Movie opinions thread (what have you seen, what did you think?)

SouthtownKid

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Night of the Comet- 80s as fuck sci-fi/horror/adventure about a pair of valley girl sisters who by a pure coincidence survive the apocalypse after the earth comes into orbit with the tail of a comet. The comet turns everyone directly exposed into sand, so the sisters wakeup to find LA almost completely empty except for a handful of survivors and cannibalistic half zombies. A bitchin' soundtrack, lots of neon and some dubious fashion and hair, a great little time capsule. Lots of recognizable character actors throughout and some fairly impressive empty shots of LA and matte work. It's not quite a classic but it's a lot of fun.
There might as well have been a Night of the Comet channel for as often as that movie got shown on cable during the '80s.
 

HornheaDD

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Night of the Comet- 80s as fuck sci-fi/horror/adventure about a pair of valley girl sisters who by a pure coincidence survive the apocalypse after the earth comes into orbit with the tail of a comet. The comet turns everyone directly exposed into sand, so the sisters wakeup to find LA almost completely empty except for a handful of survivors and cannibalistic half zombies. A bitchin' soundtrack, lots of neon and some dubious fashion and hair, a great little time capsule. Lots of recognizable character actors throughout and some fairly impressive empty shots of LA and matte work. It's not quite a classic but it's a lot of fun.
Also it features a young Chakotay from Voyager 🤣
 

terry.330

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Phantom of the Mall: Eric's Revenge- It's Phantom of the Opera but in a mall, in the 80s and there's kung fu and also Pauly Shore.
 

terry.330

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The Monster Squad- Well it's not The Goonie but it has it's own charm and the effects by Stan Winston's team are legit. It's funny though this is one of the only movies that uses total kid-logic. I don't just mean like Home Alone or the Goonies where the kid logic is used to solve the problems and fight the bad guys. I mean it's as if the story was actually made up by a 10 year old boy and transcribed by an adult. Shane Black may in fact be a 10 year old, I mean Predator isn't far off from this kind of logic when you think about it.

It's been a long time since I've seen it and like a lot of stuff made at the time some of it wouldn't fly today. The boys say faggot and homo a few times, the fat kid is literally called The Fat Kid the entire movie even by his friends. Hell even the dad smoking around the son wouldn't fly anymore. Also I'm mad jealous of that one kids awesome Robotech shirt.
 

terry.330

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I was surprised to see that the Wolfman was played by the same guy that was the Uncle Rico in Napoleon Dynamite and Lazlo from Real Genius.
 

terry.330

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Society- Billy is a privileged Beverly Hills HS senior, class president, captain of the basketball team, he seems to have it all. Except he never feels like he quite belongs, perhaps he's even adopted and his parents have hidden this from him. This unshakable feeling along with some suspicious encounters make him think he might not be so paranoid after all. After hearing a horrifying audio tape of his sisters "coming out" party he thinks something truly sinister and perverse lurks below the surface of the so called upper crust of society...

Turns out he's right. The rich are actually a secret race of amorphous human slugs that literally feed off of the lower class in slimy orgies of decadent perversion. This culminates in one of the greatest practical effects scenes ever made where Billy is intended to be the main course.

Unfortunately it doesn't have the kind of charm of Re-Animator or Return of the Living Dead, the dialogue is horrible, it's often boring and sometimes confusing but it's mostly worth it to get to the end. The message is blunt to put it mildly but it's still a great satirical commentary on the time period. Coming out of the 80s where yuppies and jock assholes ruled and it's obviously still just as relevant today.
 

Syn

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Society is enjoyable despite it's flaws.

I watched one of those top 10 horror movies you probably missed and it as well as The Burning were mentioned.
 

terry.330

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Society is enjoyable despite it's flaws.

I watched one of those top 10 horror movies you probably missed and it as well as The Burning were mentioned.
Yeah, even the boring and clunky scenes usually have enough other stuff going on to make them watchable. Be it the fashion, set decorations or a pretty solid amount of hot chicks and nudity.

The Burning is great. There seems to be an almost unlimited amount of overlooked genre stuff from the late 70s through the early 90s when you really start to dig through them. Fortunately with all the streaming services and boutique labels it's not as much of a pain in the ass to find anymore.
 

100proof

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Yeah, the shunting scene is on the Mount Rushmore of fucked up horror movie endings. Screaming Mad George is... well.... as advertised. I feel kind of similarly about From Beyond... it's kind of slow and clunky but there is some truly unique weirdness in that movie.
 

Syn

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Plus you get a hot blond in a dominatrix outfit.
 

terry.330

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God bless Barbra Crampton.

Screaming Mad George's work on Freaked is also incredible. That whole movie is amazingly insane.
 

HornheaDD

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Mad God

Did it look cool? Sure.
Did it make any sense? Nope.
Was there a message? Nope.
Was there a narrative? Barely.
Was there a scene where a video of a real life long dick comes out of a real life vagina? You bet.

Some people should just stick to working in the background. Tippet is an award winning effects guy (ive read), but as a director? Nah dude.

Its like he thinks hes David Lynch, and it made even less sense than the schlock Lynch makes.
 

LoneSage

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I don't know if this is the place to talk about it, but did anyone see the Ezra Miller thing? The guy who first became famous for We Need To Talk About Kevin, and more recently has played the Flash in a few mostly misfires of DC Comics movies?

He started getting in trouble a year or two back when he was caught on video choking out a girl. Then a few months ago, he was arrested in Hawaii for drunk and disorderly, maybe fighting or something. A couple weeks later, arrested in Hawaii again for the same thing. And now apparently, he's been grooming a girl a few years since she was underage, and right as she turned 18, he kidnapped her and vanished. Side note: a different girl, now 12, just filed a restraining order against him yesterday.
Here's an article about Ezra staying with a Sioux family and what happened that I just read: https://lastrealindians.com/news/2022/6/10/chief-bear-testifies-ezra-miller-groomed-my-niece

I see suicide in his future.
 

100proof

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So did some catching up on The Last Drive-In this weekend and saw a couple of things I'd never seen before:

Uncle Sam - Corny slasher flick from the mid 90s about an undead war vet who murders unpatriotic people in his hometown during the town's 4th of July celebration. Obviously a little awkward after this weekend's festivities but if we stopped watching movies because of a mild association with horrific gun violence in America, there'd be nothing left to watch. Anyway, it's super corny but has a couple of fun kills and some amusing bit parts (Isaac Hayes in a pre-South Park role as a security officer who befriends the hero kid, PJ Soles in a small mom role and Robert Forster playing a slimy politician). It's written by Larry Cohen of "The Stuff" and "Q The Winged Serpent" fame and directed by Bill Lustig who directed Maniac and the Maniac Cop movies but also produced hundreds of low-budget horror movies in the 80s and 90s so it's kind of an all-star lineup of trash film but it's ultimately pretty forgettable beyond a funny premise.

The Stepfather (1987) - The original one, not the garbage remake. You get Terry O'Quinn of Lost fame playing a repressed nutter who kills his family and then sets up a new life with a new family which slowly deteriorates. I knew the movie and its premise but had just never gotten around to it. Pretty good lead performance and its competently made but it's kinda boilerplate and tame, even by the standards of the time it was made.

Head of the Family - I'd actually seen this one before as I watched a lot of the Full Moon movies back in the day. Fun, cheesy horror movie from the mid 90s about a set of rich inbred quadruplets. One is essentially a giant head (the smart one) who telepathically controls his functionally lobotomized brothers and sister (the strong one, the one with crazy keen senses and the hot one played by a porn star). Anyway, they experiment on the redneck locals until one redneck discovers what they're doing and tries to blackmail them. Hilarity and weirdness ensues. It's a Charles Band/Full Moon movie so it doesn't take itself too seriously, has some weak attempts at comedy and plenty of boobs. It's not a good movie but if you like the bygone era of trashy straight-to-video horror movies, it's fun and light and totally worth 90 minutes of your time. A lot of bad southern accents though.
 

SouthtownKid

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I didn't see it in the theater and I didn't rent it when it came to dvd. But it finally dropped on netflix, so I figured for free, how bad could Snake-Eyes be?

Pretty, pretty, pretty bad.
 

HornheaDD

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Yeah I downloaded it a few months ago and it was about what I expected.
 

jro

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The Card Counter - very, very much a Paul Schrader movie, has that signature style and protagonist. Reminded me quite a bit of First Reformed, though I'd say I liked this better. More interesting backdrop (poker vs. church), a stronger lead, and a genuinely interesting and well-executed premise. One of the better movies I've seen a while.

Thoroughbreds - fun to watch, but overrated IMO. Good performances from all three of Taylor-Joy, Cooke, and Yelchin (in his last role), but the whole thing had an air of fakeness to it. Weird word, I know, but it felt more like watching a play than a movie, and the (intentionally) clipped dialogue and the ending both felt off to me. Not a bad time-waster but nothing more than that.
 

terry.330

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Thoroughbreds - fun to watch, but overrated IMO. Good performances from all three of Taylor-Joy, Cooke, and Yelchin (in his last role), but the whole thing had an air of fakeness to it. Weird word, I know, but it felt more like watching a play than a movie, and the (intentionally) clipped dialogue and the ending both felt off to me. Not a bad time-waster but nothing more than that.
I love this one, not totally sure why. The kind of calm cynical vibe maybe. I dig the fakeness, it fits the subject matter and characters. Totally understandable why some people wouldn't dig that particular aspect of it, it's a bit off-putting. The ending is a bit of a letdown though. I'd put it in the same category as Stoker.
 
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