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Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews

Adrenaline

Post Reader
(He/Him)
The Trial of the Chicago 7

As a piece of film, this is a pretty good actor's showcase with some very Sorken dialogue, for both better or worse. I don't enough about the actual history that making Richard Schultz a sympathetic figure is a good idea. I also think that while I expect fact to become fiction in some of these films, there are probably things that could have had more impact if it hewed closed to the truth. But as a piece of film, I'm mostly positive on this one, with the actors doing a great job and Sorken proving himself to be a competent director (I'm told his first big film, Molly's Game, is something of a mess).
The real trial was a lot more wacky and out of control than the one in the movie.
 
I watched Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within on Amazon Prime. This the first time I've rewatched it since seeing it in the theater in 2001. The idea of a ghost alien invasion is pretty cool and well executed.

However, the plot of the film is pretty non-traditional and there are long sequences of dialog about wave patterns and Gia. I liked revisiting the movie. But it is in no way surprising to me that it was not a commercial hit.

***
I also watched Scoob on HBO Max. As a kid who grew up watching Scooby-Doo Where Are You reruns, I found a lot to enjoy from Scoob. A lot of homages to Scooby Doo and Hanna Barbera history both large and small in the film. It felt to me like the creators had reverence for the source material.

The decision to have Scoob cross over with a bunch of other Hanna Barbera is interesting. Having cross overs is consistent with later iterations of Scooby Doo. However, the cross over characters take some of the spotlight off of the Scooby Doo characters. I would say Blue Falcon, Dynomutt, and Dee Dee Skyes have more screen time and importance than Fred, Velma and Daphne in the film. It feels like a curious choice for the first entry in what I assume is the first entry in the Scoob franchise.
 
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Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
I can’t lie, I was pretty let down by Christine, probably the weakest of Carpenters’ 80s output. Didn’t like any of the characters enough to feel sympathetic to any of them before a monster car started hunting them, and Murder Smooshing did nothing to change that. The towns police were surprisingly quick to accept “Possessed Car Did Murders” as an explanation. Also, far less Car Does Murders than I was expecting.

I was pleased with myself for recognizing The Shovel Man from Home Alone immediately, and disappointed with myself for not recognizing Grandpa Fred from Gremlins 2 until I looked him up.

I liked the visuals though. I’m a sucker for a good “machine magically rebuilds itselfs” shot. Very scattershot approach to the Radio Plays Ironic Song bit, half the time the car started playing music about it threatening people, and the rest of the time it was just whatever 50s song John a carpenter could get clearance for
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Four Came For Sartana

My journey through largely unofficial Sartana movies on Amazon Prime continue. This one is better than "Shadow of Death" but not as good as the one actual Sartana film I saw. But it helps that it had a formula I liked: Sartana must kill four super assassins sent after him. The villain reveal is super obvious but I love the introduction of the biggest assassin, Silky, a trained sharpshooter. You know that scene in a samurai movie or a western when the two characters have a duel and one falls and the other guy is walking around a bit but he finally goes and the first guy to fall was the actual victor. This has the most drawn out one of those I've ever seen.
 

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar is actually kind of great? Like, its a very early 00s style goofy comedy, and we don't get those too often any more. I can't really explain it; Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumalo are a couple of middle aged women who go on a vacation in Florida. Also, essentially a Bond villain is trying to destroy the town. Each individual piece is kind of inexplicable?
 

Vaeran

(GRUNTING)
(he/him)
Late to the party on this one, but Bumblebee: A Transformers Story is just as enjoyable and refreshing as everyone says. I especially liked the colorful, easily readable designs of the Transformers after watching identical grey masses of unidentifiable shrapnel slam into each other in the Michael Bay movies. I hope the franchise follows this model going forward instead of whatever the hell they were doing before.
 

YangusKhan

does the Underpants Dance
(He/Him/His)
I watched Panic Room last night. It was one of the few remaining holes in my David Fincher backlog. I'd recommend it for anyone who likes thrillers! It's got a great mix of protagonists that are clever but antagonists that are also clever, and it's definitely not a home invasion movie that's trying to revel in its own violence.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
I watched Panic Room last night. It was one of the few remaining holes in my David Fincher backlog. I'd recommend it for anyone who likes thrillers! It's got a great mix of protagonists that are clever but antagonists that are also clever, and it's definitely not a home invasion movie that's trying to revel in its own violence.
Ah'm Raoul.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Good news; The Mist holds up as one of the better Stephen King adaptations. And better Tony Jones roles!

CG is a bit dated, and Andre Braugher left the movie too soon. I like to think he left that grocery store, and made it all the way to Brooklyn and started a new career as a cop.
 

4-So

Spicy
Watched Dredd last night because I wanted something relatively short to watch while eating a late dinner before bed. It was pretty good! I appreciated the cheek of the slo-mo shots having an in-universe reason for existing.
 
Dredd is awesome. Dredd makes me wish that we would get more small scale fantasy and sci-fi movies rather than world threatening blockbusters. Maybe that is on me to seek out more non-mainstream fare.

I watched the Evil Clergyman on Tubi. Its a 30 minute story from a planned horror anthology Pulse Pounders. It was shot in 1988 and the film was thought to be lost. It was discovered in 2011 on VHS. The picture quality is pretty rough as a result.

Evil Clergyman has Barbara Crampton, Jeffery Combs and David Gale in another H.P. Lovecraft adaption. I would say if you like Re-Animator, From Beyond or Castlefreak its absolutely worth checking out. I thought it was a fun little horror short.
 
I can’t lie, I was pretty let down by Christine, probably the weakest of Carpenters’ 80s output. Didn’t like any of the characters enough to feel sympathetic to any of them before a monster car started hunting them, and Murder Smooshing did nothing to change that. The towns police were surprisingly quick to accept “Possessed Car Did Murders” as an explanation. Also, far less Car Does Murders than I was expecting.

I was pleased with myself for recognizing The Shovel Man from Home Alone immediately, and disappointed with myself for not recognizing Grandpa Fred from Gremlins 2 until I looked him up.

I liked the visuals though. I’m a sucker for a good “machine magically rebuilds itselfs” shot. Very scattershot approach to the Radio Plays Ironic Song bit, half the time the car started playing music about it threatening people, and the rest of the time it was just whatever 50s song John a carpenter could get clearance for
I'm gonna watch this soon.

Have/plan to watch a bunch of Carpenter films I've never seen (Christine) or haven't seen in a while because of Blank Check. They are all a lot of fun? Unsurprising. I have a lot of affection for his later work. Okay, I can't tell if I like Village of the Damned so much because I apparently vaguely remembered everything about it from when I was a child, but who cares? I did like it so much and found it very spooky. Ghosts of Mars? What if everyone were queer but not the romantic leads because it's 2001? lol. (saw it in theaters, I think!) Vampires? Fucked up how much I like James Woods in everything I see him in. (just Videodrome, I guess) In the Mouth of Madness? Sam Neil has an indeterminate accent and Julie Carmen (Fright Night Part II) is the co-star. Yes. Prince of Darkness just really slaps.

Oh, also watched all of Elaine May's (directed) films bc of Blank Check and she is a genius. Can't decide whether Mikey and Nicky or The Heartbreak Kid are my favorite but doesn't matter. They're all worth watching.
 
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Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Prince of Darkness is on my shortlist of Favourite Horror Movies Ever.

Mouth of Madness I wanted to like, but did not

Also, Dredd is the best Robocop sequel
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Winnie the Pooh

I had heard this was a pretty good underwatched Pooh movie but I really wasn't prepared for what this was. After some overly saccarine Pooh movies, I expected something a little more thoughtful with a nod to the sort of wistful ending of the original film. Instead what I got was a very big broad G-Rated comedy that feels in step with the contemporary comedy of the era (down to Tom Kenny as Rabbit). Such a lateral move on paper sounds like one that would leave me equally unhappy, especially considering the kind of jokes that are in movies geared to the very young but aside from old standbys that feel more like joke filler than actual jokes (such as an "okaaaay.") its... surprisingly effective as a straight up comedy. Like, our characters are still loveable but there's only a minimal "message" and generally no "awww" moments. Its just very silly.

While my preference is the original Disney film's balance of comedy and philosophical musings and sweetness, this take is a completely welcome respite from the other films, which felt like dull echoes. Heck, some of the characters don't even seem intent on sounding like the original voice actors and I sort of appreciate that, as the ones before seemed to feel beholden to a lot of stuff but actually giving the audience very little. Pooh's portrayal is the same in many ways (it's still Jim Cummings, who had been voicing the character for a LONG while at this point), but there's a touch of Homer Simpson DNA in the animation and performance of the character. Oh, he's not a jerk (though is unintentionally annoying) but often loses interest in things that aren't about his satisfaction and is a slow thinker in a forest of slow thinkers). It also isn't a series of vignettes (despite starting with "chapter one") but is still better than the previous stories with a "main plot" because its really just a hang out movie. I could see someone not liking this interpretation, which feels a little more modern and of a different tone than the Pooh they loved but I think it is the second strongest of the 5 theatrical features and at a very lean 62 minutes (WITH CREDITS!), is a breezy way to spend an evening.
 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
Did you ever watch the Soviet adaptations of Winnie-The-Pooh from 1969-1972?
 
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Oh, also watched all of Elaine May's (directed) films bc of Blank Check and she is a genius. Can't decide whether Mikey and Nicky or The Heartbreak Kid are my favorite but doesn't matter. They're all worth watching.

I'm a little behind on my Blank Check watching (haven't made it through Heartbreak Kid yet), but A New Leaf was a complete revelation. Knew basically nothing going in and pretty much never stopped laughing throughout. Very excited to watch the rest of May's movies.
 

zonetrope

(he/him)
I don't have anything of substance to add, but I also watched and greatly enjoyed A New Leaf recently. It's available on Criterion, in case anyone who has the service is interested.
 

Olli

(he/him)
Love and Monsters was pretty good. The writing played it safe for the most part, but I didn't mind. One of the all time best movie dogs in there.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
All Disney Watch continues with Peter Pan. I really thought that Dumbo was as racist as Disney got, I really did. But nope.

Wound up needing to ride furiously on the Fast Forward button to get through a decent chunk of it.

Pan himself is a serial abductor of children, as well as being a terrible racist and general asshole. I hate him, and sympathize entirely with Hooks desire to murder him with bombs.

In fact, only the characters who were antagonistic towards to leads did I like at all; the Entire movie was basically Hooks, and whenever he wasn’t on screen, it was a waste of celluloid. Also, while I’m generally resistant to Critter Hijinx, gotta say, I liked that croc. He played his part well.

By merit of possessing any kind of discernible personality, Tinkerbell is also easily the most robust and fully developed female character I’ve seen so far. One day, when she realizes she doesn’t need the approval of a man, she will be a formidable force for change in Neverland.

The movie also opened with parents attempting to convince a dog to drug their children. Perhaps Pan was attempting to save their lives, but evil can not be used to justify evil.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
This is another movie with an interesting book. Tinkerbell tries to make the Lost Boys kill Alice, when she arrives at Neverland. At the end, the pirates kill all the Inians, and than the Lost Boys kill all the pirates, one by one, except for Hook, who is a coward during the whole book. He runs away (granted, these boys just killed his crew).

I don't remember anything else, but I liked it more than the Disney movie.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Zatoichi and the Chest of Gold

Zatoichi #6. This is a pretty good one but also a lot of these fall out of my head once I stop watching them. I remember the villain had a whip? And the chest of gold? This time, Ichi runs across a robbery where the taxes from 18 small communities are stolen by bandits and Ichi gets the blame. He vows to make it right and uncovers a conspiracy by the tax collectors to get more money and shit. I think I liked it more than the last one and it carries on the tradition of "some bandits are good and some people who follow the law are scum" but it wasn't as well played as in #3, which I think might be my favourite, in retrospect.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Speaking as someone midway through watching ASiP, I... kind of want to see what shenanigans those two can get up to
 

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
That's why I watched it. It is a potentially very good comedic pairing, and there are many other at least sometimes funny people in the movie (Jillian Bell, Kumail Nanjiani, Tracy Morgan, Dean Norris, Christina Hendricks) but the jokes are just bad.
 
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