Angel-A
On a whim I decided to check this movie out. I’ve never heard anything of it before stumbling across it on Netflix, mostly incredible because it’s a Luc Besson movie - and I dig his stuff. The trailer was bizarre yet intriguing. André is a mess of a man - owes money to scumbags, can’t tell the truth to save his life, and has a hard time getting straight. So after being threatened irreparable bodily harm (and probable death) from his thug borrowers, he decides to jump off a bridge. There he meets Angela. The movie is black and white and has a strange ethereal quality to it. There are a whole bunch of plot-holes, some bad acting, but the heart of the movie is good. I didn’t quite agree with the ending - but if you watch it, IM me and I’ll tell you why. It’s sort of a twisted “it’s a wonderful life” without the whole revisit-jimmy-stewarts-life thing… and Clarence is a six foot sexy bitch. This weekend I was depressed and was wanting to jump off a bridge too - funny how things just seem to pop up like a mirror. There are several beautiful scenes that are worth the rental. I’m actually considering buying this (damn eventual Blu-Ray upgrade - I’ll have to wait). I’m going to have to create a movies category in the sidebar…

Monster Squad
I think I’ve only seen this movie once when it was released in the 80’s. I probably saw it on cable or VHS at the time. I really don’t remember it except for some of the lines (”Wolfman got nards…”). This was a good treat, being released on DVD for the first time in 2007. I was surprised that the cinematography on it was so nice (the widescreen helped too) and some of the effects were tight (Stan Winston did a few of the effects including the Gill-man and Frankenstein make-up). The rest of the movie is forgettable and a lot of it doesn’t really make sense. I am waiting for the director’s other movie, Night of the Creeps make it to DVD.

Night of the Comet
Wow, this movie is really bad. It probably could have used more zombies. Why don’t they remake this one? It had a great premise, but blew it. The worst of it, however, is the god-awful 80’s pop that drenches the movie. Not good 80’s pop, but brain-melting pop that was written for the movie with some guy with a keyboard and a rhyming dictionary.

This Film Is Not Yet Rated
A entertaining documentary about how the MPAA rates movies inter-cut with lots of thrusting and oral sex (cuts from movies that got screwed by the MPAA). While not pedantic, the doc did seem to enjoy itself way too much in exposing the members of the MPAA ratings board - like a stupid college prank.

Next up: Angel-A, Wolf Creek, and Darkness Falls

I’ve been wanting to post some of the movies I’ve been watching from Netflix. I was thinking that, while giving my opinion on movies many people would never watch, it would be a good way to waste some space and start some conversations.

Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance
The first in Director Chan Wook Park’s Vengeance Trilogy - this was actually the second movie I watched (I was confused about the order). It doesn’t really matter which order they’re watched. All three movies are completely different stories, only linked by the theme of vengeance and complete insane chaos that usually ensues. I would start with the order however, if you want to see how Park progresses as a director and storyteller.

In Sympathy for Mr. Vengence, a deaf man tries to help his sister who is dying from some sort of kidney failure. It is very Shakespearian in tragedy and very Hitchcock in it’s twists - something that carries over in the other two movies. If you can follow this movie and like it, you’ll like the other two as well.

Oldboy
This was the first movie I watched, and looking back, I wish that I’d watched Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance first, just for the sake of ramping up the weirdness that happens. The story, like the first one, is very simple - a man is locked up and kept prisoner by an unknown jailer for 16 years, he is the inexplicably released to find out why. Real simple - but what follows slowly turns to madness. I had to watch this one at least 4 times to catch everything. Also, pick either the subtitles or english dubbing, both don’t do both - it’s confusing as they don’t match translations from Korean. I’d go with subtitles, because I prefer hearing the voices of the original actors.

Lady Vengeance
This is the last and most polished of the bunch. It really has a strong story and a really good ending that closes the entire trilogy; sort of like a coda. It does use actors from the other movies - so you’ll have to detach yourselves from the other movies if you had just watched them; the characters are different. I’ll have to look for the box set of these if they’re ever releases as such…

Battle Royale
I had heard about this movie for a very long time and I’ve never gotten around to see it until now. The premise is simple, a class of bad schoolchildren are placed on an island and forced to kill each other. It sounds crazy, and it is - I wasn’t really sure who to root for as some of the children are complete bastards and the school teacher is painted with some sympathy (and some creepy pedophiliac tendencies). The fight scenes are brutally realistic and the emotional states of the children really make an impact. I say it was good enough to see but probably not good enough to own.

The Last Supper
Liberal college grads invite people of opposing views to weekly dinners. They come up with the notion that by killing the guest with poison they can make the world a better place. It’s sort of quirky and snowballs into a big mess (not as grand as the Vengeance trilogy). I would put it right next to Very Bad Things (also starrting Cameron Diaz) in terms of tone.

Innerspace
Ah, something light in tone. I had good memories of this back in the 80’s, mostly because of Meg Ryan (back when she played cute characters) and the great special effects of ILM. The premise: hotshot test pilot Dennis Quaid gets shrunk down and accidently injected in
hypochondriac Martin Short - fun times.

All links go to the movies at Netflix.