• Welcome to Talking Time's third iteration! If you would like to register for an account, or have already registered but have not yet been confirmed, please read the following:

    1. The CAPTCHA key's answer is "Percy"
    2. Once you've completed the registration process please email us from the email you used for registration at percyreghelper@gmail.com and include the username you used for registration

    Once you have completed these steps, Moderation Staff will be able to get your account approved.

Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Beavis and Butthead Do the Universe was exactly the movie I wanted it to be, and felt more authentic to the style and humour of the show than Do America did, despite it being about them going to space and then travelling through time
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Tuff Turf definitely is an 80s movie. I won't say the most 80s but it reaches hard for it. A kid goes to a new school, runs afoul a gang of toughs (tuffs) and romances the lead tough's girl in a way I cannot condone. It has James Spader and RDJ in their youthful years and while it is a dumb, tonally weird movie that oscillates between gritty thriller and teen romp.

 

Bongo

excused from moderation duty
(he/him)
Staff member
I watched Castle in the Sky (1986) again. It's been years since I watched it last.

What an ambiguous place Hayao Miyazaki's Laputa is. A superpower without a rival, unchallenged in its reign over the world below them, yet its rulers and its people alike voluntarily abandoned it, yet only sealed it away rather than destroy it. There's that profound hope at the core of the melancholic, even pessimistic themes that permeate his work: although humanity is in discord with the world, the possibility is never foreclosed that we might at any time choose to return to harmony.
 

4-So

Spicy
Tuff Turf definitely is an 80s movie. I won't say the most 80s but it reaches hard for it. A kid goes to a new school, runs afoul a gang of toughs (tuffs) and romances the lead tough's girl in a way I cannot condone. It has James Spader and RDJ in their youthful years and while it is a dumb, tonally weird movie that oscillates between gritty thriller and teen romp.

I think my favorite thing about this trailer - and I like quite a bit of it - is how it wouldn't fly today because it gives too much away.
 

BEAT

LOUDSKULL
(DUDE/BRO)
I saw TWO movies yesterday!

THOR LOVE AND THUNDER was a Marvel movie. Better than most, not the best. About as Good as Ragkarok, which was very good, so that's cool.

And then there was THE PRINCESS

VHgAEi3.png


And just...

Fuckin.

THE PRINCESS
 

BEAT

LOUDSKULL
(DUDE/BRO)
You ever see a movie that feels uniquely out of time? Like, to the point where it's actually distracting?

That's THE PRINCESS. And it's FUCKIN WERID.

Info on how this movie came to be is pretty sparse, but it seems like the script first shows up in the historical record in 2020, which can't possibly be right, because this is the most early 00s movie I have ever fucking seen.

If it weren't for the actors that I don't recognize any of, I could just SEE the version of this that got released in between 2002 and 2005. Hell I even know who they'd get to play the Princess's kung-fu mentor in that era! (Lucy Liu, age 33) I can see the reviews calling it "a feminist take on A Knight's Tale." Hell, I can even see the 2013 era Tumblr posts by people claiming that everyone slept on this one when it came out at a time when none of those bloggers were old enough to go to r-rated movies!

But it's NOT 2002! It's 2022! And as such it's NOT a cultural touchstone for Girbosses everywhere, it's a hulu flick you never even heard of before I went the fuck off about it!

And I just don't understand how this happened!
 
Last edited:

BEAT

LOUDSKULL
(DUDE/BRO)
It's not even the basic plot or themes! This is an action movie where every single fight screams "HELLO THE CHOREOGRAPHER HAS SEEN THE MATRIX, BUT HAS NEVER WATCHED MMA. JOHN WICK IS BUT A GLIMMER IN A STUNTMAN-TURNED-DIRECTOR'S EYE."

"Occasionally convincing" is how I described it on twitter. And that's not a knock on the actress or her stuntwoman! These are fights that sort of understand technique, but have no idea how weight works. The sort of thing we'd accept without question in 2002, and are much less accepting of two decades later.

It's not a bad movie. It's a completely Okay "This ain't your ordinary damsel in distress!" flick.

I just don't know how the fuck it happened NOW.
 

jpfriction

(He, Him)
They couldn’t even get Bill Hader to be Mickey in the Bob’s Burgers movie, eh? 1 star.

Nah it’s fine. Long episode of a good show. Teddy didn’t yell enough.
 

R.R. Bigman

Coolest Guy
I saw the Bob’s Burger’s Movie on Hulu, which was a very nice surprise, while also not a good sign for it’s box office. I liked it quite a bit more than I was expecting! It’s essentially a big, multipart season finale, rather than a typical TV cartoon turned film that goes nuts with scope. The show has been much zanier in the past, with an out of control mechanical shark, turkey riot, sentient toilet that befriends Gene, etc. If you have Hulu, you should absolutely watch it.
 

lincolnic

can stop, will stop
(he/him)
The Bob's Burgers movie is also on HBO Max, for what it's worth!

But also yeah, it felt kind of...restrained, almost? Not in a bad way, just that in a show with so many memorable side characters, I kind of expected more of them to show up in the movie. I still liked it! Like everyone's saying, it felt like a long episode of a good show with slightly higher production values, and I'm okay with that.
 
Last edited:

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
I watched Persuasion on Netflix. It has some really nice touches, but doesn't quite escape just being a mostly pretty good Austen adaptation. Considering we've gotten Emma. and Love & Friendship in the last few years, it is a little disappointing, but if you want a literary adaptation with a sprinkling of modern verve, you could do a lot worse. Its at its best when it is being Regency Fleabag with Dakota Johnson talking directly to the audience.
 

karzac

(he/him)
On that note, I watched Emma this weekend with my sister and it was fantastic. Really great performances and beautiful set decoration and cinematography. Dialogue took a bit to get used to, but it really worked once we got into it.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla is part of a tradition where they really need to pad out the non-Godzilla portions. It actually goes hard for the monster fights, with some surprising blood. A lot of it is an alien invasion spy movie with occasional robot Godzilla. The fights are cool and I love Mechagodzilla's theme.


So quality monster fights (and the people in the puppet suit making Godzilla goofier, snapping his finger in anger when a plan doesn't work out for example). Mechagodzilla is the star but the film really pushes King Ceasar, who is one of the more oddball kaiju of Godzilla, though I appreciate the ear puppetry; floppy eared until it's time for battle.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
The Princess is a film much in the same mold as Dredd or The Raid, except that it’s about a Princess starting at the top of a tower and murdering her way to the bottom with swords, instead of a cop starting at the bottom of a tower and murdering his way to the top with karate and missiles.

Needless to say, I was entranced.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
The Legend of the Stardust Brothers is only $2 to rent on youtube. Do not watch the trailer. All I will say is the son of Osamu Tezuka decided to make a Rocky Horror.
 

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
I can say with confidence that I have never seen another movie like Pan. For all that it follows in the pattern of many failed would-be franchise starters, there is something much weirder and idiosyncratic underneath that. For the first hour it seems it really wants to be the absolute strangest jukebox musical ever made, with characters singing songs from the likes of Nirvana and the Ramones, but that is unfortunately dropped in the second half. The movie ends with Peter Pan and Captain Hook affirming their unbreakable bond of friendship. There is no part of the movie that is just normal.
 
The final trailer for Nope was kind of bad, so I came in with lower expectations. (misleading about the tone which is darker and more interesting than the trailer suggests) But it's a blast. Creepy, sad, and engrossing.
 
I watched Alien Private Eye last night. Its a weird film that I learned about through Best of the Worst.

The main protagonist, Lemro, is an alien (with spock pointy ears) who works on earth as a Private Eye. A device that manufactures addictive drugs ("more addictive than heroin or cocaine") from Lemro's planet gets lost in LA. Drug dealers, led by Kilgore, find the device and have the drug using population hooked on the alien drug.

Somehow the device is broken in half and the movie revolves around Lemro finding the two halves of the device and fighting Kilgore and his goons.

The actor who portrays Lemro is a martial artist who can't act. The movie has fight scenes, but they aren't that compelling or dramatic. Why not put a good actor in the lead role if your fight scenes aren't complex? At least Lemro is dressed like Moonwalker era Micheal Jackson throughout the film. For a low budget movie, his costume game is strong!

Its not a good movie, but I enjoyed it. The film was made in 1989, where literally anything and everything could be put to film to fill VHS shelves. This is one of those movies!
 
Last edited:

4-So

Spicy
Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness was a nothingburger of a movie, what the youths call "mid". Maybe if I had watched WandaVision I'd have a higher opinion but Wanda as the bad guy didn't land for me at all. I don't think it's a bad movie by any means but it was pretty forgettable. Worth the watch on D+; I'm glad I didn't waste money on a theater ticket.

I think my favorite part of the movie, a short part unfortunately, was the musical fight with Dark Strange.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
Having seen and liked WandaVision, it actually made it worse, because the movie resets and repeats her character arc from that, just with a different focus.
 
Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness was a nothingburger of a movie, what the youths call "mid". Maybe if I had watched WandaVision I'd have a higher opinion but Wanda as the bad guy didn't land for me at all. I don't think it's a bad movie by any means but it was pretty forgettable. Worth the watch on D+; I'm glad I didn't waste money on a theater ticket.

I think my favorite part of the movie, a short part unfortunately, was the musical fight with Dark Strange.
I also resented that it's a waste of Raimi. Lots of talk in horror circles that this was basically another Evil Dead. But more to Evil Dead than some evil book, occasional undead monster or even Bruce Campbell.

It's not the worst Marvel movie - but very much the artless product that the great Moloch makes for us to consume, with an occasional flourish (ie Bruce Campbell)
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Watched the original Disney Cinderella and... fine. Perfectly finely made cartoon. I knew there were helpful mice but I think we spend more time with them than Cinderella.
 

Sarcasmorator

Same as I ever was
(He/him)
They were still kinda figuring out things like story flow and how to make an 90-minute movie out of a short fairy tale in those days!
 
I agree that Cinderella is middle tier classic Disney animation. The transformation sequence and animation in general is pretty great. For classic Disney animation, I generally prefer the princess stories (Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, etc.) to the animal stories (Bambi, Lady and the Tramp, etc.).

Winnie the Pooh would be my one big exception to my general preference. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh is my personal favorite classic Disney animated film.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
My main takeaway of Cinderella was that she’s upset to lose her rat dress.

Like, sure, it was a very pretty dress, lots of sequins and the like but girl, that was a rat dress. Rats made it.

And you live in the dark ages! There ain’t a great time to be wearing a rat dress, but that has to be one of the worst eras for rat couture
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I remember watching that in 2012 or so, when Blinkpen watched through all the Disney movies. Really didn't get much out of it. Were Pinocchio and Lady and the Tramp from the same era? I rewatched them at the same time, and realized that these are some of my favourite Disney movies, outside of the Renaissance, maybe.
 
Top