Prime Video recommendations REALLY want me to watch this, but I haven’t bit yet.
If you have someone around to help you make fun of it the movie will be improved-I watched it at a MST3K-type showing. It had been colorized but still looked off.
Bombardment. Hard to watch
Just finished watching The Hyperions. It is a low-budget/low-FX superhero movie about a disfunctional adopted superhero family. It reminds me a bit of The Umbrella Academy, but even more, stylisticly, of what you would expect to see if Wes Anderson made a superhero movie. I really enjoyed it, so it is sad that most people won’t see it because the only way to “officially” see it is by subscribing to the right-wing propaganda site Daily Wire. (Unofficially seeing it is, of course, much easier.)
Uh, is it a right wing movie or something?
Not at all. But a right-wing site bought it.
Cyrano. In a real movie theater. After seeing the trailers several months ago we looked forward to it … but then saw that it was scheduled for a release in February which usually means it’s an awful piece of garbage that the studios are dumping in the post-awards-eligibility wasteland.
It’s not – it’s … fine. Peter Dinklage is very good in the title role (I’d never heard of anyone else in the cast). It’s a musical, and the songs are unmemorable.
I watched the newest Scream last night. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t great.
It was largely a tribute to Wes Craven and by extension, the original Scream. There’s even a character named Wes.
After the Wes character is killed, the kids are having a party. A large banner reads For Wes. Everyone raises their glasses in a toast. For Wes!
As I understand it, many of the original Scream actors had their voices dubbed into the toast. Drew Barrymore, Henry Winkler, Jamie Kennedy, Matthew Lillard, others. I thought that was cool.
The commentary on the current state of movies was energetic and pretty much spot-on, and I learned the term requel. Most of the old tropes were revisited and often subverted (it got a little annoying at one point).
I loved how Sidney and Gale have changed and grown. Sidney shooting into every closed door on her way into the house and up the stairs, for instance. Dewey seemed broken, but hell, the man had been stabbed nine times over the course of his life. I guess we couldn’t expect him to have remained the same old goofy, lovable Dewey.
I also liked the return of Billy Loomis. And for once, the backstory wasn’t overly convoluted. The knifings were more savage than in the previous movies, and I appreciated that. And I loved the shot revealing where the party had been taking place.
Problem was that I didn’t really care for any of the new cast. The sisters were okay, I guess, but the only ones I really liked were Martha’s two kids. The others were all disposable as far as I was concerned. The show also continued the Shot? Stabbed? Rub some dirt on it and walk it off. mechanics, but I guess that’s a staple of the genre.
I believe that another film is in the works, but I’m not sure I want to visit a Scream universe that doesn’t have Dewey in it. On the other hand, I liked the television series very much (the first two seasons, anyway).
Overall, I enjoyed it.
Watched The Power of the Dog. Very satisfying movie - Benedict Cumberbatch is superb as ever.
Cumberbatch was fine, but it was the “kid” who I thought really sold the movie. I thought Cumberbatch was replaceable, which he is NOT in Sherlock.
Fresh (Hulu) - The official discription: “The horrors of modern dating seen through one young woman’s defiant battle to survive her new boyfriend’s unusual appetites”.
That’s rather misleading; it is straight up hostage horror. unless the thought of a dude cutting off a girl’s buttocks makes you chuckle .
Full disclosure; I fell asleep 3/4 of the way through. Not because it was boring or anything; in fact the first half is compelling. Daisy Edgar Jones is well cast as a young woman who meets a seemingly great guy via a dating app. She is very appealing and pretty in a “regular person” way; not some made up starlet. Sebastian Stan is perfect as the boyfriend.
I figured I might not go back and finish it so I looked up the ending. Nope, no reason to tune back in.
It’s an ok movie that, although the plot isn’t particularly original it’s filmed in an interesting way and the lead actors are very watchable. If you go in knowing it has a lot of elements of horror you’ll probably enjoy it.
I had never heard of this, though I am familiar with some of Jacques Tardi’s work (The Extraordinary Adventures of Adèle Blanc-Sec, various graphic novel adaptations of Léo Malet’s crime fiction, etc.) He seems to have served as the film’s designer and there is a lot of Tardi flavor in the characters and backgrounds (as well as some shots that evoke Karel Zeman’s Mystimation). While the production design shines and the story is interesting, the telling is beset by tropes which make it obvious and predictable in spots while the “comic relief” twit cop was unwelcome. Still, worth seeing, imo.
I watched an English-dub which included Paul Giamatti, J.K. Simmons and Susan Sarandon (good, if one-note, in an unusual role). It might have been a different viewing experience with the original French cast (including Marion Cotillard and Jean Rochefort) and subtitles, as I suspect some nuances may have been lost in translation.
I saw that a few years ago, with the American dubbing, and was underwhelmed. Interesting premise but just not that good a movie, I thought.
The Adam Project. Ryan Reynolds is always fun to watch. This time travel film has an 80s vibe to it; maybe it’s the soundtrack.
I grudgingly liked The Adam Project because the actors were all fun, but I would be happy if I never see another time travel movie again as long as I live.
I dug this one out for a rewatch a week or so ago: Light Years. “In a thousand years, Gandahar was destroyed. A thousand years ago, Gandahar will be saved.” It’s nice animation, if that’s your deal.
Never mind.
It’s done by many of the same people who made Fantastic Planet, which is referred to up above. The English dub has Christopher Plummer, who’s shown up in science fiction films from the relatively good (Star Trek 6) to the abysmal (Starcrash). Also, Isaac Asimov evidently wrote the English-language version of the screenplay (although he had nothing to do with the original film)
Picnic at Hanging Rock (Australia, 1975). Heard about this film for a long time, and finally watched it last night. Found it to be very slow and very boring.