Purgatory of a hitman

Kill List (2011)

Had this one on my shelf for quite some time before I ended up watching it. Heard some good things about it when it was playing on the festivals so decided to buy it but never got around to watch it. Then a friend of mine said I should watch it and the director Ben Wheatley's latest movie Sightseers (2012), and so I did. I really hate trying to describe the story of a movie like this which evolves from one thing to another and yet another. But as it's told in the back cover and in the trailer as well I guess you can't really avoid it and luckily there's more to this movie than just an intriguing story. The movie reminded me of The Wicker Man (1973) in quite a few ways. Obviously the last 15 minutes or so, but also the weird feeling of the movie and the tension building from the start to finish. Not to forget the surprisingly good dark comedy. Of course comparing this to one of my all time favourite horror movies is not exactly fair, but it actually holds on quite nicely by itself. The acting is also great, so there's many things right in this movie. But there are some problems, can't go into too much details to avoid spoiling it, it's the ending mostly and some of the events leading to it. I liked the idea of it, but the actions leading to it didn't seem to make much sense and especially the outcome was weirdly predictable but still didn't really seem to make any sense. I mean the movie clearly wants to leave something for the viewer to think about, but the thing is that more you give it some thought the more ridiculous it seems. Maybe this movie needs a second viewing to get the whole point of it. But wether it's unintentionally confusing or intentionally complex didn't matter that much as this movie plays with tension quite masterfully. It's after all easier to forgive the flaws of the plot if the movie works on an emotional level and this one worked quite well.
72%

An early slasher classic

A Bay of Blood (1971)

Even though the influences of the genre come from even older movies, this one is probably the first true slasher film which fits the genre completely. Sure this film by Mario Bava is missing the masked murderer but the similarities for example to Friday the 13th (1980) are quite clear. Last time I saw this about 15 years ago I couldn't really understand much from it, the VHS had a horrible audio track and no subtitles, so all I could understand was that some people were getting killed and that of course didn't impress me much back then. Now luckily the DVD by Future Film has nice audio with subtitles and the image quality is good as well. But I must say I still didn't really understand everything. Now sure I understood the motives and the plot, but at points I was quite lost with who's killing who. The movie jumps timelines and there are multiple killers (not a spoiler, so don't worry) so I got lost quite a many times. Anyway that didn't matter much as there's a nice giallo-like atmosphere and plenty of quite graphic kills which kept me entertained. At points the soundtrack by Stelvio Cipriani sounded great, but unfortunately most of the time it was rather dull. The ending is just something special, shocking and absolutely hilarious in a dark sense of humour and that alone is worth watching the whole movie. As a curiosity piece for seeing the baby steps of the slasher genre this is pure brilliance and as a fun late night shocker this works quite well even today, despite the few flaws.
73%

Sam Raimi going back to his roots

Drag Me to Hell (2009)

I don't know why so many people seem to dislike this one, I think it's a great horror comedy, just what you'd expect from Sam Raimi. Maybe they were expecting another Spider-Man (2002) but instead they got a movie in the spirit of Evil Dead II (1987). I guess I can't blame them as I too was starting to feel he's only making Spider-Men, but luckily this was a blast from the past by him. It's a story about Christine (Alison Lohman) a bank worker who gets cursed by an old gypsy lady, played brilliantly by Lorna Raver. As the curse gets worse Christine seeks help from a psychic (Dileep Rao) and learns that she will eventually be taken to hell unless she can find a way to reverse the curse. The comedy is great and there's even some efforts into tension building, not just the usual cheap scares. Unfortunately Alison Lohman and Justin Long who plays her boyfriend are not exactly great at their parts and that's a shame as some of the supporting cast is rather brilliant. Despite that and the somewhat easy to guess ending this is a great horror comedy.

80%

Harrison Ford lost in Paris

Frantic (1988)

Funnily enough this is one of the best thrillers ever made but it's also one of the dumbest ones as well. Roman Polanski knows how to build tension and the story telling is the best part of this movie. Too bad the story is so ridiculously unbelievable that I just can't watch this one with a straight face. I need to spoil it a bit, but believe me it doesn't affect the viewing much at all as you'll still see a technically brilliant thriller and how idiotic the story is, even if you know the part which kind of makes the whole movie seem ridiculous. It's of course the whole elaborate plan of switching suitcases to smuggle something into the country but then instead of switching them back they rather kidnap the wife and of course without telling the husband about it, so he's left there to figure things out himself. I mean come on, that feels almost like an insult towards the intelligence of the viewer or then the bad guys are deliberately portrayed as idiots, which would be kind of like saying that your movie is not worth taking seriously. Either way, that's the downfall of this movie. And it's a shame as otherwise this one is a brilliant Hitchcockian thriller. Harrison Ford is great as the doctor lost in Paris while trying to find his wife and Emmanuelle Seigner is a perfect counter part for him. That with Polanski's style and great score by Ennio Morricone make this a highly enjoyable thriller. Too bad I just can't see past the stupid plot on this one, especially since the movie reminds you of it in every turn on the way.

67%

There's more to Sharon Stone's crotch than meets the eye

Basic Instinct (1992)

This movie is funny because the only thing that everyone seems to remember about it is Sharon Stone's crotch. And to be honest after so many years since I last saw it, that's about all I could remember as well. So as I just watched Showgirls (1995) I thought it's about time to give this one another try as I remember I didn't really like it when I last saw it back in the 90's. Well turns out there's quite a bit more to this than Sharon Stone's crotch, though I didn't remember how brilliant that scene actually was, hilariously genius moment. Anyway this turned out to be quite a gripping thriller and definitely kept me guessing all the way to the end. Funnily enough I didn't even remember who the murderer was, but Sharon Stone's crotch I couldn't forget, go figure... Another thing I noticed was that the nudity wasn't as explicit as I remembered, I guess it has just become more common in the movies since the early 90's so a movie like this doesn't have as strong of an impact anymore as it most likely had back then. I also didn't remember that Sharon Stone did a brilliant performance in this one, probably the best of her career right after Casino (1995). So I did enjoy this one a lot more this time around as I did back then, but it's not without problems. Even though Sharon Stone is brilliant and Michael Douglas was quite ok as well, the supporting cast is rather bad. Jeanne Tripplehorn as a psychiatrist was about as believable as a flying cow and George Dzundza as Gus was surprisingly weak as well. But with the sometimes not that great acting I can live with, it's the story which is the weakest point in this movie. It's highly interesting with plenty of twists to keep you entertained, but if you stop to think about it for even a second you can see that it's full of huge plot holes. In that light all the twists take a bit of unintentionally comic theme on them and that waters down the thriller part quite badly. With a bit more effort on the plot holes and a better supporting cast this would actually be a brilliant thriller. Now it's just above the average mostly because of a few single scenes and Sharon Stone's performance which live up to higher standards than the rest of the movie.

65%

An atmospheric giallo

The House with Laughing Windows (1976)

This is one of those movies which divide people's opinions, you either hate it or love it and there seems to be no middle ground. Well I must say I love it as it's an atmospheric giallo which builds tension slowly but surely. In a way this reminds me of The Wicker Man (1973) even though there's no folklore in this one and not really any dark comedy either, but it's the tension building and the similarities in the settings that make me quite sure Pupi Avati has taken quite a few ideas from it. Anyway it's a story about a restorer called Stefano (Lino Capolicchio) who is called to a small village to restore a painting in a local church made by an insane painter. As he gets intrigued by the story of the painter he stumbles onto a mystery and it seems someone wants him to stop poking around the past. The less you know the better as the story unravels itself in a nice way. The camerawork is quite stylish and one of the nicest shots in the movie was actually a real earthquake caught on camera. A lucky moment yes, but the way it fits the scene is just brilliant. The acting is surprisingly solid for a movie like this so no complaints on that one either. The music didn't really strike me in any way and thinking about it now after just watching it I can't even remember what kind of music it was. Anyway this is a great slow paced thriller which builds tension better than most of the newer movies.

88%

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971)

This is the last of the “animal series” of giallos from Dario Argento, the others being The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970) and The Cat O' Nine Tails (1971). This time a drummer (Michael Brandon) ends up killing a man after an unfortunate encounter. Then someone who witnessed and photographed the killing starts blackmailing him and soon bodies start piling up as he tries to cover his tracks. Well the “accidental” killing at the start was extremely far fetched and the rest of the plot isn't exactly great either. But as so many times it's the mood Argento sets up which is the driving force of his movies and this was no exception. The score by Ennio Morricone wasn't bad, but really it wasn't used as well as it could have been. The visual side however was well in hand, the compositions were quite great and the camerawork by Franco Di Giacomo was pretty much perfect. Some of the scenes are extremely memorable, whether that's a good thing or not is for the viewer to decide, I sure loved them. The biggest problem of this movie is the long and unneeded explanation of the motives at the end and in this Shameless release of the extended cut it's even longer than in the American cut. It's a shame as the ending is otherwise great it just drags on way too long on the explaining part. Apart from that and the misuse of Morricone's talents, this is a great giallo.

80%

Some serious party poopers

The House on the Edge of the Park (1980)

Right after Cannibal Holocaust (1980) Ruggero Deodato made this nasty little film. Even though the shock values might not be what they were in Cannibal Holocaust, this movie is still very disturbing. There's two kinds of sexploitation, there's the rather childish male fantasies and then there's the sick kind. This being a Ruggero Deodato movie this is of course the latter. It's a story about Alex (David Hoss) a homicidal rapist and his friend Ricky (Giovanni Radice), who invite themselves into a party hosted by a snobbish couple. Alex and Ricky take the group hostage, beating the men and raping the women. So the story isn't exactly great and similarities to The Last House on the Left (1972) are quite apparent. This is a bad movie, no other way of seeing it, but at parts it's so bad it turns into an unintentional comedy. Especially the twist at the end was just hilarious in it's stupidity and it pretty much ridiculed the whole movie before it. I don't know if that was a planned sick joke or just stupidity, but for me that worked very well. So basically it's an hour of torture, rape and torment and the ending makes fun of it all.
51%

Here's the trailer which is hilariously misspelled.

A giallo on the countryside

Don't Torture a Duckling (1972)

This is one of the most notorious giallos, right up there with Lucio Fulci's other sleazy “stab” at the giallo genre, The New York Ripper (1982). Though this time it's not the brutal and graphical murder scenes, but the targets of the murders which makes this one infamous. In a rural town somewhere in Italy someone is killing the children of the village. There are plenty of suspects, a weird mentally disabled man, a woman who's believed to practice black magic and an ex-drug addict woman who has just moved there from a big city. Maybe the murderer is none of the above, but the villagers want justice to be served so they take the law in their own hands as the police are too slow at solving the case. I must say this movie has one of the most memorable murder scenes I've ever seen, it was actually the only scene I remembered since the last time I saw it over 10 years ago. It involves chains and most memorable music switch I can think of and it will imprint itself into your mind forever. Speaking of the music, apart from that one absolutely brilliant scene the music didn't really impress me that much, it's not bad but nothing to rave about either. The cinematography wasn't bad either, but nowhere near the better ones of the genre. The ending was just hilariously over the top which kind of turned the otherwise quite intriguing thriller into a comedy, but other than that it keeps it's form nicely. So all in all this is a good giallo with some memorable moments.

73%

A little giallo gem

 The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh (1971)

Well if the last six movies from the Shameless collection were not that great, this movie pretty much makes up for all of them. This movie by Sergio Martino is among the best giallos I've seen. Life is not easy for Julie Wardh (Edwige Fenech), she is troubled by nightmares of her violent ex-lover Jean (Ivan Rassimov) and one day Jean returns to haunt her. While her husband Neil (Alberto de Mendoza) seems to never be around a lover, George (George Hilton), steps into her life, but when Neil returns things become even more complicated. Amongst this mess of relationships there is a serial killer on the loose and it seems the killer is also after Jean. Sure as in many giallos the story isn't this movie's strongest point, but in this one it's surprisingly intriguing. That even despite the multiple twists at the end which almost turned into comedy in their out of the blue way of pulling the rug under the feet of the viewer. But like in most giallos, the style and atmosphere make up for what the story might be lacking. The cinematography in this one is pure brilliance and very diverse, even amongst other giallos. That in addition of the great music by Nora Orlandi, which was a surprisingly strong effort from her, makes this one a true beauty. And then there's Edwige Fenech. Probably the best giallo actress in the whole genre and certainly the most pleasing for the eyes. The rest of the cast wasn't bad either and somewhat surprisingly for the genre there were even some great performances in this one. For every giallo fan this is a must see as it's one of the best in the genre.
98%

Satan's baby doll is surprisingly dull

Satan's Baby Doll (1982)

Nearing the end on my Shameless marathon and I must say the last five movies have been a bit of a let down (The Bronx movies and those two from Sirpa Lane). Unfortunately this one continues on the same track as the Lane movies. The idea is that after Maria's (Marina Hedman) death her spirit posesses her daughter Miria (Jacqueline Dupre) who then goes about to avenge her mother's death. The plot is thin to say the least but it's merely an excuse for showing some skin. And about the skin, maybe it's because I watched three of these in a row, but the sex scenes were just dull. For a movie like this that's most certainly not a good thing. At parts the movie tries to build some tension and suspense, but most of the time it just ends in stupidity. The score was annoying as hell and it's played so often that I was ready to turn off the volume completely. Wouldn't have mattered that much as pretty much everything anyone says in this movie is just time filling text book nonsense. I must give it some credit for trying to create a creepy atmosphere and for the efforts of building tension, but still it's a bad movie.

20%

A sci-fi giallo?

Footprints on the Moon (1975)

Well it's not really a giallo and it's not really sci-fi even though there are elements from both of those genres in it. It's a true Hitchcockian mystery done with the audio-visual style of giallos and involving sci-fi side plot. Alice (Florinda Bolkan) is troubled by weird dreams of astronauts being left stranded on the moon. One day she wakes up to see that she has missed two days and not knowing what has happened in those days. She starts to investigate the past and ends up in a nearly deserted island town called Garma which looks strangely familiar to her. When people seem to remember her being there before she starts to question her own sanity. I really like this movie and even though I had seen it before it didn't trouble me at all that I already knew the mystery behind all this. When I think about it, there's actually not much happening in this movie, apart from the beginning and the ending, but the atmosphere is just so magnificent that it doesn't matter one bit. It builds tension brilliantly right from the start and it even nears horror at times even though there's no serial killer on the loose or anything like that. I must say that the Shameless release of this one was a bit of a miss, I mean it's good quality as always and the added scenes were mostly good, though again they were in Italian only, but the ending is where this one goes wrong. The American cut didn't have the text at the end which gives you the answer to the biggest question this movie leaves you with, but this Shameless release has it and it kind of waters down the otherwise strong ending. Like I've always said, it's better to leave some things open for the viewer to ponder on and not overly explain everything. Without the text this would have been a brilliant movie, now it's “only” very good.

88%

An executioner without judge and jury

Watch Me When I Kill(1977)

Antonio Bido is a lesser known name amongst the giallo directors, mostly because did this movie, his first feature film, in the late 70's when the whole genre was starting to fade after it's glory days. That doesn't make him a bad director, on the contrary, for a first film this is absolutely brilliant. He has the giallo style well in hand and the music choices to boost it, hell even Dario Argento would be proud of some of the scenes in this movie. The plot goes something like this, Lukas (Corrado Pani) gets mixed up in a murder mystery when his girlfriend (Paola Tedesco) sees a murderer leave a crime scene. Someone seems to be after his neighbor as well and it looks like these two cases might be connected as someone seems to be after the jury members of a certain court trial. The story isn't half bad, sure there are some idiotic parts in it as usual, but it manages to stay quite interesting all the way to the end. I really loved the music in this one, especially how it's used, the operatic twist in the bathtub scene was pure brilliance. The cinematography is quite nice as well, not the most stylistic from the genre, but still some shots looked great. The biggest problem in this movie is the pacing, even though the first murder happens before the titles, it takes it's time to get started. But luckily towards the end it picked up quite nicely. Even though this movie had most of the things right for a giallo, I was still left hoping for more, apart from a few scenes it looked a bit too familiar. But it's still a good movie and well worth watching.

78%

A comatosed horror movie

Patrick (1978)

Patrick (Robert Thompson) kills his mother and her lover and then falls into coma. Patrick is thought to be brain dead, but Kathy (Susan Penhaligon), a young nurse, is convinced that he's still awake. Then weird things start to happen and sure enough Patrick seems to have some kinds of telekinetic powers. The story isn't as bad as it sounds, there's actually some effort in to it. But the movie is not exactly great otherwise. The acting is just bad, the pacing is off and the plot takes quite a few stupid turns. I liked the fact that the movie tries to slowly build tension and a strange atmosphere, but unfortunately it didn't really work that well. The pacing is off as it focuses too much on the personal life of Kathy kind of forgetting the thriller part at times. That makes the movie a bit too slow paced to keep the interest up. The dialogue in this movie was quite special, at times it was pretty much brilliant and at times it was absolutely idiotic. But even when it was great, it didn't really help that the actors were quite bad. There were some shots that looked nice and tried to push out some style, but then again most of the time it was very straight forward without any finesse to it. Apparently there is another shorter version of this movie with a soundtrack by Goblin, I haven't seen that, but it might be a better version as it should have less of Kathy's personal life and focusing more on the horror. Then again the music wasn't that bad in this original one either, it kind of reminded me of Bernard Herrmann. Anyway there were quite a few of those “what the fuck?” moments in this one, so it didn't get all too boring, but in the end it's a below average thriller.

42%

The Wicker movies

First a bit of background story before we go into the movies. The Wicker Tree (2010) stood in my shelf for over a year before I now finally watched it. Reason for this was that once it came out I of course rushed to get it, but I decided to watch The Wicker Man (1973) before it to refresh my memories of it. That was actually a bad mistake, The Wicker Man is pretty much a perfect movie so it raised the bar so high that I knew the sequel could never live up to it. So I decided to give the sequel a better footing and put it back to the shelf to wait for a better time. Well the “better” time was now as I'm trapped at home with a nasty flu. But first a few words about the original and unfortunately the remake as well.

The Wicker Man (1973)

One of the best horror movies ever made and a movie which would most likely be in my all time top 10 list if I ever had to make one. I can't praise this movie enough, it's perfect in every aspect and especially the mood is just something unbelievable. It does what most horror movies tend to forget nowadays, it builds up tension slowly but surely until it gets scary as hell before the absolutely devastating ending. A brilliant masterpiece that can stand multiple viewings despite the easily spoilable plot.

100%

The Wicker Man (2006)

Even though the best thing to do with this movie would be to just forget it's existence, I'll put it here as well, kind of like a warning to stay away from it. I haven't seen this since it came out so can't say how it would work today, but then again I don't want to ever watch it again. It's one of the worst remakes ever, missing every single aspect that made the original so brilliant, and all in all just a horribly bad movie.

0%

The Wicker Tree (2010)

Sequels are always hard and nearly every time fail to live up to the expectations. This however had all the things on paper that could make it good. It's written and directed by Robin Hardy, the same man who wrote and directed the original so there was a good possibility it would be something like the original. Even though I had very little expectations, mostly just hoping that it would at least be somewhat entertaining if nothing else, I was still disappointed. This continues the story of the village 37 or so years later, though it's left a bit unclear whether it actually is the same town as Summerisle was on the original as this time it's called Tressock, but it's very similar none the less. A young American gospel singing couple (Henry Garrett and Brittania Nicol) travel there to spread the word of the lord and much to their surprise they are warmly welcomed there. Well the town's folk of course have other plans for the naively simple couple and things go along similar paths as the original. The less you know the better. The story in itself was actually quite good and intriguing, but unfortunately everything around it and especially the way it was told didn't work at all. Both Garrett and Nicol were rather bad, though then again their roles were so one dimentional that even better actors might have had trouble with them. But that didn't bother much as that's the way they were supposed to be, it fit the story and gave it a bit of dark comedy as well. The real problem acting wise is the rest of the cast, they were all quite bad. Especially Graham McTavish who didn't fit the role in any way. Only one who at least tried to put some effort into it was Honeysuckle Weeks. But the acting didn't ruin the movie it's the story telling which did it. There's an attempt to a similar tension building as in the original, but this time all the attempts for dark comedy broke the tension as in the original they fit right in most of the time even helping to build the tension. And the mood from the first one was nowhere to be seen. It just proves how hard it is to recreate the incredible mood from the original when even the creator of it can't do it again. Another thing that troubled me was that the movie was quite amateurishly made, some scenes looked like they could be from some cheap soap opera. So even though the story was nice, this is in no way a good movie, rather bad actually. This probably works better as a book and Robin Hardy seems to be a better writer than a filmmaker, so I guess I'll give the book a try some day.

33%

The filmography of Quentin Tarantino

As these were not here yet and since I just watched most of them once again, I'll write my thoughts about them here briefly. Sorry about the short reviews on some of them, but really if a movie is perfect there's not much else to add to it. I'll only include the movies directed by Tarantino, even though many of his scripts directed by others are considered as his movies. Maybe one day I'll revisit those as well. You can find my review of Django Unchained here.













Reservoir Dogs (1992)

This wasn't the first Tarantino movie I ever saw, actually I didn't even know about it's existence before I saw the one below. But after that I stormed every video rental shop in the city until I found this. I remember once I finally saw it I was actually disappointed, I mean I still thought it was a good movie, but as I was expecting another Pulp Fiction, I was let down a bit. That of course has changed since then and nowadays I think this is a brilliant masterpiece. Not only is this the best "heist" movie ever made but it's also one of the best crime movies ever made. Can't really say anything about it that hasn't been said a million times, so I'll just say it's a brilliant movie and I'd rank it as Tarantino's third best film.
98%













Pulp Fiction (1994)

I still remember when I first saw this at the theaters, something I guess I'll remember for the rest of my life. I saw it at this crappy small basement theater because I was 17 at the time and the movie had an age limit of 18, but they were cool enough in that theater to not care so much. So me and my date who was a year younger got in without any problems, even though they generally were quite strict about those age limits even back then. Now that I think of it and starting to feel all nostalgic I shouldn't call the theater crappy, I actually wish there still was theaters like that today. They had character and their own feel to them, unlike these multiplexes today. Anyway the reason why I remember it so clearly is because I was totally blown away by the movie. It was something I had never seen before and didn't even think that there could be movies like this. This was one of those movies that changed me in a way. For better or worse that I don't know, but ever since I saw it I've sought out more of these 70's exploitation movies. Seeing this movie today I found some scenes not working as well as back then, like that foot massage discussion seemed to be surprisingly dragging and uninteresting. Then again I still think the second half of this movie is probably the best comedy ever made, so it balances it out more than well. Pretty much a perfect movie, Tarantino's best and one of my all time favourites.
100%













Four Rooms (1995)

For this one I'll give a proper review as this seems to be the one most people haven't seen from Tarantino's filmography. Then again this is only one fourth of a Tarantino movie, but still I think it belongs to this list as there's a clear segment and story of the movie which he wrote and directed. The problem with these kinds of movies is the difference between the makers, which usually makes the movie rather uneven. And that certainly was the problem with this one as well. There was an attempt to glue the stories together with Ted the Bellhop (Tim Roth), but unfortunately that was one of the weakest parts of this movie. Tim Roth has never done a worse performance, so much over acting and his character is all over the place all the time. Might be partly the fault of the four different directors, but still it's a weak effort. Anyway this movie has a very bad start as the first story by Allison Anders is just plain crap and even though it's only 15 minutes or so it's still way too long to give any hope for the rest of the movie. The second story by Alexandre Rockwell worked a bit better, though as the bar was set so low by the first one it wasn't much of an effort. Again bad acting and a useless story, though not as painful to watch as the first one. The third story by Robert Rodriguez is where the movie finally gets going and there's some actually funny moments. Antonio Banderas was also very strong, pulling out the best performance of the whole movie. This third story was the strongest one in the movie, apart from the ending of the fourth. Then the fourth story by Quentin Tarantino, it's actually quite a weak story as the basic idea of it is copied from Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode. Then again that's not the real problem as the idea is what sets up the absolutely drop dead hilarious ending of the movie, it's just the 20 or so minutes leading to it. The dialogue, even though it's nicely flowing as you'd expect from Tarantino, is just plain boring most of the time. Luckily the ending saves a lot, but still it felt like Tarantino didn't really put that much of an effort for this. All in all the movie is not good, with one great episode, one good episode, one bad episode and one just shit, it's way too uneven and mostly badly acted. It's actually a shame as replacing the first two episodes with better stories and better storytellers and someone focusing on directing Tim Roth this would have been a great movie.
45%













Jackie Brown (1997)

Before this movie came out I had become a fan of the 70's exploitation flicks and Pam Grier was one of my favourite actresses, with Coffy (1973) as one of my all-time favourite movies. So expectations were high as always and this one surely delivered. This movie is a bit of an oddity in Tarantino's filmography as it's his only adapted screenplay and it's told in quite a linear format. But that actually only adds to the beauty of this movie. I haven't read the book by Elmore Leonard so can't say for sure how good the adaptation is, but as a stand alone movie this is absolutely perfect. This one probably has the best mood of all of his movies and the best soundtrack to boost it. Tarantino's second best movie.
99%













Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (2003)












Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (2004)

I'll put these two together as that's the way they were meant to be, one four hour action extravaganza. I was really blown away by these when I first saw them, but I must say these are the ones I have most seldom revisited out of Tarantino's works. That doesn't mean they wouldn't be amazing, it's just that four hours is a long running time for a movie no matter how great it is. So my only gripe with these is the length, even though watching them again I really can't think of a single scene worth leaving out. It's very hard to place brilliant movies in any order but I'd say this is Tarantino's fifth best film.
95%













Death Proof (2007)

Tarantino's take on a slasher, though this time the usual knife is replaced with a car. The cast is great as always, even though it's a Kurt Russell show. The biggest problem of this movie is that Tarantino kind of forgets that slashers need to have people dying on them, not just chatting along. Sure when the killing starts it's brilliant, but really there's too much talking and not enough action for a grindhouse movie. Tarantino's worst, but still a good movie none the less.
75%













Inglourious Basterds (2009)

The absolutely brilliant cast carries this hilarious movie with maybe Brad Pitt's best performance ever to boost it. The thing that troubles me with this one is the continuity errors, there's way too many of them and even multiple times in one scene. I don't usually complain about things like that and I've seen plenty in Tarantino's other movies as well, but for some reason I keep spotting way too many of them in this one. But that's small details as this is Tarantino's fourth best movie.
97%

Sorry about the short reviews, but really long praising posts are rather boring to read and well I kind of expect most people have already seen these movies.

Remaking a horror classic

Psycho(1998)

First a word of warning, this spoils the movie, both the original and this one as they are basically the same, so if there really is someone out there who hasn't seen the original stop wasting time reading this and go watch it. Anyway, when I first and last time saw this in the 90's I condemned it to be nothing but a worthless piece of crap made only to get more money from the modern audience. I thought while it looked like an exact copy of the original it still ruined the three key scenes, the shower scene with these pointless image inserts, the Arbogast murder for the same reasons and the final big reveal with the ridiculous set. I also thought the actors did a horrible job and none of them fit the parts and all the little additions didn't really work. I promised I will never watch this movie again. Well here we are now and I watched it again. The reason why I did so was because Mark Cousins mentioned it in The Story of Film: An Odyssey (2011), which by the way is an incredibly brilliant series. I was puzzled how the hell would someone pick this as a notable movie from the history of cinema, especially since his other picks seemed to be quite spot on perfect. Well as it troubled me for quite some time and as I read Alfred Hitchcock andthe Making of Psycho a while ago and since I saw Hitchcock (2012) not just recently, I decided to give it another chance, even though I still feared I shouldn't.

Well surprised as I am I must say I'm glad I did watch it again, as I think I got the whole idea of this movie. And believe it or not it just might actually not be just to make some more money on the success of Psycho (1960). This movie really is quite an experiment in filmmaking. Now knowing what Hitchcock had to leave out of his version, some of the additions made perfect sense. The camera flight across the city to the hotel window actually looked exactly what I imagined Hitchcock wanted but had to leave it out because of the costs. Other parts like the conversation between Cassidy and Marion where Marion says "Thank you, but I think I'll spend this weekend in bed" and Cassidy replies "Only playground to beat Las Vegas". That last line was actually cut from the original by the censors, so again that was a great addition. But the problem is that some of the additions and changes still don't fit the movie, no matter how you see it. Like the discussion between Marion and Norman where in the original Marion relates to Norman's points of view and she sees that it might be better to return the money, but in the remake she just seems to be scared of him. Making Norman menacing this early was not good for the shower scene. Another thing that really eats the effect of the shower scene is that Norman is clearly masturbating while watching Marion undress, the original hints towards it cleverly, but this remake makes it very clear what's happening. That lessens the shock effect from the shower scene immensely, subtlety is an art form after all. Also the new setting for the final reveal of the mother, the taxidermy room instead of the basement in the original, didn't fit it in any way. It misses the grave aspect of it totally which Norman sets up earlier by saying he couldn't leave his mother in a cold and damp place like that. And speaking of Norman, Vince Vaughn didn't fit the role at all, first of all he's too big and menacing to start with and second he's not even trying to act or sound like a little momma's boy. So the movie adds some parts to the original that fit it very well, especially since they were supposed to be there, but got left out because of censorship or tight budget, but still it adds other aspects that don't fit at all. But I think I get it now why it's like this.

There's two ways of making a remake of an old classic, either copy it shot by shot or tell the same story again with modern story telling methods. This movie actually does both, well lets say it tries to do both. As I see it, there are characters which are exact copies of the original, like Marion, Arbogast and Sam in a way as well. Anne Heche tries to copy Janet Leigh even to the smallest detail as does William H. Macy with Martin Balsam. Viggo Mortensen is also very close to what John Gavin was in the original. But then there's Norman and Lila, who are nothing like the ones in the original. I guess Vince Vaughn didn't even see what Anthony Perkins was doing in the original and just created a character of his own as did Julianne Moore who has little to nothing in common with Vera Miles. I'll bet that was all intentional as it does show some very nice things about how differently people react to the content of the movie if it's a modern movie like this remake or if it's a classic like the original. Some things that work in a black and white 60's movie simply doesn't work in a modern movie and on the other hand all modern characters don't really fit a 60's movie. Like Julianne Moore would have been just as good in both of them, but Vince Vaughn wouldn't fit in the 60's one at all. Same goes the other way around on the cast that copied their performance, Marion works well on both of these, Janet Leigh could have just as well been in the new one or Anne Heche on the old one. Arbogast on the other hand seems extremely outdated for a modern movie, no matter who plays the part, but William H. Macy could have just as well replaced Martin Balsam in the old one.

And there's more. Those inserted images in the two murder scenes, sure they might have some suggestive meaning to them and everyone is free to make their own interpretations, but really I couldn't care less about that. I saw them as nothing more than distractions, but they were very interesting distractions and I would bet that they were deliberate distractions. On the shower scene the random cut to clouds takes you out of the scene for a second, but the very next shot brings you right back into it. Those two cuts show how powerful the scene actually is, they distract you but they don't take you out of it completely, that proves that the scene even taken out of it's context is still extremely effective. The cuts on the Arbogast murder however take you out of the scene and just leave you wondering what the hell was that? Then again the sheep and the woman in a mask are so much more out of context than the clouds that it could be just a poor choice of images. But as I saw it was that the scene just doesn't work in a modern movie as well as the shower scene. The same scene in the original is very effective, but in this remake it just seems rather dated.

What this movie does best is pointing out how brilliant the original is. Also as a test on how old style movie making works today with modern equipment this is great. But seeing that it actually misses quite a many subtle touches that make the original so brilliant, I just can't shake off that feeling that this is not an homage, but just an attempt to cash in on a classic. And since it's just rubbish as a modern thriller, so that makes quite a dilemma. On the other hand it's bad but in a way it's extremely interesting as well. In the end I'm glad I watched it again as it opened up in a completely different manner this time, but then again that's just for me as a huge Hitchcock fan, for everyone else I guess this is nothing more than garbage.
20%

By the way, I must say this trailer is just beyond stupid for a movie like this.

This movie is a liability for intelligence

The Liability (2012)

I like Tim Roth as even at his worst he's still quite a good actor, that was the main reason I picked up this DVD as well. Adam (Jack O'Connell) is a 19-year old kid who wrecks his stepfather's (Peter Mullan) car so the stepfather decides to offer him a job as a driver. Already here anyone with even a bit of brain function should realize that this is not a smart movie. So Adam needs to drive Roy (Tim Roth) across the country to kill a man. A girl (Talulah Riley) sees them killing the man so things end up quite messy. There was actually quite a many things I liked in this movie. There's this nice feel to the movie as there's some quite dark comedy in there as well and the style is fitting to the genre. Also the acting is very strong, mostly thanks to Tim Roth and Peter Mullan who are both brilliant. Unfortunately the story is so idiotic that this is not even close to a good movie. I mean I can watch people do silly things if the movie doesn't take itself seriously, but as this one tries to be serious it just doesn't work. I got the feeling that the makers of this thought everyone watching it would be stupid enough to not see how idiotic the plot is. So there's a lot of talent wasted in this crappy story and that makes this movie sink below the vast averageness.

45%

The latest fashion in murder

Dressed to Kill (1980)

I'm not going to go into the plot of this movie that much as there are so many twists that the less you know the better. I'll just say that there is someone murdering some people. It doesn't sound like much, but there's a psychiatrist, a prostitute, a young nerd and a detective all mixed up in this murder mystery. To be honest the story is rather simple, even though the mystery in it is quite nice. But the style makes up for that very well. It's very giallo-like with it's use of colors and set decoration, not to forget the stylistic murder sequences. This movie is like Brian De Palma's homage to Alfred Hitchcock and Psycho (1960). The similarities actually go even further than the obvious story structure, shower scenes and motives of the killer, some of the scenes are are framed alike and there are little nods towards it everywhere. Some people criticize this movie for ripping off Psycho, but I don't see it that way, it's an homage not a rip off as this movie still has a voice of it's own. Kind of like any Tarantino movie, you don't blame them for borrowing material from other movies, it's the same thing with this one. The acting is quite good throughout, even though I still don't consider Nancy Allen a great actress, but she's ok in this one. Angie Dickinson does the best performance and Michael Caine was strong as well. All in all this was a good giallo like thriller where the lack of story was balanced nicely with style and mood.
77%

Making movies to save lives

Argo (2012)

Even though I already saw this earlier last year I'll put a review of it here as it's a strong contender on the Oscars and I plan on giving my opinion on all of the nominees. I've said it before and I'll say it again, Ben Affleck is a bad actor but he's a very good director. It's just a shame he can't stay behind the camera as this movie would have been quite a bit better with some other actor in the lead. That being said it's not completely Affleck's performance that hinders this movie, it's partly the script as well. Most of the rescuees are left with very little to nothing to say and even though Affleck does the right thing as a director and gives them time, they are still left rather meaningless. Another proof that he actually is a good director, but also a proof that the script wasn't that great as it leaves the people the viewer should care for in the shadows. But I'm getting ahead of things here.

So the movie tells a great little story about a crazy CIA operation to get six American diplomats out of Iran in middle of a revolution when Americans are the prey of the day. The plan is to make a fake movie, stage a location scout tour to Iran and escort the diplomats out of there. The story was actually great, highly interesting and surprisingly fun as well. I really loved the little nods towards the 70's sci-fi movies and the Hollywood of that time. I also liked the look of the movie, it really looked like it was from the late 70's or early 80's and the somewhat corny camera moves supported the illusion perfectly. Another thing I liked was the soundtrack, the whole movie was highly entertaining music wise. The acting was rather good as well, apart from Affleck's one expression performance, though no one really stood out of the crowd. Maybe Alan Arkin if I had to name someone, he was quite great as this washed out producer who didn't take crap from anyone. With a better script and a better lead actor this story would have been close to brilliant, now it's "just" good.

75%