He got brain damage so I’d be surprised if he’s doing anything physically dangerous this time, more likely he’ll be doing pranks and other silly stuff.
I enjoy the Jackass movies when it’s just their crew seeing how insane they can get and fucking around with each other. When they do pranks on random people in public, it’s not funny and they are just assholes. I’m thinking of one in particular where they shit in a display toilet in a store, leaving it for the store workers to clean up. That’s not amusing.
Saw One Battle After Another in theaters. I think I got it confused with Eddington because it was NOT what I expected. I had heard that it was “hilarious” and “fitting for our times” but that’s about it. I thought it starred Pedro Pascal. It does not.
The acting was phenomenal, Leonardo and Benicio in particular were a lot of fun together. The young girl, Chase Infiniti was compelling, too. It was suspenseful as hell and the action was very well done. It was not a laugh riot straight through, but it was very funny in some parts.
That said… I can pick out some themes throughout the film, but I was kind of lost grasping for the ultimate point. There was a sequence in the beginning that was extremely off-putting for me, and some creative choices I just don’t understand. It was satirical in some ways but meant to be taken seriously in others, but not really in a cohesive way. (Black KKKlansman does this too, where it tries to depict racists as both terrifying and ridiculous, and it just doesn’t work for me.)
That said, it was entertaining from start to finish and I never felt it drag even though it’s nearly three hours long.
I think this is a movie you have to see at least so you can talk about the ways it didn’t work (or did.) It’s a lot to unpack. Even though parts of it did not work for me, a lot of parts did, and it’s a solid film, complex enough to generate a lot of good conversation.
I give it a B. It was good, but I liked There Will Be Blood a lot better.
I caught it on HBO not too long ago and I really liked it. I thought the character that Sean Penn played was so over the top weird (Col. Steven J. Lockjaw?) and that’s pretty much what made the movie for me. I mean all the performances were good, but Sean Penn killed that role.
My only problem with the movie’s plot is: why did they bother sending that shotgun assassin after Lockjaw when the whole time they could have just bullshitted him into thinking he was accepted and gassed him like they ended up doing anyway?
Well, they weren’t just going after Lockjaw, but also the girl. That’s all I’ve got.
I think also the assassin was the guy who vetted Lockjaw for the society. Taking Lockjaw out was a way he could atone for his mistake.
While I’m here I liked the movie but didn’t love it. I liked the weird parallel world aspect of it, mixing 60s counterculture with present day tech and social and political trends. I could see aspects of it as funny–particularly the out of shape protagonist trying to keep up with the parkour/skateboard kids–but it whiplashed between comedy and suspense so often I couldn’t laugh. I really didn’t like the protagonist and the mom walking out on her daughter left a bad taste in my mouth. The clumax was pretty damn suspenseful.
I am interested in this because I wasn’t sure why it happened either.
Was there a scene where shotgun guy was told he failed big-time and needed to fix it? That would explain his “need” to kill him like that.
It (OBAA) deserves an Oscar for Most Annoying Soundtrack. The atonal, random plinking on the piano got really old.
But I liked the film as a whole.
Another plot quibble, though: How would shotgun assassin guy know that the girl he was looking for was in a white Dodge? He didn’t see the handoff from Lockjaw to his bounty hunter.
From Beyond
Recommended a bit.
This is the Stuart Gordon movie from the 80s. I’ve seen it before and my main takeaway is that it is surprisingly mild for a movie that has a pretty big reputation for being, well, body horror and gross. It’s there a bit, but is hardly all that extreme.
It is possibly I saw the cut version, but its runtime(streamed on Kanopy) is the same as the uncut version.
Anyway, good movie. Nothing super amazing.
It gets a bit gross, but I’ve definitely seen much worse. Heck, Society is more gross, a better movie, and has Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna involved, much like this one.
It wasn’t explicit, no. But they called him in to tell him that guy he had picked had a mixed race child. I read the implication as "you messed up, what are you going to do. After they glared at him and made him feel uncomfortable he says something like “Guess I’m taking a trip out west.”
As for the white car, I got nothin’. Maybe he saw a car speeding away on a lightly traveled road and figured it had something to do with the situation. Or maybe he has super good vision. I dunno.
OK, you got it. It was explained, then.
Marty
Recommended.
I’ve heard this movie torn down as one of the worst Best Pictures in Oscar history, but I rather liked it. Marty, played by Ernest Borgnine, is just a really nice character and I like watching things where the nice guy comes out on top.
Marty is a single guy in his 30s and genuinely seems to want to get married. He’s not one of the regular guys who have a long line of women in his past. He just seems like a nice guy who is too shy and who think he is too ugly to ask a girl out.
He has a great evening with a girl. They talk and talk and she seems to like him. She is apparently considered ugly, but it is clear they had to dress her ugly and do makeup & lighting to try to make her appear unattractive.
Is this movie great? Not really. It’s good. But Borgnine deserved his Oscar. He plays Marty very well and you can’t help but cheer for him.
I thought it was odd that at the end, the movie stops without showing him with the girl. He is calling her and the movie ends.
Anyone else like this one?
You’re thinking of Marty Supreme a few months from now.
Marty Supreme stars Ernest Borgnine?
I can tell you write now that Marty is 10X the movie Marty Supreme is despite being much smaller in scale.
We watched The End (1978) last night. I’ve always wanted to see it because I have a vivid memory of my now deceased sister coming back from the theater after having seen it. I was too young, so never saw it.
It’s a very strange movie, the tone and pacing is really uneven, but there were parts that were funny. My wife pointed out that like a lot of old comedies, everyone kind of shouts their lines.
The Shining (1980). I had seen parts of it over the years but don’t think I watched the whole thing in one sitting. I enjoyed it but understand why King wasn’t a big fan of it.
Now watch Doctor Sleep, the sequel. I am in the minority, but I think the sequel is superior.
I do plan to watch it next weekend.
Glad to hear it’s good.
Regarding Marty:
I do. It’s a simple story, but sometimes, that’s best. Borgnine shows a range of emotions as those around him aren’t helping, despite their best efforts. And it gave us one of the best (IMHO) monologues in movie history:
I like the ending. We know that he’s reached Clara on the telephone (“Hello … Hello, Clara?”), and what comes next is left to our imaginations. Works for me.