Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews

[Johnny Unusual]

Hero

Hero is a well-made movie and the middle part is absolutely great but when you get to the end, it isn't not only nakedly propagandist but beyond that, it also kind of makes that the protagonists journey is... largely pointless? It's still a fun movie and I love high melodrama but it kind of makes everyone's sacrifice seem kind of meaningless. I feel I can put aside some views I don't agree with for the nature of the story but I feel like the characters didn't change a damn thing.

 

[Rascally Badger]

I saw Dune yesterday and I loved it.

Today, I watched Night Teeth, about a guy who gets hired to drive a couple of hot girls around for the night, only to find out they are vampires and he gets 'sucked' into some kind of vampire war. Its perfectly adequate.

And I watched Mystery Men. Is it just me, or is that movie just aggressively not funny? Setting aside to futility of doing what feels like a comedy send up of the Schumacher Batman movies, I can't really think of a single joke that works.

 

[ArugulaZ]

Faced with the impossibility of making a conclusion to the Bill and Ted trilogy, I think Chris Matheson and Ed Solomon made the best ending one could realistically expect with Bill and Ted Face the Music. It's loopy and chaotic and difficult to follow, and while it's not as good as the first film, it feels faithful to the franchise, is heartfelt without stooping to drippy sentimentality, and ends logically.

Spoiler

Hey, how are you going to make a song that unites the world if the world isn't helping you perform it?

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Tigers are Not Afraid

I caught this one on Shudder for spooky season and while it fits, it's not really quite the right movie to discuss in the spooky thread. Oh, there are ghosts but this is more of a dark fairy tale. It feels a piece with Guillermo Del Toro's films about children having to deal with both fantastical horrors and real evils as a group of homeless children evade criminals in a city brutalized by drug wars. But one child has three chalks that give magic wishes... which turn out to not make things better and she ends up haunted by ghosts. It's a pretty good movie and while it isn't quite as good as Pan's Labyrinth or the Devil's Backbone, Tigers are Not Afraid does a lot right and it's definitely worth your time.

 

[Dracula]

I liked Dune a lot.

I saw the movie at Imax with a group of six. Of the six, three hated or were neutral on it; two liked it; and the last was so bored that he walked out halfway through. I don't think any of these reactions are invalid - the movie is long, slow, and ofttimes navel-gazing, and ultimately it only tells half a story. For the people who like slow-cooked high fantasy this one hits the target; to the casual observer it's just a lot of hot sand and loud music.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Watched the 1978 TV movie adaptation of Dr. Strange. As you might expect from a TV movie from the 1970s; it was pretty slow paced and dull. Also not especially faithful to the character (he’s a nice psychiatrist, and has perfectly functional hands, and no real interest in being a wizard hero, for one thing).

On the other hand, it starred Jessica Walter as the main villain (as a sexy witch instead of a stern matriarch, so that was an adjustment), and some of the visuals were pretty impressive considering the shows mid-70s TV movie budget. Genuinely liked the depiction of Dormammu, too.

Or at least I assume it was Dormammu, he is never named, but there’s only so many hulking demonic figures clouded in smoke and flame in Dr. Strange

 

[Octopus Prime]

I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a movie that tried as hard, and failed as completely, to sell the monsters present in it as a genuine threat as Night of the Lepus.

It’s basically like watching the Puppy Bowl, if it were periodically interrupted by Rory Calhoun looking terrified when a small dog growls at a teddy bear

 

[Sprite]

Showed Pulp Fiction to my husband, and holy moley, I forgot just how much this movie hates women. Uma Thurman is the only woman who feels like a real character, and even she serves mainly as an annoyance and an obstacle to the men having their “real” fun.

Spoiler: NSFW discussion of seedy things

It honestly reminded me of how gay porn treats women: shrill impediments to men just trying to get on with the business of penetrating other men.

Though of course the movie has a ton of anxiety around gay sex, seeing as the queer characters’ only personality trait is “rapist.”

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I forgot just how much this movie Quentin Tarantino hates women.

ftfy

 

[Octopus Prime]

If you want to watch Jaws, but would prefer it to be set in a forest with a bear instead of a beach with a shark, and also wish that Quint was more racist, and also that there were no consequences to the Mayors actions, and also that there was no budget so the film was about 50% stock wildlife footage, and also George Clooney, Charlie Sheen and Laura Dern have cameos so brief that I kept looking for them elsewhere in the movie because SURELY that wasn't just them killed in the intro and a really incongruous soundtrack that doesn't feel like it's from the same decade as the rest of the movie and a just utterly terrible rock concert then your ship has come in, because I just described Grizzly 2: The Revenge

There's not a lot to recommend about it, save that if spent nearly four decades in development, and this was the end result.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Yeah, it has some funny moments and Gul Dukat getting et by a bear but There's not a lot to recommend and it never really makes it to killing the throngs of people at the concert it is implied he is going to crash.

 

[Zef]

Now I'm intrigued about Grizzly 1 and what the new griz is taking revenge for.

 

[Octopus Prime]

The Grizzly wants revenge because someone shot some hilarious CG at some stock footage of bears

 

[Rascally Badger]

In the first Grizzly does someone get cut up by a helicopter propeller? Because I have vivid, and at least partially imagined, childhood memories of that.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

There are helicopters in the movie, based on the trailer.

 

[ArugulaZ]

On a scale of cheese from 1 to "Lou Ferrigno throws stock footage of a bear into space," how cheesy is this film?

 

[Octopus Prime]

I’d give it a six; it doesn’t compare to something like Birdemic in terms of capturing the perfect balance between sincerity and a lack of competence

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Decided to watch the Three Caballeros for the first time. I feel like I've seen it or parts of it when I was quite little but didn't have any understanding of the background of it being like the film before it, Saludos Amigos, a goodwill anthology film. I think I like Amigos better and like the previous film I went in a little sleepy so it ended up being an experience more of intellectual interest that I had a hard time staying awake through. Still, some good animation and Panchito is a pretty fun addition, though I'm way more into Jose's energy.

Also watched Grease for the first time. I've seen parts of it and thought "I don't think I like this" but last night I was all "I don't think I gave the film a fair chance." Well, after a fair chance... I don't really like it. I don't dislike it either. I feel like as a musical, there are only a couple songs I really like. The leads are charming and cute so I get why it got big. But overall, I just wasn't invested in it. I will say I read what I knew of the ending as "drastically changing yourself for your loved one" doesn't come off as a great message but on seeing it, I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt reading it as allowing themselves to respect each other's world and life style rather than sticking their noses up at being a square/rebel.

 

[FelixSH]

I have watched Grease for the first time last year, and also couldn't get really into it. Part of it might be, that I don't like the way the actors perform the songs. Like, I don't really like the movies version of Greased Lightning, but I love the Glee version, and quite enjoy the one from Home Improvement (warning: my tastes in music are...let's say unorthodox, also there are some love tracks in the HI one). I just like the singing in both versions more, than in the one from the movie. It's just fun to see the Home Improvement cast having a lot of fun with it, and making it intentionally goofy.

This is basically all that I remember from the movie, so, didn't leave much of an impression, I guess.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I’d give it a six; it doesn’t compare to something like Birdemic in terms of capturing the perfect balance between sincerity and a lack of competence

Speaking of, I also rewatched Birdemic: Shock and Terror

I had forgotten how staggeringly incompetent every single facet of the films production is. Not merely in the sense of the visuals not holding up to scrutiny, the plot having numerous gaping holes, or that none of the characters clearly ever having had any experience acting before (certainly all that applies, though), but even down to the things you'd never normally notice in a movie being wrong;

The ambient noise in a scene doesn't sync up from shot to shot making everything twice as bewildering as it should be, the camera angles never quite lining up where they should, the mic randomly cuts out while people are reciting their lines making them inaudible; sometimes characters appear to be superimposed over really generic sets; there's lots of pretty unaffected pedestrians on a road that should really be abandoned considering how the area is currently in the midst of a Birdemic; none of the characters seem to be very concerned about the Birdemic when they aren't presently engaged with it, and there's a strong indication that the director doesn't QUITE know how product placement works, as there's lots of long lingering shots on name brand products and places, and specific references.

Also, not only does Tippi Hedron show up in the cast list because there's a brief clip of The Birds shown on a TV, she gets credited third

 

[Rascally Badger]

I decided the get some Dwayne "the Rock" Johnson action last night and watched Red Notice and Jungle Cruise.

Red Notice is reliant wholly on the charms of its central trio; ask yourself how much you enjoy the general movie personas of The Rock, Ryan Reynolds and Gal Gadot. You will enjoy the movie exactly that much, because there is nothing else there. It is supposed to be a twisty-turny heist/con man movie, but the script is just too dumb to make that work. If you find yourself wondering if the movie is being stupid or its just being obvious about twists: the first is always right and the second one frequently is. I still kind of enjoyed it; you have to really mess up a heist movie for it not to be at least a little fun.

Jungle Cruise left less of an impression, even if it is likely the better movie. Disney adapted another theme park ride, and just recycled the plot of Pirates of the Caribbean. It was some mild fun.

 

[Kirin]

Speaking of, I also rewatched Birdemic: Shock and Terror

I had forgotten how staggeringly incompetent every single facet of the films production is.

So, like, The Crows Have Eyes 3 was totally based on this movie then, yeah?

 

[Octopus Prime]

If that’s based on The Birds, but the plot gets interrupted every ten minutes to talk about global warming, yes

 

[madhair60]

Ghostbusters Afterlife sucked and made no sense

 

[Beowulf]

Tick, Tick...BOOM was disappointing, and virtually all of my disappointment was based on directorial choices. (Garfield was perfect and the cast in general was very good.) They cut or minimized several songs to make room for a bunch of mediocre new stuff, took a weird approach to the usual double-casting, and made the whole thing doubly-meta which for a musical that's already about writing a musical...no. Miranda has hit "protection from editors", I fear.

 

[Kirin]

Ghostbusters Afterlife sucked and made no sense

Aw, man. That was pretty high up my list of things to see this season.

 

[madhair60]

Aw, man. That was pretty high up my list of things to see this season.

ymmv. no spoilers but I thought it was untrue to the characters presented in the original movie, I thought the new cast were mostly uninteresting (McKenna Grace was excellent) and the setpieces either derivative or simply boring. it was paced and edited poorly and ultimately didn't need to exist.

nonetheless I did nearly weep. once. and I didn't hate it.

 

[Kirin]

To be fair, most of the characters in the original movie were assholes (and if any of them are still alive in this one I'd have hoped they matured a bit in the meantime). But regardless, I wouldn't be surprised for a movie like this to provoke a wide range of reactions so I'll definitely wait for some more opinions before deciding whether to pass on it (or wait for streaming or whatever). Appreciate your reactions anyway!

 

[ArugulaZ]

I'm having a tough time figuring out if True Lies is a comedy. It was marketed as an action film, but it spends as much time satirizing and subverting tropes of the genre as it does indulging in them. A romantic kiss with a detonated nuclear bomb in the background? The hero jumping into a Harrier jet as a means of conveyance but not really knowing how to pilot one? The hero also using the vast resources of the US military as a means of spying on his wife? Maybe it's my, ahem, current condition, but this seems as serious about the material as Spy Hard.

 

[zonetrope]

It's not part of the action comedy genre in the same way say, Rush Hour is, but it's a very funny, very self-aware action movie.