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[Il Palazzo]

+1 for Take Shelter. I wouldn't classify it as a horror, though. More unsettling than scary.

[Kagus]

+1 for Take Shelter. I wouldn't classify it as a horror, though. More unsettling than scary.

Oh definitely, but it's certainly creepy and a bit of a slow burn, so I felt it was worth mentioning... Also just generally worth watching.

I suppose one could also watch Nosferatu if you want some more juice in the creep-o-meter. I haven't seen the one from 1922, but I feel that Herr Kinski does a pretty good job of being unsettling and repugnant anyways.


In other news, just got finished watching Pop Culture: The Movie (better known as Ready Player One). I... Dunno. I was a little disappointed that they went through a "let's show off heavy weapons" scene without referencing the BFG, and then there was that issue with the rest of the movie existing.

I can also understand why they did it, but I kinda felt like the representation of Samantha's birthmark was kind of a cop-out... Like, that's probably the most attractive and least obvious defect they could've put on someone. I'm reminded of the first Deadpool movie with everyone going on about how sickeningly horrible he looked, when... It really wasn't that bad, all things considered.

And this is probably more a gripe with the source material (which I must admit to not having read), but I kinda wanted to see more of I-Rok... I feel like his character arc was left hanging a bit, and now I'll just have to imagine him being some tween snooping around the Pay-To-Win store with his mother's credit card.

[Jopax]

IIRC I-Rok wasn't even in the books, or was not particularly featured. The movie is a fun enough waste of a couple of hours with little substance behind it. Another issue I found is how much it accelarated the whole plot, which makes the whole romance thing feel extremely forced and slightly creepy (to be fair it was slightly creepy in the book as well). In the book, the whole thing happens in a span of over a year I think and there's lots more shit that happens between the main whatshisface and the chick. Plus there it's kinda clearer that the birthmark thing isn't so much an issue of how bad it looks but of how bad she percieves it to be. The whole teenagers with body issues and self acceptance trope.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

By the way, if there are any Nick Cage fans here Mandy is awesome. VERY slow burn though, just be warned.

[Loud Whispers]

By the way, if there are any Nick Cage fans here Mandy is awesome. VERY slow burn though, just be warned.

Definitely recommend. It's too good

Along with the Gods: The last 49 days, is also absolutely spectacular. Korean film about a team of grim reapers acting as the defence lawyer for a virtuous soul undergoing the trials of hell, but there are never-ending twists which blow you the fuck out

[Yoink]

Along with the Gods: The last 49 days, is also absolutely spectacular. Korean film about a team of grim reapers acting as the defence lawyer for a virtuous soul undergoing the trials of hell, but there are never-ending twists which blow you the fuck out

Sounds interesting, but it appears to be quite commercially successful? Is it still reasonably horrifying? I've come to expect at least a certain level of shock and horror from Korean films.

[Il Palazzo]

The Breadwinner.
It is fantastic. It's from the same animation studio that made Secret of Kells and was about as effective at making my manly tears flow like rivers.

[Loud Whispers]

Sounds interesting, but it appears to be quite commercially successful? Is it still reasonably horrifying? I've come to expect at least a certain level of shock and horror from Korean films.

For more context, Along with the Gods: The Last 49 Days is the sequel to Along with the Gods: The Two Worlds. The plot is a direct continuation of the first one, but functions on its own as its own self-contained story which is imo the absolute perfect state of a sequel. If you're going to watch just one of the two, watch the Last 49 Days.

The Two Worlds is a competent execution of a great concept, The Last 49 Days however is a flawless execution of a great concept with a fantastic plot & character development. Both are definitely more in line with Korean drama than a Korean horror, though I'd say they're both in the epic genre more than anything - bit like a Korean version of Dante's divine comedy.

Without spoiling everything which makes The Last 49 Days so good (I highly recommend not reading the plot synopsis if you intend to watch it):

-The setting is just wonderful. It jumps between rundown Korean council apartments about to be demolitioned into the various zones of hell, which look appropriately like hell.
-Thematically it is all about betrayal, penitence, forgiveness, murder and injustice - yet the tone is a surprising mix of serious moments and bloody dark, bloody good comedy which I did not at all expect.
-Rather than a horror film, I would compare the franchise to any film about extraordinary legal battles. If you ignored the gnarly visuals of burning souls trying to climb atop a pillar to escape the flames or a gigantic soul devouring carp covered in screaming faces it'd be really easy to see this as an Ace Attorney series.
-The plot and character development is tremendously well-structured, easily the strongest thing about the Last 49 Days. The film runs three narratives together; one is in the present day living world, one is in the present day afterlife, and one is in the past. All three of them fit together like a puzzle.

I wouldn't disregard it because of its commercial success, Korean films with harrowing filial piety redemption stories occasionally break the box office there. And they do it so well!

[Yoink]

An Evening With Beverly Luff Linn.
Just... watch it.

[heatwave]

Alita: Battle Angel

The anime and manga were before my time (I'm a late 90s anime starter), so I had no point of reference, but I really enjoyed this.
Fight scene choreography was also incredibly well done

[SalmonGod]

Alita: Battle Angel

The anime and manga were before my time (I'm a late 90s anime starter), so I had no point of reference, but I really enjoyed this.
Fight scene choreography was also incredibly well done

I read the first run of the manga.  My memory of it is a little fuzzy.  But I think they tried to cram a lot of later character development into the first story arc, and much of that felt really clumsy.  Even stuff that I don't think was in the issues that I read (the full original series, but it was followed up by more and still going).

But I still enjoyed the heck out of it, regardless.

[Cthulhu]

I haven't read it, but the movie is pretty good.  Robert Rodriguez still bae.  This movie probably cost more to make than everything else he's made put together.

I wonder how true it is to the manga.  The first big action scene comes around 30 minutes into the movie and it's a whiplash-inducing shift in tone, felt like I was watching a different movie.  It starts out as an interesting little thing about Alita learning about the world, great world-building and some fun scenes, then the action scene hits and it dives headfirst into over the top anime weapons and weird, stilted dialog.  It's still fun, but there's a distinct manga feel to it that's jarring in a western-style movie. 

CGI is good, Alita looks natural even with the big eyes, and while there's a couple instances of Floating Head Composite CGI Syndrome (the spoiler cyborg at the end is the worst, looks like something out of shark boy and lava girl).  Action's smooth and framed well, even in the big rollerball battle you always know who's who and what's happening.  I liked it, and I wasn't expecting to.

[Kagus]

So... Do we talk about non-recommendations here?

I just got back from watching Captain Marvel in theaters (2D version, as is my general preference), after hearing very little about it other than that some people were apparently getting up in arms about it because "stupid SJWs" or something. The movie wasn't even playing yet at that time, and it's fairly par for the course anyways for a superheroine movie anyways, so I didn't think much about it.

And then I watched it, and it was honestly a bit terrible. Brie Larson exercised her acting chops by maintaining "mild frustration" for her entire time on-screen, and getting as dirty and disheveled a person can get without in any way compromising her perfect eye makeup or cheek highlights. Her hair was allowed an entire scene of frizziness in order to hammer home the point that her character was disoriented (and mildly frustrated about being disoriented).

I honestly have to give the film bonus points for making a hilariously literal interpretation of "deus ex machina".

Young Nick Fury was kinda charming in ways; and it's nice to see SLJ play a character motivation other than "angry" for a change, even if it was only for a couple scenes. He does, however, make it painfully obvious that he is not a cat person... This is fairly understandable though, as the cat spends most of the movie as embarrassingly awful CGI (to the point of being nearly painful to look at) and is also responsible for giving his character a joke backstory which is now officially canon for all the other movies.

Marvel's own backstory has now also been retconned and she exhibits no powers beyond "shoot lasers" and "fly" for the entire movie. Thanos better watch his booty, because these boots were made for walking and other female-empowering songs without context.

The plot is a long series of holes, but the holes are at least aligned so that you can fall through all of them in sequence without touching enough of the actual plot to care.


Overall, IGN 9/10: Marvelous.

[TD1]

Anything that has a female lead is gold.

Like, did you not get the memo? Everyone else got the memo.

[MCreeper]

I know well that, by the time someone answers, i will know all i need, but any actual rewievs on Higurashi no naku koro ni live action? About only valid complaint i have seen so far was "Rika and Satoko are too old". Well, that's something. All others being "paint your damn hair" (i'm not sure if it would make it more or less ridicolous. Probably more) and "(Anime to) Live action is The Filth, period.". Which doesn't really tales anything that is not obvious. And from my quick skimming trough, i found out only that Tomitake is amazing. He is nothing like anime one, but he is amazing.

On the more pressing question, while searching for this proper one with english subtitles, i stumbled on the pictures of another one, which seemingly goes beyound Onikakushi-hen, with canon outfits and Ooshi that is UristMcUglyface, but no real mention of it anywhere except the occasional comment telling about that "they are doing Kai now", but no links or names. Question is, how do i google for it properly? It's not like i want to watch it thaat much, but...