Hamster People Movie Place

Talk about things that are not making games here. But you should also make games!

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MorpheusKitami
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

Post by MorpheusKitami »

Titus, huh? Not necessarily against *that*, I like the films of Meiko Kaji, but the supposed brutality of it makes me a bit squeamish. That said, I do seem to be accidentally only watching Shakespeare films starring Olivier, since I also saw his Richard III some years ago. Have been meaning to try the other one, but for now I'm trying to get through the various movies I've picked up at thrift stores and the ilk.

You have to be the only person I've seen who would put Tokyo Drifter, Hausu and Day of the Dead on a list like that. Not a dig at you, those first two are pretty neat and I'm sure I'd find the third one a good watch if I could ever stomach it. Considering how many people are supposed to be massive weebs these days you'd think more would appreciate the weird styles of those two films.
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

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I've done a massive deep dive into a franchise I always loved but never experienced all of this year, and that's Dragonball. I was pretty fresh going into the movie I'm gonna share my thoughts on, having seen all of Super last year, and experienced classic all the way through this year as well as Z in full again.

Dragonball Super: Super Hero
A lot of people seemed to be on the fence about the visual style going from hand drawn to CG and I was one of them but I went in with an open mind and this movie really nailed this new look. Animation was intense, they did a lot of really great camera work that probably would have been a nightmare to hand animate. The story reminded me of classic Dragonball, what I think the tone Super wants to achieve when it's not all macho. The humor was great, and maybe it's a little bit reliant on knowing the characters decently. There were a TON of callbacks to classic Dragonball in particular which made me happy as it's my favorite. Sound design was super on point with the dynamic camera work. What you think will happen in the movie does happen, I mean, it did in the Z movies too. I went into this movie kinda having all of it spoiled and none of that knowledge killed my enjoyment of this. I had a lot of fun, saw it with a decent crowd in a theater. I can't really say what DB movie is my favorite, I did see them all this year in order, but I'd rank this one in the top three at the very least. If you watch it for free or in a theater it's worth the experience if you're a fan.
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

Post by SwordPlay »

Just want to add Yojimbo, and Seven Samurai. As well as most Clint Eastwood/Sergio Leone movies. And Tombstone :P
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

Post by SwordPlay »

not a movie, but a scathing review :P
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

Post by The Wobbler »

I've been watching a lot of old Universal Horror lately, love to be a Dracula, happy Halloween, everyone!!

My rankings of the ones I've watched so far:

Invisible Man
Frankenstein
Bride of Frankenstein
Dracula's Daughter
Dracula
The Wolf Man
Creature From the Black Lagoon
Phantom of the Opera 1943
The Mummy

Claude Rains as the Invisible Man is such a good, crazy fun villain. Just having the time of his life derailing trains and causing mayhem.

There's an alternate Spanish version of Dracula that was filmed at the same time on the same sets with different actors and that was pretty cool to watch!
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

Post by RMZ »

Saw a movie last night that I both liked and was confused about...

Licorice Pizza
It's about a 15 year old boy trying to date a 25 year old woman essentially. There's a lot of layers to their relationship and how it develops, and it's frankly done super well. The part that I think confused me was how this kind of thing got made. There's a lot of stuff out there, like that teacher show on Hulu, about older women grooming younger men or whatever, so the idea of a movie about an underage relationship just puzzled me. I think the pacing of the movie, and the depth of the characters was really remarkable. The director really spent the perfect amount of time with each of his characters to layer in a very real feeling story. I'm sure there's probably lots of other movies about underage relationships and I'm sure they would confuse me too. Seems it would have probably made more sense to write a story for the public about a couple with an age gap closer to legal age of consent, but regardless I thought this movie was really well done. I saw it for free on Amazon.

I also saw the Lord of the Rings show, not sure what I think about it just yet coming from being a big fan of the books and movies, but this is distinctly the movie thread and not the TV one, haha.
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

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Dawn of the Dead (1978) 10/10

Romero's iconic film about 4 people trying to survive in the face of a zombie apocalypse.
Very good film, worthy of all the praise it gets. Compared to films that came out in its wake, Dawn does an excellent job of explaining why the zombie apocalypse is spreading as it is. Everyone is going nuts over it. The film opens on a news room in chaos. People running away, desperate to just survive, while greedy station managers are sending people to inopperative rescue stations. Scientists and government officials making a hash of explaining what they should do to the public. People cannot live in their own homes anymore. Then we get a scene of a government team (probably police) clearing out a project housing unit. Already existing ethnic tensions are strained to a breaking point, and people who lose their loved ones don't want to turn them over to government teams. It doesn't help that the police are making a hash of things, losing three people before they even meet the big group of corpses. Considering they bunched up on a door they knew contained zombies, I don't think they're doing much better elsewhere.
Despite having a cast who's claim to fame is either being in this film or being a special effects artist, the acting in this film is great. Maniacs are frought with energy; Those under distress feel like they're about to crack; And the zombies all carry themselves with a real weight.
The soundtrack and the flow of the film is amazing, though I would say in the version I watched its a bit lacking, at which point I'd like to talk about the version I watched this time, as this is the second time I've watched the film.

I only watched this film this time because by chance I found out that there was this weird Playstation educational "game" series, Cinema Eikaiwa, in which this was one of the offerings. Basically in Japan this film was released as a way of learning English. That amuses me. (everything else in the series were random '90s films) You could watch the film as normal, with English or Japanese subtitles, or do various modes. Like having one of the main character's voices be muted while the subtitles are under him. You can also use a dictionary to look up any English word you're having trouble understanding. I question the quality of it, since I see several sentences in the English subtitles that aren't what's said in the movie...
What I found more interesting as I continued to watch it, beyond the crappy picture quality, was that I didn't recognize what cut the film was based off of. I only saw it once before and I'm not sure which cut it was. I do know that it had the Goblin song in the intro and that regardless of which cut this is based off of, its missing a great deal. I'm curious if anyone who knows more about the film than I can identify what cut this was based off of.

Crew in chaos at beginning/extended scenes here
No Goblin in intro, basically doesn't appear throughout most of the film.
Scene of the police saying there are no charges against you.
Unclear on whether or not there were changes when the first zombies pop out, but I don't remember it going this way
Seems like there's a new scene where other cops nearly take the chopper. Wasn't this just one cop talking to Fran and Stephen originally?
Intro song before the scene where the rednecks should be shooting zombies, but instead shows everyone arguing in the chopper. No refueling scene.
Intro song also when they appear at the mall.
They get keys right away with no scene.
Intro song when Flyboy is screwing up shooting a zombie in the sewery area.
Oh, they cut out part of the scene where they're going around shooting the zombies inside the mall! The cuts there are really awkward, from them showing the four all loaded up to them about to steal the car, then cutting in around that awkwardly, before proceeding as normal when they're dealing with the mall's doors. Then cutting most of the section after saying "we're gonna go on a hunt."
Yet we still get all of the ending scenes. If there were any cuts here they were minor. They show the zombies enjoying their meal at the end and the whole fight. Guess they're really cutting for time and not any censorship changes.
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

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Sweet Home (1989) 6/10
In preparation for playing the game Sweet Home, I decided to try out the film it was based off of. Well, kind of based off of. Apparently that's some sort of point of contention. Anyway, this is one of the few movies with a video game adaptation better known than it. The plot is that five people from a TV station go to the old abandoned mansion of a long-dead painter. Apparently the mansion has a curse and some people in the area lean between not wanting people to die and cynically getting exposure for local tourism. I don't recognize anyone, but there are three women and two men. One of the ladies was in a band that was once quite famous.
You know, its weird seeing an ad for the movie and the game it was based off of before watching a movie. It starts off almost light-hearted, with the above explanation almost seeming like something out of a comedy film. As they try to enter the mansion more somewhat out of place comedy happens, like one of the crew being more upset that her contact lens has shifted and the two male crew members fall into each other. Its even edited like that. Its a weird first third where we get more comedy than serious horror and it makes it hard to take serious.
Then the horror starts and its...lame. Generic ghost girl, generic nightmares, oh, and a dead, partially burned baby. My snack during the movie was more interesting than this. No, seriously, terrible dead baby prop. I didn't even realize it was supposed to be one at first. In the first half a lot of the special effects feel really lame. It gets better though.
It picks up in the last half, but I wouldn't be surprised if people never really gave the film a chance because of that tonedeaf beginning. Its an entertaining second half. Its not even necessarily a bad film at its worst, just a misguided one. The actors are all great, especially Juzo Itami, the producer and a director in his own right, who plays a guy who warns them about the mansion...after they're already there though.
One minor complaint, everyone in this film dresses like they shop at a thrift store, and that thrift store only sells ugly garbage. The best dressed character looks like he buys his clothes at the same place as Columbo.
Yeah, its not really surprising that this film is less known than the game based off it. I do find it fascinating that the film's protagonist is a middle-aged woman, as that's not common for Japanese or horror films.
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

Post by The Wobbler »

Those Dawn of the Dead facts are wild, that's one of the strangest educational games I've heard of!

I also had no idea Sweet Home was based on a movie.

Some friends of mine were asking what to watch for Halloween and I made this stupid long list because that's what I do https://letterboxd.com/surlaw/list/hall ... endations/

Probably something for everyone there. It's arranged oldest to newest
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

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Dylan Dog: Dead of Night (2010) 4/10
"Adaptation" of the classic Italian comic book. "Adaptation", since the only thing it has in common with the series is the name of the main character, that he uses a revolver, has a sidekick and there are zombies. Well, what I've read of the original series, the official translated stories. Since apparently if us Americans see a picture of Groucho Marx and zombies we will launch our nuclear arsenal against Italy or something. This is really more of a random generic Hollywood fantasy/horror film they decided to slap the Dylan Dog name on...for some reason? Were people demanding that? I'm pretty sure there aren't that many people outside of Italy who care about the guy.
Anyway, Brandon Routh plays Dylan Dog...or a weird detective who's supposed to be Dylan Dog. See, long ago he served as the mediating detctive for the supernatural underworld in New Orleans. Keeping the werewolves, the vampires and the zombies off each others back. He left when he killed the head vampires after his girlfriend got murdered in their club. If you think that's an obvious setup, it is. Now, he's a regular private detective who watches people cheating on each other. Routh does a good job, which makes it all the worse that this film sucks and isn't a Dylan Dog movie.
Really, most of the actors are good...its just that the lines they have to say are so stupid. Like I said, the plot to this is stupid and generic, closer to a bootleg Whedon story than the comics. That most of these guys don't do to bad a job with this stupid stuff is a sign they deserve better. The one exception is the female...love interest, I guess. Everything about her is so forced. Funny thing I noticed, during her fight scenes, you can tell whenever its her stunt double, because she actually has muscles, meanwhile.
In short, Brandon Routh as Dylan Dog is good, but its barely related to the comics and otherwise its just generic Hollywood garbage.
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

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The Beyond (1981) 5/10

Another movie I'm really just seeing because there's a game based off it. Only, the adaptation of it is an unlicensed text adventure. I'm not really a gore hound, though I did like Black Cat. This is Lucio Fulci's attempt at making a Lovecraftian, or rather Ashton Clark Smith-style horror film. Except with zombies, since Fulci likes eating and that's what brought in the money.
Like I said, I'm not a gore hound, but the first couple of opening scenes were at a weird intersection of horrific and silly. By silly I mean hard to take seriously rather than funny. The story is that a painter in the 1920s did a whole bunch of paintings to prevent a gateway to hell being opened. The local townsfolk misinterpret this, and decide to murder him. Not lynch him, like people did in those days, but whip him with chains, crucify him, and then throw wet concrete in his face. What's silly is the chain leaves big old cuts, like it was a whip, in the painter, which left me in disbelief. Really?
Anyway a woman buys the hotel, and then people die in mysterious and sometimes unbelievable ways. It feels like its just there to produce grotesque but striking imagery. In a sense this works even if you don't like the film, since visually it does look nice. But its very obvious that whatever plot there was got lost not just by the various cuts the film had over the years but the budget limitations imposed upon him. (I think I saw the uncut version, but its clear that there were points that the budget badly hurt the film) I've read that in defense Fulci said that the plot isn't important while the visuals are and that The Beyond is an absolute film. I guess that's true, but...
There's a minor thread throughout the film of a little girl and her mother. In one scene we see the mother scream in one room, cutting to the daughter, who then enters that room. We then see the woman lying under a cabinet as a beaker of acid on top burns her face. This creates a growing pile of acid mixed with blood, and the girl runs away from this, eventually opening a door with a zombie in it. The next scene we see, the girl is fine, except now she's blind. After much of the running time and a few days later IIRC, we meet the girl again at the climax, when there are zombies again, where the two protagonists bring her with them. Its at this point the girl turns into a zombie. What I think happened is that the zombie popped out, knocked the mother into the cabinet, before retreating, and biting the girl but not killing her for some reason. For some reason a film that otherwise doesn't shy against depicting violence didn't depict this? Eh.
Otherwise, I like the lead actress, but she feels wasted here.
I wouldn't suggest watching this film, but ultimately this feels like the kind of film you watch just because of its reputation, not because its good or bad.
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

Post by TheLordThyGod »

Inferno (1980)
This sequel to Suspiria looks pretty, but doesn't make a lot of sense. Weird looking architecture and decor lit with unnatural colors are used to great effect, but there's just not much plot (what if witch) and not much to the characters. I haven't seen enough Argento movies to know if that's just how he rolls. I may watch The Bird With The Crystal Plumage sometime soon.

Uninvited (1987)
Some spring breakers find a cat and take it onboard some rich guy's yacht. The rich guy is trying to escape to the Caymans with a bunch of dirty money. The cat turns out to be an escaped lab animal with a bizarre mutation... it has a crazy cat-like monster living inside it that comes out of the cat's mouth to feed. And it's venomous. It's a bad, bad movie, but I got a few laughs out of the cat's killing spree.
...spake The Lord Thy God.
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

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Some recent watches:

SPACE AMOEBA
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A movie about an alien blob that hitches a ride on a spaceship and comes to Earth looking for a host. It's more intelligent than it first appears and it's extremely sensitive to sound waves, but instead of making its hosts into Venoms it turns them stupid-huge.

Ishiro Honda's second to last film, released 1970. This is one where I had seen bits and pieces of the English dub years and years ago with terrible picture quality. Now it's up on the Criterion Channel in Japanese with a great looking restoration!

Gezora the squid is one of my all time favorite monster suits, I love this big wiggly beast. It's a cool suit both on land and underwater. I'll never not be impressed by these kinds of costume effects, even if the rest of the movie sags under budget constraints. We're told that this alien threat endangers the world but all we ever see is one tiny village and jungle.

This is definitely a lesser Honda even if I love the monsters. His films usually have a decent human element to them too, but not this time; both the Islanders and the exhibition team are completely forgettable.

TWINS OF EVIL
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Count Karnstein, bored of the pain and pleasure of mortal flesh, begs for Satan to notice him and offer him sensations on a supernatural level. This isn't a Hellraiser so instead of getting invaded by bondage aliens he gets to make out with his vampiric great grandmother.

Meanwhile, having recently lost their parents, a pair of sisters move in with their murderous witch hunter uncle Gustav, played by Peter Cushing. There's thematic doubling with the use of morally divergent twin sisters, but Gustav and Karnstein are also mirrors, two murderers who take pleasure in the desecration of the innocent. The difference is Karnstein is loud and proud about what he is while Gustav continues to hide behind God.

Sisters Frieda and Maria have some phenomenal fashion. Giant hats, garish colors, they're stunning. Frieda is absolutely right that the men in her village are boring clowns and that doing evil is way more fun. Neither of them belongs in this foggy, decaying countryside. There's a sexually charged campiness to the twins and Count Karnstein, while Gustav is chaste, furious, and quietly terrifying in a very realistic way.

This isn't as crushing as Witchfinder General or Witchhammer, but it still hits a lot of grim notes. There's almost no one good in this village and it's hard not to be on Frieda's side. She's a very fun character and deserves better than what she ends up with.

PSYCHOMANIA
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A biker gang rebels against authority by knocking groceries out of people's hands, stealing umbrellas, and slapping butts. Soon their leader, Tom, learns that his family is part of a toad-worshipping undead cult and the secret of cheating death.

There's zero blood on screen and the punk hijinks are almost all played for laughs, even when there's an extensive montage of suicides when Tom teaches his gang that as long as you actually want to die, suicide makes you come back invincible and super strong. Yeah, these are nominally the bad guys of this film, but it's repulsive in a way the film doesn't seem fully aware of.

All of this is accompanied accompanied by sweet romantic rock or mild funk. Tom lives in a mansion with his own butler but rages against The Man while assaulting regular people. We're told these are grimy dudes but they're all wearing such clean, proper turtlenecks. An utterly bizarre film.
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

Post by SwordPlay »

love the reviews and this thread in general XDDDD so great!
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Re: Hamster People Movie Place

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House (1977) 9/10

A bizarre and psychedelic Japanese haunted house film. Seven Japanese schoolgirls go to one of their aunt's mansion, who turns out to be a witch. Describing the film's plot is quite easy, but describing what happens is a bit harder. Calling it a weird Japanese film undersells it, because the film deliberately goes out of its way to do weird things. Going back and forth for a moment, or playing around with the movie's main theme to incorporate things happening on-screen. Its Japanese-ness, while contributing to the film's weird nature, is incidental to the director's attempts at making a film that feels like an out of body experience.
One thing I mean, which people probably don't know, is that there's a semi-truck scene in the film that seems completely non-sensical to a non-Japanese viewer, but is actually a parody of a trend they had at the time of romanticizing truck drivers because of some film. The way its done is the film being weird, but its existance is not necessarily anymore weird than watching the episode of The Simpsons parodying The Prisoner without knowing what The Prisoner is. Which doesn't remove how weird the scene is otherwise, but because we are outsiders looking it, things seem weirder than they actually are.
Describing it in any more detail does ruin it to a small degree. Its not the plot as much as the events that unfold which make the film what it is. Although I do think, now that I've seen it twice that the second viewing makes it considerably more interesting.
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