What, no Season of the Witch thread?

Cafe Society
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People like to make fun of Nicolas Cage. It’s fun. He’ll appear in almost any low-budget movie. However, when I saw this movie I remembered why I liked him.

He’s fun. He’s in mostly fun movies. They’re foten stupid, but they’re fun. They remind me why I enjoy movies, before they became giant productions. He makes movies you can just go down to the theater and watch.

Despite that, I saw the nasty reviews and went down to watch expecting it would be terrible. It was a late Christmas present to a friend who watches a LOT of movies - good, bad, and ugly.

This was all three.

I admit, I went in planning to revel in hating the movie. But I have to say… it was enjoyable. Was it a good movie? Well, it was definitely B-list. But the story was surprisingly dark, like a horror movie. They definitely made mistakes in developing it, but I’d certainly be interested in seeing more from the production team (not so much from director Sena).

As mentioned, it’s more of a horror movie with action stars in it, and displays the full range of human misery as only Eastern Europeans can imagine. The world is grim, disgusting, and filled with evil. And to be honest, it’s fun. They give you several hints early on that anyone can die, and then proceed to keep the tension high all through. The movie also suggests in several ways that things aren’t quite what they seem, but it very good at keeping you guessing.

To some degree, the last act was a copout. It relies a little bit on you knowing some Hollywood Tropes but not really putting things together. Despite that, I though it was fun and entertaining - a giant action scene that perhaps went on too long but was still enjoyable for what it was.

So I’ll count this on as a lesson. Sometimes, the majority is wrong. There were a lot of amateurish mistakes here, but overall this was like a glass of Riesling: it’s different than what you’re used to, but actually quite good even if the vintner made mistakes making it. You hope he does better, but you’re not sorry you tried it. Season fo the WItch is basically the kind of silly, entertaining and often shoddy movie that led so many of us to enjoying the cinema in the first place.

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Rule One of the SDMB: Starting a thread title with “What, no __________ thread?” is a guarantee that a thread has already been started.

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But that thread was mostly about how much it would suck, not people (except for one person) talking about how it actually turned out.
Anyway, it was okay. There was something unsettling about it, though, in the same manner as The Brothers Grimm - it was trying too hard to be both serious and campy both, which left it less cohesive than playing entirely straight or upping the campiness throughout would have.

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I completely agree - if the movie had a flaw, it’s that they couldn’t figure out which mvoie they wanted to make. But I often like quirky productions, and movies which aren’t exactly good but instead “different”.

Still, even here, I found it somewhat effective, because of the horror angle. I would keep getting into this relatively lighthearted adventure mood, and then they’d suddenly pull out some awful nightmarish horror.

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You really can’t judge movies by the reactions of movie critics and online reviewers generally. There’s a large element of groupthink in both groups. If your tastes exist outside the narrow scope of professional critics and fanboys, you have to judge for yourself. Not a bad thing, really.