Still one of my favourite films. Perfect casting, gags and for the time not bad effects. The script does a great job of balancing comedy and genre. Has one of my favourite openings and endings to any film (and the end credits with that musical montage is just ace), to quote Winston: "I LOVE THIS TOWN/FILM"! 😆
BTW Ghostbusters Afterlife is the best of the sequels IMO.
well, to each their own, buddy! the originals were obviously superior but i still enjoyed these movies. the star wars purists got their knickers in a knot over all of it, but i took them for what they were and enjoyed them
yeah, to each their own, i'm not on trial for the star wars films, kid
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Watched Religulous. I am far from being an atheist but frankly found this documentary hilarious. Maher is a bit of a prick but he's an intelligent prick and I enjoy some of his humour. I'm not sure he played entirely fair with his tactics but in a woke world he's sometimes very refreshing. Plus I'm an old cynical fart and we're increasingly out of style, which is just fine by me.
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TheMaster666I am an atheist and a Maher fan--watch his "Real Time" show religiously (pun intended), subscribed to HBO Max just for it. I saw the Religulous movie also a short while back. Hilarious movie.
One man's research into a means of prolonging life by inhaling the last breath of someone dying because it contains his soul. It cures the cancer of one woman but has the unfortunate side effect of causing violence because the breath samples are taken from prisoners and the insane. This turns into a slasher film but one with some artistry.
Shapeshifter (1999) 4/10
This is a movie about a teenager who tries to rescue his parents who are CIA spies from a stronghold In Budapest. He does so with the help of a sorcerer who shows him how to shapeshift. He becomes a dog, then a bird, then a griffin and gets it done. IMDB only gave it a 3.1, but it is better than that.
Whalefall (2026)- 8 or 9/10... pretty much what I expected so I can't really rate it much lower. Love seeing the protagonist swallowed by a whale as it's one of my biggest fears and the only other movie I've ever seen show it is Percy Jackson Sea of Monsters which was even better imo but Whalefall is more realistic.
The Dog stars 7/10 a survival movie, i had better hopes, some scenes where good but the movie is limping of what it must be, action or drama..
fauxindigoI really liked this one! I went in blind and I thought it was well done. I would've liked a bit more action but for post-apocalyptic it's not so unbelievable that it would feel very quiet and desolate most of the time with civilization crumbled
Clayface (2026) - 8/10
Didn't know what to expect, but I really liked it. Great script, cool effects, and they cast it very well too. Definitely felt like it belonged in the world of Gotham, and is a nice counter point to some of Gunn's other DC output.
Saw II (2005) - 5/10
A bit better than I rememberd. The pluses are more Jigsaw and Amanda. The ugly style and OTT fast editing is even worse this time, some people really like that style its not for me. I was a bit bored by Donnie Wahlberg's character. If it wasn't for the villains the movie wouldn't be that memorable.
@fauxindigo I really liked it, guess it depends how much you want to see it. Because the cinema was local and its quite cheap it didn't feel like too much a commitment, and it was a nice surprise just how good it was. It does have some good visual moments, and makeup effects, so yeah maybe check it out in cinemas.
fauxindigoyes me and my best friend try to go to the movies once a week because it's only $5 on Tuesdays
Misery (1990)
Directed by Rob Reiner
From a book by Stephen King.
Starring James Caan & Kathy Bates.
I apologize in advance for the length. These are my rough thoughts straight after viewing the film. Any spoilers have been marked and hidden.
Edit: For context, the basic set-up of the film/book is that a writer character, Paul Sheldon, is fed up with penning his popular and lucrative "Misery" series of schlocky novels and has just finished the manuscript for a piece of "serious" literature, a passion project that will grant him some self-respect as an author. On the drive from his writer's bloc-vanquishing retreat in Colorado back to the metropolis where his agent is, he crashes the car as he drives through a blinding blizzard. Crippled in the wreck, Paul's rescued by his number one fan, Annie Wilkes, who takes him into her home and nurses him (she is a registered nurse.) But her generosity soon proves to be Paul's worst nightmare. End Edit.
I'd never seen or read any Stephen King novel or movie before tonight, and I had really been looking forward to seeing Misery for Halloween. I've also recently gotten into the 00s TV show Las Vegas, so I was interested in seeing a younger James Caan in the lead role. Honestly, what a brilliant story, I see what all the fuss is over finally!
While most horror movies are cliches are about a bunch of barely legal hot chicks in a haunted house with some maniac in a distinctive mask wielding a chainsaw or some other trademark blade of choice, and tons of gushing blood and gore everywhere, Rob Reiner and script writer William Goldman manage to adapt King's innovative story into this mastery of suspense and tension.
I have to say, in my view, the best scene of the film was actually towards the middle of the movie, not one of the later ones where the violence ramps up. It's the moment when Paul finally succeeds in exploring the rest of his prison.
Annie has demanded that Paul write a new Misery novel and supplied him with a broken typewriter and some paper and ink to do so. Paul notices a dropped hair pin on the floor and gets an idea. But he needs to quickly get rid of Annie to seize the moment, so he uses the paper as an excuse. This kind of paper smudges, he shows her, and asks for the right kind of paper. So she goes to the store to buy it. Paul jumps at this opportunity he's created, takes the hair pin, and uses it as a lockpick to get out of the room that is his prison. He discovers the phone is dead/dummy, the front door is locked from the outside, etc.
All the while he is looking for a way out or a new tool, Reiner intersperses scenes showing Annie at the store or driving home. This contrast emphasizes or bolds the implied clock, the countdown to oblivion, and as her car enters the driveway, Paul has to race to get back on his wheelchair, close every door he opened, re-lock the door, and pretend he never left.
Where the film is most effective is how it finds such suspense, dread, tension, and horror in the utterly mundane. That's a testament to Stephen King's imagination. The setting of this home, and the locked room at that, already lends itself to a feeling of claustrophobia, alone, trapped; being physically helpless adds to that. The power imbalance. I like that scene I described because it's so powerful without needing to show any violence or outbursts whatsoever. The threats and stakes are already firing in our imaginations, and that alone is so powerful. Genius.
The famous
leg
scene--apparently it is a famous one--I found to be utterly sadistic and could've done without that level of brutality. Much to my surprise, I find out online that's actually the dialed back version! The book version of that scene is far gorier and more grisly! Geez. Ditto for the sheriff, though I would argue the movie version happens very suddenly, and that works better for the shock value of a sudden twist I did not see coming.
There were a couple points that did bother me slightly, namely that the movie seemed to have 3 or 4 excellent candidates for an ending or at least space to give Paul some minor victory, only to be false starts and get the hero nowhere.
First, there's the
attempt to drug her wine with the same pill she's been drugging him with to keep him sedated
. A poetic sort of irony, but that's thwarted. Okay, understandable, can't make this too easy. Next there's the
kitchen knife
. Okay, that one is a little more absurd, I mean how did she figure all that out and take it away from him? Although I actually did suspect that
the penguin being the wrong way earlier in the film might be a giveaway to her. But I let it go since it clearly hadn't happened...but then it did later.
That's two.
Then there's the sheriff. Speaking of the sheriff, this character is wildly inconsistent. In the beginning of the movie, he and the FBI are bumbling, useless, and incompetent. They mean well, but
c'mon the car is like 5 meters away from him, and he turns back without spending a few more minutes investigating the area? Then when they finally find the car much later in the movie, they just assume he must be dead by now because they took so long to find it and don't bother with a manhunt.
But then suddenly when the plot demands the sheriff later on, now he conveniently
sees her in road rage, notices the face, remembers it from a news clipping, which she conveniently happened to feature in from an old headline from the time she committed serial homicides (or infanticide) of newborns at the hospital where she worked. Timeout, she's already been suspected of killing babies, to the point of making the front page news, and through her whole life has been in so many convenient places where people she knew died mysteriously--but she was never convicted? Dang man, her trial must've been a bigger farce than O.J. Simpson's! How was she not a prime suspect from the getgo, if she was this famous? What's even stranger is the sheriff passes by her house in a helicopter much earlier and nonchalantly remarks, "That's Annie Wilke's place," without adding, "You know, that serial killer who got away with baby murder." I'd think people might remember someone who's the fictional O.J. Simpson of this world.
And how, praytell, does the sheriff get newfound inspiration to figure everything out,
that leads him to just read an old newspaper that magically tells him all the answers? Because he gave up on any actual investigation, started reading the Misery books for the heck of it, found a schlocky line about "justice" in one of the Misery books Paul wrote, which by extraordinary coincidence happens to also be similar to a line Annie had given the press during her stint as suspected murderer. And this is what ties them together, what inspires him to make the big break? Huh?!
And nevermind that logically, the threads feel rather loose in this plot point. Narratively, it would've made for an entirely unsatisfying finale for all of Paul Sheldon's wily, cunning, heroic ploys to be foiled by either bad luck or the seeming omniscience of his insane captor, only to then be rescued by a bumbling oaf of a lawman like a simple damsel in distress.
It is well then
that this is not how it ends, but YET ANOTHER fake-out ending that could've been but wasn't. Sure, I am pleased that isn't how it ends, but sheesh I'm getting exasperated at all the build-up leading nowhere. People often talk of the Return of the King, of the Lord of the Rings, having so many extra endings that are all good but just keeping going on and doing more of them. I don't remember it that way, (I was also a kid when I saw LOTR and haven't seen it in many many years), but that's how I feel about Misery
It's not until
the FOURTH time
when finally Paul is able to have his revenge and fulfill his destiny joining Darth Vader. Okay he doesn't become Vader's apprentice, but he gets a very satisfying and rhetorically/thematically appropriate payoff that mirrors or echoes with the earlier scenes of the film in a sort of literary parallelism. According to the internet, the scene in question from earlier is actually a bit different in the book, so I get why they changed it, because it makes this revenge during the final battle work better.
Overall, despite some nitpicking over the convenience of some plot points and the seemingly excessive parade of just one too many false-starts, that doesn't detract from being wowed by such an effective horror film with a cast of effectively two (sorta three or four counting the sheriff and his wife) main characters, and one main setting. It's a masterclass in less is more, and that carries over to James Caan's performance as the lead. He communicates what his character is thinking and feeling while still keeping his cards close to his chest to hide them from Annie. Great subtlety.
And Kathy Bates steals the show alternating from sweet and doting to vicious and without conscience. She comes across as eerily believable as a nutty Christian (you know the type) who additionally is a little on the spectrum mentally, adding up to what a serial killer might look like in real life. Not the guy in the hockey mask with the machete; the seemingly normal sweet old lady who's charming, until you press a few of the wrong buttons and she reveals her true colors. That's what sociopaths and psychopaths in real life are more like. Yet the "sweet lady" side of her isn't entirely an act, but has shades of genuine belief to it. Kathy somehow manages to convey all of those complex angles convincingly and she's terrifying.
It's a credit to her chops and King's writing that such simple everyday things and ordinary people can become hideous monsters. And to Rob Reiner too, because if it's true he toned down some of the most extreme gore of the book, then he elevated the story to be what it is without the crutch of violence.
Scream 7- 9/10
As a huge fan of the Scream movies, I was so upset that I didn't get to see this one in theaters. However, I finally got to watch it and I really loved the new setting and the twists we saw in this one. I guessed the killers pretty early on into the movie, but overall I think it did a great job of keeping the viewer guessing, and I LOVED that Matthew Lilliard got to come back for this one!
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