Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Lexicon]

well, TV miniseries. But I'm not aware of any other versions. Is it on Hulu now?

the 1999 network miniseries event.

Andre Linoge... Either him or Leland Gaunt would be my second wish.​

Miniseries! That’s what I’d meant.
For whatever reason, I can never make that term stick in my brain. I just log stuff like this as, “really long movie.”

 

[The Cat]

Miniseries! That’s what I’d meant.
For whatever reason, I can never make that term stick in my brain. I just log stuff like this as, “really long movie.”

Multi Night Network Mini-series events brought us some truly great narratives back when we all still had souls for the most part.

 

[Lexicon]

Multi Night Network Mini-series events brought us some truly great narratives back when we all still had souls for the most part.

It was like the precursor to binge-watching tv series on streaming services in later years.

Well, miniseries & network marathons.

 

[Totenkindly]

Mila Kunis Knew ‘Jupiter Ascending’ Would Be a Flop Before Filming

"Our production got slashed in half," Kunis said of a last-minute budget constraint on the infamous 2015 film.

www.yahoo.com

“When did we know [the movie would flop]? Before we started production, because our production got slashed in half,” Kunis told Josh Horowitz on the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “And so the original budget was twice as much, and you can do a lot more with a lot more money, and oftentimes those types of scripts have a very good storyline but extraordinary other things. Right before pre-production, for a multitude of reasons with studios and other things, the budget got cut, and the movie was different.”

Eehhhhh sweetie, I don't think it's the production that was the problem...? Good writing only costs time (if you have a good writer).

The Wachowskis either didn't write it well enough to be taken seriously, or if it was supposed to be farce, then it wasn't quite directed well -- Kunis and Channing played it way too straight, if it was supposed to be camp. So then the film ended up failing on both sides. The production was kind of one of the coolest things I remember about it (esp the wedding sequence, it looks spectacular and huge).

I think the best scene was when she had to get her credentials; I wish the whole film had had that quirky tone, and then the cameo by Gilliam was superb.

 

[The Cat]

Mila Kunis Knew ‘Jupiter Ascending’ Would Be a Flop Before Filming

"Our production got slashed in half," Kunis said of a last-minute budget constraint on the infamous 2015 film.

www.yahoo.com

Eehhhhh sweetie, I don't think it's the production that was the problem...? Good writing only costs time (if you have a good writer).

The Wachowskis either didn't write it well enough to be taken seriously, or if it was supposed to be farce, then it wasn't quite directed well -- Kunis and Channing played it way too straight, if it was supposed to be camp. So then the film ended up failing on both sides. The production was kind of one of the coolest things I remember about it (esp the wedding sequence, it looks spectacular and huge).

I think the best scene was when she had to get her credentials; I wish the whole film had had that quirky tone, and then the cameo by Gilliam was superb.

If they all knew it was gonna flop before filming, they didnt have enough fun with that knowledge.

 

[The Cat]

The woman in Black starring Daniel Radcliffe...is a fine movie on its own.
Watching the woman in black while pretending that the main character is a grown up harry potter in hiding from the wizarding world...is fun too.

 

[Totenkindly]

The new Hellraiser drops today on Hulu. I was not expecting much, but it has opened to surprisingly decent reviews so I will give it a shot. (Edit: I guess I should add that the bar was set pretty low, considering how many trashy straight-to-vid sequels were released, lol. And I happen to have almost all of them? I got a really cheap DVD pack of the films a few years back. I just haven't watched many of them yet.)

I've been following director David Bruckner for awhile -- the first thing I saw of his was my favorite segment from V/H/S (the succubus opening) which he later expanded into an okay full-length film, but he's been doing some recent work including a piece of Southbound, The Ritual, and then The Night House (which I'm currently watching, starring Rebecca Hall) that still leaves him on my "interesting, at least" list.

The big surprise is hearing that Jamie Clayton didn't bomb the Pinhead performance, and she's supposedly closer to the source text, so again I am curious.

To prep, I started watching the original Hellraiser (directed by Barker) last night. I have mixed feelings, the film definitely feels its age, but then again in 1987 it was pretty shocking and the effects are both silly and disturbing. I never really liked Julia as cast much either (her accent stands out in a film with American accents), and Frank seems like a caricature of a particular kind of cliche guy, but the way the affair is introduced and Julia's face/responses actually feel pretty real and unsettling. It definitely feels like a horror film targeted more at adults than teenagers per se despite the central role of a teen.

 

[The Cat]

The new Hellraiser drops today on Hulu. I was not expecting much, but it has opened to surprisingly decent reviews so I will give it a shot.

I've been following director David Bruckner for awhile -- the first thing I saw of his was my favorite segment from V/H/S (the succubus opening) which he later expanded into an okay full-length film, but he's been doing some recent work including a piece of Southbound, The Ritual, and then The Night House (which I'm currently watching, starring Rebecca Hall) that still leaves him on my "interesting, at least" list.

The big surprise is hearing that Jamie Clayton didn't bomb the Pinhead performance, and she's supposedly closer to the source text, so again I am curious.

To prep, I started watching the original Hellraiser (directed by Barker) last night. I have mixed feelings, the film definitely feels its age, but then again in 1987 it was pretty shocking and the effects are both silly and disturbing. I never really liked Julia as cast much either (her accent stands out in a film with American accents), and Frank seems like a caricature of a particular kind of cliche guy, but the way the affair is introduced and Julia's face/responses actually feel pretty real and unsettling. It definitely feels like a horror film targeted more at adults than teenagers per se despite the central role of a teen.

Yeah Pinhead is much more like they were in the Hellbound Heart, which makes the Cenobites seem more like...almost fey creatures, for instance. They keep their word. Though for some reason the hellraiser movies that seem to have stuck with me the most(ironically) are Bloodlines, and I wanna say Inferno? The one with the sleazy cop. Bloodlines was a fun concept in that 90's this seems like a good idea tying into i think the success of the Highlander franchise and Anne Rice Style of telling a story through time periods. But inferno, the ending...that kinda got to me. MAkes me think of what Andre Linoge tells Robbie about hell...

It's repetition...so much like life, but without any rest or way out.
​

My only thing is...I don't enjoy gore... the mess makes me anxious. I keep thinking someone is gonna have to clean that up or get in trouble. I mean come on, Even American Psycho can keep in on the plastic. You can manifest chains from the darkness, but not cleaning supplies? I bet the mess would literally clean itself. That's the true horror. The could clean and organize hell. But they don't. It also seems like it would be humid. That's why cenobites dont have lots of hairstyles. It's unmanageble with all that frizz.

Question though: Are Cennobites more like Demons, Devils, or Yugoloths?

 

[Totenkindly]

Well, I found the Fey analogy interesting -- fickle and sticklers for their agreements, bound by rules. Devils are the others who are rule/agreement bound by nature, although far more structured (compared to the Fey wildness).

Demons are just about rapacious destruction/self-indulgence/freedom, where the Loths are just trying to swing a deal. I would say that despite trying to set "arrangements" in place, it's less about the inviolate nature of the agreement like a devil and more about how to manipulate an arrangement in any way possible to benefit the self. The arrangement is a tool, not their nature, per se.

The Cennobites were also presented as previous travelers (i.e., they are not born Cennobites), so that makes the discussion of nature somewhat moot, but typically they have seemed more devilish in nature but also very self-indulgent depending.

---

Gore tends not to bother me much, not like the emotional ramifications of something. I remember being mortified when watching the excised scene from Alien (or reading it in the adaptation as a kid) where Dallas is begging for death and Brett was getting transformed into an egg (note: it was not the official text of the film, and Cameron chose another lifecyle for the xenomorphs in Aliens). So weirdly the Kane sequence despite the blood was far less bothersome, it was the idea of being modified or absorbed or eaten alive or whatever else that was really getting to me as a kid. I remember seeing The Blob 80's remake (was that Carpenter? I can't remember) -- watching bodies get dissolved alive within the blob was far worse than regular gore for me.

I read Donaldson's "Chronicles" about the same time and although it was a book, some of that stuff was just skin-crawling, especially in The Illearth War. It was true horror-high fantasy, like Tolkien but with psychological and intra/interpersonal violence and just horrible stuff. (Hey, let's get your bones burned to cinder in your body, then your structureless corpse trampled into the grass. Or giants getting their brains blasted away by .fragments of the Illearth Stone....)

 

[The Cat]

Well, I found the Fey analogy interesting -- fickle and sticklers for their agreements, bound by rules. Devils are the others who are rule/agreement bound by nature, although far more structured (compared to the Fey wildness).

Demons are just about rapacious destruction/self-indulgence/freedom, where the Loths are just trying to swing a deal. I would say that despite trying to set "arrangements" in place, it's less about the inviolate nature of the agreement like a devil and more about how to manipulate an arrangement in any way possible to benefit the self. The arrangement is a tool, not their nature, per se.

The Cennobites were also presented as previous travelers (i.e., they are not born Cennobites), so that makes the discussion of nature somewhat moot, but typically they have seemed more devilish in nature but also very self-indulgent depending.

---

Gore tends not to bother me much, not like the emotional ramifications of something. I remember being mortified when watching the excised scene from Alien (or reading it in the adaptation as a kid) where Dallas is begging for death and Brett was getting transformed into an egg (note: it was not the official text of the film, and Cameron chose another lifecyle for the xenomorphs in Aliens). So weirdly the Kane sequence despite the blood was far less bothersome, it was the idea of being modified or absorbed or eaten alive or whatever else that was really getting to me as a kid. I remember seeing The Blob 80's remake (was that Carpenter? I can't remember) -- watching bodies get dissolved alive within the blob was far worse than regular gore for me.

I read Donaldson's "Chronicles" about the same time and although it was a book, some of that stuff was just skin-crawling, especially in The Illearth War. It was true horror-high fantasy, like Tolkien but with psychological and intra/interpersonal violence and just horrible stuff. (Hey, let's get your bones burned to cinder in your body, then your structureless corpse trampled into the grass. Or giants getting their brains blasted away by .fragments of the Illearth Stone....)

Gibbering Mouthers definitely put me in mind of Carpenter.

That's an interesting aspect to the cennobites to me. Its in a similar vein of the Nightbreed. Clive Barker seems to have an undercurrent of transformation and what lies beneath sort of themes through a lot of their stuff.

 

[The Cat]

Speaking of this is a great movie!

 

[Totenkindly]

All Hellraiser Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

Enter a world of hurt with the long-running Clive Barker series!

editorial.rottentomatoes.com

Bruckner's version actually pegged 72% (currently) compared to the original @ 70%.

I have heard of The Void but still haven't watched it.

Yeah I find the transformation element fascinating too. I've always been fascinated by reading about people becoming something else, especially plotlines about where someone else is transformed into another character in the story and replaces them, even if we're not aware of it up front.

 

[The Cat]

All Hellraiser Movies Ranked by Tomatometer

Enter a world of hurt with the long-running Clive Barker series!

editorial.rottentomatoes.com

Bruckner's version actually pegged 72% (currently) compared to the original @ 70%.

I have heard of The Void but still haven't watched it.

Yeah I find the transformation element fascinating too. I've always been fascinated by reading about people becoming something else, especially plotlines about where someone else is transformed into another character in the story and replaces them, even if we're not aware of it up front.

Same.

 

[Totenkindly]

Comments about Hellraiser 2022:

1. Better than typical fare esp for a revisit/reinvention.
2. Not entirely happy, there was more than could be done with this concept and tie-in wise (i.e., better writing).
3. Clayton was fine and unsettling in her own way. Pinhead here is more in the Priest role as per the original story.
4. The sexual element seems to have been dropped, but the violence level is equivalent.
5. Better production values and more focus on the configurations of the box with better visual design.
6. Too long -- if they had done more character development, then two hours would have worked, but it didn't feel justified.
7. The film made me laugh, and/or say "oh SHIT" a lot, and/or was pretty mortifying at times. Like, all of these things. I'm not sure how I totally feel about it, except I wanted more depth and more tightness of the script/character dev.

i.e., definitely worth watching if you're into this storyline, and not bad, but also could have been better.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Comments about Hellraiser 2022:

1. Better than typical fare esp for a revisit/reinvention.
2. Not entirely happy, there was more than could be done with this concept and tie-in wise (i.e., better writing).
3. Clayton was fine and unsettling in her own way. Pinhead here is more in the Priest role as per the original story.
4. The sexual element seems to have been dropped, but the violence level is equivalent.
5. Better production values and more focus on the configurations of the box with better visual design.
6. Too long -- if they had done more character development, then two hours would have worked, but it didn't feel justified.
7. The film made me laugh, and/or say "oh SHIT" a lot, and/or was pretty mortifying at times. Like, all of these things. I'm not sure how I totally feel about it, except I wanted more depth and more tightness of the script/character dev.

i.e., definitely worth watching if you're into this storyline, and not bad, but also could have been better.

Maybe I will try this. I really liked the original Hellraiser. Haven't seen any of the sequels.

 

[Totenkindly]

I was very happy to see May (2002) come up on Shudder recently, as I've wanted to watch it for years, but it was usually showing up for free streaming on crap services like Tubi and/or things that inserted commercials or might have made cuts.

It's not long (1:30 hours) and is even better than I had anticipated, for an early indie "horror" film. It never really breaks its nuanced tone -- which is sad, hilarious, cringe, and lonely. It was both disturbing and sympathetic. I'm serious about the cringe, I spent most of the first half wanting to keep watching and wanting to turn it off, because May's lack of experience relating to other people leads her through a lot of uncomfortable gaffs. I usually do better (she seems completely unable to predict how she scans, whereas I think I've got a pretty decent sense), but I so much understand where she is coming from and how uncomfortable it is to approach others you don't know or sometimes even know how to interact with them.

The thing is more that she seems to be on her way down to a complete breakdown from reality, while mentally i have fought so hard to keep a realistic picture of the world around me, to stay aligned. Still, if you manage to keep a good sense of what HER reality is, you can track all of her choices throughout the film and experience the plot/character arc, which does resolve. It ends kind of horrifically and yet with a sense of comforting completion. I really hate it when things get labeled as "slasher films" (like this, or even the scifi Sunshine ending) because if you're actually locked into the character arcs and story, it is so much MORE than that psychologically; it says more about the reviewer than the film. And May is far more than a tropey slasher.

The performances in this film are SO much better than they typically are. Bettis (May), Sisto (Adam), and Faris (Polly) really shine. Jeremy Sisto roots the film, so to speak, in comparison to Angela Bettis' embodiment of May's fracturing perceptions; and Anna Faris in particular manages to deliver this wild performance that ALMOST veers into hyperbole but never quite does, and it totally fits with the tone of the film. I did not realize Anna Faris could actually act.

Bettis does get to show her range because for much of the film she's locked into "high anxiety" and idiosyncratic mode in terms of how she relates to other people (she's great) but then once she gets a goal in mind, she becomes almost another person -- confident, assured, in control of the situation. It's unsettling and I think it's why others who get caught in her orbit at that point are thrown off balance just enough to not be sure how to react to her. It was even thought out enough for events to happen around Halloween, to cover up any potential plot holes.

This movie is still unsettling and haunting me a bit. Sure, I am not surprised it bombed at the box office, but I am pleased it has since become quite the underground cult hit.

 

[Totenkindly]

Rewatched Donnie Darko Sunday night, 4K, theatrical cut.

I prefer the theatrical version compared to the later director's cut. It's been one of those things where you wish the TC was a little more spelled out, but the DC goes way too far and breaks up the film, shows too much, and even embodies the director's opinion of what is happening. The beauty of the TC is that it is never really clear whether Donnie is having paranoid schizophrenic breaks with reality resulting in his visions of Frank or whether he is actually experiencing this in reality, whereas the DC ruins that. For me, the ambiguity is the draw and makes the film works on multiple levels at one, it leaves the film more edgy and intriguing.

I know Kelly also prefers the musical selections as arranged in the DC, but I like them better in the TC. I don't know why, I just prefer it. Maybe a case where lyrically he felt like something was a better match elsewhere, but musically I think tonally it works better as originally done. the beauty I guess is that both cuts exist.

this recent Arrow release actually seems to have tweaked the TC a bit near the end to add brief snippets I do not remember from my old DVD/blurays in order to make the film slightly more understandable.

I had not rewatched the film for awhile but this viewing evoked much of the same wonder I had in early viewings.

Patrick Swayzwe was pretty bold in undertaking such a distasteful role.

the Gyllenhaal siblings acting with each other is pretty remarkable. The early dinner room scene where Elizabeth announces she is going to vote for Dukakis sets the tone for the film and is utterly hilarious. I still laugh throughout any time I see it.

This might be the most "Beth Grant" role (as Kitty Farmer) that Beth Grant has ever done. She has been somewhat typecast after this film, I've seen her play permutations of the same character in later films.

There's an element here of sexualization of young women as well, which is never really the focus of the film. it's really fascinating how Middlesex as a school district is cheering on a bunch of prepubescent girls with adult makeup and glossy outfits (to Duran Duran's "Notorious") and marking them on a celebrity search show without even thinking twice about what that means, while at the same time calling Graham Greene's literature "pornographic" and supporting a guy who looks good on the surface while denying the clear evidence he had a kiddie porn dungeon in his home. I love that Kelly just slips this in and it's not even the main point. The whole pocket dimension seems rife with hypocrisy and danger as it proceeds forward, maybe making Donnie more heroic despite violating the law himself?

Mary McDowell is just so wonderful in this film. You can tell she's a flawed human being who still intensely loves her children. I always tear up when Donnie asks her how it feels having a whacko for a son. This is again one of those films that could have been a lot worse but one positive factor is a number of nuanced performances that elevate the story. Another is the score by Michael Andrews, concluding with maybe one of the best covers ever -- Mad World -- it all lends a dreamy, evocative feel to the film. Also, the editing is just superb.

Cap that with a bunch of casting choices of people who later became more well-known -- Jena Malone, Seth Rogan, hilariously Ashley Tisdale shows up in this film briefly, Jolene Purdy, Jerry Trainor (another Nickolodeon guy for iCarly), and of course all the regulars like Drew Barrymore, Noah Wyle, etc. Katherine Ross (the shrink) was a bit before my time.

there are hints in the film that this has happened before -- the pocket universe, needing to be closed off, to save the normal universe. There is discussion by the Darko parents about a kid in their class (Freddy Fiedler) with an alliterative name, who was "doomed to die" and did, but somehow Donnie seems to have survived, which relieves them. Also, there is an insinuation that Roberta Sparrow ("Grandma Death") was a prior past Receiver who survived her ordeal, resulting in a huge life change for her career-wise but also kind of left her mad over time.

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched Audrey Rose, basically one of the more famous "reincarnation" pics coming out in the 70's. It was directed by the prolific Robert Wise, although he's only able to pull the film up a bit. It also has Anthony Hopkins (with hair!) in a starring role as the father of Audrey Rose, and Norman Lloyd (damn, was that guy ever YOUNG? He and Abe Vigoda and Danny DeVito always looked old!) as the shrink in the final bit who hypnotizes and past-life-regressions her, to ill effect.

The girl is okay. Marsha Mason, the mom, is great.

I think that despite the average script (ironically written by the book author), the first half is edgy because of the girl's flipping out when she's regressing and recalling her death in a past life. Like, it actually is unsettling to watch these sequences and hear her shrieking. A lot of the critics felt like the film felt more like a textbook during the trial scenes but it didn't really bother me; it's a trial, of course they are going to explain what reincarnation is, etc.

I feel like if the script was tighter and more accentuated, it could have actually been pretty tense and intriguing. But a director and actors can only do so much.

 

[Totenkindly]

The Night House (2020) directed by David Bruckner (Hellraiser reboot) and starting Rebecca Hall, is kind of a fascinating film. It's not what you'd expect from a "horror" movie and is more about being unsettling and a huge focus on its star, which in this case is a good thing. Bruckner apparently realized this and there's so many zooms on Hall's face and carefully, dotingly record and monitoring her responses.

The film does have a few surprises in it. It's not a jump scare picture despite feeling like it could be. On occasion, you know something will be seen or experienced ahead of time but Bruckner locks the camera to such a slow movement that it's painful to be locked in with it.

You can actually pieces together this story along with Beth (Hall) as it progresses, bits and pieces drop along the way. It's a mystery that we solve along with Beth, and there are a few startling revelations on the way. It's also one of those quasi-horror films that is more about existential despair and coping with nihilism, it's kind of an overlap of a dark philosophical film with a supernatural one, and you might be able to construct multiple explanations for the story.

I think one of my favorite elements of this is Hall's acting in general but also that she chooses to take a less conventional approach to grieving. So often, grieving women seem to be soft, weak, desperate, just sad. Hall chooses a lot of the time to be angry. On occasion she softens up, but she often falls back into abrasive, tormented responses, short sarcasm, and the like against those trying to comfort her. She pulls this off without seeming like a "mean" person by nature, but you can tell Beth is edgy, kind of dark, and someone who has experienced darkness in her life before this episode, and she is harboring anger from these past experiences. It's just really rewarding to watch her.

I think the last 15 minutes is the weakest, where the film goes more supernatural than any time before, but it kind of reins things in a bit and still tries to deal with the tone it has established and long-term resolution, if one can even be found.

 

[Totenkindly]

I Saw the Devil (uncut version), 2010, Kim Jee-woon.

The graphic and disturbing nature of some of the content is somehow offset by the direction, cinematography, and acting, which transforms the unsettling nature of the film into a lingering sense of overwhelming sadness and loss. What quickly becomes a personal vendetta between two men ends up with no real sense of victory but just a lot of damage and pain in its wake -- and all for no ultimate point because nothing that is lost can ever be regained.

There are just some crazy and relentless things that happen in this film, and the camera never flinches. The first fifteen minutes is pretty horrific and sets the stage for the rest. Sometimes it was easier to laugh at a horrible thing, not because it was at all funny, but it was better than to feel the crushing weight of its awfulness and it all began to feel so extreme as to be absurd.

The Korean directors tend to be able to pull this stuff off, whereas American films that try to enter this realm usually just end up feeling depraved and sensationalistic. It's like the Korean mentality is more often trying to touch on something deeper than the surface level awfulness, and doing it with actual filmmaking skills used regularly in drama. Like, this could have been "Drive My Car" aside from the actual content material.

--

Also finished DC League of Super-Pets. It was okay, but didn't really rise much above the material despite decent voice acting -- aside from national treasure Kate McKinnon (playing a maniacal hairless guinea pig villain) who elevates whatever she is part of, and oddly enough Keanu Reeves actually doing a really great monotone Batman impression.

--

I ended up also rewatching two favorites of mine while I've been out on vacation. Last night I rewatched "Ready or Not," an awesome recent comedy-horror starring Samara Weaving (yes, Hugo's niece -- she's really commands the screen and has a charismatic presence). the night before, I rewatched Kubo & The Two Strings, which is one of my favorite films (and/or animated films) of all time, I usually cry numerous times while watching because it taps into my own personal feelings of loss and appreciating what you have, what little you have, while you have it, because all you will take solace is eventually the memory. (And memory endures even past loss, but it's still loss.) It ties so heavily to the sakura blossom concept.