We already have that, sort of. It’s called DinoRiders and it is exactly on the knife edge of awesome and brain dead stupid as a concept.
Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched
- Thread starter Th3Ch33s3Cak3
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I watched Watcher (2022) last night.
Interesting little thriller/horror. It stars Maika Monroe as a married ex-actor who moves to Bucharest with her husband whos secured marketing work there. Shes very lonely and is struggling to learn romanian when she begins to believe she is being stalked. This follows the typical Alfred Hitchcock style of thriller with twists and fakeouts, so its hard to say theres anything new new here. Instead the film leans heavily on Maika Monroe and the cinematography to carry the audience along with her in her feelings of anxiety and alienation. I wish I spoke Romanian because most of the dialog is in Romanian and intentionally unsubtitled to give the audience a measure of empathy. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I dont want to give anything away, but both Maika and the antagonist smolder intensely. You can really cut the tension with a knife.
Interesting little thriller/horror. It stars Maika Monroe as a married ex-actor who moves to Bucharest with her husband whos secured marketing work there. Shes very lonely and is struggling to learn romanian when she begins to believe she is being stalked. This follows the typical Alfred Hitchcock style of thriller with twists and fakeouts, so its hard to say theres anything new new here. Instead the film leans heavily on Maika Monroe and the cinematography to carry the audience along with her in her feelings of anxiety and alienation. I wish I spoke Romanian because most of the dialog is in Romanian and intentionally unsubtitled to give the audience a measure of empathy. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I dont want to give anything away, but both Maika and the antagonist smolder intensely. You can really cut the tension with a knife.
See what I mean? To a five to ten year old it’s the most awesome shit to ever exist: to anyone over the age of twenty it’s the dumbest thing that could possibly be put to paper.
Jurassic World: Dominion (7/10)
So, I'm extremely mixed on this film, and I could see its score changing, if not its placing (it's the #4 JP film for me). That said, having had a day to process my thoughts, I think the simplest way I could sum them up is with the phrase "Jurassic Park is an intelligent movie with some action, Dominion is an action movie with some intelligence." When I watched the end, on one hand, it felt like a wrap up of everything that had come before, but on the other, JP 1's ending relies entirely on visuals, while Dominion's requires a monologue. So while it's very tempting to point out the idea of the Jurassic Park series becoming dumber over time, I don't think that's entirely fair to Dominion, because at the end of the day, the film isn't "bad" per se, it's just...off. Even by the standards of the Jurassic World trilogy, it feels like a regression. For instance, when the T-Rex fought the I-Rex, as silly as it was, it arguably worked thematically, of the 'real, classic' dinosaur fighting and defeating the 'artificial' hybrid, whereas here, when the T-rex fights (and beats) the Giganotasaurus (with some help of some other dino), that's...nice, I guess, but there's nothing here thematically.
There's lots of random thoughts I can give, but I don't feel like summarizing the movie, and I felt exhausted by the end of it. The action is good, but it's just so constant it began to wear thin. Yet I can't write this off as some dumb action flick, because Dominion's very aware of the points it's making about the environment (even if not particuarly subtlely, and I'd argue it kind of undercuts its own message at the end), and, well, yeah.
So, yeah. Mixed. If I did digits, I'd give this a 6.5, but that would be semantics. Even now, I'm still torn, but, well, what ya gonna do? Probably wait for a few decades until Jurassic Park 7 comes along (or prequels, or Triassic, or Cretaceous, or go full Mesozoic), but for now, I'm content with where things have left off. The film's been torn apart in some circles, and while a lot of the criticism is valid, I think the film does have redeeming features, but, well, rambled on long enough.
So, I'm extremely mixed on this film, and I could see its score changing, if not its placing (it's the #4 JP film for me). That said, having had a day to process my thoughts, I think the simplest way I could sum them up is with the phrase "Jurassic Park is an intelligent movie with some action, Dominion is an action movie with some intelligence." When I watched the end, on one hand, it felt like a wrap up of everything that had come before, but on the other, JP 1's ending relies entirely on visuals, while Dominion's requires a monologue. So while it's very tempting to point out the idea of the Jurassic Park series becoming dumber over time, I don't think that's entirely fair to Dominion, because at the end of the day, the film isn't "bad" per se, it's just...off. Even by the standards of the Jurassic World trilogy, it feels like a regression. For instance, when the T-Rex fought the I-Rex, as silly as it was, it arguably worked thematically, of the 'real, classic' dinosaur fighting and defeating the 'artificial' hybrid, whereas here, when the T-rex fights (and beats) the Giganotasaurus (with some help of some other dino), that's...nice, I guess, but there's nothing here thematically.
There's lots of random thoughts I can give, but I don't feel like summarizing the movie, and I felt exhausted by the end of it. The action is good, but it's just so constant it began to wear thin. Yet I can't write this off as some dumb action flick, because Dominion's very aware of the points it's making about the environment (even if not particuarly subtlely, and I'd argue it kind of undercuts its own message at the end), and, well, yeah.
So, yeah. Mixed. If I did digits, I'd give this a 6.5, but that would be semantics. Even now, I'm still torn, but, well, what ya gonna do? Probably wait for a few decades until Jurassic Park 7 comes along (or prequels, or Triassic, or Cretaceous, or go full Mesozoic), but for now, I'm content with where things have left off. The film's been torn apart in some circles, and while a lot of the criticism is valid, I think the film does have redeeming features, but, well, rambled on long enough.
A Serbian Film (2010)
A movie (in)famous for its shocking and transgressive content before anything else. Let me preface that by saying that I've engaged with the art of film in all its different expressions for long enough that I'm past the point of being shocked, or indeed offended, by the content of a fictional movie. I might take offense with a movies ideology, but any depiction of a fictional baby being molested or a fictional man's eyesocket being penetrated (and yes, both of those are things that happen in Serbian Film) will never offend me the way many an allegedly family friendly's productions apologies for organizations like the CIA or various expressions of socially accepted bigotry will.
Personally, I think the most noble goal of film, or any art form, is the pursuit of beauty and awe as projected from its creators heart. That said, despite that personal point of view, I can respect, and to an extent appreciate, artists who explore ugliness and depravity within themselves and within society inside of a fictional framework. Which brings us to Srdan Spasojevic's A Serbian Film.
Serbian Film follows serbian porn actor Milos being offered a job for an amount of money great enough, we're told, to provide for his young family for the rest of their lives. Blinded by the promise of lasting financial security, he takes the offer from secretive producer Vukmir, introducing him to a world of pedophilia, necrophilia, snuff and incest. It's when Milos tries to escape from this world upon finding out what he's gotten himself into that the real cruelty starts.
Serbian Film sounds like an exploitation flick, and in most ways is, but there's a certain socially conscious ambition to it that it insists on. Forgoing the sleaze and grit of the American grindhouse, or the intimacy of french extremism, Serbian Film maintains a certain detachment from the vulgarity of its content. A lot of it is filmed like a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. It's infused not so much with the sensationalist thrills of a typical, hyper violent b-movie and more with an intense, but surprisingly calm, anger. Spasojevic has talked a great deal about how Serbian Film is meant to be understood as a satire on postwar Serbian culture and the serbian film industry. I don't know enough about either to make any conclusive statement on whether it succeeds as such, but its certainly attempting to be about something.
As a work of satire and social commentary, Serbian Film is about as subtle as a dick through the eye. At one point the movies antagonist, mad film director (with a background in child psychology and clandestine government work, of course) Vukmir monologues about how victimhood is produced and sold as a commodity world wide. The pornographic, and, as Vukmir would try to tell you, artistic framing of murder, torture, sexual violence to be sold to an wealthy international clientele is most likely not too exaggerated a depiction of what happens in pockets of unaccountable power in places like Saudi Arabia, North Korea, China, Russia, The United Stated and, yes probably even close to where you, the reader, or I, the writer, live. Family. Marriage. Notions of basic decency and compassion. All those are treated as boundaries to break, for the sake of breaking down man himself.
Despite Serbian Films fairly clearly articulated intentions and professional production values, I'm not really willing to give in to my impulses of calling it a good movie, by any critical standards. It's not exactly the crass display of bad taste and pointless provocation that some of its worst detractors make it out to be, but at the same time it doesn't really amount to all that much either. It all plays a bit too earnestly to really come together as a satire, which is kind of a shame, because I will admit that it managed to make me chuckle once in a while. At the same time, the drama is undercut by how indulgently graphic its violence gets. What's left is not quite here or there.
It's the directors first, and so far only, feature length movie and honestly, I don't think that comes as a surprise. It's not the sort of entrance that's gonna make you a lot of friends in the industry, or attract an especially large fanbase outside of gorehounds and exploitation movie weirdos, which, in this day and age, are a dying breed. There is some meaning to Serbian Film's excesses. Spasojevic definitely tries to air his frustrations about the state of eastern european sex work, about the state of film, about the things the rich and powerful get away with, about the desolation of his country following the Yugoslav War. I'm not even gonna dispute that the shock value it has needs to be there, it would have just needed a bit more actual, textual meat to make it count.
I would consider Serbian Film a promising start to a career, but here we are, 12 years later, and Spasojevic hasn't directed anything else so... you know, what career are we even talking about here? And I'm finding that a bit regretable, actually, because while I don't think it really was a good movie, at least at made me consider that he might have a good movie in him. There is a visual eye and a sense of righteous anger to it that begs to be refined into something a bit sharper, a bit more sophisticated. The reason the shock value overshadows the actual commentary of the movie in discourse is, plain and simple, that the shock value is conveyed a lot more skillfully. For what it is, A Serbian Film could have been worse. I also think it could have been better.
A movie (in)famous for its shocking and transgressive content before anything else. Let me preface that by saying that I've engaged with the art of film in all its different expressions for long enough that I'm past the point of being shocked, or indeed offended, by the content of a fictional movie. I might take offense with a movies ideology, but any depiction of a fictional baby being molested or a fictional man's eyesocket being penetrated (and yes, both of those are things that happen in Serbian Film) will never offend me the way many an allegedly family friendly's productions apologies for organizations like the CIA or various expressions of socially accepted bigotry will.
Personally, I think the most noble goal of film, or any art form, is the pursuit of beauty and awe as projected from its creators heart. That said, despite that personal point of view, I can respect, and to an extent appreciate, artists who explore ugliness and depravity within themselves and within society inside of a fictional framework. Which brings us to Srdan Spasojevic's A Serbian Film.
Serbian Film follows serbian porn actor Milos being offered a job for an amount of money great enough, we're told, to provide for his young family for the rest of their lives. Blinded by the promise of lasting financial security, he takes the offer from secretive producer Vukmir, introducing him to a world of pedophilia, necrophilia, snuff and incest. It's when Milos tries to escape from this world upon finding out what he's gotten himself into that the real cruelty starts.
Serbian Film sounds like an exploitation flick, and in most ways is, but there's a certain socially conscious ambition to it that it insists on. Forgoing the sleaze and grit of the American grindhouse, or the intimacy of french extremism, Serbian Film maintains a certain detachment from the vulgarity of its content. A lot of it is filmed like a Yorgos Lanthimos movie. It's infused not so much with the sensationalist thrills of a typical, hyper violent b-movie and more with an intense, but surprisingly calm, anger. Spasojevic has talked a great deal about how Serbian Film is meant to be understood as a satire on postwar Serbian culture and the serbian film industry. I don't know enough about either to make any conclusive statement on whether it succeeds as such, but its certainly attempting to be about something.
As a work of satire and social commentary, Serbian Film is about as subtle as a dick through the eye. At one point the movies antagonist, mad film director (with a background in child psychology and clandestine government work, of course) Vukmir monologues about how victimhood is produced and sold as a commodity world wide. The pornographic, and, as Vukmir would try to tell you, artistic framing of murder, torture, sexual violence to be sold to an wealthy international clientele is most likely not too exaggerated a depiction of what happens in pockets of unaccountable power in places like Saudi Arabia, North Korea, China, Russia, The United Stated and, yes probably even close to where you, the reader, or I, the writer, live. Family. Marriage. Notions of basic decency and compassion. All those are treated as boundaries to break, for the sake of breaking down man himself.
Despite Serbian Films fairly clearly articulated intentions and professional production values, I'm not really willing to give in to my impulses of calling it a good movie, by any critical standards. It's not exactly the crass display of bad taste and pointless provocation that some of its worst detractors make it out to be, but at the same time it doesn't really amount to all that much either. It all plays a bit too earnestly to really come together as a satire, which is kind of a shame, because I will admit that it managed to make me chuckle once in a while. At the same time, the drama is undercut by how indulgently graphic its violence gets. What's left is not quite here or there.
It's the directors first, and so far only, feature length movie and honestly, I don't think that comes as a surprise. It's not the sort of entrance that's gonna make you a lot of friends in the industry, or attract an especially large fanbase outside of gorehounds and exploitation movie weirdos, which, in this day and age, are a dying breed. There is some meaning to Serbian Film's excesses. Spasojevic definitely tries to air his frustrations about the state of eastern european sex work, about the state of film, about the things the rich and powerful get away with, about the desolation of his country following the Yugoslav War. I'm not even gonna dispute that the shock value it has needs to be there, it would have just needed a bit more actual, textual meat to make it count.
I would consider Serbian Film a promising start to a career, but here we are, 12 years later, and Spasojevic hasn't directed anything else so... you know, what career are we even talking about here? And I'm finding that a bit regretable, actually, because while I don't think it really was a good movie, at least at made me consider that he might have a good movie in him. There is a visual eye and a sense of righteous anger to it that begs to be refined into something a bit sharper, a bit more sophisticated. The reason the shock value overshadows the actual commentary of the movie in discourse is, plain and simple, that the shock value is conveyed a lot more skillfully. For what it is, A Serbian Film could have been worse. I also think it could have been better.
Elvis
There have been near countless takes on his life set to film and most if not all of them have missed the mark in some way; some more than others as his surviving family has been quick to point out throughout the promotion of this highly stylized “biopic” by the equally eccentric Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, The Great Gatsby, etc.). A few others have been quick to point out how many events and people from his life are glossed over or completely omitted here as well, including those close to the singer.
It would take several feature length films to do each of these elements justice even considering his abbreviated life span, and Luhrmann wisely kept the focus on a more specific, vital story that hasn’t had the opportunity to be told yet: The story of the codependent relationship between Elvis and his crooked, diabolical half-genius manager, Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk - aka “Colonel” Tom Parker. It’s an important story because unlike previous looks into the entertainer’s life that always examined the “what”, Luhrmann’s latest tackles the “how” and “why” behind what is argued to have been the underlying catalyst to his early demise, drugs and eating habits be damned.
What’s interesting is it’s narrated from the the perspective of his manager stating his case on his own death bed, but it’s difficult to feel much sympathy for him by the end. Tom Hanks has been criticized for his choice of accent but I doubt many of these people have even heard Parker talk much anyways. He did a good enough job with it, but the real draw here is Austin Butler. He put everything he had into this role and it shows, to the point of often being damn near indistinguishable from the subject. Not an easy task, as Johnny Carson once said, “If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.” He had a bit part in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, but this is his first leading role AFAIK and he delivers. Expect to see him in other high profile projects in the future.
It ends on a dire note of course, but punctuated by craftily segueing into one of the singer’s actual final, heart-wrenching performances. As a fan it was pleasing to have this story finally seeing the light of day, and that it managed to be as entertaining as it was.
8/10 fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches
There have been near countless takes on his life set to film and most if not all of them have missed the mark in some way; some more than others as his surviving family has been quick to point out throughout the promotion of this highly stylized “biopic” by the equally eccentric Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge!, The Great Gatsby, etc.). A few others have been quick to point out how many events and people from his life are glossed over or completely omitted here as well, including those close to the singer.
It would take several feature length films to do each of these elements justice even considering his abbreviated life span, and Luhrmann wisely kept the focus on a more specific, vital story that hasn’t had the opportunity to be told yet: The story of the codependent relationship between Elvis and his crooked, diabolical half-genius manager, Andreas Cornelis van Kuijk - aka “Colonel” Tom Parker. It’s an important story because unlike previous looks into the entertainer’s life that always examined the “what”, Luhrmann’s latest tackles the “how” and “why” behind what is argued to have been the underlying catalyst to his early demise, drugs and eating habits be damned.
What’s interesting is it’s narrated from the the perspective of his manager stating his case on his own death bed, but it’s difficult to feel much sympathy for him by the end. Tom Hanks has been criticized for his choice of accent but I doubt many of these people have even heard Parker talk much anyways. He did a good enough job with it, but the real draw here is Austin Butler. He put everything he had into this role and it shows, to the point of often being damn near indistinguishable from the subject. Not an easy task, as Johnny Carson once said, “If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.” He had a bit part in Once Upon a Time In Hollywood, but this is his first leading role AFAIK and he delivers. Expect to see him in other high profile projects in the future.
It ends on a dire note of course, but punctuated by craftily segueing into one of the singer’s actual final, heart-wrenching performances. As a fan it was pleasing to have this story finally seeing the light of day, and that it managed to be as entertaining as it was.
8/10 fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches
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Just watched a movie called Tammy and the T-Rex. The plot of the movie is as follows. A guy hooks up with a girl, who has an ex that is on the crazy side. That ex captures him, takes him to a wildlife park, and leaves him to be mauled by the wildlife. When he dies in the hospital, a mad scientist steals his body to put the brain into an animatronic T-Rex. The rest of the movie involves the teen-turned-dinosaur getting his revenge on the people who killed him, and then getting back with his girlfriend.
As you can tell, this is not a movie to be taken seriously...and yet, the main stars do take the movie seriously, which makes it all that much better of a watch. It's a ridiculous movie that knows it's ridiculous and runs with it. Add in some nasty, nasty gore (if you watch the unrated version and not the PG-13 cut), and you have one hell of a fun ride.
Did I mention that the doomed male teenager is played by Paul Walker? Yes, that Paul Walker. Also making an appearance in this film: Denise Richards. And by "appearance", I mean she's the female lead.
As you can tell, this is not a movie to be taken seriously...and yet, the main stars do take the movie seriously, which makes it all that much better of a watch. It's a ridiculous movie that knows it's ridiculous and runs with it. Add in some nasty, nasty gore (if you watch the unrated version and not the PG-13 cut), and you have one hell of a fun ride.
Did I mention that the doomed male teenager is played by Paul Walker? Yes, that Paul Walker. Also making an appearance in this film: Denise Richards. And by "appearance", I mean she's the female lead.
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Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City
Like frantically cutting back and forth between two speedruns of the first two games except it's mostly the cutscenes and nobody looks like their character. Movie drops more subplots in 1h 45m than Mad Men did in 7 years. Points for having Jill say "This is Jill's sandwich now".
Like frantically cutting back and forth between two speedruns of the first two games except it's mostly the cutscenes and nobody looks like their character. Movie drops more subplots in 1h 45m than Mad Men did in 7 years. Points for having Jill say "This is Jill's sandwich now".
I would have liked It a lot more if they just cut out all the asylum and just kept it to two stories. If its even from Resident Evil I didn't recognize it, but the stories of the latter games get pretty messy. It felt ripped from some other game like FEAR or Silent hill.
I think it was made up for the movie (as well as the Redfields' connection to Birkin, which was ultimately pointless to the plot) though the little home movie of the Ashfords mutilating the dragonfly is lifted shot for shot from Code Veronica as I recall it. But yes, the asylum looks like Midwich Elementary from Silent Hill. The nurse that opens the movie is even dressed like Lisa Garland.
No Time To Die
I'm...decidedly unimpressed. It feels like the movie's trying to be smarter than it actually is and it just feels like it's a frankenfilm that slapped together a lot of different ideas without concern for how the elements would work together once they actually started moving.
It starts with a flashback wherein a young Madeline Swann (the love interest from the last film) ends up having to run from this film's antagonist (masked, of course) as he tries to kill her in retaliation for her father killing his family. He kills her mother, she ends up shooting and seemingly killing him...only for him to suddenly breathe back to life as she's dragging his corpse out into the snow. She flees by way of the frozen lake...only for it to crack under her feet and her to immediately get trapped under the now suddenly solid ice as her much heavier assailant stares down at her...before firing half a few dozen shots through the ice around her and pulling her out, at which point it cuts back to the present.
Now, if you're going "Wait, what?" to that...yeah, that's pretty emblematic of the movie. The shots work well enough in isolation, but it's very much a movie that only works if you're willing to turn your brain off.
They just keep on dropping one idea after another and then changing tracks on them. Bond's outside the system and has to deal with the fact that there's a new 007, and they both have chips on their shoulder about that...and that goes no further than a handful of scenes wherein they exchange snark. To see the same idea done better, watch RED. He's palling around with a neophyte CIA field agent who can't quite pull off the 'sophisticated spy' schtick that Bond does...and she's more or less a one-scene wonder, amicably stepping off the stage as quickly as she appeared. Good god, the wasted potential there of dangling a protege in front of us just for part of the second act is just painful!
And then there's just the perplexing stuff, like Blofeld apparently controlling his criminal empire from his cell because...in the years that he's been imprisoned, MI6 never noticed that one of his eyes was a cybernetic communications device with a two-way audio/visual feed. What. Or the fact that he evidently doesn't talk to anyone but his psychiatrist (In prison?)...who happens to be Madeline. Why Madeline would be his psychiatrist after Blofeld spent the last movie and the start of this one alternating between trying to kill her and tormenting her is anyone's guess. And then there's the actual villain, who starts off with a very personal motive putting him at odds with Spectre...and then it's like when he completed that part of his story the writers realized that they had a final act without a villain and so suddenly amped up the creepiness and gave him a bog-standard genocidal maniac angle just so Bond would have someone to fight...which ends up severely diminishing the character.
Strictly speaking, it's not bad, but it's frustrating in that it feels like it could have been so much more if they'd focused a little more on the elements that worked and took a little more time to polish the screenplay and leave some of the stuff they never bothered to go anywhere with on the cutting room floor. If you feel like you need closure for Craig's tenure as Bond, it might be worth giving it a go, but if you aren't especially invested in that, it's probably safe to pass on.
I'm...decidedly unimpressed. It feels like the movie's trying to be smarter than it actually is and it just feels like it's a frankenfilm that slapped together a lot of different ideas without concern for how the elements would work together once they actually started moving.
It starts with a flashback wherein a young Madeline Swann (the love interest from the last film) ends up having to run from this film's antagonist (masked, of course) as he tries to kill her in retaliation for her father killing his family. He kills her mother, she ends up shooting and seemingly killing him...only for him to suddenly breathe back to life as she's dragging his corpse out into the snow. She flees by way of the frozen lake...only for it to crack under her feet and her to immediately get trapped under the now suddenly solid ice as her much heavier assailant stares down at her...before firing half a few dozen shots through the ice around her and pulling her out, at which point it cuts back to the present.
Now, if you're going "Wait, what?" to that...yeah, that's pretty emblematic of the movie. The shots work well enough in isolation, but it's very much a movie that only works if you're willing to turn your brain off.
They just keep on dropping one idea after another and then changing tracks on them. Bond's outside the system and has to deal with the fact that there's a new 007, and they both have chips on their shoulder about that...and that goes no further than a handful of scenes wherein they exchange snark. To see the same idea done better, watch RED. He's palling around with a neophyte CIA field agent who can't quite pull off the 'sophisticated spy' schtick that Bond does...and she's more or less a one-scene wonder, amicably stepping off the stage as quickly as she appeared. Good god, the wasted potential there of dangling a protege in front of us just for part of the second act is just painful!
And then there's just the perplexing stuff, like Blofeld apparently controlling his criminal empire from his cell because...in the years that he's been imprisoned, MI6 never noticed that one of his eyes was a cybernetic communications device with a two-way audio/visual feed. What. Or the fact that he evidently doesn't talk to anyone but his psychiatrist (In prison?)...who happens to be Madeline. Why Madeline would be his psychiatrist after Blofeld spent the last movie and the start of this one alternating between trying to kill her and tormenting her is anyone's guess. And then there's the actual villain, who starts off with a very personal motive putting him at odds with Spectre...and then it's like when he completed that part of his story the writers realized that they had a final act without a villain and so suddenly amped up the creepiness and gave him a bog-standard genocidal maniac angle just so Bond would have someone to fight...which ends up severely diminishing the character.
Strictly speaking, it's not bad, but it's frustrating in that it feels like it could have been so much more if they'd focused a little more on the elements that worked and took a little more time to polish the screenplay and leave some of the stuff they never bothered to go anywhere with on the cutting room floor. If you feel like you need closure for Craig's tenure as Bond, it might be worth giving it a go, but if you aren't especially invested in that, it's probably safe to pass on.
I did finally watch Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Hmmm. I liked it. It was good. But I don't know if it is good for the overall health of the MCU. What I was expecting, this would establish our next huge threat. The next Thanos if you will. It probably did not, although it could have... and that's the problem. They've established the existence of a multiverse, so now there is no consequences anymore. "Oh no, we killed off ________, and they tested good in screenings," says Disney analyst. "Well, the actor is on contract so tell those writers he needs to be brought in from another universe so the audience can have them back," replies Disney exec. There was a reason DC needed a Crisis on Infinite Earths. Besides being convoluted, it removes all consequence. It makes for a few interesting stories, and like Multiverse of Madness a pretty visually good movie (I especially liked the musical duel.) But now even the consequence of "the whole universe was destroyed" is permanently undercut by "well, we do have another one." Someone just did the turtle stair stomp glitch and Mario has infinite lives. Who cares if Cap retired, somewhere else he didn't and can rejoin the Avengers. Or Bucky got the serum, or Carter, or Dum Dum Dugan and all the Howling Commandos. There are an infinite number of Tony Starks to replace any dead ones. There's worlds where the blip happened, or didn't happen, or Thanos was one of the 50% that got blipped...
There's a problem with establishing it all can or already has happened. Nothing has any weight anymore. "Oh, its so sad that ______ didn't work out their problems with ____." Well, somewhere they did. Somewhere they didn't. Fuck it, somewhere they never met because one of them never existed and the other was born a polyorchid hunchback. Absolutely nothing can actually have any impact in the story... until they pull a Crisis. And now that I've had that realization, my enjoyment of further installments will be tempered by waiting for that to happen.
There's a problem with establishing it all can or already has happened. Nothing has any weight anymore. "Oh, its so sad that ______ didn't work out their problems with ____." Well, somewhere they did. Somewhere they didn't. Fuck it, somewhere they never met because one of them never existed and the other was born a polyorchid hunchback. Absolutely nothing can actually have any impact in the story... until they pull a Crisis. And now that I've had that realization, my enjoyment of further installments will be tempered by waiting for that to happen.
Accurate. This actually applies to a lot of espionage/intrigue/action films. They spend so much time trying to be clever that they end up tying themselves up in knots, and try to use equally convoluted exposition to untangle themselves at "key" moments in the film. I've never been a James Bond fan, but have sat through a few of them throughout the years, and have always walked away feeling they spent more time being pretentious than entertaining or interesting.
Wife and I also watched Doctor Strange 2 the other night and it's one of those comic book blockbusters where like I don't know or care what's happening because everything is stupid and meaningless. I mean, of course they're all stupid and meaningless but the good ones are balanced with some sense of pacing, presentation and character to make the stupidity and meaningless entertaining or interesting.
With this movie there were these reams of exposition where it sounded like a kid explaining why he just started getting into D&D: "ok so first there this DARK book you need to cast a spell but it's canceled by the Key of Whatever ..." blah blah blah, magic nonsense.
Also didn't help that America Chavez had no personality.
I like Cumberbatch as do we all and I've really come to appreciate Elizaboth Olsen as an actress but this movie has so much stupid that they weren't needed, it could have been robots.
I'm kind of surprised how much this movie rubbed me the wrong way considering how much I liked the first one and Wandavision. Oh well.
Something better we watched last night: Hacks, season 2
If you like funny ladies and dramadies you like this, it's a Joan Rivers-inspired comedian linking up with an up-comer. Generations clash, show-biz satire, and Jean Smart being delightfully bitchy. Good stuff.
I also started The Old Man. It's exactly what it looks like- Jeff Bridges is an ex-CIA rogue on the run from a manhunt led by Jon Lithgow, each playing exactly the character you are imagining them playing. It's like comfort food for those of us that are a sucker for this sort of thing.
With this movie there were these reams of exposition where it sounded like a kid explaining why he just started getting into D&D: "ok so first there this DARK book you need to cast a spell but it's canceled by the Key of Whatever ..." blah blah blah, magic nonsense.
Also didn't help that America Chavez had no personality.
I like Cumberbatch as do we all and I've really come to appreciate Elizaboth Olsen as an actress but this movie has so much stupid that they weren't needed, it could have been robots.
I'm kind of surprised how much this movie rubbed me the wrong way considering how much I liked the first one and Wandavision. Oh well.
Something better we watched last night: Hacks, season 2
If you like funny ladies and dramadies you like this, it's a Joan Rivers-inspired comedian linking up with an up-comer. Generations clash, show-biz satire, and Jean Smart being delightfully bitchy. Good stuff.
I also started The Old Man. It's exactly what it looks like- Jeff Bridges is an ex-CIA rogue on the run from a manhunt led by Jon Lithgow, each playing exactly the character you are imagining them playing. It's like comfort food for those of us that are a sucker for this sort of thing.
I haven't watched any Marvel movies since Endgame and since then I've only watched Loki and Wandavision, but really I keep waiting for the next movie that feels like it's important or at least particularly good. I liked Wandavision but Loki felt like a cool premise that didn't really know what it wanted to do and then turned into Dr. Who for some reason.
And have they even mentioned Kang in the Marvel movies? Because I swear Loki was setting him up to be the next Thanos.
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I started The Old Man a couple days ago. I don't "think" its a good show. Im a little discombobulated about it. The plot isn't particularly deep or interesting. Theres really nothing compelling about it, but it just randomly has these scenes like the discussion about death and divorce in the restaurant where its just like "Goddamn Hemingway, catch a breath already". You cant tear your eyes away from the screen. Its a strange show. Its not something Im going around accosting my friends and demanding they watch it, but Ive never once felt compelled to check Reddit once an episode has started.
As well as a great episode of Will It Blend?.
RRR (aka Rise Roar Revolt)
First time I've watched an Indian film. Fully watched it I mean, not seen clips on youtube. Man, this shit is wild. It's basically a what-if story about two revolutionaries who historically never met, but what if they did? It's kind of silly at times, and pretty over the top at all times, but I had a great time with. The thing I actually liked best is that this movie has zero chill. The heroes are the most unflappably heroic, capable of the most ludicrous feats. The villains the most mustache-twirlingly evil. The emotions are the biggest feels. The songs the most on the nose. The dance numbers the danciest. And the action scenes are just these extravagant spectacles, and honestly the price of admission by themselves. Maybe a bit too overlong at 3 hours, sometimes felt like they could've trimmed some fat to improve pacing, but not a dealbreaker.
Also, it has this
First time I've watched an Indian film. Fully watched it I mean, not seen clips on youtube. Man, this shit is wild. It's basically a what-if story about two revolutionaries who historically never met, but what if they did? It's kind of silly at times, and pretty over the top at all times, but I had a great time with. The thing I actually liked best is that this movie has zero chill. The heroes are the most unflappably heroic, capable of the most ludicrous feats. The villains the most mustache-twirlingly evil. The emotions are the biggest feels. The songs the most on the nose. The dance numbers the danciest. And the action scenes are just these extravagant spectacles, and honestly the price of admission by themselves. Maybe a bit too overlong at 3 hours, sometimes felt like they could've trimmed some fat to improve pacing, but not a dealbreaker.
Also, it has this