Loving Memory (1970)

[John Johnson]

It's quite a contrast to what we have come to expect from Tony Scott.


Tony Scott's debut film.

Region ALL Blu-Ray Review



http://homecinema.thedigitalfix.co.uk/c ... emory.html

[Monterey Jack]

Remember when Tony Scott's movies didn't look like they were shot through a film of neon-tinted snot and edited by Edward Scissorhands having an epileptic seizure?

[AndyDursin]

Remember when Tony Scott's movies didn't look like they were shot through a film of neon-tinted snot and edited by Edward Scissorhands having an epileptic seizure?

I've never been a Tony Scott fan. I can say that sincerely.

[Monterey Jack]

There are Scott films I still enjoy. The Last Boy Scout (major guilty pleasure), True Romance (mainly for Quentin Tarantino's screenplay), Crimson Tide (I'm a sucker for submarine movies)...even the more recent Deja Vu was more visually restrained than usual. However, ever since Man On Fire, Scott has gotten a bad case of the Avid Farts, making films that are so hysterically overdirected that they seem like parodies of his already overly slick, beer-commercial asthetic. Domino ranks with Seed Of Chucky and Speed Racer as one of the most singularly unpleasant cinematic experiences I have had in the last decade. While his Taking Of Pelham 1-2-3 remake wasn't as awful as some of his other recent films, it was a pretty poor, badly-miscast update of the sensational 1974 original (where, oh where was the long-overdue anamorphic DVD version that should have come out to tie into the release of the remake? ), and that upcoming runaway train movie with Denzel and Captain Kirk 2.0 basically looks like The Cassandra Crossing with Hans Gregson-Jablonsky in lieu of Jerry Goldsmith. Even when big bro Ridley Scott makes a bad/mediocre movie, at least it still looks great, wheras T. Scott seems to have lost his freaking MIND recently, like a sixtysomething, baseball cap-wearing British guy trying desperately to keep up with what the kids think is "rad" and "phat" these days. For all his stylistic indulgences, Tarantino at least knows how to settle the heck down and let the dialogue and acting take center stage when neccesary.

[AndyDursin]

Ugh, WHY did you have to mention SEED OF CHUCKY. lol.

Here I was, a massive fan of BRIDE OF CHUCKY, all excited for SEED OF CHUCKY -- brought Joanne and had to walk out about 20 minutes in, it was so horrible.

I did watch the whole thing on video...most of it...what a massive turd that was. Just plain horrific. Don Mancini should've quit while he was ahead (that said, I do love BRIDE OF CHUCKY).

On the other hand, as far as Scott goes, I also liked TRUE ROMANCE. Always had a thing for Patricia Arquette and still do -- she's not massively "hot" but she's attractive in a natural, 'real woman' kind of way. Not a massive Tarantino fan but that one was solid. I liked, not loved, LAST BOY SCOUT and ENEMY OF THE STATE -- it's like he makes competent "action programmers" but that's about it. Can't say there's one movie of his that I own outside of TRUE ROMANCE or want to see again either. Or really loved.

[Monterey Jack]

Here I was, a massive fan of BRIDE OF CHUCKY, all excited for SEED OF CHUCKY -- brought Joanne and had to walk out about 20 minutes in, it was so horrible.

Bride is nearly as bad as Seed. Even a jailbait Katherine Heigl couldn't salvage that crap. It's always a terrible idea when a horror franchise goes deliberately into self-parody. The first two Child's Play movies worked because they were scary and funny, but the third one was just mediocre all around, and the descent into outright comedy in the last two just killed the series dead. I'm actually all for a remake of the first one if it can get the right mixture of scares and black humor that the first two films (especially part two, my favorite of the series) managed so well.

And I'm still waiting for a CD release of Graeme Revell and Shirley Walker's phenominal score to Child's Play 2.

EDIT: And my grades for the whole series:

-Child's Play: B

-Child's Play 2: B+

-Child's Play 3: C

-Bride: D+

-Seed: F

[AndyDursin]

I respectfully part company with you on BRIDE OF CHUCKY. Definitely didn't "kill the series dead" -- the series was dead and it basically resurrected it wholesale, made loads of money (more than any of the other films) and most fans grooved on it. Personally I loved BRIDE OF CHUCKY myself. I think it's brilliant for what it was and just the right mix of comedy and horror. Loved Ronny Yu's direction, the homages to Bride of Frankenstein and other '80s horrors, the cinematography and design -- it's more over the top than the CHILD'S PLAY movies, sure, and for me was much more interesting than any of its predecessors for that very reason (I like the first three movies alright, I didn't find any of them scary but I kind of enjoy them on a nostalgic level, not unlike the Freddy films). Watching that movie with a sold-out, mostly college-age crowd was one of the more memorable experiences I've ever had in a theater in fact; people got into it and loved it.

My problem with SEED OF CHUCKY was that it went way, way too far. They took the humorous element of BRIDE and pushed it up so much there was no framework for a story or anything else to hang onto. As over the top as BRIDE OF CHUCKY was, there's still a story and characters there -- it's not all just one long in-joke. Mancini drank in the box-office of BRIDE and thought he could do one better himself by taking full control, and he failed spectacularly.