Just rewatched Tombstone for what had to be the fourth time. Damn thing still holds up very well.
I watched The Primevals last night. I got a review copy, because I’m trying to get it on the program for this year’s Arisia convention.
I’ve been waiting almost half a century to see this, ever since I read about it in the magazine Cinefantastique. It was a project by animator David Allen, which he was having trouble getting funding for, and he was doing bits of it when he could — his own “Thief and the Cobbler”, if you’re familiar with that film. Allen isn’t exactly a household name, but you’ve almost certainly seen his stuff. It’s very good. He died in 1999, his Great Work unfinished.
In 2018 Full Moon entertainment launched an indiegogo campaign to get the film finished. With the money they raised and a lot of donated time by special effects professionals, they finished it up.
The film looks gorgeous. Production values are very high, and it’s got a great score. Writing is more than adequate, and the acting is very good (Juliet Mills – who you might remember from TV shows – stars. It also features Robert Cornthwait, best known as the chief scientist in the 1951 movie The Thing, and who had an uncredited cameo in the movie Matinee.
The stop-motion animation is top-notch, and blends seamlessly with the live action. The plot is a little loopy, careening from point to point in a weird way, but always throwing revelations at you and excuses for stop-motion creations. I can’t complain – .Harrhausen’s movies really did the same thing. And this looks like a big new Harryhausen film. GThat’s high praise – Harryhausen’s films always looked good.
If you’ve ever seen the movie Planet of Dinosaurs, then you know that a movie can have superb stop-motion animation, but miserable scripting and acting and middling production values. This film is no Planet of Dinosaurs – the production value and acting are as good as the animation, and the script is pretty good.
I don’t want to say too much about the plot. It’s better if you can just watch the film and just be sequentially blown away by concept after concept. Experienced that way, it’s better than baldly stating the plot.
24 Hour Party People (2002, Pluto TV) -The blurb:
Manchester, 1976. Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan) is an ambitious but frustrated local TV news reporter looking for a way to make his mark. After witnessing a life-changing concert by a band known as the Sex Pistols, he persuades his station to televise one of their performances, and soon Manchester’s punk groups are clamoring for him to manage them. Riding the wave of a musical revolution, Wilson and his friends create the legendary Factory Records label and The Hacienda club.
It was pretty good! There was humor, but not like This is Spinal Tap, more similar to Galaxy Quest. Lots of inside jokes meant for the people who cared about early Punk and Electro scene in Manchester. So bands like Joy Division, New Order, and Buzzcocks. I know fuck all about this stuff and found the entire movie entertaining. Recommended for fans of Almost Famous or for this type of music especially.
I love British indie cinima, but for the love of fucking god sort yer audio out, mate. Watching The Firm is difficult enough with mumbled Cockney and filmed with a camcorder, but with 24 Hour Party People it became almost a drinking game. “Alright, in this scene we’ll have a heated argument with loads of slang from a Mancunian, three Yardies and someone with heavy Scouse in an echo hallway as they tap dance while opening crisps.”
Pluto TV doesn’t have Closed Captioning.
Spice_Weasel and other fans of It’s A Wonderful Life should check out these threads:
Thanks!
I just watched the new Christmas movie with Eddie Murphy, Candy Cane Lane.
Like a lot of movies trying desperately to veer from formula, it has a bit of a jumble of stuff going on. It sets up what seems like a familiar plot, like Deck The Halls, and then totally sidesteps it into something entirely different and a bit haphazard. But it’s fine for a holiday season watch. Kind of in the same tonal range of Disenchanted (though not Enchanted, which is a perfect movie).
Wonka. It was…fine. My daughter and her friend loved it, but all it did was make me nostalgic for Gene Wilder.
I mean, there are a lot of fine comic actors in fine comic roles with fine comic lines in fine comic situations but for me the whole thing seemed very flat. What I eventually realized is that what it is ultimately missing is that strain of malevolent mischief that deeply permeates all of Dahl’s works. This is mischief on a very benign level, and the film is all the less interesting for it. Screenplay by Simon Farnaby of Horrible Histories and Ghosts (UK) fame; Farnaby also has a small role as does Charlotte Ritchie (Alison from Ghosts) and Mathew Baynton (HH, Ghosts again).
Also, some things you should know that may not be evident from the trailer:
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It’s a musical. Timothée Chalamet sings a lot. He’s…fine. Songs by Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy, with a smattering of the music from the original film (which has also been somewhat neutered). One of them manages to achieve mild earworm status.
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Hugh Grant, while a very entertaining Oompa Loompa, features very little in the film (no pun intended). Which is probably just as well, all things considered.
Good general family fare and a lot of visual fun, especially for the younger kiddies, but don’t expect anything along the lines of either of the previous two Wonka-themed films.
Final Destination series.
Overall, cute and harmless, not a bad way to spend some time.
Micro-reviews:
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Final Destination 5 - very fun, super well done, did not see any twists coming. Impressive.
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Final Destination 3 - The cut from sun tan beds to coffins is amazing.
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Final Destination 2 - the log truck sequence is one of the best in the series.
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Final Destination - Yep, that was a movie.
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The Final Destination - Really bad, boring, and bland.
Godzilla Minus One. Very good Tojo production (the 37th Godzilla movie made, btw), was poignant at times with its depiction of PTSD and survivors guilt. It looked great for a $15 million movie laden with practical effects, well worth a ticket if you’re into these types of films.
Before I Wake Saw it because I liked Fall of the House of Usher. Thought it may be similar in appeal. It was not. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
As was my rewatching of Legion Dumb premise, bad acting, bad pacing…
Fatman with Mel Gibson and Walton Goggins. We were looking for a stupid, violent Christmas movie, but ended up with more stupid and less violent than we counted on.
Poor Things - A Yorgos Lanthimos film. For many of you, this is all that is needed by way of description (for both “I gotta see this” and “I am never going to see this”). He’s like Wes Anderson, except for more body horror, gore, and explicit sex than Wes. 
I enjoyed this one, it’s got the usual deadpan characters and black humor in a steampunk setting. More along the lines of The Lobster than The Favourite. Not for everyone, but will not disappoint fans.
Violent Night - short blurb from IMDB.
“When a group of mercenaries attack the estate of a wealthy family, Santa Claus must step in to save the day (and Christmas).”
The body count is high, as is Santa.
Yes, we really enjoyed that movie, and found Fatman by searching for movies that were (supposedly) like it.
Legion on the other hand…
A bit of an aside, but I was initially surprised to see this because I had a recollection of it being pretty good, but I had the title confused with Before I Go To Sleep, a completely different movie with Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth. As it turns out, the critics didn’t think that one was all that great, either, and it was actually the original book by SJ Watson that got (mostly) pretty high praise. It’s about a woman who wakes up every day with no idea who she is. It was Watson’s first novel and made it to the New York Times bestseller list.
Reindeer Games? Who of us hasn’t imagined shooting up a casino with all those flashing lights and ringing bells?
When I told my wife that Leave the World Behind was an apocalyptic thriller, she said “So it’s a documentary then?”
In a nutshell: A white family rents a home on Long Island for the weekend, only to be unsettled by the arrival of a black man and his daughter, who claim to own the house, and need a place to stay after a blackout in New York City forces them out of their apartment. Meanwhile, cell phones, the internet and all forms of terrestrial broadcasting go silent. Who can you trust? In the course of 2 hours and 21 minutes, padded with many kumbaya moments, breast-beating and self-flagellation, they come to a realization that, gosh darn it, we’re in this together and we have to work together. They could have gone easier on the heavy-handed messaging and lost at least 20 minutes.
This is not a disaster movie, though a disaster instigates the plot. A lot of loose threads are never explained. The deer, for example, that go from Bambi to threatening. “They’re trying to tell us something,” someone says, several times. But what? And somehow, despite a blackout occurring everywhere else, these people never lose their electricity. And the high-pitched noises. And the flamingoes in the swimming pool. And the crazy Spanish lady. (What’s she doing on Long Island?) And let’s not forget the kid whose teeth keep falling out after he’s bitten by some bug in the woods.
It has a couple of hilarious moments. Teslas revolt. And Julia Roberts’ character, to show how hip she is, dances to a rap song, in a display that reminds us of that episode of “Seinfeld” in which Elaine Benes dances, badly. Kevin Bacon shows up briefly as the unhinged-survivalist-down-the-road.
On the plus side, it’s very earnestly acted, and the plot does move along quickly enough to keep your interest.
Just don’t expect a conclusion. There is none. The director expects you to draw your own.
Now on Netflix.
You know it just occurred to me the other day that this movie is basically the morally bankrupt promo from Scrooged. God I love Scrooged. I rewatch it every year.
I’m watching Flamin’ Hot right now, the possibly embellished story of the inventor of hot Cheetos. It’s not a must see, but it’s a nice rainy day movie.