyder's decades-long descent into a 'dude-bro' touchstone weighs heavily on the film's appeal. Lena Headey stands out, particularly her revenge on Dominic West. 🥳🤠
"Code of Silence" started a strong streak of films for Davis (culminating in 1993's "The Fugitive") and gave Norris a chance to explore more dramatic acting (he actually loses a fight, badly! 😳) by surrounding himself with real talent (Dennis Farina) and real Chicago cops. Even when it lets its freak flag fly (robot cop warehouse shootout), "COS" is one of Chuck's better, more grounded action vehicles. That 80's as eff sax music, though... 😱😭😁
Dude....cray weird coincidence....after watching Lone Wolf last week i watched Code of Silence this week! It follows a similar formula (as so much of cop action flix in the 80s do) but was a pretty solid watch. Love Chicago backdrop.
DeleteIt was chosen for me by the JR 4.0 group (I'm more partial to "Silent Rage" as Norris' best little-known sleeper hit), but there's a lot to like about "COS." Chicago (specifically Chicago cop culture, which also appears in Andrew Davis' "Above The Law" three years later) is a co-star, the bad guys are a nasty bunch (Henry Silva makes a great bad guy, here and in "ATL") and Chuck plays a great silent type, especially to the mob girl he's trying to protect. Great mid-80's action flick, but the 'B' side no Norris' '85 Cannon opus "Invasion USA." ✊️😎
DeleteMike&Nick&Nick&Alice (2026 Hulu)
ReplyDeleteI had a freaking BLAST with this movie. Its legit great. Its a silly, funny, action, quirky character redemption arc flick with a smidge of Looper/Groundhog Day thrown in. Most of all i consistently laughed throughout the movie. It taps into the best of Vaughns trademark whipsmart sarcastic delivery. Every single character shines in the comedy department.
Intentional Double Feature: Prep for The Furious
If you are a huge fan of action cinema and havent yet, i HIGHLY suggest you check out the new trailer for The Furious. Its very much looking to be this years breakout action movie in the same vein as The Raid was years ago. Caught a couple flix directed by the action director of Furious (Sonomura)
Bad City (prime 2022)
I enjoyed this flick. Its sort of one part crime drama with a twisty turny set of events centered around organized crime, yakuza, cops, and evil corporations. And the other part is CRAZY level fighting action. The pacing is a bit weird as it shifts between. The final battle is House of Blue Leaves level action.
Hydra (2019)
This one is more of a lower budget drama centered around a retired hitman living a quiet life in a small bar in Tokyo who cannot fully escape his past. Theres little action and its more one on one however the style of fighting is very interesting. Its hand to hand and knife to knife but INCREDIBLY fast movement.
In the end i CANNOT wait to see The Furious this year!!!!!
Spinal Tap - The End Continues (2025): No matter what they did, they could never reach the level of the first movie. Still a funny movie. I'm just annoyed they didn't use the title "This Is Still Spinal Tap".
ReplyDeleteInvasion USA (1985): Wolverines!... Where's Patrick Swayze?... Ah, wrong movie... I gotta admit, it's much slower to start than I thought, but I forgot that's how they did it in the 80s. Chuck Norris might be the worst actor ever, but his screen presence can be felt every time he's on. Big Daddy Chuck is mostly absent for the first half the movie, but when he shows up, things go boom. If there's one thing I take from this movie, is that communists are bad. Gotta love the town destruction at 38 minutes.
The Lighthorsemen (1987): Following Paul Calvert recommendation from 2 weeks ago, I went straight to eBay and got the blu-ray. It's everything he said it was. Great movie (the director did The Phantom), great desert shots (the cinematographer did The Road Warrior) and the score is very good (the composer did The Road Warrior too).
Chuck wisely stays out of the glorious ham that is watching Richard Lynch shoot Billy Drago's d!ck before throwing a broken-nose wh@re out the window. 😅 Seriously, Kunider, rewatch "Invasion USA" and the slow parts without Norris actually become endearing. And yes, even by 80's outrageous action movie standards the destruction of that neighborhood on Christmas by RPG bazooka is deranged and over the top. 🥵 God, l love this movie. 🥰
DeleteI didn't hate the slow start, on the contrary.
DeletePretty Lethal (2026)
ReplyDeleteThis movie isn't great by any means but I had a lot of fun watching it. It's the kind of movie that would be fun to tweet (blue sky?) through during an FthismovieFest
Picked up the 4k discs of The Godfather 1 and 2. Not much to be said about these. They look gorgeous. Something that irks me though is that the subtitles are off for both movies, often replacing spoken words with different words or omitting words altogether. Never seen that before.
I don't remember the subs on my godfather 4k discs. I'll have to check. Also, you need to pick up the 3rd movie, especially the new edit called Coda. I got it in the box set, so i'm not sure if you get both versions of the movie when you get it single. The original version of the 3rd movie is good enough, but it could never live up to the other two.
DeleteAlso, writing on bluesky, i call it 'skyping' 😎
As someone who a lifetime ago (2012-2015) worked on closed captioning for movies (English and Spanish, mostly the latter) shown on TV pay channels (Starz, Showtime, etc.), different clients demand different forms of CC. Some want as accurate a transcript of spoken words/sounds/music as humanly possible. Others request 'summarized' transcripts that reduce long stretches of dialogue to fewer lines of text so viewers aren't exhausted trying to keep up with both picture and CC. And then there's Guillermo Del Toro, who personally supervises the CC encoding and translating of all his movies so they reflect his intent as close as possible (especially for his Spanish-only movies). 🤓
DeleteIn "The Godfather" 4K releases it sounds like 'legacy CC summarized' files that haven't been updated since forever were inserted into the encoding. The old "Rambo" movies have similar not-accurate CC text accompanying the recent batch of 4K releases (which match the DVD CC I used to own). That's why when I'm shopping for BD and 4K movies (especially for foreign movies or old martial ars flicks) l look for 'New and Improved English Subtitles' (or words to that effect) as a selling point. That means whoever is publishing the disc went through the effort/expense of contracting out a new-from-scratch transcript and CC timing session for the film's transfer. Most physical media releases, sadly, recycle older CC files that may or may not be accurate to start with. 🤨🙄
Very interesting, thank you for that explanation!
DeleteI worked in the business too for a while (encoding movies to distribute to plateforms like netflix and cable channels). Mostly with movies translated to english, everytime i got a subtitle file that was evidently translated from a different source than the audio translation, i had to make a comment to make sure it wouldn't come back as a 'problem' from the client. Sometimes it's as stupid as money currency. It's Yen in the dub, but Dollars in the sub. Fun times.
DeleteRemember Anchor Bay? That boutique label for early DVD enthusiasts was notorious for having no subtitles or English CC for ANY of their U.S. releases EXCEPT for foreign movies that needed English subs. Talk about cheap-as-eff bastards! 🙄🤑
DeleteAnd they were notoriously plagued with early dvd rot. I don't think i have any of their dvd left, most of what i owned was reprinted by other companies in blu-ray
DeleteI've kept a few Anchor Bay DVD's around, either as an excuse to NOT buy a 4K upgrade ("Madman") or for exclusive bonus features NOT carried over to BD/4K upgrades ("Suspiria," "Demons," etc.). 🥸
DeleteI recently watched Nuremberg, which, apart from a solid Russell Crowe performance was pretty lousy - more chintzy Hallmark-style WW2 slop à la The Imitation Game for increasingly historically illiterate audiences who need hand-holding. Review here. Alas, judging by the preview, the upcoming Brendan Fraser movie Pressure, a de facto remake of TV's Ike: Countdown to D-Day, which stars Tom Selleck, will be more of the same.
ReplyDeleteI also watched 1939's The Four Feathers, which is a muddled but interesting period British Empire action adventure released months before the outbreak of WW2. The wonderful Criterion commentary alone justifies giving it a watch. Review here.
I also listened to Fun City Editions' Nathaniel Thompson Blu-ray commentary for 1982's Paradise, which was an entertaining accompaniment for some household chores. (Turns out the San Francisco Library system has a rather large collection of Kino Lorber and other rare/boutique Blus.)
Great flicks all (even "Nuremberg," especially the depressing recount of the lead character's post-trial life). 🙂👍
DeleteTHE MASK OF ZORRO (1998)
ReplyDeleteThey just don't make 'em like this anymore.
NIGHTBREED (1990)
I don't know. The secret society of monsters living under the graveyard should look more cool and less run down.
FORBIDDEN PLANET (1956)
This has become one of my "I could watch it anytime" regulars.
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (2012) and THE HOBBIT: THE DESOLATION OF SMAUG (2013).
I love me some sword swingin' epic fantasy, but even I must admit a lot of these movies feel like filler. Like, did the whole scene in the creepy spider forest add anything to the plot or characters?
I recommend you watch the Lindsay Ellis video essays on the Hobbit movies. Very interesting.
DeleteIMO, the best way to watch The Hobbit/LotR in order, assuming one is watching any of The Hobbit at all, would be to watch An Unexpected Journey (theatrical version, of course), then skip over SmaugFive Armies entirely, and dive straight into Fellowship. That way, you get Bilbo's hero's journey arc, his fateful meeting with Gollum and the acquisition of the Ring, and the Smaug encounter remains a Noodle Incident that the viewer can only imagine, much like the kids hearing the story at Bilbo's party. Nothing that follows Journey, including everything pertaining to Legolas, has any substantial impact on The Lord of the Rings, and, since the Nazgûl's Fell Beasts are smaller than Smaug, skipping over him entirely prevents the later action from feeling in any way anticlimactic by comparison. (Heck, maybe one should even go one step further, and watch An Unexpected Journey in grayscale, to allow the colors of the LotR trilogy to hit that much harder.)
DeleteBig day today, watching movies from waking up to bedtime...
ReplyDeleteThe Way of the Gun (2000): The most annoying part about this movie is that it goes at the bottom of my shelf in the W. I don't know if this was forgotten for 2000 month, but it is the first directed movie of Christopher McQuarrie after all. Because of this, he eventually brought us some of the best Mission Impossible movies. It's also right when Ryan Philippe star was shining. Unfortunately, it never went anywhere and he went back to doing b-movies and we forgot about him.
Fahrenheit 451 (1966): This is looking more and more like a documentary.
Colossus - The Forbin Project (1970): Movies in the 1970s: AI will k1ll us all... Us in the 2000s: Let's give everything to AI. Thanks Mashke for the recommendation.
Jin Roh - The Wolf Brigade (1999): This is one of my favorite anime, so when I saw Japan was releasing a new 4k, I jumped on it (after making sure there was English subtitles). It's written by the great Mamoru Oshii, of which I bought Angel's Egg a couple of weeks ago. It's light on extras, for the very high price, but I'm crazy enough to not care and just be happy with the restored movie. Also, there's a Korean live action remake from 2018 that's not bad. It was on Netflix back then, maybe it still is.
Drag Me To hell (2009): Arguably the last true Raimi movie. I wanted to rewatch it after seeing Send Help, and now I finally for the 4K. Send Help was a return to form for him, but something was missing. Too much green screen I think, modern movies all look fake and even Raimi can't escape it. Anyway, I only saw DMtH once, when it came out and really liked it. It's very disgusting (not just because of the blood) and that's what make it different and good, if you can stomach it.
Les Furies (2025): Adam piece mentioned Whip it, which reminded me of this movie released recently. My friend said it was good, and I really should watch more local movies. The movie was written by the main actress and it's as funny and full of derby action as expected. Think Dodgeball with Vince Vaughn, but with women and roller derby: the old crazy coach, the fat one, the crazy one, the hot one, etc. Everybody loves an underdog story.
Les Furies sounds fun! Alas, it doesn't appear to be stream- or rent-able in the US.
DeleteI just found out from Deadline.com that "Send Help" cost $40 million to make and just crossed $100 million at the worldwide box office this weekend. Those obvious green screen shots are the only way Sam Raimi and his team could make the movie NOT cost $50-60 million, which would have made it unprofitable. Sucks, but that only makes me appreciate the handful of practical scenes/work in "Drag Me To Hell" even more. Enjoy your new 4K UHD's, Kuniter. 🙃🙂
DeleteI'm glad Raimi made money, i hope he makes more, green screen or not 😁
DeleteLes Furies (The Furies) appear to available for rent on amazon, but it may be only in canada. I got a blu-ray, so i can't confirm streaming
I hope some of y'all are watching From over on MGM+. The fourth season starts in a few weeks so it's a perfect time to binge the series if you haven't already. Horror plus mystery box is probably my favorite genre and as long as they don't completely botch the ending, this is gonna to down as an all time favorite for me.
ReplyDeleteThe tax filing season in the U.S. is reaching its conclusion, which means the work load frequently gets crazy. Putting in the time to stay caught up has not left much for movie-watching, but I did find the motivation to go to a screening of EPIC: ELVIS PRESLEY IN CONCERT at the local independent theater. I had a lot of fun with the film and could not help swaying to the music. The man certainly did not hold anything back on stage.
ReplyDeleteThe behind-the-scenes footage of Elvis rehearsing with musicians and back-up singers was so cool. Artists at work perfecting their craft. 🤟😎
DeleteI'm just coming out of Project Hail Mary. I can't say I loved it, but I didn't hate it. I'm a big fan of The Martian, and there's a lot of similarities between the two movies, so I kept comparing them.
ReplyDeleteSame writer of "The Martian" novel (Andy Weir) also wrote the "PHM" book and co-produced the movie version. 🤓
DeleteI know that JM, that's why I'm comparing them 🤪🤣
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