I remember the Maze Runner coming out and literally never heard of it again. I'd forgotten it even existed until you mentioned it.
Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched
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I saw it, on Netflix or Amazon Prime or something. It's a sort of mash-up of Lord Of The Flies, Resident Evil and Cube. If you want spoilers: adolescents are in some weird place with shifting walls attacked by creatures, hero wakes up and tries to find out what the fuck is going on. Adventures occur. Turns out to be some experimental arena by an evil corporation (called WCKD - seriously!) designed to cure a plague. Any semblance of reason as to how the hell such a ridiculous set-up would help find the cure spectacularly absent. Fucking YA.
My advice is, don't bother. But I remember more about it than I remember of Divergent: that's gone from my memory wholesale.
I already spoiled myself via tvtropes. I don't feel like I missed anything by not watching any of them.
Only reason I'm even vaguely aware of The Maze Runner is because one of the characters in the films is apparently played by Littlefinger from Game of Thrones.
Dog: Good / Great
Channing Tatum plays a military veteran tasked with driving a fallen comrade's service dog 1,500 miles to the funeral. The dog has some... behavioral issues.
Decent flick that nicely toes the line between buddy comedy and genuine drama.
Channing Tatum plays a military veteran tasked with driving a fallen comrade's service dog 1,500 miles to the funeral. The dog has some... behavioral issues.
Decent flick that nicely toes the line between buddy comedy and genuine drama.
Everything everywhere at once
No dissenting opinion to be found here I'm afraid. Yeah it's pretty awesome. I'm honestly a little flabbergasted to find out its the Captain America guys because I could swear this was either a Bong Joon-ho or Stephen Chow film or both. Its pretty much spot on for either. If you liked films like The Host or Kungfu hustle this is a near perfect copycat of that kind of thoughtful storytelling and vaudevillian Marx Bros inspired action comedy. The only critique I could really make is that once the big reveal comes theres no more surpises to be found. It plays out largely how you imagine it would with Marvelesque satisfying yet unsurprising conclusion. Maybe thats what gives it away that its the Russo bros. Bong Joon-ho always leaves you in a state of "WTF" and Chow always leaves you begging for more. This was one leaves you thinking "That was AMAZING", but theres a solid chance you'll forget you saw it a year from now because theres not a lot to ruminate on so much as bite sized bits of fortune cookie wisdom.
For those that have seen it, I about died laughing at Racoontuille
No dissenting opinion to be found here I'm afraid. Yeah it's pretty awesome. I'm honestly a little flabbergasted to find out its the Captain America guys because I could swear this was either a Bong Joon-ho or Stephen Chow film or both. Its pretty much spot on for either. If you liked films like The Host or Kungfu hustle this is a near perfect copycat of that kind of thoughtful storytelling and vaudevillian Marx Bros inspired action comedy. The only critique I could really make is that once the big reveal comes theres no more surpises to be found. It plays out largely how you imagine it would with Marvelesque satisfying yet unsurprising conclusion. Maybe thats what gives it away that its the Russo bros. Bong Joon-ho always leaves you in a state of "WTF" and Chow always leaves you begging for more. This was one leaves you thinking "That was AMAZING", but theres a solid chance you'll forget you saw it a year from now because theres not a lot to ruminate on so much as bite sized bits of fortune cookie wisdom.
For those that have seen it, I about died laughing at Racoontuille
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On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Holy shit, The World is Not Enough is the Bond family motto. I had no idea!
Holy shit, The World is Not Enough is the Bond family motto. I had no idea!
What you thought he was joking when he said it in the movie of the same name?
When Elektra says the phrase in The World is Not Enough and Bond replies it's an old family motto? I thought that was just him being cheeky at death's door. And I guess he was, but I didn't know it was also literally the family motto. I'm only now watching 1969s On Her Majesty's etc.
I read the books because my younger sisters were so into it. Read the whole trilogy in a single night. It was fucking AWFUL. And yet, I still finished them all... I guess sometimes you want to enjoy something bad.
But yeah, the complete lack of any planning in regards to the story and world was just bizarre. It felt like every book, the reality of the world changes. It goes from surviving a maze, surviving a post apocalyptic earth, to surviving some sci fi zombie bullshit. It's something that almost every YA series suffers from. The author has a good idea for a first book, writes it, then has no fucking clue what to do with it anymore but popularity "forces" them to keep going.
Solo - A Star Wars Story - after EpIX, this was actually pretty good, broadly coherent and entertaining. Feels more like an extended episode of a TV show, though, weirdly.
Anyway, for shits n giggles, watched Firefox again, and good grief, Clint Eastwood's Russian sounds funny, I forgot Nigel Hawthorne was in it, Admiral Piett was as I expected, and such marvellously janky SFX for the 80's.
Anyway, for shits n giggles, watched Firefox again, and good grief, Clint Eastwood's Russian sounds funny, I forgot Nigel Hawthorne was in it, Admiral Piett was as I expected, and such marvellously janky SFX for the 80's.
Everything Everywhere All at Once
High concept science-fiction action comedy by director duo Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan from Swiss Army Man fame. Came out to rave reviews about a month ago and it's... perfectly fine. I'm not trying to be contrarian, there's a lot in there to like, but I expected a bit more from a movie that was met with this much enthusiasm. Anyways, EEAO is the story of of a middle aged Chinese American couple working out their family issues (mainly concerning their estranged daughter) and battling a malevolent, all destroying force threatening to wipe out the multiverse. Those two plotlines, as you might expect, end up being closely related.
EEAO is a movie with definite cult appeal. Arguably one that was practically engineered to have cult appeal, throwing goofball science-fiction akin to, say, Buckaroo Banzai, family drama, a generous helping of slapstick infused martial arts (I believe Jackie Chan, patron saint of comedic action choreography, was at some point considered for the role of the husband) and multiple buckets full of pop cultural references into a pot to cook a flavourful, but somewhat lukewarm stew of postmodernist clownery. Once again we have the "multiverse" as the thematic centerpiece of the movie. EEAO does utilize it in a smarter and more meaningful way than Dr. Strange. It's funny, I recently wrote about Kate Purdy's and Raphael Bob-Waksbergs Undone, another series that uses what it thinks is quantum theory to tell a story about familial relations with psychedelic visuals. In a way, EEAO is what Undone would have been if it had been written by hipsters instead of hippies.
Which, for what it's worth, makes it a more entertaining watch than Undone, but not exactly a more meaningful one. It's not exactly that it's bad, it has its share of well done aspects. The standouts probably being Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. It's very unusual for an action movie, even an unconventional one, to feature what's effectively an unassuming middle aged couple as its leads, but those two both give very lively and emotionally engaging performances. Yeoh especially goes all in on the movies zany setpieces and it certainly helps that both her and Quan actually know martial arts.
My problem wiith EEAO, and I'm aware that it's a very subjective one, is that I just didn't think it was very funny. It relies a lot on its fast paced humor and absurdity to carry it but most of it just didn't do it for me. It had two jokes that made me chuckle. One was a parody of 2001 A Space Odyssey, the other one a parody of Ratatouille, the latter of which they ruined by dwelling on it too much. Which might be my main issue with the movies sense of humour, too much of it relies on non sequiturs which are amusing, for exactly as long as they're actually coming out of left field. EEAO tends to drag them out well past the point of them being funny. That whole sausage fingers routine got more grating, the more they refused to move on from it. I dunno, maybe that's just the Asian movie influence, I have the same problem with a lot of Japanese comedies.
In the end, I feel like EEAO is an adequate family drama, inside a fun action movie, inside a pretty cheesy comedy. And considering comedy is one of the most subjective things out there, I'm well aware that a lot of people might find a lot of what left me cold very funny, so don't take my word as gospel. But when it comes down to it, I never felt the movies irreverent, genre bending antics ever came together the way the creators intended them to. There's a pair of very strong performances in the middle but they're surrounded by a movie that's trying too hard to be weird and zany, ironically mostly in ways that actually feel quite safe and predictable. In many ways, its heart was in the right place, and I'm not ruling out that I might have treated it with more good will if it had, say, Lana Wachowski's name on it But it just never properly won me over when I was watching it.
High concept science-fiction action comedy by director duo Daniel Scheinert and Daniel Kwan from Swiss Army Man fame. Came out to rave reviews about a month ago and it's... perfectly fine. I'm not trying to be contrarian, there's a lot in there to like, but I expected a bit more from a movie that was met with this much enthusiasm. Anyways, EEAO is the story of of a middle aged Chinese American couple working out their family issues (mainly concerning their estranged daughter) and battling a malevolent, all destroying force threatening to wipe out the multiverse. Those two plotlines, as you might expect, end up being closely related.
EEAO is a movie with definite cult appeal. Arguably one that was practically engineered to have cult appeal, throwing goofball science-fiction akin to, say, Buckaroo Banzai, family drama, a generous helping of slapstick infused martial arts (I believe Jackie Chan, patron saint of comedic action choreography, was at some point considered for the role of the husband) and multiple buckets full of pop cultural references into a pot to cook a flavourful, but somewhat lukewarm stew of postmodernist clownery. Once again we have the "multiverse" as the thematic centerpiece of the movie. EEAO does utilize it in a smarter and more meaningful way than Dr. Strange. It's funny, I recently wrote about Kate Purdy's and Raphael Bob-Waksbergs Undone, another series that uses what it thinks is quantum theory to tell a story about familial relations with psychedelic visuals. In a way, EEAO is what Undone would have been if it had been written by hipsters instead of hippies.
Which, for what it's worth, makes it a more entertaining watch than Undone, but not exactly a more meaningful one. It's not exactly that it's bad, it has its share of well done aspects. The standouts probably being Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan. It's very unusual for an action movie, even an unconventional one, to feature what's effectively an unassuming middle aged couple as its leads, but those two both give very lively and emotionally engaging performances. Yeoh especially goes all in on the movies zany setpieces and it certainly helps that both her and Quan actually know martial arts.
My problem wiith EEAO, and I'm aware that it's a very subjective one, is that I just didn't think it was very funny. It relies a lot on its fast paced humor and absurdity to carry it but most of it just didn't do it for me. It had two jokes that made me chuckle. One was a parody of 2001 A Space Odyssey, the other one a parody of Ratatouille, the latter of which they ruined by dwelling on it too much. Which might be my main issue with the movies sense of humour, too much of it relies on non sequiturs which are amusing, for exactly as long as they're actually coming out of left field. EEAO tends to drag them out well past the point of them being funny. That whole sausage fingers routine got more grating, the more they refused to move on from it. I dunno, maybe that's just the Asian movie influence, I have the same problem with a lot of Japanese comedies.
In the end, I feel like EEAO is an adequate family drama, inside a fun action movie, inside a pretty cheesy comedy. And considering comedy is one of the most subjective things out there, I'm well aware that a lot of people might find a lot of what left me cold very funny, so don't take my word as gospel. But when it comes down to it, I never felt the movies irreverent, genre bending antics ever came together the way the creators intended them to. There's a pair of very strong performances in the middle but they're surrounded by a movie that's trying too hard to be weird and zany, ironically mostly in ways that actually feel quite safe and predictable. In many ways, its heart was in the right place, and I'm not ruling out that I might have treated it with more good will if it had, say, Lana Wachowski's name on it But it just never properly won me over when I was watching it.
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Zodiac
Now I've watched all the David Fincher movies except Dragon Tattoo and Mank. Because I don't research most of the movies I watch and wasn't alive at the time, I realized only ten minutes in that it was about the Zodiac Killer. Jake Gyllenhaal tries to find him. Good, but I hope Fincher doesn't do real stories again.
The transfer is awful.
Wtf are those lines running down the picture? More noticeable in darker scenes. Also frozen grain. Much of it looks okay, but overall a really crappy transfer/encode.
Now I've watched all the David Fincher movies except Dragon Tattoo and Mank. Because I don't research most of the movies I watch and wasn't alive at the time, I realized only ten minutes in that it was about the Zodiac Killer. Jake Gyllenhaal tries to find him. Good, but I hope Fincher doesn't do real stories again.
The transfer is awful.
Wtf are those lines running down the picture? More noticeable in darker scenes. Also frozen grain. Much of it looks okay, but overall a really crappy transfer/encode.
Just saw it last night and I pretty much agree, it was fine/good but I felt like I should've been enjoying more than I was and can't really put my finger on why exactly. I think it was too long for what it was. I would think it should win an award for editing though.
I just got back from Everything Everywhere All At Once. I don't want to say too much about it, because it is the kind of movie that is best gone into as blind as possible, but I will say this: it is currently the best movie I've seen this year, I will not be completely surprised if it ends up being the best movie I see all year, and my only real complaint is that they don't hand you a box of tissues at the door.
Watched Everything Everywhere All At Once last night.
I wouldn't recommend it.
I can appreciate it for what it was (or what it was trying to be), but it really wasn't for me. There were a couple of scenes that I really enjoyed, but I mostly found that it relied too much on lolrandom humour, and it got really repetitive towards the end. The action scenes were super fast, which only made the slower sections feel like they dragged on for an eternity. In the end, it felt like the film was about 4 hours long.
My girlfriend described it perfectly: "It felt like I was being screamed at for 3 hours", which is to say that I didn't particularly enjoy it, and my head hurt afterwards, but I was intrigued to see if the film really had the endurance to keep up the aforementioned screaming for the entire runtime. And it did, for better or worse.
And its strange because I look at the reviews, and I see a great score on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and then I come out of the movie, and the general mumblings that I heard from the other members of the audience were also fairly negative (a fair few people even walked out, which I haven't seen in a while). Im honestly surprised that this wasn't a more divisive movie.
So yeah, pretty disappointed with this one.
I wouldn't recommend it.
I can appreciate it for what it was (or what it was trying to be), but it really wasn't for me. There were a couple of scenes that I really enjoyed, but I mostly found that it relied too much on lolrandom humour, and it got really repetitive towards the end. The action scenes were super fast, which only made the slower sections feel like they dragged on for an eternity. In the end, it felt like the film was about 4 hours long.
My girlfriend described it perfectly: "It felt like I was being screamed at for 3 hours", which is to say that I didn't particularly enjoy it, and my head hurt afterwards, but I was intrigued to see if the film really had the endurance to keep up the aforementioned screaming for the entire runtime. And it did, for better or worse.
And its strange because I look at the reviews, and I see a great score on Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and then I come out of the movie, and the general mumblings that I heard from the other members of the audience were also fairly negative (a fair few people even walked out, which I haven't seen in a while). Im honestly surprised that this wasn't a more divisive movie.
So yeah, pretty disappointed with this one.
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You can't count on those sites for shit. I learned the easy way not to rely on those.