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Phooky, you might like Toriko. It's similar to Delicious in Dungeon (although much older). It's about super powered chefs and gourmands traveling a fantasy (SciFi? Alternate Reality?) world trying to assemble their perfect full course meals. It's kind of like if Anthony Bourdain was a Dragonball character. It might scratch the itch while you wait for more DiD.

If it is more the fantasy ecology that does it for you then you should definitely check out Scavengers Reign… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 10:00 PM on April 13, 2024

Watched this last year and I liked, but it never reaches the goopy and horny heights of classics like From Beyond or Society. That said, I don't think that it was trying to. I felt like this was trying for more of a '90s Erotic Thriller with a Lovecraftian twist than straight '80s horror schlock and stumbled in a few places because of it, maybe because that's new ground for Joe Lynch.

I am glad to see someone try to make something a little spicy. I'm getting sick of… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 12:39 AM on January 28, 2024

I plan to keep watching this to see how it goes, but I'm not particularly hooked by the conspiracy thriller that has been playing out through the first two episodes. We know that Godzilla and other Kaiju exist in this, so having a narrative where characters uncover a conspiracy about the existence/cover-up of Kaiju mostly just feels like it is getting in the way of the good stuff.

I really enjoyed that bit in Tokyo with the evacuation procedure for the Kaiju warning.… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 7:40 PM on November 20, 2023

Shaking my head at Pedro. What a frustrating climax, not that it was bad, but Pedro is the worst. I haven't wanted to shout at a horror movie like that in a long time.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 11:27 PM on October 30, 2023

Worth mentioning that this is not quite a sequel to Terrified. It appears to be in the same world since The Rules and the exorcism tool also make an appearance, with more explanation, in Terrified. Demián Salomón is in both movies, but is playing different characters.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 11:37 PM on October 30, 2023

This is one of my favourite movies. Reconciling the friend you remember with who he has become. Loving the memory of someone who has since changed or maybe never was that memory. Being hurt in the ways only someone that knows you in the most intimate ways can hurt you. Getting swept up and falling into old patterns and dynamics. Hurting someone because you can't tell them you love them. Letting go of someone you you love because you have to.

It's so good. I take away… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 6:45 PM on September 6, 2023

It has been perfectly serviceable so far, but after three episodes I already feel like I have seen everything it has to offer.

Strange Planet kind of reminds me of Winston Rowntree's PeopleWatching in its sincerity and observations, although not as smart and cutting. Strange Planet is a lot more gentle and cute and I think that is too its detriment (so far). It feels like it wants to be insightful about the absurdity of the modern life while also hitting typical adult… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 10:26 PM on August 12, 2023

Better and gorier than expected, although the CGI is pretty dodgy. The dialogue is a little much at times, which is saying something because Stephanie Beatriz's character can't speak.

Unabashed b-movie vibes. It knows it is trash and it wallows in it. Reminds me of the short-lived Blood Drive show, although that had more grindhouse/exploitation vibes and this feels more like a live action cartoon.

Surprisingly good job at adapting Twisted Metal's… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 11:24 PM on July 27, 2023

Definitely not as insane as Blood Drive, but it has its moments. We can hope that if Twisted Metal is successful we might see the heights (lows?) of Blood Drive on a tv show again, but TM does have different sensibilities so even if it ups the bonkers factor it's going to be more like Shoot 'Em Up. It doesn't have b-horror in its heart like Blood Drive did.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 2:30 PM on July 28, 2023

Did you watch the uncut version? It has a particularly divisive scene involving a nipple. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you actually saw the tamer version.

I had read the comic before I ever saw the film, so I was actually a little underwhelmed since I was expecting something even more violent, sexualized, and in poor taste. I can't really defend the sexual violence that fills it, but I do I think the homoeroticism and S&M themes go a long way towards… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 9:56 PM on December 7, 2022

You definitely saw the more intense version, then. Not that the cut version is that much less extreme.

May I ask why you decided to watch Ichi the Killer? Did you know about its reputation going in or did its contents come as a surprise to you? I ask because Miike seems to be one of the only provocateurs that people end up watching by accident. His works kind of get sold as "weird Japanese insanity" and people can end up watching something like Ichi, Visitor Q,… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 4:09 PM on December 8, 2022

Gozu is more dream logic-y, sort of what you might get if David Lynch were obsessed with Yakuza instead of Americana. I can see how that would make you curious about watching more of his filmography. If you're willing to try another Miike then I strongly recommend The Bird People in China. It doesn't have the hallmark violence and gruesomeness, but it is coming at things from unusual directions and has that same sense of humor that is the real through line in Miike's filmography.… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 9:56 PM on December 8, 2022

Happiness is so good, but it's another one I feel iffy about recommending because some of the things it makes jokes about could land really poorly for certain people.

Anyone that loves Yakuza Apocalypse should check out The Mole Song trilogy and Dead or Alive.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 12:10 PM on December 14, 2022

I watched this yesterday and the Act II is inspired, probably the funniest single segment of any movie in 2022.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 8:20 PM on December 10, 2022

Not the most Takashi Miike movie ever, but certainly ranks up there.

Somewhere there is an amusing interview where he is asked about the inspiration for the frog. Miike gave this flippant answer about how there was a pharmacy chain with a frog mascot and he wondered what the frog thought of the world. Sadly, I couldn't find the interview again to share here.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 11:40 AM on November 27, 2022

6 degrees of Kevin Bacon just got a lot easier.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 3:34 PM on November 25, 2022

I love Certified Copy. I love the way it subtly shifts context and changes relationship dynamics. I love the way it effortlessly drifts between languages and locations and the way time seems to move through hours and years at the same time. I love the way it crackles with life like a really good stage play does. Yet it is so much more than just two people talking, never forgetting that it is a film and not a play.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 12:44 PM on October 18, 2022

This had its moments and pretty much the entire cast was great. Ed Skrein and Kate Hudson both seemed like they were having a great time. You're right that it doesn't really go anywhere, though. Just some stuff that happens under a blood moon. I guess it is mostly just playing with expectations, Fuzz being the obvious example.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 3:32 PM on October 13, 2022

James Acaster has a great bit on museums.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 10:30 AM on October 4, 2022

This was an interesting and very genre-aware spin on found footage horror. That it has Eduardo Sánchez in this as himself as an expert being interviewed about found footage is really fun. The way it nested narratives was also a pretty great idea.

Seems to have taken a lot of inspiration from creepypasta stories. Recommended for fans of that style of horror or folks that enjoy found footage. My main gripes with it are the lazy jumpscares that ruin the mood and an ending… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 12:38 AM on October 2, 2022

I haven't seen this yet, but my fear has been that The Discourse around this movie has been poisoned for at least 5 years by all of the behind-the-scenes drama and entertainment news. Perhaps it can never really be untangled.

tomorrowromance, are you saying that Don't Worry Darling is this generation's Donnie Darko or is that too generous?
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 4:04 PM on September 23, 2022

I liked this. Great art direction and tells a contained story without too many nods to 2077 or the larger game. A little too tropey without enough to say about anything to really make it into the canon, but we aren't so flooded with cyberpunk-flavoured content that it needed to be anything more than it was. My only real gripe is that Lucy was too much of an MPDG and most of her and David's story didn't feel earned to me. (...although I think this is true of pretty much all anime so ymmv.)… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 8:42 PM on September 21, 2022

This is an independent claymation feature made by only two people. It is free to watch on youtube.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 3:16 PM on September 13, 2022

Watched this one a couple years ago when I was on a Canadian B-Movie binge. It stood out to me a lot in that mix of movies because it genuinely tried to do something unique and interesting. One of those cases where a movie had bigger ideas than its budget allowed. More of a twilight zone/outer limits/x-files kind of thing than an outright horror movie.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 1:48 PM on September 6, 2022

I feel that way about a lot of movies that fit into that "feature length twilight zone episode" niche. They usually keep you interested throughout and stumble at the end or the narrative and plot just aren't as good as the central idea. Other examples are Vivarium, Dual, Timecrimes, The Similars, etc.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 2:08 PM on September 6, 2022

Fair Warning: It's really hard to talk about Immortality without sounding like a pretentious knob. It is the kind of game that people with either love or hate. I loved it. I turned it on release day and did not turn it off until I had 100% the thing 8-10 hours later. Also, I'm sorry in advance this comment isn't really about the podcast so much as FMV games/Immortality.

FMV games are very hit or miss. Barlow's games are good, although Immortality is so much better than… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 11:01 PM on September 5, 2022

Liked it, but it was definitely elevated by Simmons' charisma. I'm not sure it would have been anywhere as good without him. Wish it had leaned in a little more to the homoeroticism so I could refer to Simmons as Daddy Tentacles forevermore.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 6:04 PM on August 19, 2022

Seasparrow, you should check out Kajillionaire. I thought it was really good and showed a lot of growth in July's film making compared to The Future and MaYaEWK.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 2:44 PM on August 16, 2022

I think a sneeze and I think it was an important clue. I think the killer has allergies.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 10:08 PM on July 13, 2022

I think you mean awesome furniture. The the prop team really leaned into H. R. Giger with the chair, bed, and autopsy table.

Lots of cool stuff in this and not for everyone. It is slow and meandering and while there is plenty of parts to be squeamish through, I didn't think it was quite the assault of grotesqueries that I've seen people claim it to be. The eroticized surgeries are really interesting, not just because of the implications in the cold future that exists in… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 4:36 PM on June 24, 2022

This one is long, but it has a couple of natural spost for pausing if you don't want to watch it all in one go. I enjoy the front and back thirds of this movie. This middle is not exactly bad, but also not really compelling enough to justify the added runtime even if it is consistently gorgeous looking. One thing I really like about it is it is one of those movies where you would never predict where it ends up based on where it starts.

I enjoy that this movie predicts… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 3:05 PM on May 22, 2022

I'm not convinced the bad emotional arcs in this are on Sam Raimi. That feels like a script and MCU problem. I don't think the script bothered doing the work to make the emotional arcs satisfying because both Wanda's and Stephen's arcs are carried through from WandaVision, Doctor Strange, and Avengers. What is here is just exposition dumping. Pretty typical of MCU storytelling, imo, and one of my biggest beefs with it ever since Endgame.

The only parts I enjoyed of this… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 5:10 PM on May 5, 2022

JDHarper, if you think this treatment of multiverses is bad just wait until X-Men '97 picks up the animated version of X-Men from the corresponding comics and it turns out to be a prequel for the entire MCU.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 7:10 PM on May 16, 2022

I think it is the memes, geoff. Clips from movies like Vampire's Kiss have become extremely popular reaction gifs. I think that combined with a bit of a career renaissance with movies like Mandy and fond memories of the first Ghost Rider or National Treasure have brought a younger audience to Nicolas Cage. The way he has gone in and out and back into favour reminds me a lot of Vincent Price's career.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 10:22 PM on April 26, 2022

Anybody else think Ethan Hawk looked a lot like Bill Lumbergh from Office Space in the back third of this episode?

Also, 2016 Lemire story has now been confirmed with the events of this episode. That is one of the best Moon Knight stories, so I am all for seeing what they do with the adaptation. Weird that they took so long to get into it. This is a short series and this episode pretty much only covers the very beginning of that story, even if there have been indications… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 11:14 PM on April 20, 2022

Well, you kind of have. They have tried to introduce people by making Steven the POV character and an audience insert, so it kind of works that everything is confusing and unexplained. They seem to be very deliberately jumping over a whole ton of Moon Knight stories so that they can get to modern versions of Moon Knight. The problem with that is that Moon Knight of the last 15 years has been all about deconstructing the character and recontextualizing him. So Marvel has had to find a way to… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 12:33 AM on April 22, 2022

The main story/conflict so far is the one of Marc and Steven's worlds colliding. The superhero story/quest of stopping the cult from releasing Ammit into the world to eat all of the bad people is kind of a side story, at least so far. I am a long time Moon Knight fan and I was also a little frustrated with how episode two mostly retread the same beats, although what they are dong with Mr Knight has me interested since that is a change from he comics. It kind of makes sense, though, and I dig it… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 12:00 PM on April 7, 2022

Any other Moon Knight fans a little concerned about how much comedy there was in this episode and how light on cosmic horror it went? I get they are probably easing into the absolutely bananas weirdness of Moon Knight, but the case for almost all of the Marvel shows so far is that they start strong and different and then build towards the into the big dumb fun movie marvel by the end of the season. This seems to have started with the signature light humour paired with action that is Marvel… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 9:11 PM on March 30, 2022

Oh! I just realized that Stephen's "mother" is probably Ammit. When he calls her he always ends the call by saying "later gator." Ammit is depicted with a crocodile head, so I bet the reason Marc can't keep control of the body during the scarab heist has something to do with her interference.

I am now even more convinced that we are seeing an adaptation of the 2016 Lemire comic run with some massaging of the mental health parts and a few swaps to… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 10:32 PM on March 30, 2022

One thing I appreciate about the MCU take on Moon Knight so far is the change they have made for the Steven persona. I hope this signals that in the MCU version we are going to see more focus on the esoteric parts of Moon Knight and less of the knock-off batman parts.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 5:13 PM on March 31, 2022

Primer + One Cut of the Dead is a pretty good way of getting the idea across, but try not to read too much into it. It isn't nearly as complex and twisty as Primer and it doesn't have the same level of pay-off that One Cut of the Dead does.

It is a delightful exploration of a really good gimmick that is kind of like a saturday morning cartoon. It is light, breezy, doesn't take itself too seriously, and delivers the goods. I watched it on my own, but I'm certain it would… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 1:23 PM on March 17, 2022

You can definitely feel the low budget Italian movie DNA in this, from the soundtrack to the acting, but also for how striking it can be. So many great moments with crosses and nuns in this and I appreciated that it kind of just gets right into it without 30 minutes of mostly irrelevant drama like 2010s movies in this subgenre tend to do.

I think if this were re-scored to be a mostly diegetic soundtrack it would transform into something a lot eerier and magnetic. I… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 1:05 PM on February 3, 2022

Things I liked:

- 1st act, metacommentary, remixing and engagement with its own place in pop-culture.
- Bringing AI characters into the real world.
- The Analyst as an antagonist and his methods of emotional manipulation, gaslighting, and so forth. I really would have liked to see more of the film engage with that in interesting ways instead doing more action sequences.
- Themes around consent, bodily autonomy, the corrupting… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 3:36 PM on December 23, 2021

Also the actor playing Chad was also named Chad

Not just Chad. Chad Stahelski, the director of the John Wick franchise and Keanu's stunt double in the original The Matrix.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 12:45 PM on December 24, 2021

I'm glad lots of people are enjoying it this. I think the casting is great and I can tell they put a lot of effort into this particular vision. It didn't land for me, though. After watching the first episode I kinda just wanted to go watch the anime instead*. I think where it didn't work for me is that they went for recreating the anime's stylized action sequences and exaggerated character emotions/reactions, but those things don't work very well in live action (imo). I respect the attempt, at… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 2:41 PM on November 25, 2021

I thought this was pretty bland. Compared to Ultimate Survivor Kaiji, which this is an obvious riff on, it feels really shallow and flat. Kaiji raises the stakes much more insidiously while trapping people in a hopeless debt cycle. I was hoping this was finally a live action series that could really dig into the same ideas while updating for the 2020s, but it never seemed to get there.
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 1:28 PM on September 28, 2021

This was a delicious neo-giallo that actually tried to be more than a by-the-numbers homage to to the likes of Fulci, Argento, and Bava. I totally get this not being on the same wavelength as most of you, but for me this is a perfect blend of giallo and '80s high concept horror filmed in a more modern style instead of being a pastiche of either of those styles of horror. The closest thing tonally to this that I can think of is 2018's In Fabric, but this threw out all of the sleaze and eroticism… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 10:55 PM on September 27, 2021

I didn't like this episode very much. Overall it was fine, but it didn't give me anything surprising and, for me, it was only just good enough. I thought it continued the downturn in quality from the last episode with regards to camera work, choreography, sound mixing, and other technical aspects. That entire scene in the Timekeepers chamber was a mess and I think that the decision to make such a pivotal moment in the story a fight sequence was disappointing, if not a surprise given they… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 7:32 PM on June 30, 2021

Forbidden cabinet, nothing surprising? Even Alligator Loki? You can say it's a dumb surprise but pretty sure it wasn't on anyone's checklist.

Well, I wasn't expecting it, but it also didn't do anything for me. We already knew there were many different Lokis so learning that Loki isn't dead and is instead elsewhere with some more Lokis wasn't really that surprising. More surprising to me is that they decided to rob the entire episode of its impact with that post-credits… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 2:55 AM on July 1, 2021

That's interesting, cheshyre, I didn't know about that. Now I am curious as well! I checked to see if this episode had a different DP, but it looks like Autumn Durald did all of the episodes.

I think most of what I didn't like on the technical side of this episode is more the result of trying to achieve a vision that they didn't quite have the resources for. This was a very big episode and they needed to come up with alien/future architecture, the entire planet, the… [more]
posted to FanFare by forbiddencabinet at 3:01 PM on June 24, 2021