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Movie Time 2.0: TT mini reviews

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
I watched Cocaine Bear, on Peacock. That sure was a movie about a bear that did cocaine.

Also on Peacock, I watched Praise This the other day. Shockingly good for a Christian movie. I mean, it's a kind of limp Pitch Perfect knock-off about competitive church choiring(?), but it was a movie about being a Christian that was not solely preaching to the choir.
 
Gwar is my favorite band.

Doc was phenomenal. I think it could only be made properly after Brockie died though. Guy seemed like a narcissist, eating up all the air in a room. I think it's kinda wild how raw Hunter Jackson got with his feelings on Brockie. Seeing him on stage with Gwar for the scumdogs 30th tour was basically insane.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
He did!

Unless I am severely misinformed, there are absolutely 0 non-CGI monkeys or atmospheric jellyfish anywhere in the film, and real horses are used pretty damn sparingly and not in any stunt-y/horror-y scenes.

That said though I was pretty damn baffled by the big final action bit both placing one of their horses in harm's way, and killing the poor cryptid that was just doing its thing in an inappropriate environment.

Also clearly a bit to say about risking bodily harm for purposes of entertainment, broadly.

He could also just harbour a grudge against parachutes.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Speedy reminds me that I think Harold Lloyd is my favourite of the big three silent era comedians. I think Keaton might be the most daring and have the most stunts and Charlie Chaplin is the most emotional but Speedy had the most gags that made me actually laugh. I didn't enjoy this as much as Safety Last but its still a good movie. I also am not sure if it had the first big celebrity cameo in a feature length comedy but I feel like Babe Ruth's scene sort of sets the tone for all the other ones after.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Because I wanted to watch all of them before 7 comes out, and I retain no memory of the series beyond “they steadily improve”, I’ve elected to start watching all the Mission Impossible movies.

Mission Impossible, as it lacks any subtitles or numerals, is, of course, the first one. And… I guess there’s a reason you don’t associate Brian de Palma with the action movie genre because it wasn’t very tense or exciting. “A list of all secret COA operatives” really… is not that compelling of a Macguffin for everyone to be hunting down. This is presumably why the sequels tend to stick with “Bad Guys With Doomsday Devices.”

Imagine my surprise that John Voight, the most prominent actor besides Tom Cruise, and who had a very small role, turned out to be the bad guy.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On is a very sweet, heart-breaking little movie about a small shell appearing on 60 minutes. It's a great family movie, though I feel like the mood of the film probably wouldn't appeal to most kids over 12, since it is not just a quiet movie but a lot of the humour is really understated. But I think everyone would agree Marcel is super adorable.
 
Because I wanted to watch all of them before 7 comes out, and I retain no memory of the series beyond “they steadily improve”, I’ve elected to start watching all the Mission Impossible movies.

Mission Impossible, as it lacks any subtitles or numerals, is, of course, the first one. And… I guess there’s a reason you don’t associate Brian de Palma with the action movie genre because it wasn’t very tense or exciting. “A list of all secret COA operatives” really… is not that compelling of a Macguffin for everyone to be hunting down. This is presumably why the sequels tend to stick with “Bad Guys With Doomsday Devices.”

Imagine my surprise that John Voight, the most prominent actor besides Tom Cruise, and who had a very small role, turned out to be the bad guy.
Saw this for the first time on a plane recently. Truly enjoyed the tactical message board posting. Also rewatched The Long Kiss Goodnight for the first time in decades. Really appreciate how planes let me see things I’ll enjoy but will under no circumstances otherwise endeavor to see.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Power Rangers Once And Always managed to hit the exact correct level of really really silly and taking itself really really seriously that is hope for.

It’s abundantly clear that the production team did not care that the cast majority of the former PR cast couldn’t or wouldn’t want to reunite for a Power Rangers reunion movie (one instance of this is justified within the plot) and it’s full of dialogue like “How do you tell a child their mother was killed by Rita Repulsa?” and “I don’t care how dangerous too much Pink Energy is!”

Most of the cast that showed up clearly doesn’t want to be there, but that’s okay because Rita Repulsa is acting enough for all of them put together.

It is the stupidest hour of my day and I loved every minute of it.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Watched the unreleased Roger Cormans Fantastic Four

Perfect film, no notes.

Might honestly be my favorite depiction of Doom on screen
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
So I'm still working my way through, in no particular order, the theatrically released Disney movies and I've been putting it off forever but... Pocahontas. So.... OK, the movie comes from a place of good intentions. That's... one nice thing I can say. I mean, the majority of indigenous characters are played by indigenous people (um... except the singing). The colonialists are mostly the threat, though most of them are treated like dummies to need to see that their boss is evil first. But while they are mostly in the wrong it comes down to "we need BOTH SIDES to find peace" and I'm not saying the indigenous characters can't have complex morality, this is a very simplistic film morally and it just feels like it's trying to take SOME heat off white people, like "hey, we can all be in the wrong." It really doesn't help at all that John Smith is Mel Gibson.

Anyway, it's such a weird choice. Pocahontas is a real person. And I'm not super knowledgeable but I can tell its pretty fucked to change this story or to make it a princess movie. This isn't a myth or a fairy tale, or rather, making it one does a disservice to history. There's a lot going on that shouldn't be a wacky raccoon taunting a pampered pug. It's all kinda fucked.

It's also.... really dull. It's a boring film. It's not fun. It's trying to pull the old tricks like paper over exposition with animal antics but the animal sidekicks are dull, Pocahontas is somewhat likeable but it's hurt by her more interesting character in a blah story and I didn't care much for the songs. There were parts at first where I was somewhat interested because it seemed to be aiming for an older Disney tone (and not just in the questionable representation) but by the end I was just looking at my watch.
 

Violentvixen

(She/Her)
Pocahontas
I remember being weirded out by this movie when it came out, I didn't have the vocabulary for discussing the colonizer issues the way we do now but knew something was off. Also the singing voice of Pocahontas was also Cosette in Les Miserables and I didn't particularly like that character or that soprano's style.

But honestly my most vivid memory is when an ad for it aired some Saturday morning, and had the line "John Smith found something magical on his journey" and showed a picture of Pocahontas. My mom fuckin' lost it at that ad, yelling how Pocahontas was a real person, not "a fucking magical trophy", how dare they act like he's the main part of it, etc. It was great, and while the movie itself gave her a bit more agency my mom was absolutely right about how the marketing portrayed her as just being a object. It was great and while I was old enough at that point to recognize this sexist shit for myself I'm eternally grateful to my mom for pointing out stuff like that as I grew up so I understood it.

Anyway yes, dumb, problematic movie.
 

Exposition Owl

more posts about buildings and food
(he/him/his)
It really says a lot, both about the company and about the times, that the Disney brass assumed that Pocahontas would be their next big hit, while The Lion King, also being developed at the time, was a side project.
 
I remember being weirded out by this movie when it came out, I didn't have the vocabulary for discussing the colonizer issues the way we do now but knew something was off.
As a minority who grew up being taught and seeing with my own eyes the history of violence white-America inflicted upon all non-white people since the very beginning of our history, my feeling was offense and revulsion lol.
 

FelixSH

(He/Him)
I rewatched A Nightmare on Elm Street, first time in, dunno, 20 years? I still find it very effective. Which is weird, as Freddy can seem somewhat goofy at times. The first time you see his whole body, he has these weird, long arms, and then runs while whirling his arms around - and yet, the scene is still terrifying.

The ending defanged him pretty heavily. After protagonist girl realizes, that she has control over her dreams, he immediately becomes powerless. At the end, he isn't scary anymore, just pathetic. Makes it pretty weird, that he will come back and not being defeated immediately, again.

I mean, then there is the last scene, which was really great. A sunny day, the others are alive again, they get in the car, but it's Freddy! Super creepy contrast, with the sunshine, when he was always just there in the night, hidden by shadows. I'm a bit confused now, but I guess the second movie will give the first one some form of canonical ending.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
The ending defanged him pretty heavily. After protagonist girl realizes, that she has control over her dreams, he immediately becomes powerless. At the end, he isn't scary anymore, just pathetic. Makes it pretty weird, that he will come back and not being defeated immediately, again.
That's also kind of the point, in a way, though. Freddy was not built to last more than one movie and the last scene was a studio insisted edition to end on a jump scare, which was kind of the rage (the delightful Night of the Creeps was also forced to have a monster jump out ending, when the original implied the threat is still out there but not in an immediate way). Freddy just happened to be SO big, that not making a sequel was unthinkable.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Nightmare 2 is a good movie but it’s also basically completely incompatible with the rest of the series.

It’s also (unintentionally?) one of the most gay horror movies I’ve ever seen. How effectively it manages this depends on your ability to mentally adjust for Early 1980s Standards, of course
 

Büge

Arm Candy
(she/her)
It really says a lot, both about the company and about the times, that the Disney brass assumed that Pocahontas would be their next big hit, while The Lion King, also being developed at the time, was a side project.
Yeah, it was going to be their For-Your-Consideration Oscar-Bait Serious Drama after they got a taste with Beauty and the Beast.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. Movies were not afraid to take their time back then. There's an 8 minute section between the dwarves entering their house and actually finding Snow White. It's been a long time since I've seen it but it is interesting to see a film so earnest when now kids films' humour is heavily affected by the sea change of humour that the Simpsons gave us. The earnestness is almost disarming in a lot of ways.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Rubber, not to be confused, as I so often do, with Tar, is not the he film I was expecting.

The film I was expecting was Christine, albeit with fewer moving parts. That is not a description of this movie.

There is no description of this movie.

I loved it, but have no way of knowing what it is I just watched.

Movies, eh? They’re like that sometimes.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
I feel like I wanted to shake watching the same kind of genre films so I watched Mystic River. I knew it was a prestige picture of some kind but that's about it. The first twenty minutes or so, I thought it was going to be super-dumb. It was ridiculously "Boston" with heavy accents and to show one character transformed by his dark past his Red Sox cap that was red with a dark B on it had it's colours inversed. It was very dumb and while Clint Eastwood has directed some great movies, he's also done some real clunkers where his very competent but meat-and-potatoes style of filmmaking can lend itself to being so unsubtle it's laughable (see Bloodwork).

But then when Mystic River becomes a noir procedural, it really does take off. There is a main mystery whose solution is not super satisfying but that takes a back seat to the Shakespearian tragedy in my opinion. Yes, it isn't subtle but it is very engrossing and I'm glad I gave it my time.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Mission Impossible 2 (the John Woo one) is a bit of a slow burn, but the back half is where John Woo decides to say “screw it, I’m the director I’m driving this bus!”.

The back half of the movie is way better than the front half, and the movie on the whole is a vast improvement over the first one; kind of like having one of the most acclaimed action movie directors of all time is a better choice for a summer blockbuster than flippin’ Brian DePalma.

Also; “Renegade Secret Agent Stole a Doomsday Virus He’s Trying to Sell on the Black Market” is a much more satisfying plot than “Guy stole a list of secret agents so all the other secret agents might be in danger during clandestine black-ops”.

The romantic subplot is kicked off with a very sensual car crash and the most implausible part is suggesting that Tom Cruise has any romantic chemistry with Thandiwe Newton whatsoever.
 

karzac

(he/him)
I feel like I wanted to shake watching the same kind of genre films so I watched Mystic River. I knew it was a prestige picture of some kind but that's about it. The first twenty minutes or so, I thought it was going to be super-dumb. It was ridiculously "Boston" with heavy accents and to show one character transformed by his dark past his Red Sox cap that was red with a dark B on it had it's colours inversed. It was very dumb and while Clint Eastwood has directed some great movies, he's also done some real clunkers where his very competent but meat-and-potatoes style of filmmaking can lend itself to being so unsubtle it's laughable (see Bloodwork).

But then when Mystic River becomes a noir procedural, it really does take off. There is a main mystery whose solution is not super satisfying but that takes a back seat to the Shakespearian tragedy in my opinion. Yes, it isn't subtle but it is very engrossing and I'm glad I gave it my time.

I also watched Mystic River for the first time, and generally enjoyed it, but I thought Sean Penn's performance was bad and the ending was super weird and fucked up. I have to imagine there were a bunch of Laura Linney scenes cut, because I don't understand why you cast such a big actor in such a small role, only to have her be so pivotal at the end.
 

Felicia

Power is fleeting, love is eternal
(She/Her)
the most implausible part is suggesting that Tom Cruise has any romantic chemistry with Thandiwe Newton whatsoever.

Well, this is not Mission Implausible, it's Mission Impossible. Implausible should be a walk in the park for you.
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
Hellraiser is really the best kind of way to do a reboot; as the only connection to the original is the presence of an evil rubiks cube that summons demons, and a wealthy hedonist who really didn't stop to think how Summoning demons made of rusty spikes would turn out for him.

On the whole, I liked It; it didnt Feel too long despite being nearly 2 hours long, it was very different from the original, so it didn’t come across as a rehash, and there was precious little CG. My only real complaint is that when I was watching it on Amazon Prime, the subtitles were pretty out of sync with the dialogue, and half the characters either spoke with a creepy reverb, or were gurgling a lot either because they were being filled with rusty chains or were very scared because they were about to be filled with chains
 

Octopus Prime

Mysterious Contraption
(He/Him)
On a Not Technically Completely Different note, I just watched Lair of the White Worm on Tubi, and… *whuff*

It’s an erotically charged horror movie that Tubi had listed in the comedy section, that should tell you how effectively it fulfills its promise of a Secret Sexy Snakepire Cult.

It is so cartoonishly British that it’s borderline hate speech.

There is precisely *one* instance in the movie of an actually decent visual effect, the rest looks, at best, like a Terry Gilliam animation.

It might be the most wooden Hugh Grant performance since the part of Dungeons and Dragons where he calls me a hero for going to a theater.

There is a scene that’s supposed to be a sexy game of Snakes and Ladders.
 

Torzelbaum

????? LV 13 HP 292/ 292
(he, him, his)
Wait... Hugh Grant was in that movie!?

Wait... It was released in 1988? I thought it was older than that. And now I think I am confusing it with some other "erotically charged" horror movie (both of which I have actually never seen and only vaguely know anything about).
 

Purple

(She/Her)
On a Not Technically Completely Different note, I just watched Lair of the White Worm on Tubi, and… *whuff*

It’s an erotically charged horror movie that Tubi had listed in the comedy section, that should tell you how effectively it fulfills its promise of a Secret Sexy Snakepire Cult.

When I first saw it and got mildly obsessed (see holiday text adventure) I found a little clip from a making of thing where the lead actress was going through the script, seeing what was in there, and walking up to the director to ask "... OK this is a comedy, right?" and being met with "of course it's a comedy! Did you think everything was accidentally this absurd!?"

It is so cartoonishly British that it’s borderline hate speech.

More Scottish really, but yeah, this clip in particular you could probably pass off to most people as one of the more embarrassing Doctor Who episodes from the 80s except for the awkwardness of having the guy from the 2010s.

There is a scene that’s supposed to be a sexy game of Snakes and Ladders.

There is, much more importantly, a later scene where someone works out that she's probably the leader of a snake cult because why else would anyone over the age of 5 enjoy playing Snakes and Ladders?

Wait... Hugh Grant was in that movie!?
Hugh Grant AND Peter Capaldi!
 

Rascally Badger

El Capitan de la outro espacio
(He/Him)
I've been watching a lot of movies this past week.

I saw BlackBerry, which is excellent. Glenn Howerton plays the perfect business asshole, as he helps lead the company behind BlackBerry to power, while Jay Baruchel plays the tech guy side of the equation, a man with definite skills but who maybe isn't the visionary he wants to be. It is a lot of fun.

I also watched Fool's Paradise, Charlie Day's directorial debut, which imagines Day's protagonist as a essentially a silent movie character in modern day Hollywood, with everyone he meets projecting what they want to see on him. Some decent scenes, but it doesn't come together as a movie.

Netflix has got an Asterix and Obelix movie, Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom. There are some good puns, and its kind of funny through out. The whole thing is characters with pun names, any other movie had its villain named Deng Tsin Qin, pronounced Dancing Queen, I might think it was being a little racist, but here its right in line with everyone else.

Missing is a pretty dang good thriller shot completely through computer and phone screens, with a teenage girl looking for her missing mom.

And I saw Fast X: Your Seatbelts. If you rate a movie based on the body mass of it's stars, this would rank near the top. Vin Diesel, John Cena, Jason Momoa, Alan Ritchson, The Rock. If you rate movies like a sane person, and not like Mac from Always Sunny, it continues the nosedive this series has been in since Furious 7. The sustained stupidity of this series doesn't work if you slow it down and try to give it serious emotional heft. This is 2.5 hours long and its only half a movie. It is entertaining in spurts, but it really should just get on with it. Jason Momoa is on another planet that everyone else. Playing against the growling statue that is Vin Diesel, he goes as big and as emotive as possible.
 
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