Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews

[Johnny Unusual]

Apparently the artist was a very successful artist for satirical magazines in Kyiv so he may be the Don Martin of Ukraine.

I also rewatched Treasure Planet, a real mixed bag. I didn't mention in my review of Treasure Island but the dude voicing Silver in that one is really good. Though his character lacks the bond with Hawkins I feel is important to both characters, the actor makes him cool, unflappable and reasonable so you believe it when he does change sides, even if the motivation is less engaging.

But Treasure Planet, for it's faults (the humour feels generic 90s Disney) gets one thing dead on; making the heart of the film it's villain. It's interesting because looking at the synopsis of the original novel, Silver gets away in the dead of night unseen but the major adaptations, there's a final goodbye scene between him and Jim. I feel like Silver needs to be a villain not that you love to hate but that you love in spite of his sins because he really does seem to love Jim. He can be treacherous but also heroic. Treasure Planet does right by this and it's really about this relationship and that's where it really works. Flawed movie that has more annoying versions of the classic Disney sidekicks and some of the weakest mealy-mouthed power pop I've heard in a while. But that music is scoring a genuinely touching bonding scene.

 

[YangusKhan]

Scream 5 got a big ol’ pbbbbth from me.

I mean, yes, it was a basically A remake of the first movie that was being a new movie, and that was the point, but the original was very very good and this was mediocre at best.

I... disagree (?). I think it's the best sequel this series has had since #2. Whether that makes it "pretty good" or "mediocre at best" is an exercise left for the viewer, I suppose.

 

[Paul le Fou]

X is a slashsploitation send-up that also turns into a bit of meditation on age, youth, and beauty, but in the end it fell kind of flat for me.

Source Code is a perfectly competent, unexceptional sci-fi thriller that feels like it had an extra ending tacked on by the studio. It somehow feels dated at just 12 years old.

 

[Büge]

Treasure Planet

Shame that Disney decided to throw it into a pit with a ravenous Harry Potter.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Color Out of Space may be the best film in which Nic Cage is menaced by purple.

Really hard to tell at what point he was possessed by an indescribable alien entity, and when he was just… Nic Cage

 

[Torzelbaum]

Color Out of Space may be the best film in which Nic Cage is menaced by purple.

Hey! Spoilers.

 

[Purple]

Color Out of Space may be the best film in which Nic Cage is menaced by purple.

Challenge accepted.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Mona Lisa and the Blood Moon was...interesting? and very weird. I don't really know what it was trying to say, to be quite honest.

 

[Rascally Badger]

I saw Creed 3 the other day. Anime as all hell, I don't think it quite got to the heart of the story it was telling with Adonis and Dame, but I liked where they ended up with that. It is a good time.

I also Shazam! Fury of the Gods. It is the equal of the first movie. Maybe a little better.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

The memed Russian Treasure Island is not bad but in going for comedy it takes away a lot of the good stuff of the original, like the nuance of the Long John Silver character and some twists and Jim Hawkins both has super strength but somehow is a less interesting character (and he's not even that interesting a character in most adaptations compared to the people surrounding him).

But shit, this version of Dr. Livesey is incredible and the internet was right to meme him.

Also LOTS of weird moralizing live action musical numbers that it turns out were just to fill time.

Watched Return to Treasure Island, the English dub, and it's pretty bad. It excises the music videos which I didn't need but also helped give the film a personality. Similarly, Dr. Livesey is much worse due to the dub voice and much more generic dialogue. Giving him a snooty British accent is a good idea but he loses his sense of joy and the dialogue takes out the dark edge as he happily inspects a man's dying body whom he laughingly a waste of human life completely without malice.

They should have got Tim Curry.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I saw Nocturnal Animals was on Prime and I was like "wasn't that a movie from a few years back people liked?" All I knew going in it's about a book that someone reads and it is pretty pointed at said reader.

Well, I saw it and overall I think I didn't. I liked things in it. The acting is all really top notch. And I will say the narrative is engaging, if pretty much standard revenge tale stuff. The meta-aspect... really doesn't work for me. I like the concept of a meta-revenge in theory, I guess but I found Amy Adams story kind of hollow and I feel like the way it shows the book affecting her kinda cheesy. I think it is hard to do art-within-art and usually the problem is it tends to be bad. The funny thing is, I don't think I would be thinking it if we didn't have a well-acted, rather harrowing thriller and then taking breaks to have Amy Adams swoon over how much it is affecting her. When put in that perspective, it kind of points to the narrative actually being standard, connections to the authors feelings aside.

Really, I think that it's a movie well-made and kind of hokey in equal measure. The inciting incident is extremely tense and Jake Gyllenhal and Michael Shannon and extremely magnetic. But it really doesn't say anything interesting about the main characters self-loathing at this own weakness. Meanwhile, the Amy Adams part is very standard "look how shallow and disconnected these rich people are". It's a movie very well made in many respects but it has some real problems that end up with me on the negative side of it.

 

[Issun]

Fiddler on the Roof is a wonderful film that still holds up. Really nails the tension of being torn between an old world you've been upholding all your life and the new world that is freer and yet is still uncomfortable in many ways.

I do feel it's a missed opportunity to have a character named Lazar Wolf who never fights aliens or robots but perfection is an unattainable thing, after all.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Nope was a little slow, but it had some really good tension in the later parts. It had me along for the ride.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Rewatched The Wrong Guy last night.

Still might be my favourite comedy from the 90s?

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Three Ages is a parody of Intolerance, a film I have yet to see from a guy who wanted to apologize for making that one film where the Klan is the good guys, but as a comedy that tells the same story through three different eras. A lot of it hasn't aged well thematically with the love interest being a mere prize and an unfortunate stereotyping racial joke involving black slaves. And a lot of the silent era films humour doesn't hit as hard for me.

But as a series of amazing stunts, this film is a success. The silent era comedians definitely rolled hard and on that level, Three Ages should probably be talked about a little more. It's not as stellar in this respect as The General but there's some really great stuff, particularly in the final act.

 

[zonetrope]

I've been watching through the X-Files for the first time, and just reached the first movie. I remember it being poorly reviewed at the time, but I feel like if it aired as a two- or three-parter on TV as a season finale, it would be considered a series highlight. It just doesn't offer much of a way in for critics who hadn't seen the rest of the show to that point.

 

[Issun]

Nope was a little slow, but it had some really good tension in the later parts. It had me along for the ride.

I mostly felt the same way. I think it's one that would really benefit from a rewatch at some point, probably soon.

 

[ASandoval]

I watched Pinball: The Man who Saved the Game out of professional curiosity. It turned out to be a very solid biopic and love story that was structured, shot and edited extremely well. It understood very well that the main premise it was exploring was only a part of the whole story, so I'd be curious to hear how it resonates for anyone whose not familiar with the history of pinball or Roger Sharpe.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Did you know Terminator 2: Judgement Day is a very good movie?

it’s a wild claim, I know, but hear me out, because it is.

 

[jpfriction]

Is that the one with the salute your shorts kid in it?

 

[Torzelbaum]

Yes.

(Also that actor, Danny Cooksey, was in Diff'rent Strokes and voiced both Montana Max in Tiny Toons and Jack Spicer in Xiaolin Showdown.)

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Also watched it recently. It actually does a really solid job hiding that the T-1000 is the baddie until they go face to face. He emotes, he knocks out a cop (or does he?) and it cuts away so we just assumed he changed clothes. It works really well.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Oh yeah the T1000 does such a great job Of being a much better infiltrator than Arnold was in all kinds of ways that have nothing to do with his shapeshifting.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I forgot Tuesday was my other Simpsons reviewing night and instead watched the Italian romantic thriller So Sweet So Perverse.

Really, its not that perverse but then again, this is the 60s and there are lesbians so maybe that's what they meant. The film is another Hitchcock-like but it feels like an exercise in plot twists by the end. It wasn't bad, mind, and it was certainly watchable, but I feel like it was more interested in keeping you guessing than having a satisfying conclusion. It's not even a "that didn't make sense" ending and more of a "oh, OK, I guess that's really what was going on" and doesn't have any more depth than a fun ride. And I guess there's nothing wrong with that, except it is just a fairly fun ride and not much more than that.

 

[Bongo]

Oh yeah the T1000 does such a great job Of being a much better infiltrator than Arnold was in all kinds of ways that have nothing to do with his shapeshifting.

That's what all those couple hundred extra T's get you.

 

[Beta Metroid]

I've always wondered about how the Terminators' alignments in T2 went over with contemporary audiences. When I first became aware of the movie at about 5 years old, a full decade before I ever actually watched a Terminator, it was already well established on the playgrounds what the whole deal was. I'm curious if audiences were surprised, or did marketing spoil things ahead of time?

 

[YangusKhan]

So I just looked up some trailers for T2 and came across this one.

It tries pretty hard to make sure it doesn't spoil which one is which... but then it also has a few clips of Arnold having dialogue, but not Robert Patrick. So I think if you were a discerning viewer, you could probably figure it out. It is neat how the final clip there tries to make you think his "I swear I will not kill anyone" line is potentially nefarious though.

 

[Ghost from Spelunker]

I did not see T2 in the theaters, (saw it on home video soon after that came out) and I remember it always being "Arnold is the good guy!"

Here are some toy commercials I saw all the time:

 

[Octopus Prime]

I saw Terminator the First long after T2, and the fact that Arnold was the bad guy, and the panicky twitchy Micheal Biehn was the good guy came as a surprise.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Though I guess that movie opened with Anold punching Bill Paxton through the stomach and Micheal Biehn merely stealing a homeless man’s pants, so I guess it wasn’t too long before I figured out what was up