Movie Making Monday: Meet the Apocalypse!

No reviews this week. I've been out in the world making things!

Freshly released to their Kickstarter backers, here's a video of everything we've shot so far for Diani and Devine Meet the Apocalypse. Sort of.

The movie stars Gabriel Diani and Etta Devine, but this video, which Gabe calls "what the movie would look like if we stopped the camera on 'Action,'" mainly stars editor / 2nd unit director / clapper Chad Meserve and PA Danni Steele.

Shot by Matthias Schubert, Austin Harris, and Gareth Taylor.
Edited by DDMTA assistant editor Rob Schultz.

www.DDMTA.com

#2,048: Psychos

Presented today Memento-style, in the reverse of the order viewed.

The Mist (Black & White Director's Cut) - ★★★★☆
My first time seeing the B/W version. It's been a while since I've seen any version, and happily I'd forgotten a lot of the middle of the movie. Got to watch it this time through the lens of the lovecrafty stuff I've been reading / playing more of lately, which also made it fun.

Psycho II - ★★★☆☆
I wasn't sure what to make of this one. The premise is almost like a comedy, with so many knowing nods and nudges and things to set Norman off, but it comes together as a pretty solid 80s horror. It feels neat to see what's become of the house and the motel and everything, even though of course it's all freshly built to make a movie. I have a little trouble squaring the events of this movie as things that "really happened" in the world of the original.

Psycho - ★★★★☆
I like watching a well-known classic like this (or maybe The Godfather) by trying to see it the way an audience did before it became a pop culture touchstone. You hear about the shower, not the seemingly conventional but still intriguing plot with the money. To a first-time viewer, Norman is lying because he's covering for his terrifying mother, not to stay out of jail himself. Maybe you even feel for him.

Psychos - ★★★☆☆
Seemed to me like this was really speeding along faster than I remembered. I assumed it was because of the intercutting capturing my attention, but no, it's actually shorter. The Hitchcocks I've seen lately, a lot of them could stand to lose 15 minutes, but somehow I don't think I'd have quite the same audience if I did it.

Definitely makes me want to go watch the original again, not just for the fun of seeing how this cut works. Probably not as excited to give the remake another chance.

In-Depth Review of Amazing Spider-Man 2

Finally, a movie with all the good looks and deep characterization of this trading card from 1995!

#2,046: The Trouble With Harry

How to Steal a Million - ★★★½☆
A fun little romantic comedy caper. The romance is in the style of the time, which is to say, two people who fall in love almost immediately and because the script says so. The heist was also in the style of the time, which is to say, pretty good! For some of my friends, this is the first Audrey Hepburn movie they've enjoyed. To them, I say five words: "Three words: Wait Until Dark!"

The Pink Panther - ★★☆☆☆
This one was a let down. Started strong, but becomes convoluted, confusing, and boring. I did like how Clouseau seems to be at least somewhat aware of how he's bad at everything, and the timing and staging on the scene with 6 people in the bedroom made me smile. Surprising ending.

Shadow of a Doubt - ★★★☆☆
2 for 2 on slow moving Hitchcocks with characters that fall in love instantaneously and delightful supporting casts. All the scenes with Herb are great. Ann too. Somehow, Santa Rosa doesn't look very 'small town' to me, which makes the fact that everyone recognizes Charlie kind of fun. I guess maybe I'm deciding that I liked the world of the movie more than the plot.

The Trouble with Harry - ★★½☆☆
I've known that the trouble with Harry is mostly, y'know, how he's kind of, well, dead, but the trouble with The Trouble With Harry is that it's not very good. I wasn't expecting it to be a comedy. There's some good lines in there, and it's pretty silly, but it's also too long, and hasn't aged especially well. It's not that it's topical, it's the attempts at bawdiness that would barely merit a PG rating today.

I feel fond of it now, now that's it's over, because the good parts were good, but there was also our disbelief that the movie could keep going and how often it did. I bet we could get 15 minutes out of it. The shared and accepted surreality of the world is something I think more movies could use.

#2,042: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

About the numbering...
I have movied my list of movies from IMDB to Letterboxd, which sources their movie info from the "open 'wiki-style,'" rather-less-thorough-than-IMDB [TheMovieDB][]. So far, this has meant that 62 movies I had logged, mostly shorts, are not transferable to Letterboxd unless I take the time to get them added to TMDB first. Along the way I also nixed a bunch of movies that I can't remember actually watching, or were secretly internet comedy videos or theme park rides or DVD bonus features that I was using to pad my stats. And somehow, I still came out 40 movies ahead.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier - ★★★★★
During the scene where Nick Fury drives to work, I realized why no one will ever be happy with the SHIELD TV show. You want it to be like this, and it they just can't do it. It felt like even the easter eggs and name drops and whatnot were a little classier, a little smoother than the TV crew can pull off. Also, I think it's neat to make a sequel in a different genre from the original.

My complaints for this movie are few and tiny. I cheered for my pal DC's cameo.

Some more video game stuff:

- 10000000 - ★★★☆☆
A match 3 type game. I played this last year, but I got a new iOS device since then, so my save was gone and I played it again. Took about 3.5 hours of game time, but felt rather longer, since it was spread over months.

- Halcyon - ★★★☆☆
Last year I described this as a kind of frenetic "match-two" game. For some idiotic reason I started playing it again and it got its claws back into me. A wasted day or two later, I've finally rebeaten the 'Stars' section.

- Thomas Was Alone - ★★★☆☆
PS+ keeps on giving. I'd been interested in this one. I think it knocked off in one night, and then I started again on the commentary track. It was just… fine. The kind of game 3 stars were invented to rate.