Movies We've Seen Recently

[Sherman Tank]

Armando Iannucci's The Death of Stalin is probably the blackest black comedy (to the point that I'd call it a literal black hole but that would imply it isn't funny, and it really is) I've ever seen and I loved it.  Michael Palin's performance as Molotov shows that he hasn't lost a comedic step since the heyday of the Pythons, Steve Buscemi is as weaselly as ever as Khrushchev, and Simon Russell Beale as Beria is the sort of disturbing thing that trigger warnings were invented for back when they actually meant something.

[Kaleidoscope]

So I got to see Dark Crystal again I saw it on the big screen with my friend and I enjoyed myself. To this day, I think it's Jim Henson's best film. I know some people think it's a crappy movie and they're allowed to have that opinion but I honestly love this film. Yeah, the story is a bit wonky and some of the dialogue isn't that strong but it's a gorgeous film with an interesting world and extremely interesting characters.

[Wrought]

In the middle of watching Behind "The Cove", which is the Japanese answer to the animal rights movie "The Cove". It's a very amateurish movie and is definitely a bit overlong, but the message at the core of the movie about American hypocrisy, misinformation being used to push fad activism and how people are willing to step on Japan's toes in foreign policy is really good. Dunno if I'd say whether it's worth a watch, but it's definitely more so than The Cove.

[Macho Masc Sangy Savage]

Finally saw both Wrinkle in Time and Black Panther. WiT wasn't as good as I hoped it would be. All of the parts were good, but when put together it just felt really incomplete, or was missing depth. Black Panther was amazing! It still had the Marvel Movie all over it, but honestly, if this type of story, set and costume design, music, EVERYTHING we get when we leave people to tell their own stories, everyone can only benefit. Movie was fucking beautiful.

[A Whirring Bone-White Gleech]

Tonight on shitty movies on netflix, I learned that a witch will murder unrelated athiests and trap their souls in apparent revenge against one faithless preacher, and apparently this isn't horrible for her to have done?  I've also learned that vegans who are unwilling to kill had better sack up, or else average suburban youths, corrupted by videogames, will kill them.  (Also, man is not the only animal that kills for fun, you stupid fucks!)

[Seth "Slimy" Rollins]

Got home from seeing Ready Player One as a weird kind of hate watch, and I was...honestly kind of impressed?

Like, y'know, it's a movie based on pop culture references, but they weren't as in-your-face as I expected except for the characters audibly announcing that A Bike Was From Akira or It's Mechagodzilla Oh No, or the very first virtual world you see is Minecraft Planet (not kidding). The ones that 'mattered' to the plot had significance that showed that they were...fans? I guess? and knew what they wanted to know. Like, a plot point is made of the first easter egg in a game, Adventure's designer credits, and how it was important to video games at the time - you had to search for it, and it credited the guy who made it. There were even some weird hidden bits that gave me that ol' "I know that!" dopamine. The writing was...fine? too. Like, the original joking around between characters, it didn't feel stilted, flowed well, and there were some good jokes. (Though, it's pretty telling that the ones the people in the theater were laughing at were the references and the one-off jokes got a few chuckles.) They made the main 5 fairly likeable, and even made an attempt to make White Nerd Boy kind of endearing (which fell flat once they got into forced relationship with On-Her-Own Likeable Female Protagonist That's Endeared To White Boy)

The visuals were good, too, like, both in-game and out of the game world. The economically depressed areas of the real world they showed were interesting visually - in, like, kind of white-trash dieselpunk ways, and they commit to having the game world in complete CG throughout, instead of actors on green screen like a lot of other movies, and it keeps it visually appealing and lets them have lots of variety in both character design and environment design.

Like, the book was shit in a lot of ways, and the movie still has a lot of issues, the main one that the villain is a villain but he's kind of right about the world - the entire globe is addicted to Oasis and letting the world rot, and the game isn't giving anything in return - it's just kind of there. It's like a bag of candy and 30% of it is black licorice, I guess. Most of it is good, if without a lot of substance, and then you get to some shit that bitters your mouth and makes you ask why you're eating it before you go 'aw hell yeah some SKITTLES'

[moooo566 (taylor's version)]

I just got back from Ready Player One and it is absolutely the single dumbest thing I have ever watched.

My eye rolls per scene measure was off the scale. The whole thing is complete absurd, every new point gives a new "wait, really?" moment. It's not entirely the movies fault since the premise and general plot outline isn't new (I haven't read the book so I don't know how accurate it is) but the whole thing is the most ridiculous unbelievable nonsense right from the get go.

I honestly really enjoyed it. Outside of the visuals I don't think anyone in my family had a good thing to say and they're probably, strictly speaking, entirely correct. It's got a kind of f plus subject vibe, where you think it's hit peak bullshit and it just keeps topping itself. It's all the most ridiculously mismatching bits of media crammed into the most videogamey videogame possible and they keep finding new and unexpected ways to make it sillier.

There didnt feel like much of a push for me to take it seriously at all, generally rooting for the main characters tobuddy up and win it was all about enjoying the ridiculous journey. I can't speak for the book but the film felt like everyone involved was fully aware they were making an enormous tornado of nonsense and from that perspective I had a fun evening.

[Nikaer Drekin]

I really wanted A Wrinkle in Time to be good, you guys.

It really, really wasn't. The performances ranged from decent to terrible, the script felt like a first draft (including some of the clumsiest exposition I've heard in a long time), and the whole film gave off serious Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland vibes, where all the crazy CG crap they threw at you was supposed to be profound and astonishing but was instead just sort of boring and weightless. I'm still trying to figure out how a director as consistently good as Ava DuVernay could make a movie this slapdash and terrible.

[EYE OF ZA]

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed was about as good as I figured it would be, which was "fine". It's weird, but in a way watching it after The Last Jedi made me feel like everything in it was redundant. The only thing I really got out of it that I didn't pick up in the second movie was why exactly the Republic was apparently getting clowned on by randos (oh, they blew up like five planets at once, okay) after thirty years of supremacy. Aside from that, it felt like a lot of This Sure Is Star Wars. Without the frantic weirdness of Last Jedi, it probably works better as a movie on its own, but it's also less interesting because of that.

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets was more interesting but not quite as good. I appreciate the unabashed sci-fi weirdness, but at the same time, there's a sub-plot that's like twenty minutes long that introduces a character at the start and then kills her off at the end that really doesn't add a whole lot to the movie, even if goo-Rhianna is a neat design. I enjoyed watching it but I don't know if it has quite the weird energy to stick around like The Fifth Element did.

[Wrought]

Just watched beaster bunny and it's so great. It's poorly made but it's genuinely charming and funny at times in spite of the awful CGI. It's self aware enough to be enjoyable despite the quality problems

[Kaleidoscope]

So I watched Age of Ultron again and I am so thankful Joss Whedon isn't directing anymore Marvel movies.

Both Age and Civil War are the reason I can't stand Tony anymore and also just don't care about the Avengers in general now. Like the only reason, I am excited for Infinity War is because of Black Panther and the Guardians. The entirety of Age of Ultron is Tony's fault. Like I know Tony is supposed to be a snarky, sarcastic jerk but he comes off as just a jerk. I don't want to watch him talk down to his so-called friends, that's depressing. And don't get me started on the random romance between Bruce and Natasha.

[Runic]

To be fair that's accurate to the comic version, which made Tony so monumentally unlikable that they had to literally reboot his brain from a backup in order to get fans to tolerate him again.

[Kaleidoscope]

I felt like more people could have called him out now. Like this might sound terrible but I would totally be fine with Tony dying in Infinity War.

[Nikaer Drekin]

Yeah, I feel like the MCU has a weird love-hate relationship with Tony at this point. Like, Spider-Man: Homecoming kind of set him up as an antagonist but it wasn't gutsy enough to be genuinely critical of him, which was to the movie's detriment in some ways.

[Kaleidoscope]

Well, see I think the reason for that is because Tony has been written by so many different people and at this point, they can't really just rewrite his character completely.

I blame Whedon honestly.