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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Nah, it was about corporate egos. That is not interesting to me.

I mean, it wasn't, but you do you...

I thought it was one long metaphor for the inherent conflict between individual ego and the desire fo achievement versus the realities of cooperative environments.

But I have no idea how anyone could watch that movie and thing it was about corporate egos.

The rivalry is nothing more than a vehicle (hahahahahahahaha!) for the actual drama, which is never really about the race. If anything the movie is a metaphor about making movies.

Not about corporate egos?

Why does Henry Ford II build a race car in the first place? Why does Lee Iaccoca go to Italy? Why does Ferrari not take their buy out offer? Why does the VP always meddle with the race team? Why does Shelby go to the boss man directly? Why does Shelby even want to win?

This is a workplace drama that happens to have Race Cars in it. Sure. Ken Miles acts and thinks he is "apart" from all of the corporate stuff but his fate is ultimately tied to it as well, no matter how he tries to stays apart from the Corporation, he is still controlled by Ford.

This is highlighted in the ending of the Le Mans race. The filmmakers try and make you think "Look he is learning to be a team player?" That is what they serve up. However, the subtext it different. Miles is learning to bend his knee to corporate power despite what it costs him personally. The Corporation takes, but does not give back; the true relationship of the corporation to the employee.

Think how this book ends with the opening scene of Henry Ford II threatening to fire his entire workforce because sales are down. Then, at the end he wants the top 3 cars to be Fords. Due to this decision, Miles is denied his Triple Crown of racing win and the Le Mans win despite setting new lap and speed records.

To say this movie is not about Capitalism and how it is shaped by Corporate egos..... I am not sure we watched the same movie. Ford vs. Ferrari. Hell, even the title tells you this is about corps, the people in the tiles are the CEOs, and their egos about "winning".


Now, enough about that.....


Wolf

Have you seen predator? Now imagine it is in Roman Britain with Werewolves instead.

Not bad really, but you can tell it was made on the cheap.

Cell
Where John Cusak, Sam Jackson, and Stephen King probably collect big paychecks at the expense of the production value of the rest of the film. They called thsi movie Cell because everyone was phoning it in.

Plant Terror
I think Robert Rodriquez may have some issues with women?

Otherwise, it captures tht ugly 70's drive-in style too well. Skeavily well.

Ford v Ferrari discussion:



I will say the movie did a disservice to some of the racing personalities of the era, notably Bruce Mclaren who is in the background, but gives him no noteworthy recognition.

Yes, all those are answers, but it is like looking at the tree and declaring it the forest!

The why behind each of those answers was because each of those characters were all jockey for corporate position because of their own egos! I.e. it is about Corporate egos, not anything more than that.

Ford II wants to boost lagging sales, because he wants to be better than his daddy and be the best Ford CEO ever! Ego!

Lee goes to Italy to buy the Ferrari racing team to win. Because winning means his strategy to boost sales was successful and his division gains power and prestige within Ford. Ego!

Ferrari does not take Ford's offer, because he uses it to leverage Fiat into a merger. Better deal for him and he maintains control over HIS racing team. Ego!

Why does the VP meddle with the team? He wants to sabotage Lee so he maintains his power and remove a corporate rival from the room. The beginning shows VP guy in control and threatening to remove Lee, but Lee manages to get the upper hand with Ford. That makes Lee and his racing team a threat to VP guy. Ego!

Shelby goes to the bossman directly to outmaneuver Lee and VP guy so he can control the team AND help his own company. Ego!

Shelby wants to win because, yes he is a life-long competitor; but now his competitive streak is no longer JUST on the race track. He is a corporate entity in his own right now. He owns Shelby American and their name keeps getting attached to winning, just like Fords. Ego!

The only character that is not driven by corporate ego is Ken Miles, our protagonist. However, it is clearly demonstrated that he becomes willing tool of all these other egos as a price for doing what he loves. In return, he gets ripped off by other Corporate egos and ends up losing everything. He ultimately was also ground down into dust by Corporate egos.

I also agree that they did a disservice to the big race car driving names in the movie. However, it is also interesting to note that McLaren himself goes on to own his own racing team and car racing business too.


Now, all that being said; Ford vs. Ferrari maybe the biggest anti-capitalist movie I have seen in a long time! Labor is ultimately destroyed by Management for the sake of Ego.

I never thought I would say so much about a movie I didn't even like that much, but there you go. I may not have liked it, but it is rife with sub-text and meaning, as all good movies should be. I may not have liked it, but there is no doubt in my mind that it is a "good" and possibly "great" movie.

The Serpent

Cracking open my Hammer Boxed Set for something a little different, and this was my first pick, as I think I’ve only seen it the once.

This is a pretty solid slice of 60’s horror, involving a young woman cursed by a Snake Cult in punishment for her father’s crimes.

Its cautious underuse of the creature is reminiscent of Alien, in that for the most part it’s kept off-screen in favour of mystery and suspense. Also notable for not a Lee nor Cushing in sight, quite unusual for a Hammer film from this era.

When we do the creature, it is in some glory. The makeup effects are of course somewhat dated, but in-context they’re convincing enough, and we rarely linger on them too long for us to start finding them daft.

If you come across it on your travels, or have the Hammer Box Set I do, definitely interesting enough fare to be worth your while.

Shazam

Of of the good DC superhero movies. It’s quippy and fun and it has heart. Okay, it’s a Marvel movie.



Shazam 2: Fury of the Gods

This film has a lot of good elements and ideas, but the execution is lacking. The budget-fueled spectacle crowds out the humor and character moments that actually work in service of mediocre action scenes. It’s not bad, but it’s not that good, either. Okay, it’s a phase 4/5 Marvel movie.

Justice League:- Warworld

Like a lot of these DC animated movies it really didn't have the runtime to tell the story it wanted, had it been able to flesh out the various Warworlds a bit more (I would've liked to see more of the War of the Worlds/Red Scare mash-up one), I think it would've been a much better movie.
As it is, it's still a good film with an interesting premise.

Hitman

Another video game movie with Olga Kurylenko? I sense the invisible hand of the market at work.

It's.... fine. I know nothing about the source material but it really doesn't do anything you can't see in the international man of mystery genre of films.

Max Payne may have been a terrible adaption from the game, but it also had some interesting ideas/cinematography. Hitman does not. However, Timothy Oliphant does a good job humanizing a rather inhuman character via his performance. Might be worth watching for that alone.... if you don't mind a rather generic flick surrounding it.

"yay, State of the Union can be streamed on a tv channel's website!"
So I watched it again. Very enjoyable. Then I saw they made a second season, also free to watch on that tv channel's website. Once more, hooray for public broadcasting. I watched about 8 minutes of the second season, and I don't want to put up with all of that sorta stuff yet again. First season: really cool. Light, a bit funny, but grown-up stuff. Second season I may give another go some time, but not any time soon. I've seen the exact same caricatures out of US television for the past 2 decades. I assume they'll be subverted to some degree, but I'm just tired of the equally tired little cultural pseudo-skirmishes.

Yes, this is based on the first 8 minutes or so and maybe highly unfair, but it feels like a let-down.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) - 9.95/10

When I was very little, I, like many boys of that era, was obsessed with the Ninja Turtles. I would get home from school in 1989/1990 just in time to see that day's new episode, and I ate it up. I had a ton of the toys, including the Turtle Wagon, Sewer Hideout and the Technodrome!

I remember the first time I saw anything related to the live action Turtles on a news report. It showed maybe 8 seconds of footage - a Foot Clan ninja swinging at Mikey with an axe, and Mikey ducking his head into his shell before screaming "I love being a turtle!!!". I ran around the house screaming that for the next 20 minutes until my Mum and grandmother had had enough. Can you blame me though? I was, like, 7!

Anyway, with the new Turtle movie just about to come out, Paramount Plus has decided to add the 1990 live action Turtles movie to their service. I noticed it as I was about to quit the program, but decided it had been years since I'd seen it so what the hell? And you know what? It still holds up. Really well. It's very well made, the costumes/puppeteering is excellent almost across the board (Leonardo's mouth doesn't always work that well), and they absolutely nailed the eyes on the Turtles. I'm amazed how many lines I still remember!

The fight scenes are mostly good - very slapstick, but it was a kids film - but there are some good parts, like the nunchuck show-down (completely cut from the UK release, because England is weird), the Turtles retaking their hideout, and of course when Shredder just takes the turtles apart one by one at the end of the film. There are also some really unusual lines that I never understood as a kid:

Donatello: You're a claustrophobic.
Casey Jones: You want a fist in the mouth? I've never even looked at another guy!

Never caught that line as a kid.

Also, Casey very casually murders Shredder at the end of the film, and no one says anything. It's so weird!

I'm not going to bother with the sequel, as I saw that again a number of years back and unlike this one it 100% does not hold up. At all. It's a very bad film. But this one was great fun. Very glad I rewatched it.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Maximum Overdrive

An 80's movie from a Stephen King book about machine's rising up to "kill all humans"!

Not good at all.

I am also really unclear why some machines attack, some don't, and what qualifies as a machine? Sometimes it seems like devices with electronics, sometimes mechanical parts, and sometimes things connected to electricity but sometimes not.

Also, the ending scrawl..... makes it seem like UFOs/aliens were involved. The rest of the movies focuses on issues from a comet's tail. Just a strange and tacked on epilogue scrawl.

I am probably thinking about it more than the film makers did.

It's righfully panned as one of the worst films of all time, actually

It can't possibly be one of the worst. I mean have you seen the amount of dreck that's on Amazon? As bad as it is, there's sadly a lot worse out there than Maximum Overdrive.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1990) - 9.95/10

When I was very little, I, like many boys of that era, was obsessed with the Ninja Turtles. I would get home from school in 1989/1990 just in time to see that day's new episode, and I ate it up. I had a ton of the toys, including the Turtle Wagon, Sewer Hideout and the Technodrome!

I remember the first time I saw anything related to the live action Turtles on a news report. It showed maybe 8 seconds of footage - a Foot Clan ninja swinging at Mikey with an axe, and Mikey ducking his head into his shell before screaming "I love being a turtle!!!". I ran around the house screaming that for the next 20 minutes until my Mum and grandmother had had enough. Can you blame me though? I was, like, 7!

Anyway, with the new Turtle movie just about to come out, Paramount Plus has decided to add the 1990 live action Turtles movie to their service. I noticed it as I was about to quit the program, but decided it had been years since I'd seen it so what the hell? And you know what? It still holds up. Really well. It's very well made, the costumes/puppeteering is excellent almost across the board (Leonardo's mouth doesn't always work that well), and they absolutely nailed the eyes on the Turtles. I'm amazed how many lines I still remember!

The fight scenes are mostly good - very slapstick, but it was a kids film - but there are some good parts, like the nunchuck show-down (completely cut from the UK release, because England is weird), the Turtles retaking their hideout, and of course when Shredder just takes the turtles apart one by one at the end of the film. There are also some really unusual lines that I never understood as a kid:

Donatello: You're a claustrophobic.
Casey Jones: You want a fist in the mouth? I've never even looked at another guy!

Never caught that line as a kid.

Also, Casey very casually murders Shredder at the end of the film, and no one says anything. It's so weird!

I'm not going to bother with the sequel, as I saw that again a number of years back and unlike this one it 100% does not hold up. At all. It's a very bad film. But this one was great fun. Very glad I rewatched it.

That? That Good Sir? Is one of those movies With No Godly Right To Actually Be Objectively Good.

As I said on the same film to a friend just last evening? I’m of the Turtles Vintage. I was the original target audience. At that stage in my media literacy? You could’ve found Dog Dirt and shoved a Turtle’s sticker upon said foulness, and chances are I’d have watched it for a couple of hours.

The film makers had a genuinely captive and idiot audience. Minimum effort would only maximise the profits. Because as a kid of the 80’s, I could pester with the best of them.

Yet…..yet….we got an actually pretty solid Kung Fu film into the bargain. Complete with moody lighting.

Seriously folks, they could’ve smoke signalled, let alone called, this one in, and us happy 80’s idiots would’ve turned up to see it. But they went so much further. It’s almost baffling just how hard they went.

I loved the first Turtles movie and agree it still holds up, but I’m going to be a contrarian here: Turtles 2 is not so bad. Definitely not as good as the first, but still fun. And Ninja Rap is an earworm.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Also, Casey very casually murders Shredder at the end of the film, and no one says anything. It's so weird!

Didn’t Shredders bald headed second in command kill a kid (a Foot Ninja) as well? Like beat his ass during a tantrum and the one Foot ninja who went to his aid looked up at baldy and just shook his head, like “He’s dead Jim”.

I remember that being a dark part too.

This movie was my first “date”. I was 9 and my sisters best friend (massive cannons on her) took me to see it, drove me and we watched it. We still joke about it all these years later.

I watched the first Turtles film several years after it was in cinemas. Must have been 1993-ish? Did not like TMNT, but this film I liked and I'll watch it to this day. It's got a good mix of fun and grittiness and the suits (BIG part of the film holding up, I think) were pretty darned good (they used the technology for the excellent TV show Dinosaurs soon thereafter). Turtles 2 was alright, yeah. Vanilla Ice rapping on stage while Kevin Nash fought the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Can't think of anything more 90s than that scenario.

I’m just glad they stopped there. Further films might’ve turned out poorly.

,Looks shifty eyed around, not sure how to break it to MDG.

Grabs coat and leaves instead.

The Shadow

If you like period-piece superhero movies, then don’t miss this one. The score, production design and action are in a similar vein to Tim Burton’s Batman, yet notably less ambitious. The movie is full of great actors you recognize, including James Hong and Al Leong in the first two minutes! Memorable elements from the film include the Phurba knife, Tim Curry going nuts, and the villain’s comeuppance. Warning: Alec Baldwin shoots a lot of firearms in this film.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3

A welcome return to top form for the MCU, with a film full of fun and genuine feels.

I’m genuinely torn on this being the last entry. I’m going to miss the excellent cast chemistry, but there can of course be too much of a good thing, so letting it end on a high is probably the right call.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Starship Troopers

Would you like to know more?

Mr Verhoven entertains us once again with a wonderfully compelling, super violent but incredibly satirical film.

Now I’ve never read the books, and if I’m honest I have no particular desire or intention to do so.

But this movie has it all. Part high school drama, part sci-fi war daftness. As well as its subject matter, it sends up the wider cinema of its era, without simply becoming a joke itself.

Shame about the sequels though. I mean they’re enjoyable enough, but just pale reflections of this slice of greatness.

Also? Dizzy……phwoaaaaaarrrrrr

Insidious: The Red Door

One could almost call this a legacy sequel, as we return to the original characters some 9 years after we last saw them, with the same amount of time passing in-universe. Subsequent films have explored other parts of the mythos and followed other characters, but we haven't seen Patrick Wilson's Josh or Rose Byrne's Renai since Insidious: Chapter 2 in 2013.

Unsurprisingly, things have changed in the meantime, the Lambert's marriage hasn't survived the stresses of the first 2 films. Josh's mum has recently passed (off camera, with little or no explanation and to serve no purpose to the story) and it's at her funeral we're reintroduced to the characters.

What follows is one of the worst drops in quality from a sequel to a successful franchise I've seen in some time. I'm not just limiting that to horror either.

Red Door commits the twin sins of being both boring and unnecessary. Boring because we spend the first hour watching Josh and eldest son Dalton rediscovering all the stuff we as the audience already know. Thanks to some degrading hypnotic suggestion, the two men, who are unaware of what they went through in the first two movies, start to rediscover their connection to the afterlife.

So while the characters are embarking on what would no doubt be a terrifying and fascinating voyage of self discovery, I was just sat there waiting for them to catch up to what I already knew.

Sure, there's a few creepy moments (shout out to my guy Vomit Ghost) but my reckoning it's around 70 minutes into a 100 minute movie before anything of real narrative import happens, at least within the context of the franchise as a whole.

We're then subject to a rushed and very familiar climax, before returning to an end point where the events of the film need never have happened.

I can't see how anyone but hardcore fans will get anything from this movie, and even then the pickings are slim.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Starship Troopers

Would you like to know more?

Mr Verhoven entertains us once again with a wonderfully compelling, super violent but incredibly satirical film.

Now I’ve never read the books, and if I’m honest I have no particular desire or intention to do so.

But this movie has it all. Part high school drama, part sci-fi war daftness. As well as its subject matter, it sends up the wider cinema of its era, without simply becoming a joke itself.

Shame about the sequels though. I mean they’re enjoyable enough, but just pale reflections of this slice of greatness.

Also? Dizzy……phwoaaaaaarrrrrr

Too bad this 'sequel' didn't last

I just have one question I need answered about Insidious: The Red Door:

Do they paint it black?

Speaking of crap sequels…..

Independence Day, Resurgence

I genuinely forgot this film existed.

Now the first isn’t all that great, but had some pretty Sfx, even stretching to some practical effects which always attracts points.

But this is just dire. And nonsensical. The cast are largely game, with nobody exactly phoning it in. But it just doesn’t work as a whole.

As a Dropfleet player, I loved the white sphere.

I also love the reverse-engineered-tech earth fighters. They remind me of the F-302.

It’s not entirely devoid of Cool Stuff, true. But it’s just a mess overall.

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:
I just have one question I need answered about Insidious: The Red Door:

Do they paint it black?

Sadly they're too busy rehashing old elements of plot.

The door does actually get painted, but in the brushes and canvas, Bob Ross sort of a way, not in the home renovation sense.

As i understand it, there are no colours any more.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Just watched Maverick. The aerial scenes were truly gorgeous, nothing really makes much sense, good spectacle though.

Prey

So much has been said about this, and it’s all true,

This is the Predator sequel we deserved. And yes I’m watching it again because it’s just that good.

It presents the winning formula in a new way, without diluting or adulterating said formula. Indeed it takes certain lore conventions and plays us like a fiddle, without doing any BS rug pulls.

We have a very likeable and charismatic cast. We have a Predator acting honourably. Our protagonists are smart, observant and properly learn.

It’s pretty much perfect. Take the original premise, and gives us the audience a new, interesting and valid experience.

My only complaint with Prey is the fight choreography. Too many spins and slips and overdone stuff where a simpler and more straightforward fight would have looked cooler imo.

But I recognize that is a very paltry complaint when the film that shall not be named was the last entry in the franchise.

Of course that film would have to exist for me to hate it so much.

And as we all know, no Predator film was released between Predators and Prey. We just went ten years without a Predator movie, so Prey is pretty great for how great it is.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I genuinely forgot this film existed.

I think a sign of a terrible film is if you sit down to watch it and 20-ish minutes in you suddenly go "Hang on... I've seen this already!".

That happened to me with Taken 3. It was so bad and my mind did such a good job of scrubbing it from my memory that I actually sat down to watch it thinking that I'd never seen it.