The Movies

[Steve Hill]

The one with Olyphant, unrated. 2015 I guess. What's the difference in the 2?

Olyphant was the '07 movie. There was a remake called Hitman: Agent 47 last year.

[Mike C]

Why?

Because they are two different art forms. You don't judge a novel by the standards of a painting do you?

This is my go to when people don't understand why the dichotomy is important. Is this a good movie?
Wavelength (Michael Snow, 1967) - YouTube



Btw everyone needs to go out and see The Nice Guys if you haven't already. Support original mid budget movies. This shit is legitimately important.

[John Hanley]

Because they are two different art forms. You don't judge a novel by the standards of a painting do you.

I don't judge works of art by the degree to which they adhere or depart from the standards of established forms.

[BarryF]

I thought Gravity was a good space flick. Another one with a great audio track as well...damn movie will have your pulse going and have you nervous through half the movie with a proper sound system.

[chaloney]

The one with Olyphant, unrated. 2015 I guess. What's the difference in the 2?

Good to hear. I watched both over the last couple days and the '07 film, while not great, was halfway decent. The more recent film was much worse.

[AK49]

I saw Sicario, with Emily Blunt and Benisio Del Torro, over the weekend. It is one of the best movies I've seen in a while. The story is very believable and the action intense.

[MattimusMaximus]

Finally saw The Martian the other night. I was pleasantly surprised at how good it was. Gonna watch Amazing Spider-Man 2 tonight... Not sure if Jamie Foxx makes a good villain though... We'll see

[dpinsen]

The best movies in the past few years have been the Marvel Studios work, especially Joss Whedon's Avengers franchise. And Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the best of the lot.

My main problem with those Marvel movies is that the heroes can't get killed, and, often, the bad guys can't get killed either. That takes away a lot of the suspense. The Hulk slams Loki around like a rag doll, but they'll both be back again. Captain America fights Buddy or whatever his pal's name is, and they'll both be back.

Game of Thrones is great, in contrast, because any character can be killed. That makes it suspenseful.

[Jonathon Sullivan]

Movies that are scary. None have been written by Stephen King.

I agree he hasn't written anything that was made into a scary movie, except perhaps Kubrick's The Shining. You may be tough, Rip, but you have to admit that movie was pretty fucking creepy. Or, shit, maybe you don't have to admit it. I thought it was.

OTOH, King wrote one of the few stories I have ever read that genuinely horrified me: Apt Pupil. The movie, with McLellan, that was made from this story violated King's narrative, and was decidedly not scary (or even good). But the story (a novella, if memory serves) was creepy as shit.

Want some real horror? Read some of Harlan Ellison's early work. Jesus. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream has to be one of the most deeply and existentially horrific stories ever put to paper.

Also Macbeth, by one Willie the Shake. Properly presented and apprehended, it is a horror story. At least I find it to be so. I know everyone hates him, but Polanski's version brings out the evil of this play better than any other version I've seen, with the possible exception of Kurosawa's Throne of Blood.

And then there's No Country for Old Men, which I also consider to be a masterpiece of honest-to-god cosmic horror (film and book). YMMV.

[Mark Rippetoe]

We watched The Shining a few months ago, and I was puzzled about why it was considered a horror film, aside from the cinematography.

Harlan Ellison is so fucking weird that he was my favorite SF writer, back when I used to read for pleasure, when I was a kid. Mouth should be made into a movie.

No Country is a great film, that I will watch only the one time.

The scariest horror movie ever made is The Exorcist. Nothing else is even close.