I'm way behind on this, gotta do it quick.
Mama - Has it's moments, but I was mostly underwhelmed by this. It's not bad, though. And I'll admit that seeing Jessica Chastain all goth-y was nice. Worth a rent, at least.
Godzilla - Hadn't seen this in forever and I got the Criterion Blu for X-Mas. It looks so ****ing good, you guys. Ooof. I like this movie a lot (the Japanese version), though it's definitely a little dated. Great atmosphere, great music and some nice black and white photography keep it worthwhile, even after all these years. For me, it has a lot of nostalgic value, as well.
The Fly - Another I hadn't seen in a really long time, but came up on an HD movie channel. ****in' awesome. The makeup work is insane. At some point, I'm going to have to buy it. I used to have it on DVD, but my DVD went missing. I think it was stolen by one of those crazy women.
Showgirls - I broke a bunch of Showgirls cherries with this viewing. 4 of them, I think. I would need to watch Troll 2 again to be sure, but I think this is probably my favorite terrible movie. Who can doubt the genius of Paul Verhoeven after this? The Blu-ray has some pretty great special features, as well, so you should buy it if you want to be cool.
The Skin I Live In - Solid little ****ed up movie. Nothing spectacular, but I liked it a lot. Would definitely watch again. I have to admit, I did not see what happened coming.
The Lady - Decent biopic of Aung San Suu Kyi, a freedom fighter in Burma. Not a real great movie, but if the idea was to spread the word about this woman and what she's done, I think it was wholly successful. It'll at least make you want to read her Wikipedia page and, honestly, I think that's reason enough. Michelle Yeoh is still awesome as ****, too.
Spider-Baby - Dafuq did I just watch? Man, I love all the Jack Hill movies I've seen up to this point and I loved this one, too. So weird. So great. It took a little while to get going for me, but by the time it was over, I was enjoying the **** out of it. Can't believe they show **** like this on Turner Classics sometimes.
Smashed - Aaron Paul and Mary Elizabeth Winstead are alcoholics, but Mary Elizabeth decides she wants to stop drinking and it's really hard. At first, I wasn't really buying it. Her acting like a drunk seemed kind of... forced? Or over the top? But as the movie went on and she started acting like a person dealing with an addicition, I was won over. She did that **** really well. Surprisingly well. Aaron Paul did a good job, too, although he didn't have nearly as much to do. I liked it a lot. I've never had to deal with addiction like that, so I can't say much more, but it felt pretty authentic to me and got me involved emotionally to a point. Can't really ask for much more than that.
Female Convict Scorpion: Beast Stable - 3rd in a 4 film series. When I want to watch one of the
Sasori movies, I almost always watch the first or second one because they are light years better than the third or fourth, but I wanted to put up a webpage for this film on
my Meiko Kaji website and I needed to watch parts 3 and 4 to re-familiarize myself with them. I think I've seen the first two at least a dozen times each, but the last two I've seen maybe 3 or 4 times and it had been a few years. Even though it is still a long ways away from either of the first two in terms of overall quality, this is still a pretty awesome movie. The opening scene is ****ing awesome as **** and the ending is pretty ****ing incredible, too. Definitely one that I would recommend after you've seen the first two, which everyone should.
This Is 40 - I don't really like the word "dramady", but this movie is really both a drama and a comedy. It's got some good funny bits, but there's a hell of a lot of bittersweet, sad stuff, too. I thought it was handled very well, though, and I liked the movie a lot.
Billion Dollar Brain - The third of, I think, 5 Harry Palmer movies and the first one I've seen. This is a ****ing bizarre little movie. Michael Caine gets blackmailed into going back to work for MI5 and his job is to stop this billionaire redneck with a billion dollar computer from starting world war three. It's like a James Bond movie directed by Ken Russell (it was actually directed by Ken Russell, too). I liked it a lot. Michael Caine ****ing rules.
This Is The End - For real, how could a movie with all these funny people in it (almost just) being themselves not be ****ing funny? I think Jonah Hill was probably the only one who had to do any actual acting. The argument between Danny McBride and James Franco about masturbating (titled
Cum Battle in the special features) had me in tears from laughing, even after repeated viewings (it's on the movie channel a lot, so I have it on in the background a lot). Will be buying this for the special features, for sure.
To be continued...