I watch way too many movies. To give you an idea of how many movies I watch, if I were to blog every single movie I watched, the entries would far out-number the entries about me eating weird food.
I know. Hard to comprehend.
Here’s a movie that was recommended by Spacebeer, Withnail and I.
I think that if I had seen this when I was in high school it would have been my favorite movie. As it was, I actually thought it was mildly irritating. It’s about a pair of obnoxious and ineffectual London actors who take a vacation in the country. Notably, it stars two future Dr. Whos. There’s Richard E. Grant, who was a very serviceable non-doctrinal doctor in Scream of the Shalka and the Dr. Who comic relief special. And of course, Paul McGann, the very much doctrinal eighth doctor that no one really wants to talk about.
A little more my speed, is the blatant Blade Runner rip-off from South Korea, Natural City. This following production still fairly summarizes the movie.
Pretty much every major plot point and image is cribbed from Blade Runner. Except that Natural City has all the post-Matrix wire-work and gore that Ridley Scott would have put in if he had only known it were possible. It’s amazingly long and the plot meanders and frequently makes no sense, but it has the most amazing head shot I’ve ever seen. All the flesh on the head vibrates and flutters in slow-motion. Absolutely amazing. Worth watching just for that.
I’ve seen Dhoom2 of course, but it’s actually kinda hard to find Dhoom, the movie that started it all. From what I’ve seen on the web, the word ‘dhoom’ doesn’t translate well to English. "Dhoom machale" the title song, means something like "rock on" or "have fun." And Dhoom is indeed fun.
It’s essentially The Fast and the Furious, but with John Abraham instead of Vin Diesel. Which could be an improvement, depending on your perspective. Now, let’s close out this Dhoom with another motorcycle shot:
I had heard of Solarbabies, but I had not known how awesome it is. It’s a post-apocalyptic future, where orphans rollerskate through the desert. It has Ubalstecha’s boyfriend Peter DeLuise, a glowing magical orb, and this awesome robot.
I will fight anyone who claims this movie is not awesome.
In the category of horror movies that were much better than they had any right to be, falls Splinter.
The Netflix summary for this movie is horrible. But it was the highest-ranked horror movie on instant view that I hadn’t already watched, so Julia and I gave it a shot. This is very low budget, it has it’s flaws, but it’s in the same category as Dogsoldiers or Shallow Ground, in the sense that it takes an outlandish premise and lets it unfold organically with some damn good acting, directing, and writing. And some creative manipulation of the human form.
On a side note, I would like to give a shout-out to Decapitated Zombie Vampire Bloodbath, a blog about horror movies. The entries are entertaining, thoughtful, and well researched. Exactly what horror has been missing all this time.
