Let's Go to the Movies

We haven't been to the movies for a long time, so let's catch up!
Here's a doodle poll to determine the movie:

https://doodle.com/poll/gekuxr6s2p286itb


After we know which movie we want to see, we can discuss a date. Nominees are:

Suspiria:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034415/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Operation: Overlord
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4530422/?ref_=fn_al_tt_3

Venom:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1270797/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Halloween:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1502407/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

First Man:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1213641/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Please vote until Friday, Nov. 23.
Let the voting begin!

Otherland Speculative Book Club Goes Berlin SciFi Filmfest

The doodle poll is closed now and the winner is "How To Build a Time Machine" at 4 pm.

We'll meet at 3.30 pm in front of Babylon (Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30).  Tickets have already been purchased for the doodle participants.

See you there tomorrow!

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We're going to the Berlin SciFi Filmfest this Saturday (November 18th)! Enter the doodle to vote for your preferred movie until Friday (when the poll will be closed). Let the voting begin!

Doodle:
https://doodle.com/poll/95buanmc7phwvn7v

And these are the options:

4 pm    How To Build A Time Machine

Canada 2016
The movie follows two men who were inspired by H.G. Wells' The Time Machine to build their own time machine.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5696188/?ref_=nv_sr_2

6 pm    Occupants

USA 2015
Annie and her husband are working on a documentary which involves setting up cameras throughout their house. Complications arise when the cameras start showing the same couple in an alternate universe.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3980310/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

For more information on the Berlin SciFi Filmfest visit http://www.berlinscifi.com.

Book Club Goes Valerian!

It's a friday evening movie date, then:

Meeting point - Entrance Cineplex Neukölln, Friday July 21st, 7.30 pm.

See you guys there!


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Hello past and present book clubbers!

We want to go to the movies with you and watch "Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets". Just sign up and write down when you have time (it's always the 19.45 show at the Cineplex Neukölln)!

Here's the doodle-link:

http://doodle.com/poll/qknqxee63ka2wf7r

The winning date(s) will be announced here on the blog no later than Thursday (July 20).
Totally excited about this!!!

Horror Revisited

Near Dark (1987)

by Inci German

"Park your carcass!"

In memory of Bill Paxton

 

This is awful. I was trying to find a way to weasel out of writing my review on Freddy Krueger (that I have announced I would write next) and was considering alternatives. Not being able to decide, I mentally went back and forth between “An American Werewolf in London” and “Near Dark” for about a month. And now this… I wish it wasn’t this sad sad cause that forced me to come to a decision and Bill Paxton hadn't died. He was one of the greatests to me.

Contains spoilers

Watching or re-watching Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark (1987) is worth your time for many reasons: beautiful, poetic images, the very cool soundtrack, the wicked interplay of soundtrack and plot, amazing cinematography and a marvelous cast. Being probably the sole example of the cross-genre “vampire horror-western-road movie-family tale”, this film inspires nothing but awe in me. Now it’s not easy creating such an outstanding picture if you’re working in such an eccentric genre and with a plot that could at best be described as so-so, but Bigelow surely nails it!

Creeping Out With Creepshow!

“The most fun you'll ever have being scared”

by Inci German

Romero is first and foremost known as the godfather of zombies. Even though I very much appreciate his Trilogy of the Dead and enjoy watching them every now and then, my favorite work of his is and always will be another one: Creepshow (1982).

This horror-comedy-anthology consists of five stories, of which two are based on short stories by Stephen King, who also wrote the whole movie and whose literary signature is hard to miss: revenge horror, the use of suspended metaphors, complicated/three dimensional characters... One of the interesting things about this movie though, is that it's almost at once recognizable as a work by King, but also, due to the imagery and to the way living dead are used, as a Romero movie. It's a perfect collaboration of two masters of their arts, really. And talking about masters of the art, it would be unfair not to mention the work of the great special effect and make-up artist Tom Savini here, who has worked with Romero on numerous projects such as Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the Dead (1985).

Horror Revisited

Night Shadow (1989)

by Inci German

Welcome back to Horror Revisited!

What's better than watching old horror movies on cold, dark days like these? Reading about them, of course! Let's get on with it, then:

Werewolf meets kung fu! Can it get any better?

Yes, it can.

To tell the truth, most things are better than this movie. Now I’m not the type to kick’em when they’re down and I’m all about supporting independent movie makers but this one is junk even for a B movie, one of the lowest specimens of its kind: a horror movie that’s not remotely scary or repulsive, distinctive 80’s tackiness, some of the worst acting performances these eyes have witnessed, a croaking plot, a concept that rises hopes and then dashes them quite expectedly. It has everything a bad movie needs.

The Fortunate Accident of the most recent Planet of the Apes Reboot

In the last few year's I've had a hard time becoming excited about upcoming sf movies (most recently looking at you, Alien: Covenant). I've even found myself cynical about Interstellar (mainly because of my strong dislike of Nolan's Batman movies) and Arrival (because hell, how could that movie be remotely as good as the short story "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang it is based upon), and I missed out on both of them in the cinema.
However, the new Planet of the Apes series that began in 2011 with Rise of the Planet of the Apes (RotPotA for short) is the one movie series that really keeps me engaged and looking forward to the next installment; the third movie, War for the Planet of the Apes, will be out in August 2017.

Horror Revisited

Black Christmas (1974)

 

“If this movie doesn't make your skin crawl... It's on TOO TIGHT.”

 

by Inci German

 

Welcome back to Horror Revisited!

Holidays are almost over and you’re all mushy and still full of Yule spirit? Don’t worry, I have a movie recommendation to sort you out: a neglected gem, the first of the slasher kind – Black Christmas (1974).

Black Christmas is an unfortunately very underrated 1974 Canadian low-budget psychological horror movie directed by Bob Clark. The story is loosely based on the urban legend of “the babysitter and the man upstairs” and follows a group of sorority sisters during Christmas season, who receive creepy phone calls and are killed by a psycho-murderer who hides in their attic.

Horror Revisited

The Lost Boys (1987) Pt.2 

"Death by stereo" 

 

by İnci German

Welcome back to Horror Revisited and to my review of the second half of the 1987 Joel Schumacher movie The Lost Boys, where the real action and good, gory stuff begins… and never ends, really. So let's take a look at it.

What happened so far? (Check out the first part of the review)

The Emersons (Lucy, Michael and Sam) move to Santa Carla, the worldwide vampire hub, and through a nasty trick on the vampires’ part, Michael becomes one of them. Warned by Edgar and Allan Frog, who are vampire hunters disguised as comic book sellers, Sam is horrified and alarmed by Michael becoming a vampire, but is determined to help him. The night it turns out that Michael is a vampire is a traumatic one for everyone involved and we’ll pick up from there:

Horror Revisited

The Lost Boys (1987) Pt.1

 

"Michael, how can a billion Chinese people be wrong?"

 

by İnci German

We all have some movie that marked our childhood. A movie which, every time we watch it, makes us weirdly and cozily feel at our childhood home and in our childhood skin again. To me that movie is Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys (1987). As I hinted in the introduction to our Horror Re-watch series, I’m a huge fan.

Lost Boys is a kid-friendly horror comedy about vampires. As the title reveals, the original inspiration behind the story is in fact a child protagonist: Peter Pan. Who, much like a vampire, could fly and never grew old. Many people I’ve talked to hated this movie but more people I found on the net think it’s a freaking horror classic! Even though the plot is kind of weak and it surely doesn’t set an example in diversity, this movie is full of so many little awesome details that I'm going to write this review in two parts to fit in everything I want to talk about.

Also: In October DC Vertigo has finally published the comic The Lost Boys #1, a direct sequel to the film! It’s pretty hard to get hold of the comic in Germany though, so I thought I’d content myself with writing a recap until it is available. And so here we go:

After her divorce Lucy Emerson and her two sons Michael and Sam move to Santa Carla, California, back to her eccentric father’s home. What they don’t know is that Santa Carla is full of vampires who soon enough will get to them.