No, I hadn't heard of it either ( Read more... )

Look, there's no point in getting all technical about this. I had a lot of fun. Watching this at home, propped comfortably on my couch, undistracted by idiots in the theater, gabbing about it as I watched with friends, I oohed and ahhed, enjoyed the zooms and bangs and everything, and very much enjoyed John Turturro's struggle to beat the benchmark ( Read more... )

I've been hearing ever since this came out about how great it was, from folks whose judgment I generally trust. It rose to the top of my Netflix queue and, well, they're right ( Read more... )

If you like monster movies, you probably have times when you want something that's just plain reliable: a group of people get together someplace interesting and/or do something interesting, run into a monster, most get eaten, one or a few get away, and maybe there's a twist at the end. It's desirable that no element in this mix be actively bad, and ( Read more... )

Wow. This is one of the just plain most beautiful movies I've seen in ages. The trailer shows you what's up: it's an sf noir story rotoscoped from live action into animation and processed into nearly pure black and white. It could easily have gotten harsh in 1h 45m, but it stays fresh, and repeatedly dazzling ( Read more... )

So is there anything left to do of any particular interest with Romero's mythos of the living dead? And is there anything left to do that's worth bothering with when it comes to mock-verite film making? Yup. This is not a great movie, but it is a good one with some outstanding moments, and I'm glad I saw it ( Read more... )

This was unquestionably the highlight of my day offline, my first time using Rifftrax. Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and sundry others write commentary, and Mike delivers it, in files you download to play in sync with your DVD. Or, in my case, you snag the thing from a Bit Torrent site with the extra sound embedded, laugh yourself hoarse, and go to ( Read more... )

There's something I meant to touch on and forgot to, that both Hostel and the much weaker Hostel II do exactly right: they avoid exposition. One of the temptations for anyone making a story about people doing humane things is lecturing, to explain (hopefully at a dramatically suitable point) just how the principle of human evil is made manifest in ( Read more... )

I'm not often tempted to lock comments. I am tempted this time around, simply because I know from watching others' experience that any effort to look soberly at what Eli Roth has done with Hostel is likely to become a fight over things other than the film. Make me proud, please ( Read more... )

Every so often there's a movie adaptation that utterly captures the spirit of the work it's based on, thoroughly makes use of the film medium it's in now, and just plain works. L.A. Confidential was one of those, maybe the paragon of the field for recent times. A Simple Plan is another.

I've commented on the book over in my 100 books thread, and ( Read more... )