October 2, 2012 (Classic monsters, universal masters and being in the mood for love)
Five Plastic Discs Released Today:
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These first three films all share the fact that I haven’t viewed them in a decade or longer… so please excuse my fuzz.
I remember enjoying The Princess Bride, although it does seem to get a new video release every year. But hell, here it is on Bluray… maybe for the first time? Either way, I’ll give it another go soon enough and hopefully I still find it enjoyable. Peter Falk, Wallace Shawn and a pre-Spicoli Robin Wright… what’s not to like. Also: Andre the Giant, he makes everything cooler.
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Creepy. Little. Kid. That’s all I remember outside of Fred Gwynne and that zombie cat. I read the book when I was young and remember thinking the movie lost all of the grace and subtlety. While it may be decent when you can mentally divorce it from the source material, I still bet this is the one that’s aged the worst out of these first three films…
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LOOK AT THAT LUNDGREN! Majestic, powerful, ballsy, mulletous. He’s holding a gun AND a sword for fuck sakes!
The Skeletor make-up looks pretty awful on the cover but I remember it being much cooler in the film itself… perhaps I’m wrong, but either way, I was a big He-Man nerd when I was a kid and this movie was just odd and kind of creepy like all kid’s movies in the 80’s were. I remember liking it as a child, but still knowing it was completely broken as a film. Still, at the very least, children’s films had balls in the 80’s… big, lather-clad Lundgren balls of steel.
That weird synthesizer inter-dimensional key thingy – Courtney Cox all decked out in denim with feathered hair – That preposterous and revolting Orko stand-in that just came off like some ill-conceived, leftover Labrynthesque troll character. Holy shit – kids movies are fucking insane. At least, they were.
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This is one of those films which will make you rejoice the advent of High-definition. A stunningly beautiful film, both visually and emotionally.
Maggie Cheung will destroy you and Wong Kar-Wai creates an honest and profound world, just as he always does.
Highly recommended.
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Every time I’ve done one of these lists there is a badass boxed-set that takes my top spot due solely to how comprehensive and neat it looks all laid out… This week is no exception.
I love love love the Universal monster films and any chance to see them re-mastered is very welcomed.
We’re presented with a good collection here, but I’d take out the 1943 Phantom of the Opera and put Son of Frankenstein in, instead. Not that the ’43 version of Phantom of the Opera is bad per se, it just doesn’t quite fit. Being the only Technicolor film of the package, it simply feels incongruous to me.
Besides, Son of Frankenstein is the far superior film either way (my personal favorite Frankenstein film), so I’d love to see it on Bluray.
In any event, this is a great looking package (other than the cardboard slip cases… that’s always terrible on every boxed-set!) which includes some truly amazing films at a damn reasonable price – this is prime X-mas preset fodder right here.
And… I was on vacation last week, so I missed the update – it figures that it contained the most high-profile comics-related releases since I started doing this feature.
There were, admittedly, a few “biggies”, so I’ve decided to roll back the calendar a tad and look at:
September 25, 2012 (Super-heroes, super spies and damnation)
Blah, blah, blah, ham-fisted and hackneyed dialog crammed between ridiculously improbably action sequences… just like the games then. Whatever, I freaking loved RE1 back in the day when it dropped on the PS1, it was unlike anything I’d played up to that point and the series has always had me since then. Although, I recognize how bad these games are at telling a coherent narrative, so turning them solely into movies seems like a very bad idea… as the unwaveringly shitty Paul Anderson has proven an unholy amount of times over.
The last CG movie was basically just a long cut-scene from one of the games… it looked cool and made no fucking sense, but you know… that’s okay in my book. Sometimes I like to sit back, turn off the brain and watch some pretty zombie action. Sold.
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Another month, another unauthorized music doc. Meh, it was a slow week and I’m sure there are some interesting bits here. That’s all I’ve got.
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I know, odd that I haven’t either condemned this film to death or slobbered all over it’s old and muscly bat-cock already… truth be told, I have seen it… quite a while back now. And… I liked it. It was a vast improvement over the insipid cinematic abortion which was Year One. Probably the best animated Bat-film other than Under the Red Hood.
I’m just trying to shy away from constantly reviewing Batman related works… this blog has turned into a Bat-shrine and I need to diversify a bit… so therefore, no proper review. I will say, it missed a few high-points for me due to the lack of Bruce’s inner-monologue, but otherwise it was a nice, shallow animated interpretation of the comic.
Really though, It’s all good… nothing spectacular mind you, yet still solid and entertaining. I’m eager to see part two and give this one the old thumb up.
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This is another one of those big releases. Everyone in America saw this film, like twelve times, so don’t look to me for a unique perspective. I’ve stopped regularly reading Marvel comics in the past decade, so I must say I enjoyed this film because it brought me back into that world and everything still seemed to click into place. I’ve got to hand it to Joss Whedon, he really nailed it and I’m sure this film would have been just terrible if they hadn’t allowed him to make it the way he did. I mean, it’s no Avengers XXX, but then again, what is?
I really liked this movie, against all odds, big bloated, merchandising summer blockbuster that it is.
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Shit yes, that borderline rapist and international man-whore of mystery is back on bluray with vengeance. These films are great escapist cinema if ever there were any and I don’t need to say anything to express how cool this damn collection is. Nice collection, nice box and they even leave an open space for the eventual Skyfall disc. That’s fucking classy.
Comics Astonish 