Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews

[Purple]

Spoilers do not matter and if FWWM is on your radar you’ve likely already heard absorbed some plot points through osmosis. I don’t know how the movie would play if you hadn’t seen the series - I watched it right after finishing the TV show - but I’m sure it’s still interesting.

Oh no, people actually say "you should watch the movie first!" so frequently it is VERY easy for people to blunder into it without even knowing the premise of the show, just that people like it and it's weird or something.

I generally watch in release order, but if I do not, it’s fine. I don’t know that I remembered much of Fury Road (hadn’t watched it since I was in theaters) but Furiosa was great and caused me to revisit the originals. Haven’t seen the first three in decades. Farscape’s Virginia Hey is in Mad Max 2… Watching Beyond Thunderdome tonight.

While we're on that particular subject, here's three notable roles from Hugh Keays-Byrne:

Mad Max, Farscape, Fury Road.

 

[Phantoon]

The Star Wars prequels are bad both as standalone films and as prequels

Oh dear, oh dear

*Runs for the hills*

 

[Voncaster]

lol no way. It completely spoils the entire mystery of the show.

I watched Twin Peaks series in the order that I'm sure it was intended: Fire Walk With Me, Twin Peaks the Return, and then Twin Peaks.

I enjoyed the whole run and watching FWWM did not ruin the original series for me although admittedly I did not watch one right after the other.

 

[Daikaiju]

Oh dear, oh dear

*Runs for the hills*

*lets Phantoon into the bunker*

 

[Octopus Prime]

The prequels are the only place to find General Grievous or Christopher Lee, therefore there's really no stance to argue against them from.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

I do think watching the prequels first only works if you're already familiar with the original trilogy. They have so many callbacks that I could see where it might be disorienting to see them first, especially if you're a dumb kid that has never known the embrace of a Star War.

Working in public schools for the better part of a decade, and now in a workplace filled with zoomers who grew up with the Prequels as their movies - a LOT of people have proven to me that this line of thought is purely academic and doesn't actually matter. Lots of people grew up watching the Prequels as their first Star Wars - being shown the franchise in chronological order rather than production. Did every little callback land or was comprehended? No. But that doesn't stop your average person from having a good time with the films and following the broad brushstrokes of the plot and the characters involved.

I find when discussing things like "watch orders" - people often conflate the optimal scenario under ideal circumstances with the pragmatic goal of getting people onboard and fans to begin with. If a person is already interested and committed to full engagement with a franchise then by all means, aim people towards the optimal scenario. But if their interest is casual and in passing, and they have limited time or attention span, then expectations should be recalibrated and older fans should just be happy if they start watching a thing to begin with and want to watch more. They can rewatch and get a more full experience later. Which is its own type of pleasure and reward.

And that's the thing about these kids who grew up with the prequels - if they didn't understand everything on their first watch (and they're not going to - because they were just kids) that's fine and is no real loss. They'll pick up on the stuff later because now they're fans and rewatching the movies on a periodic basis.

The Star Wars prequels are bad both as standalone films and as prequels

Spoiler

 

[Baudshaw]

"Just rewatch" is not a perfect argument, especially because many people (including me) have such a massive library of future movies and titles that rewatching isn't really possible.

 

[WisteriaHysteria]

"Just rewatch" is not a perfect argument, especially because many people (including me) have such a massive library of future movies and titles that rewatching isn't really possible.

Sure it is. And you absolutely could rewatch if you wanted to and it's totally possible, unless you're going to die this evening. You just don't want to and are prioritizing other things. Which is 1000% fine, that's your choice. I'm just pointing out that there are millions of zoomers and alphas whose lived experiences are exactly what you and others are saying is impossible/false. And they do rewatch it because they liked it enough the first time - even if their understanding of things wasn't perfect/complete.

 

[Adrenaline]

Anyway Furiosa was good. It's too bad George Miller has only made 11 films.

 

[Bongo]

Spoilers make movies better. Optimizing your viewing experience is an intellectual exercise that enhances enjoyment by making you think more about it (the source of the pleasure of art), but failing to do so can't ruin anything that didn't come pre-ruined.

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Barbarian is a really fun movie and it's one were it helps not to know where it is going. It's a real ride.

Late Night with the Devil has some flaws but I overall quite liked it. I feel like the one big "monster effect" (the smaller monster, anyway) takes me out of the experience a bit but I really like the introduction of the guest who won't stop looking into camera and always seems to know which one to look into.
Rewatched Deadstream. I liked it before but more lowkey liked it. I liked it more here watching with friends. More of a party movie.


Stopmotion is the opposite of that, a slow, dour psychological horror. Slow and dour are not judgments. It's just what it is. Mostly it's pretty good and I like that since it knows you can guess the twist (it's not hard), it assumes you know what it is at a certain and doesn't bother "revealing" it (it makes it obvious without a big moment) and I respect it for that. It's a very visually arresting movie and though mostly psychological has a really hard to watch viscerally upsetting climax. I think it is a good movie. I feel like what it says about artists has been but it does it decently and the last scene is visually arresting.

 

[BEAT]

FURIOSA is a weird fuckin thing.

You can't really compare it to FURY ROAD. It's more like a five act Shakespearian Revenge complete with five title cards.

I'm not sure we needed a backstory for Furiosa, but I'm glad we got it.

 

[BEAT]

Chris Hemsworth's Dementus is a really captivating villian, partially because of how bad he sucks at it.

Like.

The dude is an absolute evil piece of shit, but he's got absolutely no management skills.

 

[Issun]

The prequels are the only place to find General Grievous or Christopher Lee, therefore there's really no stance to argue against them from.

Hot Take: General Grievous is kind of mid.

Can't argue against Christopher Lee though.

 

[Octopus Prime]

I can’t in my heart reject a lunatic skeleton robot who overacts every single action and line of dialogue he’s ever been given.

Anyhoo

Watched Southbound, not to be confused with Southland Tales as I kept calling it while watching it. It did something I didn’t think was possible and was a horror anthology where every segment was good! Well, one kind of wasn’t but then they turned it around. It was also handled Mr. Show style, where the end of each short was actually the start of the next.

Good stuff, that taught us all the important message of “don’t visit this small desert highway town. It sucks there.”

 

[Adrenaline]

Chris Hemsworth's Dementus is a really captivating villian, partially because of how bad he sucks at it.

Like.

The dude is an absolute evil piece of shit, but he's got absolutely no management skills.

Yeah. He has moments of cunning, particularly when it's to save his own ass. But he got to where he is basically through luck and he's kind of a dipshit. Good bad guy!

 

[Johnny Unusual]

Madame Web was famously lambasted from the beginning and there's been a debate: is this an amusingly bad movie or simply a bore? I have found it to be more of the latter but I will say I understand interest in the movie because it is unique. As weird as it sounds, there's no reason a film comprised of Spider-Man supporting characters (and three lesser known characters before they can do anything interesting) can't work with the right approach. Unfortunately, the approach here seems to be desperately scrambling to find a way to make inroads to the central Spider-Man story but to no avail, meaning the film doesn't get to have much of an identity of it's own. And what identity it does have seems bland and flavourless.

But yet, it's around the cracks the movie gets unintentionally amusing, with very "movie" shorthands in place of actual progression ("You're a good teacher" the main character is told after less than a minute of CPR lessons), ridiculous ADR (almost exclusively from the villain) and desperate Spidey continuity name drops (if you ever wanted to know about J Jonah Jameson's niece... I guess you can watch this movie). I think you might find it more fun if you like the weird artifice of filmmaking to a subtly absurd degree. But it's not THAT fun, really.

 

[Purple]

I can get it based on braindead executive logic, but on every other level, it is so baffling that they keep throwing money at this whole Spider-Man Minus Spider-Man idea.

Like, they're doing it because Venom actually worked, when on paper THAT seemed like it'd be a terrible idea. But like, we can look at that with a wider lens now:

Venom was a bad idea because... we're seriously making a movie about Spider-Man's evil costume that doesn't have Spider-Man in it?

Even having seen the results that's a hard point to argue, BUT, back when he was first introduced, Venom actually was this huge breakout character that people wanted to see doing stuff independently. People wrote a lot of Venom-focused stories, did a lot of work on how this character works without Spider-Man being there, developed this whole '90s-comic-antihero thing. And even though they didn't actually use it, hey, you already introduced him in a movie.

Venom was a bad idea because the last time they tried to put Venom in a movie it kinda killed the franchise and they had to do a terrible reboot nobody liked.

Yeah, executives forced Sam Raimi to cram Venom into his third Spider-Man movie because again, popular character, and he really didn't want to, and kinda did so under protest, and then kinda went screw the whole thing. The actual lesson to learn there is that when you have a director with a strong personal thing making you a ton of money, just let them continue to do their thing and have a good time, that'll probably work out, and if you try and reign'em in too hard you'll strangle the goose laying those golden eggs.

Venom was a bad idea because Venom is a lame edgy '90s anti-hero and people are so very over that.

Turns out if you're aware of that and lean into it the right way it can work out. Especially since they decided to pair that up with making it a very '90s-superhero-movie sort of thing, where there's that short running time and weightlessness to violence to offset the whole deal, and hey, people are also really burnt out on over-serious overlong movies so that works out as this refreshing breath of fresh air/nostalgic thing. And they just had a lot of fun with the character, lucked into an actor with a quirky take and had a surprisingly great supporting cast and particularly in the sequel leaned into the queer stuff, so yeah, that came together.

But like, that first obvious problem is still a really huge one here. There really aren't any other big breakout Spider-Man characters who can carry a story on their own. Or really if we're honest, any interesting characters at all. Like everyone likes J. Jonah Jameson, particularly as played by J.K. Simmons, but he simply cannot exist in a world where there is no Spider-Man to demand pictures of. And people like/have even heard of Dr. Octopus. You could probably make a Dr. Octopus movie work under the right conditions. But past THAT? There really is just nothing to work with here. Maybe some characters who are clones or alternate versions of Spider-Man, but those are gonna be off the table. Everything else in the IP box only works when bouncing off Spider-Man, if they work at all (and honestly that's a big if, there's a reason adaptations of Spider-Man frequently just come up with their own villains and stuff that wants Spider-Man to have friends and allies ends up crossing over with other comics all the time).

 

[Büge]

Spoilers make movies better.

How is being spoiled on a film better than enjoying the film, on its own terms, the first time you experience it?

 

[Büge]

I have more to say.

Spoilers are a contextual filter.

If I'm going to go watch the Transformers movie for the first time and you* tell me, "Optimus Prime dies", that's put a filter on the film experience. I'm going to be waiting to see when Optimus dies. If you tell me, "Megatron kills Optimus in the first twenty minutes", again, there's a filter. That's YOU giving YOUR context for the film. I'm going to be watching the film with whatever contextual influence YOU imposed on me.

*(I say "you" but I don't mean you, Bongo, or any specific person. It could be a wikipedia article, it could be Reddit post, hell, it could be a Youtube thumbnail.)

I would guess the vast majority of people, myself included, want to experience media as it is, on their terms, with as little to influence the experience as possible.

 

[Octopus Prime]

Watched another surprisingly good straight to streaming low budget horror movie; Yellow Brick Road (honestly not sure if it was three words or one, the logo was kind of mushed together) and you might look at that title and roll your eyes and say “I wonder if that’s based on any famous movies I’ve heard of”

And you’re right assume it is, but completely wrong about which one, because it is straight up The Blair Witch Project, but filmed normal style, not Found Footage. They carefully avoid any references to Oz like they’re not sure how far copyright law extends, though they do mention they’ll see a wizard at the end of the road and there’s kind of a scarecrow.

Anyway, a bunch of paranormal investigatiors decide to hike a trail that claimed hundreds of lives back in the 40s and then immediately get stuck because it’s a Blair Witch Woods kind of deal. Then they all slowly start to go insane because these woods suck.

Nil budget, but that’s really no impediment to a movie like this and the performances are all pretty solid. Theres worse ways to spend 90 minutes stuck in a forest with weird diagetic music and some hikers

 

[Johnny Unusual]

I have more to say.

Spoilers are a contextual filter.

If I'm going to go watch the Transformers movie for the first time and you* tell me, "Optimus Prime dies", that's put a filter on the film experience. I'm going to be waiting to see when Optimus dies. If you tell me, "Megatron kills Optimus in the first twenty minutes", again, there's a filter. That's YOU giving YOUR context for the film. I'm going to be watching the film with whatever contextual influence YOU imposed on me.

*(I say "you" but I don't mean you, Bongo, or any specific person. It could be a wikipedia article, it could be Reddit post, hell, it could be a Youtube thumbnail.)

I would guess the vast majority of people, myself included, want to experience media as it is, on their terms, with as little to influence the experience as possible.

Yeah, I can't go with "spoilers are better". I think it makes it a different experience and that's ok but why not have MULTIPLE EXPERIENCES with a film. A mostly blind one, one with more knowledge and one after you stew on it for a while.

You can only ever truly experience Jingle All the Way until you've seen it at least three times.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

Rewatching a film with the context of a past viewing can make a film a richer and more rewarding experience. But spoilers (that is, learning things about a story when you did not want to) do absolutely not make movies "better" by default. That's very much a you thing if that's a position you hold, not something that's universally applicable.

I spent a decade selecting and running movie reviews for an entertainment section. Between reading three or four of each, I had a solid idea of what each movie was about, and often each one would have a different minor spoiler. Once I left that job I all but stopped reading movie reviews entirely, and you know something? Being surprised, learning what a movie was about as I watched it, seeing what happened in it without any idea beforehand—that made movies better, for me. And I've definitely taken the wind out of my own sails more than once by googling a character from a show or a movie and inadvertently getting a major unrevealed detail in the opening line of the wiki article or whatever.

A good movie is still a good movie if you know a spoiler for it, true. Same for games. But that initial discovery is something you can certainly miss out on or even be robbed of, if people are trolling with spoilers. Think of how, say, Outer Wilds would or would not work for you if you ran across a "beat the game in five minutes" video online and watched that before ever playing it.

 

[Bongo]

This isn't a theoretical but an empirical claim, but of course it does have the sampling bias problems typical of one-off psychology experiments.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I am sorry, but I do not actually care what a study of people who aren't me concludes about spoilers in regard to my personal preferences and experiences in enjoying fiction. That is wildly missing the point, sorta like telling someone who's complaining about rent and the price of groceries that actually, according to the data, the economy's doing great!

 

[Bongo]

Well, I didn't say anything about any specific person either.

 

[Sarcasmorator]

No, but you did make a general assertion in the midst of people talking about specific spoilers and backed it up with a link to a study about how spoilers aren't a problem. If not directed at anyone specific, it is directed at everyone.

 

[Bongo]

The point in its original context was that I don't believe it's necessary to fixate on an idealized approach to a story, because receiving information "out of order" has counterintuitive effects.

Naturally, taste supersedes all other considerations for the person in question.

 

[Voncaster]

The Garfield Movie (2024)

The Garfield Movie asks the viewer what is a better vehicle for a story about a lazy cat: a 3-panel comic strip or a 90 minute movie.

Its obviously the 3-panel comic strip.

But you know what? I had a lot of fun with the Garfield Movie. The Garfield Movie was short and funny. There is a sequence at the beginning where Garfield is ordering food on an app and his order is hilariously large. There is a another sequence where Garfield is hopping on a moving train that has some fun manic energy.

I saw the movie with my parents and they both enjoyed it as well. My mom loved it. I found it to be a fun and entertaining summer kids movie.

I was disappointed in one aspect of the movie: Part of the movie takes place on farm, but no U.S. Acres characters make a cameo. This omission is even stranger when you consider that Binky the Clown shows up on a cereal box. I figured all of the Garfield and Friends characters would show up somewhere in the background.

Anyway The Garfield Movie was a pleasant surprise just like today: A Monday that I have off from work!

Rating (Out of 5):

 

[Octopus Prime]

Roadhouse (the new one, not the Swayze one) is spectacular. Loved every minute of it. Every character was aware they were in a movie but were never quite sure what movie it was. Fight scenes break out like random encounters. Conor MacGregor, in particular, crashes into every scene like he’s a sentient tornado. The human apocalypse machine that is Jake Gyllenhall is so incredibly charming while he’s disassembling people’s entire skeletal systems with his bones.

This movie is amazing.

10/10.