movies

[JackofDiamonds]

Your avatar is a little gruesome.

[The Third Man]

Psh, it's just a mannequin wearing somebody's scalp.

[JackofDiamonds]

Psh, it's just a mannequin wearing somebody's scalp.

Oh, is that all?

[Michael]

Too much for us work folks.

[go birds]

ARMY OF DARKNESS 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jocephus]

[/youtube]

[stlouie_lipp]

OK, that looks funny.

[stlouie_lipp]

Saw The Counselor today. Acting was very good, dialogue was great as was the cadence of the delivery. The visuals were very good too. The story could have been better developed, but the underlying theme was very good. I'm not a fan of every movie being 2 1/2 hours these days, but this one could have used another half hour to develop the story a bit more. Overall...I liked it.

[SHOW]

I like movies where the protagonist doesn't "save the day".

[JL21]

Haven't seen the original, but the 2012 remake of Maniac is pretty rad. I'm always wary of movies with such a prominent gimmick - in this case, having the entire film shot in first-person perspective from the POV of the killer - but it's shockingly effective at pulling this off, with only a few breaks from the style (and the requisite mirror shots of Elijah Wood), mainly because the staging and camerawork are working on such a high-level. It's grimy in a very 80s way (an impression further fostered by the synth-heavy soundtrack and this rad song over the end credits), with very brutal and uncomfortable violence. It's very much a companion piece to something like Peeping Tom (even setting aside what an enormous influence that film has over horror in general and specifically slashers). It's also really no-nonsense, clocking in at 88 minutes and wasting no time at all in establishing its premise or diving headfirst into what a sick bastard the title character is. There are occasional clumsy elements - a couple of niggling plot points that feel less-than-organic, rather generic "sexually-repressed-child-becomes-adult-sicko" pop-psych backstory complete with sometimes goofy flashbacks, et al - but I really dug it on the whole. It's also rather brazen in a good way with nodding to its influences - I had to laugh when "Goodbye Horses" played during an early scene in one of his victims' apartments, and then a couple of minutes later staged a bedroom-ceiling mirror shot straight out of Basic Instinct in the very same scene.

I saw this today, and your assessment is spot on. And "Goodbye Horses" was a great, deliberate nod to Silence of the Lambs.

[The Third Man]

Yay! It's nice to be validated by somebody who knows a hell of a lot more about horror than I do. Have you seen the original? I texted my buddy after watching the remake and wasn't clear on which version I watched, so he replied "Was that exploding head scene awesome or what?"

So, apparently the original has an awesome exploding head scene.