The Crow (1994) These are the dark days of a fantastical and oppressively claustrophobic Detroit. Every year sees hundreds of arson attacks on Devil's Night, the secret purpose of which is to serve the real estate plans of crimelord Top Dollar. One of his minor annoyances are goth lovebirds Shelly and Eric who were advocating for tenant's rights in their goth apartment building. So Top Dollar's henchmen visit them on that day. Eric is shot and defenestrated while Shelly is brutally raped and beaten and dies hours later in the hospital. A year later, a crow alights on Shelly and Eric's headstones. In this universe crows have a connection to both the living world and the world of the dead, and this one decides that Eric needs to come back to right the wrongs done to the couple. The now invincible Eric starts at the bottom of the crime organization and slowly figures out where the rest of his killers are. But Top Dollar has his own advisor of the occult, his disturbingly close sister who knows Eric's weakness. This was just so stylish and atmospheric. The (very nicely done in miniature) city was so tightly packed and oppressive you get how this comic book world created these comic book people that populate this place. All the sets, internal and external, were done with the same care, with things built on things and trash piled on trash and stuff on top of stuff you emotionally get this ages long history of slow decay and uncaring. The soundtrack is its own icon, very fitting with the theme and the time. You might think touching on real 1990's events and featuring so much 1990's culture that this is the ultimate 1990's time capsule, but there is are reason this is an everlasting cult classic. The movie gets that the heart of goth culture isn't blackness and gloom but romanticism, and The Crow has some truly touching moments based on the love Shelly and Eric had for each other and their unofficial ward Sarah. Even greater is the constant heartache that comes from knowing the invincibility is ephemeral, and that no matter what Eric will soon be back in the grave. It's been hours since I watched The Crow and I still feel it.
Fight Club (Fashclub). 1999 - David Fincher Went back to this film for a rewatch after 25 years with the next generation. This one hits personally for me as I was part of the oh so Gen X struggle against "the brand". While it's been said for a long time that this is really a film about fascism, i think it's also just blindingly obvious now that the whole idea of the film has been proven incorrect. All the stuff about the lost generation of man without their own war has more expliciitly emerged as far right nationalism and toxic masculinity now It's not worth commenting on much of the screenplay for this reason IMO, but i do still love the look of this period of film making. Especially how green and dingy everything is, but with the splash of lights on the faces. Also to note, the brutality of the fights was a big turnoff watching this again. Not needed IMO.
Hunt Her, Kill Her (2022) Dir. Greg Swinson & Ryan Thiessen Karen is a single mom who has taken on a new job as a night-shift janitor in a local furniture factory. Having just come out of a problematic relationship, she is still dealing with some trauma and the sudden responsibility of being her daughter's only guardian. During her first night working in the empty factory, she has to get used to the feeling of isolation, on her own in the large building. At first she suspects the strange noises she hears are just her imagination, then she becomes more convinced other people are actually in the closed off factory with her, until she is confronted by five masked individuals who appear to be there with the sole intention to murder her. Only Karen turns out to be much hardier than any of them had anticipated. There were aspects of this low-budget horror effort I liked, and some other choices that I did not understand and took me out of the experience. One thing I would put in the latter category was the voice modulation for the baddies voices. It is a choice that has an in-text explanation, but every time one of them spoke it kind of took me out of the experience. What it does very well is its use of the movie's only location: the empty furniture factory. Horror has long mined from the innate creepiness of large spaces that are usually filled with people and how they take on a whole other atmosphere when devoid of activity and life. The opening 25 minutes are not just used to up the tension by ramping up the sense of danger and isolation, the filmmakers also do a good job in using that section of the film to give us a good feel of the place, something that is important once the action truly starts. Natalie Terrazino is a decent lead, though she cannot entirely sell some of the one on one confrontations she has with her assailants.
Well, having a film called "Fight Club," without brutal fight scenes might be a bit of a letdown. I agree with the comments here and in the other thread, but it is still one of my favorite films of the past 25 years. I do wonder if I watched it today if I would change my mind (although I doubt it). The novel was pretty good, if you like Paluhniuk's style of writing, which I do and I don't simultaneously. It was his first novel, so it's even "rawer" than some of the following novels. I do agree that toxic masculinity and the "incel" world may be influenced by his novels. I have not read any of his last 8 or so, so I don't know if he has changed his style.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - 2024 There's a reason why this is getting good reviews everywhere, with only the "top critics" on Rotten Tomatoes seeming to not like it much, but those pretentious "professional" critics couldn't matter less in the real world. Lots of fun. It takes a while to set all the pieces in place, but the last 30-40 minutes is a lot of fun with a really snappy pace. They tie off almost everything very neatly, with the Soul Train gag entertaining me both times. I genuinely like the world building that was done in the early parts of this film and feel like they've opened up a whole world that could be explored in a limited series on whichever streamer would have the rights to it. The Danny Devito appearance was a great surprise. Jenna Ortega continues to be impossibly good in whatever role she plays. The Winona Ryder resurgence continued with another strong performance. Arthur Conti did a lot with his role, especially considering his only other credit is as a Queen's Page in one episode of House of the Dragon. Willem Dafoe was his spectacularly weird self. All in all, we got what felt like significantly more screen time for Beetlejuice than in the original but it didn't feel like too much, and I'd really like to see this world expanded on a bit more as long as it doesn't take Burton another 25+ years to get it green lit.
The Curse of the Necklace (2024) Dir. Juan Pablo Arias Munoz Back in the 1960s, we meet the Davis family. Mother Laura and father Frank are going through a trial separation following Frank's objections to Laura's new nursing job having led to a violent argument after which Laura no longer wants her cop husband in the house. Their two daughters Ellen and Judith are caught in the middle, with the girls having their own drama as Judith is going through puberty and this means she is ever more estranged from her young sister. An attempt by Frank to mend his relationship includes a gift with a rather unusual providence: an antique pendant with a dark history that Laura rejects, but Ellen becomes fascinated with, leading to unintended consequences of the supernatural kind. Far from a masterpiece but better than the generic title would suggest. The set-up which includes a single mom with two daughters in a 1960s setting kind of reminded me a bit of Mike Flanagan's (much better) Ouija 2: Origin of Evil. In Henry Thomas, the two movies even share an actor. The two daughter characters are played by real-life siblings Madeleine and Violet McGraw.
Civil War - 2024 If you had to guess how A24 would do a movie like this, you'd probably be pretty close. There's little explanation for why there are forces that have seceded and are now trying to take over Washington DC. There's only the vaguest mentioning of who is one what side, mostly as they get encountered. There's the occasional oasis in the middle of it all. Mostly they just put you in the world and let you fend for yourself while everything is blowing up all around the main cast. Cailee Spaeny is really setting herself up as a young star that plays memorable roles and does very interesting films and TV. Good flick but maybe a bit too long. Oh, and Jesse Plemons is too good at the creepy, dead inside character. I'm not sure he's acting.
Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) Dir. Shawn Levy After an unsuccessful attempt to join the Avengers, Deadpool/Wade Wilson loses his motivation and leaves something of an aimless existence, working a job as the worst car salesman in history and having lost his girlfriend Vanessa. On his birthday, he is visited by representatives from the TVA who take him to see a Mr. Paradox. Paradox informs Wade that his universe is on borrowed time. Due to the death of the Wolverine in their universe, the time line will unravel and cease to exist in a few thousand years. Paradox wants to expedite the process using a special machine. Instead of allowing Paradox to recruit him, Deadpool goes rogue and decides to go find a new Wolverine, to replace the one his universe lost during the events of the movie Logan. Unfortunately he ends up settling for the one the TVA considers the worst Wolverine across the entire multiverse... Well this certainly was a Deadpool & Wolverine movie. I can't really fault either of the two leads, especially Hugh Jackman actually seems like he is having fun in this. But we have reached the stage where these movies are barely even feature films in the classical sense. Between the winking at the camera, the ironic remarks, the multiverse madness used to bring back old characters from prior franchises... This is a movie drowning in self-reference, crushed by the weight of its own (multiple) mythologies. It's hard to think how any broad appeal movie is supposed to carry this much unnecessary weight and still make sense as a standalone story. And no, having Wade Wilson break the fourth wall and call Marvel's obsession with the multiverse disastrous does not excuse riding that horse yet again for this one. What made the first Deadpool work for me was that in spite of all the silliness, it was anchored by an actual real emotional core, Wade's relationship to Vanessa. It is probably not a coincidence that both of the sequels, which I did not like nearly as much as the first one, had much less screen time for Morena Baccarin. Unfortunately this one won't act as a sign to change course for Marvel, since it made 1.3 billion dollars at the box office, at a time when crossing the 1 billion mark with their Marvel properties had started to seem elusive to the Mouse company. One minor positive point: whilst her motivations are never truly made clear beyond her being a superpowerful mutant ruling the Void like its evil queen, Emma Corrin's Cassandra Nova is actually one of the better villains they have had. Also, with every ********ing character getting its own movie or TV show, we better see a Dafne Keen X-23 project at some point. I am perpetually puzzled at the MCU's creative choices in terms of what they leave on the table and what they choose to focus on. A "The Wolverine" type property for Laura is a no-brainer.
Salem's Lot (2024) Dir. Gary Dauberman Author Ben Mears returns to his former home town of Salem's Lot around 25 years after tragedy made him leave it. He is there to do research for his next novel, but soon becomes intrigued by some strange events, which start shortly after the old Marsten house is bought by an Austrian immigrant and subsequently a young boy disappears without a trace. With more people disappearing and others dying in strange circumstances, a small group around Ben, which includes his new girlfriend Susie, a local teacher called Matt, Dr. Cody and the alcoholic priest Father Callahan start to suspect all of the events might be linked and have a supernatural explanation. It's fair to say that my expectations for this King adaptation - his second published novel famously originally adapted into a two-part mini-series by Tobe Hooper - were not met. It appears that the studio forced a much shorter two hour edit onto the director, whose original cut was closer to three hours long. It might explain how it feels like entire sections of this film are missing. But that alone doesn't explain an adaptation that feels broadly unambitious, with little memorable beyond a few visually delightful sequences and a solitary good performance by Bill Camp. Outside of him it is hard to think of another actor in this who leaves a lasting impression. Lead Lewis Pullman is perhaps the most underwhelming of all.