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Movies and sometimes books, games, TV and comics Movies and sometimes books, games, TV and comics

09-20-2013 , 09:56 AM
I have seen it live (stage, not movie) . I never felt more alive, I think it was the heels.
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09-20-2013 , 08:20 PM
I'm enjoying your blog DB!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was my oldest sons favorite movie when he was about ten. We would take him to the midnight showings and throw toast and open umbrellas, lol. He loved the wildly dressed people and he still has one of the original posters. Good times...

Last edited by tylertwo; 09-20-2013 at 08:22 PM. Reason: He is forty now, wow, time flies.
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09-22-2013 , 10:14 AM
Horror Hospital 49/100 inept and with a hilariously bad script (man to a woman about 30 seconds after they first meet in an empty train carriage: 'dont worry, I'm not going to rape you'), but has its charms. Michael Gough in as a mad scientist, for example.

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09-22-2013 , 10:15 AM
Quote:
Originally Posted by tylertwo
I'm enjoying your blog DB!

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was my oldest sons favorite movie when he was about ten. We would take him to the midnight showings and throw toast and open umbrellas, lol. He loved the wildly dressed people and he still has one of the original posters. Good times...
glad you're digging it!

It's astounding, time is fleeting, Madness takes its toll...
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09-22-2013 , 10:18 AM
another early 70s British horror movie of the dopey kind...


Horror Express 63/100

Goofy goings on involving a primeval lifeforce that can erase your brain and absorb your thoughts, and body-swap too. Lee, Cushing and most curiously Telly Savalas hamming it up on a trans-Siberian train, and there's also a Rasputin figure and some post-mortem fun that keeps it rolling.


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09-29-2013 , 05:06 PM
Sorry, haven't been keeping on top of this, but I've just hit 300 movies watched so far this year, here they are in order of oldest watched first:

1 Tangled
2 Death Race
3 Death Race 2
4 Solomon Kane
5 Monkey Business
6 The Hunchback of Notre Dame
7 Planet of the Apes
8 The Ipcress File
9 The Girl
10 Rebecca
11 The Princess and the Frog
12 Funeral in Berlin
13 The Bride
14 Beetlejuice
15 The Omen
16 Damien: Omen II
17 The Woman in Black
18 Dracula Has Risen from the Grave
19 Eraserhead
20 The Final Conflict
21 Deadgirl
22 The Omen
23 Batman: Gotham Knight
24 Stir of Echoes
25 Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 1
26 Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Part 2
27 Billion Dollar Brain
28 Taste the Blood of Dracula
29 Wild at Heart
30 Rogue
31 Scars of Dracula
32 The Bird with the Crystal Plumage
33 Blue Velvet
34 Dracula Today
35 Commando
36 Les Misérables
37 Rasputin: The Mad Monk
38 Dark City
39 Grizzly Man
40 Dolan's Cadillac
41 The Dictator
42 Looper
43 The Satanic Rites of Dracula
44 The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires
45 Cockneys vs Zombies
46 Red Dawn
47 El Cid
48 Creature from the Black Lagoon
49 The Warriors
50 Con Air
51 Revenge of the Creature
52 The Creature Walks Among Us
53 Zero Dark Thirty
54 Santa Sangre
55 Ted
56 The Hills Have Eyes
57 The Hills Have Eyes Part II
58 The Hills Have Eyes
59 The Hills Have Eyes II
60 Frankenweenie
61 Escape from New York
62 The Grey
63 My Name Is Nobody
64 The Evil Dead
65 Leprechaun
66 Wreck-It Ralph
67 D.O.A.
68 The Sweeney
69 Dark Star
70 The Big Lebowski
71 The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
72 Repo Man
73 The Wizard of Oz
74 Juan de los Muertos
75 Django
76 Return to Oz
77 The Hurt Locker
78 Oz the Great and Powerful
79 Journey Back to Oz
80 The Raid
81 The Gate
82 Spartacus
83 WALL·E
84 The Wrestler
85 Tremors
86 The Exorcist
87 Hawk the Slayer
88 Monsters
89 Sightseers
90 Escape to Victory
91 Crank
92 Ferris Bueller's Day Off
93 Headhunters
94 Clerks.
95 The Omega Man
96 Evil Dead
97 The Goonies
98 From Russia with Love
99 The Quatermass Experiment
100 Night of the Living Dead
101 Holocaust 2000
102 Point Break
103 Last Action Hero
104 Avengers Assemble
105 Iron Man 3
106 End of Days
107 Army of Darkness
108 Justice League: Doom
109 Lifeboat
110 Star Trek
111 Casablanca
112 Star Trek Into Darkness
113 Star Trek: The Motion Picture
114 Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
115 Capricorn One
116 Side by Side
117 Galaxy Quest
118 Office Space
119 Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
120 Ginger Snaps
121 Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed
122 Ginger Snaps Back: The Beginning
123 The Shining
124 Black Swan
125 One Million Years B.C.
126 Grabbers
127 Halloween
128 Thunderball
129 Casino Royale
130 The 7th Voyage of Sinbad
131 You Only Live Twice
132 The Golden Voyage of Sinbad
133 The Bank Detective
134 Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger
135 Star Trek: Generations
136 Gremlins 2: The New Batch
137 Star Trek: First Contact
138 Circle of Iron
139 The Sinful Dwarf
140 The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms
141 Star Trek: Insurrection
142 Shaun of the Dead
143 Star Trek: Nemesis
144 Blacula
145 The Son of Kong
146 The Valley of Gwangi
147 Two Way Stretch
148 Scream Blacula Scream
149 The Monster Squad
150 20 Million Miles to Earth
151 First Men in the Moon
152 Evolution
153 Ghosts of Mars
154 The Black Hole
155 From Beyond
156 Jason and the Argonauts
157 On Her Majesty's Secret Service
158 Clash of the Titans
159 Diamonds Are Forever
160 Robin and Marian
161 First Blood
162 2001: A Space Odyssey
163 Rambo: First Blood Part II
164 Live and Let Die
165 Night of the Comet
166 Rambo III
167 The Black Cat
168 THX 1138
169 Man of Steel
170 Vampires
171 The Eiger Sanction
172 What's New Pussycat
173 Total Recall
174 Moby Dick
175 Rocketeer
176 Targets
177 The Funhouse
178 The Man with the Golden Gun
179 Seconds
180 The Spy Who Loved Me
181 Paradise Alley
182 Down Terrace
183 Despicable Me
184 Kill List
185 A Field in England
186 Despicable Me 2
187 The Godfather of Harlem
188 Hell Up in Harlem
189 Snow White and the Huntsman
190 ParaNorman
191 Pan's Labyrinth
192 Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker
193 This Is the End
194 Pineapple Express
195 The Devil's Backbone
196 The Hill
197 Maniac
198 The Running Man
199 Moonraker
200 Monsters University
201 Mirror Mirror: The Untold Adventures of Snow White
202 Valhalla Rising
203 Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
204 Jack the Giant Slayer
205 Patrick
206 Brave
207 Batman: Under the Red Hood
208 Superman/Batman: Public Enemies
209 The Legend of Hell House
210 Pacific Rim
211 Dark Shadows
212 Malcolm
213 White Lightning
214 Superman/Batman: Apocalypse
215 Gator
216 RED
217 For Your Eyes Only
218 The Batman Superman Movie: World's Finest
219 Octopussy
220 Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope
221 SubZero
222 Wonder Woman
223 Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
224 Hot Fuzz
225 Contagion
226 Pet Sematary
227 Pet Sematary II
228 The Fountain
229 The Return of the Living Dead
230 2 Days in New York
231 Straw Dogs
232 Never Say Never Again
233 Magic
234 Easy Rider
235 Blue Steel
236 Django Unchained
237 Invasion of the Body Snatchers
238 Young Frankenstein
239 Wrath of the Titans
240 American Grindhouse
241 The World's End
242 Waterworld
243 Bad Boys
244 Bad Boys II
245 The Sadist
246 Villain
247 The Pink Panther Strikes Again
248 Bubba Ho-Tep
249 Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls
250 Electra Glide in Blue
251 Outland
252 Willow
253 Twilight
254 A View to a Kill
255 2010
256 The Iron Giant
257 Who Dares Wins
258 Coogan's Bluff
259 The Party Animal
260 The Offence
261 Wanted
262 The Living Daylights
263 Mallrats
264 Licence to Kill
265 Two Mules for Sister Sara
266 American Psycho
267 Ruthless People
268 American Psycho II: All American Girl
269 GoldenEye
270 Phantom of the Paradise
271 Tomorrow Never Dies
272 The Taking of Pelham One Two Three
273 This Is Spinal Tap
274 Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters
275 Dogma
276 Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks: Part One
277 The Punisher
278 Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
279 Dredd
280 The Last Stand
281 The World Is Not Enough
282 Die Another Day
283 Suspiria
284 The Rocky Horror Picture Show
285 Leon (the Professional)
286 The Shrine
287 DC Showcase Original Shorts Collection
288 Casino Royale
289 The Mask of Satan
290 The Innocents
291 Blade
292 A Matter of Life and Death
293 Horror Hospital
294 Horror Express
295 Quantum of Solace
296 Blade II
297 The Third Man
298 Blade: Trinity
299 Skyfall
300 Dead Ringers
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10-02-2013 , 05:46 PM
Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Very entertaining, and works way better than it should, thanks to all the Freddy dream sequences, which are both creepy and fun in a grossout way. The acting in the non-horror bits is mostly abysmal, and the script is mostly poor, except a few rather great lines, but what really makes this work is the relish the filmmaker had with the character of Freddy. Easy to see why it inspired a franchise.

73/100
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10-05-2013 , 07:19 PM
Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge
62/100
The Good: Freddy Kreuger, some general hilarity around Freddy and some events, such as an exploding parakeet, and a gym teacher in a black leather vest catching a student at a very...unusual...club, and the final battle, that was Terminator 2 style 6 years before T2
The Bad: The lack of internal integrity (they ignore the fact Freddy acts within your dreams), some general laughably bad dialogue, like when the lead actress tries to convince the hero its his imagination....whilst he drips blood all over her floor.
The Odd: The main protagonist cannot keep his shirt done up, his friend seems to have black PVC bed covers, the protagonist's y-fronts


Nightmare on Elm Street 3 69/100 very solid entry, with good practical effects, special effects and story. Freddy cracks out some good lines.


Prince of Darkness 63/100 Not very scary and the music gets a little imposing, but some good ideas, cool jumpscares, and odd imagery.


Last Man Standing 63/100 reasonable, but inferior, redo of Yojumibo/Fistful of Dollars/Django but with gangsters. Fun to see Willis and Walken in the same movie.


Dead Ringers 67/100 An interesting suspense story from Cronenberg, with some interesting themes. However, the script wanders all over the place, and lacks the focus that would have made this truly effective. I'm glad I saw it, but I'll never watch it again.


Baba Yaga - 61/100 Odd Italian horror/thriller with S&M elements of a woman who is bewitched with Bab Yaga, an 'old' woman she encountered. Not bad, but doesn't really go anywhere.
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10-06-2013 , 05:55 PM
Which are your top 5 worst sequels?

I haven't seen either / any Highlander, but Ripley's Game made me feel everything you describe. I seem to be in a minority though based on the imdb & RT scores.
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10-08-2013 , 05:41 PM
Quote:
Originally Posted by vaJAZzled
Which are your top 5 worst sequels?

I haven't seen either / any Highlander, but Ripley's Game made me feel everything you describe. I seem to be in a minority though based on the imdb & RT scores.
Worst sequels, eh? Well, of the movies I've seen, I think:


1. Highlander 2








2. Escape from LA
3. Blues Brothers 2000
4. Jaws 2
5. Exorcist 2


Highlander 2 was truly dreadful in a way that leaves the others behind.
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10-08-2013 , 05:49 PM
World War Z - The Audio Book 85/100 Man, this is terrific. The first disk is slow, but the remaining 4 really engage. Best bits are Mark Hamill as a grunt talking about the battle of Yonkers and the turnaround campaigns.
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10-08-2013 , 05:50 PM
Jack Reacher 69/100 Decent thriller with some plot holes and a heinously bad 'comedy' fight in a bathroom, this is nonetheless very watchable as a detective story. 5 of them points are for Rosamund Pike's constant cleavage.


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10-08-2013 , 05:52 PM
So 307 movies so far this year, I'm well on target to watch an average of 1 movie a day for 2013.
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10-08-2013 , 05:55 PM
Worst movie so far that I watched this year is Twilight. Absolutely wretched. Jesus, if it were possible to transplant one fictional character into any franchise, I'd pick Blade to go into Twilight.
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10-10-2013 , 05:59 PM
American Mary 67/100 pretty good body horror movie with excellent central performance that had its flaws (weird surgeons, creepy club owner, poor ending), but overall entertains like it's the spawn of 70s Cronenberg and the guys behind the premise of the Human Centipede.

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10-13-2013 , 04:43 PM
Byzantium 75/100 - rather good take on the vampire story, with the vampires here being lonely, incomplete souls who seem ever wandering and never fulfilled. Shades of Let The Right One In, Interview with the Vampire and Daughters of Darkness pervade. A classy one.
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10-17-2013 , 05:50 PM
Night of the Living Dead (1990) entertaining remake of the superior 68 original, but with better actors and tighter script. Tony Todd was solid. Bad music choices though.
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10-19-2013 , 01:27 PM
Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Freddy's Dead 56/100 - Ridiculous, with some great ideas (a town of insane adults, gone mad by the absence of the murdered children) and some poor actors and dialogue (the bad actors get picked off early, thankfully), but doesn't quite gel. We have Freddy riffing on "modern culture" by playing video games and doing his version of the Wicked Witch, but the ending - obviously intended to be seen in 3D - is completely ridiculous and thoroughly entertaining. This is Freddy passing through an itchy and scratchy/looney toons filter.
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10-23-2013 , 01:21 PM
Nosferatu The Vampire (1979)



Directed by Werner Herzog, and some of its hazy, dreamy shots and atmosphere reminiscent of other Herzog movies such as Aguirre, this will bore some and entrall others. It enthralled me, but it is glacially slow and mannered. The tenseness in the odd scenes where, for example, Dracula (for that's what he's called here) just stands staring at Harker are mesmeric. There's plenty of what I think is called "Rembrandt Lighting", and an amazing shot where virtually all is black apart the the Count's white, revolting face, who looks wistfully with a 1000-yard stare into his own personal abyss. Equally haunting is Isabelle Adjani as the heroine, clearly dressed, made-up and deporting herself like a silent-era scream-queen, and some amazing shots in the rat-infested city, such as troops of black-clad men carrying coffin after coffin.

Some of the characterisations are just weird. Van Helsing (or Von Helsing here - by the way, I watched the German version) seems a tired old guy, as does some town official charged with arresting him at the end, who is an oddly Monty Pythonesque scene starts arguing with the man in charge, because there is no one left to guard prisoners, as everyone died of the plague...

I really enjoyed this movie, it did the three things I need for a film to be great - it entertained, it enthralled, and it enlightened. Really glad I watched it, thoroughly recommended.
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10-24-2013 , 05:46 PM
Horror Hotel (aka City of the Dead) (1960)


Rather fine short horror movie, made in the UK with the actors doing American accents. A great beginning with the witchiest-looking witch you ever saw (well, without green makeup at least), atmospheric middle and striking end make this a real pleasure, and whilst it isn't scary, it is atmospheric, creepy and rich, with some great scene-setting and sudbued, well-written characters and plotting. It also has some amazing parallels with Psycho (which came out just 3 months before), including a similar twist where the audience is misdirected about who the main character is, some fine black-and-white photography, right to a horrific reveal at the end.

It also resembles another great horror movie of 1960, the Italian production Black Sunday, and in fact I think Horror Hotel, despite the grindhouse title, is a better movie than Black Sunday. It also shares plot elements with the later Wicker Man, as noted by Danny Peary in his Guide For The Film Fanatic.

And I didn't even mention it has Christopher Lee in a central role (doing an American accent too).

Produced by Milton Subotsky, who went on to found Amicus pictures.

Well, worth watching.
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10-25-2013 , 01:28 AM
Movie: Les Diaboliques/Diabolique (1955)



Highly regarded French thriller that I think owes its reputation to being in the right time and place. It was, I understand, the first foreign language mainstream hit in America in 1955. Frankly, it seems overwordy and unnecessarily long getting to the third act, though the actors are engaging and fun to watch. I have a very similar problem with Clouzot’s other (superior) movie Wages of Fear, that I can only watch (and really, REALLY enjoy) if I just skip the whole first hour. This movie, though, if you skip, you do miss the slow build of tension that is nice (even if far too slow) and does actually pay off in the last 20 minutes or so. And that last act is rather fine, but I couldn’t help but wonder how the bad guy came up with a plan that meant major discomfort for him for hours on end (and indeed, how he seemed to hold his breath for hours on end, when he was left in the bath).

What happens to the character of one of the actresses at the end spookily happened to her in real life several years later. Ahh, the circle of life/art.
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10-27-2013 , 08:14 AM
Flavia The Heretic (1974)


Either the movie, or I, can't decide whether it's art with a political/feminist agenda, or sleazy eurotrash. It has artistic bits (some of the imagery, especially one very distinctive scene of a naked woman climbing inside a cow's carcass, and definitely the music). Sometiimes is succeeds as art and trash at the same time (the horrible scene of a woman being raped in a pigsty while the pigs excitedly stamp around her - it's a poorly acted rape, but you have to feel for the actress being naked and on her back while largeish pigs scurry around her - too close), and in its artistic life, it shows us quite well how men rule - they castrate a horse without regard for its suffering, they rape and get away with it whilst the smallest infraction by a woman means they get flogged (if lucky) or tortured to death if not.

It kind of works partly, and the atmosphere veers from rather fine when the odd imagery and music come in, to being undercut by the poor sound design, some poor acting, and the extremeness of the sleaze.

I kind of enjoyed it, when there wasn't a wince on my face, which was often.

I definitely saw a cut version by the way, because the end of the uncut apparently has an extended flaying - my version cut sharply just as that started. I don't feel hard-done-by in missing it though.
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10-27-2013 , 04:43 PM
Zombie Flesh Eaters aka Zombi 2 (1979)

63/100



From what I've read of it, this one seems somewhat overrated, but it does have its moments. Apparently marketed as some sort of sequel to Dawn of the Dead in some places, these zombies aren't quite the same as those of Romero's universe. They're even slower if anything, and more listless, and their facial and bodily features are not as 'naturalistic' as Romero's walking dead (it's all relative, of course). In this one, the animation of the dead goes back to older zombie lore, back to voodoo and cursed histories. Even so, it's not really explained, and we are just left to it.

Most of the action is set on a Caribbean island Mantoul, and here we have some too-ing and fro-ing where some doctor at the end of his limits is trying to figure out what's going on, whilst failing to take any sort of precautions against frequent cases of the reanimated dead. Throw in two couples investigating the disappearance of one of the girls' father but being stranded by a damaged boat, and you have the main protagonists.

They are a tired lot, and the film is a little boring in places. The best acting by far comes from some brief work by the doctor's wife (she ends up with her head skewered on a wooden splinter and gets out early), and there's a decent enough score. The constant use of drumming when you go to island scenes is a little too close to Chinese water torture for my liking.

Having said all that, there are a number of pretty good scenes throughout - a "deserted" yacht floating into New York harbour; a definite "the one where..." moment when a zombie fights a shark that is quite amazing (how did they do that?); an eye on a stick moment; and a graveyard of ancient corpses rising; final shots where we see the world has gone down the tubes.

Overrated I think, and not in the same league as any in the original Romero trilogy, but definitely worth a watch if you aren't too averse to unrelenting gore and zombie chomping down on the ever decreasing band of goodies.
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11-02-2013 , 12:19 PM
High Tension 63/100


This French horror movie had style for sure, but the whole story feels so one note, it has the depth (and power) of a campfire story, and operates at this level. I did like the central performance and the killer, but the story felt stupid and ridiculous once we got to the big reveal. Glad I saw it, but that reveal felt like a character betrayal to me.
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11-03-2013 , 06:29 PM
City of the Living Dead 62/100 - another average Italian horror, but it has its moments. Including bleeding eyes, premature burial, and a drill to the head.
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