|
Post by Jay on Feb 10, 2024 15:50:43 GMT -8
Yeah, I have Evil Dead Rise as a 6/10 - was almost a 7, but it was missing the humor I had come to expect from the ED series. I watched the original trilogy for the first time last year, in preparation for the new film, and I just loved how bonkers they were ( Evil Dead 2 in particular). Rise was fine but isn't the kind of film I'll be thinking about often. Oh yeah, they're delightful. Evil Dead is legitimately scary at moments but in a way that's still subversive and unpredictable. About as much as it gives away is a brief shot of Ash making eye contact with the camera on the initial ride in. I'm surprised you were that fond of 2, but I would agree that the way it builds off the original to create comedy is really organic and doesn't feel forced as such. And Army of Darkness... well I had most of the script memorized as a teenager, but I haven't seen it in ages. Did you see the first remake at all or did you skip it?
Anyway, I remembered that my uni has Kanopy access sooooo yeaaaah I'm going to be doing stuff like this for a bit.
Scanners (1981)
Possibly Cronenberg's most famous work and yet... not one I found myself particularly fond of? The moments of the film that are worth seeing for their special effects or body horror have been disseminated everywhere at this point. What we're left with is a film that, while possessing an interesting premise and root cause of the problem, has a wooden lead whose main selling point is his creepy eyes, an inconsistent repertoire of abilities which is rarely commented upon, and a cliched series of climax reveals. I also was perplexed by the love interest (maybe?) being introduced as gifted herself only to be mostly a shrinking violet later on with a few exceptions. Ordinarily, I enjoy the no-nonsense pacing he goes about his plotting, but this one could have stood to breathe a little better while cutting down on extraneous elements throughout. It did not blow my mind.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Feb 11, 2024 6:43:00 GMT -8
Oh yeah, they're delightful. Evil Dead is legitimately scary at moments but in a way that's still subversive and unpredictable. About as much as it gives away is a brief shot of Ash making eye contact with the camera on the initial ride in. I'm surprised you were that fond of 2, but I would agree that the way it builds off the original to create comedy is really organic and doesn't feel forced as such. And Army of Darkness... well I had most of the script memorized as a teenager, but I haven't seen it in ages. Did you see the first remake at all or did you skip it? Yeah, ED2 was my favorite in no small part due to how loopily silly it was. I didn't fully jive with the first film, which felt a little shallow and uneven, and some of the scares worked better than others. (That tree scene... yikes.) The sequel improved in every way; I imagine it goes over like gangbusters in packed late-night screenings. I watched the 2013 Evil Dead as well, albeit a few months after Rise. It is wildly over-the-top in terms of violence and spectacle, but not quite with the same comedic self-awareness as the Raimi films, so the fun started to ebb after a while. But decent overall. (I haven't used my Kanopy account in years, but recently regained access. They have a handful of interesting international movies that have been sitting on my watchlist for a while.)
|
|
|
Post by Jay on Feb 17, 2024 9:12:06 GMT -8
The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984) Aside from being a treasure trove of character actors (Dan Hedaya and Vincent Schiavelli team up!), it's not as easy to see where the cult status comes from, to me at least. Mind you, I enjoyed it, while musing that a lot of the Doc Savage era of comics comes down to us as legend and parody with few primary sources these days. As a few quick complaints about it, the major strokes involving the love interest come out of nowhere, and while I get that the effect may have been for us to be as bewildered as the live music audience and the members of the Hong Kong Cavaliers with whom Buckaroo is touring, it doesn't quite work. I think it would have also benefited from a more stylized visual appearance as was initially planned rather than being somewhat generic 80s sci-fi in most of its sets. Finally, the script, aside from Lizardo's malapropisms and Christopher Lloyd constantly correcting his own character's name, isn't super quotable, and I feel like that's a key element to a cult comedy. But it's a fun ride and gestures at a much deeper world than we ever get a look at, so it's a shame we ultimately missed out. It's worth it though, for the myriad character actors, Jeff Goldblum dressed up as a cowboy for reasons no one bothers to explain, every single alien going by "John," and John Lithgow as a raving lunatic who may be the earthly body of an interdimensional war criminal or may just be mad on his own. Promising Young Woman (2000) Mention the movie to anyone and you'll probably get "ain't that the one where Carey Mulligan kills scuzzy dudes?" From the advertisements, you'd think that. Yet the movie leaves that aspect of vigilante justice ambiguous before later conceding that it didn't have the huevos for it. Instead, she scares the pants back on them? Right... It's hard NOT to imagine this as pulled off the pile once #MeToo became a phenomenon and yet, they seemed to film the script without giving it a polish pass. Emerald Fennell wants to indulge her mainstream girl pop, and that's fine, I guess. It adds to the "this could happen to anyone" vibe, plus "Toxic" is a bop and we would be fools to think otherwise. But one of Mulligan's targets is taken to task for wearing a fedora. I knew people who thought fedoras were cool. I knew them as a target of mirth clear back in 2004 and at large, I don't think they survived other than in memory much past 2011. There was another guy, doing copious cocaine, who was a David Foster Wallace devotee and ranted about the novel he was planning to write. GuyInYourMFA goes back to at least 2015, though I feel like variants may have been around clear back in 2010 (we certainly talked shit about DFW then!). Daniel Mallory Ortberg's male novelist takedowns also go back to around 2014. This seems like a rather specific complaint, but it ties to a larger problem of messaging, in which all the male characters are, paraphrasing someone I follow on Twitter, bowling pins to be knocked down and the core ideas, of "guys who say they are good guys are not actually good guys!," would be a revelation if you had been in a cave for some time. I'm also not especially fond of the ending. Aside from wondering about how this is more a trauma derived from watching someone else's trauma and taken to extremes, I also wonder if the end game for victims of sexual violence-- among which I'd number myself-- is effectively a suicide mission. But it does have something in common with Buckaroo Banzai: They both have Clancy Brown in supporting roles, this time as her dad. Life (2017) About fifteen minutes into this, I got a feeling about the actor playing the Japanese astronaut. He was too familiar. The role was too familiar. I hadn't seen this movie before: I would have remembered Ryan Reynolds getting his organs liquified. So I hit up IMDB, on a hunch, and as it turns out, Hiroyuki Sanada also played the Japanese astronaut in Sunshine. Well then. Anyway, Life is about an angry starfish from Mars. It's a space slasher! I wonder how much can conceivably be done with the overall genre since Alien did so well by it in the first place, but I'll concede that it has a few clever twists of plotting and moreover, while many of these films overtly rely on "don't show the monster," Life absolutely does not. The creature, Calvin, is even graceful, feathery, and translucent in its initial phases, though it grows the expected tentacles and I could see a claim that it's somewhere between a facehugger and Predator in some aspects of its design. It's also technically impressive with a rather long single shot scene at the very beginning which manages to navigate the tight quarters on the ship in zero G. However, I could also see some criticisms of it and see that the director was responsible for Morbius, though the screenwriter credits are reasonable ( Zombieland, the Deadpool movies).... While there are large-scale plotting twists in what happens when and to whom, the means is fairly predictable throughout. If you've seen enough space movies, you know the equipment is going to fail, catastrophically if possible. You also know that various human foibles are going to be pivotal since that's just how slashers do, although it hits different in space when your crew are generally elite scientists and not horny teenagers. I think it holds up under prodding, particularly with the Meaningful Deaths, but my parting shot is this: Jake Gyllenhaal's character references his time in the military in the Middle East, and on review, Jarhead depicts the first Gulf War, not the second, so I can't pretend this is a sequel.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Feb 18, 2024 20:08:38 GMT -8
I saw someone point out recently that the casting of the various young men in Promising Young Women was done with an eye towards actors who were fondly known for "nice guy" roles on TV (Adam Brody from The OC, Max Greenfield from New Girl, Chris Lowell from Veronica Mars), the better to make their turns as not-so-nice guys more jarring. (And yes, it's true that the ads really oversold this film as a revenge-slasher-type story, when it isn't anything like that.)
Speaking of quasi-empowering movies that shoehorn Britney Spears' "Toxic" onto the soundtrack - I just saw Madame Web, the latest superhero film in the Spidey-Without-Spidey Cinematic Universe. This film has been getting lambasted by critics and across social media, and I was curious to see if it was obnoxiously bad or so-bad-it's-good bad.
And the answer... is somewhere in between. There are some genuinely funny lines of dialogue in this film, none of them intentional, with some of the most awkward character exposition I've seen in recent memory. I had a lot of fun in the early going of this, given how poorly conceived it was, but at a certain point it started to give me a headache. The editing in this film is Blade: Trinity levels of bad - the constant camera swirls and sudden cuts (often meant to emulate the feeling of the main character's precognitive powers, which come and go with no rhyme or reason) are exhausting, and render much of the action incomprehensible. There's also quite a lot of obviously ADR dialogue, a sign that this film was butchered in post.
Similarly unintelligible is the story - the plot is basically nonexistent, the villain's motivations and superpowers are poorly developed, and the script just lurches from one scene to the next in its attempts to jump-start a new mini-franchise. It's barely even a superhero movie (two hours long and there's about five minutes of superheroic action); when it's not goofy, it's just plain dull.
It's a particular bummer since there are a lot of talented actresses here - Dakota Johnson is committed in the main role, as are the three girls she spends much of the movie defending. Bit parts from Zosia Mamet, Kerry Bishe, and Emma Roberts are also welcome. Sadly, even their combined powers cannot salvage this threadbare attempt at a movie.
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Mar 3, 2024 4:45:52 GMT -8
Thought the cinematography, visual effects, and dramatic score of Dune: Part 2 were great, and the acting was solid across-the-board, but I just don't find the overall mythology the least bit interesting. It lacks in personality and any semblance of wit or spontaneity, and has probably just been borrowed from by too many franchise over the years to feel all that special. As per usual with theatrical showings in recent years, I suspect I fell asleep for a few minutes here or there, but I doubt I'll revisit it on Blu-Ray to pick up the missing pieces.
Nyad is a decent-enough docudrama with good work from Annette Bening, Jodie Foster, and Rhys Ifans, that delivers pretty much what you expect from it, and little else.
Sofia Coppola's Priscilla charts Priscilla Presley's relationship with Elvis from her teens to her late-20s, and has good art direction and cinematography, but a pretty narrow focus, in depicting her as essentially a bird in a cage, a prized possession of Elvis, but in no way an equal partner. Not a particularly flattering portrayal of "The King of Rock and Roll", but I'm sure it's a fairly accurate one, from her perspective. Anyways, it's not as layered as I would've hoped, but at least it doesn't overstay its welcome (at just under 2 hours in length).
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Mar 3, 2024 19:27:31 GMT -8
I saw an early screening of Dune Part II a week ago, and was gonna post some thoughts about it here then, but stuff got in the way. Still, just as fun to chat about now.
Overall, I liked the first film a notch better than the sequel (too many desert landscapes in this one, and they start to blur in my head after a while), but it was still a great experience, especially in a packed IMAX theater. (The sound - goodness, it shakes the seats more than Oppenheimer.) I get not connecting with the mythology, and I don't really care for that aspect too much myself, but the film was so absorbing that I really didn't mind. Production values were top-notch, and the cast was great - this is probably my favorite performance from Chalamet by a considerable margin, and his work is matched or exceeded by the likes of Zendaya, Javier Bardem (who generated the biggest laughs in my theater, adding some welcome humor to a very serious script), and a near-unrecognizable Austin Butler, who has thankfully shaken the hints of his Elvis accent that are so distracting on Masters of the Air.
Speaking of Elvis, I mostly agree on Priscilla, though I think I liked it a bit less than you did. It's kind of a one-note movie that isn't really interested in exploring its title character outside of her relationship with the King, and thus it starts to feel one-note and redundant after a while. I thought the performances were fine, the staging and cinematography good, but overall it was pretty forgettable.
I also just watched The Family Plan, which is a cross between a family road-trip comedy and a spy-on-the-run action movie starring Mark Wahlberg and Michelle Monaghan, and while the genre mashup is kind of messy and confused, it does feature a few genuinely funny moments and some committed performances all around (including Ciarán Hinds as the bad guy). It's a little too violent for kids, but solid entertainment for viewers willing to forgive its half-baked story.
|
|
|
Post by ThirdMan on Mar 3, 2024 20:10:09 GMT -8
No, I agree that the script for Priscilla is pretty one-note. I was just acknowledging how these sorts of films have often hovered in the two-and-a-half hour range in recent years, and that I was at least glad that this movie didn't follow suit, given the very limited focus. It isn't even really a biopic, given the relatively short period of time it covers.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Mar 22, 2024 13:32:49 GMT -8
We've hit the busy time of year again, but here's a quick catch-up on some movies I saw this week.
Kung Fu Panda 4 - One of DreamWorks' best franchises hits the "one sequel too many" curse, with a mediocre fourth installment that adds little to the franchise and in some ways subtracts from it. Whereas the first three KFP films all feature relatively mature (by DW standards) storytelling, Kung Fu Panda 4 falls back on the tired trope of "just keep throwing stuff at the screen to keep the kids watching." There's plenty of action and incident here, none of it very funny or interesting, with a boring villain and a script that fumbles even key fanservice moments (such as Ian McShane's too-brief return as Tai Lung). Even the fight scenes are a step down from prior films. The voice cast at least adds some punch - James Hong delivers every line with surprisingly manic energy for a 95-year-old - although I think the "Awkwafina as wisecracking cartoon sidekick" craze has by now run its course.
Dream Scenario - A film that's interesting more for what it tries to do than in how well it succeeds, with a reliably entertaining Nicolas Cage as a college professor who suddenly has global fame thrust upon him when he starts inexplicably showing up in people's dreams. The script goes in some intriguingly dark and funny directions, eventually turning into a commentary on viral fame and cancel culture, and while it doesn't quite cohere as well as it should, it's still a fairly entertaining black comedy that leaves us with a great punchline.
Damsel - The story of a royal princess who can't rely on the knight in shining armor has been done many times (most recently in that mediocre Joey King action flick, The Princess), and this one doesn't add much to the burgeoning genre. It's most remarkable in what it says about the career of Millie Bobby Brown, who - between this, Stranger Things, and Enola Holmes - may be the first bona fide "Netflix star" of the streaming era. She's quite charming in Damsel, which predictably casts her as a royal princess who's forced to battle a fire-breathing dragon, and there isn't much to recommend it... until the third act, which features one of the most hilarious "smash the patriarchy" metaphors I've seen in an action movie. The film is almost worth recommending for that alone.
|
|
|
Post by Jay on Mar 23, 2024 16:30:25 GMT -8
Dead Man (1994)
You can tell right away that this was Jarmusch's best funded effort to date, partly for the wild level of attention to the train, frontier town, and Makah encampment settings, brief though they all were. Another boon of the funding was the expansiveness of the cast, where instead of having three primary players and a few extras, you get two primary players, but a lot of very recognizable extras like Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Lance Henriksen, Robert Mitchum, John Hurt, Crispin Glover, Gabriel Byrne... the list goes on. I'm not going to dis on the earlier John Lurie soundtracks because I love the guy's work, but it's definitely a higher profile deal to get Neil Young playing jarring and dissonant riffs for the ambience. As for the movie itself, compared to his previous work, I'd say the period setting and the details he brought to it are the freshest thing about it. You've got some big-time misunderstandings kicking things off and a journey with some chase elements. It's got the trademark cynicism and wit to it (that no character ever has tobacco becomes a running joke). It's hard to know whether to take the spirituality of Nobody insisting that Johnny Depp's character is really the reincarnation of William Blake despite sharing his name with the poet-engraver, but I think that's the point to an extent, since sharing a name isn't everything. One of the subtexts of it seems to be that Depp is a riff on the "nothing left to lose" western type. The revenge quest is against him rather than started by him, and he seems initially in denial of the idea that having no relatives, a fiancee that broke it off, and no job means he has little to live for. Jarmusch would never push that too far into the foreground, but you get enough hints of it via his character changes and the sheer volume of deaths that follow him. You could stage put Henriksen's stoic pursuing character as a foil, immersing himself in death but slow to embrace its applications to himself. It works for me overall, I was just apprehensive about the initial impression, that it was an excuse to do the same thing in a different setting.
Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999)
Long before I knew much of anything about Jarmusch's work, I remember my good aunt developing a minor obsession with this movie and demanding that I see it. Now having seen about half of the movies he's directed before coming to it, I find it a pleasant change of pace. This decidedly is not a road trip movie, although Ghost Dog does repeatedly steal cars and drive around, but is instead somewhere between noir (there were a bunch of times throughout where I thought, "yep, he's seen Le Samouraï"), a mob film, a samurai film (Rashomon nods are more explicit), and then Jarmusch's sense of humor coming out of the script. Some of that humor is directional, in that just about everyone is watching violent cartoons at any given time (mostly public domain, although there's some Itchy & Scratchy), some of it is built into the script itself, like the mobsters having a long conversation of "what kind of a name is 'Ghost Dog?'" and then rattling off an array of stereotypical mob names to bring into the larger meeting, or the fact that Ghost Dog and Raymond don't speak each other's native languages, but are constantly repeating and reiterating bits of conversation with each other. There's also, riffing off the genres, a lot of discussions about how "Everything's changing all around us," which doesn't make sense as an observation unless you look at the mobsters who are universally old and out of shape, although what it has to do with Ghost Dog as a hitman remains speculative at best (most likely his own sense of honor and fealty as a "retainer" not being viable in society at large, another trope). Jarmusch tends to be a little light on exposition, so you never end up certain of what made Ghost Dog assimilate so much of Japanese culture into his daily life, but Forrest Whitaker plays the part well and with humanity, and possibly invented the gun-kata from Equilibrium while he was at it.
Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)
"Slashers" are not a genre I much partake in despite being a fan of horror generally (prefer supernatural elements), but I know enough of the conceits to be aware that I should be watching attractive but unlikeable people get murdered for 90+ minutes. The "unlikeable" aspect here was really what pushed the buttons, as the crew is mostly (save Lee Pace (!!!) and the obvious final girl) upper class, self-obsessed, social media abusing, and utilizing the vocabulary of performative wokeness to needle each other amidst a larger murder mystery. I'm someone who cares about how terms are used and whether someone is truly a bad person or whether it's a misapplied pejorative, so as far as riling me up with accusations of "gaslighting" and "narcissism" and "post-traumatic stress disorder," hey, it worked. It was supposed to be unpleasant and I found it to be so. But beyond that, even though the majority of the characters were rich and there were a few namechecks of trusts and whatnot, and then the final girl confessing that she left her (gasp) state school to take care of her mother, it felt as if the commentary was more on Gen Z's failings than class, and I think that could risk being interpreted as condemning the whole generation rather than one specific subset which is ever-present on social media. To praise some of it at least, I noticed as the film went on that we never had any more evidence than hearsay except in the case of one carefully placed set of panties, so who was to believed or if it had any basis in reality at all was perpetually in question. It syncs up nicely with the twists of the resolution, and perhaps a larger commentary on "cancel culture," although I wonder if it's meant to ask how well this so-called friend group actually knew each other, given the barbs and accusations that fly about carelessly. I also was left thinking about how the script had gone through multiple drafts and if one of them had basically been You're Next with the vaguely Eastern European girl as the survivalist. I prefer this iteration, although I'm not sure how deep its commentary is.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Mar 26, 2024 18:21:08 GMT -8
I think Bodies Bodies Bodies was in fact intended less as a class satire than a generational comedy - "the first Gen Z horror film," as it was promoted. It may not represent every Gen Zer, but the developments that drive the story are very much the sort that only work among characters who grew up in the social media age.
I seem to be more positive about the film than most people, in part because I really clicked with the satire, but also because I really enjoy films that turn the slasher genre on its ear (including You're Next, which is a fun film despite its script and dialogue issues).
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Apr 19, 2024 14:58:36 GMT -8
I watched a few movies this week of varying quality.
Civil War - Controversial as this opinion may be, this is probably my favorite Alex Garland film (with Ex Machina the closest competition). Which is surprising, as the premise and marketing all had me worried that the script was going to run on cheap and easy partisan exploitation. In fact, it's very clever in how it manages to sell its premise without being about something concrete. (We never learn what started the new Civil War or are made clear on what the sides are, for example.) It's a cautionary tale, well-told and very tense (particularly the buildup to the climax), with a compelling lead character, played by Kirsten Dunst in what may be her finest onscreen work. At its best, the film is an intriguing showcase of journalism and objective reporting in times of crisis, and is a more immersive and effective exploration of the subject than more straightforward newspaper movies like Spotlight or The Post. The film has angered some viewers with its perceived refusal to "take a side," but it's hardly apolitical - it just plays its cards a bit closer to its chest than expected, and works all the better for it.
Argylle - This movie seemed tailor-made for me on premise alone - it's a globetrotting spy/action-comedy starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell, among a slew of other compelling stars in supporting and bit roles. But this movie is a mess, with a jumbled narrative that relies too much on twists and not enough on a compelling story or characters. The setup, which initially appears to borrow from Romancing the Stone, seems amiable enough, but at some point Matthew Vaughn and co. just lose the thread. None of this is helped by the obviously fake-looking CGI sets and action scenes (don't get me started on the oil skating), indicative of the production shortcuts taken back during the Covid era when it was filmed. I did, however, appreciate that the studio offered Samuel L. Jackson a paycheck to sit in a chair and produce alternating cries of joy and anger as he stares at the loading bar on a computer screen.
Drive-Away Dolls - Much as it pains me to say it, this may be the worst film to ever feature a Coen brother in the director's chair. In terms of story and production, it feels like a student film project that was turned in at the last minute. The script is crammed with an alarming level of crude dialogue and gross-out jokes - none of them funny - and a plot that is ludicrous without feeling fleshed out enough to be creative. As the two leads, Margaret Qualley and Geraldine Viswanathan aren't bad, they're just... oddly mismatched; the two henchmen chasing them get the film's only real laughs. At least it has the decency to be short (under 80 minutes, sans credits). Kind of depressing that this film is the spawn of one-half of the greatest directorial duo of the past thirty years.
|
|
|
Post by Jay on Apr 20, 2024 9:55:51 GMT -8
I doubt I have anything new to say but I'll say a few things: Joker (2019) * "Trying to get in on it before Folie à Deux comes out?" Nah I wanted to see The People's Joker and figured I needed the context. * This seems like a gateway film. It's trying to be very serious indeed and the themes it deals with are, and yet a lot of the moves are telegraphed. A lot of its force is in the novelty of seeing a subject like this addressed in a movie that grosses a billion dollars. * I haven't seen I'm Still Here but it's hard to imagine Joaquin Phoenix starring in the movie without it. * Frances Conroy has never been young, which is why it was so great in Six Feet Under when she dated James Cromwell, who has also never been young. * The setup that Arthur also suffered from delusions was handled well enough. Not surprising as a revelation, but set up so that anyone could get it. * For me, the most unexpected thing was THAT SONG playing during the famous stairs scene. * Was Murray Franklin supposed to be funny? Or was he supposed to be supposed to be just a mild entertainment shill that was allowed to monopolize late night because he was inoffensive? Going with the latter. * Todd Phillips' claims that the movie was not political came back to me while watching it. The remark could be brilliant, if intended to remark on the collapse of social safety infrastructure during the 1980s, and that it's merely a story documenting how that could have had major repercussions. However, on closer examination, it seems as if he elaborated claiming that the extreme left and the extreme right are the same, so instead I think it's more likely that he's an idiot.
All in all, thought it was good, mostly hit the points it aimed to, didn't blow my mind or reinvent anything for me but the execution was solid.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Apr 22, 2024 14:57:26 GMT -8
However, on closer examination, it seems as if he elaborated claiming that the extreme left and the extreme right are the same, so instead I think it's more likely that he's an idiot. Jay, it sounds like you should see Civil War. Over the weekend, I watched Hundreds of Beavers, a micro-budget indie comedy that's been bouncing around film festivals for the past year or so and is finally available for streaming. I loved it! It's a very funny and cleverly executed comedy that recalls the classic Looney Tunes shorts of old, but filtered through a 21st-century live-action lens (with lots of quick cuts that enhance the madcap sense of humor). It's almost dialogue-free, relying mostly on visual humor, but the visual gags in question (starting with the forest animals, all played by human actors in bug-eyed costumes) are incredibly fun to watch, and the film ramps up as it goes along, cleverly setting up a series of narrative dominoes and letting them fall to gleefully chaotic effect. Perhaps the film's most impressive feat is that it's nearly two hours long and manages to sustain its momentum for almost the entire runtime, despite the seemingly simple premise (hunter targeting animals with a variety of traps and gimmicks). There are a few jokes that don't land, but the film's hit-to-miss ratio is surprisingly high, and I was left in stitches on multiple occasions. (Despite the cuteness of the animals, the comedy in this film is quite PG-13, occasionally bordering on R.) Definitely worth checking out if it's available; it's easily one of the funniest comedies I've seen in the last couple of years.
|
|
|
Post by Jay on Apr 26, 2024 11:25:21 GMT -8
However, on closer examination, it seems as if he elaborated claiming that the extreme left and the extreme right are the same, so instead I think it's more likely that he's an idiot. Jay, it sounds like you should see Civil War. I doubt it. I could maybe make sense of the California-Texas alliance if they were merely combining manpower and otherwise taking a laissez-faire approach to how the other governed, but the composition of the Loyalist States and the New People's Army makes no sense either, so I'm just going to assume that it's another take from someone who thinks they're above the fray when merely they're outside of it. Maximum Overdrive (1986) One day, I'll get around to re-reading Cujo, the novel that Stephen King couldn't remember writing because he was on too much cocaine. Instead, I watched Maximum Overdrive, the movie that Stephen King would like to forget directing because he was on too much cocaine. If not for his name and Emilio Estevez starring (and trying very hard to be a serious actor), it would probably be relegated to B-movie history, though it also has AC/DC doing the soundtrack as a favor to superfan King and a pre-Lisa Simpson Yeardley Smith, drawling and caterwauling whenever she's within earshot. The movie announces itself with a few improbable scenes of a bridge lifting with traffic on it and then descends into the story of the truck stop proper, all the while weaving in the B-narrative of a young boy, whom we eventually learn is the son of one of the mechanics there, and whose baseball coach is killed by a renegade soda machine. Otherwise, the movie is a vehicle through which to dispense hard rock anthems and gratuitous explosions as the truck stop owner just happens to have a cache of machine guns and rocket launchers. I'm sure this would all be an incredible experience, were I also on cocaine. As bonus fun, the impetus behind the machines moving on their own is a rogue comet which is eventually speculated to be an an advance party for a space faring race, aiming to wipe out sentient life before taking the planet for themselves. Despite having no basis within the movie whatsoever when the idea is proposed, the epilogue reveals that this is in fact true and that a Russian "weather satellite" nuked a UFO found sneaking around the comet, resolving everything quite easily.
|
|
|
Post by Jeremy on Apr 26, 2024 13:21:32 GMT -8
I doubt it. I could maybe make sense of the California-Texas alliance if they were merely combining manpower and otherwise taking a laissez-faire approach to how the other governed, but the composition of the Loyalist States and the New People's Army makes no sense either, so I'm just going to assume that it's another take from someone who thinks they're above the fray when merely they're outside of it. See, that was my fear as well based on the marketing - the geographic battle lines drawn in the movie's Civil War didn't make any realistic sense, so I worried the film would take a tongue-in-cheek apolitical approach in order to exploit fears of war without saying anything of substance. But Garland smartly understands that creating a fictional war that more directly parallels the real red-blue state divide would distract from the larger and more impactful messaging about the nature of civil war itself. The movie (despite what the ads declare) does not ask you to choose a side, because the destructive effects of war - particularly in a country torn internally asunder - travel far beyond the politics of the war itself.
|
|