Saturday, December 26, 2015

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, 2015 - ★★★★

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Second watching because my dad didn't wanna go see it alone.

I still really enjoyed it but still, it left some questions open for me that feel very much like plot holes.

Why is Han Solo known to Finn, a storm trouper, as a "War Hero"? Shouldn't he be more like either never mentioned in their live or basically made out to be Hitler?

Why does Rey know that Jedi can do the mind trick? Just a day ago she thought that Jedi never really existed and were just old stories so why would she know about it? And how does she use it?

Also found some things that I really liked. The sets are awesome, and I am really happy that Abrams preferred sets over green screen, the ending scene for example looked awesome. Also the desert in the beginning, just breathtaking.

I love the old school edits they used, of course reminiscing of how they were done in the old movies. Wipe to left, wipe to right, just great.

And I loved the acting, Daisy Ridley and John Boyega have a great chemistry together.

Those are just some quick afterthoughts after rewatching the movie. I'm keeping the rating of 4 stars out of 5.

PS: this time, every time Kylo Ren took off his mask, some guy in the audience had to hold back to not laugh out loud. Very amusing.

The Christmas Carol, 1949

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I just love Vincent Price. And that's about the only reason there is to watch this movie.

It's a short retelling of "A Christmas Carol", hits all the marks, is very minimalistic though. You can feel that it is a made for TV short.

Also I love that Vincent Price is on the Poster.

Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, 2010 - ★★★★½

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I feel like this is my favorite Holiday horror movie.

Santa is dead. He has been for centuries. But now, a team is digging in his grave to get him back. And he comes back...

I've heard about this a lot before. I have not seen the short this is based on yet.

The story is great. It's another one of those very inventive movies that does something I have never seen before. Also I feel like Krampus got at least a little inspiration through this movie.

I think I've written this before but I don't usually like children as the protagonists of movies because they always behave kind of weird, in a way that no 6 to 10 year old child would behave. But this is one of those movies were the kid behaves believably. He doesn't behave like I would have at that age, but he grew up with a hunter father who toughened him up for sure (I wouldn't have handled a shotgun at that age).

The rest of the actors are great, they all feel real and are totally bad-ass. It's shot well and all looks good.

Also there are some really great shots that I won't say because it's spoilers.

Some CGI-shots in the ending don't look that real, but hey, it's a Finnish movie from 2010, and I can totally forgive that.

This movie was packing up till the end, with a great story and some uncomfortable humor.

I'm rating this 4.5 out of 5 stars and a big like plus recommendation.

Scrooged, 1988 - ★★★½

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I actually wanted to watch "The Muppets Christmas Carol", but that was gone from Netflix (why did they have to delete it at Christmas Time? :((((( ). So as an alternative I decided on Scrooged.

Frank Cross (Bill Murray), a TV producer is a real Scrooge. When the TV station airs Scrooge as a Christmas TV special, he doesn't like it. Also he treats his employees like shit. I think he even says Humbug at some point. So he is visited by three ghosts: The taxi driver of Christmas Past, the fairy of Christmas present and the death puppet of Christmas yet to come. And for some reason, while reliving the exact story from "A Christmas Carol", which he is setting up a live TV show for, he doesn't realize the similarities.

That being said, I enjoyed this movie. The characters were funny, Bill Murray was awesome to watch (as always) and I enjoyed the new twist on the story. Because even though it takes exactly the same turns as the original story (poor employee with a sick kid, girl he once loved, loving family member) it still feels fresh and new.

This was my first real Christmas movie this month and I'm rating it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

It Follows, 2015 - ★★★★

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I wanted to see IT FOLLOWS since it came out. Somehow missed the theatrical release and had to wait until it was out on BluRay. So I decided to get it for Christmas and watched it right after I got it.

This movie is about STD's. Sort of. It's a STC, a sexually transmitted curse. When you have it, IT will FOLLOW you. Slowly. Just walking. You can run. You can hide. But IT will always FOLLOW. It could be anyone, but mostly it's naked females.

I'm not gonna tell you any more, because you should see it blind. But it's a great horror movie. Very suspenseful, very scary. And inventive. Kind of playing on the horror trope of the slow walking killer from the 80s, but putting a twist on it that makes it one of the best horror movies of this year, of some time.

The music could be written by John Carpenter, and AFAIK he loved this movie, too.

The set design is awesome, really throwing you off at times and no one knows when it is set. Some people have smartphones, some old cord phones. Also this one girl has a weird ebook reader that also could be a flashlight. Also everything is a little off, as there are basically no parents to be seen.

The characters make some bad choices, but that's forgivable.

I really love this movie and I'm rating it 4 out of 5 stars. Go watch IT (FOLLOWS).

The Last Man on Earth, 1964 - ★★★

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I just love Vincent Price. His performance is awesome and he is all in all just a great actor. Haven't seen him give a bad performance so far. I've seen bad movies with him in them tho.

The story is the same as in "I am Legend" and "Omega Man" although I feel this is my favorite adaption of the story so far.

It starts in a apocalyptic future where Vincent Price is the last human alive. Everyone else fell sick to some illness that turned them into seemingly stupid vampires who of course only come out at night.
Some day, he meets another human...

Lots of it is told in flashbacks, showing what had happened before, which isn't the most inventive way ever, but it is enough.

There isn't much noteworthy in this, it's a pretty average movie and I probably wouldn't have watched it if it wasn't for Mr Price.

I'm rating it 3 out of 5 stars, but only because I really love Vincent Price.

Leon: The Professional, 1994 - ★★★★½

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Watched on Sunday December 20, 2015.

Sunny, 2013

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Watched on Sunday December 20, 2015.

Saturday, December 19, 2015

Star Wars: The Force Awakens, 2015 - ★★★★

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This was a good movie. No question there. It looked awesome, the 3D worked really well, the special effects where fantastic. The story on the other hand ...

The Dark Side is back, and after training Jedi for some time, Luke Skywalker just walked away, never to be seen again. The rebels try to find him again, get him back and have him train Jedi again.

I read a short review calling this "Fan Service - The movie" and that's spot on. There are too many scenes that took me out of the world because I knew exactly why it was there.

At one scene, we walk into a pub or whatever and it's just like the cantina scene, even with a similar looking band playing music. When the characters went into that, all I could think of "Oh hey, a throwback to the old movies". Sadly, that wasn't the only time that thought popped into my head.

Slight spoilers: The Dark side built ANOTHER Death star ... guess third time's the charm, right? But they made it bigger, so that's great.

This sounds like I hated it, which I did not. Those are just a few things that bugged me. All in all it was a great movie, just less epic than I hoped.
I'm still rating this movie 4 out of 5 stars and a like for sure.

Oh also, I saw it in IMAX, my first time in IMAX. All I can say is WOW. IMAX is awesome.

The Man Who Saves The World, 1982

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Watched on Sunday December 13, 2015.

Hardware Wars, 1978

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Watched on Sunday December 13, 2015.

Dogville, 2003 - ★★★★½ (contains spoilers)

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This review reportedly contains spoilers.

This movie was really good, even though it was hard to watch.

Dogville is just a normal little town in the early 1900s. Everyone knows everyone and all the secrets. Then grace (Nicole Kidman) arrives at the town after being followed by suspicious looking gangsters.
First they are not sure if they want her to stay, then they like her and then they don't want to let her go...

This movie is horrible. I know people call Lars von Trier misogynistic and I can totally see why.
Nicole Kidmans character had it so bad. She got abused in every way possible. Sometimes you start having hope for her but that gets crushed.
And slowly you learn that no one is a good person. If people get too much power, they will abuse this power.

In the beginning you like most of the towns people. In the end you root for Grace to kill them all. I feel like the ending should not have been as satisfying as it was. It makes me feel dirty. But so far every von Trier movie made me feel dirty.

I really liked this movie though. Von Trier makes me feel in a way that no other director can. I don't feel good, but I feel.

This movie is so good and thought provoking in it's own that I totally forgot to mention the thing that first got me hooked: There is no real set. The whole town is a big stage and instead of walls there are chalk lines drawn on the floor. No matter what's going on, you can always see what other people are doing in the background. You could interpret it that there are no secrets in this town and you will find out everything ... but to be honest I think it just means what everyone knows already: Lars von Trier is crazy. Totally crazy. Still, so far I loved every one of his movies, even though I never felt happy or good after watching them.

I rate this movie 4.5 out of 5 stars and a like. Great story. great movie, and totally unique.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

After Porn Ends, 2012

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Watched on Friday December 11, 2015.

Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Red State, 2011

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Watched on Tuesday December 8, 2015.

Tuesday, December 8, 2015

Lemon, 1969

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A really nice looking lemon.

Breakaway, 1966

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Watched on Tuesday December 8, 2015.

10/65: Self-Mutilation, 1965

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Watched on Monday December 7, 2015.

Mothlight, 1963

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Watched on Monday December 7, 2015.

The Wold-Shadow, 1972

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Really an art film.

Objectively it's just a camera put in front of a forest, filming it, changing different settings and filters of the camera.

But it's really much more. For some reason, Brakhage managed to give me an unsettling feeling, as the screen starts flashing more and more I started seeing faces and silhouettes were there probably are none. And since I don't think he actually put people there to scare us this is all managed by these "different settings and filters of the camera.

Great movie but not at all comparable to a Hollywood movie.

Ferris Bueller's Day Off, 1986

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Watched on Sunday December 6, 2015.

The Gift, 2015

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Watched on Saturday December 5, 2015.

Monday, December 7, 2015

A Very Murray Christmas, 2015 - ★★★

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Bill Murray has to do a Christmas special on live TV that he has no interest in. Thanks to the forces of nature the energy turns off so he has to spend Christmas snowed in in a big hotel with many different people.

This movie is filled with cameos, from Kevin Hard to George Clooney, they are all there.
But sadly most of them are pointless.

The music is great, there is lots of singing and lots of piano playing by Paul Shaffer.

To be honest I thought this would be better than it was. I enjoyed watching it, but it was nothing special. Maybe I was just too hyped in advance, who knows. So even though I enjoyed it, eventually I was disappointed.

All in all pretty average, but the musical numbers put it up a bit. I'm rating it 3 out of 5 stars.

Ex Drummer, 2007

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This movie was just fucked up. Just fucked up. I wanted to write a whole review but then I remembered the ending so I noped out.
This movie is indescribable, it just has to be seen to be believed. Only watch if you have a strong stomach and are sure you can handle seing blood, gore, crazy shit, crazy characters, death.

I kind of enjoyed this in a weird kind of way. It left me speechless but wanting to talk about it. I cannot rate this. I learned about it through horriblereviews on YouTube, who made reviews about "the most disturbing movies of all time". And this surely fits that criterion.

Dog Bite Dog, 2006 - ★★★

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I love Asian cinema. There is something about them that's different, probably because of the culture. It just gives it a wholly different feel.

This movie is about a killer on the run from cops. There are many twists and turns that I don't wanna get into, so I'll leave it by that.

The two main characters are both neither good nor bad, they both start off as assholes but more and more you start to get them, because you hear their backstory and because you see their actions.

That said, the acting was kinda weird. Especially the main cop had that kind of acting that you usually see in the worst movies and parodies. He is the "bad cop", the asshole, and on the brink of being fired.
That character can be good, but in this movie he reminded me of Hawkey from Karate Cops from 1988, which kinda threw me off.

The rest of the acting was pretty good.

All in all the story was a bit weird and full of twists and turns, sometimes those not needed. But I liked it and enjoyed watching it. Not the best movie from Hong Kong, but totally watchable.
I'm rating it 3 out of 5 stars.

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Meet the Feebles, 1989

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This movie is crazy. Again and again I wonder how Peter Jackson got to do the Lord of the Rings movies.

At least he showed he is able to handle a big cast of characters. This movie is about the behind the scenes of the Feebles Stage Show, and all the characters are puppets. There are many weird, crazy and unique characters. There are so many, and they all have their own storylines (which I'm not going into because I suck at explaining that kinda stuff). Like I said, it's all set backstage of that stage show, all the problems they have. And it's all fucked up.

You have everything you would expect from an early Peter Jackson movie: Gore, Blood, Sex, Drugs and just disgusting stuff. But it's all acted out with puppets so it's really cute... Not really. To be honest, it's as fucked up, if not more because we get a walrus fucking a cat.

Oh also it's a musical. Because of course, they are rehearsing for their big stage show, so they sing. And the songs are really good, enjoyable to listen to. Which makes this even weirder.

This is only Peter Jackson's second feature film and it is marvelous. It looks good, it's really funny in a gross way and really just awesome. But we all know I am a Peter Jackson fan. I don't know why but I love this and Braindead is one of my favorite movies of all time soo yeah. If you like Braindead or Bad Taste, you are gonna like this.

I'm not rating this, but I'm liking it. It's the craziest shit ever.

Irreversible, 2002 - ★★★★★

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Watched on Tuesday December 1, 2015.