philosoraptor42 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
philosoraptor42) wrote2010-09-08 04:16 pm
philosoraptor42) wrote2010-09-08 04:16 pm
Entry tags:
Catching Up With Reviews
Seen a lot of things which haven't got reviews yet, so let's run through them...
5/5
Sin Nombre (2009)
Bloody fantastic movie about Mexican gangs and illegal immigration. The poster that you'll most often see for this just shows a bunch of people sitting on a train, which does nothing to show how exciting and sometimes brutal this movie is. (I think the poster I've provided does the job a little better.) No only is it beautifully shot with well-developed characters, but it also contains the excitement to match. I'm surprised I haven't seen more people hyping this movie. It's absolutely brilliant and one of my favourites from 2009.
Where The Wild Things Are (2009)
I'll preface this by pointing out that I am not judging this as a children's movie. I really don't know how children will feel about this movie. I should also point out straight away that while I have seen the book lying around and flicked through it, it has never held any deep personal attachment for me. Similar books that hold that honour instead include the Towser books and "I'm Coming To Get You" by Tony Ross.
The Wild Things that Max meets are very much like children themselves, but they also have the same kinds of tantrums and arguments. In fact, it's quite important to the style of the movie that there's a great deal of bonding through tantrums and arguments throughout the movie. There were, I must admit, quite a few points where I was in tears because this film hit me quite hard emotionally. That doesn't normally happen, I must say. Max promises at one stage that he can "keep out all the sadness" and this is one thing where he's definitely not terribly successful. While the Wild Things getting upset is quite important to the movie, I cannot help but feel that it wouldn't really appeal to children who are perhaps expecting more excitement. Still who knows, for some kids this could end up being their equivalent of "Neverending Story". Still, I think the lack of excitement makes that unlikely and thus I think this will mainly be something that adults enjoy, rather than children. (Do let me know if you've heard otherwise.)
The movie hit me so personally and emotionally that I cannot help but give it full marks. In "The Science Of Sleep" I think Michel Gondry was trying to create a similar sort of feel, but without anywhere near the same level of success. I think when watching this movie it's important to realise that you are essentially watching quite a serious art film with muppets, rather than a happy-go-lucky kids movie. So long as you bear that in mind, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Soldier Of Orange (1977)
Dutch WWII movie that launched Paul Verhoeven's career and, apparently, highly impressed Steven Spielberg. Verhoeven then went to America and made mostly sci-fi movies. He made "Robocop" and "Total Recall", but unfortunately he also made "Basic Instinct", "Showgirls" and "Starship Troopers". He since went back to Holland to make "Black Book", but that still pales in comparison to this awesome epic. (And yes, with a running time of over two hours it is most certainly epic. I wonder whether, like with Dat Boot, perhaps it was a tv series first of all?)
Anyway, starring the awesome Rutger Hauer it's a very good all-rounder with great characters, excitement and not too predictable while it's at it.
P.S. It also includes Edward Fox who played The Jackal.
4.5/5
The Counterfeiters (2007)
A good all-round story done very well and which keeps your interest. It keeps your interest well and it's based on a compelling true story. Nevertheless, there's a part of me that groaned "oh dear, not another holocaust movie". Perhaps that's an unfair criticism, but even so I'm not sure it quite earnt the full 5 out of 5. See what you think...
The Unloved (2009)
Samantha Morton's (very) personal take on the care system in the UK. She was in care at one stage herself, so she found it was important to show what it's like to outsiders. While Fish Tank was all about how awful it is to live on a council estate, The Unloved is about how awful it is to be in the care system. Both have a tendency to show things as they are without too much extra inserted drama or making judgements for the audience. However, Fish Tank's problem was that the character's were simply horrible, whereas in The Unloved the characters are much more easy to empathise with in spite of their very obvious issues. It's also clearer what The Unloved is trying to say about the care system, whereas in the case of Fish Tank I really couldn't tell you what the point was supposed to be.
The camera is often held at a young child's head height to give us an idea of what the movie means for the protagonist. Another way it puts us in the head of the protagonist is when it shows her with her eyes closed so we only see her and, like her, we cannot see what she's listening to. Other times our view is pretty much from the girl's actual perspective (or sometimes just looking over her head), so we'll see a conversation going on around her and then we'll continue to see how she's ignored afterwards.
This is a very powerful movie albeit with a few imperfect aspects. There didn't appear to be subtitles which might actually have been useful for a few of Robert Carlyle's lines (playing as the protagonist's dad). The pacing isn't always great and the scene near the end didn't entirely make sense to me. At the very end there's a long scene where nothing much happens seemingly with the intention of getting us to listen all the way through a song by "Spiritualized". This is a bad idea as the song doesn't have any clear meaning, doesn't make up for the lack of stuff happening on screen and, to be honest, isn't very good. It's sad that the movie should have ended with over 5 minutes of what is essentially filler because it detracts from the previous scene which, while I personally found it a little confusing, was very powerful.
This movie has a really important message and does it in a very raw but interesting way. Effort is made to help us empathise with all the characters we come across and we never get the impression that this movie is just one scene after another. It's a little slow in places, but in the end it feels worth it. Perhaps I am giving this half a mark too much because it's important, but what the heck. It IS an important movie and people really need to see it.
Face (1997)
I actually remembered this being a lot better. It's quite a stunning line-up of British talent since it includes Robert Carlyle, Ray Winstone and Philip Davis and... um... Damon Albarn *scratches head*. There're also small roles for Peter Vaughn and Sue Johnston. The movie also stars Lena Headey who isn't any better in this than she is in Sarah Connor Chronicles or 300. Still, this is one of the more interesting takes on the "heist" genre, with an engaging plot, plenty of excitement, great acting, not a little violence, but there are bits which feel a little too "this is a gangster movie"-ish (though admittedly this actually pre-dates Lock Stock). Highly underrated movie, even without living up to what I remembered.
4/5
The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
If you are prepared to overlook how dated this movie has become, feel free to add at least another half a mark to the score. This is the last movie Fritz Lang made before fleeing Germany. It's a sequel to a silent movie (also from Fritz Lang) called "Dr Mabuse: The Gambler" (which I admittedly haven't seen). The movie quickly fills you in on any details you might have missed from the last movie and often very exciting. I actually find it remarkable that such a movie was able to be made when Germany must surely have been in the midst of a massive economic depression since there are some scenes which are quite extravagant (involving extreme flooding, a large raging fire and a few explosions). The marks for this film are so low mainly because of the slow pacing, the weird stuff involving ghosts and the slightly disjointed plot. I think the problem is that what the movie could really do with is a good edit. It's a bit too long and doesn't flow very well. Then again, perhaps I am judging this particularly harshly after having seen Fritz Lang's classic "M" which actually has quite a good tempo and barely feels aged at all. As for the ghosts, I get the impression that they are mostly just there because Mr. Lang wanted to play about with this rather interesting effect. Though admittedly there are some points where it is used very well indeed. In the end though, I wasn't at all sure what was going on with the ghosts and while the movie began feeling like it was going to have a bit of mystery to it, it ended up being rather clear cut. All in all though this was good fun and well worth a watch.
Ponyo (Japanese with subtitles) (2008)
My previous review (in cinema with English dubbing) was as follows:
A big change is that, in the Japanese version, the idea that "how much they love each other is important" makes a lot more sense (though I can't really go into any more details without spoilers. Putting on both the Japanese version's subtitles and the English dubbing at the same time, you can see just how much flowery nonsense is unnecessarily added to the dubbing. It serves to strongly detract from the more simple explanations found in the subtitles. So much so in fact, that the English dubbed version seemed to be pretty much advocating child marriage!
I won't lie to you though. It's still a bit twee and a bit pathos-y, but I have to say that I like this subtitled version a lot better.
The Witches (1990)
This is a bit of a mixed bag. Now this is based on a book I absolutely love, so perhaps some will feel I'm unfairly marking it down. (Well tough!) Certainly the start of the movie does a brilliant job of bringing to life some of the events the grandma describes about "real" witches. However, it's rather annoying that they've decided to make witches identifiable by a purple tinge in their eye because it makes them FAR too easy to spot. The whole point of the original criteria for finding witches was that none of the individual characteristics was enough to spot a witch (unless that witch was extremely careless). In the book the eye thing was that there was a barely noticeable swirl of colours in the pupil. The only way you could see that would be by staring into their eyes, which would make you look quite obvious. Still, I guess this was necessary to make things reasonably easy to follow. Another thing which has been added in is a rather bizarre scene where the witches are running around on a beach excitedly. I find it best to pretend that this entire scene was an illusion, because otherwise it's remarkable that the witches haven't been caught and it removes any sense that there are proper rules to what they can and cannot do.
The second half of the movie cranks up the comedy with Rowan Atkinson doing his thing and, to be quite honest, seeming wholey out of place. The mouse effects are pretty good and the grand high witch looks awesome. (Though when I first saw this movie as a child, so effective were Roald Dahl's descriptions along with Quentin Blake's illustration of the Grand High Witch unmasked, that I was convinced that she still wasn't ugly enough.) Bruno is pretty good, but the main boy protagonist is so whiney it's extremely offputting.
Still, the main adult parts are performed fantastically. Mai Zetterling is brilliant as the Norweigian grandmother, Bill Paterson is wonderful as Bruno's father, but the person who really steals the show is Anjelica Huston as the "Grand High Witch". You won't regret seeing this. It's a good solid movie. However, it never seems sure whether it wants to go for the full-on dark and scary story from Roald Dahl or whether it wants to play it up as a comedy. This indecisiveness does not work in the movie's favour at all and that's sad because this had the potential to be a proper classic.
3.5/5
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
After a long while of making utter trash, Guy Ritchie finally makes something watchable. It's very generic, but it looks very good it keeps you interested. In the end though, the plot is just too contrived for words. The movie is held together by Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law's performances, but in the end this is mainly just a bit of fun to pass the time. It's quite an average movie, but a general sense of fun makes it that little bit more worthy of your time.
The Pit And The Pendulum (1961)
My goodness this is a melodramatic and meandering movie, isn't it? I saw this after seeing "The Haunting" (see below) and I felt a little deja-vu to start with really. It takes place in a castle, there's apparently a ghost or perhaps not, everyone keeps changing their story and the owner of the castle has a dark past... But then when you get to the end, it makes up for it all. It's not so much that the ending is really clever, but it's so much fun that you can't help but forgive it for what you were put through before. And Vincent Price is awesome, as always, of course.
2.5/5
Legion (2010)
Utterly stupid movie with some neat special effects. I am actually quite satisfied by the way many people were upset with the theology. I actually thought the twist was quite clever. The biggest problem is the dialogue which is ridiculously hackneyed. Rather too many of the best bits can be found in the trailer. Still, as far as shit movies go, this is pretty good fun. (Please note, I am giving this movie the same rating as f***ing Twilight. Do not take this as a strong recommendation, ok?) I must say that I found this a bit of a guilty pleasure because even though it was awful, I couldn't help but enjoy it anyway. Then again, unlike the guilty pleasure of "Ultraviolet", this movie doesn't really have nearly enough action sequences. Still can you pass up the opporunity to see a Zombie/Angel Apocalypse movie?
I'm not sure I understand the claims that the movie is somehow promoting the anti-choice agenda by noting that the pregant character considered getting an abortion. It didn't look to me like people were strongly judging her for wanting to have an abortion and she actually expresses quite justified annoyance that cosmic destiny prevented her from being able to go through with one. Yes, the movie expects her to come to term with her pregnancy, but that's because her child is going to be a new messiah, a saviour for the entire human race. Not because abortion is somehow wrong, okay? (I can just see the anti-choice message now: "Don't have an abortion because your baby might turn out to be the messiah." Yeah that'd go down well with those groups, I'm sure....) Rather more annoying is actually the decision that the saviour has to be male. (Okay sure, perhaps they just happen to be male, but why even announce the gender of the baby before it's born?)
The Haunting (or The Terror) (1963)
I actually thought I was about to watch the classic 1963 movie about a haunted house known as "The Haunting". Strangely this 1963 movie known as "The Haunting" wasn't the same one as people would normally wish to refer to. In fact, imdb.com has this listed as "The Terror", but my version appears to have the title used for American television (surely they must have known about the potential mix-up?) At the start of the movie we see the ever-awesome Dick Miller going around knifing people but being stopped before he can kill a man blatantly performing evil black arts and conjuring evil spirits. He's then taken down to be tortured for information and then killed, but he insists that he can shed light on what is happening here. What he then does is tell a story which then becomes the main body of this movie starring Jack Nicholsen and Boris Karloff which appears entirely unrelated to what we've seen in this opening sequence. The plot is so convoluted, inconsistent and, at times, plain stupid, that there's something rather compelling about it. I don't know if you'll regret seeing this movie. I'd certainly like it if I could discuss with someone just how plain daft it was.
5/5
Sin Nombre (2009)
Bloody fantastic movie about Mexican gangs and illegal immigration. The poster that you'll most often see for this just shows a bunch of people sitting on a train, which does nothing to show how exciting and sometimes brutal this movie is. (I think the poster I've provided does the job a little better.) No only is it beautifully shot with well-developed characters, but it also contains the excitement to match. I'm surprised I haven't seen more people hyping this movie. It's absolutely brilliant and one of my favourites from 2009.
Where The Wild Things Are (2009)
I'll preface this by pointing out that I am not judging this as a children's movie. I really don't know how children will feel about this movie. I should also point out straight away that while I have seen the book lying around and flicked through it, it has never held any deep personal attachment for me. Similar books that hold that honour instead include the Towser books and "I'm Coming To Get You" by Tony Ross.
The Wild Things that Max meets are very much like children themselves, but they also have the same kinds of tantrums and arguments. In fact, it's quite important to the style of the movie that there's a great deal of bonding through tantrums and arguments throughout the movie. There were, I must admit, quite a few points where I was in tears because this film hit me quite hard emotionally. That doesn't normally happen, I must say. Max promises at one stage that he can "keep out all the sadness" and this is one thing where he's definitely not terribly successful. While the Wild Things getting upset is quite important to the movie, I cannot help but feel that it wouldn't really appeal to children who are perhaps expecting more excitement. Still who knows, for some kids this could end up being their equivalent of "Neverending Story". Still, I think the lack of excitement makes that unlikely and thus I think this will mainly be something that adults enjoy, rather than children. (Do let me know if you've heard otherwise.)
The movie hit me so personally and emotionally that I cannot help but give it full marks. In "The Science Of Sleep" I think Michel Gondry was trying to create a similar sort of feel, but without anywhere near the same level of success. I think when watching this movie it's important to realise that you are essentially watching quite a serious art film with muppets, rather than a happy-go-lucky kids movie. So long as you bear that in mind, I don't think you'll be disappointed.
Soldier Of Orange (1977)
Dutch WWII movie that launched Paul Verhoeven's career and, apparently, highly impressed Steven Spielberg. Verhoeven then went to America and made mostly sci-fi movies. He made "Robocop" and "Total Recall", but unfortunately he also made "Basic Instinct", "Showgirls" and "Starship Troopers". He since went back to Holland to make "Black Book", but that still pales in comparison to this awesome epic. (And yes, with a running time of over two hours it is most certainly epic. I wonder whether, like with Dat Boot, perhaps it was a tv series first of all?)
Anyway, starring the awesome Rutger Hauer it's a very good all-rounder with great characters, excitement and not too predictable while it's at it.
P.S. It also includes Edward Fox who played The Jackal.
4.5/5
The Counterfeiters (2007)
A good all-round story done very well and which keeps your interest. It keeps your interest well and it's based on a compelling true story. Nevertheless, there's a part of me that groaned "oh dear, not another holocaust movie". Perhaps that's an unfair criticism, but even so I'm not sure it quite earnt the full 5 out of 5. See what you think...
The Unloved (2009)
Samantha Morton's (very) personal take on the care system in the UK. She was in care at one stage herself, so she found it was important to show what it's like to outsiders. While Fish Tank was all about how awful it is to live on a council estate, The Unloved is about how awful it is to be in the care system. Both have a tendency to show things as they are without too much extra inserted drama or making judgements for the audience. However, Fish Tank's problem was that the character's were simply horrible, whereas in The Unloved the characters are much more easy to empathise with in spite of their very obvious issues. It's also clearer what The Unloved is trying to say about the care system, whereas in the case of Fish Tank I really couldn't tell you what the point was supposed to be.
The camera is often held at a young child's head height to give us an idea of what the movie means for the protagonist. Another way it puts us in the head of the protagonist is when it shows her with her eyes closed so we only see her and, like her, we cannot see what she's listening to. Other times our view is pretty much from the girl's actual perspective (or sometimes just looking over her head), so we'll see a conversation going on around her and then we'll continue to see how she's ignored afterwards.
This is a very powerful movie albeit with a few imperfect aspects. There didn't appear to be subtitles which might actually have been useful for a few of Robert Carlyle's lines (playing as the protagonist's dad). The pacing isn't always great and the scene near the end didn't entirely make sense to me. At the very end there's a long scene where nothing much happens seemingly with the intention of getting us to listen all the way through a song by "Spiritualized". This is a bad idea as the song doesn't have any clear meaning, doesn't make up for the lack of stuff happening on screen and, to be honest, isn't very good. It's sad that the movie should have ended with over 5 minutes of what is essentially filler because it detracts from the previous scene which, while I personally found it a little confusing, was very powerful.
This movie has a really important message and does it in a very raw but interesting way. Effort is made to help us empathise with all the characters we come across and we never get the impression that this movie is just one scene after another. It's a little slow in places, but in the end it feels worth it. Perhaps I am giving this half a mark too much because it's important, but what the heck. It IS an important movie and people really need to see it.
Face (1997)
I actually remembered this being a lot better. It's quite a stunning line-up of British talent since it includes Robert Carlyle, Ray Winstone and Philip Davis and... um... Damon Albarn *scratches head*. There're also small roles for Peter Vaughn and Sue Johnston. The movie also stars Lena Headey who isn't any better in this than she is in Sarah Connor Chronicles or 300. Still, this is one of the more interesting takes on the "heist" genre, with an engaging plot, plenty of excitement, great acting, not a little violence, but there are bits which feel a little too "this is a gangster movie"-ish (though admittedly this actually pre-dates Lock Stock). Highly underrated movie, even without living up to what I remembered.
4/5
The Testament Of Dr. Mabuse (1933)
If you are prepared to overlook how dated this movie has become, feel free to add at least another half a mark to the score. This is the last movie Fritz Lang made before fleeing Germany. It's a sequel to a silent movie (also from Fritz Lang) called "Dr Mabuse: The Gambler" (which I admittedly haven't seen). The movie quickly fills you in on any details you might have missed from the last movie and often very exciting. I actually find it remarkable that such a movie was able to be made when Germany must surely have been in the midst of a massive economic depression since there are some scenes which are quite extravagant (involving extreme flooding, a large raging fire and a few explosions). The marks for this film are so low mainly because of the slow pacing, the weird stuff involving ghosts and the slightly disjointed plot. I think the problem is that what the movie could really do with is a good edit. It's a bit too long and doesn't flow very well. Then again, perhaps I am judging this particularly harshly after having seen Fritz Lang's classic "M" which actually has quite a good tempo and barely feels aged at all. As for the ghosts, I get the impression that they are mostly just there because Mr. Lang wanted to play about with this rather interesting effect. Though admittedly there are some points where it is used very well indeed. In the end though, I wasn't at all sure what was going on with the ghosts and while the movie began feeling like it was going to have a bit of mystery to it, it ended up being rather clear cut. All in all though this was good fun and well worth a watch.
Ponyo (Japanese with subtitles) (2008)
My previous review (in cinema with English dubbing) was as follows:
Ok, I know that the animation was wonderful, that the characters were endearing and that the Miyazaki magic was in full swing. In fact, that is exactly why this is higher than average. This was certainly an above average movie. I would really highly recommend that anyone who like Miyazaki's work goes to see this (though perhaps after they've already seen "Princess Mononoke", "Castle In The Sky" and "Spirited Away"). However, this suffers from the same problem as can be seen in his previous outing "Howl's Moving Castle". The level of imagination is fantastic and the characters are compelling, but towards the end I felt like it was all becoming distant as the pathos started revving up. It's a little hard to invest in the story once we are told that everything hangs on how much two young children love each other. When we've never seen them have a single disagreement during the entire movie, it's rather hard to feel any tension and therefore there's only so much we are going to care. - All this being said, it is a beautiful and wonderful story which is well worth you watching. Just expect it to let you down towards the end.Sometimes dubbing and subtitles makes very little difference. However, I have to say that Ponyo doesn't feel so emotionally distant with the Japanese version. I'm not sure why. Perhaps the voice actos care a bit more. I have to say that Liam Neeson didn't really do a terribly good job with his dubbing part and I'm not sure his voice really fitted with the role.
A big change is that, in the Japanese version, the idea that "how much they love each other is important" makes a lot more sense (though I can't really go into any more details without spoilers. Putting on both the Japanese version's subtitles and the English dubbing at the same time, you can see just how much flowery nonsense is unnecessarily added to the dubbing. It serves to strongly detract from the more simple explanations found in the subtitles. So much so in fact, that the English dubbed version seemed to be pretty much advocating child marriage!
I won't lie to you though. It's still a bit twee and a bit pathos-y, but I have to say that I like this subtitled version a lot better.
The Witches (1990)
This is a bit of a mixed bag. Now this is based on a book I absolutely love, so perhaps some will feel I'm unfairly marking it down. (Well tough!) Certainly the start of the movie does a brilliant job of bringing to life some of the events the grandma describes about "real" witches. However, it's rather annoying that they've decided to make witches identifiable by a purple tinge in their eye because it makes them FAR too easy to spot. The whole point of the original criteria for finding witches was that none of the individual characteristics was enough to spot a witch (unless that witch was extremely careless). In the book the eye thing was that there was a barely noticeable swirl of colours in the pupil. The only way you could see that would be by staring into their eyes, which would make you look quite obvious. Still, I guess this was necessary to make things reasonably easy to follow. Another thing which has been added in is a rather bizarre scene where the witches are running around on a beach excitedly. I find it best to pretend that this entire scene was an illusion, because otherwise it's remarkable that the witches haven't been caught and it removes any sense that there are proper rules to what they can and cannot do.
The second half of the movie cranks up the comedy with Rowan Atkinson doing his thing and, to be quite honest, seeming wholey out of place. The mouse effects are pretty good and the grand high witch looks awesome. (Though when I first saw this movie as a child, so effective were Roald Dahl's descriptions along with Quentin Blake's illustration of the Grand High Witch unmasked, that I was convinced that she still wasn't ugly enough.) Bruno is pretty good, but the main boy protagonist is so whiney it's extremely offputting.
Still, the main adult parts are performed fantastically. Mai Zetterling is brilliant as the Norweigian grandmother, Bill Paterson is wonderful as Bruno's father, but the person who really steals the show is Anjelica Huston as the "Grand High Witch". You won't regret seeing this. It's a good solid movie. However, it never seems sure whether it wants to go for the full-on dark and scary story from Roald Dahl or whether it wants to play it up as a comedy. This indecisiveness does not work in the movie's favour at all and that's sad because this had the potential to be a proper classic.
3.5/5
Sherlock Holmes (2009)
After a long while of making utter trash, Guy Ritchie finally makes something watchable. It's very generic, but it looks very good it keeps you interested. In the end though, the plot is just too contrived for words. The movie is held together by Robert Downey Jnr and Jude Law's performances, but in the end this is mainly just a bit of fun to pass the time. It's quite an average movie, but a general sense of fun makes it that little bit more worthy of your time.
The Pit And The Pendulum (1961)
My goodness this is a melodramatic and meandering movie, isn't it? I saw this after seeing "The Haunting" (see below) and I felt a little deja-vu to start with really. It takes place in a castle, there's apparently a ghost or perhaps not, everyone keeps changing their story and the owner of the castle has a dark past... But then when you get to the end, it makes up for it all. It's not so much that the ending is really clever, but it's so much fun that you can't help but forgive it for what you were put through before. And Vincent Price is awesome, as always, of course.
2.5/5
Legion (2010)
Utterly stupid movie with some neat special effects. I am actually quite satisfied by the way many people were upset with the theology. I actually thought the twist was quite clever. The biggest problem is the dialogue which is ridiculously hackneyed. Rather too many of the best bits can be found in the trailer. Still, as far as shit movies go, this is pretty good fun. (Please note, I am giving this movie the same rating as f***ing Twilight. Do not take this as a strong recommendation, ok?) I must say that I found this a bit of a guilty pleasure because even though it was awful, I couldn't help but enjoy it anyway. Then again, unlike the guilty pleasure of "Ultraviolet", this movie doesn't really have nearly enough action sequences. Still can you pass up the opporunity to see a Zombie/Angel Apocalypse movie?
I'm not sure I understand the claims that the movie is somehow promoting the anti-choice agenda by noting that the pregant character considered getting an abortion. It didn't look to me like people were strongly judging her for wanting to have an abortion and she actually expresses quite justified annoyance that cosmic destiny prevented her from being able to go through with one. Yes, the movie expects her to come to term with her pregnancy, but that's because her child is going to be a new messiah, a saviour for the entire human race. Not because abortion is somehow wrong, okay? (I can just see the anti-choice message now: "Don't have an abortion because your baby might turn out to be the messiah." Yeah that'd go down well with those groups, I'm sure....) Rather more annoying is actually the decision that the saviour has to be male. (Okay sure, perhaps they just happen to be male, but why even announce the gender of the baby before it's born?)
The Haunting (or The Terror) (1963)
I actually thought I was about to watch the classic 1963 movie about a haunted house known as "The Haunting". Strangely this 1963 movie known as "The Haunting" wasn't the same one as people would normally wish to refer to. In fact, imdb.com has this listed as "The Terror", but my version appears to have the title used for American television (surely they must have known about the potential mix-up?) At the start of the movie we see the ever-awesome Dick Miller going around knifing people but being stopped before he can kill a man blatantly performing evil black arts and conjuring evil spirits. He's then taken down to be tortured for information and then killed, but he insists that he can shed light on what is happening here. What he then does is tell a story which then becomes the main body of this movie starring Jack Nicholsen and Boris Karloff which appears entirely unrelated to what we've seen in this opening sequence. The plot is so convoluted, inconsistent and, at times, plain stupid, that there's something rather compelling about it. I don't know if you'll regret seeing this movie. I'd certainly like it if I could discuss with someone just how plain daft it was.