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Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews
- Thread starter Rascally Badger
- Start date
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- Tags
- movies
Watched last year's mainland Chinese neo-noir Only the River Flows tonight. Not sure why it was playing in cinemas (not just indie ones that are more open to Chinese films, but even some of the mainstream chains had showings) here, but it was good to watch at one.
I wasn't expecting it to veer into unreliable narration, dream sequences, and vague ambiguities quite so much! But once I adjusted to that shift towards the end, it did those parts well. One of the best East Asian noirs I've seen in a long time, and surprising to see it come from somewhere other than South Korea.
I wasn't expecting it to veer into unreliable narration, dream sequences, and vague ambiguities quite so much! But once I adjusted to that shift towards the end, it did those parts well. One of the best East Asian noirs I've seen in a long time, and surprising to see it come from somewhere other than South Korea.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Rewatched 12 Angry Men. The actual arguments that end up getting trotted out and detective work by the jury doesn't really fit with actual procedure but it is still an incredible movie that makes a civic duty look exciting and noble. Excited to watch the William Friedkin remake tonight. I can only assume Jack Lemmon is in the Martin Balsam role.
Oh hey, I watched the Friedkin remake recently myself. I hadn't seen the original for a few years so that may have helped it, but I did enjoy what he did with it. It felt like catching a later stage production of the same play, in an enjoyable way. But I'm a fan of Friedkin's many stage adaptations to begin with.
Drive-Away Dolls was a lot of fun. Cute and silly, with perhaps more emphasis on the comedy aspect of the traditional Cohen comedy/thriller balance. (I know it was only one of the brothers, but it was still recognizably Cohen.) Good cameos, absurd twists, heartwarming in the right ways.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
So having watched it last night... I'm torn. It's a good stage to screen adaptation but not nearly as magnetic. I also feel like I miss a lot of the relationships, like Juror #2 and #8 never really connect and that's my second favourite relationship in the movie. Also the "racist one" being a Nation of Islam guy is a very 90s choice to it's detriment. It's weird that it's supposed to take place in the present, especially when the line where Tony Danza references a 50s detective magazine. The cast is all good but I feel like I would have swapped some roles. Jack Lemmon is great but he's not assertive enough throughout. I would rather have he and Ozzie Davis switch parts. George C Scott is fucking perfect, though.\
BTW, I could spend all day casting a 2024 version. Bob Odenkirk would definitely be in it but I feel like he could play most of the parts aside from #11 and maybe #5 and 6
Alien Romulus (2024)
The Alien franchise is one of my favorite franchises. I think there is only one bad Alien movie: Covenant.
Alien Romulus is a mostly a fun action horror movie. I enjoyed my time with it in the theater but it quickly fades from my memory.
I will say the movie has great production value. I saw the movie at an IMAX screen and felt it was worth the trip to the theater for.
After watching the movie, I listened to some of my favorite podcasts review the film. A lot of them were harsher on the film than I was. The podcasts stated that the movie was full of unnecessary fan service and/or brought nothing new to the franchise. I mostly agree with those critiques, but I enjoyed the movie anyway.
After Prometheus was course corrected in Covenant to feature the xenomorphs more, I do wonder if this franchise is limiting itself.
I'll be curious to see what the Alien TV show does.
On the good news front, the movie made plenty of money and so its likely that the Alien franchise will continue in some shape or form.
Rating (out of 5):
1/2
***
Castle of the Creeping Flesh (1968)
I ordered a handful of horror movies from Severin in their summer sale and my order arrived today. This is the first movie I decided to try.
Somewhere in 1960s Europe people are having a party. In the party one man speaks of a local legend of the House of Saxon.
Centuries ago, the head of the Saxon Household had a daughter and a mistress. The mistress, jealous of the daughters beauty and attention, leads unsavory men inside Saxon's castle to the daughter. The daughter is raped and killed by the unsavory men.
When Saxon discovers what the mistress has done, he uses the mistress for medical parts to try and revive his daughter (Frankenstein style). He is caught by authorities and beheaded for conducting grotesque medical experiments to revive his daughter.
The House of Saxon has been feared and cursed ever since.
6 people from the party, take a horse ride into the countryside, get lost and end up at Saxon's Castle. From here we learn that many of them are connected in spirit to the local legend. The events of the past replay in the present.
I LOVE
1960s set design and this film had some 1960s set design! In certain scenes the set design in the movie reminded me of the Batman 66 TV show or Star Trek. There are some bright purple pastel rooms and light blue candles. The colors really pop in certain scenes.
It was fun start to spooky season.
Rating (out of 5):
The Alien franchise is one of my favorite franchises. I think there is only one bad Alien movie: Covenant.
Alien Romulus is a mostly a fun action horror movie. I enjoyed my time with it in the theater but it quickly fades from my memory.
I will say the movie has great production value. I saw the movie at an IMAX screen and felt it was worth the trip to the theater for.
After watching the movie, I listened to some of my favorite podcasts review the film. A lot of them were harsher on the film than I was. The podcasts stated that the movie was full of unnecessary fan service and/or brought nothing new to the franchise. I mostly agree with those critiques, but I enjoyed the movie anyway.
After Prometheus was course corrected in Covenant to feature the xenomorphs more, I do wonder if this franchise is limiting itself.
I'll be curious to see what the Alien TV show does.
On the good news front, the movie made plenty of money and so its likely that the Alien franchise will continue in some shape or form.
Rating (out of 5):
1/2***
Castle of the Creeping Flesh (1968)
I ordered a handful of horror movies from Severin in their summer sale and my order arrived today. This is the first movie I decided to try.
Somewhere in 1960s Europe people are having a party. In the party one man speaks of a local legend of the House of Saxon.
Centuries ago, the head of the Saxon Household had a daughter and a mistress. The mistress, jealous of the daughters beauty and attention, leads unsavory men inside Saxon's castle to the daughter. The daughter is raped and killed by the unsavory men.
When Saxon discovers what the mistress has done, he uses the mistress for medical parts to try and revive his daughter (Frankenstein style). He is caught by authorities and beheaded for conducting grotesque medical experiments to revive his daughter.
The House of Saxon has been feared and cursed ever since.
6 people from the party, take a horse ride into the countryside, get lost and end up at Saxon's Castle. From here we learn that many of them are connected in spirit to the local legend. The events of the past replay in the present.
I LOVE
1960s set design and this film had some 1960s set design! In certain scenes the set design in the movie reminded me of the Batman 66 TV show or Star Trek. There are some bright purple pastel rooms and light blue candles. The colors really pop in certain scenes.It was fun start to spooky season.
Rating (out of 5):
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
The 400 Blows is still a heartbreaker even now. I've seen very few Truffaut films but I can't even imagine them getting even better than this, which hits so hard.
Olli
(he/him)
It's a good one. Nobody does it quite like Truffaut did.
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
I was always pissed the mime gang didn't do shit.
I always felt bad for the janitorial staff for Grand Central Station
A mime is a terrible thing to waste...
Spent too long coming up with a gang theme and not enough time in training mode.
But they are important, as they basically fully arm the previously weaponless Warriors!
Johnny Unusual
(He/Him)
Imagining them acting out handing over weapons to the confused Warriors, then are blown away by a strong wind.
Also true in real life.
They knew what they were getting into.
Purple
(She/Her)
Saw 2 Beetle 2 Juice. Not something I'd insist everyone run out and go see, but it was good. More specific thoughts:
A joke I had spoiled for me that was still very good is how hey, Jeffrey Jones did something Very Bad and doesn't get to be in movies anymore, so we're killing his character off... which you'd think wouldn't work because ghosts are the whole premise, but don't worry, his entire head was swallowed by a shark so tada, ghost with big cartoony chomp instead of a head.
This leads into the joke that was ruined for EVERYONE, being taken out back and riddled with bullets by the marketing team- So yeah we're 100% killing off Charles before the movie starts, and because Delia is still a big time Art Weirdo she does some weird funeral planning, like hey, what if we got a whole children's choir to sing a sad version of that song from the time we all got possessed at dinner! Like, yeah, that's a good gag. That'd probably work if I was going in totally blind. But literally every trailer and other promotional thing just started right off with that song playing context free, and also several random unrelated commercials, like this one from for car insurance that we're just jamming in there in the previews while watching the movie itself. Real shame to because it's not even giving a joke away, it's just ruining it because it really depends on a lot of context. Fortunately there's a lot of other angles to that general principle which still land, and which I won't get into because I SEE YOU, PERSON WHO CLICKED THE SPOILER TAG WITHOUT WATCHING THE MOVIE!
And then there's the gag stuff like that tried and failed to ruin: Much like how Bill & Ted 3 made the somewhat baffling call not to just dismiss all those headlines from the end of 2 as non-canon, someone clearly lost a lot of sleep over how the original movie ended on that head shrinking gag and how we could possibly walk back from Beetlejuice now having a foreverially shrinkified head, and settled on just deciding that was actually Beetlejuice's body double, who is now a character, and we are going to spend a downright awkward amount of time focused on his plight as well as his many coworkers who also had their heads shrunken. This is gonna be our Minions or something.
We also got all obsessive about the little throwaway gag of Beetlejuice pulling out a wedding ring that was already on a severed finger and throwing it away, and making a whole character and backstory out of that finger... who in theory is the main villain but then nah, screw it, totally throwing that away at the end. And this subplot to that, with Willem Dafoe stealing scenes all over? Yeah that goes nowhere either. And the actual main plot's resolution? Eh, also not super important.
For that matter, after taking two throwaway gags from the original and spinning them out into this big ol' subplot, how much time are we going to spend explaining why the actual protagonists from the original movie aren't even in here? One line.
This leads into the joke that was ruined for EVERYONE, being taken out back and riddled with bullets by the marketing team- So yeah we're 100% killing off Charles before the movie starts, and because Delia is still a big time Art Weirdo she does some weird funeral planning, like hey, what if we got a whole children's choir to sing a sad version of that song from the time we all got possessed at dinner! Like, yeah, that's a good gag. That'd probably work if I was going in totally blind. But literally every trailer and other promotional thing just started right off with that song playing context free, and also several random unrelated commercials, like this one from for car insurance that we're just jamming in there in the previews while watching the movie itself. Real shame to because it's not even giving a joke away, it's just ruining it because it really depends on a lot of context. Fortunately there's a lot of other angles to that general principle which still land, and which I won't get into because I SEE YOU, PERSON WHO CLICKED THE SPOILER TAG WITHOUT WATCHING THE MOVIE!
And then there's the gag stuff like that tried and failed to ruin: Much like how Bill & Ted 3 made the somewhat baffling call not to just dismiss all those headlines from the end of 2 as non-canon, someone clearly lost a lot of sleep over how the original movie ended on that head shrinking gag and how we could possibly walk back from Beetlejuice now having a foreverially shrinkified head, and settled on just deciding that was actually Beetlejuice's body double, who is now a character, and we are going to spend a downright awkward amount of time focused on his plight as well as his many coworkers who also had their heads shrunken. This is gonna be our Minions or something.
We also got all obsessive about the little throwaway gag of Beetlejuice pulling out a wedding ring that was already on a severed finger and throwing it away, and making a whole character and backstory out of that finger... who in theory is the main villain but then nah, screw it, totally throwing that away at the end. And this subplot to that, with Willem Dafoe stealing scenes all over? Yeah that goes nowhere either. And the actual main plot's resolution? Eh, also not super important.
For that matter, after taking two throwaway gags from the original and spinning them out into this big ol' subplot, how much time are we going to spend explaining why the actual protagonists from the original movie aren't even in here? One line.
Opera (1987)
I watched Dario Argento's Opera last night. Argento is quickly rising the ranks as one of my favorite directors. Opera is great. I recommend seeking it out if your a horror fan and have not seen it.
The lead singer of the opera of MacBeth is hit by a car. Her understudy, Betty, takes over the lead role and cursed events start to occur. Members of the production crew are offed by a masked killer. The masked killer also seems to have some connection to Betty.
Some Random thoughts:
The opera in the film is MacBeth. Macbeth is said to be a cursed production. I thought this is a true stage superstition (maybe I'm missremembering). If so, its a cool decision for a horror movie. Additionally, in MacBeth there are three witches that lead MacBeth to his demise. Argento is arguably best known for his three mothers trilogy. A film series that is centered on three mothers or witches. The MacBeth witches and the three mothers is a cool spiritual connection.
Colored lighting is a signature piece of Argento movies. Opera has a tense scene where the lighting oscilates between purple and green and it looks amazing.
Animals are featured in a lot Argento movies. Phenomena has insects and a chimp. Trauma has lizards. Raven's are featured prominently in Opera.
This movie has one of the most over the top and satisfying climax scenes I have ever seen. The climax is amazing. There is unfortunately another 15-20 minutes of a coda that happens after the climax that I think should have been excised from the film.
Rating (out of 5):
I watched Dario Argento's Opera last night. Argento is quickly rising the ranks as one of my favorite directors. Opera is great. I recommend seeking it out if your a horror fan and have not seen it.
The lead singer of the opera of MacBeth is hit by a car. Her understudy, Betty, takes over the lead role and cursed events start to occur. Members of the production crew are offed by a masked killer. The masked killer also seems to have some connection to Betty.
Some Random thoughts:
The opera in the film is MacBeth. Macbeth is said to be a cursed production. I thought this is a true stage superstition (maybe I'm missremembering). If so, its a cool decision for a horror movie. Additionally, in MacBeth there are three witches that lead MacBeth to his demise. Argento is arguably best known for his three mothers trilogy. A film series that is centered on three mothers or witches. The MacBeth witches and the three mothers is a cool spiritual connection.
Colored lighting is a signature piece of Argento movies. Opera has a tense scene where the lighting oscilates between purple and green and it looks amazing.
Animals are featured in a lot Argento movies. Phenomena has insects and a chimp. Trauma has lizards. Raven's are featured prominently in Opera.
This movie has one of the most over the top and satisfying climax scenes I have ever seen. The climax is amazing. There is unfortunately another 15-20 minutes of a coda that happens after the climax that I think should have been excised from the film.
Rating (out of 5):
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Purple
(She/Her)
So I was just procrastinating heavily, and remembered that Tubi exists. So I have a look, and being almost October it is pushing a bunch of ABSOLUTE TRASH super hard. I'm scrolling past titles like Strippers Vs. Werewolves, Femalien, The Interplanetary Surplus Male and Amazon Women of Outer Space, Lesbian Vampire Killers, Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity (oh hey I've actually already seen that one), and then I hit something called Killer Rack. Which is about a woman who gets breast implants that then proceed to go around killing and eating people. And you know, that is JUST stupid enough of a premise that morbid curiosity got the better of me.
It's got that real... barely a movie kind of energy. Every interior shot is pretty noticeably filmed in the same basement with a different curtain hung up against the wall. Starting with its premise spread awkwardly thin. Acting and dialog with a hamminess that feels like a college theater group putting on a version of Little Shop of Horrors (which is constantly riding this line between very awkward and oddly charming). At one point Lloyd Kaufman shows up for a brief musical number, and that feels like it was a real get for this production. The thing is though, this movie has some restraint.
It is not until halfway in that there is any actual toplessness (or later if you don't count the obvious paper mache), and it isn't until the last 10 minutes or so until you properly get befanged puppets on the protagonist's chest ripping people's heads off and tossing them around like ragdolls with grabboid tentacles, but wow do those last 10 minutes have enough fun that.... I think I might actually recommend other people watch this? I've seen a hell of a lot worse from things with a hell of a lot more dignity.
It's got that real... barely a movie kind of energy. Every interior shot is pretty noticeably filmed in the same basement with a different curtain hung up against the wall. Starting with its premise spread awkwardly thin. Acting and dialog with a hamminess that feels like a college theater group putting on a version of Little Shop of Horrors (which is constantly riding this line between very awkward and oddly charming). At one point Lloyd Kaufman shows up for a brief musical number, and that feels like it was a real get for this production. The thing is though, this movie has some restraint.
It is not until halfway in that there is any actual toplessness (or later if you don't count the obvious paper mache), and it isn't until the last 10 minutes or so until you properly get befanged puppets on the protagonist's chest ripping people's heads off and tossing them around like ragdolls with grabboid tentacles, but wow do those last 10 minutes have enough fun that.... I think I might actually recommend other people watch this? I've seen a hell of a lot worse from things with a hell of a lot more dignity.
Just rewatched Boy Kills World, and I can’t overstate how much the experience is improved by not watching it with a bad head and stomach ache in a crowded theater setting. Also, movie really can’t seem to decide how jokey it wants to be, and decides for “Not at all, actually” by the midway point, but it’s effectively a 2 hour long beat up up starring Bill Skarsgaard and The Lady from Happy Death Day and, like, a million billion guys in jump-suits whose coloration tells you how dangerous they are.
Anyway, 30 out of ten
Anyway, 30 out of ten
Olli
(he/him)
It's not the first time when less VFX (usually because it's so expensive) makes for a better movie; see e.g. any John Carpenter movie, the Alien franchise, Jurassic Parks...
Olli
(he/him)
Yeah, but even with the practical effects, the first movie is quite conservative with the amount of dinosaur action shown on the screen. Whether this is budgetary or just Spielberg's skill as a director, doesn't really matter. Later movies don't show as much restraint and generally not to their benefit.
Purple
(She/Her)
Based on how well this last daring plunge into the weird trash Tubi is pushing on me, I just watched Repligator. Which definitely goes on the surprisingly large stack of movies whose premise is so weirdly and specifically convoluted it seems like it's going to be some sort of weird fetish porn, but then it just ends up being weirdly wholesome (aside from quite a lot of toplessness). In this particular case, said convoluted plot goes like this:
So... nothing is actually replicated, there aren't really any alligators, there's no real death or violence, and despite this whole sex slave mind control angle, it's all kinda weirdly wholesome beyond half the cast being shirtless women for like half the movie. And basically the only explanation I have for why this even exists is
.
Secret government researchers build a teleporter (which they call a replicator I guess just so the title works), which turns out to have the side effect of turning the random army guy they send through it into a hot girl... who is honestly pretty cool with this and starts hitting on the Donald Pleasence looking head researcher/main character/writer (but not director like I figured) of this movie. Then an evil scientist decides to secretly combine the hot-girl-ifying teleporter with his side project, a brainwashing machine that makes people super horny and also obey all orders from whoever they're in love with, and then proceeds to throw the original test subject through it, along with Token Cis Girl Scientist, and his nerdy assistant, and they proceed to all start hitting on... the remaining three characters. Now you'd figure things would get super super sleazy here, but Main Character is all responsible and Evil Scientist kinda hates his assistant even after being hot girlified, so the two hot-girled scientists just get ordered to fix the teleporter to quit doing this and only soldier girl grabs a random guy (a visiting general) to go make out with, at which point she reaches the horniness threshold at which hot girlified people turn into "gator babes," who oddly enough not only don't actually have alligator heads (this is distincly a dinosaur) but also don't read as particularly femme.
Because another side effect of this teleporter setup is making you super-intelligent, the science gals fully repair the teleporter and also make zappy cheesy B-movie raygun versions of it, just in time to fire upon a kill squad who shows up because all the malfunctioning made the government freak out, but also after Dr. Evil reprograms things so that all teleportees follow his commands specifically. At this point we are almost at the end of the movie, because I am skipping over a frankly shocking amount of technobabble exposition, but Hero Scientist ends up convincing Dorky Assistant to help install a new program in the teleporter/mind control device/girl-then-dinosaur-we're-calling-an-alligator-ifier to turn everyone back to normal, which she's hesitant about because turns out she's trans actually and really digging the whole being a super-intelligent hot girl thing. Meanwhile everyone else except Evil Scientist is now a "gator babe," oh and the random visiting general Army Girl attacked, who has arbitrarily become some sort of gay zombie. So anyway we have this big long sequence of Hero Scientist with a raygun under each arm just shooting literally every other character repeatedly with teleporter beams waiting for things to get reprogrammed, and then still doing that to get everyone back to normal.
And then we have this whole weird epilogue of Hero Scientist having snuck off with one teleporter raygun and fixing the whole turn-into-"gator babe" problem so he can turn Token Cis Girl Scientist and Dorky Assistant into hot girls again. I have to assume Army Girl got the same treatment since she was also pretty vocal about totally being into the hot girlification and was hitting on everyone before the horny mind control came into it, but both actors playing her apparently quit after a day and aren't even in the credits. Meanwhile the other one ends up in the hands of this framing device scientist, who has made similar repairs and basically just kinda realized that while the teleporter bit is kind of a nice bonus, having a raygun that turns people into superintelligent hot girls is just generally a pretty cool thing to have, but accidentally shoots himself and yet another general here to work out what happened... at which point they just kinda shrug and decide to date each other.
Because another side effect of this teleporter setup is making you super-intelligent, the science gals fully repair the teleporter and also make zappy cheesy B-movie raygun versions of it, just in time to fire upon a kill squad who shows up because all the malfunctioning made the government freak out, but also after Dr. Evil reprograms things so that all teleportees follow his commands specifically. At this point we are almost at the end of the movie, because I am skipping over a frankly shocking amount of technobabble exposition, but Hero Scientist ends up convincing Dorky Assistant to help install a new program in the teleporter/mind control device/girl-then-dinosaur-we're-calling-an-alligator-ifier to turn everyone back to normal, which she's hesitant about because turns out she's trans actually and really digging the whole being a super-intelligent hot girl thing. Meanwhile everyone else except Evil Scientist is now a "gator babe," oh and the random visiting general Army Girl attacked, who has arbitrarily become some sort of gay zombie. So anyway we have this big long sequence of Hero Scientist with a raygun under each arm just shooting literally every other character repeatedly with teleporter beams waiting for things to get reprogrammed, and then still doing that to get everyone back to normal.
And then we have this whole weird epilogue of Hero Scientist having snuck off with one teleporter raygun and fixing the whole turn-into-"gator babe" problem so he can turn Token Cis Girl Scientist and Dorky Assistant into hot girls again. I have to assume Army Girl got the same treatment since she was also pretty vocal about totally being into the hot girlification and was hitting on everyone before the horny mind control came into it, but both actors playing her apparently quit after a day and aren't even in the credits. Meanwhile the other one ends up in the hands of this framing device scientist, who has made similar repairs and basically just kinda realized that while the teleporter bit is kind of a nice bonus, having a raygun that turns people into superintelligent hot girls is just generally a pretty cool thing to have, but accidentally shoots himself and yet another general here to work out what happened... at which point they just kinda shrug and decide to date each other.
So... nothing is actually replicated, there aren't really any alligators, there's no real death or violence, and despite this whole sex slave mind control angle, it's all kinda weirdly wholesome beyond half the cast being shirtless women for like half the movie. And basically the only explanation I have for why this even exists is
.
I am trying to put my thoughts together about Megalopolis so I am not just shouting random hyperbolic, contradictory things. I am not sure I am capable of sorting my thoughts out.
Add It's What's Inside to the list of clever sci-fi movies shot for only the cost of putting a handful of actors in a house
Netflix's Woman of the Hour is an incredibly impressive directorial debut for Anna Kendrick. It's easily in the same tier as Silence of the Lambs or Zodiac. It's got an interesting structure, it flips the "serial killer" genre completely around by centering every woman first and foremost, and, just, the filmmaking techniques on display here are also quite impressive. Anna Kendrick directed/starred in it, which is really the main reason I wanted to see it (I like Anna Kendrick a lot). Just a high-quality, stellar thriller.
The promo stuff she’s done lately (Criterion Closet, Letterboxd talk on films that inspired Woman of the Hour) has put it on my radar in a big way. She really talks about how and why these films were inspiring or interesting beyond most others who give these kinds of talks, really insightful stuff.