man I've only been to one theater that I can recall, in my entire life, where the front row wasn't painfully close and uncomfortable. First row, back section, right behind the handicap seats is where it's at
In that theater where I had to sit in the front row, it absolutely meant I had to crane my neck up to see most of the screen. The seat was able to rock back a bit -- which helped, a bit -- but for the most part yeah my neck was pretty stiff by the end of the movie.
Ladai on
+1
JedocIn the scupperswith the staggers and jagsRegistered Userregular
The only reason the front row was invented was so dirtbag teens with no social shame could suck face while ignoring Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. These days they're probably too busy vaping NFTs in the local VR parlor to even bother.
The only theater I've been in with actual bad seats was the Cinerama Dome at the ArcLight Hollywood. It's a massive, curved screen, and there were maybe a dozen seats at the edges of the front rows where the image was genuinely adversely effected. It was even worse for 3D movies, when those had their brief heyday.
+1
3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
The only theater I've been in with actual bad seats was the Cinerama Dome at the ArcLight Hollywood. It's a massive, curved screen, and there were maybe a dozen seats at the edges of the front rows where the image was genuinely adversely effected. It was even worse for 3D movies, when those had their brief heyday.
I've had time to sleep on it, so I think I'm ready to share my thoughts after having seen Knock at the Cabin. There's no way to talk about it in-depth without spoiling Something, so I'll section my big essay off into that. In terms of non-spoilery stuff:
I was onboard the "Batista's a better actor than Dwayne, and if they weren't both from wrestling it wouldn't even be up for comparison" train for a while. There really hasn't been a doubt in my mind about it for years now. Glass Onion made it not even close, and this performance barely two months after everyone got a taste of that should be a firm nail in the coffin of any "debate" there could still possibly be between the two. If you're not on the train by now, I don't know what the hell else you'd need to board it. Fast Five was twelve years ago; it's time to move on. Dave does expert work here controlling essentially every scene he's in. For everyone who said Paul Tremblay's book should've been difficult to adapt, what completely gets done well is how Batista's able to make even you believe, if not in what his character says, in that he believes in it. It's effective, it's tense, it goes from menacing (via his appearance) to endearing (how well-spoken and calm he almost always is, betraying said appearance) how good it is. It works. If there's one reason I found this film alright, it's because of him
The technical work is impressive too. Until like the last ten minutes, I found myself thinking how irrationally beautiful everything looked. I felt the same way about Old too, and frankly it wound up being the only real/lasting positive I had about that film; the camerawork skills M Night utilized in that, he puts to use again here, including intense closeups and dolly movements. This may be the most visually impressed I remember myself being about an M Night Shyamalan film. And it benefits the film further in that Knock at the Cabin is, between the focus on these actions and on these reactions, constantly framing the characters (even with effective flashbacks that are smoothly transitioned), the hundred-minute runtime isn't really allowed to be negatively felt. I didn't think to check my phone clock or my friend's watch, I didn't feel bored. In that way, in all these ways, this feels like the most I've enjoyed an M Night film in a while, and is his best effort since (at the latest, likely longer) Split
These are the ways Knock at the Cabin works
Now, to get to the...other stuff. But to do this, I don't think I can just talk about Knock at the Cabin. I have to talk also about the book Knock at the Cabin is based on, Paul Tremblay's "The Cabin at the End of the World". And, and you may be most surprised at this part, but I think I have to also talk about the film Knock at the Cabin feels like a spiritual sequel to: Signs. Spoilers for all three follow:
Let's get the obvious/most important thing out of the way: M Night changed the ending
As a queer fan, I was really interested in this project from the beginning. I liked the book (and actually really liked the twist!), the trailer looked great, it's Batista in a top role in a serious film he's deserved for a while, it's a queer story at its heart, and deep down for all the criticism I've previously given M Night's films post-Signs, if I didn't think he had a chance of impressing me/changing my mind and hitting something out of the park again I wouldn't still bother each time. At the very least surrounding himself with the talent he had for this project, whether openly-out (the starring gay couple actually being both played by gay men! Which sidenote, just by itself that seems rare for a major release) or heavily-vocal ally (Batista, whose mom is a lesbian), raised my hopes that any changes made wouldn't seem absurd or offensive, which is what I really wanted most out of anything from this
I feel in the end that these expectations were met, but it won't be without debate. I don't think any of what's done was with malicious intent in terms of furthering a "bury your gays" trope, even if it can and will definitely still be argued that that trope continued here
In the book The Cabin at the End of the World, each of the home invaders commit ritualistic suicide whenever the gay couple (Andrew and Eric) refuse to sacrifice themselves to prevent the apocalypse. The family are forced to watch television streams of news reports on increasing disasters occurring (not just nationwide, but globally) after each suicide of a home invader, to which Eric becomes increasingly disturbed but Andrew brushes off as something that must have been pre-recorded or planned, like a script Leonard (Batista's character) is doling out. In one of the best scenes of the film Leonard basically calls out this thought by, verbatim, reading out an entirety of a panicked news reporter coming to grips with all this in real-time at the same time as her saying it, as he saw this in a vision just like he saw the disasters that would occur. The book and the film are basically 1:1 throughout until this point: Eventually a struggle occurs over a gun
In the book the gun goes off and accidentally kills Wen, the couple's adopted kid. Everyone's distraught but it's unsure if this actually did anything to stop the world from ending, since it was genuinely an accident. The book ends with the couple having outlived the suicidal four, and accepting their fate, whatever may come next: they can't imagine life without their kid, can't imagine these people were telling the truth, can't imagine a God could exist that wouldn't accept a kid's death as being enough in this kind of situation, and (most important) can't imagine leaving each other alone. At all, let alone in the aftermath of all this
So almost none of that happens in the film. What does happen is: Leonard is the final of the four to commit suicide. He grieves for himself and for the potential loss of humanity, and says the end will come a few minutes later if they still haven't chosen. Literal seconds after he dies, lightning strikes trees by the cabin, and Eric's doubts finally boil over into believing that there's just way too many coincidences to ignore now. Eric offers to sacrifice himself, saying they can't be the last ones to die in a world they doomed everyone else in; the family they've made together doesn't deserve that as its legacy, it deserves Wen growing up and fulfilling her dreams. Andrew relents only after Eric says they were chosen because they have a pure love
The final moments of the film are Andrew and Wen walking to the truck the visitors came in. All the identification papers and pictures line up with the stories they told the family in the cabin begging them to believe this fate. The final straw that leaves both apoplectic and speechless is when the radio's turned on and playing "Boogie Shoes" by KC And the Sunshine Band. Eric's favorite song, and the one he played for them on their own drive to the cabin. They drive off as it continues
Now, about Signs, and why I think this is a spiritual sequel to that: that last paragraph in particular sounds like it's giving off pretty familiar vibes to it! Signs is ultimately the tale of a disillusioned ex-preacher having his faith restored/realizing God's real by the extreme coincidences of his family's situations (wife's death, son's asthma, brother's baseball-playing) coming together specifically in a manner that saved them from an alien invasion. M Night continues this path (a path I don't think it's controversial at this point to say has been, in some capacity, lingering throughout his career; his experiences as an outsider looking in with religious schools as a Hindu-raised kid in PA left a mark on him he's never really let go of) pretty blatantly, going a different route than Tremblay's story of the importance of a queer family, foregoing ambiguity entirely and saying our sacrifices can be just as significant and ultimately just as important as any traditional/straight family, while still keeping the basic acknowledgement from Tremblay's tale (and from our collective past 3 years of COVID life/trauma that came in the aftermath of that apocalyptic book) present: things will be different going forward, because they have to be. That reality is bigger than you and us alone. We just don't necessarily have to go through that alone, too, though. Chaos can rattle you, your faith, your family, your love. But it can, just as easily, embolden and strengthen those parts
Do I think this works? Not perfectly, and not in ways that won't avoid controversy. I think it works better, and less offensively, than aspects of Split and Old, aspects that have already been called out here in this and other film threads including elsewhere. As much as it would have provided its own share of controversy if adapted perfectly though, I think I still would have preferred the book's ending remain; Leonard being the last of the invaders to commit suicide is the one change from it that I felt really good about. Batista's given an emotional scene, a great final speech, and I think that was a nice additional moment that helped elevate the weight of everything. By contrast I was surprisingly not left as emotional by Eric's own goodbye scene speech. Maybe it was due to such close proximity by default to that and felt like it needed more time to resonate, maybe I was a bit taken back by the shock of him outright taking time to call the intruders the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, maybe it was that Jonathan Groff was spacing out the shellshock of his character throughout each coming catastrophe effectively enough that the final crack being visible was made to seem like just a matter of time (in that way at least the ending seemed predictable, which is why I hesitate to say this film has a traditional M Night twist)
For whatever reason I couldn't get into that, or the ending as a whole from that point on, at least as much as I was able to with the book's ending. And if you're going to have an ending that gets people talking (good or bad), I think the book's works better than the film's on its own. Thinking about it a day later with the context of M Night's history, with this in numerous ways (thematically and visually) being the culmination of decades of career investment, I came off feeling better about it than I had after leaving the theater. But it took thought. It took work. And I don't think a lot of the audience are going to be, or will want to be, anywhere near as patient with that in a film, let alone a 2023 M Night film, even one with positive critical reception so far (68% on Rotten Tomatoes so far; his highest since Split). For better and worse, however you feel about him and his work at this point probably doesn't have much more room for change. Even for me, saying this all as someone who leaned on the positive side for Knock at the Cabin, I find it an outlier in the second half of his career, the second film he's made in two full decades now that I think I had more good than bad to say about it. I don't blame anyone who thinks that's a lot of chances for something like this. I'm glad he's taking the risk this late into the game, but it's fair to wonder how much longer that game will get to keep going; with what at times felt like an internal career retrospective as much as it did an external warning to care more about others because we need to rely on them going forward as much as on ourselves, I don't think it's out there to say that's been on Shyamalan's mind too
TL;DR of all of this (thank you if you read even half of this mess I started typing after I got home from work and kept going half a day later after a nap too, lol) is I liked Knock at the Cabin. It's not great, it's not better than "Cabin at the End of the World" for me, and it's going to be divisive (maybe as much as Old, for the directions it takes if not for extremity of content), but I found more to like than not, and what didn't work got me thinking about why just as much as what did. And in those respects, combined with Batista's incredible performance and the impressive camerawork and astonishing attention to visual detail (there's already something I caught a glimpse of on Twitter, taken from a scene in one of the trailers hidden in plain sight, that was so profoundly bold to do it almost makes me want to watch this again just to see what else I missed that was right there and, again, would have made this make more sense early on), this is the most positive I've come away feeling about an M Night Shyamalan film in a while. That feeling has been rare; I hope that feeling isn't a one-off
StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Knock at the Cabin stuff
I read about the changes that Shyamalan made and it almost makes me want to watch the movie because those changes would have completely cut the legs out from under a book I already did not like very much at all.
0
Johnny ChopsockyScootaloo! We have to cook!Grillin' HaysenburgersRegistered Userregular
Dwayne Johnson's acting career bums me out, because he's so clearly become enamored by mythos and his quest for The Brand that he's thrown away the potential he showed early on. I think Pain and Gain may have been the last time he truly went hard at an acting role.
It's not just Batista. If Johnson just keeps treading water and putting "I can never lose" clauses in his contracts to punch up his Brand, John Cena is going to pass right by him as well.
The Rock took some risks early on to help get him set up in the industry, and now that he's proven that he's a star, he's largely coasting on charisma. I think he has the talent, it's up to him to actively...work on it. I think Cena definitely works hard and is capable, it's just that I think the difference between him and Bautista is that Bautista is actively seeking out challenges in a way that Cena isn't.
I dunno about that last bit, Geebs. Cena as Peacemaker in The Suicide Squad? Sure, not very risky or challenging.
Cena as Peacemaker in Peacemaker? Absolutely a challenging role, and he did a fantastic job with it. I doubt he just said yes to the show without reading it over, and it's possible he even knew some of the story and/or character beats for the show before they even made the movie.
That's one example, and I'm not saying that he's just signing up for comedies that don't require range. I don't think it's much of a question that he's taken less challenging roles than Bautista has, at this point in his career, and that's the main difference in their careers.
+8
Raijin QuickfootI'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPAregular
For me it’s Batista for acting
Cena for comedy
Rock for mindless action
For me it’s Batista for acting
Cena for comedy
Rock for mindless action
Cena's comedy is solid. Trainwreck, Blockers, a cameo in Sisters? Great stuff.
Bautista's no comedy slouch either. I'm not sure he could carry one on his own, but he's got timing and commitment.
Thoughts on cabin movies, theology, and cosmic horror:
It seems to me that Knock at the Cabin and the other movie that I've sometimes confused it with, Cabin in the Woods, raise the question: what is the truly moral choice here? Is it to sacrifice oneself to allow the world to continue, under the dominion of a god or gods who would orchestrate such events for their own (monstrous, to us) purposes? Or is it to defy them, even unto the end of everything, rather than to submit and be complicit in what they've done and will keep doing? Would we be saving all those people, or condemning them?
Is it our right, or anyone's, to make that choice on those people's behalf? Many might well choose to go on living, even if it is under the thumb/boot/etc of a cruel and capricious deity.
Is a real victory even possible in this scenario, as there doesn't seem to be any way of stopping the powers that be from starting all of this up again, with a new world full of victims? Would a principled stand amount to nothing more than a meaningless gesture, a brief inconvenience? But if that's all we can do, maybe that's all that matters.
Andy Samberg is supposed to play the "young" man? Or is the joke that there was a 27year age gap and he was trying to pretend that it wasn't weird and then gets sent to the future and the situation's reversed?
+1
PiptheFairFrequently not in boats.Registered Userregular
Here’s your reminder that Leo DiCaprio is now dating a 19 year old
He is 48
Her high school life was disrupted by Covid
+20
The JudgeThe Terwilliger CurvesRegistered Userregular
edited February 8
He's dating someone/in-the-midst-of-a-break-up-unknown-future thing, gets frozen for 40+ years, gets unfrozen, tries to track down the woman he was dating during the time he was out.
The Judge on
Last pint: Focal Banger / The Alchemist - Untappd: TheJudge_PDX
0
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
He's dating someone/in-the-midst-of-a-break-up-unknown-future thing, gets frozen for 40+ years, gets unfrozen, tries to track down the woman he was dating during the time he was out.
I think his point was that if the woman is (now 71 year old) Jean Smart, she was 28/29 years old before he was frozen.
But Samberg is 44 years old in both instances. So, there was a 16 year age gap before, and a 27 year age gap after.
Everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
+3
minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
Of course, Samberg can reasonably play a 30-something man child, and Hollywood has no idea what women look like when they get older than 45, so they could easily say Jean is 86 or he is 32 or whatever.
Everything looks beautiful when you're young and pretty
with regards to Dave Bautista, I think for me the really impressive thing is that I actually didn't think that much of him as a wrestler, but he's rapidly become one of my favorite actors of the last decade. the second he got out from under McMahon's thumb he absolutely started thriving
like with Cena or The Rock, they're both fairly similar in the ring to film. even if I think Cena is given a lot better stuff to work with in his post-WWE career, at least he was very very good at working with his own talents to punch up the WWE house writing style. and then The Rock is more or less even in quality across everything besides a rare few roles where he's in for more than just a paycheck, and basically the exact same in ring as out
The Pussy Posse, you may fondly recall, was the nickname Leo and his group of womanizing friends gave themselves in the '90s. The group includes dignitaries such as Tobey Maguire, Lukas Haas, Vincent Lareska, and Richie Akiva
Also David Blaine and Harmony Korine if I recall, imagine that, imagine those units rollin around Hollywood sixty years ago just stealin the Big Boppers dates and shit
So the Big Dog of the known sex criminal organisation the 'Pussy Posse' is kind of unsavoury huh, weird, weird shit
The what of the what
Leo and a bunch of other popular straight white male actors from the 90s/early 2000s we're all friends and called their merry band the pussy posse and they are all misogynist creeps
Posts
Jimmy C's bringing 'em back, dontcha know.
I was onboard the "Batista's a better actor than Dwayne, and if they weren't both from wrestling it wouldn't even be up for comparison" train for a while. There really hasn't been a doubt in my mind about it for years now. Glass Onion made it not even close, and this performance barely two months after everyone got a taste of that should be a firm nail in the coffin of any "debate" there could still possibly be between the two. If you're not on the train by now, I don't know what the hell else you'd need to board it. Fast Five was twelve years ago; it's time to move on. Dave does expert work here controlling essentially every scene he's in. For everyone who said Paul Tremblay's book should've been difficult to adapt, what completely gets done well is how Batista's able to make even you believe, if not in what his character says, in that he believes in it. It's effective, it's tense, it goes from menacing (via his appearance) to endearing (how well-spoken and calm he almost always is, betraying said appearance) how good it is. It works. If there's one reason I found this film alright, it's because of him
The technical work is impressive too. Until like the last ten minutes, I found myself thinking how irrationally beautiful everything looked. I felt the same way about Old too, and frankly it wound up being the only real/lasting positive I had about that film; the camerawork skills M Night utilized in that, he puts to use again here, including intense closeups and dolly movements. This may be the most visually impressed I remember myself being about an M Night Shyamalan film. And it benefits the film further in that Knock at the Cabin is, between the focus on these actions and on these reactions, constantly framing the characters (even with effective flashbacks that are smoothly transitioned), the hundred-minute runtime isn't really allowed to be negatively felt. I didn't think to check my phone clock or my friend's watch, I didn't feel bored. In that way, in all these ways, this feels like the most I've enjoyed an M Night film in a while, and is his best effort since (at the latest, likely longer) Split
These are the ways Knock at the Cabin works
Now, to get to the...other stuff. But to do this, I don't think I can just talk about Knock at the Cabin. I have to talk also about the book Knock at the Cabin is based on, Paul Tremblay's "The Cabin at the End of the World". And, and you may be most surprised at this part, but I think I have to also talk about the film Knock at the Cabin feels like a spiritual sequel to: Signs. Spoilers for all three follow:
As a queer fan, I was really interested in this project from the beginning. I liked the book (and actually really liked the twist!), the trailer looked great, it's Batista in a top role in a serious film he's deserved for a while, it's a queer story at its heart, and deep down for all the criticism I've previously given M Night's films post-Signs, if I didn't think he had a chance of impressing me/changing my mind and hitting something out of the park again I wouldn't still bother each time. At the very least surrounding himself with the talent he had for this project, whether openly-out (the starring gay couple actually being both played by gay men! Which sidenote, just by itself that seems rare for a major release) or heavily-vocal ally (Batista, whose mom is a lesbian), raised my hopes that any changes made wouldn't seem absurd or offensive, which is what I really wanted most out of anything from this
I feel in the end that these expectations were met, but it won't be without debate. I don't think any of what's done was with malicious intent in terms of furthering a "bury your gays" trope, even if it can and will definitely still be argued that that trope continued here
In the book The Cabin at the End of the World, each of the home invaders commit ritualistic suicide whenever the gay couple (Andrew and Eric) refuse to sacrifice themselves to prevent the apocalypse. The family are forced to watch television streams of news reports on increasing disasters occurring (not just nationwide, but globally) after each suicide of a home invader, to which Eric becomes increasingly disturbed but Andrew brushes off as something that must have been pre-recorded or planned, like a script Leonard (Batista's character) is doling out. In one of the best scenes of the film Leonard basically calls out this thought by, verbatim, reading out an entirety of a panicked news reporter coming to grips with all this in real-time at the same time as her saying it, as he saw this in a vision just like he saw the disasters that would occur. The book and the film are basically 1:1 throughout until this point: Eventually a struggle occurs over a gun
In the book the gun goes off and accidentally kills Wen, the couple's adopted kid. Everyone's distraught but it's unsure if this actually did anything to stop the world from ending, since it was genuinely an accident. The book ends with the couple having outlived the suicidal four, and accepting their fate, whatever may come next: they can't imagine life without their kid, can't imagine these people were telling the truth, can't imagine a God could exist that wouldn't accept a kid's death as being enough in this kind of situation, and (most important) can't imagine leaving each other alone. At all, let alone in the aftermath of all this
So almost none of that happens in the film. What does happen is: Leonard is the final of the four to commit suicide. He grieves for himself and for the potential loss of humanity, and says the end will come a few minutes later if they still haven't chosen. Literal seconds after he dies, lightning strikes trees by the cabin, and Eric's doubts finally boil over into believing that there's just way too many coincidences to ignore now. Eric offers to sacrifice himself, saying they can't be the last ones to die in a world they doomed everyone else in; the family they've made together doesn't deserve that as its legacy, it deserves Wen growing up and fulfilling her dreams. Andrew relents only after Eric says they were chosen because they have a pure love
The final moments of the film are Andrew and Wen walking to the truck the visitors came in. All the identification papers and pictures line up with the stories they told the family in the cabin begging them to believe this fate. The final straw that leaves both apoplectic and speechless is when the radio's turned on and playing "Boogie Shoes" by KC And the Sunshine Band. Eric's favorite song, and the one he played for them on their own drive to the cabin. They drive off as it continues
Now, about Signs, and why I think this is a spiritual sequel to that: that last paragraph in particular sounds like it's giving off pretty familiar vibes to it! Signs is ultimately the tale of a disillusioned ex-preacher having his faith restored/realizing God's real by the extreme coincidences of his family's situations (wife's death, son's asthma, brother's baseball-playing) coming together specifically in a manner that saved them from an alien invasion. M Night continues this path (a path I don't think it's controversial at this point to say has been, in some capacity, lingering throughout his career; his experiences as an outsider looking in with religious schools as a Hindu-raised kid in PA left a mark on him he's never really let go of) pretty blatantly, going a different route than Tremblay's story of the importance of a queer family, foregoing ambiguity entirely and saying our sacrifices can be just as significant and ultimately just as important as any traditional/straight family, while still keeping the basic acknowledgement from Tremblay's tale (and from our collective past 3 years of COVID life/trauma that came in the aftermath of that apocalyptic book) present: things will be different going forward, because they have to be. That reality is bigger than you and us alone. We just don't necessarily have to go through that alone, too, though. Chaos can rattle you, your faith, your family, your love. But it can, just as easily, embolden and strengthen those parts
Do I think this works? Not perfectly, and not in ways that won't avoid controversy. I think it works better, and less offensively, than aspects of Split and Old, aspects that have already been called out here in this and other film threads including elsewhere. As much as it would have provided its own share of controversy if adapted perfectly though, I think I still would have preferred the book's ending remain; Leonard being the last of the invaders to commit suicide is the one change from it that I felt really good about. Batista's given an emotional scene, a great final speech, and I think that was a nice additional moment that helped elevate the weight of everything. By contrast I was surprisingly not left as emotional by Eric's own goodbye scene speech. Maybe it was due to such close proximity by default to that and felt like it needed more time to resonate, maybe I was a bit taken back by the shock of him outright taking time to call the intruders the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, maybe it was that Jonathan Groff was spacing out the shellshock of his character throughout each coming catastrophe effectively enough that the final crack being visible was made to seem like just a matter of time (in that way at least the ending seemed predictable, which is why I hesitate to say this film has a traditional M Night twist)
For whatever reason I couldn't get into that, or the ending as a whole from that point on, at least as much as I was able to with the book's ending. And if you're going to have an ending that gets people talking (good or bad), I think the book's works better than the film's on its own. Thinking about it a day later with the context of M Night's history, with this in numerous ways (thematically and visually) being the culmination of decades of career investment, I came off feeling better about it than I had after leaving the theater. But it took thought. It took work. And I don't think a lot of the audience are going to be, or will want to be, anywhere near as patient with that in a film, let alone a 2023 M Night film, even one with positive critical reception so far (68% on Rotten Tomatoes so far; his highest since Split). For better and worse, however you feel about him and his work at this point probably doesn't have much more room for change. Even for me, saying this all as someone who leaned on the positive side for Knock at the Cabin, I find it an outlier in the second half of his career, the second film he's made in two full decades now that I think I had more good than bad to say about it. I don't blame anyone who thinks that's a lot of chances for something like this. I'm glad he's taking the risk this late into the game, but it's fair to wonder how much longer that game will get to keep going; with what at times felt like an internal career retrospective as much as it did an external warning to care more about others because we need to rely on them going forward as much as on ourselves, I don't think it's out there to say that's been on Shyamalan's mind too
TL;DR of all of this (thank you if you read even half of this mess I started typing after I got home from work and kept going half a day later after a nap too, lol) is I liked Knock at the Cabin. It's not great, it's not better than "Cabin at the End of the World" for me, and it's going to be divisive (maybe as much as Old, for the directions it takes if not for extremity of content), but I found more to like than not, and what didn't work got me thinking about why just as much as what did. And in those respects, combined with Batista's incredible performance and the impressive camerawork and astonishing attention to visual detail (there's already something I caught a glimpse of on Twitter, taken from a scene in one of the trailers hidden in plain sight, that was so profoundly bold to do it almost makes me want to watch this again just to see what else I missed that was right there and, again, would have made this make more sense early on), this is the most positive I've come away feeling about an M Night Shyamalan film in a while. That feeling has been rare; I hope that feeling isn't a one-off
Steam
It's not just Batista. If Johnson just keeps treading water and putting "I can never lose" clauses in his contracts to punch up his Brand, John Cena is going to pass right by him as well.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
John Cena has, as a person, has done at least 600 Make-A-Wish wishes. like, he has the world record I think
I'm just covering my bases in case Cena winds up stagnating and going Brand-focused like Johnson did.
Steam ID XBL: JohnnyChopsocky PSN:Stud_Beefpile WiiU:JohnnyChopsocky
Of his worst book, no less
Cena as Peacemaker in Peacemaker? Absolutely a challenging role, and he did a fantastic job with it. I doubt he just said yes to the show without reading it over, and it's possible he even knew some of the story and/or character beats for the show before they even made the movie.
Cena for comedy
Rock for mindless action
https://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/1JI9WWSRW1YJI
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Cena's comedy is solid. Trainwreck, Blockers, a cameo in Sisters? Great stuff.
Bautista's no comedy slouch either. I'm not sure he could carry one on his own, but he's got timing and commitment.
Is it our right, or anyone's, to make that choice on those people's behalf? Many might well choose to go on living, even if it is under the thumb/boot/etc of a cruel and capricious deity.
Is a real victory even possible in this scenario, as there doesn't seem to be any way of stopping the powers that be from starting all of this up again, with a new world full of victims? Would a principled stand amount to nothing more than a meaningless gesture, a brief inconvenience? But if that's all we can do, maybe that's all that matters.
Heavy stuff.
Steam, Warframe: Megajoule
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Andy Samberg is supposed to play the "young" man? Or is the joke that there was a 27year age gap and he was trying to pretend that it wasn't weird and then gets sent to the future and the situation's reversed?
He is 48
Her high school life was disrupted by Covid
Smart. Gotta get in early so you get the full seven years out of the relationship.
Also titanic is 25 so he’s gonna remove himself from the credits
I think his point was that if the woman is (now 71 year old) Jean Smart, she was 28/29 years old before he was frozen.
But Samberg is 44 years old in both instances. So, there was a 16 year age gap before, and a 27 year age gap after.
Someone posted that is' close to the same age difference as Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey, the surrogate father/daughter relationship in Last of Us
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Pascal is 47 and Ramsey is also 19(but she does have a baby face so she seems younger)
like with Cena or The Rock, they're both fairly similar in the ring to film. even if I think Cena is given a lot better stuff to work with in his post-WWE career, at least he was very very good at working with his own talents to punch up the WWE house writing style. and then The Rock is more or less even in quality across everything besides a rare few roles where he's in for more than just a paycheck, and basically the exact same in ring as out
The what of the what
Also David Blaine and Harmony Korine if I recall, imagine that, imagine those units rollin around Hollywood sixty years ago just stealin the Big Boppers dates and shit
Leo and a bunch of other popular straight white male actors from the 90s/early 2000s we're all friends and called their merry band the pussy posse and they are all misogynist creeps