Movie Time

I had time to watch a couple of movies over the weekend. My brother-in-law came over and we watched Following, Christopher (Memento) Nolan's first movie, and Die Hard (my favorite brainless action movie) to show off my sound system. I enjoyed Following, which was a very short, black and white film about double and triple crosses. The twists felt a tad forced, but it was still fun following (nyuk nyuk) the plot. It had a problem a lot of these crime capers have, in that the whole plan seems far too convoluted for what turns out to be a simple mob killing. But it definitely played lots of games with time, and foreshadows his brilliant work in Memento.

Following was a Netflix rental. I've been using Netflix since 2002, although I did stop for about six months when the mailing turn around time became unacceptable. But then they opened a new distribution center in Worcester and now the times are pretty impressive. For instance, I dropped Following in the mail about 1pm Monday, just before collection time, and I got an email yesterday (Tuesday) saying they received it, and now my return film, The Seventh Seal is already winging its way to me. Now that's impressive!

If you are a Netflix member, drop me an email so we can be Friends. With Netflix Friends, you can get recommendations from what others are watching, and see how they are rating films. I've rated 468 films, but a lot of my recent viewing hasn't been rated yet. I've let my movie reviewing blog, The Incredible Brightness of Seeing lag behind lately. I try not to rate them at Netflix until I've written a review for Brightness, and so it lags even further behind.

I have the "Three DVDs Out" Netflix plan, and the DVDs I have out, including the aforementioned The Seventh Seal also include the double feature Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, both the original James Whale productions and Ju-on: The Grudge. I've watched, and thoroughly enjoyed, Frankenstein, and started to watch Bride but ran out of time and haven't been back. Not sure why I have Ju-on, as I'm not much of a horror fan. But I think I got on to it via the Scariest Movies of All Time list I posted a while back, where it came in second to The Thing. Maybe I'll reserve this movie slot for working my way backwards through the list. I can add 28 Days Later... as a movie I've since watched on that list. I do love "apocalyptic" movies, that's for sure.

The top ten in my queue are:

• The Thing From Another World : from the Sci-Fi Movie List, where I've added three movies to the "I've Seen" list (28 Days Later..., On The Beach, and Bride Of Frankenstein (well, soon on that one:-))
• The Sword of Doom : Love samurai movies!
• The Pillow Book : Love Peter Greenaway movies!
• The Great Escape : classic action flick
• Best of Abbott & Costello: Vol. 3: Disc 1 : includes "Meet Frankenstein"
• The Secret of Roan Inish : Love John Sayles movies!
• The Winslow Boy : I'm ambivalent about David Mamet movies. Seems like he tries too hard to be clever sometimes.
• Georgia : Not sure where this movie came from, as sometimes happens when a movie finally bubbles up to the top. I do like Jennifer Jason Leigh.
• Solaris : The Tarkovsky original was a brilliant movie and I'm interested to see what Soderbergh has done to it.
• The Sixth Sense : A mass market thriller I've never seen

Technorati Tags: movies netflix

Yet Another Horror List

In honor the upcoming horror holiday, here's Yet Another list of the 50 Greatest Horror Movies of All Time, this time by the British film magazine, Total Film:

1. THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE1974 : Cutting deep: Tobe Hooper takes horror to the bleeding edge.


2. HALLOWEEN 1978 : Hawks meets Hitchcock as the slasher cycle finds true Shape...


3. SUSPIRIA 1977 : Sighs and whispers (and screams) in Argento’s baroque bloodletter.


4. DAWN OF THE DEAD 1978 : George A Romero’s definitive document of the walking dead.


5. THE SHINING 1980 : Loving family man tries to put an axe through his son’s head.


6. PSYCHO 1960 : Come on up to the house. Oh, and don’t mind Mother...


7. THE WICKER MAN 1973 : Creeping pagan terror on a remote Scottish island.


8. ROSEMARY’S BABY 1968 : The horny Devil hits home and hearth...


9. DON’T LOOK NOW 1973 : Nicolas Roeg’s clammy elegy to love and loss.


10. CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST 1980 : Horror doesn’t get any harsher than this.


11. THE THING 1982 : Snatched bodies and reheated Cold War paranoia.


12. CARRIE 1976 : Memo to all bullies – Stop. Picking. On. The. Quiet. Ones.


13. THE EXORCIST 1973 : The Devil rides into the mother of all religio-horrors.


14. THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT 1999 : If you go down to the woods today... take a camcorder.


15. WITCHFINDER GENERAL 1968 : Lyrical English landscapes are painted red with torture.


16. THE HAUNTING 1963 : You are invited to a born-bad house. Bring your own ghosts.


17. THE EVIL DEAD 1981 : Five go bloody in the woods in Raimi’s splatter-punk debut.


18. PEEPING TOM 1960 : Cameraman fi lms as he kills. Such a nice young man...


19. ALIEN 1979 : The ultimate hack’n’slash bad-boy monster.


20. BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN 1935 : Karloff’s monster lumbers towards matrimony.


21. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 1968 : A bunch of amateurs stake out a home in horror history.


22. CURSE OF THE CAT PEOPLE 1944 : A haunting, shivery study of childhood loneliness.


23. SWITCHBLADE ROMANCE 2003 : Modern horror grows some bloody big balls.


24. A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 1984 : Horny teens get fingered by the son of a thousand maniacs.


25. AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON 1981 : More than just a shaggy dog story.


26. NIGHT OF THE DEMON 1957 : Cat People helmer brings that ol’ black magic to Blighty.


27. HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER 1986 : String vests and death by screwdriver.


28. BAY OF BLOOD 1971 : Everyone kills everyone else in once-banned video nasty.


29. AUDITION 1999 : A woman’s revenge, served with relish by Takashi Miike.


30. SHIVERS 1975 : Zombies run riot in an early slab of Cronenberg meat.


31. THE INNOCENTS 1961 : Subtle scares in Henry James’ clammy ghost tale.


32. THE DEVIL RIDES OUT 1968 : It’s Christopher Lee versus soul-stealing Satanists!


33. LES DIABOLIQUES 1955 : Murderous schemes in a French boarding school.


34. DEAD RINGERS 1988 : Love, addiction, separation. Nausea guaranteed.


35. INFERNO 1980 : Blood and thunder in Argento’s frenzied trip of the brain.


36. MARTIN 1977 : Growing pains for bloodsucking teen sociopath.


37. THE HOWLING 1981 : A tongue-in-cheek werewolf pic that likes its meat rare.


38. VAMPYR 1932 : Gather, darkness: a vampire film like no other.


39. CANDYMAN 1992 : Dare you to look in the mirror and say his name five times! No? Thought not...


40. THE PLAGUE OF THE ZOMBIES 1966 : City quack investigates dying country bumpkins.


41. SCREAM 1996 : Wes Craven rewrites the slasher textbook.


42. TARGETS 1968 : Trad horror confronts modern terror in Bogdanovich’s debut.


43. THE SECT 1991 : Infernal pits, Devil-worship and the son of Satan!


44. THE DESCENT 2005 : Six chicks with picks. Be afraid, be very afraid.


45. BRAINDEAD 1992 : Quite possibly the bloodiest movie ever made.


46. HOUR OF THE WOLF 1968 : Father Merrin must exorcise a few demons of his own.


47. ERASERHEAD 1977 : David Lynch presents an argument for sterilisation.


48. NEKROMANTIK 1987 : Dead and loving it in a truly sick flick.


49. THE BEYOND 1981 : Director Lucio Fulci goes to Hell and back.


50. HELLRAISER 1987 : Demonically kinky splatter-smut in Clive Barker’s deviant debut.

Total Film - Shock Horror!

Technorati Tags: horrormovies horror 50greatest

Scariest Movies of all time

Speaking of movie lists, Boston.com put together their list of the scariest movies of all time. Now, I'm even less of a "horror" film fanatic than I am a sci-fi film kinda guy, so let's see how I do here:

50. "Arachnophobia" (1990)
49. "The Innocents" (1961)
48. "The Other" (1972)
47. "Freaks" (1932)
46. "Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2" (2000)
45. "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971)
44. "The Wicker Man" (1973)
43. "The Blob" (1988)
42. "28 Days Later" (2002)
41. "Ghost Story" (1981)
40. "Rosemary"s Baby" (1968)
39. "The Brood" (1979)
38. "Eraserhead" (1977)
37. "Amityville Horror" (1978)
36. "The Devil"s Backbone" (2001)
35. "Jeepers Creepers" (2001)
34. "Pet Sematary" (1989)
33. "Open Water" (2003)
32. "Nightmare on Elm Street" (1984
31. "The Fly" (1986)
30. "Salem"s Lot" (1979)
29. "Gates of Hell" (1980)
28. "Altered States" (1980)
27. "Session 9" (2001)
26. "Scream" (1996)
25. "Mothman Prophecies" (2002)
24. "Videodrome" (1983)
23. "Seven" (1995)
22. "War of the Worlds" (1953)
21. "Saw" (2004)
20. "Event Horizon" (1997)
19. "Janghwa, Hongryeon (A Tale of Two Sisters)" (2003)
18. "The Silence of the Lambs" (1991)
17. "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974)
16. "Hellraiser" (1987)
15. "The Changeling" (1980)
14. "Jacob"s Ladder" (1990)
13. "In the Mouth of Madness" (1994)
12. "Jaws" (1975)
11. "The Exorcist" (1973)
10. "Quartermass and the Pit" (1968)
9. "The Shining" (1980)
8. "Halloween" (1978)
7. "Evil Dead II" (1987)
6. "Dawn of the Dead" (1978)
5. "Alien" (1979)
4. "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1978)
3. "The Ring" (2002)
2. "Ju-on" (2000)
1. "The Thing" (1982)

Not bad, and yes, I was wondering where "The Thing" was going to show up. Some interesting movies I'll have to give a try to.

Top 50 scariest horror movies of all time - Halloween movies - Boston.com

Technorati Tags: 50scarymovies movies

Sci-Fi Movie list

John Scalzi, author of The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies has a list (of course!) of the 50 most "influential" science fiction movies of all time. Now, I no longer consider myself a card-carrying member of the science fiction fan club, either in book or movie form, but I am a movie geek (see my movie / home theater weblog here), so I've seen plenty of these. I'll put them in bold:

• The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension!
• Akira
• Alien
• Aliens
• Alphaville
• Back to the Future
• Blade Runner
• Brazil
• Bride of Frankenstein
• Brother From Another Planet
• A Clockwork Orange
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Contact
• The Damned
• Destination Moon
• The Day The Earth Stood Still
• Delicatessen
• Escape From New York
• ET: The Extraterrestrial
• Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers (serial)
• The Fly (1985 version)
• Forbidden Planet
• Ghost in the Shell
• Gojira/Godzilla
• The Incredibles
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 version)
• Jurassic Park
• Mad Max 2/The Road Warrior
• The Matrix
• Metropolis
• On the Beach
• Planet of the Apes (1968 version)
• Robocop
• Sleeper
• Solaris (1972 version)
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope
• Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
• The Stepford Wives
• Superman
• Terminator 2: Judgement Day
• The Thing From Another World
• Things to Come
• Tron
• 12 Monkeys
• 28 Days Later
• 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• La Voyage Dans la Lune
• War of the Worlds (1953 version)

Not too bad, and a couple movies I'll have to add to my Netflix queue (by the way, if you have a Netflix account, feel free to add me to your Friends list). Mind you, several of the movies I've not marked as "Watched", I've seen bits and pieces of, including Buckaroo Banzai, whose ommission might require that I turn in my nerd membership card! I'm also pretty sure I've seen Bride of Frankenstein, another ommission that might make some question my true geekdom!

I was disappointed that T2 and not the original Terminator made the list. I'm not sure I'm interested enough in the subject to buy the book, although I am a real sucker for movie books.

I have to get back to watching more movies. As you can see from my movie blog, I've haven't been watching too many lately. Too busy, which makes me too tired to even watch a movie.

The Rough Guide to Sci-Fi Movies -- Officially Out!

Technorati Tags: scifimovies scalzi movies