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Speaking of low key…

The Long Walk

Sounds dead boring. It isn’t. Mark Hamill is really good here, portraying a military type by channeling a little Macho Man Randy Savage.

Worth booking time out your day to sit down and pay attention to this one.

Massacre in Dinosaur Valley

What’s it about? I’ve no idea! Because the sound cut out. Not just my device either, as it’s gone on both tellys and my iPad. Does cut back in, but I can’t be bothered further.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
God Mecha Seven

Two brothers, separated when young. One is kinda evil and has the power of fire. The other is kinda goofy, and has the power of ice.

Both end up with custom Mecha suits and shenanigans occur in this low rent Chinese Iron Man knock-off. Which even shows Ice Bro watching Iron Man to find some moves.

It’s not terribly good, with lots of jump cuts and some shonky CGI. But, it’s just over an hour long and is still kinda goody fun. Just treat it as a feature length Power Rangers and you won’t go far wrong.

Actually, I’m gonna be more charitable to the CGI. It is dodgy, don’t get me wrong. But by accident or design, there’s an almost stop motion quality to it that I’m really digging,

Airplane! (1980) you'll never believe this but it holds up really well. Saw it in a nearly full theater made up of a mix of ages and there was consistent laughter from the start to the end.

Big Trouble in Little China

An absolute classic from John Carpenter and Kurt Russel. Love that synth score.


The Thing

An absolute classic from John Carpenter and Kurt Russell. Love that synth score.



Saw both films in a sold out theater. The audience reactions were energizing. It almost felt like seeing the movies for the first time again.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Mickey 17

Robert (Twilight, Batman) Patterson is a loser hired to be an "expendable" on a space mission. Every time he dies he's uploaded and reprinted/cloned. Sure enough after 17 clonings they accidentally make 2 of him at the same time. And then they run out of ideas.

Mark Ruffalo does his best Trump impression as the expedition commander. There's some made up nonsense that if someone ever has 2 clones at once they both have to die and be erased forever! And then they meet a race of water bugs and there's some stuff there.

Cast is good, Patterson especially, but it's too long with too little to say.

3/5

I found Mickey 17 pretty disappointing. The trailer looked good and I had hoped they'd spend significant time exploring the expendable thing.

Instead it's skipped over in a montage and we get to spend the next two hours or whatever on boring fascism bad, m'kay stuff.

Such wasted potential.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Massacre in Dinosaur Valley

What’s it about? I’ve no idea! Because the sound cut out. Not just my device either, as it’s gone on both tellys and my iPad. Does cut back in, but I can’t be bothered further.

It's been ages since I saw it, but I remember liking it. I suspect it was an attempt to ride the coattails of earlier cannibal movies but didn't offer any shock value to speak of. Which makes it an adventure movie, really. And a fun one at that, if I remember correctly.

Sucks that you got sound issues. It's worth seeing in my opinion.

 Geifer wrote:


Instead it's skipped over in a montage and we get to spend the next two hours or whatever on boring fascism bad, m'kay stuff.

Well, world-wide apparently people need to be reminded because I guess a lot of people feel Fscism is just another boring political choice.

The Devil Wears Prada

My wife wanted to see the OG before we potentially went to the new one.

I had forgotten much of it myself, but recalled the "climactic speech" by Meryl Streep that finally forces Anne Hathaway to stop being passive and to actively make a decision about her life.

The movie does have some light feminist touches, but tries to hide it behind a weak relatioship story. I was actually disappointed by the film on re-watch as it felt really stale, out-dated, and out-of-touch. However, it did nail the methods of a Groomer very well. The film was afraid to really lean into its own messages. However, it is 20 (!) years old. Times were different back then.

Re-watching this did not make me hopeful for the new one.

 Easy E wrote:

 Geifer wrote:


Instead it's skipped over in a montage and we get to spend the next two hours or whatever on boring fascism bad, m'kay stuff.

Well, world-wide apparently people need to be reminded because I guess a lot of people feel Fscism is just another boring political choice.

Predictable remark is predictable, but misses the point. You can do that anytime anywhere. Like in a movie that does a thing for the thousandth time.

Using an interesting premise that hasn't been done to death only to brush it aside for some well explored political messaging is a waste of time.

So D+ thinks I didn’t finish watching Enchanted, but I defo did.

But watching it form around halfway again? Is it just me, or is Susan “Janet” Sarandon channelling some Frank N Furter in her Evil Queen?

 Geifer wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

 Geifer wrote:


Instead it's skipped over in a montage and we get to spend the next two hours or whatever on boring fascism bad, m'kay stuff.

Well, world-wide apparently people need to be reminded because I guess a lot of people feel Fscism is just another boring political choice.

Predictable remark is predictable, but misses the point. You can do that anytime anywhere. Like in a movie that does a thing for the thousandth time.

Using an interesting premise that hasn't been done to death only to brush it aside for some well explored political messaging is a waste of time.

You bring up an interesting point. Perhaps we have innoculated ourselves in media to horrible things so that now, not much phases us anymore.

Pedophiles.... a punchline.
Nazis.... cliche.
Billionaire super villains.... yawn.
Ecological degradation .... a mere plot point.
Extinction level threats .... just another super-hero movie.
Pandemics.... been there and done that.

What kind of threats still actually are interesting in media now-a-days?

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3\

A cracker, the usual mix of silly and heartfelt stuff.

The Marvels

Far better than its reputation. I still don’t understand why this bombed so hard. We get some superbly choreographed fisticuffs with the lasses swapping around, and the story is at least interesting, though it does feel rehashed from Captain Marvel and GOTG.

The Marvels is definitely super fun. It's also obviously disjointed from what the plan was supposed to be as it really feels like it wants to build directly off of WandaVision and Secret Invasion and Shang Chi and Quantumania a bunch of other little things that kind of went nowhere. Loki kind of ended up stealing its impact.

I do think its definitely a prime example of the weird subculture of hating Brie Larson, but its also not quite good enough to shift the momentum dragged down by things like Thor 4 and Quantumania. It's a super fun little film that had me actively laughing out loud, but its a disposable little adventure when the MCU was in dire need of something foundational. A good film with bad timing.

Well I didn't like The Marvels because I find Kamala Khan very annoying!

But, yeah, it's not a bad movie, I wonder if people felt it was just too connected to the Marvel tv shows and would've required watching too much other stuff first?

The Sheep Detectives Livestock act and talk like people and Hugh Jackman dies. 8/10

The Chair

A horror short by Curry Baker on YouTube.

It’s good and creepy and doesn’t overstay its premise.

Great Choice

A horror short starring Corrie Boon on YouTube.

The video starts with some unrelated jumpscare nonsense. After that, it’s very enjoyable.

Good Omens S3

Whilst billed as a tv show, it’s a single feature length episode so filing it as a movie, meself.

It’s typically good fun, and of course our cast is having a whale of a time. And a pretty nice way to round out the saga.

 Ahtman wrote:
The Sheep Detectives Livestock act and talk like people and Hugh Jackman dies. 8/10

I also saw it. There was some surprisingly heavy subject matter inside this whimsical little flick.

For myself, it made me very melancholic for my old homestead with my PIgs, Chickens, and herd of Goats. All my friends. Made me miss them a great deal.

Wish I had the space, time and skills for a small holding. Tangential I know, but I’ve often thought about crowd sharing livestock. As in you get X amount of people to chip in for the rearing of a Lovely Moo Cow, plus a profit margin for the farmer or small holder, then everyone gets a freezer full of tasty meats when it’s time.

Wax or the Discovery of Television Among the Bees

The first movie on the internet.


This would make a great party game, in a test-your-might, wtf we watching kind of way. How long can you watch Wax?

The video on YouTube starts with an unrelated(?) five minute uh, trailer(??) which is crazier and more daunting than the actual movie. Then Wax starts its hypnotic monologue and time goes out the window. Watching Wax feels like listening to your friend rant after he had stopped taking his medicine months ago and is deep into his psychotic break. It’s compelling and even entertaining in a messed up way.

Not recommended for casual watching.



Paprika

What Inception should have been.

A fantastic anime from the director of Perfect Blue, and another mind bender. A terrorist has stolen a machine that lets them get into people’s dreams and direct them, with dire consequences. Watch it.

There are few deaths of creatives that I mourn as much as Satoshi Kon. Everything we got from him is so wildly ahead of its time and insightful and every time I rewatch any of his works I wonder what it would be like if he had lived to see so much of his work become reality.

Red Sonja

The new one. It is a Fantasy mash-up of Spartacus and Boudicca.

Not bad, competently made, just nothing special either. Honestly, a competently made fantasy flick is an achievement! Sadly, somewhat forgettable and disposable.

However, it feels like it should have been a streaming series as it is a bit episodic.

 Easy E wrote:

However, it feels like it should have been a streaming series as it is a bit episodic.

I see this with a good many films these days. I'm never quite sure where the blame for it lies and its likely in a few spots; but we do seem to have a solid generation or two of film makers who just can't pace a story and film to fit a timeslot. The result can be very well produced scenes created to a high degree of skill - which lack any connective elements to the other scenes. I really felt this with the new Dune 1 film. There were some scenes that just felt like they were dropped in and then everything jumps to something else and the something else etc...

A simple few moments of someone walking down a corridor connecting A to B and so forth was all that it likely needed to just make them feel like scenes that were woven together telling a story as opposed to isolated events

In their defence?

Streaming is a new medium. You’ve longer than a movie, but less time than syndication, to play with. And as we saw in some early D+ MCU and I think Star Wars serials? Your episodes needn’t all be of uniform length.

So it’s a new discipline for the screenwriter. Got an idea for a show that’s too long for a movie but too short to be a syndicated show? Streaming might be the literal in both ways happy medium.

But…equally….if you can tell your tale in let’s say 2 hours? You should resist the stream that offers you 4 hours, just as a story and setting best described over 22 episodes should resist being compacted into 10 1 hour episodes.

Now, that doesn’t mean all made for streaming shows get an automatic pass. Oh no, dear reader. We can, shall and will remain critical.

See, just as your episode length can vary for narrative properties? Why shouldn’t your show? If it’s gonna take 14 hours to create and explore your brave new world? Demand those 14 hours.

Studios also need to learn this new discipline. By all means set your budget constraint, yes. But if the show is good? Your viewership will watch each and every one, whether there’s 1-100 of the buggers.

Hot Fuzz

An instant classic. And I love just how petty the motivations are. So incredibly Middle England, it’s as if the Daily Fail has decided to take action beyond just lying to its readership.

Speaking of streaming and any length you need, Marvel dropped a special presentation Punisher. It was called One Last Kill. Terrible title by the way, as there is a lot more than one kill in this thing.

This one reminded me a lot of The Raid or Dredd but this time the protagonist had some serious mental illness to deal with in addition to all the bad guy killin'.

Also reinforces the idea that revenge never satisfies. Perhaps a tired idea now-a-days.

<Anyway, that reminds me of an interesting ecoomic theory that currency was created to try to end the "cycle of vengeance" based violence in high-honor cultures.>

I am not sure where exactly this story should fit on the timeline, and I do not recall how Frank ended DD: Born Again season 1. If someone could remind me in spoilers, I would appreciate it.

After this, we also watched Dirty Laundry which is a Punisher short from 2012 with Thomas Jane. One Last Kill made me think of it.

John Bernenthal does a great Punisher, and it really is hard to imagine this character is going to be in the next Spider-man film. He does not seem to be the type that will fit into a PG-13 adventure-comedy story.

Peach Trees. This is Frank Castle *Punisher Roars”.

I loved it,

 Easy E wrote:
Speaking of streaming and any length you need, Marvel dropped a special presentation Punisher. It was called One Last Kill. Terrible title by the way, as there is a lot more than one kill in this thing.

This one reminded me a lot of The Raid or Dredd but this time the protagonist had some serious mental illness to deal with in addition to all the bad guy killin'.

Also reinforces the idea that revenge never satisfies. Perhaps a tired idea now-a-days.

<Anyway, that reminds me of an interesting ecoomic theory that currency was created to try to end the "cycle of vengeance" based violence in high-honor cultures.>

I am not sure where exactly this story should fit on the timeline, and I do not recall how Frank ended DD: Born Again season 1. If someone could remind me in spoilers, I would appreciate it.

After this, we also watched Dirty Laundry which is a Punisher short from 2012 with Thomas Jane. One Last Kill made me think of it.

John Bernenthal does a great Punisher, and it really is hard to imagine this character is going to be in the next Spider-man film. He does not seem to be the type that will fit into a PG-13 adventure-comedy story.

End of Born again S1, after being beaten, tortured, & caged by the task force/Fisk, Frank escapes & isn't seen again.

I have no idea if Last Kill is supposed to be set before Born Again S1, or after it. All we know is that Frank has met Karen Page by this point.

ccs wrote:
I have no idea if Last Kill is supposed to be set before Born Again S1, or after it. All we know is that Frank has met Karen Page by this point.

From the AV Club review:

For a 45-minute glimpse into what’s been going on with Frank since he escaped the clutches of Kingpin in Daredevil: Born Again, One Last Kill is conspicuously uninterested in connective tissue. It doesn’t explain what the Punisher has been up to in the final days of Mayor Fisk’s reign—like, say, punishing Fisk’s Anti-Vigilante Task Force, which appropriated his skull insignia during their brief campaign of terror. The special doesn’t even bother clarifying how Spider-Man is supposed to be on a first-name basis with him by Brand New Day.

I mean, does it really need to be explained why Spiderman would refer to him by his first name? It's not like Frank Castle hid his name at all. It was all over the news during season 2 of Daredevil. People of New York versus Frank Castle was the trial of the century.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
I mean, does it really need to be explained why Spiderman would refer to him by his first name? It's not like Frank Castle hid his name at all. It was all over the news during season 2 of Daredevil. People of New York versus Frank Castle was the trial of the century.

Look I just copied the quote I didn't make it. The whole review is about how happy the writer was that the episode doesn't waste time worrying about tying it into the MCU. I just shared it because it answers the question of "when does this take place".

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hot Fuzz

An instant classic. And I love just how petty the motivations are. So incredibly Middle England, it’s as if the Daily Fail has decided to take action beyond just lying to its readership.

I never quite got why people love Hot Fuzz so much. It used to be my least favourite out of the trilogy. Recently I watched it again, and then about a hundred times again (or many times at least), and I'm starting to get it. Surely a large portion of the thing is Englishness and all of that, but it's also just so well written. Really wanna rewatch The World's end now though...

 Sigur wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Hot Fuzz

An instant classic. And I love just how petty the motivations are. So incredibly Middle England, it’s as if the Daily Fail has decided to take action beyond just lying to its readership.

I never quite got why people love Hot Fuzz so much. It used to be my least favourite out of the trilogy. Recently I watched it again, and then about a hundred times again (or many times at least), and I'm starting to get it. Surely a large portion of the thing is Englishness and all of that, but it's also just so well written. Really wanna rewatch The World's end now though...

Shawn of the Dead was "Ok" for me - a few funny parts; but a few just a bit flat. It was good but not standout.

Hot Fuzz was just pure utter great fun start to finish and the absolute best - though I do accept that a part of that is its very British and if you don't really get that then it might feel weak to others.

Worlds End honestly felt like one joke stretched thin; since most of the start is basically one guy wanting to go on a pub crawl and the end just goes off the rails a bit. Honestly the film I wanted to watch was the one started at the very end after "the end of the world"