Evil Dead is the balls. I don't consider Army of Darkness a horror. I consider it a comedy. And it's one of my favorites. Haven't seen it in forever.
It's one of those cross genres. Like Dramedy or Porror (I'll let you guess what that is.) but I totally agree that AoD is much more Comedy than Horror, but it does still have some of the horror, just not nearly the same amount
It's horror elements aren't actually scary though. Then again, I don't know if there's a movie I actually consider scary.
Corky Romano was the most terrifying movie ever made =\ If that's not scary, nothing is. And while 8MM was a mostly terrible movie, being someone who was planning on becoming a parent it was seriously freaking horrific.
Ha! As if. The SAW series is my favorite series of movies of all-time. It holds such a special place in my heart. I can handle gore in movies when it's practical effects or CGI, but of course I have a very high respect for filmmakers that don't feel they need to resort to visceral gore to get their point across. James Wan might have kickstarted what people consider "torture porn"/the revitalization of visceral and disgusting gorehound movies, as he was the co-creator and director of the first SAW film... but he's a great example of someone that doesn't need gore to make a good movie. Dead Silence, Insidious, the upcoming Conjuring... he does so well without gore! It's great. Anyways: film violence and gore is fine. Though there is a point where it becomes a little too realistic for me. Olympus Has Fallen crossed that line, personally. And as andsoitgoes correctly assumed, it's the real-life gore and violence that makes me so sick. I can't look at war images or nature photos when they deal with death or pain. With movies, I am aware they are fiction and made up, as are the effects (at least in the modern age). My limits on fictional violence deal with the treatment of animals, women, and innocent characters. In saw 3d, they kill the first completely 100% innocent person ever, and in the sickest and most repulsive way imaginable... It disgusted me. And it was a women... inside a burning Brazen Bull... so really, it was the encapsulation of all the things I hate in movies, rolled into one extremely offensive and sickening platter. I've only seen the remake, but I adored it. I loved the little twist in character arcs they pulled in the finale. Spoiler Meaning, in the first Evil Dead film, it's pretty easily assumed that Ash is the last man standing... or at least, he is the one that would later carry the torch in the sequels. But in this new one, it was the woman! I was so happy I pay very special attention to the portrayal of women in films, and Evil Dead did something so big and daring, and I think it worked amazingly well. That's what I mean by the twist in character arcs. I have Yojimbo somewhere. I remember I bought it along with Stray Dog, Kagemusha, and Seven Samurai. I will get Hustler online, as Barnes & Noble didn't have it Buuuuut, I found out I was able to splurge a little more than I originally thought, so here was my haul: The Seventh Seal House (1978? Crazy Asian cult classic) The Phantom Carriage The Killing Paths of Glory Touch of Evil Sans Touch of Evil, the haul was all Blu-ray Criterion. I mean, as you said, that sale is ironically the best place to get some of these low prices... ironic considering how bad B&N usually is about their media prices. Touch of Evil was that movie I was talking about a page or two ago: the Orson Welles movie with the first tracking shot. I'm not sure if it is truly the very first tracking shot ever put to celluloid, but I have heard only amazing things about the film itself from every standpoint. I think I have read a couple arguments stating it is the Dark Horse when talking about Citizen Kane... Citizen Kane is the popular one, but Touch of Evil is better in some respects... no idea how valid those opinions are, but if the cinematography is even half as mindblowing as Citizen Kane, I'mma like this one I think The Killing came with Killer's Kiss, apparently... do you know what that's about?
The Expendables was a pretty gun-and-forget movie. Fun enough to warrant watching the second one on Netflix tomorrow though. I'm thinking Turbo and Pacific Rim this weekend.
I don't usually enjoy big dumb spectacle movies, but Pacific Rim was amazing. Fun, funny, and super badass. Suck on that, Michael Bay.
Thats not big and daring. Its a cliche, an overdone one at that. Especially for horror. This is just stupid. Ash made evil dead unique. He was THE KING. Spoiler I mean come on! The original was unique in that it was the guy that survived. This remake just jumped straight into being formula. Big and Daring? Thats just giving them way too much credit chiefy.
I'm confused. How was it not big and daring Spoiler for the woman to come out on top rather than the man?
Because its a classic horror cliche. Spoiler The final Girl. They were playing it safe, not being bold. In horror movies the men are canon fodder, especially modern horror. Its not big and daring. Scream did it. I know what you did last summer did it. Friday the thirteenth did it. Countless others did it. Its so common in horror. It was extremely dissapointing to see the remake follow suite. Real disappointing. The first ED was fresh in that Ash survived, not the girls. You would expect, "the girls will live, this is a horrir movie". But no, they didn't. Thats what made it tense. Ash was a guy. Horror movies toss men into the meat grinder. Seeing if he would live through or not really upped the tension. It isn't 'woman coming out on top' Its writers following a dull formula.
What I was saying is that Spoiler considering the original film had the last person standing was a man, I thought it was daring and cool for them to go the route of making the last "man" standing be a woman. I wasn't talking about horror cliches, I was talking about what we have come to expect from the franchise. It was big and bold to do that. That's what I was saying. In The Evil Dead, the survivor that carried the rest of the series was a man. In the remake, they made that person a woman. Bold. So I saw Pacific Rim. I loved it, honestly. There wasn't much to complain about. Everything about it was so well put-together! Guillermo del Toro also has quite the eye for color choices, because the colors he chose for this film were all so amazing, and fit perfectly together. If I had one complaint, I would say I wish there were more battles. I don't want to be "that guy", but I thought with the narrated exposition at the beginning of the film, that meant they would spend less time on the human element, and more on the action side of things. Unfortunately that was not the case. It didn't have the best balance that I've seen in a film where the primary focus of marketing was action. So the marketing was probably what got me in the wrong mindset. There wasn't much wrong with the drama side of things, but I feel like it was a missed opportunity and they should have had at least a couple more battles. That's all. The acting was great all-around, though despite me loving the gravely voice of Charles Hunnam, I can say he was the weakest of the bunch. I can't see him having dramatic range at all, unlike Garret Hedlund who played a similarly cocky and badass character in Tron: Legacy. Overall, very fun and entertaining movie. I'm glad I took advantage of the good word-of-mouth on this one. Probably a 7.3/10
Stray Dog is excellent, and it has 2 of my favorite actors, Mifune and Shimura, both in major roles (unlike the cameo Shimura has in High and Low, and has a different but somewhat small role in Yojimbo) in a film that was instrumental in creating the cop team movie. Kurosawa was awesome in that regard. I will strongly urge you leave Kagemusha until you've seen pretty much the remainder of Kurosawa's films. It's long and it really isn't that great. The performance, from Yojimbo's Tatsuya Nakadai, is absolutely brilliant. The movie, however, isn't really. It's a movie George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola were instrumental in making, though. They were HUGE Kurosawa fans. Shame it wasn't that great and was a box office flop, generally speaking. Oh, another great film, even if it weren't a Kurosawa flick, is The Hidden fortress. No matter that Lucas says it only lightly inspired Star Wars, it is a HUGE influence. You'll see R2, C3PO, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Jabba the Hut and Darth Vader. Plus it's hilarious. And Mifune is amazing. Before you watch House, I would recommend getting a free trial to Hulu Plus. I haven't seen it, primarily due to how polarizing people find it. There are many who love it, but it doesn't have the same kind of universal love as the other films you have. Touch of Evil is a movie I've been dying to watch, I tend to wait until they release the restored versions, as I find the difference can be night and day compared to even the DVD releases. There is a British version that was released a few years ago, it has 5(FIVE!) different cuts of the film. 2 reconstructed versions (at 2 different aspect ratios), 2 theatrical versions with 2 different aspect ratios and then a "Preview" version. And I thought the Criterion release of "On the Waterfront" was generous in its releases. Seriously though, Hulu Plus gets you all the criterion films. I often use it to test out some questionable films. As for The Killing, Killers Kiss is a very early 67 minute film, considered to be one of Kubrick's earliest films. He was 27 when he made that. 27! FFS, that man did more in his teens than we have done in our combined lifetimes. Anyway, I've not watched it yet, as I just got my blu ray copy last month. I am VERY interested to hear your impression on The Phantom Carriage. You HAVE TO HAVE TO watch it with the KTL score. It turns the movie from something awesome to a BRILLIANT film. And the fact that the actor who plays David Holm is the same actor who stars in Wild Strawberries, Bergman (the director of wild strawberries and The Seventh Seal) said the film was a tremendous influence for him and hired the actor who played Holm into Wild Strawberries, widely considered his best film next to Seventh Seal (#120 on IMDB's top 250, Strawberries is #127, Fanny and Alexander is #214, so take that for what you will). I think you'll like it, but remember it is a silent film so overacting was a requirement in silent films, but this handles it better than so many I've seen. Once you'll see it, the influence in later horror movies becomes so apparent. Fudge I liked it. This I love, man. I haven't had this much fun talking about movies since... Well, in a long time. I was hoping to throw out a kitschy Family Guy flashback moment, but I drew a blank, and most are "this is worse than.." moments.
