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Cobra for me stands as evidence that there was indeed a skill and an art to making Good 80’s Action Flicks.

Because whilst big and dumb, it’s also not terribly good as noted above. Yet…it’s a Stallone film, which are usually above par, occasionally verging into Brilliance (Rocky is a superb bit of cinema). So you’re expecting a certain level of competence is just didn’t really deliver.

Still fun to watch like. But there are better examples.

It's weird, because visually it's pretty darned iconic (the shades, the gun, the car and all of that). The trailer must have had people enthusiastic, but the film probably couldn't fulfil expectations one might have.


Btw, I watched a bit of Table 19 as well a few days ago. Still like that film. I can see that it's uneven in tone, there's some really stupid stuff in there and Merchant's character/story is rather disturbing, but still. I like the story between the comedian who's in everything since Hot Tub Time Machine and Kudrow and I just like Anna Kendrick. And I like Table 19 for taking a zig where you might expect a zag.

 Sigur wrote:

This film is a bit weird to me (all the weirdness aside), in that I've never seen it in full. I've watched the first 20 minutes several times, but never all the way through. It's intriguing in its atmosphere and of course it's very juvenile in its concepts and presentation (as far as I can tell), but at some point I'd like to watch it all the way through.

Okay, id say its worth you watching the whole film. It does have a decent plot after all.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Cobra for me stands as evidence that there was indeed a skill and an art to making Good 80’s Action Flicks.

Because whilst big and dumb, it’s also not terribly good as noted above. Yet…it’s a Stallone film, which are usually above par, occasionally verging into Brilliance (Rocky is a superb bit of cinema). So you’re expecting a certain level of competence is just didn’t really deliver.

Still fun to watch like. But there are better examples.

I’ve had a look at the wikipedia entry now and its interesting that the ’critics’ (that would be me then) panned it before it was in the cinema, but when it came to ticket sales it did really well.
Its stunning to me that "Cobra" came out 4 years after "First Blood" because there is a qualitative gap between the two: im still trying to wrap my mind around the fact that people just seemed to like it despite its technical failings.

Sorry i badmouthed a film you're fond of but id rather be honest than tell people what I think they want to hear.
Maybe Sigur has put his finger on the pulse with this one?

Sigur wrote:It's weird, because visually it's pretty darned iconic (the shades, the gun, the car and all of that).

Iconic visual depiction and pure 'attitude' may be what carried that film - the advertising poster only shows Mr Stallone in the shades with a machine pistol (and the worlds largest weapon-mounted laser) with the tagline "Crime is a Disease. Meet the Cure."

Yeah, 'attitude' is a very good word for it I think. While I'm not very familiar with the film, the poster is imprinted on my brain.


I also had a look at the wikipedia page now and I'm not surprised it was released in '86, which I once heard described as 'the most 80s year'. Also - that's a fact I even forgot about earlier - it's a cannon film. So I think we got the culmination of Stallone being pretty much at his peak stardom now (and everything that comes with that: up to his ears in ego, money, toys and drugs), the director just having come off shooting Rambo II the prior year, and Menahem Golan having hired Stallone for surely a VAST sum, wanting to get the best return on his investment.

"Rocky" is the script Rocky 1 Rocky would have written, "Cobra" is the script first-half-of-Rocky-3 Rocky would have written. (surely not an entirely fair or accurate take,but just to write a sentence which contains the word "Rocky" five times).

The same friend who recommended "Cobra" also recommended...

Serpico
This one seems to be a dramatization/biopic of an american police officer named Frank Serpico who gets a job being a police officer and is confronted by endemic corruption in the force he has joined.

It uses fairly basic camera techniques that work for the setting and the subject matter.
The characters presented felt real - the acting is good all round apart from the protagonists parents.
I'm struggling to categorize this one because its not an action movie or a thriller but to just call it a straight biopic or a drama doesn't feel right either.
Its not 'slow paced' as such, but it definitely suffers a bit from Italian-Americana fascination which creates some moments in the start of the film which slows it down just to ram home how still-italian the protagonist and his extended family is.
The script is great, very natural and delivered well; similarly with the 'action' - nothing i could describe as 'stunts' even though it has some depiction of firearms which i can't describe as 'gunplay' either.
The human sides to the story don't feel shoehorned in or enhanced like Hollywood is wont to do.
There is a palpable sense of tension escalation as the film progresses and it doesn't give a 'happy ending', which is probably going to seem like a non-ending to a modern audience but i like that.

Its an excellent performance by Al Pachino and not one for an audience with young children.
Although i think its pretty good i don't think i can readily recommend watching it to everyone.

No happy ending because the real story had no happy ending either, IIRC.

 Easy E wrote:
No happy ending because the real story had no happy ending either, IIRC.

That's a shame, the guy deserved a better outcome than "melancholy but lucky he survived"

Friday the 13th part IV. I think it has a subtitle like the Final Friday, but I can’t recall.


This is the one with Crispin Glover. It also has the meme clip where Jason yanks a woman through a second floor window. And the Doublemint Gun Twins. And Corey Feldman. I think that makes it required viewing.

 SirDonlad wrote:

Serpico

I know I've watched this one, but I don't think it made that big of an impression on me. Pretty sure I enjoyed it but couldn't say that I'd strongly recommend it. Dog Day Afternoon on the other hand I'd recommend to anyone. Pacino has an amazing back catalogue.

ARGYLLE

Utter bollocks. But thoroughly entertaining, funny bollocks. If you know Matthew Vaughn's MO then you know what you signed up for, although it's American protagonists rather than British (like Kingsman). Saw it at the flicks and glad I did.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

Couldn't finish it, about an hour short. Simply not interesting enough. There's a big sequence driving a Fiat in Italy and I found myself rather unfavourably comparing it to The Phantom Menace pod racer scene - a CGI heavy, high speed action sequence with a few light hearted moments that contributes nothing to the film and feels like a great big twenty minute pause on the plot for no reason.

Too much exposition. Too much pointless action. Too much navel gazing. And too much yelling "Grace!"

I watched Pulp Fiction. Haven't seen it in a few years actually, and it was rather fun, as always. Even through by now I'm a bit less hardened vs. the violence, but I appreciate otehr things by now. Either way, you know the film, everybody does.It's good.

I'm watching Farscape now. Always liked the show when it first aired, but I never really watched it properly, which now I try to rectify.

Rollerball
No, not the James Cahn one, the 2000's one with LL Cool J, Rebecca Romanj-Stamos, and Jean Reno.

You get exactly what you expect from a film like this. Its not good, but it is not terri-bad. It is competently done even if it is plagued by the eras editing tastes.

The Marvels
An entertaining movie, but NOT a good one. The script is super weak, there is no connective tissue, and the movie can not really stand-alone. These are all criticisms that could be applied to all recent Marvel films, and part of why they are struggling.

However, it was nice to see some fun character moments, clever fight scenes with the switching, good power stunts, actual (shallow, but there) character arcs, and Captain Marvel having to actually solve issues by thinking about them with empathy rather than just hitting them.

Fun script that needed to be baked a lot more before going to filming. I would say it is better than Love and Thunder, and Multiverse of Madness, but worse than No Way Home (Is that the most recent Spider-man?), Eternals, and Shang-Chi. Controversial, I know.

 Easy E wrote:
Rollerball
No, not the James Cahn one, the 2000's one with LL Cool J, Rebecca Romanj-Stamos, and Jean Reno.

You get exactly what you expect from a film like this. Its not good, but it is not terri-bad. It is competently done even if it is plagued by the eras editing tastes.

...

...and Paul Heyman! Anyway, I never saw this one. I remember it getting horrible reviews and having endured extensive reshoots and/or re-edits after the initial release (or was the release pushed back or something?). The original is cool though.

I think the Marvels would have worked better if they fully leaned into the comedy. The comedic elements were the strongest parts of the movie.



A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge

The one with the subtext.

It’s different from the rest of the films, and in my opinion the creepiest and most disturbing for that. The teenagers are more confused and less horny than in the other films. The themes of isolation, confusion, and living a secret double life one doesn’t want probably only resonate with a certain subset of the audience. The parents feel cartoonishly distant and disapproving, straight from a late 80’s music video, but none of them shout “andale” so they’re a bit of a wash. The effects are good. Freddy has less personality and almost no quips in this film. Overall, I’d recommend it more as a subculture time capsule than as a horror movie.


Also, it’s nice to see Warren Keffer’s actor seem important only to die screaming, again.

Mission Impossible:- Dead Reckoning:- Part One

A fun movie, even though I'm not a fan of this recent-ish trend of two-part films.
Overall, not as good as the fourth and fifth films (I feel that was where the franchise peaked), but better than the sixth which dragged quite a bit IMO.

Hopefully they don't take too long making Part Two. Tom Cruise is starting to show his age a bit, and I don't think he'll be pulling off crazy stunts for that much longer.

Weekend at Bernie’s

A classic high-concept comedy that somewhat holds up.

This is one of those films that has had an outsized impact on pop culture, in that most people who are immersed in film or comedy will have heard of the film and know its premise, maybe even recognize the poster, without ever having seen it.* A lot of the classic scenes I thought I’d remembered aren’t actually in this film. They might be in the second film or they might be a Mandela Effect memory. The actual premise doesn’t even kick in until halfway through the movie, and even then builds up gradually.

It’s worth watching for some guffaws if you like old odd-couple-and-a-corpse comedies.

*For example, someone described the DS9 episode “The Mighty Ferengi” as the one where they Weekend At Bernie’s-ed a Vorta.



National Lampoon’s Vacation

The original road trip comedy.

I was surprised at how unlikeable Chevy Chase was in this movie. His character, too. They really brought down the mood.

Other than that, it was great seeing a lot of familiar character actors having fun. Beverly D’Angelo played well opposite Chase, and the kids weren’t annoying like they were in the second film. I’d recommend skipping this and just watching Christmas Vacation instead, unless you want to get that one song stuck in your head.

“Holiday Roooooooooooaaad”



Child’s Play

The original.

My son really wanted to see this film because he likes cheesy horror movies and because he knows how much living dolls freak out his mother. I had to pause the movie early on to give some context on the toy fads of the time, like My Buddy and Teddy Ruxpin, for why the dolls cost $100 and the mom was willing to buy one from a peddler in a back alley for a mere $30. Also, how kids used to play with toys. It was a different time.

This suffers from being the first in a horror franchise. That is, it has a solid premise and an iconic character, but it feels slow and tedious going through all the now-overdone tropes about no one believing the kid, etc.. The final act has great pacing and some fantastic effects. Brad Dourif is always a treat. Chris Sarandon is distracting as that guy from that thing, you know, what’s his face, it’s on the top of my tongue, for the whole movie. The mom shines in this. It’s a shame she left to become a marine biologist and marry the V’Ger Creeper instead of rocking the horror scene as Chucky’s Laurie Strode.

DUNC (2020)

So this is the third Dune film I have seen, plus read the original 6 books and...

Beautifully boring. Nice visuals offering nothing new whatsoever.

And the soundtrack, wailing, and more more wailing. With extra wailing.

I did miss the score from the first Dune movie.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The First Purge

And indeed it is, because I’m gonna watch the series this weekend.

Overall not a bad film. But not a great film. This is a prequel which explores the first social experiment that leads to it being rolled out nationwide.

It of course carries a political message, but it somehow shies away from really landing it. And that’s to the film’s detriment if you ask me.

Probably a 6/10. It’s watchable, but oddly hollow when it could’ve been more thought provoking.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
DUNC (2020)
.

I really liked DUNC as a kid. My favorite scene is when the cartel guys walk up to this petit guy sitting alone in the desert and they’re all like “Don’t you even have a gun??” And he’s like, “I don’t need a gun. I have a DUNC.” And the cartel guys are all “a what?” And then DUNC steps out from nowhere, quips “A DUNC!” and punches them both out with one meaty fist.

*wailing lament didgeridoo*


And that’s why they call him Jadda Jadayaha, which means “The Worm Who Moves Through The Desert Like A Man….But Isn’t A Man”.

Dunc is played by Jason Mamoa, right?

I thought Jason Mamoa had teeth?

The Purge

The one that started the series. And it’s a pretty straight forward home invasion horror, with added moral quandaries.

It’s original enough to be an interesting take, and pretty well made with a solid cast.

No complaints at all. Give it a watch.

I watched Indiana and the Dial of Destiny last night. First two hours were entertaining silliness. Last half hour painfully dumb. Last five minutes I got a bit teary eyed to be honest.

The Weather Man

Pretty sure I watched this close to when it came out in 2005 and wasn't impressed. Now I'm much older and going through the same sort of midlife questioning that Nic Cage's character is struggling with, I can appreciate why he portrays such a conflicting character. He's a decent person but not a good person, he's obnoxious but not horrible. He's a guy trying to do what's right, fatigued to always do what's wrong. The film doesn't have a tight conclusion and frequently story arcs are wrapped up in limited means or completely dropped, which works in parallel with our introduction to the story where many of the issues are not slowly introduced but rather dumped on us as long standing affairs. I like this as it limits our view of this sad man's life to no more than the short few months of the film.

I can't recommend that everyone go and watch this film but there's a familiarity with whom the Weather Man represents that spoke to me.

Predator

Still a classic. Watch it.


The Stuff

A horror-satire with a killer jingle.

The Stuff has a lot of low budget charm, with inventive effects, bizarre characters, “we don’t need to shoot everything” editing, and whole scenes ADRed to Six String Samurai levels. It also nails 80’s consumerism with the spot-on commercial spoofs and corporate villains. And if you’re over 40, you’ll love a dynamite cameo halfway through.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Souleater wrote:
I watched Indiana and the Dial of Destiny last night. First two hours were entertaining silliness. Last half hour painfully dumb. Last five minutes I got a bit teary eyed to be honest.

They took a big swing with that last half hour. They didn’t quite hit a homer, but I’ll take that last half hour over another drawn out car chase.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

The First Purge

And indeed it is, because I’m gonna watch the series this weekend.
Probably a 6/10. It’s watchable, but oddly hollow when it could’ve been more thought provoking.

I always remember one reviewers comment was that you remember the purge idea, but he challenges you to name any major characters in the film. I still don't think I can remember any of the characters names.

I don’t think that’s all that damning. For example, I can’t remember any character names from Captain Marvel and that film was just about okay.

Due to some randomness of my Youtube queue, I had an urge to watch a particular classic.

So, latest movie I watched was Snatch.

Naturally, we're talking bout the Guy Ritchie flick, the classic UK gangster movie from the early 2000s.

The_Real_Chris wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

The First Purge

And indeed it is, because I’m gonna watch the series this weekend.
Probably a 6/10. It’s watchable, but oddly hollow when it could’ve been more thought provoking.

I always remember one reviewers comment was that you remember the purge idea, but he challenges you to name any major characters in the film. I still don't think I can remember any of the characters names.

The Purge isn’t exactly a character study film though.