Movie Dump
Then we watched a heck of a lot of movies, mostly around Halloween so there's a lot of "horror".
We went through a list of "underrated" "horror" movies and picked this one. The title pretty much explains the premise. A father/son team had to conduct an autopsy on an unidentified Jane Doe brought in from a crime scene in which everyone died very violently but she didn't have any external injuries. As they conduct the autopsy, strange things happen.
In general, I thought this was one of the best horror movies we've watched in the recent string of horror movie watchings. It doesn't rely too much on things jumping out for a cheap scare. Instead, it builds a good amount of suspense and tension. And more importantly, the father/son characters aren't annoying.
This is a recent Taiwanese horror movie about a spirit/ghost that feeds on people's guilt. I think there are things about the premise that's very promising: people's fear of nature, the idea of feeding on guilt (ie. the main guy's guilt towards his grandmother, the main girl's guilt towards her baby, the grandmother's guilt towards her grandson). It's also (at least for me) somewhat humorous, such as the security guard's over-reliance on using firecrackers to solve all ghostly issues.
But the execution wasn't that great and the main bad parts are the over-reliance on CGI and also copying the Japanese ghost template in how their ghosts look. Still, I thought it's a passably okay entry in Asian horror movies.
On the other hand, I didn't like The Wailing much at all even though it received a lot of positive reviews and, apparently, there's talk of an American remake (of course). The general premise is that strange deaths are occurring in a small village and people become suspicious of a lone Japanese man that had recently moved into town.
Apparently, the story is supposed to have very Christian motifs. I generally found it uninteresting. I actually thought it would have been more interesting if it was a reverse The Hills Have Eyes situation where we're seeing the hunting and killing of an outsider from the point of view of the native inhabitants. There's fear and suspicion of what's new and unknown versus just the native inhabitants being inbred hicks. But I'm very obsessed with things being Hills Have Eyes-y.
Then I went on to watch 10,000 Miles for Megan Lai. The story is a generic story about a "good" brother and a "bad" brother (Darren Wang) who are both on the school's track team. The "good" brother goes on to run a crazy marathon down the Silk Road while the "bad" brother goes on to live a life of crime as a drug runner for a local kingpin. They're eventually reconciled by the end of the movie because that's how these movies work (and also it's allegedly based on a real story...I can't believe people run the Silk Road, but I'm not that Xtreme). Jay Chou makes a random cameo appearance because he's a producer and because he can.
Most of the movie is very competent and okay. Makes me want to go running (a regular mile, not the Silk Road). But the ending is like it was written by a crazy monkey (the writer of all bad scripts, IMO).
To "inspire" the "good" brother to run the Silk Road, Megan Lai pretends to be dead. Therefore, the "good" brother goes off to run. While in the desert, he gets attacked by a Bad CGI Wolf. But while running away from Bad CGI Wolf, he hears a gunshot and goes back to find the Bad CGI Wolf injured. Despite his fear, the "good" brother ties up the Bad CGI Wolf's injuries before continuing on his run, where he happens across a camp in the middle of nowhere. It happens to be the hunter's camp! And he shoot at the "good" brother (whaaaa?)! But thankfully, the Bad CGI Wolf returns to fight alongside the "good" brother against the hunter (okkkay...). They even exchange meaningful looks before the "good" brother continues on his run.
Meanwhile, back in Taiwan, Megan Lai is dying and needs a heart transplant. Her doctor/boyfriend tells Darren Wang that there is a heart available, but based on her frail health, no one wants to risk providing the life-saving transplant (eh, I hope healthcare in Taiwan is a lot better than THAT!). But Darren Wang has an Idea! He forcibly takes Megan Lai out of the hospital and runs to the Drug Kingpin. Drug Kingpin certainly will be able to perform life-saving heart transplant on Megan Lai because he had previously taken out Darren Wang's liver in some sort of back-alley black market organ deal (Geeze, I get Darren Wang's character is supposed to be not-very-bright, but come on!). So for some reason (experimentation?), Drug Kingpin agrees to the heart transplant surgery. Then Darren Wang suit up to prevent...ninjas? drug dealers? cops?...from stopping the surgery. Like, they're just dudes dressed in all black. I had no idea if it's the authority here to take Megan Lai back to her hospital or some sort of drug war. But Darren Wang fights dudes with guns with his bare fists (alrighty, then!).
At the end of it, the Ninja/Drug Dealer/Cop group stop the surgery and it's vague (at least to me) what happens to Megan Lai. Did they at least take her back to the hospital? Did she die on the operating table? Did Drug Kingpin finish the heart transplant? All that's known is that the "good" brother eventually finishes the Silk Road run and thinks he saw Megan Lai at the end. But either she's dead and that's her ghost giving him encouragement, or he's just hallucinating from having ran the Silk Road.
Well, I watched it for Megan Lai so I guess I shouldn't have expected it to be super awesome.
This is one of those movies where we're like, "I'll watch that...but not pay money to watch it." So we did just that and it's actually a very good movie. The story is about fake Leonardo DiCaprio (Dane DeHaan) who had to go to a rich old people resort in northern Europe to convince the CEO of the company to come back and take care of business. While there, he notices strange things happening. In general, it's a very competent movie that builds suspense and reveals things at a good pace. And I guess that's all I can say for it.
Oh gosh, we watch so many movies! But I'm almost done. Honeymoon is once again off the "underrated" "horror" movie list but it's not very scary. Despite being a very short movie, I thought it was very draggy. The story is about a newlywed couple who goes off to a lake house to spend their honeymoon. While there, strange things happen. It's pretty uninteresting to me even though there are good parts to it. I'm not even interested enough to say anything else about it.
The movie wasn't as bad as I imagine it would be, so I'll give it that. But the CGI was video game quality and I really can't fathom that at this point. Shouldn't big blockbusters be able to do better? The main villain shouldn't look like it came out of a video game cut scene. So, I'll not argue about the plot and characters, because I don't know DC characters very well. I'll just say the CGI and CGI fight scenes were confusing to watch.
We went through a list of "underrated" "horror" movies and picked this one. The title pretty much explains the premise. A father/son team had to conduct an autopsy on an unidentified Jane Doe brought in from a crime scene in which everyone died very violently but she didn't have any external injuries. As they conduct the autopsy, strange things happen.
In general, I thought this was one of the best horror movies we've watched in the recent string of horror movie watchings. It doesn't rely too much on things jumping out for a cheap scare. Instead, it builds a good amount of suspense and tension. And more importantly, the father/son characters aren't annoying.
This is a recent Taiwanese horror movie about a spirit/ghost that feeds on people's guilt. I think there are things about the premise that's very promising: people's fear of nature, the idea of feeding on guilt (ie. the main guy's guilt towards his grandmother, the main girl's guilt towards her baby, the grandmother's guilt towards her grandson). It's also (at least for me) somewhat humorous, such as the security guard's over-reliance on using firecrackers to solve all ghostly issues.
But the execution wasn't that great and the main bad parts are the over-reliance on CGI and also copying the Japanese ghost template in how their ghosts look. Still, I thought it's a passably okay entry in Asian horror movies.
On the other hand, I didn't like The Wailing much at all even though it received a lot of positive reviews and, apparently, there's talk of an American remake (of course). The general premise is that strange deaths are occurring in a small village and people become suspicious of a lone Japanese man that had recently moved into town.
Apparently, the story is supposed to have very Christian motifs. I generally found it uninteresting. I actually thought it would have been more interesting if it was a reverse The Hills Have Eyes situation where we're seeing the hunting and killing of an outsider from the point of view of the native inhabitants. There's fear and suspicion of what's new and unknown versus just the native inhabitants being inbred hicks. But I'm very obsessed with things being Hills Have Eyes-y.
Then I went on to watch 10,000 Miles for Megan Lai. The story is a generic story about a "good" brother and a "bad" brother (Darren Wang) who are both on the school's track team. The "good" brother goes on to run a crazy marathon down the Silk Road while the "bad" brother goes on to live a life of crime as a drug runner for a local kingpin. They're eventually reconciled by the end of the movie because that's how these movies work (and also it's allegedly based on a real story...I can't believe people run the Silk Road, but I'm not that Xtreme). Jay Chou makes a random cameo appearance because he's a producer and because he can.
Most of the movie is very competent and okay. Makes me want to go running (a regular mile, not the Silk Road). But the ending is like it was written by a crazy monkey (the writer of all bad scripts, IMO).
To "inspire" the "good" brother to run the Silk Road, Megan Lai pretends to be dead. Therefore, the "good" brother goes off to run. While in the desert, he gets attacked by a Bad CGI Wolf. But while running away from Bad CGI Wolf, he hears a gunshot and goes back to find the Bad CGI Wolf injured. Despite his fear, the "good" brother ties up the Bad CGI Wolf's injuries before continuing on his run, where he happens across a camp in the middle of nowhere. It happens to be the hunter's camp! And he shoot at the "good" brother (whaaaa?)! But thankfully, the Bad CGI Wolf returns to fight alongside the "good" brother against the hunter (okkkay...). They even exchange meaningful looks before the "good" brother continues on his run.
Meanwhile, back in Taiwan, Megan Lai is dying and needs a heart transplant. Her doctor/boyfriend tells Darren Wang that there is a heart available, but based on her frail health, no one wants to risk providing the life-saving transplant (eh, I hope healthcare in Taiwan is a lot better than THAT!). But Darren Wang has an Idea! He forcibly takes Megan Lai out of the hospital and runs to the Drug Kingpin. Drug Kingpin certainly will be able to perform life-saving heart transplant on Megan Lai because he had previously taken out Darren Wang's liver in some sort of back-alley black market organ deal (Geeze, I get Darren Wang's character is supposed to be not-very-bright, but come on!). So for some reason (experimentation?), Drug Kingpin agrees to the heart transplant surgery. Then Darren Wang suit up to prevent...ninjas? drug dealers? cops?...from stopping the surgery. Like, they're just dudes dressed in all black. I had no idea if it's the authority here to take Megan Lai back to her hospital or some sort of drug war. But Darren Wang fights dudes with guns with his bare fists (alrighty, then!).
At the end of it, the Ninja/Drug Dealer/Cop group stop the surgery and it's vague (at least to me) what happens to Megan Lai. Did they at least take her back to the hospital? Did she die on the operating table? Did Drug Kingpin finish the heart transplant? All that's known is that the "good" brother eventually finishes the Silk Road run and thinks he saw Megan Lai at the end. But either she's dead and that's her ghost giving him encouragement, or he's just hallucinating from having ran the Silk Road.
Well, I watched it for Megan Lai so I guess I shouldn't have expected it to be super awesome.
This is one of those movies where we're like, "I'll watch that...but not pay money to watch it." So we did just that and it's actually a very good movie. The story is about fake Leonardo DiCaprio (Dane DeHaan) who had to go to a rich old people resort in northern Europe to convince the CEO of the company to come back and take care of business. While there, he notices strange things happening. In general, it's a very competent movie that builds suspense and reveals things at a good pace. And I guess that's all I can say for it.
Oh gosh, we watch so many movies! But I'm almost done. Honeymoon is once again off the "underrated" "horror" movie list but it's not very scary. Despite being a very short movie, I thought it was very draggy. The story is about a newlywed couple who goes off to a lake house to spend their honeymoon. While there, strange things happen. It's pretty uninteresting to me even though there are good parts to it. I'm not even interested enough to say anything else about it.
The movie wasn't as bad as I imagine it would be, so I'll give it that. But the CGI was video game quality and I really can't fathom that at this point. Shouldn't big blockbusters be able to do better? The main villain shouldn't look like it came out of a video game cut scene. So, I'll not argue about the plot and characters, because I don't know DC characters very well. I'll just say the CGI and CGI fight scenes were confusing to watch.