The Innocents (1961) - Wow, so eerie and complex. The screenplay might seem deceptively simple at first, until you look back and consider the events again. The direction is impeccable and atmospheric, with several creepy images sure to stick in your head. The female lead's acting is great, very subtle, allowing for interpretations, but the best part is the kids' performances. Usually for movies in those eras, I always find kids' acting to be too theatrical, but for this movie that style works wonderfully, and just creeps me out a lot of times in the movie's latter half. A great horror classic. 9/10

Cropsey (2009) - Catfish has me interested to find more acclaimed documentaries, but this next one is a tad generic. It concerns a local horror myth in New York and how it might come to life in a series of children's disappearances and the following investigation that spans decades. The doc has some interesting ideas about the blurred line between myth and fact, and its impact on people's perception. But eventually the idea is abandoned and it just becomes standard crime procedure doc. The case is creepy and holds some interest though. 7/10

Tucker and Dale vs Evil (2010) - Pure fun. It feels like Cabin in the Woods with the parody aspect played up significantly, but never lose sight of its characters either. When a group of teenagers decide to camp at a cabin in the forest and get some warnings beforehand from the creepy locals, they seem to follow in step with the standard slasher formula, but then it takes a turn towards the unexpected. The movie has some gore and cringey moments, but never that scary. However, the comedy is pure gold, with several memorable one-liners, spot-on performances from the two leads, and many hilariously deliberate coincidences after coincidences. (Love, love the woodchucker scene) But most importantly, about two or three characters are so intensely likable that I hope, hope through it all that the movie would spare them to see the end. 8/10

Saw this after MunichMan spent many words over many threads over many months talking it up. It was good (no cliche gets left behind) and funny though it covered the same territory, more knowingly, as Cabin Fever. I'm pretty tired of satires at this point. It would have been fun in a group.

I'm with you about being tired of satires. That bothered me more with Cabin in the Woods, since with all the talent involved, it seems like they could have made an actual, legitimate horror movie (which the world desperately needs) rather than a send-up of one. Basically, I felt like "If you guys are so smart, do it yourself instead of mocking people less smart than you."

Great movie. how do you think it compares with The Others?

I don't mind saitres, but "Cabin In The Woods" flet more like it was insulting horror films then gently poking fun at them, which kind of turned me off, i'd much rather watch any so-called "torture porn" film then see "Cabin" again, oh yeah and the ending sucked.

I feel Tucker and Dale both satirizes and embraces the horror convention though. Sure it has fun with the death scenes and many misunderstanding, but in the end it comes down to some very likable heroes against pure slasher evil.

I really like Cabin in the Woods, but I agree that there are times when I could feel the horror element and the satire pulling at each other, not quite sure where it want to end up. However, I think it is all very much worth it just for the climatic mayhem, which is an absolute blast and going to be one of my favorite scenes from 2012. (The ending could have ended one scene earlier though)

Vexer, I don't see how the movie insults the horror genre; I think it just insults many bad, eye-rolling moments from the genre (group splitting moment, for example) that most horror movies nowadays have already moved away from. If anything, I think it's the "torture porn" that mostly insults the horror movies; I'm glad it's a quickly gone sub-genre.



Is there a connection between them? I watched it 6 or 7 years ago I think, but I remember I loved it a bit. The atmosphere and the direction are absolutely ones of the best in the horror genre. And I didn't read anything about it beforehand, and the plot and twist really surprised me. It is telling that after watching it once so many years ago I still remember a lot of scenes in my head. (the ceiling shot of Nicole Kidman looking up as the chandelier trembled, curtains wide open, Kidman hysterically shaking someone, the children's discovery, the final shot, etc.) I would have given it 8.5; compared to The Innocents, that movie's theme and plot progression are just deeper and more elegant.

Well to me "Cabin" felt like it was tying too hard to be clever and just came off as condescending, (oh and I HATE the term "torture porn" it's just some lazy buzzword critics who hate horror films came up with). There was nothing that movie made fun of that hadn't already been done better in previous satires, and oh boy did I detest that stoner guy, the whole movie I was prying he'd get killed, which made the ending suck even worse.

Dear Zachary: A Letter to a Son About His Father - A murder, an investigation, a kid, and a filmmaker's remembrance that turned into something else. By turns touching, suspenseful, angered... and then it completely breaks your heart. What a contrast between real-life evil and goodness. Although it is emotionally draining, I'm glad I ever have the chance to get to know Andrews and his parents, and to witness their wonderful impact on the people in their lives. But god, it really does break you heart to pieces. Big mistake watching this before bed.. 9.5/10

The Finances of the Grand Duke is a light comedy directed by F. W. Murnau, who you don't usually associate with comedy. The Grand Duchy of Abacco, an island mini-nation in the Mediterranean, is going broke and vultures are descending, including a millionaire who wants to build a sulfur mine, and who, when the Grand Duke objects, is quite ready to sponsor a coup. (I note with amusement that a coup in Abacco requires five people.) The Grand Duke's plan to make his nation solvent is to marry Olga, the young Crown Princess of Russia. Meanwhile Philipp Collins (Alfred Abel), a speculator who is not above doing some second-story work, comes into possession of Olga's proposal to the Grand Duke, and realizes he's in a position to make a financial killing. Eventually all the threads come together with everybody descending upon Abacco.

This is more a comedy to smile at than laugh out loud. Alfred Abel, who I hated in Phantom and liked in Metropolis, is positively cheerful here and steals the movie. I was rather hoping he'd make off with the Princess himself.

Minor, obscure Murnau, but I give it 7 of 10. As far as I know, Murnau did only one other comedy feature, Tartuffe, an adaptation of Moliere's play; it's quite a bit better.

Chasing Ghosts: Beyond The Arcade (2007)

Originally I thought this was going to be a sequel of sorts to The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters but with a more sympathetic treatment of Walter Day and Billy Mitchell, and indeed it sort of starts that way. But it doesn't really turn out that way. While "King of Kong" has a narrative hero (Steve Wiebe) and a villain (Billy Mitchell) with an unassuming henchman to the evil (Walter Day), "Chasing Ghosts" is more of a study of the history of arcade games and the culture from the early 1980's and traces some of the more notable personalities to today. It really focuses on around 8 or 9 guys who were teenagers back then at the tops of their games and how Walter Day sought to turn Ottumwa, Iowa into the "Videogame Capital of the World". At the end of the day, "Chasing Ghosts" is a meaner picture than "Kong", where the audience is perched watching these guys reminisce about their "glory days" and how it was all so important to them, but we see that it was all just delusional bullshit, appearances on "That's Incredible" and photoshoots for Life Magazine notwithstanding. At some points the film makers do a good job of serving up the nostalgia, but it's always with an underlying sneering of pointing out what losers these guys are. Eh...whatever. I was in those arcades in the 80's too, though not to the degree of these subjects. You could make the same movie about guys who play sports in high school and get delusional and neglect their studies only to turn out to be losers in life. I guess the video game nerds are just an easier target. Nicer special effects than "King of Kong", but not as compelling a story. 2.0 / 4.0

The Graduate (1967)
Dustin Hoffman's Ben Braddock is a 20 year old college graduate (he started college when he was 16???) who moves into his parents' home back in California from back east to figure out what's next. A job? On to graduate school? He doesn't know. Enter Anne Bancroft's 20 years older Mrs. Robinson who sets her sights on young Ben for a summer affair. Things get complicated when Ben date's Mrs. Robinson's daughter Elaine and becomes smitten with her instead.
Many iconic scenes and lines in this movie but it was pretty uneven. There were long takes, montages, quick cuts, the hallmark 60's "Super closeup of character reaction" shots...which left for a very disjointed experience. Intentional or just a sign of the moviemaking of the times? You make the call. Hoffman's performance was great, but overall the story moved slowly and the character motivations moved WAY too briskly which made me feel I was moving very fast but getting nowehere at all. 2.5 / 4.0

I'd say it's a style of the times. The Graduate had a big impact on the early baby boomers (i.e. the hippie generation). I'm late baby boomer and I was already feeling a disconnect. The soundtrack was very good for Simon and Garfunkel.

I first watched The Graduate the week after I graduated from HS. This was June 1997. Even then I noted that 30 years later it has not aged that well. The soundtrack is very good and Bancroft and Hoffman act well as they usually do. But on the whole I prefer Mike Nichols previous directorial effort Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf.

One part of the movie that hit home for me as a recent HS graduate was the "plastics" speech. It seemed like many people were trying to guide me towards plastics as is teh case with many people. I also reflect now that many of the popular kids in HS are going to end up in plastics since their main talent is at being popular. When I was in HS, that was the one time I wanted to be part of the popular crowd. Had I known what I just pointed out I would not have.

Man did that movie bust me and my wife up. I have a very hard time grading it though. How much credit can go to the filmmaker, when he just happened to be there for an amazing story to take place?

The credit the filmmaker gets should, as you imply, be based on the quality of the film. Dear Zachary contains a great story, but it's not a great documentary. In fact I think it under-serves the story at times. But it gets the (amazing) story across.

The doc Brother's Keeper is a great counter-example... they certainly stumbled onto that story, but they told it beautifully and found the right way to approach it.

Anyway, I watched The Raid. I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. It's still nothing but a series of martial arts fights no matter how you slice it, but the gore was a nice touch, and at least much of the time the fights were somewhat realistic at least (save for the final 3-way fight).

I'm sure we all remember the thread on documentaries. That thread is one of the reasons I haven't seen Dear Zachary.

Once Were Warriors (1994)

A family or urban maori deal with economic hardship and domestic tyranny at the ass-end of New Zealand's culture clash dynamic.

Jake "the Muss" Heke makes Stan Kowalski look like a girl scout.

Hard hitting but brilliant stuff.

9/10

Checked out Alexander Payne's debut, the below-average Citizen Ruth. The film concerns Ruth, a paint-huffing alcoholic who learns she's carrying her fifth unwanted child and only wishes for a place to stay and some pocket cash. After she's encouraged by a judge to get an abortion in order to avoid fed time, Ruth becomes a poster child for both anti-abortionists and pro-choicers when they do as they do when represented by people who chuckle at both sides of the debate. "Oh, they're such buffoons," said the imaginary Alexander Payne in my head as he wrote the script that would become his bad film Citizen Ruth.

The pro-choice people are all gay, militant or both and the pro-life people are uptight churchwomen and their emasculated husbands. Although one may not expect subtlety in a comedy that wishes to take aim at targets such as these, Payne plays the material as in-your-face as both sides of the debate are in Ruth's. Not that either political agenda really cares for Ruth, of course. Payne, too, isn't interested in Ruth except as a stupid, drug-addled perversion of the American Dream. It's a hateful perspective, for all sides to have no integrity, and the stabs at comedy appear to be beamed in from a distant planet where sitcom comedy has been studied for decades and mistaken for typical midwestern America. Lesbian pro-choice activists spontaneously breaking into song to thank the moon when Ruth is taken in with them? Jesus-freaking pro-life activists spontaneously breaking into song to thank the heavens when Ruth is taken in with them? I figured Ruth would break into a tune when she miscarries the fetus but, nah, the movie ends without any more songs. You can continue on with your life without seeing this. *1/2

I've always said that I think The Graduate is one of the greatest films ever made. This may be a more personal reaction, because I actually lived the events of this film in one way or another.