beer_good_foamy | Entries tagged with movies

So I'm going to try a challenge and watch a horror movie every day in October. Or at least 31 horror movies in October. Or at least recommend a horror movie every day in October. We'll see how far I get. (Suggestions of movies I may not have seen are most welcome, though fair warning, I've seen a lot of horror movies...)

#1 is Gerald's Game, which just opened on Netflix. Based on a Stephen King novel I read when it came out and always considered completely unfilmable, since the entire plot is that a woman agrees to let her husband chain her to the bed 50 shades-style to spice up their marriage, and then he gets a heart attack and dies and she's chained to a bed miles from the nearest neighbour and nobody due to miss them for at least a week. So 90% of the story is just her, trapped in a bed, dragging through a lifetime of bad memories of men who think they own her to try and find a way out.

Still works rather well, though, up until the ending that gets way too comfortable. Carel Struycken (the Giant in Twin Peaks) in a small but crucial role. Also, one of the singularly goriest scenes in the whole history of Stephen King films, which is saying something. Not great, but not bad, and when it comes to Stephen King adaptations that's usually all you can ask.

Director Mike Flanagan also made Hush and Oculus, both of which are recommended.

Watch on YouTube

Damnit, I didn't need this right in all my feels about the Twin Peaks finale. 91 years is a very good run, but still.

Cool Hand Luke. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. Alien. Escape From New York. Red Dawn. Paris, Texas. Repo Man. (Seriously, Repo Man.) Pretty In Pink. Last Temptation of Christ. Wild At Heart. The Straight Story. INLAND EMPIRE. Big Love. The Avengers. Seven Psychopaths. And just a second ago, Twin Peaks. And even in the movies you didn't remember, you'd remember his bit.

Plus a fantastic singer and possibly just the coolest man on the silver screen in the last 50 years. For years, whenver anyone asked me my favourite actor, I'd always say Harry Dean Stanton. Pretty much nobody could ever argue with it.

Thanks, man. You did good.

Watch on YouTube

Current Music: Paris, Texas OST

You know that feeling when you stumble unexpectedly across a familiar actor in another movie?

Adam Busch from Buffy co-stars in Dave Made A Maze, and he's good, but that's not why you should watch it. You should watch it because it's just a delightful, unique idea for a movie, and in this day of megafranchises based on 80-year-old source materials, we need those more than ever.

So get this: Dave got bored while his girlfriend was out of town and made a maze (It's a labyrinth!) out of cardboard. In his living room. And then he got lost in it, because it's bigger on the inside. Also, there are traps and a minotaur, because it just wouldn't be a labyrinth otherwise, would it? So now his girlfriend and his pretentious arty film maker friends have to go in and rescue him and try not to die.

And yes, it's all made of actual cardboard that the film makers got for free from recycling bins.

Watch on YouTube

It's not perfect, but it's just... neat.

Everyone else seems to be doing this, so...

My 10 favourite new movies so far this year
(in no particular order)
(and with trailers linked)
(what'd I miss? tell me!)

Frantz
French soldier comes to small German town shortly after WW1, looks up family of dead German soldier, claims to be his friend from before the war come to pay his respects. Things get tense from there on as people start lying and telling truths. Beautiful period piece.

Get Out
Believe the hype, this deserves all the praise it's got and more. Dark comedy set within a horror movie made up of everyday racism. Peele gleefully feeds us drops of poisoned sweet tea until we're out of excuses for how we didn't see the monster all along.

Catfight
Two women, old college friends, meet up 25 years later and realise that they're unhappy with how their lives have turned out... and take it out on each other. Very brutally so. The red-vs-blue satire isn't exactly subtle, but it's really about Anne Heche and Sandra Oh physically beating the crap out of each other for 90 minutes. Why should a movie need more than that?

Colossal
It's an indie drama where Anne Hathaway moves back to a small town to cope with depression and alcoholism and an abusive childhood sweetheart. At the same time it's also a kaiju movie about a giant lizard creature stomping Seoul. Maybe not quite the best movie I've seen all year, but probably the one that made me go "What a great idea!" the most times. The director also made the brilliant Timecrimes a few years ago which may be the cleverest time-travel movie I know.

Guardians of the Galaxy vol 2
Popcorn. It's good for you.

Sami Blood
Best Swedish movie I've seen in years, and large chunks of it are not even in Swedish but in Sami - specifically a dialect spoken today by less than 500 indigenous people in the north of Sweden. Young native girl in the 1930s gets sent off to school to be taught to be a Real Swede, except of course she never can be since she's of an Inferior Race. So when she wants to go down south to study at a real university, she's forced to choose which identity she wants to pretend she never had for the next 60 years. Hard-hitting, beautiful, and no less relevant in an age where our politicians are seriously arguing that you can't be, say, Jewish or Sami (or god forbid, muslim) and still claim to be Swedish.

The Love Witch
Wicked young witch has made up her mind to find a man, no matter what the cost to her or them. Mostly them. 70s technicolor freakout filtered through 10s ideas of sex and gender and having WAY too much fun with both.

Death Race 2050
Of course Roger Corman gets to remake this in 2017. And of course the bad guy is blatantly based on Donald Trump. And of course it gets both bloody and hilarious. Great race. HUGE race. Make America never brake again!

Paterson
A bus driver in a small New Jersey town goes to work, writes poetry, walks the dog, is in love with a quirky girl. Everything tells us something is going to happen, something must shatter this working-class idyll... As if contentedness were the most provocative theme imaginable in 2017. Between this and Only Lovers Left Alive, Jarmusch is really on a roll lately.

The Girl With All The Gifts
Post-zombie apocalypse, a small team of soldiers and scientists try to figure out a cure to the epidemic with the help of a young infected girl who's learned how to play nice with humans... maybe. Yes, this owes a lot to I Am Legend (the novel), Day of the Dead and 28 Days Later, but those aren't bad influences and it's put together into something entirely itself.

(Worst: 47 Meters Down, The Belko Experiment, Below Her Mouth)

Current Music: Comet Gain - Movies

Woah, been a while since I posted anything. So why not try to meme this up?

BBC: 177 critics from around the world pick 100 greatest movies of the 21st century (so far)

And it's a good list, too. So the usual bit: Italics for the ones I've seen, bold for the ones I've loved (which isn't necessarily to say I didn't like the ones I don't bold, there are only a few I actively disliked, but there's a whole grey area between "Yeah, that was a really good movie" and "HOLY SHIT YOU LIVE IN MY SOUL").

So, how about you?

100. Toni Erdmann (Maren Ade, 2016)
100. Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
100. Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010)
99. The Gleaners and I (Agnès Varda, 2000)
98. Ten (Abbas Kiarostami, 2002)
97. White Material (Claire Denis, 2009)
96. Finding Nemo (Andrew Stanton, 2003)
95. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, 2012)
94. Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008)
93. Ratatouille (Brad Bird, 2007)
92. The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (Andrew Dominik, 2007)
91. The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan José Campanella, 2009)
90. The Pianist (Roman Polanski, 2002)
89. The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel, 2008)
88. Spotlight (Tom McCarthy, 2015)
87. Amélie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001)
86. Far From Heaven (Todd Haynes, 2002)
85. A Prophet (Jacques Audiard, 2009)
84. Her (Spike Jonze, 2013)
83. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Steven Spielberg, 2001)
82. A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2009)
81. Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011)
80. The Return (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2003)
79. Almost Famous (Cameron Crowe, 2000)
78. The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese, 2013)
77. The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (Julian Schnabel, 2007)
76. Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003)
75. Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2014)
74. Spring Breakers (Harmony Korine, 2012)
73. Before Sunset (Richard Linklater, 2004)
72. Only Lovers Left Alive (Jim Jarmusch, 2013)
71. Tabu (Miguel Gomes, 2012)
70. Stories We Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012)
69. Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)
68. The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson, 2001)
67. The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow, 2008)
66. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring (Kim Ki-duk, 2003)
65. Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold, 2009)
64. The Great Beauty (Paolo Sorrentino, 2013)
63. The Turin Horse (Béla Tarr and Ágnes Hranitzky, 2011)
62. Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino, 2009)
61. Under the Skin (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)
60. Syndromes and a Century (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2006)
59. A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005)
58. Moolaadé (Ousmane Sembène, 2004)
57. Zero Dark Thirty (Kathryn Bigelow, 2012)
56. Werckmeister Harmonies (Béla Tarr, director; Ágnes Hranitzky, co-director, 2000)
55. Ida (Paweł Pawlikowski, 2013)
54. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, 2011)
53. Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
52. Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
51. Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)
50. The Assassin (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2015)
49. Goodbye to Language (Jean-Luc Godard, 2014)
48. Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015)
47. Leviathan (Andrey Zvyagintsev, 2014)
46. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, 2010)
45. Blue Is the Warmest Color (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)
44. 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2013)
43. Melancholia (Lars von Trier, 2011)
42. Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)
41. Inside Out (Pete Docter, 2015)
40. Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)
39. The New World (Terrence Malick, 2005)
38. City of God (Fernando Meirelles and Kátia Lund, 2002)
37. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2010)
36. Timbuktu (Abderrahmane Sissako, 2014)
35. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
34. Son of Saul (László Nemes, 2015)
33. The Dark Knight (Christopher Nolan, 2008)
32. The Lives of Others (Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, 2006)
31. Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan, 2011)
30. Oldboy (Park Chan-wook, 2003)
29. WALL-E (Andrew Stanton, 2008)
28. Talk to Her (Pedro Almodóvar, 2002)
27. The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
26. 25th Hour (Spike Lee, 2002)
25. Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
24. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012)
23. Caché (Michael Haneke, 2005)
22. Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
21. The Grand Budapest Hotel (Wes Anderson, 2014)
20. Synecdoche, New York (Charlie Kaufman, 2008)
19. Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
18. The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke, 2009)
17. Pan's Labyrinth (Guillermo Del Toro, 2006)
16. Holy Motors (Leos Carax, 2012)
15. 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days (Cristian Mungiu, 2007)
14. The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)
13. Children of Men (Alfonso Cuarón, 2006)
12. Zodiac (David Fincher, 2007)
11. Inside Llewyn Davis (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2013)
10. No Country for Old Men (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2007)
9. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, 2011)
8. Yi Yi: A One and a Two (Edward Yang, 2000)
7. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, 2011)
6. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Michel Gondry, 2004)
5. Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
4. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
3. There Will Be Blood (Paul Thomas Anderson, 2007)
2. In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-wai, 2000)
1. Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)

Current Music: Comet Gain - Movies

Thought this was pretty neat:

A History of Horror - a timeline of influential and aesthetically beautiful horror movies around the world since 1895 until 2016.

I had a weird nightmare last night. I'm not saying it was a premonition or anything like that, just that when I tried to write it down this morning I promptly forgot it when I saw the headline "WES CRAVEN DEAD".

I grew up on Craven's movies - the ones I could find in reasonably non-mutilated state in my local video store, at least - and it's hard to imagine a Buffy TV series getting greenlit without the success of Scream.

I mentioned nightmares. His three big franchises - The Hills Have Eyes, Nightmare on Elm St and Scream - all worked (arguably up to a point) because they understood what dreams do, the fundamental weirdness that we spend a third of our lives unconscious giving our brains free rein: They take things we pretend we don't know and make us face the monster under the bed. The people left behind as part of our progress, the murders swept under the rug, the things you can't talk about in daylight. The calls that come from inside the house. You can choose not to go to summer camp, you can choose not to go to that weird cabin in the woods, you can choose not to build on top of graveyard... you can't choose not to dream. That Scream took the idea to another meta level made perfect sense, because where do those nightmares turn up? In horror movies.

Don't go there, Sid. You're starting to sound like some Wes Carpenter flick or something. Don't freak yourself out, okay? We've got a long night ahead of us.

He always brought a level of humour and self-awareness to his movies, not to replace horror (OK, some of the Elm St sequels got pretty ridiculous), but to heighten it, to make it more human, but also to help us handle it. You can't choose not to dream, but you can always fight back if you know the rules - just don't expect to ever, y'know, win permanently. He weaponised the sequel: The battle always goes on.

I rewatched Nightmare on Elm St for the Nth time a few weeks ago - the original, with a tiny Johnny Depp getting killed in one of the most memorable movie deaths I know - and it's still ridiculously good. 30 years of deconstructions, reconstructions, CGI advances and so-called culture wars (and if we're honest, some pretty crappy sequels) haven't taken one jot of power from Nancy desperately trying to make her parents understand that nightmares are real - and unlike all those other Final Girls of the 80s, calmly and deliberately taking matters into her own hands when they refuse to admit what they've created.

Thank you, Mr Craven. Sweet dreams.

Woops! I just discovered that I won an award about a month ago that I completely blanked on. Cloudbusting was runner-up at

wicked_awards. So sorry about not noticing,

angelus2hot, and thanks a lot!

Also, since everyone else is doing it, the three best yule movies...
Or "Christmas" or "holiday" or whatever you prefer. That whole debate is puzzling to those of us who grew up with a language where the word for "Christmas" has nothing to do with any particular religion.
...are, of course, in order, those three lovely explorations of ~~terrorism~~ family, ~~loss of~~ faith, and good ~~drinking~~ eatin': Die Hard, Fanny And Alexander, and Bad Santa.

So, first of all, I should probably say that I'm not a huge Marvel geek. I generally prefer Marvel superheroes to DC ones, but that's mostly based on pop cultural osmosis and the odd movie. Also, I thought the Iron Man movies would make ONE good action flick if you put them together (Downey notwithstanding), I hated Captain America, and... OK, I actually liked Thor.

That said?

( Spoilers )

Current Music: AC/DC - Shoot To Thrill

Hey people, did you know

sl_podcast who used to run Buffy Between The Lines (for which I wrote an episode and a half) is currently working on both Angel and Firefly Between The Lines? And for added awesomeness, she's also running the Strangely Literal Podcast, which recently featured great readings of two of my fics, and I'm told there's more to come:
Eagles (original here)
The Roots Of All Evil (original here).

Quote of the day, from the marvellous Bookslut:

At the X-Men movie:

Me: "Why are there only white people in this movie?"
Friend: "The white people are metaphors for black people."

Also, I love fandom; it took about 2 hours after the latest Doctor Who episode before someone set up

lizardladylove.

Next up: Spuffyness. I think.

Current Music: Mojo Nixon - Don Henley Must Die

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