I am currently watching The Man With the Golden Gun. I apologize in advance to any fans of this one, for my review will not be kind.
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It’s okay, best thing about it is Christopher Lee and that car stunt - if you mute the sound.
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The nostalgic drawer sequence at the start of OHMSS would not have been the same with a fake nipple.
A ★★ review of The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
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Wow that was... surprisingly forgiving.A ★★ review of The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
This review may contain spoilers. Visit the page to bypass this warning and read the review.
I didn't even like the ending setpiece. I don't like plots that gamify themselves such as "follow the riddle to the next riddle" or (what we've got here) "enter this arena designed to entertain the filmviewers". So, when you remove that from the film's high points, there's not much left. But cringe at the treatment of Ekland's and Villechaize's characters. And (crowd cheers) the return of Peppers.
And the 3rd nipple. Best MI6 gadget of all times, all field agents should pack a few, in case of emergency. I also remember a car turned into a plane for some reason, and I don't remember the advantage of storing detachable wings in a barn instead of, say, a plane.
And the underused golden gun itself. The actual high point of the movie. Okay, that and the Queen Elizabeth HQ. All in all, it's probably the weakest Moore Bond movie, in my eyes (there's some competition though) and, maybe because of the flying car, I tend to relate it more to Hunnebelle's Fantômas series more than to the James Bond franchise.
From which perspective, it's one if the strongest Fantômas.
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Ok everyone can breath, Evil Dead Rise is pretty great. 8.5-9/10
This is one is definitely a spiritual sequel to the original Evil Dead. There's little to no real humor to speak of it's a played straight horror. I think everything an Evil Dead fan could ask for is delivered here in spades. Fountains of gore, surprisingly high body count (They really don't hold back on this one, no one is safe.) and great visuals, Not a ton of shaky or zoom cam, but they utilize angles, close ups, and second person perspectives well. To be honest what most impressed me was the quality of writing and acting. You're not gonna be groaning at unrealistic characters or dialog often seen in modern horror where they think they can get away with writing shitty characters as long as there's jump scares. You like everyone in this, even the kids. The dialog also goes back to the roots with the Deadites using personal attachment and history to claw at the protagonists sanity. I really liked the Deadite design. This time around theres not exactly a switch between person and monster make up, they look like people having a very very rough day. It adds a sense of uneasy like this is someone you know but theres something very very wrong with them.
My tastes are kind of complicated in that I'm huge horror fan, but more because I think horror is a genre that is still surprising us and exploring the human condition. People, turned up to 11. Be it by depression, fear, longing. It's rare that Dramatic film isn't parroting the same people in the same situations from other films, where as a film like The Babadook is something wholly unto itself. That said, I don't really oo and aah at people getting stabbed. Films like X seem like trash to me with zero redeeming quality. Bringing that back to Evil Dead Rise, I was little nervous going in because I wasn't here for torture porn. I'm actually surprised to say the violence is done here in such a way that it's cringey at worst. It's done in such a quick and over the top way that you can appreciate how horrifying a situation is without getting an upset stomach. I didn't really care for some of the gorier scenes in Evil Dead (2013). It just felt like gore to say we did the gore. The violence in this is more classical in intent.
It's difficult for me to call this a 10/10 though. I usually reserve that for films I could watch over and over where as this was great, no complaints, but I didn't walk out of the theater and walk back in wanting to see it again immediately. For me its still a 8.5-9 though because I could totally see myself rewatching it when it comes out on streaming.
Minor Spoilers
In case you're curious how this links to the trilogy, there's a line in here revealing that there's more than one book of the Dead. This is not the same book. Bruce Campbell does voice over as the priest who recovered this particular book.
This is one is definitely a spiritual sequel to the original Evil Dead. There's little to no real humor to speak of it's a played straight horror. I think everything an Evil Dead fan could ask for is delivered here in spades. Fountains of gore, surprisingly high body count (They really don't hold back on this one, no one is safe.) and great visuals, Not a ton of shaky or zoom cam, but they utilize angles, close ups, and second person perspectives well. To be honest what most impressed me was the quality of writing and acting. You're not gonna be groaning at unrealistic characters or dialog often seen in modern horror where they think they can get away with writing shitty characters as long as there's jump scares. You like everyone in this, even the kids. The dialog also goes back to the roots with the Deadites using personal attachment and history to claw at the protagonists sanity. I really liked the Deadite design. This time around theres not exactly a switch between person and monster make up, they look like people having a very very rough day. It adds a sense of uneasy like this is someone you know but theres something very very wrong with them.
My tastes are kind of complicated in that I'm huge horror fan, but more because I think horror is a genre that is still surprising us and exploring the human condition. People, turned up to 11. Be it by depression, fear, longing. It's rare that Dramatic film isn't parroting the same people in the same situations from other films, where as a film like The Babadook is something wholly unto itself. That said, I don't really oo and aah at people getting stabbed. Films like X seem like trash to me with zero redeeming quality. Bringing that back to Evil Dead Rise, I was little nervous going in because I wasn't here for torture porn. I'm actually surprised to say the violence is done here in such a way that it's cringey at worst. It's done in such a quick and over the top way that you can appreciate how horrifying a situation is without getting an upset stomach. I didn't really care for some of the gorier scenes in Evil Dead (2013). It just felt like gore to say we did the gore. The violence in this is more classical in intent.
It's difficult for me to call this a 10/10 though. I usually reserve that for films I could watch over and over where as this was great, no complaints, but I didn't walk out of the theater and walk back in wanting to see it again immediately. For me its still a 8.5-9 though because I could totally see myself rewatching it when it comes out on streaming.
Minor Spoilers
In case you're curious how this links to the trilogy, there's a line in here revealing that there's more than one book of the Dead. This is not the same book. Bruce Campbell does voice over as the priest who recovered this particular book.
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Knock at the Cabin (Peacock Network)
M. Night Shymalan at it again. But no real surprises in this one for me.
Knowing what is happening and why left me wondering if it could be well done and how it would actually be carried out. Little like watching a spider zero in on a captured fly. Difficult to look away. Done well enough, with production values and acting solid. Maybe better than the subject matter deserved C+
M. Night Shymalan at it again. But no real surprises in this one for me.
Knowing what is happening and why left me wondering if it could be well done and how it would actually be carried out. Little like watching a spider zero in on a captured fly. Difficult to look away. Done well enough, with production values and acting solid. Maybe better than the subject matter deserved C+
Oh, going back a bit to Lord of the Rings, was watching the first half of the extended version of Fellowship of the Ring the other day. Is the reason that Arwen is dying her fate somehow connected with the ring, as Elrond says in the third film, that she tried healing Frodo and giving her "grace" to him in the first, so as the ring is affecting him she's being affected as well?
I've never been completely sure. My take on it was that Arwen gives her "grace' to Frodo in the first film so therefore loses her protection against Sauron's rise. As in, the elves are fading (literally and figuratively) from Middle-earth by the War of the Ring, but this seems to affect Arwen more due to her giving Frodo her "grace," so to speak. However, the idea that she's tied to Frodo does have some credence, but if that's the case, then why isn't she similarly affected by other conditions that affect Frodo (e.g. the wound from the Morgul blade)?
Well, you hardly ever see Arwen. By the next scene after that Frodo is mostly recovered from the wound, and Arwen is just sitting around and occasionally trying to seduce her cousin.
It's kept vague to give it that mythological flavor, so I think trying to analyze its "rules" and "logic" is ultimately a fool's errand. But I think it's basically a combination of factors: Arwen giving her "grace" to Frodo, her giving up on her immortality for Aragorn ("I would sooner spend one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone"), and those two leaving her more vulnerable to Sauron's corrupting influence. So I wouldn't say it's the ring that's weakening her, but her losing her mojo so to speak, and choosing to become mortal. I guess you could see it as her immune system weakening, and falling ill to new ailments she was previously immune to.
Er, that's surely got to be A View To A Kill.
In all of the 80s Bond movies, age had stripped Moore of enough physicality to play the role to best effect. In Octopussy it's borderline, in A View To A Kill he's well over it. Although a lot of the problem is just that it's a load of flashy, absurd, vacuous nonsense.
D&D: Honor among Thieves
Watched it last night. I quite enjoyed it. Very Impressed with how well thought out the story and pacing were. I think they took the right cues from James Gunns recent successes by avoiding the "heroes journey" trope and leaning into focusing on presenting the characters as efficiently as possible, present the problem, present obsticles, and then the solution. Adaptations fail so often by trying to fit all the things that need to happen in the box and then mold some kind of hodge podge story around it. The russos commented on their marvel successes saying they made a good story first and then figured out how to make it a genre film.
The same can be said here. The references and worthbuilding taking place in faerun is just icing. Change Faerun to Las Vegas, make the Thay wizards shady Casino investors and you can largely do the same movie.
They also made an effort here to make the characters three dimensional and likeable. There's no comedy relief characters, all the comedy is pretty circumstantial and it seems like they had a pretty solid writing staff doing the jokes.
Chris Pine and Hugh Grant tower over everyone else in the room. Chris Pine still shines as a Chris Pratt without the fratboy tropes. He's like a young Kevin Costner if he were self-aware. Hugh Grant is the highlight of the film being a kind of fun sociapath villain full self-aware of how awful he is and telling the protagonist that it just can't helped. He's really channeling Christoph Waltz and I'm here for it.
If I had to sling foul critique it would be the choice to have Sophia Lillis play a golem. Actually she plays an adorable Tiefling druid which I'm realizing might be my kink, but they decided she would be the straight man of the group and they took it took far. She has almost no lines. She runs around being a badass which is great, but it would have been nice to have her do more character stuff. It's stoicism bordering on lithium overdose. I'm not asking for awkwafina, but it would be nice to see her having at least a tenth of the amount of fun the rest of the cast is having.
I'll call it a 9/10, but I need to watch it again and I think it says enough that I, like right now, wouldn't mind watching it again.
Watched it last night. I quite enjoyed it. Very Impressed with how well thought out the story and pacing were. I think they took the right cues from James Gunns recent successes by avoiding the "heroes journey" trope and leaning into focusing on presenting the characters as efficiently as possible, present the problem, present obsticles, and then the solution. Adaptations fail so often by trying to fit all the things that need to happen in the box and then mold some kind of hodge podge story around it. The russos commented on their marvel successes saying they made a good story first and then figured out how to make it a genre film.
The same can be said here. The references and worthbuilding taking place in faerun is just icing. Change Faerun to Las Vegas, make the Thay wizards shady Casino investors and you can largely do the same movie.
They also made an effort here to make the characters three dimensional and likeable. There's no comedy relief characters, all the comedy is pretty circumstantial and it seems like they had a pretty solid writing staff doing the jokes.
Chris Pine and Hugh Grant tower over everyone else in the room. Chris Pine still shines as a Chris Pratt without the fratboy tropes. He's like a young Kevin Costner if he were self-aware. Hugh Grant is the highlight of the film being a kind of fun sociapath villain full self-aware of how awful he is and telling the protagonist that it just can't helped. He's really channeling Christoph Waltz and I'm here for it.
If I had to sling foul critique it would be the choice to have Sophia Lillis play a golem. Actually she plays an adorable Tiefling druid which I'm realizing might be my kink, but they decided she would be the straight man of the group and they took it took far. She has almost no lines. She runs around being a badass which is great, but it would have been nice to have her do more character stuff. It's stoicism bordering on lithium overdose. I'm not asking for awkwafina, but it would be nice to see her having at least a tenth of the amount of fun the rest of the cast is having.
I'll call it a 9/10, but I need to watch it again and I think it says enough that I, like right now, wouldn't mind watching it again.
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Today I learnt that
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Yuen Qiu AKA The Landlady From Kungfu Hustle Was Quite The Beauty When She Was A Young Student
The actress, now 71, was said to be one of the prettiest girls in her school.
Cocaine Bear on Peacock
Not sure who this movie was made for. Loosely based upon a true story, a bear gets ahold of a ton of cocaine and goes wild, killing all sorts of people with so much gore it should be NC 17 but is presented like a comedy. So, Evil Dead 2 fans? There are some genuinely mouth dropping moments so it is worth seeing but not sure how to grade it. If you watch it, you have been warned. Again: paced like a comedy, NC 17 level gore.
The pitch meeting:
Not sure who this movie was made for. Loosely based upon a true story, a bear gets ahold of a ton of cocaine and goes wild, killing all sorts of people with so much gore it should be NC 17 but is presented like a comedy. So, Evil Dead 2 fans? There are some genuinely mouth dropping moments so it is worth seeing but not sure how to grade it. If you watch it, you have been warned. Again: paced like a comedy, NC 17 level gore.
The pitch meeting:
My main issue with the movie is that it's supposed to ride a fine line on whether the "issue" is believable or not and the way the movie presents it, the characters have a pretty obvious decision to make and it's not really much of a moral dilemma.
Agreed: and it does not ride that fine line. I've seen almost all of M.Night's movies (didn't see Lady in the Water) and it had less a surprise in it than any other.
If someone told me, and I believed him, that if I didn't do myself in, me and mine would walk the Earth like a living hell for the rest of eternity, the response would be easily come upon.
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 - 8/10
The last hurrah of the MCU. Obviously, this is a very personal movie for James Gunn, very strong in theme with some very biting and targeted dialogue (that'll make you go "Oh damn! I know exactly who that's for"). This movie is so James Gunn it's not even funny and you could tell he had total creative control over this thing outside of the very very very last bit at the very end of the credits.
The last hurrah of the MCU. Obviously, this is a very personal movie for James Gunn, very strong in theme with some very biting and targeted dialogue (that'll make you go "Oh damn! I know exactly who that's for"). This movie is so James Gunn it's not even funny and you could tell he had total creative control over this thing outside of the very very very last bit at the very end of the credits.