board77

Let me preface this by saying that my brother always rents a whole lot of movies and tv shows from the library because they are free, and sometimes I watch a bunch of them when I have nothing better to do.

First, I watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. I loved the style and the fantastic element. The overall story wasn't too terrible either, but the movie relied too much on 30s cliches. While I know that was the point, it left a bad taste in my mouth (as most dvds do since they are not edible). I didn't think the cliches helped the movie at all, except to get it to the end. Sometimes I think people make movies (like comic book movies), and don't change much to stay true to the original, but in today's movie world, we need something that goes beyond the original. If I wanted to watch the original, I would.

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The next movie I watched later in the day was The Grudge, just because I had never seen it before. What smilies can I use to accurately represent my thoughts and feelings about this movie...

First came
Then
And finally by the end

I was very disappointed, much like when I watched The Ring. I was quite unsure how the curse was actually killing people aside from howling like cat, or making the sound of a settling house. Maybe in Japan those sounds are murderous, but not to my knowledge here in New York. I also didn't understand why the old woman didn't die right away, but yet her son and his wife did. The old woman knew the curse was there, and I'm sure the curse knew she was, too. Overall it wasn't very scary, and actually left me quite in a rage myself.

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The last movie I watched in my day of movies was Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, which I've seen before, but it is an excellent movie. I have no annoyances with this movie. It is just awesome.

What, if any, movies did anyone else watch in perhaps a day filled with random movies?

Well, about a month ago I started watching 2 movies every Friday night with my folks to break up the monotony for my mom who cares for my dad all week long (Alzheimer's). We invite someone over, and it's a bit of fun depending who shows up and what we drink.

So far: 2 weeks ago we watched "Phantom of the Opera" (the musical). I give it a yucky two stars. I really liked the atmosphere as far as the sets and costumes, but that's about it. I'm not into musicals too much myself which is why I never saw the play either. I suppose if you were some kind of ALW freak you'd love it or something. There was a lot of singing dialogue around the house for about the next hour.... .. The second movie we watched that night was "Notebook." A tear jerker, given our situation. A nice mushy, middle of the road flick very suitable for my folks. But, personally, I don't see why the girl in the flick would ever date the "poor" guy in the first place since he totally turned me off on their first date after about 3 minutes, but, hey, what do I know -- I'm still single.

Last week: "A New Leaf" with Walter Matthau, whom I adore. The movie wasn't quite as uproarious (sp?) as I remember from seeing it 15-20 years ago, but all in all, but times change, and it was still pretty good. There are a lot of little things in that movie that are pretty amusing, IMHO. Plus, there's something just so darn likeable about Walter M. Second feature that night: My mom wanted to watch the "Phantom of the Opera" with Claude Raines which she said she liked much better than the musical. I'll still go with Lon Chaney, thanks.

Before that I made them watch my copy of "Beauty and the Beast" from Jean Cocteau that I absolutely LOVE (the bit with the candelabras and faces in the fireplace will always be magical) and "Bend it Like Beckham" which was a great little flick.

Talk about eclectic!! I've got no clue about tonight.


TED: Never saw "Fear and Loathing." I have a feeling that it's something I'll have to catch on my own and not with two 70-somethings in the room.... I didn't see "The Grudge" but I saw the American version of "The Ring." It was okay, but a bit hodge-podge. There were parts that frightened me, but it never tied together too well. I always have wondered how the book version of it is.

As my friend just said to me: Japanese horror movies are more psychological than they are logical. And I couldn't agree more. Seriously, don't see the Grudge. It isn't worth the 91 minutes it takes to watch it.

Fear and Loathing is a drug-bender... so, I don't two 70-somethings would enjoy it to much. It's about Hunter S. Thompson's trip to Las Vegas in '71 to cover the desert race.

I've never understood the general disdain of The Grudge. It's far scarier than The Ring and really is one of the better recent horror flicks.

My disdain comes from a couple of logical issues.

Why wasn't the old woman killed early on? Why did the curse go through Yoko, the wife, the husband, the sister, Karen... and then possibly the old woman...

The movie just seemed like it tried too hard for my tastes.

Didn't take me out of it at all. I was emotionally invested enough to not have noticed.

To each our own.

TheEllipticalDisillusion wrote:

To each our own.

No, I'm right! Everyone else is wrong!

(Unless they agree with me!)

I just caught the Grudge on HBO and boy do I wish I'd remembered this thread before I started. What a dud! I thought the Ring was pretty scary but this was just ... not.

For the most part it relied on the time-worn horror cliche of Something Jumping Out at the characters. And there was usually a long lead in of the character creeping along looking over their shoulder so that even the potential of being taken by surprise when Something Jumped Out was lost.

And the characters ... what a bunch of Gothic novel heroines they were. Um ... DON'T GO IN THE CRAWLSPACE! The detective in particular had no excuse - he had just explained the whole concept of the evil taint on the house to the Gellar chick and then he goes to the house and is fooled into thinking the little boy is real?! Um, no.

The structure of the flashbacks was also awkward and detracted rather than built suspense, imo. The exception was the last one where Sarah Gellar was actually in Bill Pullman's flashback - that was kind of cool.

There were a few cool creepy shots like the kid appearing on each floor outside the elevator - closer and closer - as the sister went up to her apartment.

Overall I just felt there was no suspense. I was only mildly interested in finding out what the deal was with the creepy little boy so I watched til the end. Yawn.

(I wasn't really bothered about the old woman though. She did die on the same night as the sister - the phone message came in from the sister while Gellar was there and then the old woman died later that evening. The husband and wife only died the day before. I figured that the old woman's dementia and constant sleeping accounted for the fact that the curse took longer to take hold.)

The part with the chief and the boy was just dumb. He knows about the curse and most normal people planning arson wouldn't take heed to the boy who (since they know about the curse) they would know he's not real.

I really didn't like the "investigation" into how the boy and woman died. It was simple. At least in the Ring, you could have fun trying to link the video to the girl's death.

Fear & Loathing is one of the best movies I have seen, period.

Depp and Del Toro are both amazingly funny in their roles