Exunt 8

Not the game, which I played, but the movie.

The Lost Man gets off a train and tries to get out from the Japanese train station... only he keeps encountering the same corridor. However this is a metaphor for how confused he is over hearing his girlfriend/wife is pregnant. There is a Walking Man, a School Girl, and a Boy... and while there are a lot of anomalies, the Boy ends up being a bit of a cheat code.

Did this need to be a movie? Probably not. The game was decent enough, I played it, had to get some help for some of the subtler anomalies... but as a narrative experience? This movie played the corridor as basically a form of purgatory where people get trapped (see the man and his pregnancy consideration), and so they have to go through the corridor many times.

Most of the anomalies are from the game, and if you know the game, you can definitely spot them, although the movie choses not very subtle ones, and the people hit a lot more anomalies than in the game. Although the movie does give a good demonstration about how paranoid people get about taking note of every possible thing.

There is some camera trickery to get around the repeating set, but I think they did two full corridors and worked around that. The Walking Man looks a damn lot like his game self. The main protagonist is fine, but his arc is kind of basic.

This is fine, nothing amazing. It cashes in on the game popularity well, but will they do the train game next? We'll see.

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Gerry Majuire

Rounding off the recommendations by Cruising with Tom.

Jerry is a sports agent to decides to go alone gets fired. He's able to do things his own way, but it's a big task.

Renee Zellweger is cute as ever, Cuba Gooding Jnr is definitely better in this than about nearly everyone else... but the problem is is that Tom Cruise is completely unlikeable, as himself, as Jerry. I just don't care that he's fallen, that he's picking himself up, that we are supposed to be interested in any way in his story.

This might contain some big meme moments, but that doesn't make this a good movie.

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The Piany

Okay, another recommendation, and a New Zealand one!

Ada McGrath and daughter comes to New Zealand as a mail order bride (as was the style at the time), however her would be husband doesn't care for her piano skills, although that is the only was she has of expressing herself. George Baines does show interested in her and her skills, and her playing the piano makes her horny and so she gives into Baines' desires. Oops, and as it turns out the would be husband is a mess ("you make me hurt you"), so, frankly, sod him.

Okay, this is a decent picture, Holly Hunter gives a good performance, Sam Neill does his job well, and even Anna Paquin is quite good. Harvey Keitel isn't believable as whatever character he was playing, and I didn't really want to see him (or Holly Hunter) naked.

Better people than me can tell you what the piano is a metaphor for, but damn, can Holly Hunter play it well! So hat off to Jane Campion but to be honest...

This movie isn't really one for me.

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My Vousin Cinny

For this last group of movies, I got other people to recommend me some options. First up this Joe Pesci special.

Two youths get themselves in trouble down in Alabamy when they confess to a crime, but not the one the sheriff is interested in. Eventually claiming innocent, they get a cousin who is a big city lawyer... who has never actually tried a case before. Fortunately, he has a financee who is much classier than him.

Yeah, no, this was great! I've heard about this, but this is indeed my first time, and it charmed the socks off of me. Joe Pesci is great, not too smarmy (as his character could be), but more realistic of his abilities. Marisa Tomei puts on an outrageous accent, but is the best character in the movie. The Southerners don't come off that well, but are still treated authentically all around.

But as to the realism of the case... judge, I would like to call in an expert witness:

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The Orrivol

This came out at the exact same time as Independence Day, but I think this is the better movie.

Hotting up events are happening over the planet, and at the same time Zane hears a signal from a far away star. And then tracks it to an earth event in Mexico. Heading down there, he bumps into Ilana, who is casually killed off. He also finds aliens under the earth, and manages to run away. In the big climatic end scene, will they use a radio dish??

Charlie Sheen is Zane, a paranoid scientist who sweats a lot. Lindsay Crouse is Ilana, a weather scientist that unfortunately gets into zoology. Ron Silver is the creepy guys. And Leon Rippy plays one of the best evil bad guy minions seen on the screen.

This isn't the only movie where aliens help speed up global warning, but it is a great one that doesn't bother getting a big action star. Ilana gets killed off halfway through the movie, and Zane's big thing is being able to push buttons.

There is a neat effect of the rotating globe that looked a lot better in the 90s, but the alien design is kept simple and the big thing is backwards folding knees. Suddenly seeing a character bend their knees the other way is a great moment of "wah".

(There was also a sequel, but we don't need to talk about that.)

So that's was some of the 90s movies I remember. What else is there?

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Evont Horizen

Now this is sci-fi horror!

The Lewis and Clarke are sent to rescue the Event Horizon, a ship that used a gravity drive but disappeared. However, when the ship came back, it wasn't the same. The crew of the L&C are trying to just survive but Dr Weir has other ideas, and sides with the ship. Time to find out what hell really is.

This was something quite different: a haunted ghost ship, but the ship in this case is a space ship. I'm surprised this isn't more common, but then it's easier to justify other haunted houses/sea ships than space ones. The crew react more normally than others in this scenario, in that they recognise there's some shit going down, but they want to get the hell out... but they can't.

Sam Neill gets to be weird in this, but we also have Lawrence Fishburne, Jason Isaacs, Sean Pertwee, Richard T Jones... and around them is some great sets. And you won't believe the CGI effects, because they are really bad, but whatever. The practical gravity drive is great, and the dressing of the ship's bridge is evocative.

This definitely needs a great commentary track talking about it, but unfortunately...

And you can the School of Movies talking about this, because I asked them to.

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Hoose on Hoonted Holl

This seems to be '90s month, so let the good times roll!

A group of idiots are brought to a house, and if they survive the night, they gets all the monies! Except...

As this is a remake, there are several rules that get enacted to spruce the movie up, and make it a real 90s piece. 1) There is a backstory to the place, b) the idiots have a connection to each other for more soap opera, and, oh yeah, iii) the ghosts are real. No Vincent Price with a skeleton on a rope here!

While there are some great actors here, from Geoffrey Rush, Fanke Jansen, Ali Larter, Bridget Wilson (whom I'm sure should have had a better career), unfortunately we do get way too much Chris Kattan, and not even Jeffrey Combs can come soon enough to sort him out.

The effects are.. decent enough. I certainly enjoy them, and there are some great practical stuff happening. The opening alone is a nice bit of puppetry and horror imagery. (Although the model of the house couldn't look more like the model of a house. And the CGI ghost shadow is... well...)

Anyway, highly entertaining horror that is doused in comedy, whether they meant it to be or not.

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