Movies (recently seen)

[Dragavan]

At this point I’m discarding any sort of “realism” that some guy that was deathly ill with cancer managed to have the strength to set up and design all these elaborate traps and also plan several years in advance for everything to be set in motion after he died.

I will give you the years in advance thing, but they haven't gone there yet (and may not). As for the last several years, he has had an apprentice/assistant doing most of his work for him, while he could rest and plan and stuff. It was nice to see the flashes back to her being one doing the dirty work all this time. But she's dead now too, so they have one set-up situation he could have set in motion left for #4, but past that they better do something else or it will get lame and really unbelievable.

[apotheosis]

You don't watch the Saw movies for plot, acting... or anything except gratuitous torture. They are the violent equivalent of pornography, just like hostel. I love every minute of it.

Also, punishment reflecting the crime is always a cool concept. And I love the whole fitness/natural selection aspect of jigsaw's traps. Only the strong survive them.

[Dragavan]

You don't watch the Saw movies for plot, acting... or anything except gratuitous torture. They are the violent equivalent of pornography, just like hostel.

I completely disagree. There are plenty of gore movies out there and I hate most of them. I watch movies like Saw because they are NOT just gore films. They actually have cool plots and stories with great twists and surprises that actually make sense. The cool machines and tests are there for a reason and not just to have gore. They have intelligence behind them and I really appreciate that. If they removed that part and just became pointless gore-fests I would stop watching and enjoying them.

As for Hostel, it has surprisingly little gore in it for what it was advertised as, and the story would have worked just as well if they didn't actually show most of it. Hell, you get through like half the movie before you really even get into any of it and you are already sucked into the story by the time it starts. I have not seen 2 yet, but I did enjoy the first one because of the good writing, directing, and editing they did. It was a well crafted movie that happened to have gore in it as a pivotal part of the plot.

I can say the same thing for Touristas too, but that one had some real pacing problems. Otherwise they did a good job with the suspense and horror.

Now you take something like the new Texas Chainsaw movies or the remakes of The Hills Have Eyes and you have movies that don't have anything going for them other than the shock and gore. The plots are dull and uninteresting and the acting was atrocious. They are just made to have horror and gore, which means I have no interest in seeing more. The same can be said for most Rob Zombie movies too, although I thought he did a great job with the Halloween remake. He actually gave some cool backstory and depth to the story, which worked well with the insane attack scenes.

[End Master]

Oddly his Halloween remake was probably the most hated of his movies. Though actually I liked it better than the original since it delved more into character background, but then I always thought the original Halloween movie was overrated. I thought Rob's 1000 Corpses movie didn't really achieve what he was originally trying to do, but he got there with Devil's Rejects. Though I liked them both.

The first half of Hostel was basically soft porn then the second half was "torture porn", so they had some false advertisement with the commericals. Though my big problem with that movie was that the all the main characters were just really annoying to the point that it actually decreased my enjoyment of the movie. I liked the 2nd one better since it had at least a couple of characters I didn't mind that much.

The Texas Chainsaw remake sucked big time. I didn't even think it had that much shock and gore, if it did I would've been slightly more entertained. TCM the Beginning was better since they went into a little more background of how the family got that way and focused on them a lot more. (Though Leatherface's family from the original first 2 movies were WAY more entertaining and the less said about TCM 3&4 the better)

The Hills have Eyes remake was meh. It doesn't get going until the mutant rape/attack, but then I never really cared for the original to begin with either. The problem with the Hills remake is you had all these cool looking cannibalistic mutants, but you don't really learn anything about them. I would've liked to see more mutant family interaction. Hills 2 SUCKED badly (That goes for the original and the remake)

[End Master]

Okay, it was cool. I’ll retract my naysaying.

They did do a little cheating and are using an excessive amount of twists, but at this point they can at least make a Saw 5 and have it not be completely stupid. They also set this one up in such a way that you’d want to go see the next one due to the unanswered question they left.

[Vesnic]

I'm back from a tabledancing trip to that stain on the American map known as "Little Rhody". Man, I have been to third-world countries with better drinking water than that state.

Oh, and I saw The Darjeeling Limited. Even by Wes Anderson standards, it was completely obnoxious and self-indulgent, trying much too hard to be artsy and deep and symbolic and stylishly edited. That director seems to have a real talent for putting otherwise good actors into their worst roles ever. It was two plus hours of utterly pointless excruciation and by the end, I really wished I could reach my hand through the screen and grab some of that codeine cough syrup or "Opio-Tonic" for myself. Yeah, that movie actually gave me a stomachache.

There was also an incredibly stupid short at the beginning featuring a mostly nude Natalie Portman, which for some of you guys would probably be the film's only real draw.

The award for Most Annoying Cameo Ever goes to Bill Murray, who was seen at the beginning of the movie huffing and puffing along with Adrien Brody to hop on board a moving train. Bill Murray is cool. Sweaty, overweight, out-of-shape, now-you-see-him-now-you-don't Bill Murray is just kind of gratuitous.

[Nappi]

I just finished watching an 'American Gangster' advance screener;I must say Denzel Washington is in top form in this one.It kinda reminded me of the movie 'Blow' with J Depp.Not a whole lotta action but very revealing into the world of Frank Lucas and his brief rise to power in the heroin trade.The supporting cast also delivers a solid presentation headed up by R Crowe.Like I said,its not an action movie but there are some pretty choice scenes if you like seeing people shot in the head.

[End Master]

Seconded for American Gangster. It's a pretty good movie.

There were a couple of characters in it that seemed like they should've been fleshed out a little more, but it wasn't excessively detrimental to the film.

[apotheosis]

I really want to see that, but have no access to an up to date movie theater from college so I will have to wait until thanksgiving unless I pirate (but I really want to see this on the big screen).



Watched Saw IV... it was mediocre. It was like the others for the most part.... no tortures and traps that I found particularly stunning or creative.

[Nappi]

I just watched Saw IV and I am a little confused as to how they did an autopsy on Jigsaw yet at the end of the flick his body is still in the lair.Is this the "unanswered question" Endmaster was eluding to?
I love how they delve into Jigsaw's past as he is 'becoming'.All in all I really liked it,but like Apoth says (except for the chair with the face knives)there wasnt the trademark awesome traps/setups as the previous three movies had.

[End Master]

I just watched Saw IV and I am a little confused as to how they did an autopsy on Jigsaw yet at the end of the flick his body is still in the lair.

Basically Saw 4 really isn’t a sequel or prequel so much is it’s a series of events going on at the same time as Saw 3 (Minus Jigsaw’s flashback scenes) There are only two scenes that really occur after Saw 3’s events, and that’s:

1. Jigsaw’s autopsy at the beginning when they find the tape and the detective comes in.
2. The very end when he’s listening to the tape.

Presumably the cops took Jigsaw’s body out of his lair at some point to get him to the autopsy room though that raises the question of when they exactly did that, since near the end of the movie after the twistfest you see the detective lock the door when he sees the FBI agent standing in the room with Jigsaw’s body, trapping him inside.

I can only assume the detective either did away with the agent shortly after or just waited for the agent to die of starvation/dehydration (Unlikely), then he “found” jigsaw’s body and called it in.

That’s one question; the other would be when Jigsaw managed to indoctrinate the detective in the first place and how he’s going to keep testing him from beyond the grave.

[Nappi]

That’s one question; the other would be when Jigsaw managed to indoctrinate the detective in the first place and how he’s going to keep testing him from beyond the grave.

I figure he was an early recruit considering all the background info and files he has had on his participants.The knowledge of the people in Saw II in particular;you can do background checks on any one,but Jigsaw had what appeared to be actual police records.It makes sense that he would have an inside person on the force.The public might not know about a dirty cop's habit of framing people with planted evidence but other cops might.

[Vesnic]

Does anyone have any thoughts on The Forbidden Zone? (I mean the Elfman cult movie thing, not the shitty softcore Redshoe thing)

[End Master]

Oh yeah, I got that on VHS and on DVD. It's a cool movie.

Listening to the commentary with Richard Elfman and the guy who played "Squeezit" is pretty funny too.

[apotheosis]

Just watched Rocky Balboa (2006). I wasn't expecting much, but it turned out to be pretty decent. At first a thought the entire idea was ludicrous, but after I watched the movie I have to say it was a pretty good way to finish off the series. It would actually make a good family movie believe it or not.