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Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews

Octopus Prime

Octopus Prime

Mystery Contraption
(He/Him)
They were about 20 years apart, give or take, both made in Walts lifetime.

I was watching through all of them a while ago, but stalled out after 101 Dalmations
 
ArugulaZ

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
The annoying thing about Disney animated films is that after Walt died, the company was stuck in a time loop, making movies that felt like they were trapped in 1967-vintage amber. The Aristocats feels like a much older film than it actually is, and it's not just because of the unflattering Siamese cat stereotype. It's dated and tired, clinging to trends so past their expiration date that they may as well be relics. Disney didn't break out of that funk until 1985's Great Mouse Detective, and the company's work didn't get the freshening up it really needed until 1989's The Little Mermaid. I guess that period from 1967 to 1989 was referred to as "the Disney dork age," and it's easy to understand why... gems like Great Mouse Detective aside, it felt like Disney was lost in the woods and struggling to find relevance.
 
Bongo

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
It's not inherently bad for any one given movie to feel like it's from 1967; but it is usually bad for like a dozen movies in a row to all feel like they are from 1967.
 
Rascally Badger

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
I don't think Disney's output during that timeframe is particularly weak; its more they put out only 8 films in a close to 25 year period and even the ones people like feel somewhat compromised.

Cinderella one of the weakest of Disney's films in its era. Its painfully thin.
 
Kirin

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
We just watched Manchester by the Sea, which my partner needed to see for a class she's taking on Grief and Loss in her MSW program and, uh... yup, that movie sure contains a whole lot of Grief and Loss. It all feels like really honest depictions, though, moreso than you'd see in most movies.
 
Johnny Unusual

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Scanners is probably my least favourite of the David Cronenberg films I've seen. It's not bad. I think it ties into Videodrome in terms of a weird hybrid of body horror and espionage thriller but I feel like while it is a well-crafted thriller and it's definitely a Cronenberg film, it's missing a certain punch that made me love some of this other films. It's better made than Shivers and less toxicity than The Brood (a film made after an ugly divorce) but whatever it is, this one doesn't speak to me as much. Then again, I watched it when I was very tired, so I'll have to give it another chance in the future.
 
chud_666

chud_666

Latest obsessions

NOPE: what if you met God? Or the ultimate predator? What does this impossibility drive you to do? What do your traumas, goals and tragedies do to inform your decision. Fuck. Movie is maybe not fully excellent... But I've been chewing on it last few days. I love Jordan Peele!

THIS IS GWAR: currently on shudder. The effort and price of the punk rock art collective where the band part broke (kinda) and the rest didn't. What does this do it to the contributors, past and present? I love GWAR and this was a great telling, with some excellent and meat hook frank moments.
 
Octopus Prime

Octopus Prime

Mystery Contraption
(He/Him)
Finally crossed off a movie I’ve been meaning to watch for years, and saw Dark Star. It really does look and feel like a student film that was released theatrically. A lot of the jokes didn’t land as well as they could have (I had an appreciative smirk though most of it, but no actual laughs), but it had a real zippy pace and a good sense of humour. Movie really felt like Alien, if the crew never visited LV426, and also hated each other.
 
Octopus Prime

Octopus Prime

Mystery Contraption
(He/Him)
I watched the English version but it also didn’t have subtitles for the French guys which really helped the scenes those guys were in; made them feel like even more of unwanted invaders than the murder alien.

Movie also did a lot of nice little tricks that made the Predator work as an antagonist that none of the other movies ever managed to match; like how it only used futuristic weaponry against the trappers because it didn’t consider them to be worth properly hunting and just wanted to be rid of them in a hurry, and the fact that it’s plainly struggling against just local wild-life which sells how dangerous and powerful it is a lot more than it just not reacting to Arnold shooting it a bunch.
 
Rascally Badger

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
I watched a bunch of movies this weekend.

13 Lives is a perfectly fine docu-drama about the rescue of the Thai soccer team that was trapped in the flooded cave. It's Colin Farrell and Viggo Mortensen as two of the lead divers. Ron Howard has much more engaging 'based on a true story' than this, but its not bad. Its definitely better than Hillbilly Elegy.

Lightyear is the sweatiest Pixar movie. I appreciate Pixar doing something different, and Lightyear is a pretty straightforward action movie. But it takes a while to get its various premises set up and establish what Buzz's whole deal is and you can just feel the effort of getting there. Otherwise, its fine. Mid to low tier Pixar.

Prey was very good. I don't know how it took them so long to make another Predator movie where the Predator just hunts some people.

Luck is bad, but at least it was also made by bad people.
 
Voncaster

Voncaster

I watched Alley Cat from 1984. A woman takes justice into her own hands when the police can't clean up violent crime in her Los Angeles neighborhood. Alley Cat is clearly influenced by Death Wish and women in prison exploitation movies.

I found Alley Cat to be a mostly entertaining low budget movie. The main bad guy has a nice look and feel about him. He reminded me of the antagonist from the the Warriors. Very distinct look and a sleazy vibe.

I also found it comical that the protagonist would go for a solo run at night in the park the night after she stopped an assault in the same park! She knows karate though, so no need to worry?
 
Octopus Prime

Octopus Prime

Mystery Contraption
(He/Him)
Was in an X-Men mood, so I watched Dark Phoenix.

dont… don’t watch Dark Phoenix. Not because it’s bad, that would be something else entirely. I would encourage that behaviour.

this was just nothing.

I felt my soul turning beige as I watched it.

The most engaged I was with the film was trying to figure out who Magnetos henchmen were.

Just… Just…

To what end was this movie?
 
ArugulaZ

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
Contractual obligation, maybe? "We haven't used Phoenix yet. Fly her around in a few circles and make her scream in front of a camera, and we'll send it to theaters in the summer."

So okay, I was thinking about that special subgenre of action film where a retired special ops officer gets his hamster kidnapped, and decides that it's time to make a straight, bloody line to the perpetrator, gruesomely dispatching anyone in his way with his special ops skills, because their allegiance to the villain justified their deaths. You know, John Wick, Taken, The Equalizer, Charles Bronson movies, etc. I don't know if there's a specific name for this subgenre, but I think "Justice Porn" fits as a description.
 
Johnny Unusual

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
The Giant Claw is basically the platonic ideal of a 50s B-Movie. The monster is goofy, the explanations are insane, there's scientists and a bird that emits an anti-matter field and EVERY person comparing it's size to a battleship and ONLY TO A BATTLESHIP. Without having met, EVERYONE agrees, this is the only metric.

 
Sarcasmorator

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
how big is the battleship in terms of football fields or small boulders the size of large boulders?

just wanna know how big of a battleship we're talkin' here
 
Violentvixen

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Watched The Summit of the Gods. Absolutely stunning and riveting film.


But also I want to point out that while the trailers make it look like it's all about climbing, the vast majority of the film is really well written and paced investigative journalism. Yes, the mountains are beautiful, but almost every scene of Tokyo is just as gorgeous.

SDD_FX_SQ124_PL070.jpg
 
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Octopus Prime

Octopus Prime

Mystery Contraption
(He/Him)
Was in the mood to watch Bob odenkirk in a non-comedy role, so I started watching Better Call Saul. Which I loved, but I wanted something elwe, so I went with the other “Bob Odenkirk in a Non-Comedy Role” movie, Nobody. A film which is best described as “John Wick if it couldn’t settle on a single tone through the whole film.” One minute it was just straight up John Wick, then it’s a comedy based on John Wick, then it’s an action-farce that’s basically John Wick, then it’s back to John Wick…. Then RZA shows up and starts exploding Russian Gangsters and making wisecracks in a Home Alone style murder house and there’s a running gags.

The movie ain’t boring, I’ll say that.

I really enjoyed it, but can’t help but feel like it would have done a lot better ina. World where John Wick didn’t already exist because BOY OH BOY, is does this movie want you to know it likes John Wick
 
Johnny Unusual

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Mandy is not a movie to watch tired. It is very good but act one will put you to sleep if you are not prepared... and are like me and make the mistake of watching movies on a Friday night at 10:38 after an exhausting 10 hour work day. It's a great first act but in a trippy, ASMR arthouse way, except for the demon bikers. Then things go wild in the second act. Watch this movie.
 
ArugulaZ

ArugulaZ

Fearful asymmetry
What a strange yet oddly endearing film Bob's Burgers was. My sense of humor just doesn't work that way, but bless the writers for having that gift.
 
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