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fac said:
Anything like Eli Roth or Rob Zombie or the Terrifier stuff are things I will actively avoid...
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Well, you're only saying that because those movies are awful ;)
AceofKnaves said:
Probably because it’s Men Talking About Men Stuff And Doing Men Stuff, which doesn’t usually resonate with me.
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My favorite description for these are "Dudes rock, but at what cost?" movies.
 
We did a Baby Girl-Nosferatu double-feature last Christmas. It rocked.

I jokingly refer to it as Babyferatu. It had the same cultural cachet as Barbenheimer, obviously.

Unfortunately, with the showtimes we had to get, Nosferatu didn't start until midnight. As someone who's usually in bed by then, :sleep:
 
AceofKnaves said:
Yep. The only genre I relate to less is simply “Dudes rock”.
Mostly because I do not in any sense feel that dudes rock.
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I can get down with both versions *sometimes*, but I'm a picky eater for that meal. Unforgiven I think works ok for me (though it didn't rock my world either) because the characters in it seem genuinely aware they're not great people. Heat is sort of the top of my list for these sorts of films (with Way of the Gun somewhere further down but within sight). Like, Heat has no heroes, maybe 2 innocent people, and every man in it is some version of deeply compromised. But I'm here for that one. The competency porn of the criminal team I think helps. Watching bad guys execute a plan is at least interesting in a way watching, say, finance bros fuck around and be amoral hedonists isn't.

My least favorite version of this is the "awful men doing awful things for 2 hrs and it feels like the director maybe, just a little, thinks that's really rad, actually".
 
Last of the Mohicans, Heat, Manhunter and Thief are all classics. What I like about Mann's stuff is so often he manages to show true expertise/professionalism from both the good guys and bad guys in a away that elevates away from being just a crime drama or thriller or historical action film. What I like is you get a sense these guys earned their expertise, and it isn't they are just "badass" or whatever.

I enjoy Dr Strangelove, but Paths of Glory, Clockwork Orange, 2001 and The Shining surpass it. I kind felt that Eyes Wide Shut was one of his weaker efforts but probably should watch it again - I may have gone in with too high of hopes as it had been so long since Full Metal Jacket and I was getting all his films on disc at the time.
 
fac said:
What I like is you get a sense these guys earned their expertise, and it isn't they are just "badass" or whatever.
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Because he takes the time to show you how they plan and think, he doesn't make you take it as a matter of course. And then he has other characters do exposition that reveals their expertise further (Pacino explaining why they shoot the other armored truck drivers when the new guy spazzes out, etc.). And his protagonists look more competent because he allows his antagonists the same latitude. Everyone is making (for the most part) smart plays for their goals.

edit: I realize I'm basically just repeating you here, suffice to say I'm nodding in furious agreement.
 
Last of the spooky movies for spooky season.

Hikaru the Goblin - The director of Testuo the Iron Man basically made an Evil Dead homage. It's a little cheap, but the practical effects are really fun.

Witches of Eastwick - A rushed story and a lot of middling performances from some otherwise great actors. It's funny to remember the same director behind Mad Max also directed this and the Babe movies.

American Psycho - I remember thinking this was a clever adaptation of Ellis' book when it came out and my wife hadn't seen it before. It made her very anxious in all the right ways and I was surprised how well it held up. I can never not picture the OwlKitty version of the business card scene.

Frankenstein (2025) - Beautiful sets and costumes, too much exposition (I know the book is written as a diary), and the lone woman in the story was more like a plot point than a person. It feels like del Toro's career path is starting to follow Tim Burton's because his stories keep collapsing under the weight of their own baroque ambitions.

Cat People (1942) - The movie that gave us the Lewton Bus jump scare. It starts out fun enough, but the product-of-its-time misogyny kind of ruins it in the end.

Valerie and her Week of Wonders - It feels weird to call this a horror movie because it's so soft and pastel, but the vampire and practical magic effects make it very entertaining all the same.

The Devil's Rain - The movie that originally gave us the Shatner mask Michael Myers would make famous. Ernest Borgnine is a devil-channeling cult leader after William Shatner and Tom Skerritt. It should be more fun than it is, but the story feels like 40 pages stretched over 86 minutes and it eventually overstays its welcome.

Bring Her Back - Another entertaining movie from the brothers who gave us Talk To Me. It felt like a more commercially appealing version of A Dark Song with a dash of Heredity for spice and flavor.

PS-
Paths of Glory, Dr. Strangelove, and Barry Lyndon are probably my favorite Kubrick films because his dark sense of humor really shines in those.
 
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I'd be interested in rewatching American Psycho and American Beauty. I have a feeling the former would hold up while the latter would not.

Satire is such a delicate thing. You get the balance wrong and suddenly you've inspired the next Travis Bickle instead of warning against him. Fight Club is the clearest example. I haven't seen it in years, and while it's probably genius satire, it's inspired the worst men to be even more machismo.

I feel the opposite about del Toro. I've been more and more impressed with his movies as his career has progressed. I think Pinocchio is his best movie. Nightmare Alley is super underrated, too.
RunestoneCowboy said:
the story feels like 40 pages stretched over 86 minutes and it eventually overstays its welcome.
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One of the worst sins in film is a short film that's stretched to fill a 90-minute runtime. Or as I call it, David Lowery's A Ghost Story.
 
That Ghost Story comment is top tier. It's jokes like that that win me over with the board's current administration.

I watched House of Dynamite. I really liked it. One of the only movies I've truly had only the edge of my seat. I don't think it was perfect, but it was my kind of execution.
 
Watched KPop Demon Hunters recently, and the toy announcements got me thinking about it again. It's not usually my kind of wheelhouse, and I only have fairly entry level knowledge of kpop and kdramas from friends and exes, but it was a lot of fun nonetheless.

I'm fairly picky when it comes to new entries or adaptations of things I already like, so seeing a new take on the ideas of a lot of things I like (in this case, feeling very inspired by Buffy) and how they applied it to the tropes and ongoings of Korean pop culture was really charming.

I hope we get more like this. Not specifically sequels (Though I don't mind that entirely), or things that are very specifically themed after kpop, or whatever. Just fun new ideas as films where the passion of the artists shows, animated and not. Refreshing time!
 
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