Rate the last movie you watched.

@frostyryan: Unfortunately that was the opening night film, and I missed it since I wasn't there at that time. I've heard mostly positive things from others at the fest, so I'm excited to catch it when it release wide next month.

Final day at Fantastic Fest:

SHADOW (2018) - 4/5 - I haven't seen THE GREAT WALL, but it's probably safe to say this is Zhang Yimou's triumphant return to the wuxia genre that he helped introduce to the West along with Ang Lee... or is it? The first 2/3 of the film is pretty much a historical drama with a healthy dose of political intrigue. But once you get to the last act, swords and umbrellas(?!) start clashing in a typically glorious fashion that you're used to seeing from Zhang. The look of the film is amazing -- the muted black and white (and grey) colors, the beautiful costume design, and the impeccable production design. Again, not at all unexpected if you've seen HERO and THE HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS. Welcome back, Mr. Zhang.

BURNING (2018) - 4/5 - I'm sure there are many layers to this movie that I'm currently struggling to comprehend; all I know is, I liked it. A lot. I need another viewing or two before I can form a more coherent thought on this. Also, this is Steven Yeun's best role and performance.

Avengers: Infinity War

4/5

I liked it, I even liked that they gave the antagonist (Thanos) a believe conception of WHY he was doing what he was doing. Was Thanos' plan logical....? No, but it doesn't matter! It had an inner logic to him the audiences could see, which is a big step forward for these movies in general. Its sad to say that despite how good the MCU are, most of the enemies up until now have had ZERO motivation that was even explained....not even "These were my orders..." So, I liked this movie. It was a big and very unwieldy story to tell, but its was told very well for what its had to do.

I think the only problem I really had with this movies is that Scarlet Witch does not really look like a Scarlet Witch. I think they actress is fine, Olsen does a nice job, but her costume was TOO understated. Even a toned down red-leather costume would have been better than that JC Penny "mom jeans and a jacket". Personally, I could have used a bit more Karen Gillan (Nebula), but like her and Tony will be stuck with each other in Infinity War 2...nice.

But, folks, this is the end of an era with the key actors. Two more movies with some of them...they some sort of "alternate universe" or "alternative timeline" will likely occur where the thing that is changed is who plays a role. So these won't be reboots, they will be Dr Strange-like "here is the new reality" events - JMO.

Heredity

This year’s Get Out. It’s a good movie that left me puzzled by it being declared a horror movie without featuring any horror or scares.

Get Out struck me as great social commentary, and maybe a black comedy or satire using horror framework (without the scares) to tell a story. It also wussed out on the ending. I knew something was wrong there, and found the original online after watching it. It’s a shame they changed it, as I found the original ending far more impactful.

Hereditary was closer to horror, but was almost more of a character study dealing with mental illness, grief, and mourning. I liked it, but was never once scared by it. Very well shot, very well made, and the lead was great. I’d actually watch it again in UHD, as I enjoyed the use of light, shadow, and color quite a bit in the 1080p-ish stream I watched. I bet it looks stunning.

I'm late to the party on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom but allow me to throw in that this movie is incredibly lazy, brazenly stupid and indefensibly dull. Much like the previous World movie it cynically tries to live off your affection for the one good Jurassic Park movie that has ever been made. At its best it has one memorable shot of an abandoned dinosaur at rapidly burning dock. At its worst, this film would be laughably bad if there was any charm to be found in this soulless waste of time.

These films are just part of a different horror tradition, I think - stuff like Don't Look Now, The Wicker Man, maybe even The Omen to some extent - which deals more with strangeness than scariness.

@thomasnash: I agree. I missed most of the run of torture porn stuff that was going around, which always seemed a little lowest common denominator...though the first Saw was good.

I’ve been meaning to catch A Girl Walks Alone At Night and The Babadook.

As for Hereditary, I don’t watch TV or absorb many ads. But I saw a bunch of SCARIEST MOVIE EVER marketing and articles.

Esquire ran an article that I saw after watching the movie that had choice cuts like:

“IT’S NOT A QUESTION OF QUALITY WHEN RECOMMENDING HEREDITARY TO A FRIEND—IT FEELS MORE LIKE A QUESTION OF MORALITY.”

and

“The last hour of the movie, a hellish onslaught of the senses, had audience members in the comfy suburban Queens AMC multiplex where I saw the film screaming in shock, with some folks rushing out of the emergency exit in a trail of popcorn and panic, yelling “fuck this!” as the door slammed behind them.”

Very good movie, but those quotes are nonsense.

HOLD THE DARK (2018) - 3/5 - Bit of a let down after the one-two punch of BLUE RUIN and GREEN ROOM. The pacing drags at times, exacerbated by unclear character motivations, which is especially frustrating because these issues weren't present for Jeremy Saulnier's previous two films. It's probably due to him not writing this, which is odd because he has written everything else he directed. There are few good moments like the standout shootout scene, but this will be disappointing to most fans of his previous work. Still, I consider a disappointing Saulnier film to be better than most average fare.

Mandy does not disappoint and the the hype from first trailer was real. Its like and LSD trip revenge story with Heavy Metal (the magazine/movie). This is the type of the movie I would like to make if I had talent and money.

Also saw Mandy.

I liked it a lot but it had some pacing issues, it took an hour get going and when it seemed like it finally got going and crazy the pacing slowed down again. Movie could have been half an hour shorter and it would have been fine, cut down the beginning a bit and make the action parts a bit more action packed and exciting and it would have been perfect.

Hereditary (2018)
2.5 / 5

The movie was fine, yet it was no where near as shocking or creepy as people were letting on. I think the biggest things was on the DVD the director was saying "You can read it too ways: that witch stuff is happening or its all in that mother's and son's head. But, not they edited the movie to read more like it was happening and not a hallucination of the son's part that reading the "heredity" as mental illness just get pushed too far down as a real possibility. (As a side note I like Toni Collette, but I often dislike intensely the characters she plays...except Muriel's Wedding (1994) . where she is the hero and lovable. The mother was they type of artist I run across too often...not a type I can tolorate for long. ) I wish they had given Milly Shapiro (Charlie) a more meaty role, she is a super talent, and I think we needed at least a few more scenes with her. Its a rough role because she is supposed to be withdrawn so how do you giver her more to chew on? I expect really great performances from her in other movies.

Young Frankenstein -3/5

Well, it's Shocktober, so it's time to watch some spoooky movies! Well, in this case, spooky-adjacent. Anyway, it was a nice bit of goofy fun, with a handful of standout moments.

Also, fun fact: the time between this movie's release and now is longer than the time between the 1931 Frankenstein movie's release and this movie's release.

x-men (2000)

3/5

The action scenes don't hold up that well. I remember liking it more, but still an ok time.

I've rewatched both Ghostbusters movies this weekend and I'm going to make a controversial statement: In my humble opinion, Ghostbusters 2 is better than 1. Why do I think this? Because it has more jokes, more ghosts and more shenanigans happening. Everything the first movie has, the second one doubles down on it. Sure the pink goo thing is stupid and the statue of liberty scene is not good, but I love the new things so much: Venkman's show in the beginning, the side-villain Janosz Poha, Egon's sense of humor (Do, Ray, Egoooon), the variety of ghosts, the judge,... don't get me wrong. I still think the first movie is great. But I think the second one endure the test of time a little bit better.

Mission Impossible 2. I loved MI1 back in the day and I loved MI2 the one time I saw it theaters and I just bought the recent 4k collection of MI1-5 as I've never seen an MI movie post MI2 so I would like to rectify that. Anyway, in a lot of ways MI2 feels like the template to a lot of modern action movies. Probably my main complaints with MI2 is that the CG hasn't aged well (thankfully there isn't a ton of obvious CG moments) and it's at least 30 minutes longer than it needs to be. There's no reason for that film to be a solid 2 hours long as it doesn't justify that length at all. Other than that, it's dumb but if you can get past that it's a lot of fun. Something that was amazing in the commentary: hearing John Woo claim that Tom Cruise and Anthony Hopkins wanted to work with him because they were big Face/Off fans.

I can't agree 100%, but one point where Ghostbusters 2 tops Ghostbusters for me is that Ernie Hudson is in the whole movie (except the courtroom scene which is a bummer).

No Country for Old Men

It turns out that movie is pretty good. 5/5

JUSTICE LEAGUE (2017) - 3/5 - Honestly it's better than I expected, but I did have really low expectations. It helps that the movie is not a total grimdark mess like BATMAN V. SUPERMAN. They make jokes! There's banter! "See, we can have fun too!" you can almost hear the WB executives say. Bringing in new characters also helped a lot -- Flash, Cyborg, and Aquaman were much more interesting to me than Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman. Speaking of Batman, Ben Affleck is pretty bad in this. Now I'm kinda glad he probably won't be returning to the role. Not a hater, I just think he's a better director than actor these days.

Fast and Furious 6 | 3 out of 5 stars

I almost gave it a two! It wasnt bad per se but equally some of the stunts were simply unrealistic. I get it has a fantasy setting of sorts but I prefer my real world settings with likely real world stunts.

To me was too much same as 4? Was it 4...sheesh no idea. The Rock’s character keeps playing the “good” guy and walking off to play cop - surely should just embrace it now and join The Crew (no not the game ?).

Seven is next on list...

Hotel Rwanda - 3/5

I really wish I liked it a lot more than I did. I appreciate that the movie exists, and it certainly has its share of powerful moments; but let's face it, it's hard to not compare it to Schindler's List (and Schindler's List is a very good movie).

Halloween 3: Season of The Witch - 2/5

Remember it being pretty bad when i first saw it years ago on VHS. I have grown a lot since then so thought i might watch it again. I was hoping that would maybe see something in it that I didn't back then, but no. It's still not a very good movie.

And if i ever hear the Silver Shamrock theme again it will be too soon.

Hereditary- 4/5. This was great up until the very last 5 or so minutes.

If in the right frame of mind, its a film that could do a number on you. Really loved the sound design and use of sub frequencies to make you feel physically uncomfortable.

Upgrade - 4.5/5. This was a fucking awesome movie, and for some reason - completely off my radar. And they managed to nail that ending!

Always the mark of a great film when 90 minutes feels like half that time.

Cargo - 3/5

Another shocktober movie. I enjoyed it enough. It was definitely above average, but not exactly something that really stood out to me much. Some nice outback scenery though.

So, I just watched Bad Match, and was surprised that it was actually pretty clever. Not quite a horror movie, unless you consider modern dating to be horror.

Tinder meetup results in sex then ghosting, followed by a suicide attempt and criminal charges.

The Ritual - 4/5

An enjoyable supernatural horror movie, it reminded me a bit of The Blair Witch Project, kinda.

Friday the 13th, the original from 1980.

I always wrote this movie off because there's no Jason and the staples of the series hadn't really been established yet, but rewatching it was a lot of fun, I hadn't seen it in years and I was pleasantly surprised. 7/10.

House (1977) - 2/5

In a way, I appreciate its brand of wackiness, but also, it was just kinda...not...good. By around 2/3rds through, I felt like I pretty much had my fill of the movie...(of course, I did still watch until the end though...)

@meierthered: I liked the movie when I was a kid but I rewatched it a couple weeks ago and it was pretty damn bad. I don't understand why they made the main character a weird womanizing weirdo.

Rright! that really stuck with me as well. At first i thought they set him up like a nice guy, and then suddenly he is just all over the lady.

Upgrade(2018) - 3/5

I like the world built around the story and the concept behind the movie. I personally wished it had finished with a stronger third act.

Mean Streets (1973), 9/10

inspiring and full of joy

Venom 2/5

Went in with low expectations and was still disappointed

@dbones80: Just watched Hold the Dark.. I can honestly say I have no idea wtf it was about. I can't remember the last time a movie left me feeling completely lost. Assuming you understood it, could you maybe briefly summarize the underlying story for me? lol

Had no idea this was the same person who did Green Room.

I really liked Operation Finale. The acting was great, and the story is really compelling.

Ant Man and Wasp- The jokes were good, but the villain was average. Weak origin story and she did not challenge the heroes at all. The movie felt like who can hold on to the Vault the longest wins.

Just saw 'The Big Sick' with Kumail Nanjiani. It was surprised how much I liked it. I usually cringe at 'Dramedies' but this is now one of my favorite movies.

I just saw The Sisters Brothers. I thought it was hilarious in its own dark way.

Plains, Trains and Automobiles is still a masterpiece.

Felling sick, not being able to sleep, this movie at 4.30 AM was just what the doctor ordered last night.

John Candy is just so good in this.

Johnny English Strikes Again - 2/5

My family all saw the first one together well over a decade ago. They were some good times and great memories. I went to see this one with my brother and parents. Nostalgia aside, I had fun with this but it was a bad movie.

I think this article may be helpful.

EIGHTH GRADE (2018) - 5/5 - The scariest movie of the year. The horrors of being in middle school, the most awkward years of anyone's life. The horrors of all your insecurities and anxieties being amplified by social media. The horrors of raising a teenage daughter as a single father. All of this is portrayed so genuinely that it would be impossible for anyone to watch this without cringing. "The horror... the horror..."

Eraserhead 3/5

Hello, normal humans. Do you like normal human movies? Well, then this movie is for you!

Hellraiser 4/5

The costumes/make-up were great. The rest of the special effects, not so much. Regardless, I ended up really enjoying the movie. It was surprisingly much better than I expected.

I've watched a couple great ones recently

Roadhouse: This was a rewatch and I had absolutely forgotten how cheesy and amazing it is. Swayze at his Swayziest, also why get Keith David and give him one line?

Geostorm: Terrible, awful, bad from start to finish, wouldn't recommend it to anyone, and I really enjoyed it. Gerard Butler should earn some razzie nominations for this trash. Perfect booze and buddies movie.

Finally got around to The Conjuring and I was a little let down, but that's mostly due to the level of hype I'd gotten going in. It's a solid distillation of previous ghost movies, but didn't leave much of an impression.

@j-mack: I think the second one is much better. Scarier and more good character stuff with Ed and Lorraine

Hellbound: Hellraiser II 3/5

Like the previous movie, there's some good gory special effects. But, as a whole, I just didn't find this movie nearly as engaging as the first one.