What did you watch this week fellow MovieChatter? (07/22-07/28)

My ratings of what you watched:

It 8/10
Courageous 8/10
Stoker 2/10 ( I really hated this movie.)

My ratings of what I watched:
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) 6/10
Mon Oncle (1958) 7/10
PlayTime (1967) 7/10
Commando (1985) 8/10
End of Watch (2012) 8/10
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015) 6/10
Pain & Gain (2013) 5/10
Mao’s Last Dancer (2009) 6/10
The Internship (2013) 8/10

Last night I watched Mission: Impossible - Fallout. Best action movie I've seen in at least the last few years and probably the best entry in the entire franchise. I'd give it an 8.5 or 9/10.

Let's see, what else did I watch. . .

Oh, I started that new HBO show Succession. I've seen some complaints about it, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. I've felt lately that TV has been in something of a dry spell in regard to producing truly compelling shows--there have been so many that I've tried to watch and just didn't really get into--and so it was nice to find something I really liked.

I also started Hulu's new show Castle Rock. It's pretty good as well. Not GREAT, but pretty good. If you like Stephen King, you should get into it.

I saw a few before I went on vacation

Silent Running (1972) - In a future where all flora is extinct on Earth, an astronaut is given orders to destroy the last of Earth's botany, kept in a greenhouse aboard a spacecraft. The movie is a bit dated now but it is charming. The plot was kind of dumb. 6/10

The Endless (2017) - Two brothers return to the cult they fled from years ago to discover that the group's beliefs may be more sane than they once thought. Very low budget sci-fi/time loop movie. It had potential but poor execution. 5.5/10

Small Town Crime (2017) - An alcoholic ex-cop (Hawkes) finds the body of a young woman and, through an act of self-redemption, becomes hell-bent on finding the killer but unwittingly puts his family in danger. A very good crime thriller. Reminded me of Blue Ruin. John Hawkes is great in the leading role. I predict he will win an Oscar someday when he gets that right role. He reminds me of Sam Rockwell. 7/10

Body Snatchers (1993) - A teenage girl and her father discover alien clones are replacing humans on a remote U.S. military base in Alabama. I love the body snatcher movies and had never seen this one before. It is a decent little horror film and it does justice to the first two. It needed to be a bit longer to build the suspense. 7/10

9th Company (2005) 8/10

"At a farewell ceremony in Krasnoyarsk, a band of young Soviet Army recruits is preparing for their departure to their place of military service. On arrival at their bootcamp in the Fergana Valley of Uzbekistan they meet their drill instructor, Senior Praporschik Dygalo, a seasoned, traumatized veteran of several tours in Afghanistan and a brutal trainer who treats the recruits harshly and at one time suffers a nervous breakdown. During their training, the recruits overcome their differences and build bonds. Between the training sessions, they receive lessons in operating plastic explosives (which prompts some comic relief) and how to conduct themselves in Afghanistan (underlining the vast cultural differences between Western and Afghan culture).

On their arrival at Baghram air base they greet a group of VDV troops who have fulfilled their military service and are due to return home. One of the departing soldiers gives one of the new arrivals, Lyutyi, a talisman that he claims has kept him safe through several tours and multiple firefights. Homeward bound, the departing soldier's transport plane is hit by enemy fire from the nearby mountains and crashes, giving the new recruits their first taste of war.

Shortly thereafter, the soldiers are assigned to the 9th company, where their trainer and drill instructor, Dygalo, had previously served. The company is soon deployed to the front as part of Operation Magistral and is instructed to hold a nameless hill at all costs. After some preliminary skirmishes, the company's position comes under sustained attack by a large number of Mujahedin fighters and is overrun."

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417397/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

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i liked it quite a bit too. i don't think it's great - it's not that scary, it's not the most compelling coming of age story, but everything in it works pretty nicely & the kid actors were all really great in their roles i thought.

i saw stoker a few years ago when i went on a park chan-wook tear through almost all of his films. it has a lot of the same qualities as his other films, but it didn't quite have the satisfying mental crunch that comes when a film really sticks the landing. i wasn't aware of an alternate ending. if/when i get around to seeing it again, i'll try to track that down.

i continue to slum it with fairly trashy horror this week

the first purge (2018) 1.5/5 rote action scenes, zero tension or momentum, & some really obvious & didactic messaging that wasn't even a millimetre deep. still worth it for the theatre's a/c.

a christmas horror story (2015) 2.5/5 fairly forgettable horror anthology. the only real noteworthy details are the crosscutting of the stories instead of the standard story 1/2/3 format (which doesn't really help anything, imo) & the presence of good old bill shatner, who is pretty fun. a few passable gore moments, but no real fun or energy to be found.

two evil eyes (1990) 3.5/5 two shortish horror segments from george romero & dario argento, both based on poe stories. both stories are reasonably good, but i think this would have worked better if each one was edited down & a third & even a fourth story was added. still pretty good fun, for the most part. the argento one is weaker, but harvey keitel looks ridiculous & hams it up nicely in that segment.

hypersomnia (2016) 1.5/5 how can an 84 minute running time feel so very very long? there were a few intriguing moments early on that suggested a bit of a lynch vibe - granted, you could say that about a billion other movies, but it did feel like they were striving for something. and there are a few body-horror moments that perhaps felt a touch cronenbergian. but nothing comes of it. it's all just a dreary fizzle, short yet somehow endlessly long.

absentia (2011) 4/5 i think absentia is one of the better horror/thrillers of the past 10 years or so. not the best. i probably wouldn't even say it's mike flanagan's best - i think i'm reserving that slot for oculus. but it's truly good, with a creepy, sinister atmosphere that gets a lot out of what surely must have been a micro-budget film. its only major flaw is what i've always perceived as some slightly wobbly acting, particularly in the first section, where some of the scenes play almost like community theatre. but get past that - it's chock full of great stuff.

pandorum (2009) 1.5/5 pretty boring 'monsters in outer space' film. the actors do what they can with the material they're given, and the lead actress is fairly beautiful & her boobs are shot nicely & prominently, but this is a terribly dull grind. surprisingly good sets & effects though. not great or unique, mind you, but they're definitely better than what you'd expect given how b-level this material is.

messiah of evil (1973) 3.5/5 sort of like if a committed art-house director remade night of the living dead. delightfully odd, if meandering & occasionally listless horror film - seems to feature zombies, but they're glaringly absent for long stretches. it verges on being boring at times, but it's such an overall peculiar film that i can't help but love it.

Movie night week, so I've been watching more movies than normally.

Movies:

-Appointment with Death (1988)
Another Poirot movie starring Peter Ustinov. While it seems to follow the book pretty closely, it's boring and lacks the atmosphere of the previous movies. The 80s background music was also awful.

-Sands of Oblivion (2007)
Horrible Syfy movie. A rip-off of The Mummy, but gets everything wrong what that movie got right.

-Speed (1994)
Still one of my favourite action movies ever, even though it's very silly at times.

-Scream (1996)
My favourite horror movie and one of my favourite movies in general. Smart, funny and scary.

-Scream 2 (1997)
Quite a few flaws, but still one of the best sequels out there.

-I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)
I honestly don't get the hate for this movie. An effective old school style slasher with a lot of suspense and atmosphere.

-Back to the Future (1985)
Such a classic. One of my favourite 80s movies.

TV Shows:

-Agatha Christie's Poirot - "Dead Man's Mirror" and "Jewel Robbery at The Grand Metropolitan"

-The Flying Doctors - "To the Rescue"
Why did Sharon come back?!

-Saved By the Bell - marathon
OMG, I hate how Kelly and the gang treated Zack after she cheated on him and dumped him for some older pedo and made Zack out to be the bad guy! Ugh!

-The Love Boat - marathon

-The New Detectives - marathon

-The Bold and the Beautiful - marathon of very old episodes

-Buffy The Vampire Slayer - "Amends", "Gingerbread" and "Helpless"

Next week will be another movie night week!

We watched Lars and the Real Girl (2007). Pretty good movie though pretty predictable. 7/10.

TV Shows:
Ended the first season of Teachers (2016).