Search

Search only in certain items:

40x40

Olivier Assayas recommended Thief (1981) in Movies (curated)

 
Thief (1981)
Thief (1981)
1981 | Action, Drama, Mystery
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"Rififi is a strange animal, based on a novel by a typically French crime writer, Auguste Le Breton, and shot in Paris as the first foreign-language film by a great American filmmaker at the height of his powers, whose career had been broken by McCarthyism. Jules Dassin’s previous film, made in London five years earlier, Night and the City, is his masterpiece. This inspired hybrid of French and American noir—which I discovered as a child on French TV—has constantly impressed me with its violence, its despair, its darkness, and its beauty. It has also been hugely influential, not only on Melville—so much of his work derives from Rififi—but also on a lot of minor figures of French genre. Dassin reinvented the whole syntax, and the after-effects have been felt for a long time. I am a fan of Michael Mann; he is one of the most inspired stylists in American cinema today, but it was all there from the start. In Thief, his first feature, you have echoes of Melville (it goes full circle), a sharp eye for realism, but also profound human characters with precisely drawn relationships, and great acting. Mann’s fascination with a geometrical modernity, even if it is always mediated by genre filmmaking, is genuinely reminiscent of Antonioni—explicitly so in the last scenes of Heat."

Source
  
Satanic Panic (2019)
Satanic Panic (2019)
2019 | Comedy, Horror
Satanic Panic is a horror-comedy that depicts the world's rich elite as Satan worshiping cultists who would love nothing more than to bring about the end of days. Relatable then!
The "eat the rich" concept is a tried and tested method of giving a movie some hateful antagonists, and Satanic Panic does it well, as a working class pizza delivery girl stumbles upon said cult, and quickly finds herself fighting for her life as the cultists seek to use her virginity as a method to bring about Baphomet and blah blah blah, you've surely heard this one before.

My main gripe with this movie is precisely that - it offers nothing new to the table. That, and the fact that it's low budget prevents us from seeing any demonic creatures, which is a shame.
Honestly though, apart from these negatives, Satanic Panic is actually a lot of fun. It's got a good sense of humour, a likeable heroine in Hayley Griffith, some pretty nasty practical gore effects here and there, and a somewhat cheap but charming aesthetic.
The cast also includes Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O' Connell, and a few horror mainstays such as Jordan Ladd, Ruby Modine and Jeff Daniel Phillips.

You could do a lot worse, and Satanic Panic does just about enough to scramble above the depths of horror shittiness.
  
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
Pan's Labyrinth (2006)
2006 | Fantasy
Even though this isn't that good, the resounding acclaim still makes sense to me because this is pretty much exactly what normies would have wanted out of this movie - to a T. The grand, moving mythic-fantasy spectacle this could have been takes a backseat to like only 4 full-fledged fantasy scenes swept under the suffocating carpet of yet another trite war drama. I realize this is deeply personal to Del Toro, and I'm not trying to invalidate that - but I think somewhere in his love for the project he forgot to add actual... depth to the thing because to him, just this film existing was enough? Don't get me wrong, it's still fine as it is - when it actually decides to be a fantasy film instead of a generic parable for self sacrifice (yawn, plus hot damn the ending is shitty *and* problematic) I think this looks great even though it's color-coded like a sickly Eiffel 65 music video for some reason. Moment to moment this is okay, some scenes work more than others. But ultimately it boils down to another batch of empty cyphers and caricature villains in the orbit of a boring heroine from Del Toro - who seems to specialize in that. A mishmash of unsubtle things he thinks have nuance but don't, though worth it for the practical effects alone.
  
40x40

LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Tigers are Not Afraid (2017) in Movies

Oct 5, 2020 (Updated Oct 5, 2020)  
Tigers are Not Afraid (2017)
Tigers are Not Afraid (2017)
2017 | Crime, Drama, Fantasy, Horror
I initially found this to be uncommonly touching but no sooner does it fall into the draining rhythm of the rest of these sad realism/fantasy metaphor films. Still cloying as can be but a reasonable amount of mostly unaffected emotional scenes do make it out of the wreckage with this one, and after all it's still vastly better than 𝘉𝘦𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘰𝘶𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘞𝘪𝘭𝘥 and 𝘗𝘢𝘯'𝘴 𝘓𝘢𝘣𝘺𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘩 combined because it's visually divine without being cut down to scraps via obnoxious handheld gimmick (which this still has but it's much more restrained, sort of works here, and is actually visible for once) or an eyesore color palette that resembles somebody smearing mud all over the lens like either of those two. As is usual for the genre there isn't near enough depth or fantasy parts for this to be fully successful, but the child performers are all marvelous and the horror/fantasy that is here is quite masterful - the effects and art design are just awesome. If this was interested in being its own deal rather than ripping off practically every single trope you can find in these types of movies then we'd really be in business. But as it stands, it's still far above the pack in comparison to the rest of them - as if that's even a high bar to begin with.
  
Hellboy (2019)
Hellboy (2019)
2019 | Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Better than online reviews suggest
Contains spoilers, click to show
Firstly, this version of Hellboy doesn't deserve only 17% on Rotten Tomatoes!

Yes it's different to the 2004 Hellboy, it's less jokey, more serious and darker.

I love Ron Pearlman in the 2004 Hellboy film, lets face it, he is an amazing Hellboy but I was very happy with David Harbours version of Hellboy. He played the tournamented demon perfectly. He was serious, yet funny.

Also I love the fact that in this version, Alice is played by a young, black woman, who is feisty and powerful. Sasha Lane plays the psychic, badass amazingly.

Throughout the film there is a few surprises in terms of who you'd think would star in this film, alot of familiar faces, and big names.

The storyline is well done, it's more like the Hellboy comics I read growning up than the first films. There is dark plots, Hellboys inner struggle of trying to keep his demon side down, amazing effects and real emotions.


I feel it's only let down was the fact is came out in cinemas as two major Marvel films also came into the cinema.


I very much look forward to a sequel, and judging by the first clip after the credits.....and the reveal of a certain favourite characters hand......it looks like a sequel is very much on the cards.
  
Piranha 3D (2010)
Piranha 3D (2010)
2010 | Comedy, Horror, Mystery
5
6.3 (18 Ratings)
Movie Rating
Kind of great, definitely awful
Looking for a silly, average, stupidly gory horror film? You could do a lot worse than Piranha 3D.

This movie is never going to be considered a horror great, not even close. It's cheesy, it's brimming with awful acting (except Elisabeth Shue, we love Elisabeth Shue), and it's completely brain dead, and in spite of all of this, Piranha 3D knows exactly what it is, and just waves it in our stupid entertained faces - it's a lot of fun.

The build up to the ridiculous finale is filled with a lot of one dimensional characters that are hard to care about, but has enough sudden gore (with some pretty nice practical effects for the record) to keep you interested.
They even throw in Christopher Lloyd just being a perfect bat-shit crazy version of himself, because why the hell not.

For the most part, it's all very standard and pretty average. But that aforementioned finale....Christ.
The final 20 minutes is gratuitous and then some.
The audience is just assaulted by outrageous violence, enough to keep you firmly grasping just how silly this film is...it's kind of glorious, and the whole thing deserves it's place in the infamous so-bad-its-great hall of horror fame.

It's dumb, but it's entertaining. A must for anyone who fancies a braindead popcorn horror now and again.
  
40x40

LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated American Horror Story - Season 1 in TV

Aug 29, 2019 (Updated Sep 17, 2019)  
American Horror Story  - Season 1
American Horror Story - Season 1
2011 | Horror
The start of something weird and (sometimes) wonderful
I recently convinced my partner to watch Game of Thrones (she loved it in case you were worried) and the deal was, when we were done with GoT, we would watch one of her favourite shows - American Horror Story.

As we sat down to watch the first season (often referred to as Murder House) of this anthology style series, I wasn't too sure what to expect, but I ended up really enjoying our time with the Harmons.

The season has a suitably creepy tone throughout, and a plot line that keeps you in the dark with what happens throughout, and a pretty impressive amount of violence and horror effects.

The huge positive about this show though is obviously the ensemble cast.
Evan Peters, Taissa Farmiga, Frances Conroy, and Jessica Lange in particular all carve in some really memorable parts to the overall series.
Sarah Paulson doesn't star too much in season 1, but her short time is a nice taster for the important roles she will play moving forwards.

The overall tone can be campy and hammy at times, but that balance throughout Murder House is pretty good.
We ended up watching the whole season in a couple of nights, and I'm glad that I let AHS into my viewing life 👍
  
Getting Doug with High
Getting Doug with High
Comedy
9
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Podcast Rating
Cool celebrity guests (2 more)
Very educational
They're smoking weed man!!! Its awesome
Best show EVER!!!!!!
I was cruising through the amazballs app Tubi Tv when I came across this little gem... Mind you, I do smoke a shit ton of weed myself... And it is legal now in my whole country, so fuck it... Lol.
Doug Benson is someone I've seen on talk shows and heard on podcasts a few times, but I never knew much about him.
This little piece of click bait lured me in with the chance of seeing one of my favorite writer/directors Kevin Smith getting blazed up with Doug and Brian Poshien... Or however you spell it... And it didn't let me down.
He and his guests get just obliterated off some of the sweetest strains of bud made available by whatever weed store they happen to propagate. And they always tell you what the pot is like. Effects... Length of buzz... That sort of pertenate information stoners like myself want to know.
Plus its a chance to see Jeff Ross, Natasha Leggerio and Anthony Jeselnyk HIGH AS GIRAFFE BALLS.
Overall its 45 minutes that is filled with talking, coughing and laughter... Very reminiscent of nights spent in my mom's kitchen with my friends, sitting around the table smoking our heads off and laughing til the sun came up.
Ah the memor... Wait.... What????
  
    Crossword Puzzle .

    Crossword Puzzle .

    Games and Education

    (0 Ratings) Rate It

    App

    Arrow Words Free is a classic crossword app with a useful twist. In arrow words puzzles, the clues...