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Post by Nudeviking on Aug 30, 2020 21:55:13 GMT -5
covid week 24 movies
Police Story I'm convinced Jackie Chan has some deep love for Vaudeville and Harold Lloyd films. With regards to Chan, he's straight up claimed before that he wanted to be like Buster Keaton or Charlie Chaplin but every director just wanted him to ape Bruce Lee and kung fu the shit out of guys. A lot of his films will pay homage to silent era slapstick stuff. In Project A, for example, Chan's character ends up hanging off a clock tower just like what happens in Lloyd's Safety Last.
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Post by nowimnothing on Aug 31, 2020 7:45:38 GMT -5
The Abyss (1989)
I cannot count the number of times I watched this as a kid. The CGI and practical effects do not hold up well as Jurassic Park but it is not too distracting, just that the reveal of the underwater city is not quite as amazing as the score would indicate. As with most movies of the time, the sexism is a little jarring, but it is handled fairly well with two women in non-traditional roles. James Cameron's penchant for spectacle over story is evident here but again not overwhelming. I watched the extended version which increases the running time from 2 hours 20 minutes to 2 hours 50 minutes. I honestly don't remember much about the theatrical version even though that was probably the one I had on VHS back in the day. Despite the long run time, it does not feel bloated and cruises right along from one set piece to another.
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Post by Nudeviking on Aug 31, 2020 19:33:58 GMT -5
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1989) - When America’s avocado supply is threatened by a tribe of cannibal women living in California’s massive avocado jungles the US Military recruits noted feminist studies professor, Dr. Margo Hunt (played by the queen of USA Up All Night boob comedies, Shannon Tweed) to travel to the the jungle and broker a peace with these extreme feminist cannibals, the Piranha women, least the Soviets overtake America in avocado production.
Dr. Hunt is, at first, uninterested but after hearing that another academic feminist professor, Dr. Kurtz went missing while trying to find the Piranha women she agrees to go (though the fact that the US Military threatened to cut funding to her university might have played a part as well).
Accompanying Dr. Hunt is Bunny, a ditzy home economics major who is thinking of changing her major to women’s studies. The two head first to the edge of civilization (Bakersfield, CA) to pick up a mercenary to guide them into the Avocado Jungle of Death but none of the toxic masculinity stereotypes are willing to travel into the jungle with them but a doofus named Jim (played by long time doofus Bill Maher) is willing to go with them. What followed was more or less a parody of Heart of Darkness with some Cannibal Holocaust spoofs for flavor and I gotta say that for a USA Up All Night boob comedy from the late 80s centered on the notion of feminism, it was surprisingly not terrible. While it’s true that the most extreme feminists presented in the movie were literal man-eating cannibals, in general feminism was presented as what any sane person would take it to be (a belief that there should be real equality between the sexes) and is done so with a sort of earnestness that’s refreshing to see in movies of this ilk.
There were also a few moments that were genuinely funny which is something of a rarity in USA Up All Night boob comedies. The fact that battle between Hunt and Kurtz for the title of Empress of the Avocado Jungle ending up being a terrible sword fight with rapiers was pretty hilarious as was Shannon Tweed speaking like an academic to get out of sticky situations. That being said it’s still a sex comedy from 1989 so there’s some problematic stuff here: an attempted gang rape played for laughs and some homophobic slurs though even these are ultimately used to show how shitty toxic masculinity is.
Like I said I was surprised by how decent this was. It wasn’t a great piece of cinema or anything but it was a quick 90 minutes of farcical comedy that for the most part was not nearly as dated and problematic as I would have expected it to be. Moreover outside of a very brief scene in the opening of the movie it’s more titillation than actual tits though I think that’s probably the case with most USA Up All Night movies.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 1, 2020 13:31:52 GMT -5
War of the Worlds: Goliath (2012) - This movie was shit. For starters it had my two least favorite kinds of animation: late 90s/early 00s XTREEEEEEEEEME!!!! cartoon for boys character design and random overly rendered 3D robots in an otherwise 2D cartoon. The voice acting was also shit. The concept was decent (a sequel to H.G. Wells set at the onset of World War I) but a lot of the time the plot ended up feeling like this movie was a pilot to a TV series that never(?) got made. That being said, if you every wanted a movie where US President Theodore Roosevelt machine gunned a UFO out of the sky or piloted a mecha this is the flick for you! If it's the onset of WWI, shouldn't it be former US President Theodore Roosevelt who machine guns a UFO out of the sky and pilots a mecha?
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Post by The Sensational She-Hulk on Sept 1, 2020 16:40:05 GMT -5
The Conspirator I had never heard of this, and yet it's a stacked cast directed by Robert Redford. Union veteran James McAvoy reluctantly defends Robin Wright, the mother of a John Wilkes Booth co-conspirator, and all kinds of character actors show up: Danny Huston as the prosecutor, Evan Rachel Wood as the daughter, Colm Meaney as the hardass judge, reliable period bit players Stephen Root and Shea Whigam, and historical politicians Kevin Kline and Tom Wilkinson. And a bunch more, but I'm not IMDB. The acting is serviceable, the directing is not very inspired (the first half in particular looks made for TV), the history is not exactly enthralling - the epilogue of "next year the Supreme Court said trials have to have a jury even during war" is all you need to know. It is one of the increasingly rare screen portrayals of proper hanging where the fall snaps the neck instead of a slow strangulation. In a movie about confederate sympathizers in DC and the end of the civil war there is exactly one line by the only black dude anywhere and one mention of a prisoner refusing food "served by a Negro". The whole movie, released in 2010, is about fighting for constitutional principles and not one mention of slavery. It would seem like a cash-in on Lincoln except the latter didn't come out until two years later. Holy shit, I forgot this movie even existed, and I definitely watched it on HBO or something not long after it was released on demand because I find the conspiracy to assassinate Lincoln to be endlessly fascinating. (In that I can't believe they actually got that far without the entire thing falling apart, as do 99% of conspiracies.) That should tell you how good I thought it was, evidently. How the hell do you make this boring?!
Mary Surratt's boarding house is now a Wok n Roll in Chinatown and I chuckle to myself every time I walk by because I know exactly just how much she'd fucking hate that.
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 1, 2020 17:09:00 GMT -5
War of the Worlds: Goliath (2012) - This movie was shit. For starters it had my two least favorite kinds of animation: late 90s/early 00s XTREEEEEEEEEME!!!! cartoon for boys character design and random overly rendered 3D robots in an otherwise 2D cartoon. The voice acting was also shit. The concept was decent (a sequel to H.G. Wells set at the onset of World War I) but a lot of the time the plot ended up feeling like this movie was a pilot to a TV series that never(?) got made. That being said, if you every wanted a movie where US President Theodore Roosevelt machine gunned a UFO out of the sky or piloted a mecha this is the flick for you! If it's the onset of WWI, shouldn't it be former US President Theodore Roosevelt who machine guns a UFO out of the sky and pilots a mecha? Yes though I’m not entirely certain he ever served as president at all in the universe of this very bad movie.
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 1, 2020 20:06:04 GMT -5
Come Drink with Me (1966)
Somehow in all my years of watching kung fu flicks I've never actually seen what is widely touted as one of the best films in the genre, Come Drink With Me, and so I watched it.
After a group of bandits seemingly lead by some dracula looking motherfucker with a fan ambush a caravan and kidnap the governor's son in order to get their boss out of the slammer via a hostage exchange the governor dispatches a famed warrior known as Golden Swallow (played by Cheng Pei-Pei) to take care of business. Posing as a man, Golden Swallow does pretty well for herself against the bandits, catching coins they throw at her and later battling them into submission with a pair of daggers.
She's not completely alone though as a drunk beggar known as Drunken Cat comes to her aid on several occasions and later reveals the location of the bandits' secret hideout via song. When Swallow travels to their hideout (a nearby Buddhist temple) she gets into some shit with the bandits who somehow know that she's the same man they fought earlier and also that the governor's son is her brother.
Again she holds her own pretty well, but gets the assist from Drunken Cat who ends up nursing her back to health after she gets nailed with a poisoned dart from that dracula looking motherfucker's fan. He's apparently some sort of kung fu expert and helps her to recover at his hidden grotto cottage before the final showdown.
All in all this was a pretty terrific movie. The fight scenes were not as balls to the wall ALL ACTION as later Shaw Bros. kung fu movies but rather more like the fights in a Kurosawa samurai flick where you'd get some stillness from the combatants and then a sudden burst of action before someone fell down dead. Cheng Pei-Pei, who was a dancer by trade rather than a martial artist, brings a fluid elegance to the fight scenes that I feel inspired the fight choreography in a lot of later movies about bad-ass kung fu chicks; Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon for example.
Anyway if you want a movie about a crossdressing bad-ass warrior woman teaming up with a drunk to fight a dracula looking motherfucker and an invincible Buddhist monk check out Come Drink With Me.
Class Action Park (2020)
There is an insane amount of tonal whiplash in this movie which one second will have archival footage from MTV's Headbanger's Ball of Riki Rachtman and a Speedo clad Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley being drunk goofs at Action Park or a talking head interview of Chris Gethard humorously bellowing about the individual Action Park attractions he went on as a small child and then the next will be the mother of a teen who died at Action Park due to the fact that the place was an uninsured deathtrap. Honestly the swing back and forth between lighthearted fun and outright tragedy is a pretty decent representation of what Action Park was so the structure of the film worked for me.
Overall it was well made but some of the stuff about the local politics that allowed Action Park to flourish seemed kind of glossed over. Like the owner got in trouble for having a fake insurance policy but somehow the park continued to operate? There were also implications that there were ties to the mob that are kind of just left there and never really delved into because Chris Gethard has thoughts about The Kayak Experience to talk about. I get it though. The nostalgia over all the insane rides and attractions at Action Park probably makes for a more interesting film watching experience than stuff about financial crime and local New Jersey politics.
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oppy all along
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Post by oppy all along on Sept 4, 2020 5:37:36 GMT -5
The New Mutants (2020): Is The New Mutants a perfect movie? No, it is not. In fact I would say it is very, very far from being a perfect movie. But I liked it. It's a funny little young adult horror superhero mashup that hits its beats with all the subtlety of a wolf to the face. I'm tickled enough by the concept of a superhero Breakfast Club set in a mutant asylum that I can look past the film's numerous stumbling blocks.
Honestly I may be overrating it because I just can't believe I actually got to see New Mutants in theatres. But it's different from anything the superhero film industrial complex has put out before and it's a movie Disney is putting in movie theatres, unlike a certain other Disney movie where a lady wields a sword.
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Post by sarapen on Sept 4, 2020 21:12:21 GMT -5
The New Mutants (2020): Is The New Mutants a perfect movie? No, it is not. In fact I would say it is very, very far from being a perfect movie. But I liked it. It's a funny little young adult horror superhero mashup that hits its beats with all the subtlety of a wolf to the face. I'm tickled enough by the concept of a superhero Breakfast Club set in a mutant asylum that I can look past the film's numerous stumbling blocks. Honestly I may be overrating it because I just can't believe I actually got to see New Mutants in theatres. But it's different from anything the superhero film industrial complex has put out before and it's a movie Disney is putting in movie theatres, unlike a certain other Disney movie where a lady wields a sword. Good to hear the last Fox movie wasn't absolute dogshit. Logan would have been a more logical endpoint but that X-Men stone still had a few drops of blood in it.
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oppy all along
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Post by oppy all along on Sept 4, 2020 21:16:35 GMT -5
Mulan (2020): Watched as Mulan was meant to be watched - at home, on a budget television with glare from an open window, checking my phone at regular intervals, and being interrupted by other people and at one point a vacuum cleaner. Because fuck the theatrical experience am I right?
Also like the whole thing is about Mulan has superpowers now. This is a movie about how if you have literal superpowers and use them to defeat an opposing army singlehandedly people will eventually grudgingly accept you.
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Post by sarapen on Sept 4, 2020 21:40:43 GMT -5
Oh yeah, for my part I saw the Shane Black movie The Predator. It was a competently made movie that never rose above being mediocre. It can't even dream of being as good as #2, let alone the first movie.
I'm going to spoil the story because the movie isn't good enough for anyone to care about being spoiled, but stop reading if this matters to you anyway.
So, in the movies the Predators are alien trophy hunters bagging human kills, right? And in this film, they're stepping up their hunting trips because climate change will render Earth unlivable, so they're taking the chance to harvest valuable human spines before the last of their cherished prey dies out.
One Predator wants to help humanity so it escapes to our planet with lifesaving technology to give us. It's hunted by the other aliens as a traitor, hapless American soldiers get caught in the the middle, there's lots of pro-military propaganda, a big shootout, and all the other cliches are as you would expect. So, in the denouement our heroes open the thingy the alien traitor was going to give us and what do they find? A high-tech cyber suit built for killing Predators.
So that was it? That's what the Predator died to give humanity? It thought our species's greatest need in the face of mass extinction from anthropogenic climate change was a shortage of guns?
I mean, Jesus Christ but how many people does one of the Predators kill when they come by? A few dozen? Maybe a hundred? Is that even enough for insurance companies to adjust their rates to compensate? I had thought we were going to get like cold fusion or something like that, but nope, the Predator solution to climate change was a shitload of guns.
Anyway, that's it, that's my main takeaway from the movie.
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Floyd D Barber
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Post by Floyd D Barber on Sept 5, 2020 2:16:44 GMT -5
I’m Thinking Of Ending Things
Jesus Fucking Christ, somebody do a wellness check on Charlie Kaufman.
As an aging farm dweller with tinnitus and a past diagnosis of depression, this was probably not the movie I really needed to watch in self-imposed isolation in the middle of a pandemic with winter approaching. Fortunately, my situation isn't nearly as bleak as this movie, but it drew forth way too many "one wrong turn, one door closed instead of cracked open six inches, one missed phone call, or one instance of keeping my mouth shut, and I might have been right there" thoughts.* It is an intricate, deep, thoughtful movie, but not one I would expect a contented mind to create. It fits into a tiny genre of "it's great, but what the fuck did I just watch?" movies. I cautiously recommend it, but not if you are off your meds. * But then who hasn't had that nightmare about being naked and chasing an animated talking pig through their old high school?
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 5, 2020 7:12:36 GMT -5
Oh yeah, for my part I saw the Shane Black movie The Predator. It was a competently made movie that never rose above being mediocre. It can't even dream of being as good as #2, let alone the first movie. I'm going to spoil the story because the movie isn't good enough for anyone to care about being spoiled, but stop reading if this matters to you anyway. So, in the movies the Predators are alien trophy hunters bagging human kills, right? And in this film, they're stepping up their hunting trips because climate change will render Earth unlivable, so they're taking the chance to harvest valuable human spines before the last of their cherished prey dies out. One Predator wants to help humanity so it escapes to our planet with lifesaving technology to give us. It's hunted by the other aliens as a traitor, hapless American soldiers get caught in the the middle, there's lots of pro-military propaganda, a big shootout, and all the other cliches are as you would expect. So, in the denouement our heroes open the thingy the alien traitor was going to give us and what do they find? A high-tech cyber suit built for killing Predators. So that was it? That's what the Predator died to give humanity? It thought our species's greatest need in the face of mass extinction from anthropogenic climate change was a shortage of guns? I mean, Jesus Christ but how many people does one of the Predators kill when they come by? A few dozen? Maybe a hundred? Is that even enough for insurance companies to adjust their rates to compensate? I had thought we were going to get like cold fusion or something like that, but nope, the Predator solution to climate change was a shitload of guns. Anyway, that's it, that's my main takeaway from the movie. Why don’t the predators just rescue a few tens of thousands of humans and bring them to another planet that isn’t about to be rendered unlivable so that they can hunt for human spines there?
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 5, 2020 7:19:19 GMT -5
Oh yeah, for my part I saw the Shane Black movie The Predator. It was a competently made movie that never rose above being mediocre. It can't even dream of being as good as #2, let alone the first movie. I'm going to spoil the story because the movie isn't good enough for anyone to care about being spoiled, but stop reading if this matters to you anyway. So, in the movies the Predators are alien trophy hunters bagging human kills, right? And in this film, they're stepping up their hunting trips because climate change will render Earth unlivable, so they're taking the chance to harvest valuable human spines before the last of their cherished prey dies out. One Predator wants to help humanity so it escapes to our planet with lifesaving technology to give us. It's hunted by the other aliens as a traitor, hapless American soldiers get caught in the the middle, there's lots of pro-military propaganda, a big shootout, and all the other cliches are as you would expect. So, in the denouement our heroes open the thingy the alien traitor was going to give us and what do they find? A high-tech cyber suit built for killing Predators. So that was it? That's what the Predator died to give humanity? It thought our species's greatest need in the face of mass extinction from anthropogenic climate change was a shortage of guns? I mean, Jesus Christ but how many people does one of the Predators kill when they come by? A few dozen? Maybe a hundred? Is that even enough for insurance companies to adjust their rates to compensate? I had thought we were going to get like cold fusion or something like that, but nope, the Predator solution to climate change was a shitload of guns. Anyway, that's it, that's my main takeaway from the movie. Why don’t the predators just rescue a few tens of thousands of humans and bring them to another planet that isn’t about to be rendered unlivable so that they can hunt for human spines there? I think that's the plot of the Predator movie that comes after this one.
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Sept 5, 2020 8:19:03 GMT -5
I'm Thinking of Ending Things
Holy shit.
I always have a mini panic attack after watching Kaufman films. A feeling of "what just happened to me?". Despite he and I likely having absolutely nothing in common, and despite most of his characters being unable to see other people (especially women) as full people, there's still something about his movies that I apparently understand and feel on a gut level. This was no exception. The tone also reminded me of Hereditary and not just because of Toni Collette.
I was also delighted by the Jason Ralph cameo, though he looks AWFUL with that mustache. Why would you cover any of that lovely face?
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 5, 2020 8:33:52 GMT -5
Oh yeah, for my part I saw the Shane Black movie The Predator. It was a competently made movie that never rose above being mediocre. It can't even dream of being as good as #2, let alone the first movie. I'm going to spoil the story because the movie isn't good enough for anyone to care about being spoiled, but stop reading if this matters to you anyway. So, in the movies the Predators are alien trophy hunters bagging human kills, right? And in this film, they're stepping up their hunting trips because climate change will render Earth unlivable, so they're taking the chance to harvest valuable human spines before the last of their cherished prey dies out. One Predator wants to help humanity so it escapes to our planet with lifesaving technology to give us. It's hunted by the other aliens as a traitor, hapless American soldiers get caught in the the middle, there's lots of pro-military propaganda, a big shootout, and all the other cliches are as you would expect. So, in the denouement our heroes open the thingy the alien traitor was going to give us and what do they find? A high-tech cyber suit built for killing Predators. So that was it? That's what the Predator died to give humanity? It thought our species's greatest need in the face of mass extinction from anthropogenic climate change was a shortage of guns? I mean, Jesus Christ but how many people does one of the Predators kill when they come by? A few dozen? Maybe a hundred? Is that even enough for insurance companies to adjust their rates to compensate? I had thought we were going to get like cold fusion or something like that, but nope, the Predator solution to climate change was a shitload of guns. Anyway, that's it, that's my main takeaway from the movie. Maybe humanity is supposed to shoot global warming.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Sept 5, 2020 8:37:53 GMT -5
Why don’t the predators just rescue a few tens of thousands of humans and bring them to another planet that isn’t about to be rendered unlivable so that they can hunt for human spines there? I think that's the plot of the Predator movie that comes after this one. Jesus, the director has actually said he wants this to be the first film in a trilogy.
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 5, 2020 9:03:11 GMT -5
I think that's the plot of the Predator movie that comes after this one. Jesus, the director has actually said he wants this to be the first film in a trilogy. Also I had my Predator movies confused. The one before this one has Predators taking a mess of humans to an alien planet to hunt them for sport.
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Post by sarapen on Sept 5, 2020 16:08:55 GMT -5
Oh yeah, for my part I saw the Shane Black movie The Predator. It was a competently made movie that never rose above being mediocre. It can't even dream of being as good as #2, let alone the first movie. I'm going to spoil the story because the movie isn't good enough for anyone to care about being spoiled, but stop reading if this matters to you anyway. So, in the movies the Predators are alien trophy hunters bagging human kills, right? And in this film, they're stepping up their hunting trips because climate change will render Earth unlivable, so they're taking the chance to harvest valuable human spines before the last of their cherished prey dies out. One Predator wants to help humanity so it escapes to our planet with lifesaving technology to give us. It's hunted by the other aliens as a traitor, hapless American soldiers get caught in the the middle, there's lots of pro-military propaganda, a big shootout, and all the other cliches are as you would expect. So, in the denouement our heroes open the thingy the alien traitor was going to give us and what do they find? A high-tech cyber suit built for killing Predators. So that was it? That's what the Predator died to give humanity? It thought our species's greatest need in the face of mass extinction from anthropogenic climate change was a shortage of guns? I mean, Jesus Christ but how many people does one of the Predators kill when they come by? A few dozen? Maybe a hundred? Is that even enough for insurance companies to adjust their rates to compensate? I had thought we were going to get like cold fusion or something like that, but nope, the Predator solution to climate change was a shitload of guns. Anyway, that's it, that's my main takeaway from the movie. Why don’t the predators just rescue a few tens of thousands of humans and bring them to another planet that isn’t about to be rendered unlivable so that they can hunt for human spines there? I assume for the same reason big game hunters don't just drive to the nearest zoo. If it's not a spinal column from a free-range human in its natural environment then it's shit.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Sept 5, 2020 22:38:03 GMT -5
Mulan (2020): Watched as Mulan was meant to be watched - at home, on a budget television with glare from an open window, checking my phone at regular intervals, and being interrupted by other people and at one point a vacuum cleaner. Because fuck the theatrical experience am I right? Also like the whole thing is about Mulan has superpowers now. This is a movie about how if you have literal superpowers and use them to defeat an opposing army singlehandedly people will eventually grudgingly accept you.
Wait... really? Really?? So, the animated movie was *more* realistic?
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oppy all along
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Post by oppy all along on Sept 5, 2020 22:41:48 GMT -5
Mulan (2020): Watched as Mulan was meant to be watched - at home, on a budget television with glare from an open window, checking my phone at regular intervals, and being interrupted by other people and at one point a vacuum cleaner. Because fuck the theatrical experience am I right? Also like the whole thing is about Mulan has superpowers now. This is a movie about how if you have literal superpowers and use them to defeat an opposing army singlehandedly people will eventually grudgingly accept you. Wait... really? Really?? So, the animated movie was *more* realistic?
The movie goes big into chi, and how if one lives their lives a certain way and nurtures their chi they can set off avalanches and do super kung fu shit. So Mulan declares she's a woman and her honestly unlocks amazing chi powers that singlehandedly defeats the invading army.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 5, 2020 22:57:46 GMT -5
My understanding of I'm Thinking of Ending Things is that it's really about the elderly, depressed janitor having a lonely fantasy centered around driving to his parent's home with his idealized woman (presumably based on someone he's seen at the school he works at, like the awkward girl with marks on her elbows who warns our metaphysical pseudo-heroine that this has happened before and that she's personally been the "victim" of it). We can infer that this has happened several dozen times over based on the number of ice cream cups in the dumpster outside the school, that he frequently incorporates elements of fiction into his personal fantasy like with the cheesy romcom he watches and various works of poetry he's read, and that the ending where he walks naked into the school is when he finally Ends Things by killing himself.
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Post by repulsionist on Sept 6, 2020 16:57:13 GMT -5
Netflix items exhumed, resumed, fully-consumed. Other items partially consumed. Left rotting for other animals, or this animal to return to, after virtual meat has aged properly.
See No Evil, Hear No Evil (1989)
I finished some things this past Friday. This was one of them. Turns out the comic coda is the most poignant to these times. After Wilder and Pryor save the day and clear their names (Oh, stuff it. You know I'm spoiling nothing.) the police detective and his lieutenant arrive at the scene. The caring lieutenant understands all has resolved. The hapless detective does not. He moans weakly, asking repeatedly "Why can't I shoot them?"
The Spiral (1978)
Don't care if I spoil it, because this film spoils itself. Guy on existential bummer bums out people. Caring people with real connections to others seek to ennoble suffering asshole by continuing to care and be human. Suffering asshole determined to destroy themselves pushes away all efforts to re-enfranchise into the social contract. Eventually, antagonist asshole succeeds in ending their life. I suppose this hews a close cut to other, new-fashioned bummers on Netlflix like Thinking of Ending Things; however, this film was a part of Netflix offerings long before the arrival of Charlie Kaufman's newer anhedonia. I mean, can you imagine programmers at Netflix having meetings about depositing similarly themed drags on happiness? Or a developer tweaking a string to include 'suicide, damper on life, struggle, suffering' that would yield better 'results'? Fuck me! The endgame of consumerist capitalism is total enslavement to a repeating, machine-measurable experience regardless of its content. If any words about this filmed jerk appeal, it may contain the most displeasing hand job ever filmed for the cinematic experience. The final wipe that allows the prickly prick to disappear was not well executed.
And, here are a few things I started but didn't finish later in the weekend.
Story of a Sin (1975)
Hey, guys. Turns out if you watch one Polish film because you were numbed out by the constancy of new rubbish that looks like retreads of other recently successful stuff, you get more of the same. Who doesn't want more candy, eh? I started this. The 19th century interiors of central Warsaw homes were incredible as a document of 'things lost to us that represent an expertise no longer managed by humans'. Not that most here care, but this is a melodrama adapted from 19th century Polish writer whose works inspired a number of directors in the 60s - 70s Poland. Walerian Borowczyk, for those who haven't swum in the deep-end waters of cult film, Euro 70s film, and general intellectual quests that only result in adolescent confusion because things didn't turn out like you'd hoped, was primarily a producer of elegant, Eastern European smut - or, basic human sexuality viewed through the lens of a different to most-dominant Western monoculture, that had access to most of the technology other parts of the world did at a particular time of the technology's period of vast innovation.
I spent the remainder of the weekend joking with my children that if they wanted to watch more Netflix, then we had to finish dad's Euro Arthouse film. They did not oblige.
The Other Guys (2010)
This has approximately the number of worthwhile moments that Anchorman 2 had, which is very few. Accessed as appeasement to my wife who was contentedly playing the newish SpongeBob Nintendo Switch Game. I guess when copaganda is turned on itself, but uses copaganda as the means of distributing justice indirectly isn't subversion - maybe perversion?
Blur-watched to its end on Saturday.
Smokey and the Bandit (1977)
Can anyone tell that I again chose the search string '19' as my most useful tool for Netflix discovery and alimentation? Well, I did. This must be one of the last road movies of the 1970s. It's like a Spaghetti Western film in many respects. Gleason's delivery and deliberate asininity did deliver some laughs. This film most definitely inspired Gary Sanchez Productions.
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 6, 2020 19:13:10 GMT -5
Predator 2 (1990) One of my big complaints with Netflix is when they have an entire film franchise available save for one random film in the middle. Predator was one such franchise, missing Predator 2 until sometime this week when it got added so I watched it.
Off the bat I have to say how much I love it when older movies are set in a future that we have already past by the time I watch them. Set in the futuristic year of 1997 where guns have weird chunks on them (that’s pretty much the only indication that the movie is taking place in the future rather than the late 80s) Danny Glover is a cop who is not yet too old for this shit.
When rival gangs of drug dealers start getting killed off and skinned Danny Glover and his fellow cops start investigating but when one of his own ends up getting his shit wrecked it gets personal...real personal so Danny Glover in the baggiest slacks ever (dude looked to be wearing the bottom half of a zoot suit) battles Gary Busey and a goddamn Predator to avenge his buddies.
As far as Predators go this one wasn’t as good as the first one but was a pretty decent entry in the cop vs. unstoppable alien killing machine film genre and was a heck of a lot more interesting than that Alien vs. Predator shit mostly because of Danny Glover.
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Post by ganews on Sept 6, 2020 19:38:28 GMT -5
covid week 25 movies
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story I have always loved this movie. Jason Scott Lee is outstanding in the title roll. Not only is he fuggin cut, he really has the moves and mannerisms we know from Bruce Lee's movies. The "real" fight scenes are excellent and include plenty of homage to Lee movies. Racism pervades every part of the biography (Breakfast at Tiffany's gets a special call-out), and in 1993 the only attempt to deal with anti-Asian racism you saw on an American screen was in a Vietnam movie. It's also the reason Jason Scott Lee hasn't had all that much of a career besides this and some Disney work; how many high-profile roles for someone who looks like him were there in the 90s?* His Bruce is closed-off and terminally insecure, in contrast to being the ultimate physical bad-ass. It's surprising we don't get any cameos or young-actor impersonations of the real celebrities Lee worked with, which makes him seem smaller-time than he was, but the script basis is his wife's relationship after all. The overarching throughline of this movie is the dream-sequence demon of fear pursuing and killing the Lee family, which Bruce defeats in the end to protect his son Brandon Lee (who, being a working actor when this movie was made, gets the most name-drops to remind you who he is). But of course Brandon famously died in a freak accident one month before this movie's release.
*We have a Chinese-American friend who is an English composition grad student, and she has a memorable rant on perpetual-trivia-answer Amy Tan and The Joy Luck Club, the movie of which also came out in 1993. "It's been 25 years, there are other authors, we don't have to keep deliberating whether it's okay to fuck white men! I've fucked white men, move on!"
Walk the Line It's biopic week. I'm a big fan of Ray which came out the year before and of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, but I had never actually seen this. Joachin Phoenix sinks into another depressive role and is typically great. His singing voice is a reasonable copy, and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter is even better and deserved her Oscar. Unlike Dragon above, this has no problem filling the screen with impersonations of the many musical greats Johnny Cash interacted with. I wouldn't mind a Jerry Lee Lewis biopic. Good stunt casting to have Shooter Jennings play his father Waylon. Robert Patrick is perfect as the unbelievably shitty father to Cash who never gets told off. (In my copy of "At Folsom Prison" the warden announced that the prison previously held the father, but that wasn't mentioned here.) So while Johnny's redemption is kicking the pills and marrying June, he never obviously overcomes the mental abuse. It's too bad the movie never moves past 1968 because there was decades of great art in the years after, but I guess that's the Ray formula. Like Brandon Lee, Roseanne Cash works in the same industry as her famous father and gets a lot of name drops.
The Story of Louis Pasteur From 1936, a movie that covers Pasteur's life from his research into sterilization (Lister also features prominently) to his development of vaccines. Already a well-known chemist who has developed methods to make food and drink safe, Pasteur pisses off the French medical community by telling them to wash their hands, use clean instruments, and believe germ theory. These doctors sure do drop stuff on the floor a lot. Then Pasteur figures out how to vaccinate sheep and produces the only area in France safe from infection when France needs livestock to pay off war debt. Everyone scoffs, but a controlled experiment proves his effectiveness and he wins believers. Next it's on to study rabies, but progress is slow. The head of the medical academy is a supreme dick, even making Pasteur agree to retract claims in exchange for the doctor delivering Pasteur's grandchild using sterile method. But the rabies treatment works, and everyone at the academy accepts the results. It's a fairly accurate portrayal of revolutionary science. (Having a senior scoff at you publicly is on the science bingo card; it's happened to me.) The first eager volunteers to the rabies treatment come from the storied Russian tradition of solving a problem by throwing large numbers of peasants at it. Great animal sound work throughout too, like when Pasteur orders that an aged rabies serum be given to a healthy dog and there is immediately an offscreen "arf?". The Story of Dr. Jenner A narrated short about the discovery of vaccination (or as I prefer to call it cow-ification), where smallpox is prevented through the inoculation of cowpox. That is one cute milkmaid. The narrator suggests the name of Edward Jenner is forgotten. Not by me! But his first name was pushed out of my brain by Bruce Jenner.
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Post by MyNameIsNoneOfYourGoddamnBusin on Sept 6, 2020 19:56:07 GMT -5
Walk the Line It's biopic week. I'm a big fan of Ray which came out the year before and of Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, but I had never actually seen this. Joachin Phoenix sinks into another depressive role and is typically great. His singing voice is a reasonable copy, and Reese Witherspoon as June Carter is even better and deserved her Oscar. Unlike Dragon above, this has no problem filling the screen with impersonations of the many musical greats Johnny Cash interacted with. I wouldn't mind a Jerry Lee Lewis biopic. Good stunt casting to have Shooter Jennings play his father Waylon. Robert Patrick is perfect as the unbelievably shitty father to Cash who never gets told off. (In my copy of "At Folsom Prison" the warden announced that the prison previously held the father, but that wasn't mentioned here.) So while Johnny's redemption is kicking the pills and marrying June, he never obviously overcomes the mental abuse. It's too bad the movie never moves past 1968 because there was decades of great art in the years after, but I guess that's the Ray formula. Like Brandon Lee, Roseanne Cash works in the same industry as her famous father and gets a lot of name drops.
I remember being impressed at how they cast someone for the obligatory brief Elvis Presley appearance that managed to portray the King in an unmistakeable way while not overdoing it to the level of caricature. It also features Dan John Miller as Cash's longtime guitar player Luther Perkins. He's the singer of the Michigan-based faux-country parody act Goober And The Peas (probably the only novelty joke band I actually like) and a very prolific books-on-tape narrator.
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Post by DangOlJimmyITellYouWhat on Sept 7, 2020 0:44:23 GMT -5
Y’all, I have watched some pretty goddamn dumb movies in my life, but I feel safe in saying that Tenet is the dumbest goddamn thing I have ever seen. The “here’s the problem we have to fix” explanation at the end should have been explained in the first act (and should have been the motivation behind everything), half the time I could barely make out what was being said due to people talking through masks or phones or other obstructions, Kenneth Branagh was horrifically miscast, and my god, so much exposition that actually explained nothing. Including exposition through action scenes, if you can imagine such a thing.
I mean,ok, props I guess for having POCs in prominent roles? and it’s literally the first time I’ve ever not wanted to punch Pattinson in the face, but it’s a massive, incoherent mess, the action is pretty much impossible to visually follow, and seriously, “like, dude, if you went to the past, wouldn’t you things, like, literally move backwards?” is an incredibly idiotic stoner take on time-travel.
My biggest takeaway is that Elizabeth Debicki remains really fucking TALL. It’s mind-boggling how tall she is in heels. Source: I am 5’2”.
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Post by Nudeviking on Sept 7, 2020 1:26:41 GMT -5
covid week 25 movies
Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story I have always loved this movie. Jason Scott Lee is outstanding in the title roll. Not only is he fuggin cut, he really has the moves and mannerisms we know from Bruce Lee's movies. The "real" fight scenes are excellent and include plenty of homage to Lee movies. Racism pervades every part of the biography (Breakfast at Tiffany's gets a special call-out), and in 1993 the only attempt to deal with anti-Asian racism you saw on an American screen was in a Vietnam movie. It's also the reason Jason Scott Lee hasn't had all that much of a career besides this and some Disney work; how many high-profile roles for someone who looks like him were there in the 90s?* His Bruce is closed-off and terminally insecure, in contrast to being the ultimate physical bad-ass. It's surprising we don't get any cameos or young-actor impersonations of the real celebrities Lee worked with, which makes him seem smaller-time than he was, but the script basis is his wife's relationship after all. The overarching throughline of this movie is the dream-sequence demon of fear pursuing and killing the Lee family, which Bruce defeats in the end to protect his son Brandon Lee (who, being a working actor when this movie was made, gets the most name-drops to remind you who he is). But of course Brandon famously died in a freak accident one month before this movie's release.
*We have a Chinese-American friend who is an English composition grad student, and she has a memorable rant on perpetual-trivia-answer Amy Tan and The Joy Luck Club, the movie of which also came out in 1993. "It's been 25 years, there are other authors, we don't have to keep deliberating whether it's okay to fuck white men! I've fucked white men, move on!"
Jason Scott Lee actually showed up in that Crouching Tiger sequel that showed up on Netflix a few years back and is apparently in that live action Disney Mulan but unless you were a big fan of shitty direct to video action flicks and stuff of that ilk there really weren't a lot of big roles for him after this one. I thought there was some stuff with a fake Kareem Abdul-Jabbar but I might be confusing it with one of the random Brucespoltation flicks that existed in the late 70s and early 80s.
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Floyd D Barber
AV Clubber
The Train I used to Drive (not me driving, though)
Posts: 7,611
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Post by Floyd D Barber on Sept 7, 2020 1:26:59 GMT -5
My Cousin Vinnie I watched this years ago, but had just forgotten what a great movie it is. The entire cast is uniformly great. I can see why they use it ti teach in law school.
The thing I really like about it, though, is that it's one of those really rare movies where the characters are all basically decent people, trying to be decent, yet it isn't corny or saccharine. There are so many ways this movie, with it's premise, could have gone horribly, horribly wrong. Set in the deep south, the story of two New York City boys being arrested for a murder they didn't commit, and their Brooklyn cousin lawyer defending them could have been a racist, stereotype laden shitshow in the hands of almost anybody else in Hollywood at that time, and yet somehow it isn't.
The two city boys (Ralph Macchio and Mitchell Whitfield) are young and a bit naive but not stupid. Vinny (Joe Pesci) passed the bar on his sixth try, and is trying his first case. He's inexperienced, loudmouthed, and a bit cocky, but smart and diligent, learns fast and works hard to free the boys. Mona, Vinny's fiance (Marisa Tomei) has a razor sharp mind under her thick Brooklyn accent, and her years of automotive knowledge from working at her dad's garage, come in very handy. The Judge (Fred Gwynne) is a no-nonsense stickler for decorum, but fair. Even the DA and the Sheriff have no axe to grind, and only want to see justice done. So, yeah, maybe it's a fantasy, but it's still a damn good movie, and a reminder of how the law is supposed to work.
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Post by Dr. Rumak on Sept 7, 2020 7:07:54 GMT -5
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