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What did you watch this week champions of the world? (21/06-27/06)


Hey there MOVIECHAT Champions. Keep on rocking this planet and keep on watching some movis. That's what I've been doin'. Now, apparently, Im contracted by the Head Office to tell you what I watched this week:

The sweet hereafter (1997 TV):SPOILERS I really f***ed up with this one. The ending left me puzzled and confused because I thought the earlier scene of father-daughter incest was the dude’s girlfriend. So the big finale didn’t have the impact it should’ve. Otherwise I enjoyed this dialogue driven drama. 7/10

Hard to kill (1990 TV): This is amongst Seagal’s best work. The story is poorly structured, we got bad guys shooting their guns all over the place, the soundtrack’s filled with hard riffs of heavy-metal guitar and booming percussions, the main character is called Mason Storm, the acting ranges from “uninspired” to “over the top”, the final fight ends by a hand-twist followed by a 5 seconds choke, so on and so on. Except for the sex scene beside the fireplace that kind a repulsed me for some reason, I enjoyed rewatching this crap for the first time since 20 years. 6.5/10

Killing Zoe (1993 DVD): The movie starts slowly and is way less crazy than I thought it would be except maybe for that cat scene. The thing is, I was enjoying the chemistry that was building between the male and female characters and then they make it end abruptly and she is replaced by a bunch of unlikeable dudes.The script is very simple, heavy on dialogue but also effective and I feel like I felt like I was supposed to feel. It’s just that I wasn’t always enjoying how I felt, ya feel me? I had to read a little but to pick up on the meaning of the title. Hint: it’s related to blood. Did you get it? It makes the film a bit better. rating: 6.5/10

Spirited away (2001 Netflix): I finally got to see this acclaimed animated family fantasy and what I thought would be a charming, sweet and beautiful movie was actually a nightmarish and hellish story of a little girl getting traumatized nonstop. Also, I wasn’t a big fan of all these spirits. I appreciated the originality and the inspiration but watching it alone at night would’ve been better than during the day with the kids. My rating: 7/10

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It Follows (2014) - Second time viewing it. How was Greg killed - this still bothers me. The premise of the movie is fine but they could have done more with it. 7/10

Bigger Than Life (1956) - A forgotten medical drama based on a true story. James Mason great and we get to see Walter Matthau in a physical role. 7.5/10

Hidalgo (2004) - finally saw this Disney movie. This was suppose to be based on the life of Frank Hopkins but most of the movie is fiction. It is fun. He never got the girl. 6/10

Breach (2007) - I am reading a book on Hanssen so I rewatched this. Cooper was great but the movie was made on the cheap. There is a terrible traffic jam scene. Should have went much deeper into his life especially his relationship with his father and wife. 7/10

One TV series:

Truth Be Told S1 on Apple Plus - One of those twin movies and we have to figure out which one is the murderer. There was a lot of padding in this series around the lead character's family and background. 6.5/10

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It follows: disappointing. 6/10

Hidalgo: Been wanting to see that one for a while now

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never seen sweet hereafter, but i 'think' it's getting added to the criterion channel july 1st, so i'll probably be catching up with it shortly.

as i said last week, spirited away is a 5/5 for me. & as said earlier in this thread, if you haven't seen them, totoro and kiki's delivery service are both terrific kids movies. and everyone movies. i've enjoyed them both a lot many times.

my week:
kiki's delivery service (1989) 4 watched the english dub.

it remains a very fun, enjoyable movie, but the big flaw remains: the best character (the cat, obviously) disappears for the last 1/2 hr.

etheria film festival shorts (2020) 4 collection of women-directed shorts currently streaming on shudder. pretty good. a few of the earlier shorts are a little too strident and didactic in their feminist messaging for my tastes, if not obvious, but several of them are absolutely terrific. absolutely worth a watch if you have shudder.

the transfiguration (2016) 4 this is a terrific surprise, closer to a mumblecore indie than the horror film i somewhat expected. even has bonnie prince billie playing over the closing credits, which tells you a lot about its inspirations, i suspect.

it's moody and sets up really interesting characters & takes them to surprising & tragic places. deserves more of a reputation, i'd say. if you're thinking about watching it, do it.

irreversible (2002) 5 my first watch in a long time. over 10 years, i bet.

i once heard on a podcast that noe made this film in order to finance enter the void, which was the project he really wanted to make.

so, in a sense, irreversible was his commercial sell-out.

i don't know if that's really true, but i want to believe it's true, so i'm not going to investigate any further. i'm just going to believe it.

absentia (2011) 4.5 as i think we all should agree, there's a difference between favourite and best.

i don't think this is flanagan's best - oculus, hill house, gerald's game are all probably better by all kinds of standards.

but i love this one the most, and i think i like it more than almost any other horror movie made in the past 10 years or so. i love its slightly crude, home-made feel and the genuinely creepy & sad atmosphere that he was able to wring out of a micro-budget. the talent was on display right from the beginning.

tigers are not afraid (2017) 4.5 i love this movie.

it's absolutely not perfect. but it's clearly made with care, and it's bursting with heart. a breath of fresh air.

two in the bush: a love story (2018) 3 a polyamorous romantic comedy, i guess. at 40 minutes in: this is one of the most bizarrely schizophrenic films i've ever seen. but i'm not bored! & i've gotten a little bit turned on twice. all good so far.

unfortunately, it tails off a bit after that, & got a bit relationship-drama conventional (at least as much as a polyamorous film can be conventional). but it has some weird soap-opera-ish emotional melt-downs and declarations of sweeping love that seem really premature. all of it is sort of weirdly entertaining.

all told, fascinatingly, hilariously terrible/great.

rec 2 (2009) 3 doesn't have a tenth of the scare factor of the original recipe.

and it spends way too much time explaining things.

but it's still fun and bloody and occasionally exciting.

killer klowns from outer space (1988) 4 i wish there was something i could do with my life that would bring joy to people the way this movie gave joy to me.

trilogy of terror 2 (1995) 2 made for tv horror anthology. i found the first two stories pretty dull, but the third was fun and has a nice, goofy energy.

porco rosso (1992) 3.5 it's very pleasant and very enjoyable, but i found it lacked a bit of the heart strings tugging & wonderment inspiring stuff that i get from the best of these films.

the nightingale (2018) 4 too long! there was no need for this to be over two hours. should have been much leaner.

that said, this is one of the darkest, most brutal films i've ever watched. and if it had been about 20 minutes shorter, i would have given it a 5 for sure.

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antrum (20180 3 i really wanted this to be good. it's the exact kind of thing i like.

& there is absolutely good stuff in it. the setup is great. the title card is a perfect touch. they get the look mostly right, i guess, though it's a little too clean, lacking in grain, maybe. & it has weird, spooky touches here and there that really work. & the ending in particular is tense.

but it plods along just a bit too much in places. there are stretches where not enough goes on, and i found myself wishing the film would just get on with things already.

to paraphrase homer simpson, there were parts where i was yelling at the screen 'stupid movie, be more scary!'

seeing lake mungo a few weeks ago, for example, really set the bar high on how effective a film like this can be when done right.

nevertheless.

if you have an appreciation for low budget horror, atmospheric stuff, if this at all seems like the kind of thing you might enjoy, by all means give it a go. you can and almost have done much worse.

i just wish it was a bit better.

saturday morning edit: i woke up a bit early this morning, and felt compelled to watch this again. and i did. watched it all the way through, and came away with even more appreciation for all the things that are good in it. some great imagery, atmosphere, eastern europeans raping deer corpses. all good.

i can't increase my rating, cuz i don't think it's better than a 3. it really does loaf about a bit too much. but i still really like it. i think this might work it's way, a la pieces, into my rotation of films that aren't good necessarily that i feel compelled to watch again & again.

diary of a chambermaid (1964) 3.5 unlike most bunuel, i found myself a bit out of sync with this one, like i never quite latched onto its rhythm. and the ending completely confounded me, left me feeling like there had to be a vast portion of this that sailed over my head.

an interesting watch, regardless, with its class politics and so on. but left me frustrated and confused and a bit unsatisfied.

killers within (2018) 3 pretty neat david icke fantasy/home invasion thriller. i wish it had been a little shorter and leaner, though. even at a relatively brisk 100m running time, it slightly meanders for a spell - could have used a bit more brutality & violence to liven things up. good fun regardless.

nightmare on elm street 3: dream warriors (1987) 3.5 i'm pretty certain i watched the first 4 or 5 noes films a decade or so back. i only hold the vaguest memories of them, except for this one, which i remembered enjoying a fair bit.

and my rewatch tonight confirms that this does have a fun energy & some inventive effects and kills. none of it really works in terms of atmosphere & creepiness for me, but for the first half i was perfectly entertained. a slight sameness seemed to take over after that point, though there were still some high points to come.

not genuinely great, but solid 80s fun.

banshee chapter (2013) 3.5 pretty neat little mystery/thriller/horror hybrid. you could also see it as an else-world hunter s thompson origin story, i suppose. it didn't quite give me the satisfying crunch i wanted, though. there were a few loose ends and a few elements that didn't quite come together, more questions than answers.

but it's still a fun, twisty story, and the director definitely had a talent for getting some atmosphere & tension out of individual moments. pretty good, all told. wish he had more movies.

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Irreversible: 9/10 I have that ritual where I watch the final scene in total pitch black so that my tv screen change sizes and it’s like a trip in it’s self

Absentia is on my amazon wish list

I’m really not sure about antrum bro

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Movies

- Cutting Class (1989)
Slasher movie featuring Brad Pitt. Boring, awkward and predictable.

-Alice, Sweet Alice (1976)
Basically an Italian giallo rip-off. Trashy and disturbing with lots of unanswered questions and horrendous editing. The mask was creepy, though.

TV Shows

- Blackadder - marathon

-The Bold and the Beautiful - marathon of very old episodes

-The Golden Girls - marathon

-Fawlty Towers - The Wedding Party

-Harper's Island - "Ka-Blam" and "Bang"

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Cutting Class (1989): My my, where do you find those?

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George A. Romero Presents:Deadtime Stories Vol. 2 (2010) 4/10 Didn't like it. Weirdly filmed, badly acted and terrible plots.

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you watched it all? your good.

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Hi!
I haven't seen any of yours, although I might have seen Hard to kill on TV some twenty years ago, I'm not sure. And my brother is always telling me to watch Spirited away, but it's not my cup of tea.

This week I watched:
The Bad Batch (2016): I have to agree with those who say the cinematography is much better than the story. 7/10
Hot Shots! (1991) /re-watch/: The jokes were all I remembered from this, and those are the only things worth remembering. I would give a higher rating, but I have never seen Top Gun. 5/10
Terrifier (2016): Mr. Bean meets Pennywise! This was a fun slasher, just what I expected. 8,5/10

Two episodes left of The Act (2019), this is also great. I'll rate it when I watched the whole season.

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Hi, I have seen all of yours!

Actually, I watched the BAd batch this week so wait till sunday!

Hot SHots!: Classic. 7.5/10

Terrifier: original and fun. 7/10

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