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Post by Jeremy on Dec 25, 2023 15:37:25 GMT -8
Can't entirely confirm, but I think they kept the CGI to a minimum (as is A24's wont). The arenas in the film look rather small and contained, although the film doesn't focus as much on the more global fights the Von Erichs partook in. (There's one scene where a large crowd is glimpsed from a distance, in the lead-up to a fight we don't end up seeing; that was probably a CGI shot.) For the fights themselves, the film does a good job with practical staging, and there's nothing as needlessly showy as that dumb "in the void" fight at the climax of Creed III.
The only thing that did seem like CGI was the first glimpse of Zac Efron's abs, though on reflection I think those were probably real. The guy's come quite far since High School Musical.
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Post by Jay on Jan 10, 2024 17:13:00 GMT -8
Much belated, but I did my usual horror movie binge for spooky month. I'll mark the ones I liked with a plus, and the ones I was less keen on with a minus. Not sure how to designate the ones I was ambivalent on so I won't.
30 Days of Night (+) While Oppenheimer means we no longer need wonder what happened to Josh Hartnett (he's there, under a lot of makeup), one shouldn't pass up the opportunity to watch John Huston play a feral if well-dressed vampire. We'll pretend the climax didn't happen though, and that Barrow (now Utqiagvik) has indigenous Alaskans among the populace.
Barbarian (+) I guess the real Barbarian was.... man.... Hold on, I'm being told that has always been the case
Constantine (+) In a film with Keanu Reeves, Rachel Weisz, and Tilda Swinton-- to say nothing of Djimon Hounsou, Shia LaBeouf, and Gavin Rossdale-- the actor who plays Satan steals the show in the span of a couple of minutes.
Creepshow (-) You've got an anthology film directed by George A. Romero and written by Stephen King, both riffing off old EC Comics. As the pieces, an undead father who keeps screaming "my cake, Bedelia!," King hamming it up as a hayseed in intergalactic trouble, Leslie Nielsen drowning and then being killed by Ted Danson, Adrienne Barbeau as an insufferable university wife who gets murdered by an unidentified primate, and E.G. Marshall as a riff on shut-in era Howard Hughes with a vendetta against roaches. All of this SOUNDS good, but I wanted to like it more than I actually did.
The Dead Zone (-) The trick for telling when Christopher Walken is psychic versus not-psychic is that when he's psychic, his hair's slicked back.
Dead & Buried (-) Unless you want to see Charlie Bucket's Grandpa Joe play a shady small town mortician/coroner, the box art is more interesting than anything that transpires in the movie.
Dune (Lynch) (+) I have not read the books, and may not ever, but it worked for me and the most Lynchian aspect of it was probably the casting. Plus it ends with The Worm. Who doesn't want to see The Worm? I can see the complaints though that the Harkonnen clan had some vibes to them that were insensitive to the AIDS crisis.
The Fog This one has Adrienne Barbeau again, a connection I realized only now. It's also got an early-career Jamie Lee Curtis. I'm a sucker generally for the "small town was founded ON MURDER" premise because there ain't nothing more American than that, but I was kind of lukewarm on it in retrospect.
From Beyond More Jeffrey Combs doing Lovecraftian stuff, this time as the... good but misguided one? More of a protagonist than Herbert West at least. I suspect Lovecraft was the trope founder for "gross thing insists that it's Peak"
Get Out (+) This is on my usual delay owing to my hype allergy. On the whole, I enjoyed it, but my main complaint is that the car key fumbling made no sense for when it chronologically happened in the plot and I'm not sure about casting Rose's brother with a guy who looks like a meth addict.
The Hunger (-) You would think that a movie starring Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie as a vampire couple, Susan Sarandon as the aging researcher studying them, Bauhaus opening the movie by playing "Bela Lugosi is Dead," and Willem Dafoe in a momentary bit part would be good. Instead, it remains alive, or at least undead, purely on its goth cred.
Last Night in Soho (+) Alt. Tagline: Cornish Hen Nearly Cooked Following Spicy Affair
Nightbreed (turns into a werewolf, scales the tallest mountain in central Canada) "GAAAAAAAY! GAY GAY GAAAAAAY! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!"
Rabid The premise doesn't make sense at all (Morbo voice: "SKIN GRAFTS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY! GOOD NIGHT!"), but it's okay for a zombie slasher where the villain is a lady. I could see why they remade it and bumped up that aspect of it.
Resident Evil: Damnation (+) I've seen a bunch of these CGI, non-Jovovich RE movies, having played the franchise obsessively, and I think that this is their best version of it, which is faint praise.
Return of the Living Dead 3 (-) Unless self-mutilation / modification are flash points for you, it's tamer and less transgressive than its forebears and than it wants to present itself.
Tremors (+) Man, I don't know how it took me this long to see this. It's not brilliant, but there's a lot of goofy fun to it and it's hard to dislike.
The Wailing (+) I don't know, it seems kind of "on the nose" to me to take a story of zombie-like possession and murder in rural Korea and cast a Japanese man as the devil.
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Post by Jay on Jan 14, 2024 18:17:36 GMT -8
Oh, I remembered I was also going to add The Menu?
As a former food service worker who has two, bougie, food-obsessed aunts (one good, one evil), I enjoyed the premise. I've read a few of those destination restaurant profiles over the years and have been struck by the more cult-like aspect of their leadership, so it was fun to see someone take advantage of that while making fun of the culture generally. The ending was kind of hammy... kind of cheesy... though and I had trouble believing Ralph Fiennes had ever worked a service industry job.
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