thismoviefucks

[thismoviefucks]

I was, as I'm sure a lot of people were, worried that Suspiria (2018, dir. Luca Guadagnino) wasn't gonna do justice to Dario Argento's 1977 classic, a maelstrom of Technicolor gore and rockin' prog tunes that has quickly turned into probably my favorite horror movie ever made; and, to be honest, it doesn't -- because it's a completely different movie, basically. This is not a bad thing.

Guadagnino's quiet, slow-burn take on Suspiria takes just the premise of the original -- a ballet school that's secretly a witch coven, and a young girl unravelling the mystery -- and discards basically everything else, short of some character names and a few aspects of the mythology. The most striking change is visual: gone are Argento's beautiful, vibrant palettes, replaced with grungy earth tones, drab greys and browns. I'll admit this is the one part of the movie I thought was lacking. I lived through an entire era of everything being moody and dark, it was called the 2010s, and it was lame as fuck. I'm over it. Bring on the two-strip Technicolor. The music is a far cry from Goblin's prog-rock score, but Thom Yorke from Radiohead has done incredible work here. It's not just the same conflagration of dissonant drones and string stabs that we're used to hearing in every horror movie released since 1999, though there's definitely a cavernous ambient streak to a lot of it; but it also has a lot of rich, krautrock-y pieces, and vocal ambient pop tracks that are gorgeous, almost in the same vein as Sufjan Stevens' heartbreaking pair of songs for Guadagnino's last film Call Me By Your Name (I have... conflicted feelings about this movie now, but those songs? Absolutely incredible), but with a pronounced ominous streak that any Radiohead fan will recognize. Yorke knows how to write music that's at once achingly beautiful and shiveringly tense, and he puts that gift to work here. The centerpiece of the soundtrack, and the climax of the movie, is the ballet "Volk", a gorgeous piece of post-minimalist synth melodies that reminds me most of Tangerine Dream, or some of their more spooky-minded contemporaries in the '80s horror synth scene, Goblin included. In the movie it's paired with the central dance performance, a strikingly modernist piece that recalls the infamous Rite of Spring's angular, rigid choreography, which now that I think about it is a nice parallel considering that ballet's themes of sacrifice and paganism. The gore in this movie, too, is not to be knocked. The big infamous gore scene in this, where poor Olga gets psychically slammed into the walls and floor of the mirror room, violently breaking bones with disgusting cracking sounds and blood-curdling screams of agony, took the breath out of me on first watch. It's rare that gore in a movie actually affects me (I can think only of this scene and the bisection scene in Bone Tomahawk), but good God. This is a movie that is slow, but rewarding to those who pay it attention. I didn't fully understand everything going on until my second watch, because I wasn't paying enough attention to it. Consider watching this one with subtitles, as well. Lots of thick accents.

I am not going to talk about the plot of this movie, or about the ending, because in my opinion you should go in completely blind. Just go in knowing, this isn't Dario Argento's Suspiria, this is a different movie and one that is also fantastic.

This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

I loved The Lighthouse, so expectations were high when I went back to watch The Witch: A New-England Folktale (2015, dir. Robert Eggers)... and this movie still exceeded all of them.

This is an absolutely incredible work of horror, melding period-accurate dialects with jaw-chattering tension and a continual downward spiral for everyone involved. All the performances in this movie are fantastic, from the definitely evil twins to the traumatized mother to the morally conflicted young son to the dad who's just trying his best, and that doesn't even mention Anya Taylor-Joy as the more-or-less protagonist Thomasin, who is fantastic in this. The Bergmanesque cinematography of The Lighthouse is here too, lots of tense long shots of dreary, grey wilderness, a colour palette of all earth tones and grime that makes the events of the movie that much more matter-of-fact. The droning score takes cues from the dizzying, shrieking work of people like Penderecki. The visual and the aural combine to make a breathtakingly anxiety-inducing masterwork that every modern horror filmmaker should be taking notes from, at least the ones who want to be taken seriously (no judgement to those that don't, of course; the world is better with both and not just one or the other).

Watch The Witch. Or maybe it's The VVitch.

This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

Everyone I knew told me that I was gonna love Halloween (2018, dir. David Gordon Green), and you know what, they were right. I had a great time with this one.

It's been years since a classic no-bullshit slasher came out, or at least one that was actually good, and this is that: no frills, no supernatural aspects, no gimmicks, just a masked dude killing teenagers. The opening with the podcast hosts is.... something, for sure, but for the most part this movie succeeds in making characters who I actually like and want to see succeed. This might be the first slasher movie of the last 20 years to have teenage characters written by people who actually have talked to a teenager before. And the kills are gruesome, seriously. Michael Myers stomps a dude's skull like Ryan Gosling in Drive, it's nuts. The long shot of Michael Myers weaving his way through Haddonfield killing anyone who is in front of him is fantastic, and makes him into this implacable, opportunistic psychopath who just kills for no real reason but that he has to. And it's all scored by a rockin' John Carpenter synth soundtrack, a perfect blend of '80s horror synth and modern-era dark ambient synthwork that fits this movie's classic-but-updated vibe perfectly. (Plus, everything John Carpenter composes fuckin' rips.)

If you like a fun slasher, there's no reason not to watch this one. Easily the best of the Halloween sequels that have Michael Myers in them.

This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

I was worried going into Doctor Sleep (2019, dir. Mike Flanagan) that, even with Mike Flanagan's pedigree as one of the great horror directors of our generation, he just couldn't do justice to a sequel to The Shining, my favorite horror movie ever made. And, yeah, it's not as good as The Shining, duh. But it's a truly great horror movie in its own right.

My favorite thing about Doctor Sleep is the expansion of the mythology, which turns into almost a sort of low fantasy thing, with cults of vampires feeding on the psychic powers of children, mind invasions, and of course subtle connections to Stephen King's Dark Tower series of genre-avoidant genre novels (which I still need to re-read, gods willing). I loved Rebecca Ferguson as the almost whimsical cult leader Rose the Hat, lending a sort of sweetness to her exterior that still can't quite cover the true darkness of her job -- that is, killing and torturing children to feed on their power, shown graphically and horrifically in one scene. Poor Baseball Boy. Ewan McGregor as Danny Torrance, ironically, takes the "Jedi master" role to Kyliegh Curran's "young padawan" Abra, and both of their performances are stellar. We get to see Carel Struycken, an absolute legend, which is always a pleasant surprise; in this movie he's the oldest member of the cult, and his ominous, gaunt face is the perfect fit for the role (I mean, dude's made a career basically off his incredible, striking figure, so it makes sense). Flanagan's direction is both a welcome callback to Kubrickian aesthetics, but with his own modern twists that I loved. Mike Flanagan is quickly becoming someone who, if I see his name on the poster, I'm watching the movie. Except, of course, I might have to look away from the screen; dude has a history with gore effects that are truly "knock the wind out of you" intense, and this movie is no exception with the injury that Rose the Hat suffers maybe halfway through, which reminded me of the horrific degloving (don't Google that) effect from Gerald's Game, Flanagan's last successful attempt at breathing new life into a King story. The climax, which I won't reveal too much of here, is a welcome homage to the original, and although I've seen people give it flak as "fan service" and an unnecessary change from the book, I thought it tied things up really nicely. I imagine it'd make watching this and The Shining as a double feature into a story with a nice tidy bow on it.

Look, if you're a fan of The Shining then you've probably already seen this, but, like, go see it again. I hear there's a director's cut with another half-hour of material (which would bring the runtime to 3 full hours), maybe that'd be a good time. Even if you haven't seen the original, though, I imagine you won't be terribly confused and you'll probably still have a good time.

This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

The first two acts of Us (2019, dir. Jordan Peele) are some of the most achingly tense horror cinema I've seen in a minute. The last act... we'll get to that.

This movie is one of those movies that I really liked for most of it, and then it starts making decisions where I just think "What? What the fuck?" The moment at which this home-invasion movie turns into a bizarre apocalyptic thing was the "What?" moment for me. Let's get the good out of the way: All the performances in this movie, but especially Lupita Nyong'o in her dual starring roles, are fantastic. I was pleased to see Tim Heidecker playing yet another unlikable smug jerkoff, but his Tethered form.... brrr. Spooky stuff. Genuinely great performances all around. The soundtrack, scored by Michael Abels who also did the incredible score for Peele's modern classic Get Out, is another round of ominous Gregorian chant, droning tension and all the other stuff great horror soundtracks are made of. Peele's directorial eye is shaping up to be a really great one; I loved the cinematography in this movie, maybe even more than Get Out, with special care to the long opening shot, the De Palma-esque split diopter shot pictured above, and the Get Out callback shot of Nyong'o paralysed by terror (I know, I know, shots aren't all cinematography is about, but I'm a sucker for a beautifully framed shot, okay?). The first hour and 20, hour and 30 of this movie had me on the edge of my seat....

And then the third act begins, and this small-ball home invasion horror turns into an apocalypse movie with a vast government conspiracy. Peele commits what is in my opinion the cardinal sin of horror: He explains the monster. Jordan, you are extremely talented, but holy shit. The doppelgangers were already scary, you didn't need to pull the curtain back and get rid of all the ambiguity that made them scarier! I didn't need to know the origins of the Tethered, and frankly it cheapens the horror of the first two acts when you do know. And the actual reveal in and of itself is awkwardly pulled from basically nowhere (there's a few foreshadowing bits that make absolutely no sense if you haven't already seen the movie, but it still feels awkwardly shoved into the story as if to pad the runtime further). Don't get me started on the twist, either. Good God. Messy.

Us is a movie that I recommend with trepidation. I didn't have a bad time, at all, but just be prepared to be kinda confused once that third act kicks in.

This movie, kinda, fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

For the first 50 or so minutes of Climax (2018, dir. Gaspar Noe), I was thinking "okay, so when does this become a horror film?" And then the third set of credits rolled. And then it became a horror film.

Gaspar Noe is one of those directors I've always admired more than I actually liked his work. Not so with this movie. This is everything I've loved about Gaspar Noe's previous work -- creative credits sequences, killer soundtracks, interplay of sex and violence, dizzying camera angles, expert use of the long take, and the general psychedelia that permeates a lot of his work -- distilled into a package where, finally, I can say without reservations that I think it's fucking fantastic. It's not only his directorial eye that informs this though, it's the whole thing; the cast is made up mostly of non-actors who still manage to put in realistic, even terrifying performances, and said cast is ALSO professional dancers; the choreography in this movie is unbelievable, and apparently a lot of it was improvised on the spot by the cast. The music choices -- all ruthlessly pounding techno and house, with Aphex Twin's "Windowlicker" and Daft Punk's "Rollin n Scratchin" as the backdrop for some particularly horrifying sections -- are astounding, as usual for Noe. The cinematography is to die for, mostly consisting of a few long shots and one absolutely fucking insanely long shot, the 40 minute one-take which the horror side of the film consists of in its entirety. This is one of those movies you watch with a hand covering your face, with your heart racing, wondering how it could possibly get worse for the characters involved, and it always does. Even Gaspar Noe's trademark typography is on display here, with 3 separate credits sequences (one at the very front, one after the 10-minute opening segment, and one separating the largely slice-of-life dance 'n gossip of Side A from the continual psychedelic downward spiral of Side B) that each are different in presentation, and a few intertitle cards that I, at least on first watch, can't make heads or tails of but I'm sure they have some significance.

Climax is my favorite Gaspar Noe film, and the only one I can unilaterally recommend as a truly great movie. Be ready to be really fucking tense though, this isn't one for the faint of heart.

This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

I've seen the Safdie brothers catch a little bit of retrospective flak for Good Time (2017, dir. Benny and Josh Safdie) from people saying that it's "the same movie" as Uncut Gems, the second movie in their 1-2 punch of utterly gut-churning thrillers; I think that opinion, to be frank, is fucking dumb. There are definite similarities, sure, and I feel like they make excellent companions to one another, in a double-feature, but Good Time makes me feel pretty much completely different from the bright, searing anxiety of Uncut Gems. It's a simmering, nocturnal tension that permeates this movie, the kind of adrenaline rush you get from being chased by a mugger downtown at 11 in the night, or from running from the cops with a half of dope in your pocket. (Or at least, that's what I imagine the feeling to be like.) Robert Pattinson as Connie puts in a performance that, were it any other former teen heartthrob, would be the pinnacle of their whole career (of course, I have no doubt this is only the beginning of a stretch of fantastic work from Pattinson, given his tour-de-force starring turn in The Lighthouse), and the supporting cast of mostly non-actors is no slouch either. Jennifer Jason Leigh leaves a mark in her 10 minutes of Good Time, as Connie's mood-swinging, hellacious girlfriend; Benny Safdie as Nick, Connie's developmentally-disabled brother, is almost achingly sad, and never feels like an ableist caricature; and Buddy Duress, someone who I've never heard of, is both hilarious and 1000% believable as Ray, the accidental sidekick of the caper that unfolds. The cinematography is gorgeous and the direction sometimes brings to mind (at least to me) New Hollywood directors like Scorsese or De Palma, the kind of dudes that shot movies much like this one, about seedy, morally-grey or outright evil people doing terrible shit to each other in hellish urban landscapes. No heroes, no hugging, no kissing, no singing. (Well, okay, there’s some hugging and some kissing, but it isn’t, like, Notting Hill or something.)

Good Time isn't the Kafkaesque "cringe as suspense" of Uncut Gems -- it's an entirely different kind of nail-biting tension that proves, at least to me, that the Safdie Brothers are the best minds in the current era of the thriller genre.

Good Time fucks super hard.

[thismoviefucks]

THESE MOVIES FUCK #2

Let me tell you about some movies I watched.

The director's cut of Midsommar (2019, dir. Ari Aster) adds almost 40 minutes to the movie, and I think overall it's a net positive. The most important addition, in my opinion, is that of an argument between Dani and Christian, that adds a lot more tension to their dying relationship and deepens their arc a lot -- it's just a shame that this scene, which I think is pretty integral to the arc at hand, is tacked at the end of a completely unnecessary addition of an extra "ritual" that really doesn't serve any purpose to the plot or even to the atmosphere. Apart from that, though, I think the additions of longer takes are fantastic and add to the slow burn of the movie that is echoed in its harrowing, droning score by Bobby Krlic (better known, to me and to other fans of dark ambient, as The Haxan Cloak). I don't think I'm gonna watch it over the theatrical cut anytime, but for those who, like me, loved the original movie and just want more dang Ari Aster stuff, I'd say it's worth a watch.

The Goonies (1985, dir. Richard Donner) is pretty often considered one of the great adventure movies of the 80s, and for good reason: even in spite of the constant yelling, this movie is so much goddamn fun. This is some classic Spielberg shit right here, kids going on life-threatening adventures and getting into all sorts of hijinks along the way. With incredible performances from all of the child leads, and from the great Anne Ramsey, this movie holds up 100%. Recommended.

I don't think I could ever put the shriekingly bizarre, astoundingly disturbing and all-around incredible experience that is Cats (2019, dir. Tom Hooper) into a coherent set of words. Cats, the musical, was already weird, okay? It's a 2-act revue where humanoid cats in Lycra fursuits introduce themselves to the audience until one of them is allowed to die, with dance solos and MIDI instrumentation and a cat that acts like Mick Jagger and gyrates into the faces of horny girl cats. Cats was always weird, and Tom Hooper, one of the simultaneously most interesting and least capable filmmakers currently working, somehow made it into a film that's more bewildering than most David Lynch movies and more hilarious than most intentional comedies that come out now. It is an $80 million trainwreck, a complete failure at basically everything it tries to be, and I am fucking BEGGING you to see it. Highly recommended.

I haven't seen the director's cut of Little Shop of Horrors (1986, dir. Frank Oz) in some time, but I know every beat of it. From age 6 onward I was straight-up obsessed with it, one of my earliest Special Interests, and I am still 100% in love with it. And it holds up super well: the cinematography is incredible, from the famous crane-on-a-crane shot at the end of "Downtown (Skid Row)" to the gorgeous framing of the two leads in the big romantic number "Suddenly Seymour". The special effects, all practical, are pretty much unparalleled in my mind. The 50ft puppet you see on the screen during "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space" is so lifelike and smooth that you can almost believe that the alien plant really exists (and, in physical space, yeah, it did! that's a fully-functional puppet!). The miniature work during the infamous "Finale Ultimo" that originally got cut unceremoniously because a test audience didn't like it, a 10 minute sequence that cost $20 million to produce, is a fucking marvel of beauty, a masterpiece of kaiju destruction that makes me, just, so fucking happy. Inordinately happy. Every song here except "Some Fun Now" bops. Go watch Little Shop. Highly recommended.

[thismoviefucks]

THESE MOVIES FUCK - JANUARY 2020

I watched ten movies this month. Let me tell you what I thought.

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968, dir. Sergio Leone) is a movie that tells you who it is right up front. The opening 15 minutes of this legendary spaghetti Western are paralleled in their perfection only by the other 150, establishing the tone for the whole movie; an excruciatingly slow, tense and beautiful crawl through the arid, picturesque blank slate of the desert. There is very little action in this movie, and not much in the way of dialogue. There doesn't need to be. Sergio Leone's direction, Ennio Morricone's music, and the subtle performances of a young Charles Bronson and a playing-shockingly-against-type Henry Fonda, among others, all congeal into a movie you could probably watch and love even if the dialogue wasn't there at all.

A Fistful of Dollars (1964, dir. Sergio Leone) is one of those movies that's more influential than it is good. It's undeniable how massive of an impact this movie left on film, from practically inventing a lot of what became the Spaghetti Western to launching the career of a young Clint Eastwood, but in my eyes this is a pretty weak movie. A low-budget remake of the classic Kurosawa jidaigeki picture Yojimbo, there's definitely a lot of charm here -- you can already see Sergio Leone's style in its infancy, and Clint Eastwood is as fantastic as ever in his portrayal of the Man with No Name here -- embodying that classic mysterious drifter archetype seemingly effortlessly -- but to my eyes there's just a lot missing here that makes it a sort of drab experience, unfortunately. Still worth a watch, and still very much recommended if you're interested in the history of low-budget film or the history of the Western in general.

Rambo: Last Blood (2019, dir. Adrian Grunberg) is a movie that left me massively conflicted; on the one hand, I want desperately to love the unapologetic throwback to '70s exploitation cinema (in particular, vigilante movies, low-budget spaghetti Westerns, and good old-fashioned splatter) that this movie clings to -- but on the other hand, it fully embodies all the worst elements of those movies and combines them with a pathetic excuse for a plotline, underdeveloped characters, and shoddy effects work. When I think Rambo, I think "Sylvester Stallone in the jungle, mowing down hordes of nameless mooks; this movie, conversely, feels more like a Chuck Bronson Death Wish movie than any of the previous Rambos, and carries all the baggage of that wave of '70s vigilante movies, the good and the bad. The way this movie portrays Mexicans makes me think it was written by a Fox News boomer, and given that Sly is in his 70s it totally might be; to be slightly fair to him this movie was apparently written before the excellent fourth Rambo movie, and its already-tired-in-2010 plotline has aged like milk since then. Not to mention the women characters in this, which are little more than props and only serve to give John Rambo a reason to kill everything in his line of sight, and have no personality beyond "morality pet for 70-year-old veteran guy". So I'm not sure how I felt about this movie on first watch. It is a love letter to all the great low-budget cinema that made loose cannon cowboys and renegade cops cool again, but doesn't seem to have learned at all from the 40 years since then.

For a Few Dollars More (1965, dir. Sergio Leone) is, for my money, the definitive spaghetti Western. Lee van Cleef and Clint Eastwood turn in classic performances as the quintessential badass bounty hunters kicking ass on the Mexican border. I love, love, love bounty hunter stories, and this is one of the great bounty hunter stories of all time -- though, don't try to follow the plot too closely, as it is definitely a bit of a mess, though it's at least a fun one. The first hour or so of this movie is basically all setup, whether that's setting up Clint Eastwood's character, setting up Lee van Cleef's character, them meeting in the bar, them trying to one-up each other, etc. But, once the plotline does kick in, it's a great time, with the villain El Indio being played by the great Gian Maria Volonte (who was also in A Fistful of Dollars), a giggling madman who leads a gang of bank robbers and has a brutal quickdraw hand. The scene in the church, where El Indio murders a man's wife and baby offscreen for selling him out and then forces him into a quickdraw duel, is one of the truly great scenes in Western history; this, also, is where you can see the classic elements of Sergio Leone's style begin to play out -- the extreme close-ups, the drawn-out tension, and of course the bombastic score by Ennio Morricone. And that, finally, is another thing that needs to be noted: this has perhaps one of Morricone's greatest scores; the main title theme is a classic piece of spaghetti Western music, up there with his similarly-incredible scores for Leone's next two pictures. To put it simply: if you like cowboys, if you like Clint Eastwood, or if you just plain like badass motherfuckers doing badass shit, this movie is a must fucking watch. Highly recommended.

Reviewing Parasite (2019, dir. Bong Joon-Ho) without spoiling it is pretty much like holding a hand grenade in your bare hands, so I am going to keep this as short as possible: This movie is at once hilarious and tragic. This movie is a sometimes-brutal satire of capitalism that pulls very few punches. This movie has convinced me that I need to watch Bong Joon-Ho's other stuff as soon as I can, and finally the important part: This movie deserves all of the hype it's been receiving. Highly, highly recommended.

I recently rewatched Kill Bill (2003-04, dir. Quentin Tarantino), and while it definitely isn't one of my favorite Tarantino joints, it's aged pretty well over the last 15, almost 20 years. A doting pastiche of all the '70s exploitation classics Quentin has made a living off his love for, everyone knows what Kill Bill is: A wedding rehearsal in Texas gets shot up -- massacred, in fact. 4 years later, the Bride rises from her coma and decides to get revenge by killing every one of the people that did it: members of an elite assassination team, led by her ex-lover Bill. There's a lot to love here: arterial sprays, limbs flying, white-bearded asshole kung-fu masters, entire scenes in Mandarin, the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique, and all the rest. There's also copious amounts of gratuitous shots of Uma Thurman's feet (because, you know, Quentin Tarantino is a bit of a creep), and some absurdly campy dialogue writing (Uma Thurman calling everyone "Bitch" is the big one, it sounds so unnatural) that I can't quite tell whether it's intentionally or unintentionally cheesy. But overall I think this movie is still worth watching in 2020. It's at least as good a use of four hours as Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet is, and unlike Hamlet this has a decapitation in it.

Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (2019, dir. Quentin Tarantino) may not be my favorite Quentin Tarantino film, but it's almost certainly his best one. It's unlike pretty much anything he ever did, a slow-burn character-driven drama that barely has a central plot at all. Some people say this movie is "about" Charles Manson, but that couldn't be further from the truth; largely, this movie consists of a slice-of-life examination of the late career of an "aging" (read: in his thirties) actor and his best friend and stunt double, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt respectively. Manson and his acolytes only figure into maybe 25 minutes of the movie, 15 or so of those being the climax of the movie where the only real "action" in the movie takes place. I think the slow, low-key nature of this movie plays to Quentin's strong suits far more than just about any of his other movies do: he is at his best when he's writing conversations between the characters he puts so much love into creating, and as far as that goes I'd say this movie puts him in the same league as Mamet. So, if you have 3 hours spare, I'd say this is worth your time and attention for those 3 hours. Check it out.

The Lighthouse (2019, dir. Robert Eggers) is one of those movies that I really am going to need to watch again, but just on first watch: This is abjectly horrifying, and one of only a few movies to genuinely make me uncomfortable and uneasy watching it. To call this movie "scary" would be sort of a misnomer: I'm not "scared" watching these two men going insane, but I am filled with a deep and utter sense of dread as the whole thing proceeds. The atmosphere reminds me most of Vargtimmen, Ingmar Bergman's classic psychological horror masterpiece, with some definite Eraserhead elements thrown in the mix too, along with the period-accurate linguistics and creeping unease of Eggers' last movie, The Witch, which was his debut. We live in a damn great time for horror cinema if people like Robert Eggers and Ari Aster can put out their first two features and have all four of the movies be the magnum-opus level masterclasses in misery and terror that they are. There's clearly some stuff hidden deeper in this film's cracks and crevices that I couldn't glean from my first watch, but even without the stuff I inevitably missed, I highly recommend this movie.

The Irishman (2019, dir. Martin Scorsese) is Scorsese's masterpiece (I think I *like* Goodfellas more, but this is clearly the better movie), and possibly the greatest gangster movie, full stop. At turns an epic, a subtle, quiet drama, and a crushingly dark portrayal of the Mafia, I have never felt more tense watching a movie that isn't trying to scare me in my entire life. There is no romanticisation or pulled punches here. The violence in this movie is few and far between, and it is always, always shocking. Gunshots in this made me tense up and jump, a reaction that I cannot say I've had to guns in any other movie. And the last hour of this movie -- chronicling the demise of Jimmy Hoffa and its repercussions -- is the best thing Scorsese has ever put to film. An unbelievably beautiful work of film. Highly, highly recommended.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (1966, dir. Sergio Leone) is not the perfect masterpiece I expected it to be, but is certainly a damn great film nonetheless. There are some who would call this the greatest Western ever made, and I certainly can see some reasons why that would be the case: fantastic performances from Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach, an iconic and classic soundtrack by Ennio Morricone, and one of the greatest final 20-30 minutes of a movie of all time. The hype kinda overblew it for me, though, because even with all the great stuff going for it, this movie has some slightly damning flaws that bring it down a little bit for me, namely the second act being as sluggish as it is; this movie is 3 hours long, and it starts to drag a little bit during the second act. Additionally, I thought it was a strange choice to not develop any of the characters other than Tuco beyond a few key aspects: Clint is calculating, stoic and the fastest gun in the West, and Lee is a sadistic, greedy monster. Tuco (Wallach), at least, gets some more character development, in the scenes where Eastwood and Wallach are at the church nursing Eastwood back to health. I'll definitely need to see this one again sometime soon, but in my eyes I'd rather watch either Once Upon a Time in the West or For a Few Dollars More than this one. Still though, undeniably massively influential and still definitely worth watching. Check it out.

There’s my opinions. See you next month with ten more.

[thismoviefucks]

So I just finished watching the extended version of The Hateful Eight (orig. cut 2015/ext. cut 2019, dir. Quentin Tarantino) that's on Netflix. I haven't seen the original cut in some time, but I remember loving it. I really dig the slow-burn, mostly pretty quiet (until the end of the second act or so, at least) atmosphere of the picture, and the sparse but in my eyes perfectly cast dramatis personae really sold me on it.

So, right off the bat, pretty much everything I love about the original cut is magnified a bit in this extended cut.

First things first -- this is a long movie. This is a fucking time investment. 210 minutes (3 and a half hours), to be precise. That's not an easy ask of a filmmaker. I mean, the original was already a solid 3-ish hours, which is the upper bound of most casual filmgoers' cinematic attention span already. And then he goes and adds an extra 42 minutes of footage. But Netflix, being enterprising as they are, decided to cut into four 40-50 minute chapters to solve that problem, with a recap and a title sequence at the front and the full credits at the back.

This is the biggest of my grumbles with this movie, and to be honest I'm sure Quentin is probably not particularly stoked about it either: The way this is presented cheapens the experience by making it feel like it's The Stand or something. I'm admittedly something of an elitist dickface when it comes to the state of film as a medium. I think the experience of watching a movie should feel like you're, well, watching a movie. Quartering a finished movie into chunks with a fucking recap makes it feel instead, if only for a minute, that I'm watching some post-Game of Thrones event-show BS. That's just the way I feel about the presentation. I don't think it kills the movie by any means, just a gripe I have with what was undoubtedly a decision by Netflix (those known good idea havers, grumble grumble) that slightly cheapens the experience of this very grandiose, movie-ass movie.

Apart from that, though, it's all good news. Again, I haven't seen the original in a minute, but I didn't even really notice the extra footage (except a slightly overlong travel montage in the first chapter, and even with that dragging slightly it didn't feel like it didn't belong or anything). Apocalypse Now Redux this is not -- the footage that's here just adds to the atmosphere that was already there. This movie feels like a stage play at times, a very Chekhovian character study, but with strong underpinnings to Tarantino's well-established-by-now style. All the usual thumbprints are here: graphic violence, spaghetti Western influences, white dudes saying racial slurs (I get that this is the period it's set in, Quentin, but come on, dude), and the requisite amount of Quentin's very talented friends filling out the cast, along with some new faces which by and large absolutely kill it in this. Among the Tarantino regulars, we've got Kurt Russell having the absolute time of his life hamming it up as The Hangman, donning a vaguely John Wayne manner of speaking; we've got Tim Roth as a chipper Englishman; we've got Michael Madsen being quiet and suspicious; and we have Samuel L. "Motherfucking" Jackson as the de facto protagonist for most of the movie, a free black bounty hunter with a history of war crimes. And among the new faces, there's Jennifer Jason Leigh who really shines in the latter half of the movie after her character stops being a punching bag for Kurt Russell -- more on that later; we've got the legendary Bruce Dern as an old piece of shit Confederate general; there's Demián Bichir as a one-dimensional walking Mexican stereotype (which is a shame, because the man can act; watch Soderbergh's Che and you'll see him turn in a killer performance as Comrade Fidel himself) and there's Walton Goggins, a man with a funny name who has apparently been in multiple movies I've seen playing bit parts (including Tarantino's Django Unchained, apparently) as an upbeat and definitely racist ostensible-sheriff and once-upon-a-time loyal Confederate. That's the eight of the title, and with the exception of Bichir (who's doing the best he can with, uh, what he was given) they all turn in absolutely incredible performances. I'm talking these cats could all be nominated for Best Actor and it'd still be a competition.

So those two pins we put in earlier about the movie's, mmmm, not great aspects, let's revisit those quickly.

First off, Jennifer Jason Leigh's character. The first half of this movie is not kind to this woman. She gets fuck-all in the way of good writing, and is mostly a prop and an object for Kurt Russell's character to violently abuse until the guy gets offed in bloody fashion (as you do in a Tarantino picture), after which she turns into -- gasp! -- a real character, and a fucking good one too. So, okay, better writers than me have already written their piece about this problem. I feel like "maybe it's not great that Leigh exclusively gets punched in the face for the first half of this 200-minute movie" isn't a particularly hot take at this point. Could you argue that Tarantino was trying to make the Hangman look like a piece of shit? Yeah, certainly, if not for the fact he plays it almost exclusively for laughs. Is it funny to me that this guy clearly doesn't think of Daisy as human? Nah, not really.

Second off, who knew Quentin "I purposely put, like, fucking 100 N-words into this script 'cause I'm a white dude with auteur license and nobody can stop me" Tarantino maybe isn't the greatest with racial politics? Could've fooled me! The character of Bob, played by Demián Bichir, does jack shit for most of the movie except say "cabrón" every now and then. He is easily the most underwritten character, and when you have him as one of the eponymous Eight maybe that's not such a good thing. He gets no real personality apart from "he's a bad liar." It's a fucking shame, it really is, and a waste of a damn fine actor. You can do better, Quentin. Come on.

Anyway, those (admittedly pretty small in the grand scheme of things) problems aside this could pass for one of Quentin's best. I think it's worth a watch, just have a few sodas ready for the 200 minute runtime, and try your best to get past the couple small bumps it hits along the way.

This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

Dolemite is My Name (2019, dir. Craig Brewer) is a love letter to its subject, and reminds us why Eddie Murphy really is one of the greatest.

So when I heard that Eddie Murphy was starring in a biopic about the late, great, bad motherfucker Rudy Ray Moore, I knew it was gonna be at the very least worth a watch. I had no clue how incredible it was gonna be, though. This movie is packed with laughs, and has a huge heart underneath it all which makes you just fall in love with the people on screen. Eddie Murphy is obviously the focal point of this movie, and this movie is a fucking tour-de-force from him. His performance as Rudy here is unbelievable in just how deeply he gets into the character; there were parts where I got so drawn into the kayfabe of it all that I forgot I was watching Eddie Murphy at all. He perfectly displays the larger-than-life person Rudy was, and just how determined he was. The motherfucker was born to be a star. And the other cast members here? Where do I even begin? I've never even heard of Da'Vine Joy Randolph prior to this, but her performance as Lady Reed in this adds just so much emotional depth to the film. And she's funny, too, like really, really funny. Her chemistry with Eddie Murphy was off the charts. Mike Epps, Tituss Burgess and Craig Robinson all put in fantastic supporting performances as Dolemite's closest compadres. Wesley Snipes is fucking astounding as D'Urville Martin, playing him with this air of pretentious smugness that makes him just such a fantastic heel character (and, I mean, come on, he's Wesley fucking Snipes. The man is a legend.). Even the littlest bit parts in this are cast to some legendary figures; Snoop Dogg shines in the cold-open as the record store's own DJ Roj, and Chris Rock... well, he's Chris Rock. No matter who the man plays, he's gonna be spectacular because he's Chris Rock, one of the greatest comedians of the last 30 years and a fine actor even besides being funny.

What else can I even say? Uh... the aesthetic of this movie is perfect. Just perfect. The whole thing has this beautiful, sun-baked 70s blaxploitation look to it, and it's scored with all these fantastic instrumental funk tunes (and a few classic bangers; Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" opens the movie) that take us back to the days of Shaft and A.I.P. in a subtly gorgeous fashion. You'd be hard pressed to find a recent movie that feels more 70s than this does; maybe some of Tarantino's work? Jackie Brown comes close, I guess. The costume design, the colour grading, everything goes into making this movie feel like something Roger Corman would've produced in '75, and that's fucking awesome. This movie really is a love letter to black culture in the 70s, just generally, you can feel the admiration that Murphy and company have for absolute legends like Rudy Ray Moore. That heart is the core of the picture, to me. This movie was made with a whole lot of love, and I found myself tearing up at parts -- the shot in the ending where they roll the window of the limo down to reveal a dense mob of people standing outside the theater, waiting for the baddest motherfucker on the planet: his name was Dolemite, and this movie did right by his memory.

RIP Rudy Ray Moore. This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

It’s hard to believe that Perfect Blue (1997, dir. Satoshi Kon) is actually Kon’s feature-length directorial debut, considering how incredible of a movie it really is.

There are so, so many elements at play here. The pacing starts off normal, then jumps to ludicrous speed after a pivotal point around 30 minutes in, jumping between (in-universe) fiction and reality at a rapid pace, blurring the lines between the two. And then’s there’s also the thematic elements here. You could read this as being about the toxicity of fan culture (especially that surrounding East Asian pop scenes), or you could read it as being about how women in entertainment are often coerced by the industry into stuff they’re uncomfortable with or even traumatized by (for example how internet wastoids chant for often-young actresses to do nude scenes; this particular reading resonates scarily well in the post-Weinstein age). You could read it as Mima struggling with her identity as an actress, or you could even just read it as literally as possible: a pop idol-turned-actress goes slowly insane as murders start piling up in her name. There’s so much room for interpretation here, and that’s what I love so, so much about a really great psychological horror film.

And this is a true-blue horror film: there are some fantastic scares in this, and especially on first watch the bouncing between in-universe reality and fiction is so jarring and sudden that it gives the film a massive atmosphere of tension -- is this actually happening, or is Mima dreaming, or is it part of “Double Bind”, et cetera. And the music does so much here to elevate the atmosphere; at times it sounds like a PS1 horror soundtrack, which to me is the peak of intensity in music. The humming choral motif that runs often in the movie is ominous and instills a great sense of dread that a lot of horror soundtracks, especially now, fail to bring to the table for me. This movie succeeds in every element of its design.

That’s all I got. Watch this movie!

This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

Jaws (1975, dir. Steven Spielberg) gets a lot of credit, and rightfully so, as the first great summer blockbuster, but I think it deserves to also be known as maybe the most successful and biggest horror film perhaps ever made in the mainstream, a regard which it only shares with a few other movies (such as the Spielberg-produced Poltergeist, or maybe The Exorcist).

This is still, even after 45-odd years, a scary, scary movie; especially in the first half. I found myself tensing up in a way I don't often feel for movies, even movies which I know damn well are terrifying. The Kintner attack and its leadup, in particular, has horrified me since I was literally a child. I remember distantly seeing it on TV at my dad's place one time when I was fairly young but was still a fan of Friday the 13th (my dad is a horror junkie and showed me Jason X maybe a little early), and it was the Kintner boy's flailing helplessly in a horrific volcano of his own blood that got me way more than anything Jason Voorhees could or would ever do. In fact, prior to tonight, I saw Jaws maybe once in its entirety, if even that; I had a DVD given to me as a gift by my grandma but wouldn't dare watch the thing (even though I watched the 3-hour-long making-of documentary on the other side, which was definitely a bit slow-paced and quiet for my adolescent, ADHD-riddled brain to handle), out of fear that, I don't know, a movie would succeed at scaring me? (Which, believe me, I'm more than willing to have happen now.) So now having watched it, my observations:

This movie is a lot bloodier than I remember it being. I knew the general gore bits -- skinny dipper, Kintner boy, Duvall -- but I had no idea just how brutal they were. And this is a PG! A 1970s PG, pre-Temple of Doom and Gremlins PG, but a PG nonetheless. Fuck's sake, in pretty much every country Texas Chainsaw got either the highest rating or outright banned and it had less blood than this movie! There's an incredible shot of the severed arm of the skinny dipper from the opening sequence, all gross and covered in worms, that straight up reminds me of a shot from Hereditary (and to be perfectly honest I wouldn't be terribly shocked if Ari Aster saw a disgusting, decomposed body part framed in stark daylight and thought "Hmm..."). And, of course, special care to the shark explosion at the end, a massive geyser of Kensington gore and fish entrails that definitely enshrines the "blockbuster" nature of this movie with a theatricality and drama that would effectively define that style of filmmaking. This movie gets downright gruesome sometimes, and I love it. I really do.

And the scares here are top-notch, too. I see this movie get regarded as simply a "thriller" a lot, even by Spielberg himself, but fuck that. This is a full-throated horror film, down to its core. It's a screamfest that knows its dynamics extraordinarily well, and especially when you consider that this is Spielberg's second movie (and first theatrical release, after the TV movie Duel a few years prior) it's kind of incredible that Spielberg had the tension-release, quiet-loud cycle down so beautifully so early in his career, a style that would come to define a lot of my favorite movies of his -- Jurassic Park comes to mind immediately. This movie keeps you on the edge of your seat in perpetuity, especially when paired with the incredible score by a pre-Star Wars, post-Valley of the Dolls John Williams, with its classic, constantly-spoofed two-note ostinato that for me constantly reminds me of the harsh, pumping strings of the first dance in Stravinsky's Rite -- my brain actually keeps mixing the two together to create a sort of "Jaws of Spring" mashup -- and the gorgeous, triumphant piece at the denouement of the movie. And, of course, the cinematography is incredible. It's often said about good cinematography that you sort of don't notice it (as in, you only really notice cinematography when it's not good), but fuck that. There are some absolutely incredible shots in this movie that fully take advantage of the Panavision format it was shot in (not that I would particularly know from this watch; my 25th-anniversary VHS of this is in 4:3...), from the guy passed out on the beach after the opening attack to the infamous Vertigo shot during the Kintner sequence to the shaky first-person shots that pretty much define the movie and ended up inventing a substantial element of horror language, one that's been copied from Evil Dead to Friday the 13th to everyone else. (Although of course it's gotta be said, Halloween did it first. Which is pretty much the equivalent of "Simpsons did it" for horror tropes, eh?)

Look, if you somehow haven't seen this movie, it's really non-negotiable.

You sit in front of the TV. Jaws is on the TV. You watch Jaws. Shark's in Jaws. Our shark.

This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

I've said many times that The Evil Dead (1982, dir. Sam Raimi) is one of if not the outright best horror film ever made. After my latest watch I can confirm that still holds entirely true.

Okay so for context, The Evil Dead has been a favourite of mine for a long, long time, but until tonight I hadn't watched in full HD. And oh man, was that a mistake. The steelbook Blu-Ray I watched this on, I don't know who led the restoration team for it but it looks fucking incredible. Absolutely beautiful stuff. My experience with The Evil Dead has always been a blurry 4:3 screen, which definitely colours the way you watch a movie -- some movies are better that way, in fact; I'd argue that most 80s slashers are better in 4:3 on a small screen, as is most of Kevin Smith's work. But the gorgeous 1.85:1 restoration of The Evil Dead made me view it in a different light. Every inch of film is able to be seen in vivid, sharp clarity, and you can finally see just how incredible the movie really is. And keep in mind, I've been in love with this movie for years, even having watched it primarily on low-resolution screens, but seriously the cinematography in this is something else. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a horror movie since The Evil Dead that's not indebted to the shaky, handheld mondo shotwork on this movie. The effects work is often praised as the best thing about the movie, and I think that's a valid point; the practical gore effects in this are incredible, absolutely gruesome. I actually forgot just how splatter-ful this movie is. Dismemberment, stabbings, shotguns, et cetera...the works.

Look, I'm not gonna be able to find words about this movie that I've not already said multiple times over to friends, family and anybody who'll listen, so lemme cut it short by saying this movie is a fucking masterpiece and you're doing a disservice to yourself as a horror fan and as a cinephile (god, I hate that fucking term for real) if you haven't seen it.

This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

I'm beginning to think that maybe movie critics just don't know what the fuck they're talking about when they write about horror films, because Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982, dir. Tommy Lee Wallace) is massively underrated and deserves so much better than the pretty much universal savaging it got.

This movie is front-to-back fantastic. I fucking loved every minute. The cinematography is really great, obviously indebted to the work of John Carpenter, who takes a backseat here to do the music, which is one of the shining points of this movie. This movie's soundtrack is pretty much what pops into my brain when I think "horror synth soundtrack." And this is Wallace's directorial debut! He went on to do the 90s It miniseries (which is good for what it was, but what it was was a 4 hour 2-part television movie based on an 1100 page horror book; it was destined to fail from the start), among other things. The effects work in this is great, downright gruesome and disgusting at times; special care to that scene in the motel (you’ll know which one, trust me).

Look, the bottom line is, I went into this thinking it was probably gonna be a charmingly-bad campfest with great ideas; what I got, on the other hand, was an incredible hidden gem of 80s horror (with a terrible title, though; “Season of the Witch?” Really? This movie has barely anything to do with witches.) that deserves more attention.

Watch this movie sometime. It is 100% worth a reappraisal. This movie fucks!

[thismoviefucks]

The question is, does Halloween (1978, dir. John Carpenter) hold up? And the answer is, of fucking course it does.

This movie has not aged a day. Unlike Texas Chainsaw's distinctive sun-baked psychedelia that places it right in the mid-70s, this movie instead paints a timeless picture of evil haunting the picture-perfect suburban Midwest landscape. Jamie Lee Curtis is absolutely incredible, as is the late Donald Pleasance; Mr. Dark and Lonely Water himself is best known for this performance, and it's easy to see why. But my favorite actor here is the camera: there is maybe not a single shot in this movie that isn't beautiful. You could put every single frame up in a museum and it wouldn't feel out of place. The cinematography is slow, deliberate, absolutely oozing with tension and utter fucking suspense. In short, there's a reason this movie is a classic. Go watch this movie if you haven't already.

This movie fucks.

[thismoviefucks]

Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994, dir. Wes Craven) is an admirable attempt at creating the shock and terror of the original Nightmare on Elm Street. I think it falls flat in some parts but is overall a pretty great movie.

With this movie we have a pretty clear precursor to Scream's metafictional post-slasher, only without the sneering cynicism that made that movie what it was. Freddy's invasion of the real world is actually quite scary for the first hour and change of the movie, but once Freddy starts to manifest in the real world it begins to fall apart a little bit for me. I mean, the babysitter's death (a throwback to Tina's death from the original, being dragged across the walls and the ceiling) is very, very good, but from the huge freeway setpiece onwards the movie begins to feel less like a New Nightmare and more like just another late-series Freddy movie. I did, however, love the part where John Saxon starts becoming his character from the first movie, calling Heather "Nancy" and all that. That was a nice bit of mind-screw that could've been interesting to elaborate on. The final pursuit sequence leaves a lot to be desired, though, and while I do like certain parts (in particular, the bit where Dylan is in the furnace and Freddy grabs him, his mouth widening horrifically and uncannily) and I do like the fact that his in this case final death is by fire (a fitting bookend), I think any of the other movies plays it overall better.

This is probably my least favorite of the Nightmare movies, if only because it exists as a midpoint between fun, blood-and-tits 80s slashers and the sarcastic tongue-in-cheek of Scream and other 90s/00s slashers. It's still a great movie, though, and I would still recommend it if you've seen other Nightmare movies and enjoyed them.

This movie fucks.