Troll Hunter: (2010. dir: Andre Ovredal) I bet the more you know about troll-lore, the funnier it is, but it's impressive even to us uninitiated in the annals of trolldom, this "found-footage" mockumentary in which a student film-crew hooks up to travel through Norway with the official government Trollhunter. The trolls sound awesome and look great. The end is disappointing, but not enough to queer the ride. This is not a job for a Christian man, believe me.
the Grudge: (2004. dir: Takashi Shimizu) It's unfair, I know, to watch the English-language version before the original, but it's directed by the same fellow, right? And using gaijin actors there's an added "stranger in a strange land" level of isolation which can only add to the atmosphere of doom, right? It's a haunted house film, but it's got that tricksy Japanese thing where the ghost can follow you anywhere once it gloms onto you. Really this movie is just a series of cheap scares, although that is not to suggest that some of those scares are not very effective. The body count is crazily high, higher than the end of Hamlet, and Hamlet has four hours to build up to it. It's also unclear to me why some of the bodies vanish and others do not. Am I to understand that some have been spirited away to an infernal dimension of torture? It doesn't seem to matter to the filmmakers, as long as they get your adrenaline up and running. Not my favorite entry in Sarah Michelle Gellar's CV, who, since the Buffy salad-days, has had a few very-close-but-no-actual-cigar near-misses for me, namely the Return and Possession, this last an intriguing psychological thriller with an unbearably sexy Lee Pace which only lost me with its fudged ending.
*SPOILER ALERT*
Curse of the Komodo: (2004. dir: Jim Wynorski) Unfair, again, I know, to actually review a movie like this as if it were akin to other, real movies. The image above pretty much sums it up. The komodo is the result, of course, of a military experiment gone awry. The monster is utterly impervious to bullets, but these humans do nothing but shoot at it for two hours. Nobody even tries to justify it with some lame idea like, "Maybe if we get it in the mouth or eyes...?" It's the kind of movie in which the scientist's voluptuous daughter goes out to take a long and entirely gratuitous naked swim in a komodo-infested area. If the komodo slimes you with its saliva, you will sicken and die within hours, but before you die you will become a green-skinned zombie harboring murderous intent towards your fellow humans. (Just a warning.) In the end, the scientist who created it pulls a Sheriff Brody/Quint combo, allowing himself to be crunched while carrying a fistful of high explosive. See it for the naked swimming, if you want to.
2 comments:
Three Movies for you
1. Lonely are the Brave-Kirk Douglas and a man about a horse. Hidalgo has nothing on the Beast-Horse that belongs to Monsieur Douglas. A tale of redemption with a tragic ending, all involving the best equestrian actor ever. And no, he won't help little Timmy if he's fallen down some damn well.
2. War Horse-speaking of Horse latitudes, the movie may bite fart-apples in a water barrel, but the soundtrack is AMAZING (John Williams is on a roll this year as evidenced by # 3)
#. The Adventures of Tin Tin- 2 and 3 are both Spielberg movies, but heck gosh darn it! The soundtracks are AWESOME
Greetings, Mr. Toad. LONELY ARE THE BRAVE I have seen once, and it is indeed a very fine film. Kirk Douglas was great with horses... Did you ever see THE WAR WAGON? The man's an acrobat. And I've always said they should give out Horse Oscars. (What's this equid got against little Timmy, though? You're not suggesting he actually THREW him down the well in the first place...?)
As far as those other movies, as a non-musician, the idea of sitting through a bad film for the sake of a great soundtrack seems highly misguided to me. I already sit through plenty of bad films just to watch the likes of Stephen McHattie, Robert Carlyle, Martin Sheen and the rest of my personal pantheon of actors who keep luring me back against my better judgment.
To be fair, I promise to watch ZABRISKIE POINT or MORE if I ever get the chance, just to wallow in the Floyd.
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