Drive (2011)
I actually watched this on Friday but forgot to mention it in this thread. Overall a pretty solid movie with a good director, good lead actor, good script, good soundtrack, and a good supporting cast. Ryan Gosling is fast becoming one of my favorite movie actors and someone who I think will dominate this decade the way A-list actors like Tom Cruise dominated the '80's and '90's. The short, but intense action scenes were made all the more memorable with the large character building taking place between them, and they never felt like they were being exploited. In fact, there were many "exploitable" moments in this film that were never used, Ryan Gosling never took his shirt off, even though you could tell he was pretty built, the film focused on Christina Hendricks' expressive face rather than her chest, and the violence was striking and brutal, but never shoved in our face. Overall it's nice to see a "guy film" with a brain and hopefully this will inspire other directors to take the high road and produce something that can deliver on all fronts without having to pander to niche demographics.
The Last Man on Earth (1964)
Despite being a pretty big fan of the horror genre, I must confess that I don't know much about Vincent Price or his movies. Luckily most of the good ones seem to be up on Netflix though so hopefully I can at least familiarize myself with the big ones. This one seemed like the best one to start myself off with, it being the first adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel
I Am Legend and stays pretty close to the original source material, although the ending is quite different. The movie starts off really nice with some great pacing as we see Price go about his daily routine, but it does fall a little flat when the monsters do show up and don't seem to do much other than bang on his door while Price sits inside listening to jazz music, drinking alcohol, and smoking cigarettes. This may just be an age thing, like with
The Exorcist becoming more of a comedy than a horror movie, but I did try to at least take the time period into account while watching it, but the monsters never really seemed scary, even in large groups. Still, if you're a fan of the history of horror cinema then this one is pretty much a pretty important part of the whole "post-apocalyptic" subgenre, but adjust your expectations.