So What Have You Watched Lately?

Message 153 of 2692

For a change, I'm highlighting a movie I'm GOING to see rather than one I've seen. "Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers" is the only Halloween sequel I haven't seen, and tonight or tomorrow night I intend to remedy that. Most of what I've heard about it is bad, but it bugs me that I've seen them all but this one. I also plan to catch the newly remastered Night of The Living Dead on AMC Saturday night (they'll be showing it repeatedly from 6 to midnight).

Last night I had my real Halloween celebration -- I saw an amazing live performance by horror author Chet Williamson, who did a dramatic reading of his story "The Final Verse" at the Midtown Cinema in Harrisburg. He did the whole thing in character -- the person telling the story is an old country singer with a drawl -- even illustrating the story with a song sung and played on the guitar. (The idea is that he and a folklorist friend go into the mountains to find the long-lost missing verses of a traditional song -- and have a terrifying supernatural experience at a remote cabin in the woods.) He had everyone spellbound -- you could have heard a pin drop. And the story literally gave me goosebumps. It was better than any movie I ever saw! He's going to bring it out as a CD. I'll pass along the details when I know them.

So what have you watched lately?

posted by ponytail

ponytail: "It was better than any movie I ever saw!"

When it's well done, the theater of the mind can't be topped. It's always a customized, optimal performance.

posted by Macaroo388
about 1 month ago

Last night, we watched "Mirrors".

It seems the critics didn't much care for it, but I thought it wasn't that bad over all. Kiefer Sutherland may not be Laurence Olivier, but he's good at his craft and IMO he kinda saved the pretty lame, cliched "save my family and to hell with the consequences" plot without too much pushing of the envelope.

The ending sucks. No idea what it was supposed to mean or where it was going, and I'm pretty sure it was either a cop out intended to avoid both the unambiguously and trendy tragic and the Disney-esque "they lived happily ever after" resolutions. It seemed more like a wistful plea for a sequel. As marginally uncritical as I am of the original, a sequel crosses the line into laughable.

Special effects were okay with occasional forays into good. I got several of those frissons (albeit, mild ones) which are the raisons d'etre for watching horror. I'd say it was well worth a Tuesday special rental if not necessarily a four-buck "previously viewed" special at the local DVD outlet.

I just happened to have a budget surplus at the time. :-)

posted by Macaroo388
about 1 month ago

I tried to watch it twice and couldn't stay with it. I thought the setting was a cool idea, but the movie didn't grab me. I'll probably try to watch it again sometime -- with certain films I have to be in the right state of mind to get into it.

posted by ponytail
about 1 month ago

I'm finally going to watch "Let the Right One In." Rotten Tomatoes has it ranked as #2 in the top 25 Vampire movies. I love vampires movies, so I'm really looking forward to it. This time, I'll see if there's a language setting. If not, it's subtitles for me.

posted by medoohsa
about 1 month ago

Wow, what a coincidence. -- I watched it last night! While shopping for the Halloween sequel I saw it on sale and bought it. It was fascinating, very different -- and it was in English (printed texts like headlines, etc., had subtitles). Kind of slow-moving, but the characters (the two kids especially) were quite believable.

posted by ponytail
about 1 month ago

I'm watching back to back episodes of American Gothic on the Chiller network. That was always one of my favorite shows. Lucas Buck (Gary Cole) is one wickedly hot lawman.

posted by medoohsa
about 1 month ago

I saw Let the Right One In last week and liked it. The whole idea of a girl being 12, for 200 years is horrifying enough. Perpetual puberty...Yikes! There is an English language remake being done that is supposed to be released next year. It's called Let Me In.
For Halloween, I watched Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. I love those movies! My favorite zombie killer Simon Pegg plays a neurotic weasel named Buck, who's after a red-eyed, killer dino named Rudy. I laughed beginning to end.

posted by Steviejane
about 1 month ago

My favorite line in "Let The Right One in" was when she answered Oscar's question about her age: "I'm 12, but I've been 12 for a while."

posted by ponytail
about 1 month ago

The only safe thing I could watch while having trick-or-treaters show up, NCIS reruns and then too tired to watch anything else but did watch Ice Age and Ice Age: The Meltdown or what ever it was called.