Saw this incredibly good vampire flick

For a moment there I was afraid you'd say Twilight :P

What's Twilight?

^^ New teen romance vampire movie based on a book of the same name. Something that's become a huge hit with goth chicks, harry potter fans who've grown up a bit and all those people who used to love Anne Rice back in the day.

Just watched Pi - devilishly inaccurate as it is, pretty enjoyable and unique movie.

Zo, recently...

Shutter - Yank remake of a Thai horror film that's set in Japan. By the guys behind The Ring and The Grudge, and it ends up pretty un-scary and predictable right from the get-go. Still, that chick who was playing Seiko was hot.



The Midnight Meat Train - Good fun watch, some of the gory sequences were quite fun, and a few a little cringeworthy. Unfortunately, it falls in between total awesome and total camp, and so falls short of classic status. A bit of filler exists (understandable, considering it was adapted from a short story) and the ending's not that shocking, as we've already seen similar twists several times before.

Tokyo Godfathers - Satoshi Kon's dysfunctional christmas story featuring 3 homeless vagrants and an abandoned baby that they find in the trash. Took a while to get used to characters as ripe as the trio he presents, but once you got the hang of their relationship with each other, it was easier to just concentrate on all the stuff that was being thrown in their way. Their individual backstories unfold slowly, one layer at a time, and some of the angles are red herrings. By the time it closes, it's been built up really well, with a bunch of bells and whistles attached. You could nitpick and say there was way too much deus ex machina going on, but it didn't really hamper my appreciation for it. Probably the most 'normal' fare I've seen from the guy, but then again, that's not saying much.

Also saw both the Metal documentaries that have been doing the rounds.

Saw Once Upon A Time in Norway which is basically about Euronymous and Mayhem and leads up to his murder at the hands of Varg with interviews from various members of the Norwegian scene at the time and the infamous Inner Circle. It also talks about the Dawn of the Black Hearts cover and how Euronymous exploited Dead's suicide, the church burnings, Faust's killing of a homosexual and all the nasty bits from that scene. The focus is on Mayhem for much of the running time and both Euronymous and Varg come across like complete assholes. All in all quite a good watch.

I wonder if they are gonna kill Gaahl now. This sounds very interesting.

Saw Pineapple Express and despite all the great reviews it's basically Harold and Kumar with more Hollywood moments. A drug dealer sells his latest and most potent weed "pineapple express" to his favourite customer who drops a joint of it near the villains den while witnessing a murder. The villain (who is also the chief supplier of this strain of weed) tracks the weed down to the dealer and the customer and the movie's basically the bad guys chasing the good guys with a few gags thrown in here and there. Very few gags. Overall quite disappointing. Also saw The Big Gundown with Lee Van Cleef and Tomas Milian. Cleef is a legendary vigilante in the wild west who plans on running for senator. Milian is a small time Mexican crook who's raped and killed a 12 year old girl and Cleef must bring the man in to strengthen his own position in the upcoming elections. Overall an above average spaghetti and great timepass if you're into westerns.

Finished Un Lun Dun by China Mieville a few days back and I thought it was quite good on the whole, given the genre. It starts off somewhat disappointingly in the tired "Alice in Wonderland meets Heroic Quest Fantasy" that more than one author has employed when they write a "children's fantasy" book, and characters like the propheseers and the binja run below the expected mark of creativity from one such as Mieville , but the story does a lot better as it gets on and deserves a good bit of applause for the deviations it takes from the standard heroic fairy tale for kiddies.

Of course some of the stuff, like the smog powered axe-wielding zombies or the Bird-Man character Cavea, calls for a bit of caution if the l'il 'uns have weak stomachs. But really, it's all good in the long run, teaches 'em that life is not all roses and candy [:P]

I'll probably do a more detailed take on it sometime.

Saw this incredibly convoluted Giallo In the Folds of the Flesh. A man is murdered and his body buried on the grounds of a villa by a woman. 15 years later a bunch of men come one after the other to the house and all get killed one by one by the people living there and it looks like the daughter of the house has a severe praying mantis fetish as she kills the men after she's done sleeping with them. Why things are happening as they are and what exactly is going on isn't revealed till the final 15 minutes and there are more than a few logic gaps buts all in all it's a pretty engaging movie 2 beautiful women, half a dozen murders, decapitations, nazis and other fun stuff.

^ I need to get an assload of movies from you.

Saw Tropic Thunder yesterday and enjoyed it tremendously. Sure, after the first hour or so, the jokes sometimes come across as a bit forced, but there's more than enough terrific moments to compensate. Tom Cruise is nothing short of magnificent in this film. I could have done without the entire sappy self discovery bits towards the end, but I guess there had to be some concessions to this being a mainstream Hollywood flick. I'd put it on par with Hot Fuzz as pretty fucking brilliant and yet entirely affectionate send up of the action movie genre.

I cadged a single episode of Paranoia Agent off Prachit and will be meeting him today to get the rest. All too often in Japanimation, you are expected to wait entire seasons before the 'good stuff' begins - I sat through a couple of mindfuckingly boring chunks of something called One Piece before giving up on it entirely. I suspect what happens in these cases is you realise you've spent large parts of your life on something that's inherently awful and so

a) convince yourself it is actually getting better - that marginal bits of character and plot development are goundbreaking events.

b) your standards have been eroded to such a large extent, that your crap detector has totally failed.

Anyway, all the assholes who make boring shit like One Piece and its ilk should be forced to watch the first episode of Paranoia Agent to get a clue on how to make something that's really fucking interesting and grabs you by the balls from the get-go.

Yeah, Paranoia Agent was terrific. Tell me what movies you want I'll put it on DVD.

Definitely, gundown, once upon a time in norway and in the folds of flesh. Will have to trawl through the last couple of months threads to give you a more complete list. And thanks!

Young boys are being killed in a little Italian village and fingers point at the village simpleton, the village witch and a young woman who's from Milan but is living in the village after a drug scandal at home. As the cops generally chase their own tails it's up to a big city reporter and the druggie young woman to solve the mystery of the murders and catch the culprit. Don't Torture A Duckling is spoken of in hushed and almost reverential tones by hardcore Fulci fans and it's easily his best movie that I've seen so far. There's none of the director's trademark blood and gore and it plays out like an old fashioned murder mystery except that kids dying in movies has always creeped me out a little and this movie has a nice creepy atmosphere from start to finish.

The Mummy...not the Brendan Fraser film but the 1932 version with Boris Karloff in the title role. The film appears to borrow most of its trappings from the Lugosi film of Dracula, right down to religious talismans that repel the vampiric villain and a convenient Van Helsing-esue know-it-all...played by the same actor that played Van Helsing in the Lugosi film. Apart from a few really good scenes, like the soundless moment where the Mummy first awakens and the back-story where his original punishment to Mummy-dom is depicted, the film is middling on the whole, suffering from staginess in the performances and direction. Karloff as usual is quite good and the scaly weathered make-up he has is pretty effective.