Dream House

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Trailer gives away a big twist that comes at the halfway point. Apparently that trailer also infuriated the director and stars who refused to promote the film in protest. Problem is, that twist comes right in the middle of the film, it's the big conceit of the story and one I had a hard time going along with which really just killed the end for me.

It's not really much of a horror film, like the trailer makes out either. The cast they have assembled should have given that away, but it's more of a drama thriller. The cast is wasted with this material too. Despite being competently produced, it's just not very appealing.

Mimic

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler, Jordan

Guillermo del Toro's second film and his first american feature. Although I have seen it many a time, this is the first time I've watched through this new director's cut. It is the exact same film I remember with perhaps 7-10 minutes of new exposition added. As the original script Del Toro wanted to film was changed by the studio before the opportunity to film any of the scenes happened, it's hardly much of a director's cut, but I'm hoping his commentary will be able to shed light onto what happened between him and the Weinstein brothers, looking forward to that immensely.

As it is now, it's a very nice but a very flawed creature feature. You can see glimpses into the director he would becomes and many familiar motifs are used throughout. I have issues with the pacing and there are many themes that could have been explored better. Chances are this is the result of studio tampering.

I like the cast. Always love Jeremy Northam. Really like the score and the creatures too. Fond memories of horror films from this period. They are probably much worse than I remember them but after re-watching this one I'd say it holds up surprisingly well.

Takers

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Ehhh.

I'm playing catch up now, I started watching this midway through the year, finally got around to finishing. Didn't really hold my interest though. Everything you need to know is in the trailer.

It's getting down to crunch time so I'm trying to find all the films I missed or that went straight to dvd in Australia. This was one of them. Chances are, they go straight to DVD for a reason, but sometimes there is some really cool stuff there so you never know.

This was competently made and had an alright cast too but just fell completely flat dramatically. The action was only ok.

The Loved Ones

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler

Here's my first write up. A great quick late night horror film and one of the best Australian horrors of the last few years.

Watching it again with title and the theme in mind I can see those sub plots working a bit better. It's still not a connection I think works completely but the idea is more formed in my head at least. There is a lot of abuse dealt out to others or to oneself due to the loss or lack of a loved one, from pretty much every single character in the film.

Anyway it's the horror and great character performances I keep coming back for. And they are still just as delightful as the last 3 times I've watched this.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Michael, Tyler

Here's the first write up.

Those big sequences don't quite have the same effect in regular widescreen. I mean, they are still great but if you have the opportunity see it in full Imax, it's fantastic and worth the extra few dollars.

Also HEY, check out that funky new Paramount logo at the start. 100 years. Neat.

I hope if they do another with this team, because they do set that up, take a throw away line of Jeremy Renner and run with it. A hot sexy female spy always has to seduce a rich man with important intel. I'd love it if they started a mission with this plan only to discover the rich man was gay so they have to change it up and Ethan has to seduce. Comedy gold.

Oh also I spotted Brad Birds A113 reference. I mean I saw it the first time, it was quite overt but I completely forgot what it was there for. Slusho in number 3, A113 in number 4. The in jokes continue.

Hamlet 2

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler

Really liked this film from a few years ago. Seemed to slip through the cracks a bit, but I feel it's much better than the trailer makes it look.

Steve Coogan is just amazing and very funny. I can also see aspects of his character in many of my theatre obsessed friends. Catherine Keener has a small but very memorable role and Elisabeth Shue is delightfully self-depreciating as herself.

It follows the inspirational teacher movie tropes while at the same time making fun of them. And the actual play of Hamlet 2 that is glimpsed in the finale is quite something to behold. Most enjoyable. If you missed it, seek it out.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Paul, Matt, Tom, A few others

So much fun. Brad Bird can direct live-action just as well as animation. This action sequences are impeccably choreographed and shot. And those few shot in the Imax format look amazing. When those black bars start to slide out of frame as Tom Cruise steps out the window of the worlds tallest skyscraper and the camera follows him over the edge, you do get a little vertigo.

This one has one of the best title sequences in the series and I love the set up for it. I'm also glad they had cameos from Ving Rhames, so he is still the only other character that's in all 4 and also another person from the 3rd instalment I was hoping would show up.

Speaking of which, Simon Pegg finds his role expanded in this film, gets to act as comedic relief and does a good job of it. This film doesn't have as strong an emotional grounding as the third film and it's also the most straight forward of the series. The double crossing, the switching sides, the mystery villains, the reveals with masks, all that stuff is gone making this the most generic.

I don't mind so much about the masks, the were overused in the sequel and while they found a great way to fake out the audience with them in the 3rd film, I think it's best they left them out of the equation here. However I was really hoping for a double cross somewhere along the lines. Especially as they had a great set up with Josh Holloway at the start that never amounted to anything.

The spy tech in this film delightful too. Some pretty far out there stuff, but who knows, it probably exists somewhere. Compared to the bubblegum and a mac laptop in the first film it's almost sci-fi.

While the very end fell a little flat for me, the rest of the film is pretty much non-stop high-stakes action. It builds well and there's no annoying shaky cam where you can't tell what the hell is going on.

Definitely one of the best in the franchise. See it in Imax if you have the chance.

Little Women

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler

I've been meaning to watch a version, any version of this story after having just been introduced to the story via musical. And also it make for a hilarious double feature with The Women.

I liked the look of the cast in this one. I do adore young Christian Bale. It's a perfectly sweet telling of this story. Ooo and a Thomas Newman score to boot.

Look it's not really my kind of story, I with this many characters over this long a period of time it tends to get episodic so I don't really connect with some individuals as much as others in the way you can with a novel. But there's still a lot to like here.

The Woman

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler

I love Lucky McKee's film May and am pleased to see another great horror film directed by him with Angela Bettis and his usual strong feminist bent.

Things start off pretty straight forward, a family capture a wild woman with plans to civilise her. But of course things don't do as planned, leading to a delightfully gruesome finale. While the beginning was somewhat slow, there are strong hints of dark intent brewing underneath it all. Much fun.

The Future

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Michael

After watching the trailer, this is exactly the kind of film I was expecting to see. And I had the exact kind of reaction too it I thought I would. It was ok.

I think I liked Miranda July's first film You and Me and Everyone We Know a little more than this one. Sure it's quirky, indie, light dramay, absurdist and too-hipster-to-function and I don't know exactly if it's too much for me or if I'm fine with it. But it was ok.

Green Lantern

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Michael

Write up.

The extended cut on bluray adds nothing but some exposition at the start.

Melancholia

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Tyler

Well, it's certainly a lot happier than Antichrist. But that's not saying much. It's defiantly more welcoming though. And I DO love my disaster films so the idea of someone like Lars von Trier taking one on does make me somewhat giddy. Even if it's only a part of the film, it've very well done and looks stunning.

And the end of the world is just absolutely gorgeous in this. I am loving everything I see out of the Phantom camera. It all looks like some elegant perfume commercial, true, but I still love it. Like in Antichrist we have a little slow motion prologue that seems separate from the rest of the film, especially seem as the main segments are shot in a more Dogma 95 style, despite using the Alexa. He somehow manages to make it look like home video. Skill.

The film is divided into two halves, each focusing on a different sister. Kirsten Dunst is dealing with what I can only assume, given the director, is clinical depression. She does her best to make it through her wedding day but things get nice an awkward. I would have no problem marrying Alexander Skarsgård. Kirsten Dunst is just great in this.

The next half we follow her sister, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, who has trouble dealing with family dramas but also the impending doom from the impact of a giant planet subtly named Melancholia.

While it still doesn't exactly feel cohesive in places, I actually really enjoyed this film. As much as you can enjoy a film about sadness. If this is how Lars works out his emotions, all the more power too him. It's vastly more accessible than the majority of his work and certainly easier to sit through than Antichrist. It has a very authentic feeling in the portrayal of depression. And the final sequences got me more worked up than any Roland Emmerich end of the word.

Total Recall

IMDB
First time viewed: No
Current Release: No
Watched With: Tyler, Leith

Another awesome Paul Verhoeven film and one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's most quotable. And as much as I love the action and the awesome fx it's really the story I love and the is it real or isn't ending, quintessential Philip K. Dick stuff.

We get a remake next year and perhaps it'll stick close to the book than this does. I would love to get my hands on the script David Cronenberg was going to make before it got passed on to Verhoeven. But I do like his pulpy style.

One of my favs.

Restless

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

Whoa, cancer double feature. I should have read more about what these films were about before randomly going to see both just because it was a cheap day.

Gus Van Sant is an interesting director. I suppose that's a nice way of saying sometimes I just don't get what he was thinking. I love some of his stuff, and other times I find it very boring. Oddly enough though, I liked Gerry, but I didn't like Last Days or Paranoid Park.

This one sits somewhere in the middle, but he's definitely in Indie movie mode. While it's no Harold and Maude it seems to be going for the same tone.

Mia Wasikowska is great, new comer Henry Hopper is pretty good too. Again, I just don't think I cared that much about the story. It's certainly a lot sweeter than I was expecting, and from the mixed reviews I've read I think some very low expectations helped somewhat. Faint praise indeed, but really, this is the worst film to follow up Burning Man. My bad.

Burning Man

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes
Watched With: Myself

It's Man on Fire all over again. Is it too much to ask to see someone set alight?

Instead we have a non-linear to the point of becoming schizophrenic story of a chef, played brilliantly by Matthew Goode, having trouble dealing with his wife dying of cancer and being left with an 8 year old son.

Goode is great. The rest of the film was a pretty standard caner drama, no matter how much they try to chop up the timeline to make it more mysterious. The editing also makes it hard to connect. Or maybe I'm just a heartless bastard, but I always think it's cheating to just have someone die from cancer and automatically expect the audience to be empathetic and ball out eyes out. Not if we're not invested in character first.

Yeah I didn't really connect with this one.