Mixed feelings about Freaky. It's at its best when it's about Nice Teens. At its worst it's trying to convince you people, mostly teens, have some kind of grisly fate coming to them so you can "enjoy" it. (this is a big part of the first half of the film) Not uncommon in slashers (not a requirement, either!) but I've never liked it and have grown to truly hate this as I've gotten older. Found the dispatching of a closeted teen particularly hateful (especially considering the way it was set up earlier in the film) but like... a lot of stuff is pretty hateful here.
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Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews
- Thread starter Rascally Badger
- Start date
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- movies
A very ballsy choice, indeed.
Spectre is, at face value, a competent entry in Craig's James Bond films. However, the way they took one of the best writing advices (make it personal) and botched the implementation really sours the whole experience. And looking at the credits I see they are mostly the same team that wrote the excellent Skyfall where they nailed the emotional stakes, so what in heck happened?
(I'm also not cool on how Bond's emotional arc in this movie is mostly Casino Royale Redux, but I honestly don't think Craig's Bond, as a person, has anywhere else to go at this point)
(I'm also not cool on how Bond's emotional arc in this movie is mostly Casino Royale Redux, but I honestly don't think Craig's Bond, as a person, has anywhere else to go at this point)
FelixSH
(He/Him)
I watched a few movies:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Michael Bay one. I actually don't have much to say, it's a MB movie and you see it all the time. It was the only time, that anything from the franchise actually made Shredder into a visible danger for the city. I mean, there is always the danger of him or whoever will take over the world, but that he actually is a terrorist group made him seem more of a threat than elsewise. The designs of the Turtles worked actually well.
MIB: Haven't seen that one in over 15 years. It was still fun, and just a nice popcorn movie. I really enjoyed the scene, where Will Smith is tested with all the military guys, that one made me laugh multiple times. Very nice, how he made fun of that soldier guy. And it felt a bit like Bill & Ted, or other movies of that kind. No idea why, but it felt correspondingly relaxing and nice.
Matrix: I completely forgot that the movie feels so bleak all the time. It's another one that I haven't seen in forever, probably around 2000. I only remembered a handful of things. It was good, and Keanu Reeves looked pretty cute, for a guy in his mid-30s. But, aside from one single scene, there doesn't seems to be any bolt colors, anywhere. I mean, the real world is, of course, horrible. It's a wasteland, or made out of machinery, and even the sky is textually made cloudy forever. But even the world inside the Matrix is completely joyless. We only see places in the city, underground clubs or boring offices. Good movie.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Michael Bay one. I actually don't have much to say, it's a MB movie and you see it all the time. It was the only time, that anything from the franchise actually made Shredder into a visible danger for the city. I mean, there is always the danger of him or whoever will take over the world, but that he actually is a terrorist group made him seem more of a threat than elsewise. The designs of the Turtles worked actually well.
MIB: Haven't seen that one in over 15 years. It was still fun, and just a nice popcorn movie. I really enjoyed the scene, where Will Smith is tested with all the military guys, that one made me laugh multiple times. Very nice, how he made fun of that soldier guy. And it felt a bit like Bill & Ted, or other movies of that kind. No idea why, but it felt correspondingly relaxing and nice.
Matrix: I completely forgot that the movie feels so bleak all the time. It's another one that I haven't seen in forever, probably around 2000. I only remembered a handful of things. It was good, and Keanu Reeves looked pretty cute, for a guy in his mid-30s. But, aside from one single scene, there doesn't seems to be any bolt colors, anywhere. I mean, the real world is, of course, horrible. It's a wasteland, or made out of machinery, and even the sky is textually made cloudy forever. But even the world inside the Matrix is completely joyless. We only see places in the city, underground clubs or boring offices. Good movie.
The Flintstones Movie (the live action one with John Goodman and Halle Berry) is.... bizarre. Not structurally (it's pretty much an episode of the cartoon stretched out to 90 minutes), just like... in general; the movies budget is obviously *ridiculous* and every cent of it is on screen. And I can only imagine that this is because it was a passion project for Steven Spielberg and he was still flush with whatever clout you get in Hollywood when you are literally Steven Spielberg and and it is the year 1994. Also, the B-52s handle the soundtrack.
There's also a handful of genuinely decent gags buried in the movie that pass without comment (including a reversal on the stock Everybody Has Rock Names joke). That being said, my father was *way* more excited to be watching the movie than I was and was cracking up laughing at every turn.
There's also a handful of genuinely decent gags buried in the movie that pass without comment (including a reversal on the stock Everybody Has Rock Names joke). That being said, my father was *way* more excited to be watching the movie than I was and was cracking up laughing at every turn.
FelixSH
(He/Him)
I rewatched the Flintstones Movie a few months ago, maybe a year, together with a friend. I only vaguely remembered it from my childhood, but was very positively surprised. Not a great movie, but we had fun watching it, when we had expected something awful. Was a nice surprise.
Meanwhile, Shazam! is still a great, sweet movie. Love the jokes, love the characters, love that it pokes fun at itself and other superheroes all the time. It is fun, it has cool action, it has feeling, it has sympathetic characters.
My favourite thing is probably the family theme, that runs through the movie. It's just so nice, to have a movie that talks about how family is something you can choose, not something you are born into and than chained to. The scene where Billy meets his mother is so sad, but the foster family is just great. All the kids are so nice and adorable, and the foster parents, while not getting too much screen time, really show that they care. Sivana has his blood relatives, and they are awful.
Also, love the scene where Billy shares his powers with his siblings, with the nice callback to the dinners, where everyone puts their hands together.
It's such a sweet movie, I love it so much.
Meanwhile, Shazam! is still a great, sweet movie. Love the jokes, love the characters, love that it pokes fun at itself and other superheroes all the time. It is fun, it has cool action, it has feeling, it has sympathetic characters.
My favourite thing is probably the family theme, that runs through the movie. It's just so nice, to have a movie that talks about how family is something you can choose, not something you are born into and than chained to. The scene where Billy meets his mother is so sad, but the foster family is just great. All the kids are so nice and adorable, and the foster parents, while not getting too much screen time, really show that they care. Sivana has his blood relatives, and they are awful.
Also, love the scene where Billy shares his powers with his siblings, with the nice callback to the dinners, where everyone puts their hands together.
It's such a sweet movie, I love it so much.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Recently watched a couple of documentaries about VHS collectors and culture called Rewind This and Adjust Your Tracking. Both are perfectly OK, which is why it is surprising that the former got a lot of critical acclaim. Rewind This is definitely the superior film in terms of editing and soundtrack and both have a lot of overlap of guests with the latter focused on the collectors and the former looking at the culture in general. One of the guys seems to insist on doing interviews from his own personal ballpit and... yeesh. Like, I worry that I'm a man-child but I feel MUCH better about myself after this guy. I will say, I do think Adjust Your Tracking at least has a sweet story where two gay collectors meet collecting and there's lots of interesting tidbits, which is what I'm in for. But I feel like there's probably a better, more definitive film to be made on the subject. I wouldnt say you need to be into the culture but I do feel like there is an assumption on knowledge that makes it feel more like a high budget youtube/vimeo doc rather than a conventional feature film. Neither are bad but this feels very much like "you can have it on in the background while you clean if you want."
Superintelligence feels like someone said they had a can't miss idea for a comedy and everyone else involved set out to prove them wrong.
These are all movies I hated when I first watched them (checks calendar) decades ago
and I'm curious how my opinions would change now that I'm older and ostensibly more wise. Only Yesterday I watched in college off of a Hong Kong bootleg and thought was a complete snooze-fest. But now that I'm knocking on the door of being middle aged, I can see myself probably relating a lot more to the characters and themes of the story. Pom Poko is a movie that I knew nothing about going on, and felt personally betrayed by the dramatic shift in tone about halfway through the film. I think again, I might appreciate it more now that I know its deal, but college-me was just looking to have a good time with some cute cartoons and wasn't ready for Tanuki cultural genocide and the slaughter of a bunch of cute critters. Earthsea was an incongruous nightmare and I don't think that's gonna change upon rewatching though. 
Yeah, it's weird. I really like the idea of Spectre a lot, but I think a big part of why it whiffed is because it just feels like a repeat. The plot of Skyfall feels perfectly positioned to tell the meta-story of Spectre, but then it just doesn't. Javier Bardem's character could have had a great reveal where he was like, "M's hunting dog is dead, Silva is dead, now there is only Blofeld." And it would have been incredible. All of Skyfall's themes about preparing for a new world and new threats would have worked perfectly as Spectre, as was the personal nature of that conflict. And it's just kinda eye-rolly that Quantum and Javier Bardem's enterprises were secretly just arms of Spectre all along when Spectre ends up not being nearly as imposing of a threat as those other two were, with a much weaker personality for its villain. It just reminded me a lot of Book 3 and 4 of Legend of Korra, coming on he heels of Book 2. Where it felt like Book 2 was supposed to be the final chapter of her story, and afterwards the creators were left going, "shit... what do we do now?"
Been watching 60's Toei anime with the boy. Yesterday we watched Horus, Prince of the Sun, which is on Amazon Prime for some reason. This viewing comes on the back of Saiyuki (A+), The Little Prince and the 8-Headed Dragon (A+), and Animal Treasure Island (A+). Wasn't expecting this one to be so psychologically complex, really took me by surprise. Alex (age 10) was less engaged. He enjoyed it, but said of the four he liked 8-Headed Dragon the most. At any rate it worked for me, A+ would gaze upon Rockor's crotch again.
My husband and I watched Tenet this weekend. Mechanically and logistically interesting eventually, but emotionally flat, even for a Nolan film. The most charismatic player is Robert Pattinson, both because everyone else is boring and because he performs well. John David Washington is good, but gets rather flat material. I just wasn;t engaged by the rest of the cast, and sometimes it felt like I was supposed to care about the wife and her kid, but like, I didn't. At one point, when Protag and Neil are talking about the algorithm ending the world and everybody in it, she pipes in "and my son" and my husband and I are like, yes, the end of the world includes your son. It felt hamfisted.
We took an intermission an hour 20 minutes in, and I was just like "Ugh, we're only halfway through?" Fortunately, that was right before it got a bit more mechanically interesting, and they had to go that far so they could turn around and go through the movie backwards.
Oh, and I want to make one of those sins-type videos to complain endlessly about how no art vault would ever let someone bring a drink anywhere near the vaults--completely ridiculous, blows the whole movie apart ;-P And half of the locations just feel like an excuse to go party in some gorgeous Italian coastal city.
My husband says he'd be willing to watch it again to catch some things. I said we already went through the movie twice both ways, I don't know if I need to see it again.
It was definitely no Inception.
We took an intermission an hour 20 minutes in, and I was just like "Ugh, we're only halfway through?" Fortunately, that was right before it got a bit more mechanically interesting, and they had to go that far so they could turn around and go through the movie backwards.
Oh, and I want to make one of those sins-type videos to complain endlessly about how no art vault would ever let someone bring a drink anywhere near the vaults--completely ridiculous, blows the whole movie apart ;-P And half of the locations just feel like an excuse to go party in some gorgeous Italian coastal city.
My husband says he'd be willing to watch it again to catch some things. I said we already went through the movie twice both ways, I don't know if I need to see it again.
It was definitely no Inception.
Funny, Karen and I watched Tenet this weekend too. Our feelings were similar, except neither of us were willing to watch it again to try and make sense of it. And I say this as a Nolan fan, including Interstellar.
One thing about the colors is that depending on what version of it you watched the colors are very different. I can't find a good comparison image at the moment, but pretty much any modern transfer is considerably more muted and more green than the original movie, to retroactively make it more visually in line with the sequels. So if it seems much less colorful than you remember it being two decades ago, there's a good chance that's because it literally is less colorful than it was the last time you watched it.
Recided to rewatch the 2005 Fantastic Four movie; the one with Chris Evans.
Honestly... held up better than I remembered. Nothing astounding, but easily good enough to stand in the middle of the pack of the MCU. Except for Jessica Alba plainly not wanting to be there, and Julian McMahon deciding that the best way to portray VICTOR VON DOOM was "Sleepy Jeff Goldblum", the cast nailed the characters perfectly; Chris Evans was the Johnny Stormiest Johnny Storm there ever was. Movie had a ridiculously fast pace, too; though the middle part dragged a bit. Also, the filmakers seemed to not only think "Sue Storm does not wish to currently be naked" is a joke, but that it is hilarious enough to be repeated, like, three or four times.
Anyway, I'd give it a respectable 7/10. No beefs with it otherwise, and it's got a zippy 100 minute run time.
It's just a good time at the movies
Honestly... held up better than I remembered. Nothing astounding, but easily good enough to stand in the middle of the pack of the MCU. Except for Jessica Alba plainly not wanting to be there, and Julian McMahon deciding that the best way to portray VICTOR VON DOOM was "Sleepy Jeff Goldblum", the cast nailed the characters perfectly; Chris Evans was the Johnny Stormiest Johnny Storm there ever was. Movie had a ridiculously fast pace, too; though the middle part dragged a bit. Also, the filmakers seemed to not only think "Sue Storm does not wish to currently be naked" is a joke, but that it is hilarious enough to be repeated, like, three or four times.
Anyway, I'd give it a respectable 7/10. No beefs with it otherwise, and it's got a zippy 100 minute run time.
It's just a good time at the movies
I don't know the specific details, but it appears to me that Amazon Prime made a deal with "DMR: Digital Media Rights" -- an advertising company that snatches up and packages/resells the digital rights to a bunch of obscure stuff. They have a buttload of older, cult-classic anime that they distribute digitally now, that they probably swooped in on the rights to when certain localization companies went belly up (I say this because most of their older stuff is dub-only, and is clearly of old DVD/VHS rips with barely any recent HD remasters). Any old-heads around here that was into anime in the 80s and 90s are probably familiar with a lot of this stuff. If you don't have Amazon Prime, you can apparently access a lot of this stuff independently on their "RetroCrush" streaming channel:
RetroCrush: Stream Classic Anime
Stream classic anime worth discovering with RetroCrush!
www.retrocrush.tv
Dragon Half
Kimagure Orange Road
Honey & Clover
Twelve Kingdoms
Shin Getter Robo
Kite Liberator
GTO
DNA^2
Black Jack
Blue Seed
Fushigi Yugi
Tomorrow's Joe
Miss Machiko
Violence Jack OVAs
Project A-Ko
Lupin III: Legend of Gold Babylon
Dai-Guard
8Man After
Bubblegum Crisis
AD Police Files
Tenjho Tenge
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
Golgo 13
Street Fighter II
Ususei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer
Diebuster
Blue Submarine No. 6
Robot Carnival
Space Adventure Cobra
Iria Zeiram
Appleseed
Samurai Pizza Cats
Cardcaptor Sakura
Osomatsu-kun
Captain Harlock
Galaxy Railways
Black Jack
Otaku no Video
Unico
Jungle Emperor Leo
Demon City Shinjuku
Eat-Man
Cromartie High School
Riding Bean
DevilLady
Giant Gorg
Cyborg 009
Kimagure Orange Road
Honey & Clover
Twelve Kingdoms
Shin Getter Robo
Kite Liberator
GTO
DNA^2
Black Jack
Blue Seed
Fushigi Yugi
Tomorrow's Joe
Miss Machiko
Violence Jack OVAs
Project A-Ko
Lupin III: Legend of Gold Babylon
Dai-Guard
8Man After
Bubblegum Crisis
AD Police Files
Tenjho Tenge
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
Golgo 13
Street Fighter II
Ususei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer
Diebuster
Blue Submarine No. 6
Robot Carnival
Space Adventure Cobra
Iria Zeiram
Appleseed
Samurai Pizza Cats
Cardcaptor Sakura
Osomatsu-kun
Captain Harlock
Galaxy Railways
Black Jack
Otaku no Video
Unico
Jungle Emperor Leo
Demon City Shinjuku
Eat-Man
Cromartie High School
Riding Bean
DevilLady
Giant Gorg
Cyborg 009
And a crapton of others I'm forgetting about/glossing over. It's worth looking into if you wanna watch old anime or travel down memory lane.
Watch Brawl in Cell Block 99 if you like movies with brutal, comically overdone violence.
I saw the movie Spike Lee made of David Byrne's Broadway show "American Utopia," and I absolutely loved it. It's Byrne on a minimalist, almost black box style stage with nine or ten other performers, playing songs from Talking Heads and Byrne's solo career, and every so often a few remarks from Byrne. They managed to set up the sound system such that all the instruments were handheld and wireless, so the keyboardist and the percussionists were as mobile as the guitarists. The result was that the whole thing was really kinetic--almost as much a dance performance as a traditional rock show. Also, Byrne has really grown into himself over the years, and had a really gentle, reflective stage presence. I saw the show on HBO Max, but I'm sure you can get it on demand if you don't have access to HBO. Highly recommended!
Oh nice! Thanks for the heads up.I don't know the specific details, but it appears to me that Amazon Prime made a deal with "DMR: Digital Media Rights" -- an advertising company that snatches up and packages/resells the digital rights to a bunch of obscure stuff. They have a buttload of older, cult-classic anime that they distribute digitally now, that they probably swooped in on the rights to when certain localization companies went belly up (I say this because most of their older stuff is dub-only, and is clearly of old DVD/VHS rips with barely any recent HD remasters). Any old-heads around here that was into anime in the 80s and 90s are probably familiar with a lot of this stuff. If you don't have Amazon Prime, you can apparently access a lot of this stuff independently on their "RetroCrush" streaming channel:
RetroCrush: Stream Classic Anime
Stream classic anime worth discovering with RetroCrush!www.retrocrush.tv
Dragon Half
Kimagure Orange Road
Honey & Clover
Twelve Kingdoms
Shin Getter Robo
Kite Liberator
GTO
DNA^2
Black Jack
Blue Seed
Fushigi Yugi
Tomorrow's Joe
Miss Machiko
Violence Jack OVAs
Project A-Ko
Lupin III: Legend of Gold Babylon
Dai-Guard
8Man After
Bubblegum Crisis
AD Police Files
Tenjho Tenge
Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade
Golgo 13
Street Fighter II
Ususei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer
Diebuster
Blue Submarine No. 6
Robot Carnival
Space Adventure Cobra
Iria Zeiram
Appleseed
Samurai Pizza Cats
Cardcaptor Sakura
Osomatsu-kun
Captain Harlock
Galaxy Railways
Black Jack
Otaku no Video
Unico
Jungle Emperor Leo
Demon City Shinjuku
Eat-Man
Cromartie High School
Riding Bean
DevilLady
Giant Gorg
Cyborg 009
And a crapton of others I'm forgetting about/glossing over. It's worth looking into if you wanna watch old anime or travel down memory lane.
karzac
(he/him)
Every time I watch Die Hard, I'm still impressed with how good it is. It fits so many great little character details into every moment. Like the fact that it's the limo driver's first day. A lesser movie would just leave that character as a blank, but Due Hard gives him a ton of detail.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
The Bishop's Wife
I've been aware of this one by name but this is the first time seeing it. Its OK, but I'm a little underwhelmed, especially compared to other Christmas classics like Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life. It might seem unfair to compare but my biggest complaint is it tries to get too needlessly fantastical, with Cary Grant (playing an angel on Earth) making papers fly around and waving his hands to magically decorate Christmas trees. Compare that with Its a Wonderful Life, where Clarence does change the whole world but generally seems mundane in presentation or Santa Claus in Miracle who seems completely mortal and the only possible hint that he might have anything more is at the very end. My point is Cary Grant's ineffable charm is special effect enough and I feel like he could have been made to do impossible things in ways without silly unnecessary effects, merely by knowing impossible things and seeming to supernaturally fix any situation with his charm.
Overall in terms of story, its a slightly lesser version of the better Christmas films. I like David Niven but while I like his character arc on paper (the angel works to improve his life but he has to deal with the sense that he's taking it over and doing better than he can) it didn't work for me as well as I would have liked.
I've been aware of this one by name but this is the first time seeing it. Its OK, but I'm a little underwhelmed, especially compared to other Christmas classics like Miracle on 34th Street and It's a Wonderful Life. It might seem unfair to compare but my biggest complaint is it tries to get too needlessly fantastical, with Cary Grant (playing an angel on Earth) making papers fly around and waving his hands to magically decorate Christmas trees. Compare that with Its a Wonderful Life, where Clarence does change the whole world but generally seems mundane in presentation or Santa Claus in Miracle who seems completely mortal and the only possible hint that he might have anything more is at the very end. My point is Cary Grant's ineffable charm is special effect enough and I feel like he could have been made to do impossible things in ways without silly unnecessary effects, merely by knowing impossible things and seeming to supernaturally fix any situation with his charm.
Overall in terms of story, its a slightly lesser version of the better Christmas films. I like David Niven but while I like his character arc on paper (the angel works to improve his life but he has to deal with the sense that he's taking it over and doing better than he can) it didn't work for me as well as I would have liked.
I feel like any attempt to try to explain the Mel Gibson Christmas movie where Santa's realness is just a fact of life is doomed to fail before it starts.
The idea of a movie set in the "Real world" with the single caveat that Santa is Real and Strong and your friend, provided you didn't go out of your way to piss him off in particular.
And the fact that his workshop is, in fact, staffed by elves, who have their own complete CULTURE that's only barely hinted at, where their employee ID numbers are their names, and they DO in fact live for possibly thousands of years BECAUSE of their diet consisting entirely of sugar and treats, who seem to genuinely love and respect their boss, and are incredibly loyal to him, but also comfortable enough around him to bitch and talk shit as employees are wont to do.
But that's all just background shit! The actual plot of the movie is that a rich kid has literally hired a hitman to kill santa, because he was on the naughty list. And the hitman is down for it! Because HE WAS ALSO ON THE NAUGHTY LIST.
This is the sort of movie that can ONLY happen when someone somewhere is really DECICATED to the idea of Santa Clause not only being real and strong, but NORMAL, and dedicating time and effort to realizing (on a very obviously small budget) what exactly a world where a flying ageless motherfucker who is just that dedicated to delivering toys/coal to everyone according to his list, and then upend all that careful NOMRALICY to throw in a weirdo hitman and an even weirdoer 9 year old with a grudge so there can be an action scene at the end.
But that's just the end! 90% of it is just a Character Study on Santa being kinda down in the dumps because in this world kids SUCK more often than not.
I have no idea what would posess someone to make this, and then cast legendary asshole Mel Gibson as Saint Nick.
Don't pay money to see this, because Fuck Mel.
But like.
MAYBE steal it just so you can stand agog and marvel at the sheer dedication of this batshit undertaking?
Maybe?
I don't fucking know. Shit's a mess.
The idea of a movie set in the "Real world" with the single caveat that Santa is Real and Strong and your friend, provided you didn't go out of your way to piss him off in particular.
And the fact that his workshop is, in fact, staffed by elves, who have their own complete CULTURE that's only barely hinted at, where their employee ID numbers are their names, and they DO in fact live for possibly thousands of years BECAUSE of their diet consisting entirely of sugar and treats, who seem to genuinely love and respect their boss, and are incredibly loyal to him, but also comfortable enough around him to bitch and talk shit as employees are wont to do.
But that's all just background shit! The actual plot of the movie is that a rich kid has literally hired a hitman to kill santa, because he was on the naughty list. And the hitman is down for it! Because HE WAS ALSO ON THE NAUGHTY LIST.
This is the sort of movie that can ONLY happen when someone somewhere is really DECICATED to the idea of Santa Clause not only being real and strong, but NORMAL, and dedicating time and effort to realizing (on a very obviously small budget) what exactly a world where a flying ageless motherfucker who is just that dedicated to delivering toys/coal to everyone according to his list, and then upend all that careful NOMRALICY to throw in a weirdo hitman and an even weirdoer 9 year old with a grudge so there can be an action scene at the end.
But that's just the end! 90% of it is just a Character Study on Santa being kinda down in the dumps because in this world kids SUCK more often than not.
I have no idea what would posess someone to make this, and then cast legendary asshole Mel Gibson as Saint Nick.
Don't pay money to see this, because Fuck Mel.
But like.
MAYBE steal it just so you can stand agog and marvel at the sheer dedication of this batshit undertaking?
Maybe?
I don't fucking know. Shit's a mess.
That's not even getting into the fact that Santa has apparent TOTAL IMMORTALITY. Like by the end of the movie he's been ran through repeatedly, shot in the arm, chest and HEAD, and he just gets back up like NBD. A few minutes later he just drinks a glass of poison just to prove to some kid that even trying to kill him is a waste of time.
Also at one point an elf disassembled a pipe bomb in a single movement. The elves do not fuck around.
Also at one point an elf disassembled a pipe bomb in a single movement. The elves do not fuck around.
Is that a Kevin Smith biopic or something?
Sprite
(He/Him/His)
Husband is currently in the back half of Tenet, I had to bail because I was getting so confused that I started shouting at the movie. ”Including my son” pissed me off so much that I started rooting for the bad guys to win and just end things.
inception felt like listening to someone read the D&D Player’s Handbook to me for 20 minutes and then hopping into an encounter without sweating too much of the details. Tenet feels like a board game where you have to check the manual every turn, except everyone keeps playing without you, even though none of them seem to be enjoying it very much.
I’m sure it all makes sense and hangs together in a neat little puzzle box, I just lost all interest in trying to understand it when it couldn’t even pretend to have anything beyond that puzzle box.
The “fun” bit is that there’s probably at least one person who’s dead now because someone wanted to see this movie in theaters.[/ispoiler]
inception felt like listening to someone read the D&D Player’s Handbook to me for 20 minutes and then hopping into an encounter without sweating too much of the details. Tenet feels like a board game where you have to check the manual every turn, except everyone keeps playing without you, even though none of them seem to be enjoying it very much.
I’m sure it all makes sense and hangs together in a neat little puzzle box, I just lost all interest in trying to understand it when it couldn’t even pretend to have anything beyond that puzzle box.
The “fun” bit is that there’s probably at least one person who’s dead now because someone wanted to see this movie in theaters.[/ispoiler]
I watched For A Few Dollars More, because the opportunity presented itself. Two incredibly cool lowlifes follow a twisty path toward bringing a really rotten bandit to justice, and it's always tense and surprising in a good way. I think treating it as an exercise in pure style is probably the best way to approach it, and in that sense, it's remarkably good, but still inferior to the director's subsequent works, especially Once Upon A Time In The West.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Yeah, I feel like in terms of his conventional westerns, Leone got better with each film (though I would tie Once Upon a Time with The Good The Bad and the Ugly). Though I haven't seen the rarely talked about Duck You Sucker.
I haven't watched A Nightmare Before Christmas in a long time so I did. Hot take: its good but not great. Or rather, there's greatness but I don't feel like its great as a whole. Obviously, its great from a technical angle and in terms of character designs and looks. The songs are... half good. "What's this" doesn't work for me completely I'm just not into Jack and Sally's sad ballads but "This is Halloween" is pretty damned good strong. I like that Jack has trouble communicating what he likes about Christmas and the nasty well-intentioned mischief is fun but in terms of character arc, it doesn't quite work for me for some reason, though I can't articulate why.
Of course, the biggest crime is knowing that Patrick Stewart did narration for the film that wasn't used (and presumably voice work as Santa). They ended up using it on the soundtrack and I think it would have helped give the finale a sweet little coda.
I haven't watched A Nightmare Before Christmas in a long time so I did. Hot take: its good but not great. Or rather, there's greatness but I don't feel like its great as a whole. Obviously, its great from a technical angle and in terms of character designs and looks. The songs are... half good. "What's this" doesn't work for me completely I'm just not into Jack and Sally's sad ballads but "This is Halloween" is pretty damned good strong. I like that Jack has trouble communicating what he likes about Christmas and the nasty well-intentioned mischief is fun but in terms of character arc, it doesn't quite work for me for some reason, though I can't articulate why.
Of course, the biggest crime is knowing that Patrick Stewart did narration for the film that wasn't used (and presumably voice work as Santa). They ended up using it on the soundtrack and I think it would have helped give the finale a sweet little coda.
Over time I grew to appreciate Jacks sad songs (and Jack himself) more once it sunk in that he goes through a complete emotional 180 in the middle of them almost instantly, and heading in opposite directions in each of them.
He is not a man to be at half measures, that skellyman, and that is precisely the kind of energy you want from a lunatic skeleton played by Oingo Boingo
He is not a man to be at half measures, that skellyman, and that is precisely the kind of energy you want from a lunatic skeleton played by Oingo Boingo
Violentvixen
(She/Her)
Watched Wonder Woman 1984 for free, thanks mom for letting us login to your HBO subscription!
I didn't like the first one much so didn't have my hopes up but it was pretty dumb and didn't make much sense. The Middle East scenes reminded me of the Back to the Future "oh no the Libyans!" stuff. Maybe not the best thing to be onpoint about when trying to mimic the 80s? And the scene with the Mayan guy was uncomfortable as hell. When she says he can't be Mayan because his name is Frank that's so bizarre, but I also thought she was about to call him out for having the last name Patel since it's looking at his address label with his full name, the movie handles race that weirdly. But maybe he's a DC character I don't remember?
However, there are two scenes I liked:
- The Invisible Jet scene has the only conversation in the movie that made me laugh "I forgot to tell you about radar" "Well shit Diana!" and then is absolutely beautiful.
- Steve's visit to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. That had emotional weight to it and was lovely. Also that museum is awesome and I'm glad I got to go years ago.
Also the Lynda Carter cameo is nice. I'm guessing she's earlier in the film too but certainly can't tell since they only show Asteria's eyes.
So yeah, I wouldn't recommend watching it but if those scenes show up on the internet anywhere they're worth a look and if you watched the original series maybe try to find that cameo but it's pretty short.
I didn't like the first one much so didn't have my hopes up but it was pretty dumb and didn't make much sense. The Middle East scenes reminded me of the Back to the Future "oh no the Libyans!" stuff. Maybe not the best thing to be onpoint about when trying to mimic the 80s? And the scene with the Mayan guy was uncomfortable as hell. When she says he can't be Mayan because his name is Frank that's so bizarre, but I also thought she was about to call him out for having the last name Patel since it's looking at his address label with his full name, the movie handles race that weirdly. But maybe he's a DC character I don't remember?
However, there are two scenes I liked:
- The Invisible Jet scene has the only conversation in the movie that made me laugh "I forgot to tell you about radar" "Well shit Diana!" and then is absolutely beautiful.
- Steve's visit to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum. That had emotional weight to it and was lovely. Also that museum is awesome and I'm glad I got to go years ago.
Also the Lynda Carter cameo is nice. I'm guessing she's earlier in the film too but certainly can't tell since they only show Asteria's eyes.
So yeah, I wouldn't recommend watching it but if those scenes show up on the internet anywhere they're worth a look and if you watched the original series maybe try to find that cameo but it's pretty short.
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