Midweek Movie Free Talk

Watched The Thing as I mentioned in another thread last week. Was a great watch, it holds up well, better than The Shining imo. I'm trying to make my way down the list of Tildes user's top 10 favorite movies that I haven't seen yet, and The Thing was the highest ranked one that I hadn't seen yet.

It Ends With Us is definitely one of the worst movies I’ve seen this year.

Terrible source material aside, everything is framed and edited so poorly. It has a shine because they used professional crews, but you can tell this is from an inexperienced director. Even basic things like proper framing are not present here. The 50 Shades movies are put together better than this.

I knew I wouldn’t like this going in but I didn’t expect it to be this bad. Lively and Baldoni can’t act and don’t have any chemistry together. Brandon Sklenar is the only one from the main cast that has the capabilities of an actor. In fact the young actors that play the characters in flashbacks are better than Lively and Baldoni.

I really only watched this because it’s making so much money (heading towards 300M+ WW) but I just don’t get it.

I did a double horror feature this past weekend that turned out to be 2 of the best in class films I've seen in a long time.
Longlegs was well done in just about every way. It lives up to the hype, with great performances, a compelling story, and wonderful ambiance. I won't spoil the main stick of the film, but it dovetails perfectly with the second one that I watched unrealizing how connected they are.

Cure 1997 This film, which is both Criterion and Janus, really creates a whole new genre. I'd recommend going in without knowing much about it. Once you read up on it, you'll see several master directors tipping their hats to it.

I finally got the chance to watch Didi last night! Been meaning to catch it in theatres and was afraid I was gonna miss it.

I'm a Taiwanese American who's about the same age as Chris would be, give or take a year or so. Funnily enough though, I actually didn't relate to Chris at all in the movie, at least on the surface. While I definitely used AIM, I'm not into skating, I'm actually the older brother to a sibling that's much closer in age to me, and I grew up on the East Coast.

Despite all that, I feel like the core of the movie still hits. The mom's speech broke me at the end. The director manages to capture a lot of the awkwardness of growing up Asian American while also not explicitly pointing to it the whole time, which I thought was super interesting. Definitely something worth watching!

I also watched Alien Romulus the other day. It was fun! Not too much to say besides the fact that I think they did some clever stuff with a movie monster that's basically 50 years old at this point, and I thought that was cool.

I watched the Cube film series this weekend. It's kind of a thing for me like Alien where there's a mood for it and then I never want to touch it again.

Anyway, moments ago, and I'm sorry for even inputting this to the internet, but I discovered that Jim Henson has a TV film also called The Cube (1969). No relation, of course. But ... now I want that. I do. I already said I'm sorry. But come on, Kermit, Miss Piggy, Gonzo, Animal, and Beaker wake up in a cube? Scooter and Rizzo are underlings within the system. This writes itself. Fozzie Bear has a sort of G-Man-esque thing going on like in Half-Life? It's perfect.

It's time to choose. Waka waka.

I recently watched K-19: The Widowmaker (2002). I've always had an interest in shows and films about ships, probably because of a combination of getting deathly seasick and enjoying maritime military history. Submarines are just that much cooler and this film, with Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson and their ... Russian accents, has some interesting early-60s Cold War history to draw from. It's kinda like Crimson Tide (which was based on that event during the Cuban Missile Crisis), The Hunt for Red October, and the recent Chernobyl mini-series all in one. Sad, but you're rooting for the "home team" to make it through the inevitable and it keeps you engaged with the interpersonal drama.

I have to say that I enjoyed K-19 a lot more than The Silent Service. Although I haven't read any of the 29-volume manga that's adapted from, I suspect that it stayed really true to the source material which I can appreciate, it just didn't need to be such a long show in its Amazon format (evidently there's also a film version of this same material? What??? I want that.).

I don't watch many animation movies but I have seen a few the last week.

Robot Dreams is interesting as it has no dialogue and tells a cute story of friendship. The concept is great and there is a lot of heart in the story, but the length is a bit of a stretch. Could have been an even better short film, whereas at 100 minutes it becomes repetitive and loses some of its emotional impact.

The Summit of the Gods is a French movie based on a Japanese manga that deals with mountaineering and a mystery of the George Mallory expedition to Mount Everest in 1924. Through it dives into the question of what drives mountaineers to constantly seek out new death defying challenges. It is a great movie with breathtaking scenery with climbing scenes that feels very real, even though it is animated. Definitely recommended.

Japanese Studio Ghibili and in particular Hayao Miyazaki has made some of the greatest animated movies, which I have only discovered recently. I was very charmed by Totoro and Kiki and later shown them for my kids to great success. Spirited Away didn't do much for me and the kids found it very and somewhat scary, which is understandable. However, we had success again with Ponyo with its creative retelling of The Little Mermaid with likeable inspiring characters.

Yesterday I saw Whisper of the Heart. It is sort of similar to Only Yesterday that explored adulthood and looking back at ones childhood, this is a more of a coming-of-age type story with a girl in that weird age between childhood and early adulthood with all the doubts about who you are and what you want to do with you future takes up a lot of space in most peoples mind. I really liked the novelty aspect of her using library loan cards to find the other person who has loaned the same books as her. But I didn't personally got as much out of it as Only Yesterday, but I would assume that to be an age thing.

I watched Abigail. I hadn't actually heard about the movie before, which surprises me - I try to keep abreast of the horror movies that come out, especially horror comedies, which are kind of my jam. The hook for this movie is that a group of kidnappers kidnap a young girl, but she is not quite what she seems. The kidnappers start dying horrifically.

This is a movie that knows that it is a B movie and revels in its B-movie-ness. The cast is very enjoyable - Kevin Durand is probably never going to be anyone's favourite actor, but I love that he knows who he is, picks movies that suit him, and leans into whatever he's doing. Dan Stevens is also an actor that I always enjoy - I really liked him in The Guest, for example, where he is deeply menacing - and he's pretty great in this. And of course Giancarlo Esposito chews up the scenery in a great way. But the surprising one for me was Alisha Weird who plays Abigail. She's pretty good, dances very well, and nails the creepy kid angle.

Overall, this is a B+ B movie.

I finally watched Apocalypse Now, the Final cut. I have no idea why I postponed watching it for so many years.

What an experience, I am genuinely speechless. It explores some interesting themes, and I could definitely talk about them, but it's one of those movies that need to be experienced first hand. True cinema.

I sort of expected a descent into madness, but I was totally unprepared for the full psychedelia experience. By the end of it, I was completely engrossed in its absurd world. It also helps that it's beautiful on both fronts, audio and visual. The most surprising things in this regard were the cinematography and editing, they were so ahead of their time.

I can definitely recommend it to people who enjoy epic, deep, slow burning films with gorgeous visuals and music.

Edit: I thought a bit more about why I postponed it. I think I was fully expecting another US war propaganda movie, and even though I used to appreciate some big movies like this, at least for their craft, I have grown tired of them and don't want to watch such media anymore.

But I recently rewatched Lawrence of Arabia. I remembered it as a movie glorifying the white-savior trope (which couldn't be more wrong), and I ended up even more impressed by how profound & relevant it is, and by the characterization. I then saw Apocalypse Now being mentioned in connection to it, so I finally decided to give it a shot.

I only knew of Godzilla as a concept and a monster reference in popular culture, and had mostly put those movies in a category of silly rubbersuit monster movies. I was pleasantly surprised with seeing the new Godzilla Minus One and subsequently the original from 1954. I chose to see the black and white "minus color" version of the new one, which I don't regret. It sets the right atmosphere and it really shows that they put a lot of effort into this version. I found it to be strongest in the first half. The trauma in Shikishima really shows and Godzilla is pretty freaking scary. The minesweeper scenes on the ocean are tense and looks spectacular in black and white. The trauma builds to become nationwide and people will have to come together to fight the monster. The plan and execution of the final battle is well done but also where I was a little less engaged, because it went into standard monster fighting fare. What stands above everything else, is the overarching message of choosing life which I really appreciated in such a movie. A nice contrast to the usual "sacrifice yourself for the greater good" that usually happens. A difference that made all the more sense once I saw the original, which has a more "classic" heroic sacrifice ending. Interesting to see basically the same story told from two very different eras in history, with the first one closer to the fear of the atomic bomb and focuses more on the dilemma of using world ending powerful weapons to defend against another evil. I was pleasantly surprised with how well the effects sort of holds up. I feared worse, but the destruction is convincing and Godzilla is actually frightening. It being mostly night and in black and white probably helps a lot, but it was very far from the rubber suit and miniature silliness I had feared. With over 30 more Godzilla films I don't really know where to go next, and I have a suspicion many of them wont have the same quality. However, The Return of Godzilla looks promising, but if anyone have recommendations in that regard I would be happy to hear them.

I'm watching The Last Boy Scout --- I thought this was a different movie.

edit: it gets better. Not the best performances outside of BRUCE -- but he was always perfect.

double edit: I miss 90s action movies like this. No real moral or anything -- just a lot of action, blowing shit up, jokes, etc... perfect.

Finally got into the theatre for Deadpool and Wolverine and I gotta say, it's probably the most boring movie I saw this week? Maybe I just need to be in the mood for it but Ryan Reynold's sthick is kinda old at this point. The emotional beats are kinda meh and nothing was genuinely that funny besides one certain character's terrible accent.

Other people in the theatre were laughing so maybe it's just a me thing.

This week?

The Intouchables (2011)
★★
Watched Sep 01, 2024
Lots of money, art, music, cars, houses, planes, and vacations. Must be nice being a quadriplegic!

The Lives of Others (2006)
★★★★
Watched Sep 02, 2024
Wiesler stares at those he interrogates with a practiced gaze so steady, so inscrutable that it terrifies and baffles his opponents. What is going on inside his mind? What's he thinking? Planning? How many moves ahead is he playing this game of secret-police chess? And then comes the devastatingly-beautiful end of the film, that moment when all the dramatic pieces fall into place so elegantly, and Wiesler's gaze is caught in a final freeze-frame... except the Stasi man is no more, and the gaze is no longer inscrutable. It is grateful and warm. It is human.

The Great Dictator (1940)
★★★★
Watched Sep 03, 2024
Chaplin is, as we all know, the master of emotional navigation. Not manipulation. Navigation. He knows how to mix comedy and tragedy in just the right amounts, threatening to tip the scales but then restoring equilibrium in the narrative. Indeed, comedy becomes the lens through which the viewer is able to perceive and thus process horrors too real to behold naked. Chaplin pulls the rug out from under us, and though we may lose our footing for a moment, his dexterity keeps us from falling flat on our faces. With laughter and racing hearts, we are startled out of our complacency.