I think Sheridan may have been trying to say something with the plot about how quick the US government is to both start and run from aggressive and violent policies so that they are seen as "doing something" But dear Lord, the direction in this movie is just ass. There is no snap, no zing, the timing is slow, the acting is flat. And the action scenes. The gunfights are fricking boring.
Just avoid this movie like the plague. The hours you spend watching it are so much more valuable than the movie.
I don't know how long it's been like this, but the forthcoming Godzilla: The Showa Era Films Criterion boxset is sold out on Amazon UK, and it doesn't come out here until near the end of November.
I am really, really glad I got my pre-order in early on that and didn't wait.
I don't know how long it's been like this, but the forthcoming Godzilla: The Showa Era Films Criterion boxset is sold out on Amazon UK, and it doesn't come out here until near the end of November.
I am really, really glad I got my pre-order in early on that and didn't wait.
I don't know how long it's been like this, but the forthcoming Godzilla: The Showa Era Films Criterion boxset is sold out on Amazon UK, and it doesn't come out here until near the end of November.
I am really, really glad I got my pre-order in early on that and didn't wait.
Still available in the US, sell me on it?
The first fifteen Godzilla flicks (plus the US re-edits of Godzilla and King Kong vs Godzilla as well, so seventeen counting those), covering 1954-1975, bundled together for the first time, and on Blu-ray. If I remember right, some are in HD for the first time? Maybe? English dubs are an option for some but not all (some never had a dub track recorded IIRC, and some are legally unavailable), new translations for the subtitles, and as you'd expect from Criterion, a good selection of extras. Packaged in a hardcover book with some absolutely bonkers artwork.
But given the sporadic, fractured and haphazard nature of their various releases in the West, if indeed they got them at all (a lot of these movies haven't seen an official release since the VHS era in the UK, and some might not have even got that), honestly the big hook is that it's an entire era - the first and longest era - of Godzilla movies all presented together. Criterion have even given this set the honor of their spine number #1000, because they know that this is a bit special. (Also this will be the first ever release of the original Japanese version of King Kong vs Godzilla in the USA, ever.)
Criterion don't even usually release in the UK and their releases are typically region-locked too, so it's extra nice that they've given us this set.
So far, I've mostly admired rather than enjoyed Christian Petzold's films. I think I may love Transit, though, an adaptation of a novel set in the Second World War but transposed into a highly effective anachronistic present. It may also be the first film I've seen that captures the subtly surreal tone and themes of Franz Kafka's fiction. Like Phoenix, don't go in expecting realism, even if the film looks realistic; the story does a few things that would be highly implausible, if this was a realistic film. If you're comfortable with films that have a certain dreamlike, elliptic quality, though, this one is well worth checking out.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
I think Sheridan may have been trying to say something with the plot about how quick the US government is to both start and run from aggressive and violent policies so that they are seen as "doing something" But dear Lord, the direction in this movie is just ass. There is no snap, no zing, the timing is slow, the acting is flat. And the action scenes. The gunfights are fricking boring.
Just avoid this movie like the plague. The hours you spend watching it are so much more valuable than the movie.
And in other most likely terrible movies news, here's some utterly unsourced rumours about the impending 10 to 1 absolute stinker that will be Doolittle.
And in other most likely terrible movies news, here's some utterly unsourced rumours about the impending 10 to 1 absolute stinker that will be Doolittle.
I look forward to the text to speech version on youtube.
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reVerseAttack and Dethrone GodRegistered Userregular
Saw some movies this weekend.
Viy is a Russian movie from the 60s. A young priest apprentice Khoma heads out from his priest school for a weekend. On the way, he encounters an old woman who turns out to be a witch. After some witchly shenanigans Khoma has enough of her and attacks her, but oh no, the witch tricked him and he accidentally brutally beat a young woman. Distraught, he returns to the school only to discover that his priestly services have been requested, by name: the self-same young woman, at her death bed, asked her rich father that for three nights Khoma should pray by her corpse. And so, tempted by gold and accompanied by the father's servants, Khoma heads off to pray for the girl he killed.
The movie's okay. There's a bit of tension here and there, mostly making you wonder if the father really knows what happened or if he's just doing the whole thing because it was his daughter's dying request, and some odd humor mixed in throughout. However, what's really impressive about the movie are the special effects. Sure, they're a bit dated and quaint by modern standards, but you can tell the film makers went all out on making the witchery as terrifying as they could. There's flying coffins, creatures unnaturally climbing on walls, spooky giant ghost hands emerging from the walls and the floors, and other such things.
It's probably not a great movie by modern standards, but I liked it well enough. 4/5.
Speaking of special effects, the one's you get in Mystics in Bali are absolute garbo-trash. Imagine someone blowing up a 120 by 120 video footage to full screen and awkwardly inserting a flying head on top of it and that's half of what this Indonesian feature film from the 80s has to offer. Even by the standards of the time, they're atrocious.
However, there are some pretty okay physical props and effects to off-set this a bit. There's several transformation scenes in the movie, of humans turning into animals, and they're gooey and gross and disturbing in the best way possible.
The movie itself is very, very bad. It's a story where a young woman writing a book about black magic gets introduced to a local witch. She then becomes the witches apprentice and awful witchy shenanigans ensue. The dubbing is bottom tier, the characters are nonsensical, and the final fight between the witch and the identical brother of another character who just died seconds ago and who we are just now hearing about for the first time and who is also Gandalf the White that should be amazing is mostly just a wet fart. It is pretty hilarious in that awful bad movie kind of way, but there's also a lot of boring jank just filling in the time. 2/5.
Next up is Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face). In this French movie from the 60s, a doctor who is a trailblazer in the scary and upcoming technology of organ transplants, seeks out young women so he can steal their faces and put them on his disfigured daughter. The horror comes mostly from the concept of organ transplanting being a scary new thing at the time, so the movie is perhaps not terribly frightening for modern audiences. It is a solid, well-made film though, and it does have one facial removal scene that is quite horrifying in its matter-of-fact and clinical presentation. I don't have a lot to say about it, it's mostly a character study and a mood piece, and it's good. 4/5.
Moving on from a French film to a German, Killer Condom is quite an experience. Distributed by the infamous Troma company, Killer Condom tackles the heavy subject of AIDS in the gay community in the 80s... and against all expectations, does a damn fine job at it.
Our main character is detective Luigi Mackeroni, a man who left his home country of Italy to come searching for a better life in America. He's unshaven, slobbily dressed, and not the most cheerful fellow. He ends up investigating a scene where a high school girl bit off her teacher's penis, but we the audience already saw what's up in the opening scene: she didn't do it, it was the Killer Condom. As he heads over to the seedy hotel/brothel to investigate, he picks up a young and handsome male prostitute, Billy. With Billy in tow he runs into and has a long argument with his ex, Babette (who Luigi keeps calling by her former name Bob), who also works at the "hotel". Once the argument is done, Luigi and Billy enter the room where the penis biting happened, and Luigi brandishes his 32 centimeters of Italian stallion at Billy. However, before they get down to business, they get distracted by a moving condom. The condom attacks Luigi, but blessing of blessings it misses its mark and only bites off one of Luigi's testicles.
You might think that all this gay stuff is there just for shock value, especially since Troma slapped their name on the movie, but you would be wrong. It's actually really well done, presented as is, with heart and sincerity. One might argue that the movie's portrayal of Babette is not the best, with her character being treated quite comically, but she gets a decent amount of screen time and character moments and I'm mostly convinced that the film makers didn't intend for her to be comical because she's trans, but simply because that's the kind of person she is.
Anyway, the movie takes on the subject of a random killer (AIDS) menacing the gay and sex worker community, and how nothing is done about until a White straight Republican politician is targeted, and then it's all hands on deck eliminating this dangerous killer. The subjects of homophobia and Christianity are heavily present and the movie does a good job talking about this stuff and weaving it naturally in to the narrative. The killer condom creatures designed by H.R. Giger are quite something. 5/5, is good.
Next up was Next of Kin, an Australian movie about an old folks home where murders suddenly start happening. Not much to say about this, it's a very slow burn with not much happening. There's some cats jumping on screen, old people standing in the shadows and showers mysteriously being turned on. The movie tries to present some sort of mystery about what's going on, but the clues presented are just kind of haphazard and the killer just kind of appears at the end. Not terrible, but not particularly good either. 3/5.
The final movie of the weekend was Lucio Fulci's Zombi, aka Zombie 2. I'd seen this one before so instead of being annoyed by the plot, such as it is, I just embraced the fulci. There's tits and zombies and gore, and most of the characters are too stupid to make it through the film.
The movie is really only known for two scenes in particular, one of which is a very disturbing little scene of an eye getting slowly pierced by a sharp piece of wood. The other is an underwater scene of a man in full zombie costume having a bit of a brawl with an actual live shark. You really have to wonder about what kind of mad man decides that they want to film an actor actually wrestling with a shark. Nevertheless, it is a scene that was filmed and is worth seeing, even if only on Youtube.
The rest of the movie is very, well, it's very Italian. Italian actors saying English lines that are dubbed over by actual English actors, tits and tits and then more tits, and overall questionable story structure are all on the menu with this timeless "classic". All the good stuff is offset by an equal amount of bad stuff, all the hilarious moments offset by boring moments. It's zig-zagging all over the place quality wise. I wasn't excited on either time I watched it, but neither was I terrible bored, so I guess it gets a middle-of-the-road score of 3/5.
My latest addiction is buying steelbooks. I never usually buy movies but I've decided thanks to my IW/Endgame, and the lackluster Infinity Saga collection, I'm just gonna collect the MCU one movie at a time on Steelbooks:
Cold Pursuit is on HBO, figured I'd give it a shot. It is not at all what I was expecting. I thought I was in for Taken in the snow, some super action packed mountain movie like Cliffhanger. Instead, it's much more of a dark comedy. It's really bare, to the point where
Laura Dern's character leaves Liam Neeson's character, but her Dear John letter is just a folded blank sheet of paper in a plain envelope.
It's not interested in those kinds of details, it wants to tell the bits that lead to the climax and nothing else. It was an enjoyable enough experience, if you like watching Liam Neeson murder people but you feel like he's always in too much of a hurry, this might be for you.
+3
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KetarCome on upstairswe're having a partyRegistered Userregular
Better yet, watch In Order of Disappearance with Stellan Skarsgard - the movie they remade as Cold Pursuit. It's on Netflix in the US right now. It's a very entertaining film that didn't need a remake 5 years after the original, and Skarsgard is great in it.
Better yet, watch In Order of Disappearance with Stellan Skarsgard - the movie they remade as Cold Pursuit. It's on Netflix in the US right now. It's a very entertaining film that didn't need a remake 5 years after the original, and Skarsgard is great in it.
Hard pass on that, I can't sit through 1 skit with the Swedish Chef, no way I'm watching a movie where everybody talks like him.
Liked Ad Astra, but I think I like it even more that a director with classical sensibilities and only marginal independent successes up until this was able to direct an original, big-budget sci-fi movie that got a wide release. James Gray has built his career off of movies that are out of fashion: finely-tuned, gloomy, sometimes literary dramas often about family legacy, without a whole lot of irony or humour or intertextuality that a lot of (post)modern audiences might come to expect from crime films or period pieces.
Sincerity is mostly foregrounded in his work, and I think that's where Ad Astra works best, with imaginative visuals rendered through its lead character's subjective outlook, as well as Pitt's introverted performance, which is carefully observed with wonderful closeups. I also like this film's world, its industrialized renditions of the moon and Mars; its reluctance to spend any meaningful time on Earth. I like its angle, its visuals on a moment to moment level (some moments longer than others), but its storytelling is too structured, too spelled-out to be entirely effective. Ominousness is dispelled as the script loudly hits its beats and announces its intentions, mystery simmers as the film arrives at another action scene strategically placed 25 minutes ahead of the last. I think there's a great film in there, possibly even in a re-edit as some parts of it are stunning, but it doesn't come together very gracefully as is.
Tenzytile on
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
Ad Astra’s main problem is that it’s too streamlined
There are plenty of interesting ideas there (MOON PIRATES???) that get tossed off and not followed up on because the film has a single track, how these things affect Pitt’s mood, and there’s no room for subplots or digressions or even surprises really.
It’s other problem is simply that, for a movie entirely about a build-up to a climactic conversation, the conversation really needs to wow, and this climax just isn’t good enough
I like Pitt a lot in this, I like the visuals and the music and some of the world-building, and I wouldn’t say I was bored, but it definitely feels merely decent in large part because it misses a lot of opportunities to be fantastic
It’s other problem is simply that, for a movie entirely about a build-up to a climactic conversation, the conversation really needs to wow, and this climax just isn’t good enough
Yeah, the post-Mars stuff doesn't work as well as what came before it:
Mars ends up being something of a climax, as it's the moment at which Pitt's character is able to recognize and move beyond his superego. The space-adventure stuff never felt like as much as a threat as his own repression, and that's something he conquers sending that message---and it's a really well acted and photographed scene. I love that he tilts his head back and we get a POV shot of the stars through a skylight, that's a really wonderful moment. The dramatic success of that scene actually hurts what follows it.
The stuff off-Neptune just doesn't pull it all together. It takes a couple of implausible setpieces to set it up (the accidental death of that entire crew), and then it doesn't cash in. There's one moment that I think really works though, and probably the only time I thought the voiceover adds anything to the film: when we see the images of the distant planets his father photographed looking for life, and Pitt's character mentions how incredible they are, and how his father never allowed himself to recognize that fact. I thought that was powerful, but it's tangential to the actual drama of the third act.
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I think it’s a real weakness of Ad Astra that
Jones essentially forces Pitt to (literally) let him go, when Jones kind of abruptly commits suicide
The weird thing about the film is that essentially nothing that actually happens matters to Pitt. Obviously this is on purpose because they highlight the device of his heart rate being so steady. But it also arguably drains his journey of meaning, and this is only compounded by the fact that his contact with his father does not seem to really change Pitt’s understanding of the world. (He already knows about his father having killed the rest of the crew, for example.) His father does not offer an intriguing philosophy or a new perspective. If anything it’s the mundanity of what was previously a seemingly titanic, mythical figure that seems to help sort of release Pitt from both his fear of becoming his father and his desire to have his father’s love—both seem not only impossible but irrelevant by the end.
And that may be interesting and coherent, it’s not dramatically satisfying. Pitt might have achieved the same simply by declining the mission and writing off his father. At some level the emotional journey doesn’t meet the spectacle of the grandiose imagery and metaphor.
Pitt might have achieved the same simply by declining the mission and writing off his father. At some level the emotional journey doesn’t meet the spectacle of the grandiose imagery and metaphor.
I think that's the point, though. Pitt needs to make the journey in order to get to that point, in order to fully understand that
his supposedly stoic disengagement isn't an asset but a danger, to himself and to others.
It's one of those "the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time", the place here being Pitt himself. I didn't particularly like the film (it looks nice, but I found its treatment of its themes shallow and unengaging), but I think the film makes it pretty clear that Pitt's character at the beginning of the film wouldn't have been able to do what you suggest and it's the (outer and inner) journey that gets him to this point.
Talking of Ad Astra: I started listening to the Director's Cut podcast that has Damien Chazelle talking to James Gray about Ad Astra, and Gray comes across as utterly obnoxious: patronising and self-satisfied. I'm not sure I'll even manage to finish the podcast.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
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AstaerethIn the belly of the beastRegistered Userregular
I agree that that’s the point; I just think that makes for a dramatically underwhelming movie, where what’s happening with the character and what’s happening with the plot have such different levels of intensity and feel so disconnected from one another that the whole movie ends up feeling, I dunno, sedate?
I don’t mind sedate, but I do mind that the film is at cross-purposes with itself. The story is all about its main character
learning not to be like his father, not to be the stoic, distant supposed hero who fails the human beings closest to him. He goes as a way of escaping everyday, mundane life and obligations, learning in the process that those are what life is all about - but if he wasn’t like his dad to begin with, he wouldn’t have gone on the mission that saves the world.
The plot undermines the message.
Thirith on
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Saw Alien on the big screen last night. Yep, still brilliant. Not sure if it was the 4K version, but it looked really crisp. One of those rare movies that is so simple and straightforward, but so rich with detail.
Edited to add: I love that the movie isn't preachy or obvious about this, but the real villain of Alien is the military industrial complex.
Saw Alien on the big screen last night. Yep, still brilliant. Not sure if it was the 4K version, but it looked really crisp. One of those rare movies that is so simple and straightforward, but so rich with detail.
Edited to add: I love that the movie isn't preachy or obvious about this, but the real villain of Alien is the military industrial complex.
I was able to sneak out and go enjoy this in the theater by myself last night. Was great to have a chance to watch it on the big screen for the first time and it still looks better than most movies made today. It does everything right that Prometheus did wrong.
Also, maybe someone can help me out. In Alien, Parker and Brett keep complaining about getting a 1/2 share. Later in the film (I believe) Ripley tells him that everyone gets a full share. Is this an indication that they have been getting screwed for a while and just hadn't know to fight/ask for a full wage?
BRETT
What about the shares in case
they find anything.
RIPLEY
Don't worry, you'll both get
what's coming to you.
BRETT
I'm not doing any more work unless
we get full shares.
RIPLEY
You're guaranteed by law that
you'll get a share... Now both
of you knock it off and get back
to work.
Also, maybe someone can help me out. In Alien, Parker and Brett keep complaining about getting a 1/2 share. Later in the film (I believe) Ripley tells him that everyone gets a full share. Is this an indication that they have been getting screwed for a while and just hadn't know to fight/ask for a full wage?
No, they are working under contract. They are going to get paid whatever is in their contract, which is what Ripley and Dallas keep telling them. They're just complaining about getting paid less as low level mechanics than others on the ship. It's just your generic laborer banter. "You're guaranteed by law to get a share" to me is just a generalized comment that they'll get what's in the contract as a legal document, not any indication about the specific amount they'll get.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
Saw Alien on the big screen last night. Yep, still brilliant. Not sure if it was the 4K version, but it looked really crisp. One of those rare movies that is so simple and straightforward, but so rich with detail.
Edited to add: I love that the movie isn't preachy or obvious about this, but the real villain of Alien is the military industrial complex.
It was so good! It really flew by, too. I was surprised it had been two hours by the time I got out.
I love the entire pre-egg bit, how it underscores the simultaneously very mundane and very dangerous nature of the stuff they're doing. I had totally forgotten that they had a serious accident as they landed.
I had also forgotten how despite Ripley's rep for being incredibly badass she and most of the people there are just understandably uncomfortable and nerve-wracked. I like that Dallas's final moments are basically spent going uuuuuh never mind this sucks I would like to hop out now I didn't think it would be this terrifying to do this thanks.
I try not to judge people for having different tastes than me in media, but if somebody tells me that they found Alien to be boring because it takes forever to get to the scary stuff, I am definitely going to be judging them.
cj iwakuraThe Rhythm RegentBears The Name FreedomRegistered Userregular
Next Criterions:
The new Suspiria is one thoroughly twisted film, and it's by one of those directors that makes me wonder from where he got such a knack for horror.
I keep telling myself he should have just created an original story rather than a remake, but that's basically what it is. There's almost nothing in common with the original besides 'Dance academy is secretly a coven'.
And where the heck is Thom Yorke's amazing score? What a waste.
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"I am the creator... of a television show."
Yeah that sucked.
Just avoid this movie like the plague. The hours you spend watching it are so much more valuable than the movie.
I am really, really glad I got my pre-order in early on that and didn't wait.
Steam | XBL
Still available in the US, sell me on it?
The first fifteen Godzilla flicks (plus the US re-edits of Godzilla and King Kong vs Godzilla as well, so seventeen counting those), covering 1954-1975, bundled together for the first time, and on Blu-ray. If I remember right, some are in HD for the first time? Maybe? English dubs are an option for some but not all (some never had a dub track recorded IIRC, and some are legally unavailable), new translations for the subtitles, and as you'd expect from Criterion, a good selection of extras. Packaged in a hardcover book with some absolutely bonkers artwork.
But given the sporadic, fractured and haphazard nature of their various releases in the West, if indeed they got them at all (a lot of these movies haven't seen an official release since the VHS era in the UK, and some might not have even got that), honestly the big hook is that it's an entire era - the first and longest era - of Godzilla movies all presented together. Criterion have even given this set the honor of their spine number #1000, because they know that this is a bit special. (Also this will be the first ever release of the original Japanese version of King Kong vs Godzilla in the USA, ever.)
Criterion don't even usually release in the UK and their releases are typically region-locked too, so it's extra nice that they've given us this set.
Steam | XBL
Hey this was good advice!
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Shame as well, the first one was so good
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I look forward to the text to speech version on youtube.
Viy is a Russian movie from the 60s. A young priest apprentice Khoma heads out from his priest school for a weekend. On the way, he encounters an old woman who turns out to be a witch. After some witchly shenanigans Khoma has enough of her and attacks her, but oh no, the witch tricked him and he accidentally brutally beat a young woman. Distraught, he returns to the school only to discover that his priestly services have been requested, by name: the self-same young woman, at her death bed, asked her rich father that for three nights Khoma should pray by her corpse. And so, tempted by gold and accompanied by the father's servants, Khoma heads off to pray for the girl he killed.
The movie's okay. There's a bit of tension here and there, mostly making you wonder if the father really knows what happened or if he's just doing the whole thing because it was his daughter's dying request, and some odd humor mixed in throughout. However, what's really impressive about the movie are the special effects. Sure, they're a bit dated and quaint by modern standards, but you can tell the film makers went all out on making the witchery as terrifying as they could. There's flying coffins, creatures unnaturally climbing on walls, spooky giant ghost hands emerging from the walls and the floors, and other such things.
It's probably not a great movie by modern standards, but I liked it well enough. 4/5.
Speaking of special effects, the one's you get in Mystics in Bali are absolute garbo-trash. Imagine someone blowing up a 120 by 120 video footage to full screen and awkwardly inserting a flying head on top of it and that's half of what this Indonesian feature film from the 80s has to offer. Even by the standards of the time, they're atrocious.
However, there are some pretty okay physical props and effects to off-set this a bit. There's several transformation scenes in the movie, of humans turning into animals, and they're gooey and gross and disturbing in the best way possible.
The movie itself is very, very bad. It's a story where a young woman writing a book about black magic gets introduced to a local witch. She then becomes the witches apprentice and awful witchy shenanigans ensue. The dubbing is bottom tier, the characters are nonsensical, and the final fight between the witch and the identical brother of another character who just died seconds ago and who we are just now hearing about for the first time and who is also Gandalf the White that should be amazing is mostly just a wet fart. It is pretty hilarious in that awful bad movie kind of way, but there's also a lot of boring jank just filling in the time. 2/5.
Next up is Les Yeux sans Visage (Eyes Without a Face). In this French movie from the 60s, a doctor who is a trailblazer in the scary and upcoming technology of organ transplants, seeks out young women so he can steal their faces and put them on his disfigured daughter. The horror comes mostly from the concept of organ transplanting being a scary new thing at the time, so the movie is perhaps not terribly frightening for modern audiences. It is a solid, well-made film though, and it does have one facial removal scene that is quite horrifying in its matter-of-fact and clinical presentation. I don't have a lot to say about it, it's mostly a character study and a mood piece, and it's good. 4/5.
Moving on from a French film to a German, Killer Condom is quite an experience. Distributed by the infamous Troma company, Killer Condom tackles the heavy subject of AIDS in the gay community in the 80s... and against all expectations, does a damn fine job at it.
Our main character is detective Luigi Mackeroni, a man who left his home country of Italy to come searching for a better life in America. He's unshaven, slobbily dressed, and not the most cheerful fellow. He ends up investigating a scene where a high school girl bit off her teacher's penis, but we the audience already saw what's up in the opening scene: she didn't do it, it was the Killer Condom. As he heads over to the seedy hotel/brothel to investigate, he picks up a young and handsome male prostitute, Billy. With Billy in tow he runs into and has a long argument with his ex, Babette (who Luigi keeps calling by her former name Bob), who also works at the "hotel". Once the argument is done, Luigi and Billy enter the room where the penis biting happened, and Luigi brandishes his 32 centimeters of Italian stallion at Billy. However, before they get down to business, they get distracted by a moving condom. The condom attacks Luigi, but blessing of blessings it misses its mark and only bites off one of Luigi's testicles.
You might think that all this gay stuff is there just for shock value, especially since Troma slapped their name on the movie, but you would be wrong. It's actually really well done, presented as is, with heart and sincerity. One might argue that the movie's portrayal of Babette is not the best, with her character being treated quite comically, but she gets a decent amount of screen time and character moments and I'm mostly convinced that the film makers didn't intend for her to be comical because she's trans, but simply because that's the kind of person she is.
Anyway, the movie takes on the subject of a random killer (AIDS) menacing the gay and sex worker community, and how nothing is done about until a White straight Republican politician is targeted, and then it's all hands on deck eliminating this dangerous killer. The subjects of homophobia and Christianity are heavily present and the movie does a good job talking about this stuff and weaving it naturally in to the narrative. The killer condom creatures designed by H.R. Giger are quite something. 5/5, is good.
Next up was Next of Kin, an Australian movie about an old folks home where murders suddenly start happening. Not much to say about this, it's a very slow burn with not much happening. There's some cats jumping on screen, old people standing in the shadows and showers mysteriously being turned on. The movie tries to present some sort of mystery about what's going on, but the clues presented are just kind of haphazard and the killer just kind of appears at the end. Not terrible, but not particularly good either. 3/5.
The final movie of the weekend was Lucio Fulci's Zombi, aka Zombie 2. I'd seen this one before so instead of being annoyed by the plot, such as it is, I just embraced the fulci. There's tits and zombies and gore, and most of the characters are too stupid to make it through the film.
The movie is really only known for two scenes in particular, one of which is a very disturbing little scene of an eye getting slowly pierced by a sharp piece of wood. The other is an underwater scene of a man in full zombie costume having a bit of a brawl with an actual live shark. You really have to wonder about what kind of mad man decides that they want to film an actor actually wrestling with a shark. Nevertheless, it is a scene that was filmed and is worth seeing, even if only on Youtube.
The rest of the movie is very, well, it's very Italian. Italian actors saying English lines that are dubbed over by actual English actors, tits and tits and then more tits, and overall questionable story structure are all on the menu with this timeless "classic". All the good stuff is offset by an equal amount of bad stuff, all the hilarious moments offset by boring moments. It's zig-zagging all over the place quality wise. I wasn't excited on either time I watched it, but neither was I terrible bored, so I guess it gets a middle-of-the-road score of 3/5.
Also look how sick that Shining cover is
Steam | XBL
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
Which one? They are all shining.
Hard pass on that, I can't sit through 1 skit with the Swedish Chef, no way I'm watching a movie where everybody talks like him.
Sincerity is mostly foregrounded in his work, and I think that's where Ad Astra works best, with imaginative visuals rendered through its lead character's subjective outlook, as well as Pitt's introverted performance, which is carefully observed with wonderful closeups. I also like this film's world, its industrialized renditions of the moon and Mars; its reluctance to spend any meaningful time on Earth. I like its angle, its visuals on a moment to moment level (some moments longer than others), but its storytelling is too structured, too spelled-out to be entirely effective. Ominousness is dispelled as the script loudly hits its beats and announces its intentions, mystery simmers as the film arrives at another action scene strategically placed 25 minutes ahead of the last. I think there's a great film in there, possibly even in a re-edit as some parts of it are stunning, but it doesn't come together very gracefully as is.
There are plenty of interesting ideas there (MOON PIRATES???) that get tossed off and not followed up on because the film has a single track, how these things affect Pitt’s mood, and there’s no room for subplots or digressions or even surprises really.
It’s other problem is simply that, for a movie entirely about a build-up to a climactic conversation, the conversation really needs to wow, and this climax just isn’t good enough
I like Pitt a lot in this, I like the visuals and the music and some of the world-building, and I wouldn’t say I was bored, but it definitely feels merely decent in large part because it misses a lot of opportunities to be fantastic
The stuff off-Neptune just doesn't pull it all together. It takes a couple of implausible setpieces to set it up (the accidental death of that entire crew), and then it doesn't cash in. There's one moment that I think really works though, and probably the only time I thought the voiceover adds anything to the film: when we see the images of the distant planets his father photographed looking for life, and Pitt's character mentions how incredible they are, and how his father never allowed himself to recognize that fact. I thought that was powerful, but it's tangential to the actual drama of the third act.
The weird thing about the film is that essentially nothing that actually happens matters to Pitt. Obviously this is on purpose because they highlight the device of his heart rate being so steady. But it also arguably drains his journey of meaning, and this is only compounded by the fact that his contact with his father does not seem to really change Pitt’s understanding of the world. (He already knows about his father having killed the rest of the crew, for example.) His father does not offer an intriguing philosophy or a new perspective. If anything it’s the mundanity of what was previously a seemingly titanic, mythical figure that seems to help sort of release Pitt from both his fear of becoming his father and his desire to have his father’s love—both seem not only impossible but irrelevant by the end.
And that may be interesting and coherent, it’s not dramatically satisfying. Pitt might have achieved the same simply by declining the mission and writing off his father. At some level the emotional journey doesn’t meet the spectacle of the grandiose imagery and metaphor.
Talking of Ad Astra: I started listening to the Director's Cut podcast that has Damien Chazelle talking to James Gray about Ad Astra, and Gray comes across as utterly obnoxious: patronising and self-satisfied. I'm not sure I'll even manage to finish the podcast.
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
"Nothing is gonna save us forever but a lot of things can save us today." - Night in the Woods
Edited to add: I love that the movie isn't preachy or obvious about this, but the real villain of Alien is the military industrial complex.
I was able to sneak out and go enjoy this in the theater by myself last night. Was great to have a chance to watch it on the big screen for the first time and it still looks better than most movies made today. It does everything right that Prometheus did wrong.
BRETT
What about the shares in case
they find anything.
RIPLEY
Don't worry, you'll both get
what's coming to you.
BRETT
I'm not doing any more work unless
we get full shares.
RIPLEY
You're guaranteed by law that
you'll get a share... Now both
of you knock it off and get back
to work.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
No, they are working under contract. They are going to get paid whatever is in their contract, which is what Ripley and Dallas keep telling them. They're just complaining about getting paid less as low level mechanics than others on the ship. It's just your generic laborer banter. "You're guaranteed by law to get a share" to me is just a generalized comment that they'll get what's in the contract as a legal document, not any indication about the specific amount they'll get.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
It was so good! It really flew by, too. I was surprised it had been two hours by the time I got out.
I love the entire pre-egg bit, how it underscores the simultaneously very mundane and very dangerous nature of the stuff they're doing. I had totally forgotten that they had a serious accident as they landed.
I had also forgotten how despite Ripley's rep for being incredibly badass she and most of the people there are just understandably uncomfortable and nerve-wracked. I like that Dallas's final moments are basically spent going uuuuuh never mind this sucks I would like to hop out now I didn't think it would be this terrifying to do this thanks.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
The new Suspiria is one thoroughly twisted film, and it's by one of those directors that makes me wonder from where he got such a knack for horror.
I keep telling myself he should have just created an original story rather than a remake, but that's basically what it is. There's almost nothing in common with the original besides 'Dance academy is secretly a coven'.
And where the heck is Thom Yorke's amazing score? What a waste.