Saturday, March 18, 2017

Weekend Open Thread

That chewing gum you like is going to come back in style!

Happy weekend, everyone! While Dan Stevens' CGI face in Beauty and the Beast is making all the money (stay tuned for Reserved Seating later this week!), we've also got The Belko Experiment in theaters and The Devil's Candy hitting VOD at long last. Choices!

See anything good this week? Anything else on your mind? Go nuts!

24 comments:

  1. Yesterday I revisited a comedy I hadn't seen in at least a decade, Eric Idle's The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash. It's a loving parody of The Beatles (Idle was good friends with them, especially Harrison, who briefly appears) made in 1978, when all four were still alive, and includes funny comedy, celebrity cameos and really great Beatles-style songs (just check out Hold My Hand or Ouch!

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  2. I watched Beauty and the Beast (for work related purposes, I don't know that I would have bothered otherwise). It's fine. It's going to be massively successful. Obviously they already have a lot more of these live action remakes lined up. I don't really see a need for them but obviously the audience is there. Maybe to their target demographic they're like the equivalent of comic book movies in that people have been wanting live action versions of these things. Maybe they're just so inoffensive and trade off of enough of the good will built by the originals that they just have really broad appeal. I do have to mention that the stuff they add in provides completely unneeded backstory.

    I just got through the first episode of Iron Fist, which I was almost reluctant to start because I still have five episodes of Legion to watch. I've seen a slight backlash against all the negative critics reviews. I've only watched the first episode so far so I can't really comment yet, but it wasn't bad.

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    1. watching Iron Fist too. haven't read the reviews yet so i don't know about any backlash.

      little underwhelmed by it right now, but i shall report back when i'm done, before he end of the weekend

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  3. "The Devil's Candy" is really good. It's got a great pace, is shot really well and I love that it takes itself seriously. It's a great homage to the "metal" sub-genre of Horror.

    Speaking of taking forever to get released, "The Evil Within" a.k.a "The Storyteller" finally hit VOD after being in production since 2002! The Director sadly passed away last March while finishing his one and only labor of love. It's a beautiful, ambitious mess and I loved it, unironically. People are going make this film into "The Room" or something and undeservingly so. One thing I noticed is that there was no CGI, none that I could see at least, and the film shows how to make things happening with a little bit of imagination.

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  4. Spending quality time with Shudder and it's been a good week.
    Three... Extremes is a well made anthology. All three segments hit some very high notes.
    Fender Bender is nicely shot. A good throwback that wear its influences and its sleeve. Poor dialogue and delivery kind of took me out it. Still worth a watch.
    The Devils was really cool. Reading on its history made me appreciate it more. The visuals are still striking to this day.
    Always Shine. Loved it. Great performances by Mackenzie Davis and Caitlin Fitzgerald. Solid all around.

    Also watched Bava's Black Sabbath which was a lot of fun.

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    1. Always Shine, so good right?! If you haven't already, watch Queen of Earth by the master, Alex Ross Perry. It was my favorite film last year. Similar vibes in a way. Much better writing cause well, Alex Ross Perry.

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    2. *two years ago...The Witch was my favorite film last year.

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    3. I loved Three...Extremes.
      Adam said he fainted during that movie. I wonder if it was during the first segment when the girl is eating the dumplings, and they are making a crunchy sound.

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  5. Queen of Earth has been on my list for too long. Time to press play on that mother (although it looks unlikely for this weekend).

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  6. Breaking news: Hell or High Water is damn good!

    It never played in theaters here and the Blu-ray was only just released. Finally got to see that one.

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  7. I hope to catch a few screenings next week for upcoming releases with interesting casts: Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds in Life; Kristen Stewart in Personal Shopper; and Michael Fassbender and Natalie Portman in Song to Song.

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    1. I kinda want to see Life because it's Sci-Fi and has a decent cast. It's possible I end up watching Power Rangers instead due to a combination of curiosity and masochism. I'm still committed to watching Slamma Jamma though if that ends up being an option.

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  8. Any Canadians going to see Goon 2 Last Of The Enforcers this weekend? I really liked the first one, so I might If I have time. Good to support small Canadian cinema, especially if it gets a fairly wide release.

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  9. In regards to the Logan podcast, F!-Team, yes, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is woeful, but Jackman wasn't the only one giving it his all; Danny Huston and Liev Shreiber were also valiantly trying to ice-skate uphill.

    In fact, for a moment, I thought that *that* character in the farmhouse was Shreiber's Sabretooth, as he had the same hair and beard. And now I kinda wish said family had been Sabretooth's - how wild would it have been if Victor had renounced his ways, and found a peaceful and happy retirement, leaving Logan the more violent of the two brothers? It would have made the movie less self-contained, sure, and taken the focus away from Laura, but I can't help thinking that would have been much more interesting than the random new characters we did get.

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  10. Trippy Xtro fact of the week

    Mark forstater the producer of the first Xtro film also was a producer on Monty Pythons The Holy Grail!

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  11. I caught up with some DVR'd TCM Underground this weekend, between Belladonna of Sadness and Hard Ticket to Hawaii I think I've about run out of ways to be confused by a film. I'm definitely revisiting Hard Ticket to Hawaii for Junesploitation, has there ever been a "snake" day?

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    1. Neat! I wonder if anyone else on the site has seen BoS. I saw it years back via shitty bootleg thanks to a friend who was an Osamu Tezuka completist, and was gobsmacked when Elijah Wood's company announced they were picking it up for distribution; that's definitely not something I could have predicted happening, and thanks to which I got to see it restored on the big screen. And now it's airing on basic cable?? F'in wonders never cease.

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  12. I haven't seen Beauty and the Beast yet (I hear it's fine) but this little sketch gave me a laugh. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2qJO4xC84Gs

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  13. Hey
    Can anyone recommend any history of horror books in a similar vein to Kim Newmans nightmare movies? Just git through with that one and really loved it.

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    1. Off the top of my head, I would recommend Danse Macabre by Stephen King, The Monster Show by David Skal, An Illustrated History of the Horror Film by Carlos Clarens, Universal Horrors by Tom Weaver, and Horror Films by R.H.W. Dillard. That should get you started...

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    2. Men women and chainsaws is a great read about horror

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    3. Nice! Danse Macabre might just be my favourite book.

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