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The Rhinoceros and the Megatherium: An Essay in Natural History
Book
One animal left India in 1515, caged in the hold of a Portuguese ship, and sailed around Africa to...
Build a Bridge!
Games
App
Test your engineering and improvisation skills in a puzzle game where the stakes are as high as they...
Ridley Plays 1: The Pitchfork Disney; the Fastest Clock in the Universe; Ghost from a Perfect Place
Book
This volume contains Ridley's first three plays, which heralded the arrival of a unique and...
Rocking Kin (The Lucy & Harris Novella Series Book 3)
10.0
Rate It
Book
With one promise her life was changed⦠Saying goodbye to my mother also meant saying goodbye to...
romance rocker series
The Mammoth Book of Tasteless Jokes
Book
The ultimate collection of tasteless and sick jokes that just shouldn't be told. More than 3,000...
Jesters_folly (230 KP) rated Mr. Vampire (1985) in Movies
Jul 24, 2020
Contains spoilers, click to show
When a 20 year old corpse is exhumed for a re burial Master Gau and his two students find that the body hasn't rotted. When the corpse re animates as a vampire the trio have to protect the vampires family and find a way to stop the monster.
Mr vampire is a Chinese horror/comedy and a breakthrough 'Jiangshi' (Rotting Copse) movie due it's mixing of slapstick comedy, kung-fu, Chinese folklore and western vampire myth and has a number of sequels.
The humour is very slapstick, with people getting hit with furniture or getting their head stuck in prison cell bars and the horror level is quite low and most of the effects are quite cheesy.
The Kung-Fu aspect makes the fight scenes entertaining and both the vampire and the ghost have to be dealt with slightly differently..
The image of the living corpse, be it vampire or zombie, being controlled by a yellow paper talisman stuck to it's head is though to have come from Mr Vampire and has been used in many subsequent Jiangshi film as well as many other shows, including the recent Netflix show 'Kingdom' where we see a scene of villagers selling the talismans when the zombies are threatening their village.
Mr Vampire manages to pull off Horror comedy in a way that is watchable by almost anyone. The film has a 15 (UK) rating and does contain vampires and ghosts but neither are overly frighting, partly due to the effects of the time.
Mr vampire is a Chinese horror/comedy and a breakthrough 'Jiangshi' (Rotting Copse) movie due it's mixing of slapstick comedy, kung-fu, Chinese folklore and western vampire myth and has a number of sequels.
The humour is very slapstick, with people getting hit with furniture or getting their head stuck in prison cell bars and the horror level is quite low and most of the effects are quite cheesy.
The Kung-Fu aspect makes the fight scenes entertaining and both the vampire and the ghost have to be dealt with slightly differently..
The image of the living corpse, be it vampire or zombie, being controlled by a yellow paper talisman stuck to it's head is though to have come from Mr Vampire and has been used in many subsequent Jiangshi film as well as many other shows, including the recent Netflix show 'Kingdom' where we see a scene of villagers selling the talismans when the zombies are threatening their village.
Mr Vampire manages to pull off Horror comedy in a way that is watchable by almost anyone. The film has a 15 (UK) rating and does contain vampires and ghosts but neither are overly frighting, partly due to the effects of the time.
LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated The Oath (2018) in Movies
Nov 8, 2020
Mental horror. What was marketed as a routine goofy comedy ended up being this fucking monster of intense, bleak, hyper-abusive, bloody torment that still has hard laughs to spare. Outside of its tidy ending which wraps things up a bit too quickly (that I have good and bad things to say about) it's as good as ππ¦π΅ ππΆπ΅ in weaving the seemingly intrinsically violent divisiveness of American politics into a hard-hitting socio-political satire that toes the line between horrifying and hilarious with a natural ease. There's a crescendo near the end of this that had me physically biting my fist and leaning closer and closer over in my chair I damn near couldn't take it. I already loved Ike Barinholtz going into this but I'm still so impressed with this, he and Haddish have terrific chemistry and the whole cast is a knockout (Billy Magnussen holy shit). Rather than being a cringy "both sides" white man rant as we may (not so unreasonably) expect (*cough* ππ°π―π¨ ππ©π°π΅), it's instead mainly convinced with being incredibly loud and incredibly mean to these people without really declaring one viewpoint the ultimate winner or the ultimate loser in a way which perfectly emulates today's political landscape. Attacks habits and opinions that until this the genre had left untapped. Luckily for me my comfort genre is assholes jostling each other so this was like candy. One of the best political comedies I've seen in eons. Couldn't have picked many better films than this to watch while Trump was finally getting voted out.
LeftSideCut (3776 KP) rated The Lie (2020) in Movies
Nov 18, 2020
To sum up The Lie in one word - frustrating.
This recent thriller from Blumhouse, based on 2015 German film Wir Monster, has a lot of good ingredients, and some decent performances but there's just so much that bogs it down.
First off, the lead cast here are great. Peter Sarsgaard and Mireille Enos in particular are heart wrenchingly believable as two parents desperately trying to protect their teen daughter (Joey King) who has confessed to impulsively murdering one of her friends. It's a slow burn of a plot, and Sarsgaard and Enos do a hell of a lot to make it watchable.
Joey King's character is stupidly unlikable however. I got the feeling that we as the audience were supposed to be on her side, hoping that she wouldn't get caught - like the filmmakers we're going for a Psycho vibe or something, but her character is so obnoxious and spoilt, that all I wanted was for her to go to prison. It's a big hiccup considering the narrative centres around her so severely.
Then there's the twist - no spoilers here, but fuck me, it's stupid. All good thrillers need a good twist to round things off, but the one we're subjected to here requires a huge suspension of disbelief on the viewers part. It asks too much, and ruins what is otherwise a fairly tense and minimalist thriller.
The snowy setting adds some beauty to the films aesthetic, but it's not enough to detract from everything that makes The Lie more unenjoyable than it should be.
This recent thriller from Blumhouse, based on 2015 German film Wir Monster, has a lot of good ingredients, and some decent performances but there's just so much that bogs it down.
First off, the lead cast here are great. Peter Sarsgaard and Mireille Enos in particular are heart wrenchingly believable as two parents desperately trying to protect their teen daughter (Joey King) who has confessed to impulsively murdering one of her friends. It's a slow burn of a plot, and Sarsgaard and Enos do a hell of a lot to make it watchable.
Joey King's character is stupidly unlikable however. I got the feeling that we as the audience were supposed to be on her side, hoping that she wouldn't get caught - like the filmmakers we're going for a Psycho vibe or something, but her character is so obnoxious and spoilt, that all I wanted was for her to go to prison. It's a big hiccup considering the narrative centres around her so severely.
Then there's the twist - no spoilers here, but fuck me, it's stupid. All good thrillers need a good twist to round things off, but the one we're subjected to here requires a huge suspension of disbelief on the viewers part. It asks too much, and ruins what is otherwise a fairly tense and minimalist thriller.
The snowy setting adds some beauty to the films aesthetic, but it's not enough to detract from everything that makes The Lie more unenjoyable than it should be.
Rodney Barnes (472 KP) rated The Incredible Hulk (2008) in Movies
Feb 15, 2021
Great Reboot From the First
As a comic book fan the Hulk is my favorite superhero. I never missed an episode of the old television series and had many comic books. So I think this movie did the Hulk justice. I absolutely hated the one with Bana. This one was a great improvement. I must say I do like Norton better in this role than Ruffalo. I am not saying Ruffalo is bad but Norton captured what Bruce Banner is for me. I liked the design of this Hulk and the essence of his rage was captured very well. The supporting cast was great as well. William Hurt and Liv Tyler did a great job as General Ross and Betty Ross. I was so glad they brought one of the Hulk's main enemies into this movie as well...The Abomination. For those that don't know, the Abomination is a gamma monster the same as the Hulk but he is bigger and stronger than the Hulk. The thing about the Hulk is he has this x Factor. The madder he gets, the stronger he gets. So he is more than a match for Abomination. This movie set the standard for how a Hulk movie should be made. There was a part in which there is a set up for another villain of the Hulk's...The Leader. We haven't seen anything about him yet in the MCU but I am hoping this comes to fruition. As a Hulk fan..I recommend this movie