Movies We've Seen Recently

[chai tea latte]

Midsommar 2019 - sick transit gloria real case of the mondays

Florence Pugh absolutely crushed it, i don't remember anyone else's performance except William Jackson Harper playing (quite well) to type. Now that I've finally seen this I can go back to half of the conversations i had in 2019 and see if I now, in retrospect, have intelligent thoughts to say (turns out: nope). Strong recommend to horror fans or people from small villages.

The covid Eurovision movie, something circle of fire: absolutely awful dreck. I only wanted to see this because it was ostensibly filmed by all of its participants and then edited together to make a cohesive whole project. Some of the filming was interesting, most of it was extremely boring shot-reverse-shot. I wanted to know if they're gonna be able to make movies during lockdown scenarios and the answer appears to be: kind of!

Jon Stewart's political comedy film Irresistible (2020): mind-numbingly boring and the new weakest entry in the category 'American political satire'. The movie is two hours long and has, at generous count, five jokes in it. There is one moment that i would call genuinely satirical and quite funny, and the rest of the movie's runtime is Jon Stewart desperately showing off that he also watched The Big Short (paradoxically i think The Big Short's influence has been disastrous for film). In fact, the end of the movie is an Avengers-style mid-credits scene where Literally Jon Stewart literally interviews some former Federal Reserve guy to ask, smugly, 'so would the plot of my movie, could people get away with doing this IRL? and the guy goes' yeah i guess' and Jon Stewart audibly and invisibly pops a half dozen boners and then the movie ends for real. Absolute fucking dreck. Explicitly and from Stewart: it was based on a longform journalism piece Stewart read about the Jon Ossof runoff election, just like all of Jon Stewart's movies have been him ripping off competent and unlauded journalists to make flashy statement pieces (but what else is new, huh?)

Would recommend 1/3; the latter two movies weren't even fun-bad, just boring-bad.

[sambair]

I finally watched The Midnight Meat Train after reading the first volume of Clive Barker's Books of Blood (which contains the original short story). Upon seeing that Ryuhei Kitamura directed it, I immediately hoped that meant I would see people getting murdered on a train, but in the same directorial style as the cutscenes in MGS: The Twin Snakes, and was absolutely not disappointed.

In one early scene in the movie (spoiled for spoilers and also in case you don't want to read descriptions of cartoonish but graphic violence) Ted Raimi gets hit on the back of the head with a meat hammer so hard his eyes fly out of his head, then a woman wearing high heels slips on one of the eyeballs and as she's flying backwards the killer hits her with the hammer making her head fly clean off, and in the process the camera zooms around until you're looking out from the severed head's POV. Lots of mid-aughts CGI and wild camera movement.

Definite recommendation for anyone other Clive Barker fans, or anyone who likes really over the top horror movies.

[Dr. Buttplug]

Wings of Desire I found it overly optimistic that everyone Damiel is listening to has insightful thoughts about themselves and reality. We all know all they'd be thinking about is sex and money. The romantic through line  is a bit of a chauvinist fantasy. How would Marion feel about Damiel monkeying about with her emotions as an angel really? However Peter Falk and Solveig Dommartin brought off their internal monologues very well. Peter Falk is so damned charming in this.

Also I came to the revelation that every woman in the 90s was trying to have hair like Solveig Dommartin in this movie and no one pulled it off like her.

Edit: watched Stray Dog by Akira Kurosawa, really cool nior flick from a Japanese perspective. All I gotta say, roll that beautiful baseball footage.

[moooo566 (taylor's version)]

The Meg is stupid as fuck. 10/10 I love Jason Statham.

[Dr. Buttplug]

Mad Max (1979) the coded as gay villian problem is more explicit than in the sequal. Also I can see why they redubbed it for the U.S. the accents are pretty thick and the audio mixing doesn't help. It was the wrong choice but I see why they made it.

Otherwise the apocalyptic scenario is frighteningly immediate. Manic psychos being held at bay by corrupt cops as the pillars of society crumble. It's a libertarian's dream!

[GirlKisser420]

Mad Max (1979) the coded as gay villian problem is more explicit than in the sequal. Also I can see why they redubbed it for the U.S. the accents are pretty thick and the audio mixing doesn't help. It was the wrong choice but I see why they made it.

Otherwise the apocalyptic scenario is frighteningly immediate. Manic psychos being held at bay by corrupt cops as the pillars of society crumble. It's a libertarian's dream!

mad max one rules, its interesting to see the Apocalyptic scenery because they just went to some country roads and crashed cars.

To be fair as well everyone is coded gay except for max, like look at the other cop

[Dr. Buttplug]

Mad Max (1979) the coded as gay villian problem is more explicit than in the sequal. Also I can see why they redubbed it for the U.S. the accents are pretty thick and the audio mixing doesn't help. It was the wrong choice but I see why they made it.

Otherwise the apocalyptic scenario is frighteningly immediate. Manic psychos being held at bay by corrupt cops as the pillars of society crumble. It's a libertarian's dream!

mad max one rules, its interesting to see the Apocalyptic scenery because they just went to some country roads and crashed cars.

To be fair as well everyone is coded gay except for max, like look at the other cop

I thought that was the case, with the setting, but from what I could find in researching it a little Goerge Miller wanted it to be a near future post apocalypse from the start. You can see it in there in subtle ways. People stealing gas, bystanders being numb to ultra violence or the MFP and the corrupted court system.

I did forget that the police chief is a total leather daddy, good catch.

[Ambious]

I'm here to report that Pacific Rim still slaps

[sambair]

Bill & Ted Face the Music is pretty good. It had a few serious flaws, but still exceeded my expectations.

I don't want to spoil too much, but it opens with the old Orion Pictures logo, and there are a bunch of scenes of Alex Winters-style prosthetic work.

[Dr. Buttplug]

Last week I had a bad cold and had to be out sick while I got tested for the 'rona. A few days prior I had signed up for the trial version of the YouTube subscription so I could stop seeing the toxic local political ads between now and November. Yes, somehow the ads for the local senate race got my ire up more than the presidential race. Anyway I found out that YouTube has a selection of movies up for free.

While stuck at home and feeling like utter shit I decided to finally watch Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure for the first time. Pretty funny. I might have enjoyed it more if I smoked weed. I only detected one homophobic joke. The movie itself was a bit of a slow burn, but once they hit the mall things started to kick off in a way that really clicked. I can totally see why it is regarded so well by people who grew up with it. I've seen Bogus Journey before but it was forever ago and it was the TV edit. I want to watch it again before watching Face The Music, but I've never really enjoyed watching comedies alone by myself, so that might have to wait.

I almost forgot I watched Godzilla vs Gigan while feverish. The human plot was more amusing than others of the time period. However, the monster fights lacked impact. I didn't realize it was one of the post Godzilla talking entries until a quarter of the way through when he talks to Anguirus for no good reason. Gigan itself is a missed opportunity, it looks cool as hell with hook hands and shit, but it barely even does anything and needs King Ghidorah to back it up and make it seem like a credible threat. Gigan was probably my favorite toy as a child, which makes his weak ass performance all the more disappointing. On my curved Kaiju grading scale, this one is a 2 four foot tall cockroaches out of 5.

I spent the rest of my time at home watching MST3K episodes while moving between states of consciousness. Finally feeling better by Saturday I watched The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). As Eliot of The Flophouse's favorite film it had been on my list for a while. It is definitely 1970s New York city crystalized in amber, for better and worse. Everything is great from plot, to acting and sets, but there is a black spot of the main character being deeply sexist and a bit racist. It may be a product of its time, in fact that's part of its appeal, but that doesn't mean I have to accept that, especially from the protagonist. That keeps me from holding it up as some magnum opus. I'd prefer Marathon Man as a thriller of this vintage, even if it lacks that 70s New York malaise.

[sambair]

Finally tried watching a 3D blu ray on a PSVR by watching Tarsem Singh's Immortals, which is dumb as hell but ruled. Gonna drive to the other Half-Price books on the other side of town to see if I can find more 3D blu rays.

I kept seeing people online complaining about using VR to watch movies, but in covid times it's the closest I get to feeling like I'm in a theater.

I also got a 3DBR of Tron: Legacy, which is allegedly the best one, but I'm going to save that for later, because next I'm going to use VR to watch a standard def DVD of Jackass: The Movie.

[moooo566 (taylor's version)]

Finally tried watching a 3D blu ray on a PSVR by watching Tarsem Singh's Immortals, which is dumb as hell but ruled.

Speaking of, after Gaga's 911 video I went back to watch The Fall and I can confirm it's still the best looking film I've ever seen.

In less quality news, I watched Battleship and it still sucks so much shit.

[Dr. Buttplug]

Got to dog sit again and this time I used it as an excuse to do a horror movie marathon.

Started with Whatever Happened to Baby Jane because it was the one I was the most excited about. I was not disappointed. It is crazy and the chemistry/animosity between Joan Crawford and Bette Davis is palpable.

The Blackcoat's Daughter is less than what I have come to expect from A24, but it's still probably the best horror film streaming on Netflix right now. Makes me wonder if the devil gives you a mind-bending orgasm when you sell your soul to him?

Shivers (1975) an early Cronenberg film. It is basically every sex dream you ever had that turned into a nightmare part way through, over and over again for an hour.

Fright Night (1985) is a little overrated. Continued that thread of psychosexual thriller stuff in a weird more tame way.  Great costumes and sets.

Carnival of Souls Really cool imagery. Excellent plot twist, but somehow feels conservative in a way as if it was set ten years before Baby Jane, even though it came out in the same year (1962).

Invastion of the Body Snatchers (1978) was the last one I watched and it was a stand out film. I started with a banger and ended with one. It's really unfortunate that so many comedies have spoiled the ending.

To expound on Body Snatchers. Just the opening alone has more taste and class than most films. I think Micheal Bay's The Rock opened with someone on the radio saying "San Francisco News network, Broadcast from one of these hills in what we sometimes call Frisco. In the news a San Franciscan Trolley operator ate some sourdough while blah blah blah." All Body Snatchers had to do was show the golden gate bridge in one of the opening shots. You're just there, no need for explanation. Great performances definitely deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as The Thing as excellent horror movie remakes of the era.

[moooo566 (taylor's version)]

Moana is good. I liked the crab, I assume the sequel will be her quest to go back and turn him back on his feet.

[sambair]

Borat 2 is dumb as Hell, and extremely "topical humor", but I laughed my ass off pretty much nonstop through it.