Child 44 - 2/10 Jesus...this was bad... Read the book a few years ago and it was amazing, so I was excited to finally see this, but it was just terrible. Left tons of necessary information out from the book, the actors accents were noticeably bad, and really the story was just awfully told.
Kill Bill Vol 1 - 8/10 I really enjoyed this action movie, classic Tarantino Inglourious Basterds - 7/10 another Tarantino movie, Brad Pitt and Christopher Waltz were amazing the rest of the cast was sub par and I really didn't care about what was happening.
Kill Bill Vol 2 - 7/10 Seriously after how action packed Vol 1 was, Vol 2 just seemed like too much talking and not enough violence.
wo, just watched. That was great. For some reason, remind me of another very different film I watched a very long time ago. Maybe the Japanese characters. "Hong Kong 1941". Probably watched that more than 20 years ago. 9/10.
Maze Runner: Scorch Trials Frustrated that they decided to deviate so much from the books, especially in this one. It's still a very solid movie though and easily one of the better YA adaptations out there. The series, the books and the movies, I think are bit underrated but thoroughly enjoyable. 7/10
Creep - 8.5/10 Great movie. Small budget and only two actors in the whole movie, but very well done and pretty creepy. Definitely recommend it on Netflix.
Avengers: Age of Ultron - 2/10 The movie gets a 2 because the first 120 seconds are fairly interesting. The rest of the movie is as bad a film as I have seen. What a total POS.
The I inside: 6.5 It did enough to make me want to see what was going on and get to the end. I think it came out after sixth sense a few years later, and tried to skim on that idea like "The Others" tried to do as well. But ultimately whatever it was trying to say it never said. Which makes me think the writer didn't have a big idea in mind, just a mystery to be resolved. Anyway, what ever happened to Ryan Phillipe? Seemed like he was destined for infamy.
Last Shift - 2/10 It was good in the first 2 acts, then was like wtf in the last. So... that was it? The reviews said there was a twist in the end, but all I got was a super rushed sad ending with no proper explanations. Would be much higher if the ending wasn't so schitte.
Crimson Peak 7/10 Maybe it's me. Maybe I have just not seen enough GDT movies. I never saw all of Pan's Labryrinth, I did see Hellboy, haven't really seen much else of his other than Pacific Rim (which, as weirdly bad as that film is, it is still a guilty pleasure, and I'll still watch it for the spectacle and the insanity). So maybe I am just not the right audience for GDT movies. I am definitely not the right audience for 'horror' movies, at least not as in the way the movie has been marketed. It has been marketed as a sort of hideous Gothic horror movie, with the monsters killing and slaughtering their victims in terrifying ways, just like most of the other movies in this genre. But.. (don't read if you don't want it spoiled, seriously) Spoiler But it wasn't that at all. Basically it was a mystery movie. Here's the premise: Young woman (Edith) informs the audience she can see ghosts, a-la the kid in Sixth Sense. Of course the ghost she saw when she was a child is all GDT-creepy-looking, but other than that, the ghost only seems interested in giving her a warning - 'Beware of (you guessed it) 'Crimson Peak'.. Fast forward to 15 years later, she is now a marrying-age woman, the daughter of a rich industrialist, and determined to be a successful fiction writer, and never fall in love of get married. And into their midst arrives Loki and his sister, Miss Weirdo Creepy Girl. Loki seems intent on sweeping her off her feet, he is English royalty of some kind, fallen on hard times, and her father does not approve, and in fact discovers a *HUGE SECRET* about the guy, and essentially makes Loki and his sister leave town, thus breaking young Edith's fragile and willowy heart. (You will notice some of the cast from Pacific Rim showing up in this one, so GDT apparently likes working with some of these cats) Anyway, this all plays like some typical Jane Austen novel turned into a film. Seriously, the first half of the movie is carriages, ballroom waltzes, and arrogant upper-class sneering at Edith and her 'progressive woman' ways. Finally, something actually happens, and Edith's father is brutally murdered, by a *MYSTERY PERSON*. (Mystery count so far: 3 1. What the heck is Crimson Peak, 2. What was the *HUGE SECRET* her father discovered about Loki and his sister, and 3. WHO brutally murdered wealthy industrialist Dad?) So then we discover that Loki hasn't really left town yet, he returns to find Edith and declare his love, they kissy-face, and then are informed of her father's murder. Immediately after the funeral, Edith and Loki are married, and relocate to the good old family estate in England (Alledale Hall - *that's important*). See, Loki's titled parents apparently squandered the family fortune, leaving Loki and his sister to manage the uber-creepy GDT-style castle/mansion all by themselves, basically penniless (so the house is basically a ruin, literally). Also, Loki has been trying to figure out a new way to mine for the very red clay upon which their home sits.. it's worth a lot of money to make fine bricks, supposedly, and if he can only get his newfangled digging/mining machine to work, he will finally be a success! The house is apparently 'sinking' into the red clay soil, so the entire place constantly seems to be bathed in thick red blood. Very GDT. HUGE contrast from the first half of the movie, by design I'm sure. Anyway, from the very first moment Edith sets foot in the house, she sees super-creepy-looking GDT ghosts wandering around. It's unclear whether they are dangerous, but they sure LOOK scary as hell. Loki's creepy sister starts basically force-feeding Edith some nasty 'tea', and Edith almost immediately begins to fall ill. So, shades of Sixth Sense again, such as when that little girl's mother was poisoning her daughter. Same thing. Yeah. So, mystery #4 - WHY?? Ok so here at this point, I will just tell you my problem with the movie: it's a mystery movie, but it's just not much of a mystery. Loki tells her 'Never go into the basement! So, she goes down to the basement. Finds mysterious stuff. No ghosts kill anyone in this movie. No ghost even HARMS anyone in this movie. The ghosts are either trying to communicate with Edith, or they are just angry and want her to leave, but no horrifying supernatural deaths occur. Also, as infested as the house is with ghosts, Loki and his sister are completely oblivious to them. The implication in the advertisements and in the early part of the movie is that Loki and sister know all about ghosts, but they actually don't know anything about them at all, they have no idea the house is infested, they can't see them like Edith can. So, here is where the premise of the entire movie hinges: Edith can solve the mystery in the house because, unexpectedly to Loki and his sister, she can see ghosts, and the ghosts reveal the ways for Edith to solve the clues. It's just that.. it's just not that mysterious. Loki and his sister are essentially serial killers. They travel around the world, luring wealthy young heiresses into marrying the charming 'Baronet', whisk them to their home, and slowly poison them. How do we know this? Because about 3/4 of the way through the movie, *Mystery #1* is revealed!! Loki is already married!! Dashing young opthamologist dude from back home (has a crush on Edith) discovers this, plus the blatant fact that Loki and his creepy sister obviously murdered their own mother when they were children, because of an old newspaper clipping revealed at the same time as the fact of Loki's bigamy), decides to run to England to save her. And also.. a ghost leads Edith to look in a little closet. what was in the closet? Well, only a box full of primitive audio recordings of all the previous victims, basically openly stating that Loki and sister are killing them. In a box. In a closet. Just.. right there. Actual evidence of multiple murders. Yeah. And in the basement? Just HAPPENS to be a pile of envelopes, basically neatly labeled as murder evidence, as well as the audio player necessary to listen to the above-mentioned recordings. So Edith realizes she is being poisoned. She then stumbles upon Loki and creepy sister 'getting it on', so to speak, but still very G-rated unfortunately. Yeah, you guessed it - they are also incestuous. Anyway, Loki has clearly been conflicted ever since he met Edith, and has been mildly reluctant to go through with killing her. But not really. Well, maybe. Creepy sister then tries to kill Edith by throwing her off a ledge. But it doesn't work, she just gets a sprained ankle or something. At the same moment, dashing young Opthamologist shows up, gives her some medical care, and tries to sneak Edith away from the horrible place. Loki and creepy sister stop him, and he confronts them with all the damning evidence he has seen, showing it all to Edith as well. So, of course, creepy sister stabs Dashing Young Hero (although not as mortally as we believed at first!), and then drags Edith back upstairs to make her sign her wealth over to them, and once that is done, kill the girl once and for all.. At this time Creepy Sister proudly admits to murdering Edith's father, so that's another *HUGE MYSTERY* just sort of casually revealed. So then all at the same time, we see that Loki is actually rescuing Dashing Young Hero, and also we see that Edith, in a rage, suddenly jumps up and stabs creepy sister in the chest with the fountain pen given to her by her father, so yay for Karma there. However, creepy sister is apparently the Energizer Bunny, and doesn't die. Meanwhile, Loki has arrived as Edith leaves the room. He tells Edith that DYH is still alive, hidden safely in the basement, and the he himself will go in and deal with creepy sister. So they switch places. Edith takes the GDT-creepy elevator down to the super creepy basement full of blood and ghosts and dead bodies, to find DYH. And Loki goes in to see his creepy sister, who doesn't seem to be all that worse for the wear, having been stabbed in the chest and all. Anyway, Loki reveals that he is actually truly in love with Edith, and creepy sister reveals (unsurprisingly if you ask me) to also be *MURDEROUSLY JEALOUS* creepy sister, and so she promptly stabs Loki several times, including one really good shot right in the face. And of course Loki dies. So now, creepy sister flies into insane rage, and pursues Edith with a giant meat cleaver. So then it becomes a game of 'chase each other around in the white-out conditions in the snow outside. Oh yeah, here's the other mystery - what the heck is 'Crimson Peak'?? Well, Loki tells Edith earlier that the red clay always seeps up through the snow and turns it red. So yeah, the whole place looks like it is swimming in blood, even when it snows. Thus it has always had the nickname of 'Crimson Peak' during the wintertime. Yeah. This information of course causes Edith great alarm, as a ghost after all specifically warned her about it when she was 11. Anyway, Edith and Creepy Sister duke it out, and of course Edith wins, basically by showing Creepy Sister that Loki's ghost is now standing right there behind her. So Edith smashes Creepy Sister in the face with a shovel, and ... And, The End. seriously, that's it. The premise: Girl who can see ghosts uncovers the years-long killing spree of a couple of insane incestuous psycho killers. Again, maybe it's just me, not having seen all that much from GDT, but it seemed to me that the premise was really not handled or revealed all that well. In fact, I would go so far as to say that the ghosts were an entirely unnecessary facet of this movie. The one thing a ghost does to 'warn' her is completely wasted, because it warns her by using a nickname of the place, instead of the actual NAME of the place, and so she never understands the warning until it was far too late. All the other ghosts did was vaguely point at evidence that she could have easily just stumbled upon on her own. The ghosts seemed like one big deus ex machina to me, serving no real purpose other than to give GDT something creepy to put in the movie. I suspect it would have been a better movie re-written without the ghost aspect altogether, and just make it a dread-filled Gothic murder mystery. Anyway, overall I think it was well made, the sets were amazing, and the performances were good. It was just that the whole thing hinged on elements which really couldn't support it very well. But like I said, maybe I am just not the perfect audience for this kind of thing. So I would say, if you are a GDT fan, you'll probably like it, but otherwise I might wait for Redbox.
Her I really enjoyed this movie, more than I thought. It has a layer of complexity to it to compliment the oddity of the basic premise, that of a man dating his phone's OS. It is strangely romantic, heartfelt and heartbreaking all at the same time. Loved the color palette and set locations and the performances from Phoenix and Johansson. A definite must-see. 8/10
Harsh Times- 5/10 Shotty acting with a pretty good cast. PTSD can be a b**** and makes me wonder how many cases are actually prevalent at the moment that goes unspoken.
We went to see The Martian again and in 3D (again). Went with my kid that hadn't seen it and he was blown away. I enjoyed it as much as the first time. Ridley Scott strikes again! 9/10
Thank you for smoking 6.5/10 Fun, light, enjoyable comedy. Exactly what I was looking for on a boring weeknight.
