Saturday, August 6, 2016

Weekend Open Thread

Boooooyyyyyy.

Several of us are hanging out at Flashback Weekend in Chicago this weekend, so we'll have more to report on the upcoming Suicide Squad podcast (dropping Monday). In the meantime, talk about whatever you want here!

While you're commenting. you should check out the live 48-hour podcast taking place all weekend long from Adam Green and Joe Lynch at The Movie Crypt and donate to saving dogs from being euthanized here.

48 comments:

  1. Cinemadrome, my local exploitation and genre festival, had a double screening yesterday of Raw Force and Dolemite, and it was glorious.

    Raw Force is bonkers, with kung fu zombies, constantly giggling cannibal monks, a German slave trader with a Hitler moustache and more tits than you can shake your stick at. And some totally hilarious dialogue.

    Dolemite was one of the funniest movies I've seen in a while, though I'm not absolutely certain if the hilarity was all intentional or not. The acting is laughably bad, the dialogue insane and there's a boom mic on screen about half of the running time.

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    1. Others from this week: Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame looks amazing but the story failed to grab me, the Trump parody The Art of the Deal is hugely funny and the lead actor (whose name everybody probably knows but I won't spoil here) has Trump's mannerisms down pretty well, Goon passed the time but that's about it, and Twilight Zone: The Movie is fun, if a little uneven (what anthology movie isn't?).

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    2. Maybe I'm just a big hockey fan and love Sean William Scott, but I really liked Goon. You're a Finn, no? I thought you guys loved everything hockey?

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  2. With the Summer movie season rapidly winding down, I had to entertain myself with some old classics in Night of the Hunter and Singin' in the Rain. I also watched The Naked Prey on Netflix, which I had never seen before and found to be pretty fascinating.

    Also after having realized that I've watched five John Landis movies this year I decided to watch three more, revisiting Coming to America for the first time in many years, Innocent Blood (because I don't really need an excuse to watch it but it's still nice when one comes along), and a first time viewing for me of Burke and Hare. It was ok I guess but I've already almost completely forgotten it two days later.

    I'm going to try to catch Don't Think Twice sometime in the next week, but we'll see if that actually happens.

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    1. Wait the summer movie season already started? When do the big fun movies start coming out?

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    2. (Mainly saying that in response to just seeing Suicide Squad. YIKES)

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    3. I wanted it to be Great Matt, I'm now too scared to see it

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    4. I feel bad that I contributed money to this kind of thing. #DontEncourageThem #ImPartOfTheProblem

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    5. Michael GiammarinoAugust 6, 2016 at 3:12 PM

      I'm hoping two things come to pass. 1. We get Ayer's cut of Suicide Squad on the Blu-ray. I know, know, he insists the theatrical cut is his cut. It's not. He's playing ball with the studio. It would be against his best interest if he didn't. 2. WB needs to stop tampering with their own movies.

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    6. Sounds about right Michael, I am in a place where I am sick of hearing about this type of situation again and again, I wish producers would go back to hiring a Director and trusting him to do it right, too many cooks in the kitchen doesn't mean better food

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  3. I have the Star Wars prequels lined up today for no particular reason. Wish me luck! Haven't seen them since the theater (ep. 1 maybe 2-3 times before ep. 2 came out). I know they're not as bad as a lot of people make them out to be. Here's to hoping there's something that catches my fancy. I remember enjoying ep. 3 quite a bit, but have zero memories of it, so it'll be like a first watch.

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    1. There are entire podcasts dedicated to shitting on the prequels, but they are alright. I've never marathoner all 3. Have fun! (Should be had fun?)

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  4. This week my import of Things 1989 got delivered, Elric kane from Shockwavespod really likes it? Have you seen it Patrick?

    It's Polarizing, I've heard good and bad reactions, has anyone else here dared to watch it?


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    1. Have you watched it yet, Dennis? Are you still sane?

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    2. Dennis, let me know next time you need a US only release. "Things" is like 7-10 dollars here. Although, whatever you paid, it's totally worth it!

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    3. I am watching it this week, cheers for that Chaybee, I imported it for about $18 in total, not to bad, I'm scared and excited at the same time, I don't really do so bad its good, if I can feel a passion from the film making then I'm in, Passion not budget, the Things story on Shockwaves was the best story I had heard in ages

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  5. Ps I feel like there is a large elephant in the room and its called Suicide Squad, I did have high hopes, I'm gonna wait for the podcast on Monday? I am genuinely upset by the negative reviews, not because they are unjust or wrong but because I really wanted it to be great, it had the best marketing campaign ever! I believed the hype or like X-Files "I want to believe!". This weekend I feel really sad because I have been looking forward to this for ages it seems

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    1. Michael GiammarinoAugust 6, 2016 at 3:08 PM

      I've seen Suicide Squad twice, and I'm genuinely more upset about the reshoots, the second time I saw it a lot more than the first.

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    2. Agreed, I have a feeling this is how I will feel, for a movie lover it genuinely upsets me weekends like this reading reviews because this is one of my most anticipated films of the year

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    3. I liked it! It's a mess, but I think the movie knows it and acknowledges that. Kinnaman's all like "let me introduce you to a colleague of mine. She can only speak Japanese and has a sword that's possessed by her dead husband." I honestly wish it had been an hour longer.

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    4. I've been on Kinnaman since the The Killing and although I haven't seen Suicide Squad, I really hope he gets his due. He's legit and should be getting more praise in the US especially after Robocop. Not his fault, I'd take that role too, but he's so much better than that.

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    5. It's watchable - moreso for me than BvS:DoJ but mostly pretty bad. I don't even know where to start - it's late here so I'll save it for the podcast comments. The one thing I'll say is that every concern I had with Leto's Joker when that first picture was released was validated. I never want to see him again. Unless it's cellphone footage of Ben Affleck actually beating him to death.

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  6. My local theater in North Carolina has a summer movie series so I got to see Stagecoach for the first time Thursday evening. With the Yuengling I bought my expenses totaled $10 dollars. I couldn't help but think of all the poor souls paying $15 just to see Nine Lives at a megaplex. The theater was built in 1927 and has a pipe organ that is seldom used, so they are capping off the series in a couple weeks with Metropolis ft. live organ accompaniment. I have a friend in film school at Boston University coming down that week and we are going to geek out hardcore.

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    1. That's awesome! I haven't seen a pipe organ since holidaying in Ireland and visiting my Father's childhood Methodist Church.

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  7. Local drive-in is showing JAWS and JURASSIC PARK in 35mm tonight. I can't go, but someone should totally go for me.

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  8. The Mind's Eye, LOVED IT. That's all.

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    1. Nice! I loved the interview on Shockwaves about it so I'm looking forward to checking it out.

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  9. Been living in a theater all this week for the Melbourne International Film Festival or MIFF, which is a fantastic name for a movie festival if you think about it. Highlights would have to be High Rise, but that ticked a whole lot of British cartoonish absurdist boxes for me that I usually adore. Kind of the Magic Roundabout but with more LSD and more dog murder. Fata Morgana 1965 (aka Left Handed Fate) is the weirdest movie I have seen. It's more abstract than horror, I liked but have no idea how to even describe it. But the stand out, for me at least, is Sieranavada a Romanian movie from this year and I loved it!!! It is people arguing for 3 hours and I know that doesn't sound appealing at all, but there was so much humour and heart and sadness. I went to it on a whim, and knew nothing about it. It is why I should go to festivals more often because I would have never known to even seek this movie out. It almost keeps the same pitch for 3 hours, and I was exhausted in the best possible way. Okay I will stop. I still have 5 or 6 movies to go including Park Chan-wook's Handmaiden, which is the movie I am most looking forward to Phantasm Remastered and Lure a Polish killer mermaid movie. It should be a good week.

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  10. Suicide Squad was fun for me. It delivered what it was selling, chaotic fun with colorful characters. I do not think it was bad, just messy as fuck. Margo Robbie was a treat and Will Smith finally kicked ass again. I'm not a "what did you expect" kind of film watcher...I always expect a good, quality movie no matter how popcorn it treats itself, but I don't go into comic book movies to get my high drama fix like Nolan treated his stuff. This was not the most quality film of the year, but I could've lived with it for another hour and look forward to a sequel more so than I do any other Marvel movie or Justice League. But hey I like the Schumacher films so ftw.

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    1. I'm pretty much in full agreement with you. It's like messy B-movie schlock on a high budget that I had tons of fun watching.

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    2. I also kinda liked Suicide Squad even though it tried really, really hard to make me not like it. It's a big mess and a bad movie when it comes to plot, story, villain, pacing and other things but I loved the characters enough that it barely pulled me through. A second viewing would probably change my opinion, who knows.

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    3. Geez, Ben, you and I felt almost exactly the same about this one!

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  11. Olympics lead me to Starship Troopers (Rio and whatnot).

    I love STARSHIP TROOPERS!

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    1. Olympics ain't terrible either.

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    3. "I'm from Buenos Aires, and I say kill 'em all!" - Rico

      This takes on a whole other level of commentary with the bug/mosquito/zika thing, haha.

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  12. So my plan yesterday night was to watch Enter the Ninja and turn in early. So naturally, after Enter the Ninja I watched Revenge of the Ninja, and after that Ninja III: The Domination, and found myself wide awake and totally ninja'd at 3am. So all in all, the night went better than I'd planned.

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    1. That is a truly heartwarming story. (Not sarcasm.) Try watching the Breakin' movies and then Ninja III. It's like a whole new trilogy!

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  13. Just watched Sumspring, a 9-minute short film written by an AI, which was fed hundreds of scifi scripts and extrapolated an original screenplay from them.

    It's utterly bizarre, but the actors really commit to their nonsensical lines (lines like "I think I could have been my life").

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  14. Kelly & Cal directed by Jen McGowan and written by Amy Lowe Starbin is SO GOOD (on Netflix now!). And Juliette Lewis is soo my girl. I wasn't hoping for a lot from the kid but I thought his character was just as strong as hers (excellent acting) and a couple steps ahead of (older woman) Kelly, which is successfully unnerving. He is surprising.

    I'm going to refrain from writing a long essay here on how and why Juliette Lewis is PERFECT, and how Kelly & Cal is made for me. But the movie and Juliette Lewis were so real. Of course it isn't this way for every girl/woman/wife/new mother, I know. But I felt it was deeply understanding and had things to say that are rarely said (i.e. about postpartum depression, boundaries with cute boys who are totally wrong for you, sexless marriage), and rarely from this perspective. And to top it off they played All Through The Night a couple times, which just makes my heart explode. I feel like this was an IMPORTANT movie for me, not just a good one.

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  15. This is the kind of thing that irritates me. WB did this to the BvS theatrical cut, and now they did it to the Suicide Squad theatrical cut. When does this end?

    http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/suicide-squads-secret-drama-rushed-916693

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  16. Finished off my weekend with a couple of Criterion movies on Hulu. First up was Equinox (1970) which apparently was the inspiration for Evil Dead, which is quite clear when watching it. I always find stop-motion animation fun and there's some good uses of it here especially considering the minuscule budget. The acting is pretty bad but given the kind of movie this is it's almost endearing.

    Pushing my luck I also watched Black Moon (1975) from French director Louis Malle. While a movie like Hausu somehow makes sense to me, I found Black Moon just bafflingly insane. From what I would read afterwards this movie is ostensibly supposed to be some sort of allegory of the Women's Movement of the 70's, but to me just felt like a very slowly paced decent into madness. I can't really call a movie boring when it involves a Unicorn, a literal war between men and women, a guy who seems to communicate primarily through touch, and a bed-ridden old lady who is not only a ham radio enthusiast but gets breast fed on more than one occasion. It takes a long time to get where it's going though and I honestly have no idea where that is.

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  17. Oh and the Handmaiden (Park Chen-Wook) is really really good!

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    1. One of my fav directors. Glad to hear it's good! Although , frankly not surprised... everything he had done is better than "fine".

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