Mark and Sam discuss both versions of Little Shop of Horrors (1960 and 1986), as well as:
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Rather childishly written CGI-heavy adventure by Robert Rodriguez. Some of the visuals are cool, some look very dodgy, and it plays like a techno-Oz story. Gets better as it goes.
I saw this before as a teenager, and thought it was deliberately overwrought and contrived just to fill the running time, and I had that general opinion of Corman’s Poe cycle.
However, I watched The Haunted Palace for the first time not too long ago, and thought it was wonderful, and thought maybe it was time to give the whole Corman/Price cycle another chance.
Watching it again, I realised I was totally wrong. It is weird, vivid, a mashup of pulp and existential horror that’s works superbly, and apart from Witchfinder General, I think this might be Price’s best performance as the black-hearted Prospero.
I loved the garish colours and the very fine set design and rather good costuming, and I particularly liked the Red Death and his brethren.
A fine film, and a classic of horror.
In this cast, Mark and Sam talk about assorted movies and games, including Shadow of the Colossus, Justice League, Filth, Stitch The Movie, We Need to talk about Kevin and Bioshock.
And about 5 Disney movies:
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Well, as I watched the first half, I couldn’t help thinking ‘this really isn’t as good as I remember it’. Then we saw Sonny Crockett lived on a yacht. With an alligator called Elvis. Then we saw a judge with a pump action shotgun, a clerk with a magnum, Sonny getting it on with a work colleague, and a bad guy in a dress.
So 80s, it hurts, in a good way.
I rate it Awesome++
An everyday story of a dysfunctional family who happen to be ritualistic cannibals…
The film has all the elements to work and be great, with nice camerawork, acting and tension, but it’s lack of proper setup or explanation, even through indirect dialogue gets frustrating in the end, and ultimately you really don’t care about these people. It felt like it could have been so much better if the script had had a little more work.
What would it be like to have to raise a kid who is a psychopath? To live among people who vilified you for the actions of your child? To blame yourself, and be in fear that people will confront you with your fears every minute of the day?
It’s a very difficult subject, and front and centre to this movie. Very well acted, directed and written, it has a central coldness in tone that is probably unavoidable, but isn’t helped by the nonlinear nature of the presentation. I felt more at ease with this difficult subject when the narrative stayed linear, but even then it was disconcerting.
A fine movie, one that would make a good double bill with Stoker, but by no means an easy watch.
Mark talks about Star Trek The Original Series, Season 2, Episodes 21-26
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Wow, a real tour-de-force with McAvoy as a complete asshole, who we get to see as a tortured, lonely man in this Scottish comedy version of Bad Lieutenant. This film is funny, repulsive, tragic in turns, and it did feel like a Trainspotting-lite in the first 20 minutes, but then quickly shed that feel and became its own thing.
I’m not entirely sure it’s a great movie, though it had many, many memorable scenes, and I’m sure I’ll remember it for years to come, but it’s a very, very good movie.
Oh and a spectacular and glorious cameo from David Soul too.
In this cast, Mark and Sam talk about assorted movies and the latest Godzilla trailer, and about 5 Disney movies:
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Reasonably funny and diverting comedy from the cringe-tastic Alan Partridge, that works well if you watch it in 2 or 3 servings, rather than one sitting – Partridge is definitely a characters that works better in several small doses than one big pigout.
Does this work overseas though? I think it’s a very British offering.
Terrific movie based on the play by George Bernard Shaw (and later adapted into the musical My Fair Lady), with funny, sad, angry scenes all mixed up together, and a great performance by Wendy Hiller as the brave, put-upon Eliza. I can’t decide if she’s uncannily beautiful or odd-looking…
Leslie Howard also puts in a 100% exhilarating performance as the brash, bullying Henry Higgins, and the bit players are also pretty good, especially the guy playing Eliza’s father. He’s hilariously low-class in all respects.
Completely bananas movie with an impressive cast (John Huston! Shelley Winters! Glen Ford! Franco Nero as Jesus Christ!) and with a young Lance Henrikson, this is a nutty cross between The Omen and the theatrical cut of Highlander 2, with elements of The Boys From Brazil and The Exorcist 2 thrown in.
Enjoyable, but don’t expect any sense.
Lovely, atmospheric, tense, watchable. Not scary, but mesmeric.
It adheres very closely in both story and tone to the Shirley Jackson book it’s based on, even using parts of the beautifully written opening and closing paragraphs of that book in voiceover at the beginning and end.
Beautiful horror.
Sam and Mark talk over Kick Ass and Kick Ass 2, as well as what they’ve watched/played/read since last time.
Explicit language.
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If you want to hear about a movie where you’d see some messed up psychological and physical torture by an old lady, this is the movie for you!
Even if you don’t watch to see a movie like that, listen anyway!
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This isn’t bust a gut funny and there were long stretches where I didn’t laugh at all, but the characters and their shenanigans are charming and fun, and it’s rather enjoyable, and the third act actually improves its score but half a point.
Whilst we get great performances from Hopkins, Mirren and Johansen, the story is like a final stage heroin junkie – thin, unfocussed and more than a little frustrating at times. Whole sections seemed to be injected into the main narrative on the slimmest of pretexts, like Hitch interacting with Ed Gein, or scenes like Alma getting cross and going for a swim in the swimming pool – what was that about?
I liked parts well enough, but it really didn’t go anywhere or tell you anything. I did have more fun spotting the homages to Hitchcock movies though. The Birds was an obvious one, but the most interesting to me was Marnie, which is Hitchcock’s underrated movie imo.
The other Hitchock biopic of this year, ‘The Girl’, was considerably tighter and made a point. Watch that one in preference to this.
Ridiculously good comedy Western from 1939, with James Stewart as the thoughtful Destry, and Marlene Dietrich showing you why she was such an inspiration for Lilly Von Schtupp in Blazing Saddles. A really well-written, excellently cast and funny oldschool comedy.
A podcast about a nice little time capsule of 50s invasion paranoia, Invaders From Mars.
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Crazy, fun exploitation flick about a reporter faking insanity to investigate a murder in an asylum, but then finding faking madness and being mad are kind of a bit too close to each other for comfort.
It also actually says things about America at the time it was made, including comments on racism, facing responsibility for one’s actions (or not), and how being different can condemn you.
So sleazy in parts, and cheaply profound in others.
Best line comes when the hero finds himself in a women’s ward: “NYMPHOS!”
A stripped down Riddick, getting back to basics that works so well, as it did in Pitch Black and was sorely missing in The Chronicles of Riddick. The first half hour was pretty damn good and distinct, with very little dialogue, and a lot of fun watching Riddick surviving brutal conditions and get the measure of the planet he’s been stranded on. It was like watching a decent movie version of the videogame Borderlands.
Eventually two sets of mercenaries/bounty hunters turn up to get him, and we get into territory that’s part retread of Pitch Black, part retread of the first (good) part of Chronicles.
Enjoyable, mindless actioner.
The nicely original horror movie about an unusual form of zombification, Pontypool
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This movie reinforces my view that Todd Browning was great at eerie and odd, but pretty terrible at conventional drama. He did it in Dracula, and he does that here. Only his ‘Freaks’ remains a pure masterpiece, because the conventional drama is completely soaked by the odd people, script and final act in that movie.
However, this film does fly when he’s doing spooky/eerie. Lugosi and the woman playing his vampire daughter are terrific, and their scenes, filmed like a silent movie, really work well.
Otherwise the movie is pretty leaden when it’s focussing on more conventional drama scenes.
The ending was fun.
Mark and Sam cover 5 Disney movies, and a number of other movies and other stuff.
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This is easily the second most funny Disney movie after The Emperor’s New Groove, but it does feel a little dated with some of Robin Williams topical references – I think everyone will recognise Jack Nicholson for years to come, but maybe not Rodney Dangerfield and Scorcese-esque De Niro – but the really good turns from the incidental comedy characters such as Iago, Abu and the carpet keep it cracking along at an excellent pace. There’s also some very creative ideas going on in the fast-paced sequences, such as the escape from the closing treasure-pit or the final fight.
Very enjoyable.
First Watch!
This was a pretty terrific and absorbing Disney, with some great songs/animation combos, and a more resonant story than you often get with Disney.
One downside is it did keep making me think of the far-superior La Belle et La Bete (and giving me an urge to watch that again), which it shares many elements of, but Disney-fied, of course. That’s not a significant fault of this movie though, it does have enough charm of its own to stand up proud.
Whilst not as good as the first movie, this is still pretty entertaining. Some of the side characters who had more depth in the first, and consigned to bit-parts only. It’s helped by the great central performance by Zellwegger, who I don’t think was ever better than as Bridget Jones. Hugh Grant is also marvellous as the bad boy character, and Firth is good in a very stuffy, stiff role (the role is right, that’s what the character is).
Your enjoyment does hinge on how much you like Zellwegger as Jones though.
A very fun horror movie, and I think in some shots, The Tingler looks pretty good (okay, in others, it looks terrible). I always liked the bath full of bright red blood right in the middle of a black and white movie, and laughed a little about the lengths someone went to within the movie to do that (I have the same problem with Les Diaboliques). Also, Vincent Price drops acid.
A fun, trippy movie.
