And also abducted Persephone. Now, the Greek gods may have all been like that, but that's not a great defence.
Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched
- Thread starter Th3Ch33s3Cak3
- Start date
When it comes to morality and the Greek Gods, you honestly have to grade them on a scale. Hades loses points for the abduction of Persephone, yes. However when measured against his cohorts, he is practically Jesus.
The 2nd, on Netflix.
This film is fucking terrible. Usually I like to be kind, but this is awful. The plot is bad and stupid, the effects are bad, and the acting is really bad (which is weird, because they aren't no-name actors). And they got someone who looks the same age as Ryan Phillippe to play Ryan Phillippe's son, which is an unusual choice. It's really terrible guys, and I just don't know how they managed it.
This film is fucking terrible. Usually I like to be kind, but this is awful. The plot is bad and stupid, the effects are bad, and the acting is really bad (which is weird, because they aren't no-name actors). And they got someone who looks the same age as Ryan Phillippe to play Ryan Phillippe's son, which is an unusual choice. It's really terrible guys, and I just don't know how they managed it.
Host
So, I like horror films but I generally really hate spooky jumpscare ghost movies. This one, however, is pretty good.
The premise is that a group of people conduct a séance on a Zoom call and it goes a bit wrong. There's some predictable spooky jumpscare ghost shenanigans, but there's also a lot of really good tension scenes which got inside my head a bit. It reminded me of being a child and having to go to the bathroom late at night.
It's a short film, which means even when it's formulaic it doesn't get too boring. The video call thing has been done before, but here it's well integrated. The fact that it was shot under quarantine conditions is really impressive.
The only issue I have is that it's a shudder exclusive. Personally, I would rate Shudder over Netflix at this point, but it's still going to mean a lot of people can't see it.
Generally though, all the Greek gods are horrible. They represent the exceptional, powerful forces which influence people's lives, and thus the inherent inability of humans to control their own fate. You don't have to like them, only to recognizes them as a part of human life.
The whole abduction of Persephone makes much more sense in a culture which practices child marriage. It's a story you tell your 12 year old girl to explain why she has to leave her family and go and live in a strange house with a 40 year old man she doesn't know.
So, I like horror films but I generally really hate spooky jumpscare ghost movies. This one, however, is pretty good.
The premise is that a group of people conduct a séance on a Zoom call and it goes a bit wrong. There's some predictable spooky jumpscare ghost shenanigans, but there's also a lot of really good tension scenes which got inside my head a bit. It reminded me of being a child and having to go to the bathroom late at night.
It's a short film, which means even when it's formulaic it doesn't get too boring. The video call thing has been done before, but here it's well integrated. The fact that it was shot under quarantine conditions is really impressive.
The only issue I have is that it's a shudder exclusive. Personally, I would rate Shudder over Netflix at this point, but it's still going to mean a lot of people can't see it.
I live with a friend who is a classicist. I once found them laughing because they'd stumbled upon a translation which descrbied the underworld as "the dank house of chill Hades', which sounds like a great place. I guess people couldn't have predicted slang.
Generally though, all the Greek gods are horrible. They represent the exceptional, powerful forces which influence people's lives, and thus the inherent inability of humans to control their own fate. You don't have to like them, only to recognizes them as a part of human life.
The whole abduction of Persephone makes much more sense in a culture which practices child marriage. It's a story you tell your 12 year old girl to explain why she has to leave her family and go and live in a strange house with a 40 year old man she doesn't know.
Last edited:
Apparently there are interpretations of that story where it was less "I'm being abducted to be some creeps bride" and more "Hades, get me the fuck away from my overbearing mom! Call it a kidnapping if you want, I don't care". Which might be revisionist since the gods are generally complete shits in Greek Mythology but there's rarely one defintive version of the mythology either so I can believe there is another take on the story.
That's every kidnapping in Greek mythology. Persephone, Europa, Ganymede, Helen. How forced or consensual it is varies from version to version.
Zeus especially. Guy can't have breakfast without kidnapping and raping someone.
Especially that part where Draco casually mentions hitting women as a proper incentive.
...
Is it okay to make jokes about Sean Connery yet?
Saw Double Impact again. It and Hard Target are his best films from the 90s. DI is where you see Van Damme improve in his acting and he got better from there. I've said before, and I'll say it again: best Double Dragon movie ever made.
The Guardian Angel or as it is titled elsewhere Murderous Trance, a co-production between Finnish, Danish, and Croatian actors, locations, and crew. Set in 1951 on the aftermath of Copenhagen's hypnosis murders and stars Game of Thrones famous Pilou Asbaek as the leading police investigator. Interestingly the movie is spoken in English while the characters are all Danish bar the Polish hypnotist (Croatian Rade Šerbedžija), but there are a few Finnish and American actors in the mix so it makes sense the accents are a bit all over the place. The director is Finnish too, Arto Halonen, who actually interviewed the perpetrator after he'd got out of the psychiatric prison ward in the late 90s.
The movie tries hard to be even a little cinematic, but it feels more like a miniseries anyway. Sometimes like a crime series even. 5/10
The movie tries hard to be even a little cinematic, but it feels more like a miniseries anyway. Sometimes like a crime series even. 5/10
Godzilla 2: Electric Boogaloo
This was even dumber than the first. Characters are no where near consistent. Ideologies aren't either. Was this written by an AI? Very likely. There is only so much banging toys together I can stand before I get bored.
Leave your brain behind to watch this one.
I'm fine never seeing this again. 5/10. Petition to bring Emmerich back should now be handed out
This was even dumber than the first. Characters are no where near consistent. Ideologies aren't either. Was this written by an AI? Very likely. There is only so much banging toys together I can stand before I get bored.
Leave your brain behind to watch this one.
I'm fine never seeing this again. 5/10. Petition to bring Emmerich back should now be handed out
The Foreigner
Jackie Chan is an old man who goes after the IRA terrorists responsible for his daughter's death. He is also quicker and more athletic than the young men he has to beat up. There are also Pierce Brosnan as a reformed former IRA politician trying to solve the case his way and the British counter-terrorism unit doing their thing. I don't know how relevant the IRA are as a terror threat at this point, but whatever. Chan does some dramatic acting and Brosnan gets to be angrier than I've ever seen him in a film. No action-comedy, but physics are clearly in Jackie's favor as his opponents seem to trip and bump their heads a lot. 6/10
Knives Out
A crime-mystery or a "whodunnit" movie directed by Rian Johnson. Another Bond-actor Daniel Craig plays a Hercule Poirot spoof who is mysteriously hired to find out what foul play happened in an otherwise clear suicide case. It's a big family often at odds with each other, and the dead old man was rich. Does Johnson subvert expectations like we know he likes to do (and you'd think is very much necessary since the genre is often very traditional)?
Anyway, 7/10.
Jackie Chan is an old man who goes after the IRA terrorists responsible for his daughter's death. He is also quicker and more athletic than the young men he has to beat up. There are also Pierce Brosnan as a reformed former IRA politician trying to solve the case his way and the British counter-terrorism unit doing their thing. I don't know how relevant the IRA are as a terror threat at this point, but whatever. Chan does some dramatic acting and Brosnan gets to be angrier than I've ever seen him in a film. No action-comedy, but physics are clearly in Jackie's favor as his opponents seem to trip and bump their heads a lot. 6/10
Knives Out
A crime-mystery or a "whodunnit" movie directed by Rian Johnson. Another Bond-actor Daniel Craig plays a Hercule Poirot spoof who is mysteriously hired to find out what foul play happened in an otherwise clear suicide case. It's a big family often at odds with each other, and the dead old man was rich. Does Johnson subvert expectations like we know he likes to do (and you'd think is very much necessary since the genre is often very traditional)?
Yeah, maybe. The accidental nature of Harlan's death is contrived, but the audience gets to play along the dead man's game even though the ending can't really satisfy after the lead up. Also I spent the final third of the movie browsing inheritance laws to see if that shit can be done irl (it can in most states in the US, you can disinherit without a reason if you want, but in Finland you'd be better off selling everything and spending it instead). On top of that I started thinking about how often it actually happens in real life that dying people add new acquaintances to their will while shanking their kids. In the movie Marta is absolved of everything, of course, on top of looking like Ana de Armas.
The first half of that film was a traditional Agatha Christie weird pointless rich people doing weird pointless rich person stuff and one of them is dead, then in the second half they totally forget all that and it's all about one character who's working class and trying not to get done for a murder they only sorta kinda did.
Last three days...
Total Recall - This movie gets better every time I watch it. Decided to invite my brother for this third viewing. He laughed a lot and said he wished they still made movies like this.
Batman (Tim Burton)
Batman Returns - I learned a month ago that my cheap UH12NS40 internal Blu-ray reader can be flashed to rip UHD discs. It was actually ridiculously easy. A program from the MakeMKV community did all the work. One of the first things I did after was rip Batman and Batman Returns and muxe in the 5.1 TrueHD audio from the previous Blu-rays, as these 2019 Atmos releases had revisionist sound effects, like more whooshing sounds and hand canons for guns. When I used my player, every other UHD would freeze at least once. Never have to worry about that again with rips. Batman Returns' treatment is splendid. I love the colors, the fine detail and the deep blacks and bright whites. There's no better example of it than the reflections on Catwoman's deep black suit.
Colors converted to normal RGB for sake of the JPEG images.
A lot of the really good Batman animated series stories are the tragic ones, like the two-parter for Two Face or the two-parter for Clayface or the two-parter for Freeze or that creepy one in which Ivy creates a plant family for herself. The show made the villains so sympathetic. That's one of the reasons I like this movie so much. It's more about Cobblepot and Selina Kyle than it is about Batman. I also like how sexual and witty it is with its dialogue, that it has a sense of humor and fun, and how it feels more liberal in its dark fantasy elements than the previous movie, like Tim Burton had more creative freedom. I could never believe villains like Clayface, Freeze or Poison Ivy could exist in the more realistic Nolan movies (which I do like as well, to be honest) or probably the upcoming The Batman movie, but I could sort of believe it in Burton's world. The live action movies are stuck using the same villains because they take themselves so seriously. Good acting pretty much all around. Michelle Pfeiffer was great. I don't care if an adaptation is liberal with a character, as long as they do something interesting with them. She was lithe and nimble for an actress and so committed to her role. Pretty impressive, those three mannequin heads she whips away in quick succession, and amusing that she kept that live bird in her mouth for several seconds, which I would have thought was a gag if Burton hadn't said otherwise in the commentary. This movie is a work of art.
Also, bonus point for introducing me to Siouxsie and the Banshees. One of only two songs in the entire movie, it felt rebellious after the previous movie's entire collection of songs was comprised of Prince, probably the studio's decision instead of Burton's. I love Prince, but that just felt wrong.
Total Recall - This movie gets better every time I watch it. Decided to invite my brother for this third viewing. He laughed a lot and said he wished they still made movies like this.
Batman (Tim Burton)
Batman Returns - I learned a month ago that my cheap UH12NS40 internal Blu-ray reader can be flashed to rip UHD discs. It was actually ridiculously easy. A program from the MakeMKV community did all the work. One of the first things I did after was rip Batman and Batman Returns and muxe in the 5.1 TrueHD audio from the previous Blu-rays, as these 2019 Atmos releases had revisionist sound effects, like more whooshing sounds and hand canons for guns. When I used my player, every other UHD would freeze at least once. Never have to worry about that again with rips. Batman Returns' treatment is splendid. I love the colors, the fine detail and the deep blacks and bright whites. There's no better example of it than the reflections on Catwoman's deep black suit.
Colors converted to normal RGB for sake of the JPEG images.
A lot of the really good Batman animated series stories are the tragic ones, like the two-parter for Two Face or the two-parter for Clayface or the two-parter for Freeze or that creepy one in which Ivy creates a plant family for herself. The show made the villains so sympathetic. That's one of the reasons I like this movie so much. It's more about Cobblepot and Selina Kyle than it is about Batman. I also like how sexual and witty it is with its dialogue, that it has a sense of humor and fun, and how it feels more liberal in its dark fantasy elements than the previous movie, like Tim Burton had more creative freedom. I could never believe villains like Clayface, Freeze or Poison Ivy could exist in the more realistic Nolan movies (which I do like as well, to be honest) or probably the upcoming The Batman movie, but I could sort of believe it in Burton's world. The live action movies are stuck using the same villains because they take themselves so seriously. Good acting pretty much all around. Michelle Pfeiffer was great. I don't care if an adaptation is liberal with a character, as long as they do something interesting with them. She was lithe and nimble for an actress and so committed to her role. Pretty impressive, those three mannequin heads she whips away in quick succession, and amusing that she kept that live bird in her mouth for several seconds, which I would have thought was a gag if Burton hadn't said otherwise in the commentary. This movie is a work of art.
Also, bonus point for introducing me to Siouxsie and the Banshees. One of only two songs in the entire movie, it felt rebellious after the previous movie's entire collection of songs was comprised of Prince, probably the studio's decision instead of Burton's. I love Prince, but that just felt wrong.
Last edited:
Oh noes. Worst thing you can write about a movie. I so wanted to see this . Some write it is under rated as those reviewing it just didn't understand it. A review I just watched advised you watch it with CC on or you will not understand it. But boring? I am devastated.
- Tenet -
This is more like 'what if Bond origins, but wobbly wobbly time gimmick' ...which makes almost too much sense knowing Nolan has wanted to direct a Bond film for however long now, and his obsession for fiddling around with time like a curious toddler is evident in almost everything outside of Batman. So this is either him trying a subtle-as-a-sledgehammer calling card for the next JB production, or just throwing his hands up, going "Fiiine, I'll make one my bloody self without you lot!"
In all, I respect the technical craft, and will need to watch it again, but not for the script, which comes off cheesy enough to wonder whether it's an earnest tongue-in-cheek take on the genre instead of real people. Weirdly though, when the Russin-not-Russian bad guy talks, they sound fine, as if the mere presence of that accent is enough to work around the script. But then again, I tried to imagine the film with believable human characters and I'm not sure it would serve the same momentum and laser focus at all.
Almost all explanation is squirreled away in this dialogue, so you best be paying attention fucko, lest a text message or a frisky cat rob you of the much needed exposition for piecing together these plot noodles. The actors are giving it their all regardless of script, with a surprisingly cyberpunk soundtrack possibly playing around with reverse samples at points if I'm not mistaken.
Ultimately, while I admire the work and will watch again to piece together the technical curiosities, it's a difficult one to recommend for the average audience goer, as it requires paying attention to a script that not everyone will connect easily with. I am glad to see such a unique idea given these kinds of production values either way. It's bold for sure, in its own strange way.
As an aside, I kept wondering if Nolan was inspired by this music video, from a track in the original Matrix, a film I was also thinking of while watching this for some reason;
And they should've used this track for extra reverse noise funkiness....
This is more like 'what if Bond origins, but wobbly wobbly time gimmick' ...which makes almost too much sense knowing Nolan has wanted to direct a Bond film for however long now, and his obsession for fiddling around with time like a curious toddler is evident in almost everything outside of Batman. So this is either him trying a subtle-as-a-sledgehammer calling card for the next JB production, or just throwing his hands up, going "Fiiine, I'll make one my bloody self without you lot!"
In all, I respect the technical craft, and will need to watch it again, but not for the script, which comes off cheesy enough to wonder whether it's an earnest tongue-in-cheek take on the genre instead of real people. Weirdly though, when the Russin-not-Russian bad guy talks, they sound fine, as if the mere presence of that accent is enough to work around the script. But then again, I tried to imagine the film with believable human characters and I'm not sure it would serve the same momentum and laser focus at all.
Almost all explanation is squirreled away in this dialogue, so you best be paying attention fucko, lest a text message or a frisky cat rob you of the much needed exposition for piecing together these plot noodles. The actors are giving it their all regardless of script, with a surprisingly cyberpunk soundtrack possibly playing around with reverse samples at points if I'm not mistaken.
Ultimately, while I admire the work and will watch again to piece together the technical curiosities, it's a difficult one to recommend for the average audience goer, as it requires paying attention to a script that not everyone will connect easily with. I am glad to see such a unique idea given these kinds of production values either way. It's bold for sure, in its own strange way.
As an aside, I kept wondering if Nolan was inspired by this music video, from a track in the original Matrix, a film I was also thinking of while watching this for some reason;
And they should've used this track for extra reverse noise funkiness....
Last edited:
I think Yahtzee summed this criticism up nicely.
"It's about people nobody likes doing things nobody cares about" (Pretty sure it was the Red Faction Guerrilla review).