I thought Rebirth was better than Dominion, if only because it remembered this franchise is still about, you know, dinos.
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Well, no, but I got this for my mum, who wants to own all the films in the franchise on DVD, despite not actually liking them all, due to being a completionist.
You know you can tell her not everything needs to be collected, and it's best to ignore bad sequals and pretend they don't exist. I have some bad movies, but i'm not looking to collect every single bad sequel. I make my own stopping point, and move on. You can let her know that I told you this personally, if you wish. It's her choice either way.
A ★½ review of The Expendables 3 (2014)
“How much we getting paid for this?” “Not enough!” This film may have only come out a couple of years after the second installment, but even in that short timeframe, there were shifts in the story and casting. Initially, Jean-Claude Van Damme stated he was to return for this movie as the brother...
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A ★★★★ review of Kiss of the Spider Woman (2025)
“You were in danger the moment you met me.” “Darling, I’m a window dresser. When it comes to the violent overthrow of the junta, I don’t think they expect to see a bunch of sissies leading the march.” “I’m sorry. I cringe every time you make fun of yourself.” Calling this a remake is actually a...
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Ok, iirc, it's a combination of three reasons. Firstly, it was Leto's growing popularity in the Landsraad, and Shaddam is just a plain jealous and petty ruler. Secondly, because the Atreides were training a specialized military that rivaled the Sardaukar in skill, and Shaddam feared that if left alone, this could threaten his monopoly on power. And lastly, Shaddam was being manipulated by the Bene Gesserit into taking out the Atreides because Jessica bore Leto a son when they wanted a girl, and this threatened their Kwisatz Haderach breeding program.
You know in retrospect that all seems rather obvious and I should have parsed it out.
If the movies have a flaw, it's that it's easy to miss a lot of the politics and motivations because they are in some cases compacted into basically a single line.
Tho since we're talking about it
Reason 1 and 2 make Shaddam's explanation in part 2 for why he betrayed Leto, for being a weak man ruled by the heart, a serious display of hypocrisy.
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Well I mean, at that point being a hypocrite is kind of small potatoes to the litany of bullshit he's been party to.
A ★★★ review of It Chapter Two (2019)
“Should we be running?” “This is Derry. I’m kind of getting used to it.” This was made directly after the first film, with director Andy Muschietti stating that it wasn't a sequel, but the second part of the novel to tell the full story. When it came time to cast, one step Andy Muschietti took...
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Yesterday
A talentless musician wakes up from a biking accident to find that the world has glitched out and forgotten about The Beatles. And Coca Cola, but that's neither here nor there. He doesn't know the formula for Coca Cola, but he's got a near perfect recall of every Beatles song ever recorded and so of course decides to pass them as his own. The movie never questions the musical acumen of The Beatles but it does posit how fucking complicated it would be today for a genius of their caliber to stand out amid the color bubbles of showbiz, and for a while the real horror of the movie isn't that their music has been forgotten but that the one guy that remembers it might never get a shot at sharing it with the world. Some of the best scenes here are the dude's friends reacting to hearing Yesterday for the first time (unbeknownst to him) and then his parents not having the patience to listen to the first performance ever of Let It Be. Problem for me is that before long the movie devolves into a tepid romcom between two of the most infuriatingly aw shucks shmucks, in this world or a Beatle-less one, and I couldn't give two figs about them.
A talentless musician wakes up from a biking accident to find that the world has glitched out and forgotten about The Beatles. And Coca Cola, but that's neither here nor there. He doesn't know the formula for Coca Cola, but he's got a near perfect recall of every Beatles song ever recorded and so of course decides to pass them as his own. The movie never questions the musical acumen of The Beatles but it does posit how fucking complicated it would be today for a genius of their caliber to stand out amid the color bubbles of showbiz, and for a while the real horror of the movie isn't that their music has been forgotten but that the one guy that remembers it might never get a shot at sharing it with the world. Some of the best scenes here are the dude's friends reacting to hearing Yesterday for the first time (unbeknownst to him) and then his parents not having the patience to listen to the first performance ever of Let It Be. Problem for me is that before long the movie devolves into a tepid romcom between two of the most infuriatingly aw shucks shmucks, in this world or a Beatle-less one, and I couldn't give two figs about them.
Terrifier 2
The only thing I remember about the first movie is a scene where a girl hangs upside down and is slowly sawn in half, crotch-to-head, by the killer clown. Now comes the sequel, every bit as disgusting and mean-spirited but also more surreal and not quite as nihilistic, because the movie is now equally devoted to setting up a match for Art the Clown in the form of a final girl who has some kind of psychic or providential connection to him. And after the dude playing the clown, who still looks scary as fuck, the new final girl probably gives the best performance in these movies, which so far have been somewhere around the level of porn and wrestling. You can tell director Damien Leone wants to "elevate" the story a little bit but doesn't know how so he consciously apes the way movies are "supposed" to look by having cameras pan around and intercutting scenes together and sort of lingering on every conversation and every shot for a little too long, so we end up with 138 minutes of a killer clown torturing like seven or eight people for no reason? The torture often being so cruel and nasty, it's almost a relief when he blows off someone's head with a sawn-off.
The only thing I remember about the first movie is a scene where a girl hangs upside down and is slowly sawn in half, crotch-to-head, by the killer clown. Now comes the sequel, every bit as disgusting and mean-spirited but also more surreal and not quite as nihilistic, because the movie is now equally devoted to setting up a match for Art the Clown in the form of a final girl who has some kind of psychic or providential connection to him. And after the dude playing the clown, who still looks scary as fuck, the new final girl probably gives the best performance in these movies, which so far have been somewhere around the level of porn and wrestling. You can tell director Damien Leone wants to "elevate" the story a little bit but doesn't know how so he consciously apes the way movies are "supposed" to look by having cameras pan around and intercutting scenes together and sort of lingering on every conversation and every shot for a little too long, so we end up with 138 minutes of a killer clown torturing like seven or eight people for no reason? The torture often being so cruel and nasty, it's almost a relief when he blows off someone's head with a sawn-off.
A ★★★ review of Above Suspicion (1943)
“This is no time for practical jokes.” “This is no joke, ma’am.” “It isn’t very practical, either.” This film, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Helen MacInnes, is notable in a couple of ways in terms of production. Firstly, it was the last film Joan Crawford made for MGM, as after...
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Watched two Netflix "documentaries".
Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere
Louis Theroux, who looks like what you get from combining John Oliver and Mark Kermode at the blacksmith and clicking CRAFT, interviews a bunch of redpill influencers and gathers their jumbled thoughts on investment scams and "one-sided monogamy". It's a documentary the way a Mondo film is a documentary. I propose that they don't show anything here that they don't readily do in their own social feeds, and that giving them a platform on Netflix isn't the gotcha moment that Louis is fishing for. If anything he sort of ends up stooping down to their level - the final shot of the doc has him going back to a punching machine and improving on an earlier score he got mocked for. Well then.
Inside the Mind of a Cat
A puff piece on felines that amounts to 67 minutes of people going "aren't cats neat?".
Louis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere
Louis Theroux, who looks like what you get from combining John Oliver and Mark Kermode at the blacksmith and clicking CRAFT, interviews a bunch of redpill influencers and gathers their jumbled thoughts on investment scams and "one-sided monogamy". It's a documentary the way a Mondo film is a documentary. I propose that they don't show anything here that they don't readily do in their own social feeds, and that giving them a platform on Netflix isn't the gotcha moment that Louis is fishing for. If anything he sort of ends up stooping down to their level - the final shot of the doc has him going back to a punching machine and improving on an earlier score he got mocked for. Well then.
Inside the Mind of a Cat
A puff piece on felines that amounts to 67 minutes of people going "aren't cats neat?".
The Tomorrow War: Plot Armor Abounds/ Great
Soldiers from +30 years in the future show up in the present day to conscript people to fight in a losing war in the future against an alien invader which has reduced the entire Earth’s population to barely 500K. Ex-Green Beret turned schoolteacher is drafted, and goes to help fight the alien menace.
Dumb movie with so many plot armor moments that the whole effort feels extremely forced. Example, we’re shown aerial wide shots a herd of hundreds of the aliens descending on human positions that would leave you to believe death for all involved is mere seconds away, instead, we zoom into to a more immediate conflict with one or two of the aliens (with said herd ostensibly only yards away) that goes on for minutes at a time, and everyone (well, the important ones) gets away unscathed. It’s one of those movies where the antagonist is shown to have nigh zero weakness… until the main characters show up, and all of the sudden the fight is level ground. And I’ve never handled a fully-automatic weapon before, but I don’t the their exists any with a clip with hundreds of rounds, but when you need to be the hero, you don’t need to reload.
Soldiers from +30 years in the future show up in the present day to conscript people to fight in a losing war in the future against an alien invader which has reduced the entire Earth’s population to barely 500K. Ex-Green Beret turned schoolteacher is drafted, and goes to help fight the alien menace.
Dumb movie with so many plot armor moments that the whole effort feels extremely forced. Example, we’re shown aerial wide shots a herd of hundreds of the aliens descending on human positions that would leave you to believe death for all involved is mere seconds away, instead, we zoom into to a more immediate conflict with one or two of the aliens (with said herd ostensibly only yards away) that goes on for minutes at a time, and everyone (well, the important ones) gets away unscathed. It’s one of those movies where the antagonist is shown to have nigh zero weakness… until the main characters show up, and all of the sudden the fight is level ground. And I’ve never handled a fully-automatic weapon before, but I don’t the their exists any with a clip with hundreds of rounds, but when you need to be the hero, you don’t need to reload.
Project Hail Mary: More Plot Armor, But Damned If It Doesn't Matter / Great
Middle school science teacher wakes up with amnesia in an interstellar spaceship, alone, with no clue how he got there. He eventually pieces together enough of what he does remember of Earth to realize he's on a mission to save the fate of the planet. Along the way, he finds help in the form of a similarly isolated alien.
Okay, this movie is just beautiful. It's funny, it's sweet, it's bittersweet, it's tender, it's sad, it's heartwarming. It's rare that a movie (especially a Sci-Fi movie) hits all of these notes so well, and it's expertly done. Yes, the plot armor is hella thick, but once you just accept that, you find a fantastic character drama, and a deeply moving story. It's won't be for everyone; I know a lot of you are far more scrutinizing than I am, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and understand why it's gotten such rave reviews. It's special. Also, I'm not crying, YOU'RE crying.
Middle school science teacher wakes up with amnesia in an interstellar spaceship, alone, with no clue how he got there. He eventually pieces together enough of what he does remember of Earth to realize he's on a mission to save the fate of the planet. Along the way, he finds help in the form of a similarly isolated alien.
Okay, this movie is just beautiful. It's funny, it's sweet, it's bittersweet, it's tender, it's sad, it's heartwarming. It's rare that a movie (especially a Sci-Fi movie) hits all of these notes so well, and it's expertly done. Yes, the plot armor is hella thick, but once you just accept that, you find a fantastic character drama, and a deeply moving story. It's won't be for everyone; I know a lot of you are far more scrutinizing than I am, but I thoroughly enjoyed it and understand why it's gotten such rave reviews. It's special. Also, I'm not crying, YOU'RE crying.
A ★★ review of Sixteen Candles (1984)
“Mister, you had better shape up, or you will miss your sister’s wedding.” “Promise?” John Hughes wrote the script for this movie in 1982 as a low-budget production, but the company that initially agreed to bankroll the film changed their mind, resulting in it entering turnaround. When John...
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Welp, time to get lynched by a generation, it was nice knowing you all.
Mercy
Rating: A solid 7.5 /10
Tagline to get you to read my thoughts in depth more or at least the spoiler section. What if Skynet wasn't the bad guy?
Premise: So Chris Pratt plays Chris Raven a police officer in the future where due to rising crime in LA and literal criminal containment areas having to be created a high speed court system is set up to execute murderers and other series criminals through the use if the Mercy A.I. which flips the current court system on the head rather than innocent until proven guilty Mercy works based on overwhelming evidence of guilt and the accused is given 90 minutes and access to all the cloud systems and all data they could want or need to clear their name and prove their innocence or at least reduce their guilty probability to less than 92% to avoid execution. Officer Raven is surprised and confused to wake up in the Mercy court strapped into the chair accused of killing his wife and he has 90% to clear his name. The other problem being having gotten blind drunk before being arrested but after the alleged crime even Officer Raven doesn't know if he truly did it or not.
Thoughts: Actually a pretty unique spin on a murder mystery film only now it's not a standard detective trying to find the killer or get a friend off it's the person accused trying to clear their own name. The timer ticking down adds some nice tension to the film even if the film does feel for a large part until near the end pretty in line with a formulaic detective film complete with dead ends and red herrings culminating in a big finale and a series of connection and evidence all coming together to tie in a number of plot elements into a neat package.
I also enjoyed that this isn't the typical anti - A.I. or A.I. bad film the A.I. is more holding a mirror up to humanity as a product of it.
I'd recommend going in without spoilers if you're at all interested because the ride is worth it and feels like a mid level action film we'd have got in past year that would have been kept alive via TV runs and memory of it as one of the better films of it's level
Rating: A solid 7.5 /10
Tagline to get you to read my thoughts in depth more or at least the spoiler section. What if Skynet wasn't the bad guy?
Premise: So Chris Pratt plays Chris Raven a police officer in the future where due to rising crime in LA and literal criminal containment areas having to be created a high speed court system is set up to execute murderers and other series criminals through the use if the Mercy A.I. which flips the current court system on the head rather than innocent until proven guilty Mercy works based on overwhelming evidence of guilt and the accused is given 90 minutes and access to all the cloud systems and all data they could want or need to clear their name and prove their innocence or at least reduce their guilty probability to less than 92% to avoid execution. Officer Raven is surprised and confused to wake up in the Mercy court strapped into the chair accused of killing his wife and he has 90% to clear his name. The other problem being having gotten blind drunk before being arrested but after the alleged crime even Officer Raven doesn't know if he truly did it or not.
Thoughts: Actually a pretty unique spin on a murder mystery film only now it's not a standard detective trying to find the killer or get a friend off it's the person accused trying to clear their own name. The timer ticking down adds some nice tension to the film even if the film does feel for a large part until near the end pretty in line with a formulaic detective film complete with dead ends and red herrings culminating in a big finale and a series of connection and evidence all coming together to tie in a number of plot elements into a neat package.
I also enjoyed that this isn't the typical anti - A.I. or A.I. bad film the A.I. is more holding a mirror up to humanity as a product of it.
I'd recommend going in without spoilers if you're at all interested because the ride is worth it and feels like a mid level action film we'd have got in past year that would have been kept alive via TV runs and memory of it as one of the better films of it's level
Ok spoiler time because really talking about this film in more depth requires it.
The laying out of the red herrings and plot elements is great.
Officer Raven's wife's parent's don't really like him
His Daughter has posted a number of A.I. court bad stuff online and is talking to some shady dude on a secret second social media account.
His wife was having an affair
His wife was investigating thefts at her work complete with a guy with a series gambling problem
The revelation of the killer being Officer Raven's AA sponsor and his Wife's boss at the shipping company is great and I'm not going to outline the how or why because that's also something even spoiling this bit to go see the film for. Oh and the ending put forward the question by revealing a 2nd wrongdoer and putting up the question "What if A.I. isn't the problem, people who want to push A.I. are and they'll do anything to make it a success?"
The laying out of the red herrings and plot elements is great.
Officer Raven's wife's parent's don't really like him
His Daughter has posted a number of A.I. court bad stuff online and is talking to some shady dude on a secret second social media account.
His wife was having an affair
His wife was investigating thefts at her work complete with a guy with a series gambling problem
The revelation of the killer being Officer Raven's AA sponsor and his Wife's boss at the shipping company is great and I'm not going to outline the how or why because that's also something even spoiling this bit to go see the film for. Oh and the ending put forward the question by revealing a 2nd wrongdoer and putting up the question "What if A.I. isn't the problem, people who want to push A.I. are and they'll do anything to make it a success?"
Project Hail Mary
Nice movie. Follows the book rather closely, and I've read the book so no surprises there. I enjoyed the stylized image at times, IMAX and all. It didn't leave much of a lasting impression, though I was ill while watching it, which must have stolen some of my focus.
Nice movie. Follows the book rather closely, and I've read the book so no surprises there. I enjoyed the stylized image at times, IMAX and all. It didn't leave much of a lasting impression, though I was ill while watching it, which must have stolen some of my focus.
Incendies, 9/10
This is a 2010 drama by Dennis Villeneuve. It follows twin siblings Jeanne and Simon, who receive a posthumous task from their recently deceased mother to go find their lost brother and father. What then follows is a slow unraveling of their mother's dark past, and a descent into a history of horror as the layers get peeled away one by one.
It's incredible, and in typical Villeneuve fashion, incredibly dark. There's basically zero levity in this film, and its minimal score and sparing use of dialogue only accentuate the oppressive atmosphere. The acting is all very downplayed, the cinematography is great, and the writing is airtight. Despite being not that outwardly graphic, the film's discomfort is all in the implications. You often only hear or see the aftermath of horrible things, but those leave nothing up to interpretation. The absence of certain details makes the story universal, despite seemingly being about a very specific time in a very specific place. This is a grim film about the darkest corners of the human experience, and gives them their appropriate gravitas.
This is a 2010 drama by Dennis Villeneuve. It follows twin siblings Jeanne and Simon, who receive a posthumous task from their recently deceased mother to go find their lost brother and father. What then follows is a slow unraveling of their mother's dark past, and a descent into a history of horror as the layers get peeled away one by one.
It's incredible, and in typical Villeneuve fashion, incredibly dark. There's basically zero levity in this film, and its minimal score and sparing use of dialogue only accentuate the oppressive atmosphere. The acting is all very downplayed, the cinematography is great, and the writing is airtight. Despite being not that outwardly graphic, the film's discomfort is all in the implications. You often only hear or see the aftermath of horrible things, but those leave nothing up to interpretation. The absence of certain details makes the story universal, despite seemingly being about a very specific time in a very specific place. This is a grim film about the darkest corners of the human experience, and gives them their appropriate gravitas.