A quick question about Predator: Badlands.
Are the Predators now the good guys in the story?
They were the ultimate villians in other movies.
Prey is still on my list to watch.
A particular Predator is the runt of his family and learns some empathy. He’s the hero of the story, but is still a vicious killer.
Thank you.
I’m still waiting to watch. It will eventually reach Max or Peacock. I prefer not paying a rental on Prime.
My wife and I tapped out after about 30 minutes. It just didn’t interest us. What I did find surprising was that the Predator/Aliens shared universe is still a thing. I thought that was a one-time deal.
Nope, it’s become the main canon. More than one film and indeed, references in Badlands.
If you check out the skulls in the Predator ship in Badlands, so many other crossover franchises were hinted at.
Thanks @Dewey_Finn .
Thank you. Looking for something to watch, and liking the movie, I watched three episodes of 12 Monkeys. Something about it wasn’t as good and I got no further. I’m not sure what it was. Some of it was the sets. Most of the time, this doesn’t bother me, but something about the sets was both too clean, too TV, and pulled me out of the story. I think having him think he “fixed” things and then it wasn’t fixed several times in those three episodes didn’t help. I don’t think I could watch that across all of the seasons.
I thought it was okay but have no idea why they thought this movie would start a new Hammer Horror series, or whatever they were trying to do. Nothing about it was new or fun.
My wife and I were excited to see this movie because it was about vampires and the supernatural. I remember seeing ads that showed this. Now, we didn’t have cable anymore, so maybe it was targeted ads or we looked it up. We knew going into our first viewing. It definitely exceeded our expectations.
The author Jason Pargin has a great take on this movie. The short version is that horror movies work best when the non horror parts are so good that you want to keep watching that side of it. I could have watched that part of it without the supernatural. I wonder how well that idea holds up with other horror movies.
Coming very late to the prequels of the Alien franchise, I liked Prometheus, Covenant, and Romulus. I liked the show well enough but it does require no thinking.
Still waiting to watch that one.
The animated film was good. Predator: Killer of Killers
Prey is amazing. I love that movie.
Thanks for the discussion!
Also, everyone went “What - no Brendan Fraser? No thank you!”
We have multiple Mummy movies happening for some reason. The only one I am interested in is the new Brendan Fraser version.
I can see where they were going; a film franchise featuring Dracula, the Invisible Man, Wolf Man, etc. it could have worked. Apparently there is a related theme park attraction.
I may be the only one, but I thought the original Brendan Fraser Mummy movie was absolute dreck. Just terrible clichéd writing, ridiculous over-acting, cringe-worthy CGI, just a total package of suck. I generally like Brendan Fraser as a performer, but you couldn’t pay me to watch another of his Mummy movies.
I liked him in that role.
WAIT? Dominatrix Spider Ladies are a thing? You can’t just slip that in there! Are there more movies with them (asking for a friend)? I could search myself but the movie mavens here have voluminous memories complete with critical reviews.
It’s hard to explain, but while this is true, in some way it also made me really enjoy the movie, even on frequent rewatch.
We watched a film called True Stories which was an 80s vanity project by Talking Heads frontman David Byrne.
This was a very, very strange film.
More like performance art than a movie.
In it, Byrne narrates his impressions of a small town in Texas with a sort of Mr. Rogers-like sincerity. The people in the town are strange caricatures of Southern culture (in the 80s.) There’s a woman who compulsively lies about everything. A couple who refuses to speak to each other. A woman who is so rich she never leaves her bed.
Some of it made me laugh. It features an early performance by John Goodman, and he’s pretty entertaining in this. Some of the songs are quite good because, you know, Talking Heads.
But if I weren’t watching it with friends I probably would have DNFed. There’s not much of a narrative and a lot of it is nonsensical.
FYI, the characters are based on stories from supermarket tabloids.
Blood Feast 2: All U Can Eat
Not recommended.
Mainly interesting because it was pretty difficult to find a copy of. Otherwise, just a pretty zany and poorly made follow up to Blood Feast from the 1960s. This was made around 2002 and it actually looks like a bad, shot on tape film from the early 1980s. It isn’t, but that is the vibe.
Badly edited, clumsily written, almost zero acting ability.
It’s trash, but not the most interesting trash. Nothing to see here.
Terminator 1984
Rewatched for probably the 10th time.
This time I focused on Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese. Biehn does a great job portraying a character born during a war. He doesn’t have any social skills because he’s been fighting Terminators since childhood.
It’s interesting to watch Kyle closely and see how much out of place and scary he appears. There’s similarities with Kyle and the Terminator. They’re both soldiers and killers.
Kyle has two missions. Protect Sarah Conner and uh, impregnate her. It’s important that John Connor is conceived.
I wouldn’t exactly agree Reese made any effort to attract Sarah. I think he implied virginity in the motel room? Sarah was all over him after hearing that. 
Biehn has a YouTube channel. He mentioned coming back to briefly appear in T2. I had always assumed he shot that brief scene in 1984.
Terminator holds up remarkably well for a movie released in 1984. The only dated item is Sarah’s shag haircut and clothing. It screams Farrah Fawcett and 80’s big hair. That’s the films hairstylist and costume designers mistake.
That implies Kyle knows about the impregnation. He does not. His son knows, because Sarah told him one way or another after the fact. Which is why John Connor specifically selects him for the mission. But Kyle Reese himself never knew and never knows.