adgy-san
PJ Harvey is God

2 Guns - Pretty entertaining. I enjoy both Denzel and Wahlberg and the writing was decent enough to make this another one of those fun, empty movies that's just a little smarter than the others.

The Phantom Carriage - A silent film from the 1920's about a drunkard ******* who treats everyone like crap, but is shown the error of his ways by a ghost. Essentially. It was an interesting little movie, using a lot of double exposures as special effects that worked really well. Pretty tame, of course, compared to what we see nowadays, but I liked it a lot for what it was. Worth watching, but I don't think I'll ever buy it.

Only The Lonely - My wife is a big Maureen O'Hara fan and was watching this the other day, so I sat down and watched it with her. It's pretty much what you'd expect from a Christopher Columbus movie, but I have to admit to being a bit surprised at how much I liked John Candy in the film. I have to admit to not being his biggest fan and not being too familiar with a lot of his movies, mostly because I was a little too young when they were coming out, but I thought he did a really good job with the dramatic aspects in this one. I liked it.

The Way, Way Back - Sam Rockwell should be a much bigger star than he is. Liked this movie a lot, even though it's one of those indie coming-of-age movies that everyone's seen 100 times. The performance by Rockwell really stands out. And Alison Janney has a small part, but she was awesome in it, too. Would definitely watch again.

Boy - One of the reasons I love Turner Classics so much: they show Nagisa Oshima movies that aren't readily available in the West. Presumably, Criterion will release this someday but I do not have to wait for that day. Boy is the story of a young boy whose family is very poor. His father is a drunkard and his "mom" does her best. He spends a lot of time wandering around by himself. It's a sad, intimate movie with a lot of political subtext in it that I caught mostly because I was looking for it. If someone were to call it boring, I wouldn't argue with them, but I liked it.

The Housemaid - You don't really hear all that much about "classic" Korean cinema. It's only recently that films made in Korea from before the 90's have started making their way out of the country (and go visit the Korean Film Archive if you want to watch a bunch of older films for free). If you have heard of old Korean movies, though, you've probably heard of this one. Supposedly, the greatest masterpiece Korean cinema had to offer until the recent wave. Or so I've read. It was re-made in Korea in 2011 and the remake was pretty alright. I felt pretty much the same about this one. it's occasionally hard to fathom why the characters make certain choices or react in certain ways, but that's not uncommon when watching some of these older films, so you just kind of roll with it. Another one that I liked, but am kind of glad I got to watch on TCM before I decided to pay for it.

Kotoko - Thank ****ing god for region hackable blu-ray players. As soon as it was announced that the UK was getting that Stray Cat Rock blu-ray set, I decided it was time for me to get something that could play it. And once I'd done that, I decided I needed something to watch on it until the box set came out. So I went to Amazon UK and went a little crazy. Third Window and Arrow Video are both UK distributors who put out stuff there that may never make it over here, so I went through their entire back-catalogues and made a list of all the movies I wanted but could not get out here. And then I narrowed it down to about $125 worth that I NEEDED. It was, like... 6 movies because **** is expensive over there. I think 4 of them were Sion Sono films. Anyway.
This is the latest Shinya Tsukamoto flick. It's about a single mother who has some mental issues. One of those issues involves her seeing double sometimes. But not double like, two trees directly in front of her. No. Double like two of the same person, only one of them is behind her and wants to kill her. Like that. So her kid gets taken away from her and she has to deal with ****. It's a ****ed up movie and I ****ing loved it. It's very Tsukamoto, so there is a lot of handheld camera work and abrupt cuts. And there are a lot of shots of Kotoko doing weird stuff that don't necessarily advance the plot, but they do add atmosphere and give a certain amount of weight to the feeling of ****ed up **** that is happening to this woman. That's going to mean it's not for everyone, but if you like Tsukamoto then you're going to like this. If you're unfamiliar with his work, this may not be the best starting point. Maybe try Vital.

Broken Oath - Of the 6 movies in this Angela Mao set, I chose Broken Oath because it's a remake of Lady Snowblood and because I've read that it's the best. And it was pretty ****in' good. I always enjoy watching Angela Mao beat the **** out of people.

Blind Woman's Curse - Another one of the UK Blu-rays I picked up, even though it is available on english subbed DVD out here. It's a Meiko Kaji movie. On Blu-ray. So I bought it. This is a weird one. I've seen it a few times now and every time I watch it, I'm still surprised by how weird it is. It's been called Yakuza Horror Theater and I think that's pretty accurate. Sometimes, it's totally serious, like the super amazing sword fight in the rain that opens the movie, and then other times it's completely not serious, like the gang boss who wears a loincloth and apparently doesn't bathe his nether regions. And then there's a bunch of weird **** in the form of a carnival funhouse that includes severed heads, a dancing hunchback who can jump onto rooftops from the ground and a girl simulating sex with a dog. Yeah. So, it's interesting. Parts of it are great, parts are not, but I like it.

The Ladykillers - I've been meaning to watch more non Star Wars Alec Guinness stuff, and this was on. It's certainly a lot different than the Coen Bros remake, but one thing that is very similar is that the main character (Guinness in this, Tom Hanks in the remake) is a very over the top kind of caricature. Because of that, and because I wanted to watch Alec Guinness, I was a little disappointed. He was very good, but it was very cartoon-y and so wasn't really him, you know? Beyond that, the movie was fun, but not really anything super special.

Under The Skin WOW. What a weird, fantastic movie. I don't want to say too much about it, because I think it's better if you don't know, but I LOVED it. Felt very Kubrick without seeming like a wanna-be. The last 20 minutes or so were pretty fantastic. Can't wait to watch it again.

Batman: Under The Red Hood - One of the better DC Animated features I've seen so far. Enjoyed it thoroughly.

Godzilla: Final Wars - From what I can tell, Godzilla fans either love or hate this movie. Very little in between. To celebrate Godzilla's 50 year anniversary, a story was concocted that involved almost all of the other kaiju and most of them are involved via fighting Godzilla. Awesome. What is less awesome is that about 65-75% of this movie does not have any Godzilla in it. It's all humans and aliens that look like humans trying to take over earth. Speaking for myself, the human stuff didn't bother me. It was silly, but entertaining (as you'd expect) and even had some actual funny moments. But I can't fault people who complain about the lack of Godzilla time, especially considering how ****ing great the Godzilla time is. Seriously, it's been a while since I watched any of these movies other than the new one and the original, but this one is easily my favorite after those two. Godzilla even (quickly) beats the **** out of the American Matthew Broderick monster! It's awesome. The individual fight scenes are a little more brief than I'd have liked (dumb humans), but honestly, this movie is so much fun that it's ok. Loved it.

Midway - After Pearl Harbor was bombed was the battle of Midway. Another war movie with a giant, awesome ensemble cast that includes: Charlton Heston, Toshiro Mifune, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Hal Holbrook, Robert Mitchum, Cliff Robertson, etc etc etc. Unlike the last few war movies with cast lists like this, it did not really feel like there were too many characters and it was not, in turn, hard to follow the story. Probably because most of the big names in the cast basically have cameos. It did not, however, have much in the way of stuff to care about. There was little/no emotional connection for me. A lot of the semi cool battle footage, both in the air and on the sea, was taken from other movies, like Tora Tora Tora. So... it was ok. Nothing special.