Scream got a repeat viewing in memory of Wes Craven, who passed away last week:
It’s not really a movie that survives repeat viewing – the killer’s all but carrying a sign saying ‘I am the killer’, only rendered invisible the first time round by audience adherence to genre conventions – but Scream never gets boring, that’s for sure.
The Maze Runner flashed before my eyes:Quite the achievement to make this ‘Hunger Games for boys’ riff on Lord of the Flies (or the cliff notes thereof) so action-packed and yet so tremendously boring.
Colors just got added to Netflix, so no time like the present:
Buddy-cop classicism here from Dennis Hopper, as Robert Duvall shows Sean Penn the ropes on his suspiciously widespread East LA beat (all the way from the Watts Towers to the South Bay, it seems), rubbing up against oddly multicultural gangs and late-’80s hip-hop culture (as mutated through the anachronistic electro-funk of Herbie Hancock). It’s a rare old beast, vacillating between pedestrian police procedural, farcical interludes (including some of the most ridiculous Foley ever committed to film) and artsy western-inspired moments.
And canadian sci-fi horror Ejecta was a disappointment:
A semi-found-footage sci-fi chiller clearly shot on a micro-budget (not in a bad way, mind) and written by the man who gave us Pontypool, but not half as engaging as that unique film. Ejecta promises at the outset, with its Fortean possibilities, but I’ve watched random episodes of The X-Files with more inventiveness and mysteries worth revealing. Shame, as aesthetically it does a lot with very little, and the casting of the lead (unforgettable character actor Julian Richings) is inspired.