The 40 Year Old Virgin(2005) - This is almost as funny as the first time I watched it. And I laughed out loud a lot. Did you know that "you fuck a goat" guy was convicted of attempted murder in real life? Real life. The ending of this movie was the fist time I watched a musical and realized that I could not pretend to not like it because liking musicals wasn't cool. I probably watched this ending and laughed in rapture a hundred times. Or literally a few dozen. Steve Carrell is so funny! He's so FUNNY!
7th sign - I love this movie if for no other reason than both Demi Moore and Michael Biehn use their scratchy voices throughout the entire first scene. It's hilarious. The movie was fun also, good end of times lore. Fun creepy. The antagonist is FINE.
8 Bit Christmas - Fun Christmas movie. About Nintendo.
After Everything(2017) - Good ,I liked seeing the Bear and Maika Monroe. not a shocking story, but acted well and the pacing was perfect. It felt like so much happened in such a short amount of time without leaking any drama.
All Hallow's Eve - This was great! It's the prequel or the progenitor of the Terrifier movies, from 3 years before the first Terrifier, and the special effects were almost as good, the lighting was much better, and there was a good mixture of creepiness and terror throughout. The alien chapter was so WEIRD. They made it pretty freaky even though his octopus impression was a little goofy. I enjoyed this movie so much I'm curious if I prefer this or Terrifier. So many creepy parts of this movie had me looking over my shoulder.
After.Life(2009) - I wanted to like this, but Liam Neeson wasn't convincing enough in character to pull off what he did plot-wise. Justin Long wasn't half as convincing as he was in Tusk, which hit me pretty goddam hard. Christina Ricci did a great job acting and was graciously unclad for many scenes, which I appreciated, but her role was irritatingly limited. It had an old gothic plot where Neeson has to convince Ricci she's dead, but there are way too many leaps of logic and attitude reversals that it just wasn't believable. The is-she isn't-she didn't work, it just felt meandering. All mood, but no substance with which to justify such heavy-handed aesthetics. I might also have a problem with Liam Neeson, it's hard for me to believe he is any character ever, and to care what he's doing, most of the time. There is some lackluster quality to his pretension that turns me off.
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night(2014) - Really good, I still remember that like 8-second scene where the vampire dances weird staring at herself in the mirror. I made a gif of it for my desktop but then realized I didn't want to watch 8 seconds of mystical vampire dancing on an infinite loop, I just wanted to recreate that moment when I saw that scene the first time. Which I loved. She rides a skateboard too. That's cool.
Alice, Darling(2022) - watched this on a plane and still found it good, which is crazy. Good development, hated the misogynist, loved the friends, good movie. I feel like all my American frieds are Alice and Simon is monoculture.
Altered(2006) - This is one of the best alien movies I've ever seen. Three friends trap one of the creatures trying to trap them, and take them to an estranged friend, who just happened to be abducted with the rest of them when they were kids. That's like, five minutes. The movie really takes off from there, with a chained, weird, very otherworldly creature on a table in a garage. It's such a completely different take on abduction stories. Flipped on its head, really. It takes this otherworldly, surreal notion that humans are being taken for some unimaginable circumstances at any time, and brings it down to Earth, very carnally. Very brutally. If we abduct an alien, what happens? I also really like the role reversal of one of the main characters. This slightly chubby, mullet-sporting redneck is the calm and rational, mature member of the group. Fine, he has a mullet, fine he wears plaid. He just also happens to be the rational mind of the group of friends. Their estranged friend looks like a hero, but is too scared to take up the mantle of the hero until there is no other option.
Alien Outpost(2014) - It was fun. The special effects were good for what they could get away with. And I guess I was sad when that kid who carried around a picture of his mother died. And I liked the implant controlling people, but it was kind of unrealistic that nobody caught on to the fact that if htey can't talk, or look at you, or engage in any normal human behavior or even walk normally that the person is not okay OR is being controlled. Especially after the first one. A guy who doesn't talk or do anything but walk forward like a zombie blows up, and the next time they see that, everyone's like, hey, we know him, I'm sure he's just being kooky by not talking or looking at any of us standing around him in a vulnerable group! And the aliens were basically humans. Tall humans with space armor.
The American Side(2016) - That carmella...idk, the main mysterious girl is very good at being mysterious and elegant. The detective was good too, but the plot? The plot sure didn't seem to make a lick of sense. If prodigy-girl made the design, then it doesn't matter who has the written-down version, and boy howdy were some liberties taken to describe Tesla's inventions given that they were trying to paint a somewhat accurate portrayal of his genius. I love Tesla, so I wanted to like the movie a lot but the plot was a wooof. I cannot tell you where the drama was from. Why were there people with guns? Why didn't they just destroy the designs? Why was mystery girl playing both sides? Extremely low stakes, contradicting plot narratives, weird.
Anaconda(1997) - I saw this in the theatres and really liked it. The special effects are pretty rough to rewatch these days, but it's a solid weird twisty animal terror movie. Oh, and Jon Voight does this accent in it? This weird, unplaceable accent that is just...off-putting. What a creep.
Andromeda Strain(1971) - An alien virus infects an entire town and the research team has to think in new ways to find the cure because of its lethality and a few points of data that prove there is a cure or resistance but the data is indecipherable! Wow that was a good movie. Did they remake this? I'd watch a remake today. The original was great though. It's also refreshing seeing strong female roles in movies before it became so obviously planted in the poster or certain shots of the movie. The lady researcher in this one takes no shit, very sarcastic, gets her job done, and there isn't like a "ha! Lokk at this woman! Who know a *girl* could be so tough, huh?. It's just this frump ol' badass. Just another strong character. Ha, I liked this movie. The characters were all written so well. The remake suuuucked.
Angel Heart(1987) - Mickey Rourke is a detective paid to look for a guy and ends up in a voodoo sex mystery. I don't know why I find de Niro so distasteful, but I don't think I've ever enjoyed watching him. Rourke does great. Lisa Bonet does great. Maybe I should try watching it again?
The Animatrix(2003) - A fantastic movie based on the unreality from the Matrix series focusing on pushing beyond the cage that people live inside in order to live fuller lives. Amazing animation in all forms, unique stories that don't feel trite. Loved it.
Antarctic Journal(2005) - fun slog. You feel like you're plodding along with all the researchers and at first you think oh he's gone crazy and then it's oh everyone's gone crazy.
Ant-Man series - I think I liked the first one and was barely awake for the second one. The second one was pretty haaaaack. But Paul Rudd is still great.
Babyteeth(2018) - flipping loved this movie. Everything about it. While I was watching it I sent a message to everyone I could about watching this movie. Nobody answered because everyone hates texting now I guess? Or, let's face it, they just don't like texting me. Which is weird. Because they all claim to be very close friends and family who laugh and seem to have a great time talking to me, but they never answer my text messages. It's a bummer. I think the older people get, the less they can handle, and they just cut off all of their friends. I have been working hard and sending messages and making calls and rarely receive anything back. I will hear "this was so much fun, we have to hang out! I'll call you next week." doesn't happen. Or "Can I call you just to talk sometime, we have such good conversations?" Nope. Doesn't. It's disconcerting but I think I have to just join the crowd and stop messaging people. I feel like I've graduated from a monoculture that everyone else is living in and my interactions with them are the same that I would have talking to a 12-year old cousin someone introduced me to while we were hanging out at their house. I'm polite and supportive, but they have little to contribute to topics that examine how society functions. I'm back in America and people don't think black people can be racist. "It's more complicated than that." It is a word with a definition. Judging someone based on their appearance or race is racism, period. But Americans refuse to acknowledge a definition. The conservatism here is very frustrating. Or people complain about the jobs they have to work here and then they go ahead and sign up for those jobs rather than ANYTHING they want to do. "Well, I have to pay the bills." Really? Which bills? Why? Who is making you? Have you ever asked yourself these questions? If I offer alternatives like working online, narration, teaching abroad, people often tell me 'oh, I'd really love to. I think I will. It would solve all my problems. OKay, I'm going to call you up and can you show me where to start?" I immediately in that conversation give them the websites they can go to to start a new career. Nothing happens afterward. The next time I see them, they smile, tell me they're happy about the new hat they bought, it's the absolute best hat they've ever found, the patches on it and pattern are exactly their personality, and things are really good. They still hate their manager and job, but two of their coworkers are cool, the washer never runs in their apartment and the landlord hasn't done anything about it in eight months and their car payment is draining them but they have to get snow tires and replace the fuel pump and their neighborhood is really dirty and someone was following them last week but they really, really, love this new hat. People these days, at least Americans,have the ability to start again and live debt free almost instantly and they all choose to work for some job that pays the bills in a static environment, resigned to gun violence and unaffordable medical emergencies. I am back here visiting them, watching them all running around with perpetual scowls but shining the laminate on their nametags and proudly howing me how shiny their nametags are. See, things aren't all bad. My boss thinks I'm an idiot and I don't get PTO, and I have to clock in after I arrive and out before I leave by an hour and responsibility is given to me in equal measure dignity is taken away but boy does this nametag gleam! It reminds me of this time that my parents and I went to a friend's house for dinner. After the dinner, I watched the pilot of South Park and then told my dad that I could understand why it was funny, but I wasn't interested in watching more even though I thought it was hilarious, I just believed that this is what he wanted to hear, that his son was not a degenerate fan of crude humor. He pointedly said "Yeah, okay." and nodded at me with wide eyes and dismissed me. I feel like that with Americans telling me something that they obviously don't believe in but refuse to consider. Oh. Babyteeth. It's great, really!
Bad Moms(2016) - Mila Kunis is so pretty that I think my brain just didn't conceive that she could be a good actress. But she was great, and Kristen Bell was good and Kathryn Hahn had me laughing out loud. This movie's pretty funny. And good. Oh and thet interview clips afterward with the cast and their real-life moms was really nice.
Barbians(2021) - Not interested until 53 minutes in when the invasion started. All that happened was they gave us two unlikeable main characters that everything revolved around without explaining anything about their lives, they just should us how cowardly and brash they both are. For almost an hour! Then the invasion starts and that's interesting. This could have been a thirty minute short film and been exactly as interesting. None of the beginning 50 minutes was necessary. Bleh. Take away the 's" from a title. Barbarian with no "s" was a suspenseful movie. I just read over this review and cannot even remember watching this movie.
The Beatles Get Back(2022) - Amazing. I was transfixed just watching the Beatles, I couldn't believe how young they were and old they looked and acted. It was particularly amazing seeing them all casually shoot the shit, I got a sence of their personalities like never before, and a glimpse at how talented they were like never before. And masterfully put together and directed. And all interesting, relevant information, but not too much. The recordings mostly spoke for themselves.
Beauty Shop(2005) - I was a little wary with how dated it seemed and the tags on the end of the scenes ruining the jokes, but there were enough good spots to get me hooked, and it was pretty fun.
Billy Madison(1995) - What are you looking at swaaan? Plus, Norm was in it. So...I mean. It's amazing. Oh and Bradley Whitford!
BlackkKlansman(2018) - I haven't seen that many Spike Lee joints, and I'm glad I saw this. It's funny and makes me uncomfortable of my ignorance of black American culture, the internalization of that that they have to live with. I finally liked...what's his name...Driver, Adam Driver in a role. He did good as the cop.
Black Phone(2022) - I did like it! I was hoping the Asian kid was going to be the main character, and was kind of irritated they went with the Will-looking character instead. Since they obviously were trying to rip on the Strongaer Things look. But in terms of set and costume design, in the complete set and perfect costumes and everything that's great, every character felt just a little off. Like the bully was too lean, or the house was not really sinister, it was odd. It's like the producer was nodding at me the whole movie and muttering "eh? huh? Just like Stranger Things, huh? How about that kid huh?" Okay, and how did the killer, who notices and knows evenything and spends a huge part of his day just sitting in a chair upstairs in silence not notice wwhen the heavy window greate was pulled down, clattered on the floor and then...what? Disapeeared? The little sister was fantastic, I think Ethan hawke did okay, although i never really like him, don't know why, but finding out he was the bad guy in the opening credits? was a disappointment. Just use new actors. He's like what fifty five now? The mask was great, but hawke is so impotent. Don't resell us a fac ewe've seen a thousand times or the sets and costume ideas tied to a popular show that's been around five years. Yea, I know it's the eighties, but it didn't feel like the eighties, it felt like Stranger Things had a garage sale and this production team bought it up.
Black Side Mountain(2016) - Really good horror movie. A little on the Indian-burial-ground side, but original enough that it doesn't get in the way, and the mythology is vague enough that it doesn't feel trite. I thought it was extremely well done and very fun to follow along with as everyone goes mad. It didn't go to undue lengths explaining how anything happened, but it didn't rely on a completely untethered madness floating in the ether. There is some undefined concrete horror that ovewhelms characters. Wrapped up in an interesting, creative plot!
Blade(1998) - This movie is so good because nobody knew how to do a dark comic book movie, especially in a more modern setting with an antihero. There were very simple succesess, Superman movies and whatnot, but a crazy, repressed, moralistic violent half-vampire who lived in the underworld? Not much of a playbook for that. I think whatever happened, they had a very definite storyline and feel that they followed through with and resulted in a great movie. I liked the second one almost as much as the first, and they lost me with the third. The first Blade with Wesley Snipes, though, redefined the vampire genre and had tons of fun twists and a great Dorffy villain.
Bloodsport(1988) - Fun, definitely has all the elements of a kung-fu movie that the Quest was missing. Bolo Yeung was probably the best part, he's a great villain and bizarrely muscled. Just unbelievably muscled. JCVD movies are weird. I haven't seen any of them before, I think Timecop was the first one? But they're more transparently spectacular than other kung-fu movies SLASH I am only watching them in my thirties and they spectacle is more obvious now than it would have been had I watched them as a kid. I had fun watching Bloodsport.
Blue Beetle(2023) - I thought the opening was a good, original opening for a Marvel movie, but started yawning after forty minutes. By the end it was line for line every other Marvel movie.
Bokeh(2018) - I liked it. Premise seemed maybe realistic but a bit boring? I guess you could go crazy pretty quick spoilers if everyone else disappears, but she loses hope AFTER finding someone else and then kills herself instead of, I don't know, learning how to pilot a boat or fly a plane? Hope that guy builds more windmills.
Bonfire of the Vanities(1990) - This is a weird movie. The narrator says the main character is a bad guy, and then the plot works very hard to exonerate him of the crime, even though he didn't report the crime he helped commit. I think I saw this once when I was much younger. I remember the scene with the tire and the two thugs intimidating Sheldon. Not much else. Anyway, the upper crust of society finds out there are some inconveniences for them if they ignore responsibility and the law. Not really a bonfire. More like a sunburn.
Bong Joon Ho movies - I haven't seen one I didn't love. Started with The Host, Snowpiercer is an amazing sequel to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Parasite is great, uhhhh...The one...with. Okja! Love it all, love all of it. The girl is so good in Okja, what an actress. And story. What a great everything. What a great writer director. Give me more. Memories of Murder - Really good, what a depressing, wrenching tale of misery. And I love the ending, completely unresolved. Mr. Bong knows how to make a movie. Sea fog, realistic, but still exciting and surprising. Liked it.
Bookosmart(2019) - So funny. I've watched this movie a few times and flippin' love it every time. Friends who tried so hard to excel at school realize that all the slackers are going to the same or better schools that they are. So they decide to try partying the day before graduation. And it is very funny and super creative. It's pretty high five. Just watched it again. Can't believe how good it is every time I watch it.
Boss Level(2020) - Absurd, but not off-putting. I found a list of Groundhog Day movies and this one is right up there with the best of them. Very fun, the actor is a little too macho now and then, but it's a very fun movie.
The Boy Band Con(2019) - This was a very well-told documentary. Besides having three sisters, who I know had at least No Strings Attached while we were growing up and listened to it often, I knew virtually nothing about either the Backstreet Boys or NSYNC, and less than zero when it came to what was going on behind the scenes, since I had preconceived notions of their success. I could not believe how little they had paid, I never knew they went to court, I had never heard the name Lou Pearlman before, this was a pretty amazing documentary that I am really glad is available for free on Youtube because it is a very tangible example of the sort of corruption you always hear about in the shadows behind every record executive, or locked door, but here are ten of the most famous people in the 90s telling you exactly what happened to them in their personal experience candidly. It's nuts.
The Boy Next Door(2015) - I liked this! I think J Lo is a good actress. The hands on her boobs during the sex scene was awkward and obviously a note. But the craziness continously ramping up for the WHOLE movie was done well. The silliest part were when Noah prints out literally thousands of pictures in her classroom and she cleans them ALL up in maybe one minute while the principal finds his keys. But I did like it overall.
Brotherhood of the Wolf(2001) - Such a strange movie. Highlander and Kato fight against a monster terrorizing the French countryside at the behest of an incestuous prince. But I really liked it when I first swatched it, and gave it another go, just for fun. Christopher Lambert is such a good character actor. Ha! I just checked and it isn't even Christopher Lambert! Sorry. Maybe that's why I enjoyed his performance here so much? Samuel Bihan? Yeesh.
Bullet Train(2022) - Gena really wanted to see this, and thenliterally couldn't remember it at all when I got it for her, left a few minutes in. But I really liked it! I was not excited for the movie, but it was really fun, kind of like a goofier Snatch. Fast paced action and dialogue, loved Lemon and Tangerine. Would have been worth watching in the theaters when Gena originally wanted to see it(my bad). In my defense the previews made it look like...a semaphore of famous people that you must be entertained by, rather than any sort of fun undertaking by the people who made it. And it was great to see Michael Shannon again, but boy his Russian accent is - woof, like my Russian accent: ad-libbed and doggedly committed to.
Bumblebee(2018) - This is my favorite Transformers movie, pretty much a hundred percent because of Hailee Steinfeld. I also don't like these movies much, so low bar, but it was pretty watchable. Because of Steinfeld.
Burning(2018) - It was cool to see Steven Yeun as a Korean actor as well, I had no idea he was in other countries' movies. And this was a great movie, very creepy and tense inside of a very dreamy, consistent world. A little long, but that did not stop me from watching the whole thing.
Cabin in the Woods(2011) - This is the best horror movie I've ever seen and one of my favorite movies, period. It's a horror comedy, but in a way completely unparalleled. It is a horror movie. Inside of that horror movie is enough comedy, that it is a horror comedy. But the comedy is never cheap or out of place. This movie is amazing. Amazing. I'm literally thinking about watching it again right now because I'm tying about it. And all the G-men? Hilarous. God what a good goddam movie.
Cactus Flower(1969) - interesting seeing everyone 55 years ago. It was definitely compelling, and you can see how Goldie became a star overnight. She was very funny and great at playing the ditzy shopgirl side piece. Matthau as a leading man is a bit more confusing as a love interest with his stooped back and huge honker, but he is obviously a great actor, so maybe I shouldn't be such a book-cover-judgy-asshole.
Candyman(1992) - Really good and weird. It's thirty years ago now that this movie was made, and I can feel the generational disconnect. I still very much enjoyed the almost Lovecraftian way the main character loses her mind and her soul, where you can never quite tell if she is insane and killing all these people or the urban legend she's changing is always one step ahead. Yea. Thumbs up. Very excited to watch the 2021 version. But I think I'll finish the original trilogy first. I did watch the second movie, and liked it as much as the first. There's such a weird slant to these horror movies, especially for the hook being so simple. The hook! I'll definitely watch the third and the reboot.
The Card Counter(2021) - Great mavie. Not too self-important, sold story, good characters, Tiffany Haddish is there, it's good. You know I always thought this main actor was the boyfriend in the first season of New Girl and thought he just really broke out with Star Wars and whatever but it's a totally different guy who looks almost exactly like him? Anyway, good movie. Not clear, but definied, like woodburning a piece of mahogany
The Cave(2005) - Some of the acting was good, but it was mostly a cheesy monster movie. Once the monsters weer revealed i kind of zoned out. Their mystery was more interesting.
Charly(1968) - Done very well, great actors, great story, sad and incisive and thoughtful.
Cherry Falls(2000) - Very weird. The soundtrack made no sense to me, as soon as I saw jay Mohr I knew spoiler he was the killer, it kept looking like Michael Biehn was going to have sex with his daughter, and then who was in the house? Loralee or her son? Entertaining I guess, just super crazy and wild.
The Chipmunk Adventure(1987) - I was born in this year, and watched Alvin and the Chipmunks go around the world being chased by hitmen while hittin on the Chippettes. The songs were so good! I should watch this again...
Citizen Kane(1941) - I watched this a long time ago, and remember being impressed with the psychological scale of it, how it deeply impacted me even though almost everything they talked about was practically over half a century removed from my experience. Ha, I most well remember Welle's brooding. He brooded very well. The concepts, though, were almost carnal, primal in their ability to remind humans of how little everything really matters. I'd like to watch it again sometime.
Class Action Park(2020) - Great documentary, very interesting look into a dangerous 80s waterpark run by an unrepentant criminal and staffed by children.
City of Ember(2008) - Shocked to see Saoirse Ronan! How young is she? Jeebs. Anyway, she was great in the movie, and the plot was good. The special effects were eh, you could see the strings, especially with the boat scene at the end, but it was a fun ride for the most part. And I'm glad it wasn't forced into a trilogy. I'm curious about the books that of course it was based on.
Class of 1999(1990) - Holy Greer, what an insane ride. Fun to watch, not great production, or acting, or plot, or...you know anything, but worth a watch for how ridiculous the robot teachers discipline the students in the beginning.
Clown(2014) - Heard about this on LPOTL, excited to see it, did not disappoint. Very run-of-the-mill storyline, acting, cast, for about twenty minutes. Then the costume goes on, and the dad can't get it off. Then he goes more and more insane and everything spirals out of control. It doesn't go full Krampus at the end, but that seems to make the entire movie an enjoyable horror rather than ten minutes of it. I just watched this movie again, because I wasn't sure if I liked the ending so much, but I completely forgot the whole second half of the movie and was surprised and had a great time watching it, even thoughI didn't start it until 2330! It's a great movie, very creepy and weird and horrific and creative. Glad I watched it again.
Cocaine Bear(2023) - Really fun, worth watching. Margot Martindale is flirting, Ice Cube's son is acting, story is pretty crazy. Yea it's fun.
Coherence(2014) - I was looking for a weird, eerie type of movie at the time, and I think I just stumbled onto this. A dinner party occurs, and then during some astronomical event, parallel universes converge and everything goes bananas. I liked all of the actors, the setting, the atmosphere and especiallythe plot development.
Colossus: The Forbin Project(1970) - Interesting early take on presumptive AI who commandeers everything as soon as it gains consciousness. I would like to see the sequels that were never made. Might read the books. It was compelling, I didn't realize the movie was over when the screen faded to black because I had been so engrossed that I hadn't noticed how much time had passed.
Come to Daddy(2019) - Elijah Wood makes weird movies. In this one, Norval gets a letter of invitation from his dad, who he hasn't seen since he was five or so. His dad doesn't remember sending him a letter and is drop-dead-drunk all day in a beach house. After some arguments, revelations and murder attempts, Norval realizes the man he's been living with all week isn't his father. After some violence, Norval finds an underground cell that his dad has been imprisoned in. The rest of the bad guys show up and they gotta figure out how to get out of there! I liked this movie a lot because the reveal was so unexpected. And the way they escape is insane. Elijah Wood has a knack for making movies that surprise me.
Constantine(2005) - How did this not get a sequel? I haven't watched it since it came out. Okay, I'll probably watch it again. I guess it was fifteen years ago, just a bit too early for the superhero cinema craze and a scoche to esoteric for mass marketing. But I remember it being great. I'ma watch it again. - oh snips, sequel started in 2011, guillermo del toro signed on as writer, reeves seaid head do a sequel, in 2020, the original director said a sequel is in the works. Man that'd be perfect timing too. He said he wantsn to do an R rating next time to make the movie as dark as it should be MAN DO IT!
Creed(2015) - Good movie, well shot, but now I'd love to know more about Michael B Jordan calling out a real boxer because it's clear that he is an actor in this movie, not a boxer. Good actor, but he doesn't look like he has any of the speed or power of any real boxer. Although, now that I think about, Stallone had the same problem and ended up in the hospital for it.
Creep(2004) - I acutally found this just by chance looking for the other Creep movie that is great. But this one has Franka Potente, who I love. And there's a monster who lives in the London metro system tunnels. But it's not a monster, it's just a small group of tiny, scrawny humanoids. And they like killing people at night who get locked inside but nobody has ever noticed and it's been going on forever. I did watch it all, but just cause Franka. Is she like a German scream queen?
Dave Made a Maze(2017) - Dave is trying to figure out how to live with contentment. Instead, he builds a cardboard maze that is much larger and infinitely more dangerous on the inside. When he can't find his way out, people go in after him and also become trapped in the maze. And there's monsters and traps, and when people die they bleed confetti. It's a very funny, very passionate, beautiful movie . I really enjoyed it.
Dead Leaves(2004) - hahah, WHAT? Okay, so two entities wake up naked next to each other and go on a crime spree and get thrown in destroyed-moon-prison - well. This was a very unexpectedly unpredictable ride into the mindns of whoever made this and why. Worth watching, but sort of hard to follow and not well animated, just pushing the limits of animation in as short a time as possible with not zero, but...basically throwaway exposition. This is an amusement park ride of a film.
The Dead Zone(1983) - I have a hard time watchin Christopher Walken because of his stilted, adopted mannerism, but I liked this movie and had a lot of fun watching it. The ice hockey scene is a good one, and his attempted assassination(spoiler).
Death and the Maiden(1994) - Good movie. I just don't like Ben Kingsley. I'm not sure what it is. I've always thought he was weasly. But Sigourney Weaver is always good. It was kind of weird they were all supposed to be South American and they spoke American English?
Death Sentence(2007) - Okay, I heard about this movie while listening to SleepyCast for the second time. I saw the movie cover and was like, oh I remember that, then started watching it and realized I had never seen it. THEN I got to the end of the movie and recognized a scene that I had assumed was from a different movie and realized that I had seen it before. But man, it's a pretty great revenge movie. Because boy he really does lose everything(except maybe not Luke? But probably also Luke). That parking garage scene is super exciting and his rooftop fight that ends with him trapping the gangbanger in the car is AWESOME! This is a great revenge movie, if you haven't seen it, pretty exciting and even surprising a few times.
Defendor(2009) - Not bad, little boring. There was too much drama and personality switching so that we didn't focus on his superheroing enough, and of course the bad guy was laughable, did not come off as realistic. Folks, if you don't have the content, make your movie shorter. Hour movies? If it's 60 minutes of content instead of 90 minutes of palm-leaning, sign me up.They didn't manage to bring together all the realstic superhero movies like kickass or that great rain
The Descent 1&2(2005, 2009) - I enjoyed the first one almost as much as the first time I saw it. There's good story, good shock, a lot of weird twists, and some surprising deaths. And I like the weird creatures. The second one just had the creatures, but it was still pretty fun. The first one is a legitimate horror movie, and I'm glad the second one continued on with the original story, but some of the inconsistencies between the first and second are irksome. I will say though, in the first one, it's weird how irresponsible and unthinking the girl who breaks her leg is. It seems ilke she wouldn't be that...reckless. But they do try really hard to make her seem that reckless up to that point.
Dirty Work(1998) - Norm died! That was an unwelcome surprise. As a result I spent a couple days watching a lot of his work. His comedy had me laughing for hours. Dirty Work is pretty poorly acted and put together, but I loved it and watched it a dozen times just because Norm MacDonald is hilarious. Everything he did was hilarious.
Distorted(2018) - She moves into a condo, they are trying to mind control her. In the end, she is saved because she chooses to trust her boyfriend/husband, who has not believed her literally the entire movie and in the previous scene had her committed to a mental hospital. John Cusack makes a last stand that we don't see and I'm not sure what was supposed to happen to him? He's like a techno-jesus conspiracy junkie for whom every conspiracy has happened without any proof. This was not so good. Not very tied together. And kind of a dated topic. Like it would have fit well in the early 2000s lineup maybe? Does Christina Ricci only take old concepts she's sure she can pull off? And why does she always play the exact same character? Does she have any broader acting skills? Why didn't it work? The mind control? It's working the whole movie, and then at the end, it just doesn't reach its logical conclusion? And one out of five bad guys gets shot but the other four are like, well...ya got us. And her husband is a sharpshooter? Very distorted production logic.
Don't Look Up(2021) - I liked a lot about this. I think, like Burn After Reading, its portrayal of military and bureacratic higher-ups is deliberately exaggerated to make them seem less responsible than they are and people are going to see it and just like with Idiocracy or Burn After Reading say and think to themselves "Ah, I know it, our authority figures are as dumb as stooges in a comedy movie" because Americans don't think critically enough about the point of the movies. HOWEVER! More so than Burn After Reading, which tried really hard to be goofy, almost vaudeviliian, I think DLU did a better job balancing the corrupt idiot line with a realistic corporate influence and overarching selfish narrative that is at the core of the United States, and that simply by making selfish choices(Dr. Mindy ignoring his duty for five months by sleeping with a smoking hot Cate Blanchett, President just wanting to stay in power despite the destruction of Earth, the tech giant wanting to expand his fortune for the same reason, Kate leaving the whole scene and not trying to reach out becaues everyone is too dumb or vapid to listen to her). The Earth wasn't destroyed becaues a guy tripped and grabbed a jacket from a chair, which spun into the back of a lady who rode chair to the control panel and bumped the orbital path of a few defensive planetary nukes off course, but becaues all the ways power is manifested chose their own increase in power over the availability of resources with which they can increase your power. I liked it a lot.
Dracula( 2000(2000) - Really strange to see Gerard Butler clean. I think this is the first movie I've seen him and not thought "oh, he's still filthy from the last movie." The writing was terrrrrible and the plot was ridiiiiiculous and I thought the British kid was an American faking an accent, but apparently he really is British and just has a weird accent. Anyway, HDTGM, worth mentioning for seeing a clean Butler. Bizarre. Oh and how bad bad bad the special effects were considering the Matrix came out three years before this? Boy, these effects were rough. Blade came out five years earlier and those effects were way better. Shit they had bullet time in Blade! I just realized. But probably done differently than the Matrix right? Matrix used practical photography, but Blade used CGI bullets and slo-mo. Still looked cool. And more believable than anything in Drac 2k.
Drop Dead Fred(1991) - Well, I've got to write about this because of the HDTGM controversy, where at least half of the audience were on Team Mom, opposite Team Fred. The argument for Team Fred is that Fred is Phoebe Cates' imaginary friend who allows Cates to examine all the unseemly parts of life and society so that she can process them, develop and grow into an adult, but is stunted developmentally when her mom tapes Fred into a jack-in-the-box, halting Cates' personal development. Cates is pushed around and spoken to as a child for the next decade and a half by her boyfriend and mother as an adult, until she releases FRed from the Jack-in-the-Bok, who encourages her to behave wildly in order to break free of the authoritarian strictuers imposed upon her by, largely, her abusive mother. Team Mom's argument is that the mom is a good mother and Fred is annoying, so the movie is bad. The Mom tells Cates that if she isn't a good girl, boys will run away from her, and that it is Cates' fault her father left them both. According to Mom, the way to being a good girl is to do everything her mother tells her to do. When Cates tells her plainly what she wants, her mother ignores her wishes and compels her to do what Mom wants intsead. To "help" Phoebe, the mom's solution is to dress her just like Mom and make her hair and make up like Mom's, then to give her drugs that stunt her emotionally by removing her capacity to deal with problems completely, firmly ensnaring Cates into the adolescent and more easily influenced state her mother explicitly admits she like Cates best at. A necessary tenet of Team Mom is the support of deliberate child abuse meant to hobble a child so that they are easily controlled. Which is awful. I don't understand why so many people are Team Mom.
Eagle Vs. Shark(2007) - Loved this as much as I evver have, watched it again in 2022, still so funny and fun and creative. Just a great film. Love the New Zealand comedy, and Gena even laughed at the bits she watched, which surprised me, because the humor is so understated that I didn't think she'd get it, but she did!
The Empty Man(2020) - Uhhh, fine? If it was a 20 mintue student film, it woulda been pretty good. But boy was there filler. The Empty Man himself was interesting, but he was absent from pretty much the whole movie. eh!
The Endless(2017) - A fun Lovecraftian horror flick where two brothers who escaped from a cult end up going back to take another look. There's just enough special effects to be creepy, and lots of fun weird characters. Everything is uncanny and there's lots of horrible bits sprinkled without. I dug it. More than I thought I would, to be honest.
Escape from Pretoria(2020) - I liked all of it, very suspenseful, great performances, the only weird thing was that in a movie about apartheid there wer no black main or supporting actors. And I was like, there has to be ONE historical figure they should have cast so there can be a black guy, in AFRICA, breaking out of a political prison. I guess it was just a story of those three specific guys. They like, had speeches in the movie about how strongly they supported apartheid, but you know who else could have given those speeches? The POC second-class citizens. I guess...if it was just trying to be super faithful without combiining or adding anything, then yea...they do have the black taxi driver. Maybe that's the only black...oh wait apartheid. There probably AREN'T any black prisoners mixed with white prisoners. Well, that makes sense. The whole movie...okay. yea. Okay.
Everything Everywhere All at Once(2022) - This movie is amazing. I cried and laughed several times! A lot of loss going on, and violently reacting to the unfairness of the situation you're born into. But very funny and surreal and wacky the whole time. I flibbin' loved it.
Equus(1977) - Very good. I am really into plays, much more than I thought I was, even after I read so many of them. I might start writing them. I prefer the structure and focus of playwriting more than I enjoy the actiona and rhythm of movies. A play lets you live inside the head of each character, which is where life is happening anyway. Movies just let you see the outer shell of whatever projection each character is constructing. It's the skin deep layer of the actual events. Ha1 Equuus. Thanks.-
Face to Face(1976) - I always want to like Ingmar Bergman films, and there was a lot of interesting moments in this movie, like her daughter saying she doesn't like her or the main doctor saying and doing different things, but I did not get into this one like I did her famous one. The Seventh Seal. i will say, even though I was not dying to find out what happened next in the dream-sequence-crazy-house, the performances were very compelling. Liv Ullman and her creepy rodeo psychiatrist bisexual non-lover. Great performances.
Face/Off(1997) - Another favorite. You can't not watch it. Nicholas Cage being a madman and Travolta acting heterosexual against a very solid plotline(I mean...pretty solid....well...firm)? So much fun. Too much fun. That's the tagline to this movie. Too much fun
Fall(2022) - Basically palm sweat the entire time. These girls climb a 2000-foot tv tower and get stuck at the top. You know what's funny, though? I remember watching Tom Cruise in MI2 and going skydiving myself and watching lots of stuff about climbing and never got palm sweat. Then I heard Alex Honnold talk to Rogan on a podcast and Rogan said just watching the preview of Free Solo made his palms sweat. And I don't know if I made my palms do that now because I think it's a normal thing for your palms to sweat from...height? I don't know, it's weird, I don't remember sweaty palms before listening to that program. But Free Solo was terrifyinger becauses it was real. But this movie was fun enough. Oh and I feel like they could have done better in the egg drop contest. The first one. The second one, I feel would have blocked a signal.
FastandtheFurious(all of em) - I really...I bet if I wentt back and watched the first one, it would be a decent movie. I can't remember much, I think I remember more about Tokyo Drift than the first two, and I didn't really like that one. I do have a sneaking suspicion that the first movie was just 90 minutes of "he ain't a cop," "nah I don't think he's a cop," "hey this guy's a cop!" Five was pretty terrible, I don't really like the Rock as an asshole character, he's way too charming funny for that. Doesn't work. THe only fun part was the safe at the end, but those cars dragging what is probably a 50,000 pound plus safe and not flipping over is....silly. At least give them turbo dump trucks or something. So I watched 6. I liked 6. Cannot explain it. I was very glad to see Michele Rodriguez back in the pack, she's got to be the fastest Furiosa the franchise has, probably my favorite character. Absent for most of the sories. I'd love to see a scene where one of them wins another car in a street race but there's no one to help him d rive it home and he's like "hey man, I mean can you help me drive it back my house? The car, your car, that I just won? I'll drop you off afterward. Thanks." They always just cut to his garage with both cars at his house now. How did it get there? There's only one driver who won two cars. Loved fast x, maybe the first one I liked. Cena is funny, the action is fun, Momoa is a killer bad guy, Charlize THeron is the best, it's all pretty good.
Faultline(2004) - Holy crow. Don't watch this. I couldn't. Just. Ridiculous dialogue, staging, idk. Guess it's supposed to be a monster movie, I couldn't get past fifteen minutes or so. Very difficult to watch.
Felix the Cat: the Movie(1988) - This is the movie that taught me about dreamscapes. I've read comics of Felix and seen some cartoons and couldn't give a hoot. The movie, though, about a despotic tyrant kidnapping princesses and a slave driver carnival barker fighting against the decent, moral Felix traveling with his magic bag? That was really magical. And there were songs in there too? What a wild movie with fun animation and such an imaginitive and evocative storyline.
The Final Girls(2015) - I really like the first half of this movie and think it's really funny. But the second half kind of breaks down, the beats feel all wrong. And there are too many goodbye speeches and some of them are way too long, without introducing any new information or twists. I don't get why the goodbye speeches are there. I enjoyed the 5 minutes of outro bloopers ten times more than the second half of this movie. All the acting feels kind of wooden as well. I see that sometimes, like before I watch a movie I'm excited to see the actors and then when I do see them they can't act anywhere near as well as I remember. Is that on part of the director? Or is it just lighting or what? I did have fun watching the movie, it just kind of dragged on once everyone started to die. Although the "horny girl's" death that kicks off the second half was hilarious.
First Blood(1982) - This is a genuinely good movie, I didn't watch it until I was 30 because Stallone is such a pain in the ass, but he made a great movie in '82. Tortured Vietnam vet gets bullied by cops until he fights back. And all hell breaks loose. Nobody else believes me it's good because all they know about Rambo is the goofy hysterics. As did I. But take me at my word, folks.
Followed(2020) - Ha! Definitely way too much going on, and it felt like one step past a student film, but it was a fun student film. The mormon forest murder cult definitely surprised me. Ha, but it was pretty ridiculously presented.
Forbidden Island(1959) - mess of a movie, but everyone who kisses the ONE girl in the whole movie is so gross and aggressive about it I had to mention it. Every time someone kissed(sexually assaulted her with his mouth) I had to lean away in disgust.
FPS(2015) - I liked it. It starts out for five minutes as an SNES game where you have to rescue your wife at the reseacrh hospital, and then on the drive over transforms into live action, but you're looking from first-person view and just see his arms moving and hear his voice like in a video game. I like horror, FPS and creative storytelling, so I enjoyed the ride. It did not go on for too long as a movie, but some of the scenes were stretched out. I think if they had just kepy the pace consistent and it ended up 70 minutes instead of 90 it would have been more exciting, HOWEVER I was still surprised when I got to the ending, it did seem like there was more to tell. Yea, it was fun to watch if you like horror and video games.
Freaks(2019) - really good superhero? movie. I"m surprised I haven't heard of it before. I don't think Emile Hirsch was at his best, but he had a difficult role to play and maybe he was method acting the exhaustion. All of the other actors were great. Bruce Dern was a little old and obviously feeble, but mostly kept it togeter. The plot was very interesting and suspenseful and they gave you just enough crumbs to keep wondering what hell was going on. This is probably the best superhero movie I've seen in years. I"d LOVE to know more about the world and see prequels or sequels for days. I should check if they've done anything else?
Freddy vs Jason(2003) - I hadn't watched many Friday or Elm. St. movies at the point I watched this movie, and I think that the commitment made to this comical, monster brawler was so much fun I started getting into both of them. Friday clearly wasn't going anywhere soon, but Freddy had all kinds of character development. This was fun. I think I watched it again and didn't like it as much, but the feeling I had watching two surreal nightmares punch each other over and over again was a pretty damn good time.
Free Guy(2021) - Or 2020. I'm not even going to check, don't care. I like Ryan Reynolds, ever since Alive. I think it was called. And this movie had certain beats that were fun, and good special effects. But overall I was kind of eh. I guess it was a fun amusement park ride, but there were no lessons learned or...care to be given. The attack on himself by himself the strong himself seemed so cliche. Obviously fighting yourself is a trope, but the fight didn't end cleverly, or even at all..eh. just a meh. Whole movie was kind of meh.
Friday the 13th(1980) - The original one would have been a fine standalone film, not one of the sequels was any good UNTIL! Until we get to Jason X, where Jason is a nanobot-infested murderer in space that I could not help enjoying, and then laughing at. This movie was so much fun. The nanobots redesign his machete. God this was dumb and fun, I think when he spent literally five minutes slamming one cheerleader in a sleeping bag into another I didn't stop laughing the whole time. It's happening in the background during some scientific mumbo jumbo conversation goes on. Gosh that was a fun time. Just watched number 6 and woo boy, they really hammed it up. Everyone had a boyfriend I think? and then every single line and scene was supposed to be a joke, like the smiley face on the tree? It was very bizarro. One joke or comic relief makes sense, but this was about every line. I did like the gravedigger winking at the camera and asking why the heck people would dig up Jason, they have a strange idea of entertainment, and that's when I realized they were going full bore comedy with this one. It's just jokes. The sex dancing was crazy. The kid with the machete was a good reveal. You know what? I liked this never mind I'm a liar.
Fright Night(2011) - Great to see Anton Yelchin again, the car scenes were a lot of fun, I admire that there wasn't a slow burn with the killings, they just up-front in your face tell you "oh yeah, it's this guy and he's gonna fuck everything up." It could only work that way and did. I had a good time watching it, David Tennant was funny, everyone was great, the action was good, the effects were good, it's a good horror movie.
From Beyond(1986) - This weirdo movie based on a Lovecraft story(I don't remember this one). But it was almost goofy even though I think it was trying to be terrifying, and then the movie ended but then it kept going for another twenty minutes? It was just very weird to watch and I kept wondering about this world of terrible horror movies that people love to make and watch. And how the actors felt acting in this obviously not great, but well-shot and produced movie. And maybe I'm taking the act of creation too seriously.
Funny Games(2007) - remake of the Austrian movie, a disturbing home invasion movie. It was good, but doesn't really have much of a purpose for me. I haven't seen it in a while, and remember all the violenc, but if it supposed to be a comment on the violent burgeousie doing what they will with the proletariat, idk. It is disturbing, and impactful, and the cast is perfect. But I also would like things to have a point. It's very hard for me to enjoy a movie that is supposed to be a painting, appreciated for its existence. I long for stories.
Funny Pages(2022) - Good. Probably because I like comics. I constantly worried that the kid was going to be sexually assaulted, everyone constantly got too close to him, but I couldn't tell if that element of the story was supposed to be an element of that kid being an asshole or if everyone in his life was weirdly into him. It was a weird deliberate point in the moive repeated every ten minutes by almost every major character, their uncomfortable attraction to this teenager. I guess 18. Adult?
Gantz:0(2016) - Okay, considering how truly awful the tv show was, this movie couldn't help but be better. And they did everything right. Kills Kurono right away, like, okay, fuck off we have a better story. Ending was good, action was good, there was an actual storyilne unlike its piece of shit tv show ancestor. Pretty fun action movie. Not much more than that, but if they made a sequel to the movie, I'd check it out.
Glengarry Glen Ross(1992) - a sad story about desparate assholes. Pretty good.
Good Boy(2022) - The spanking was honestly the creepiest part of this movie, and the buildup was good but the third act was a little bland? There are so ways her rebellion could have succeeded but the only way it could have failed is if Frank forgot how to walk? And she didn't leave him. And she didn't run to the road when she initially ran away. And she only attacked him once and even though Christian was moving around, she threw away her only weapon and turned her back on him for almost a minute. It was all so avoidable. If you're going to work so hard to let the bad guy win, then the hero should triumph at the end. The only way the bad guy winning makes sense is if she did literally everything she could to escape the situation or fight back, and she and Frank did the bare minimum.
The Goofy Movie(1995) - Oh my GAH! Talk about great songs! They have a few. Coupled with the coming of age story and my first true animation crush Roxanne!, this movie stuck with me to today. Which made me watch it at 33 years old last year(2020) and marvel at how much I enjoyed the story. I felt just as bad as I ever did for Goofy when Max was a total DICK and loved singing along with the parts I remembered. This movie actually knocked me on my ass when I realized there wasn't one or two songs in the film, but it was a legitimate musical! Fantastic. Surprisingly, I don't have the soundtrack, and when I got it, the songs just don't seem right without the movie. As opposed to lots of other musicals, like the Lion King. Wait, I only have four songs from the Lion King on my phone. Huh. Anyway, this is a great, touching, instructive movie. I love it.
The Green Sea(2021) - very odd. I liked it for the supernatural elements, dreamscape elements, episodic nature and...well, the setting is very nice and it's well shot(edit: I love how completely natural the main character, Simone, seemed as a drunk asshole. She wasn't a loveable asshole or a clever or funny drunk, she was just drinking and hateful and an inconsiderate asshole. Really, one of the more believable drunk characters I've seen in a long time. I kind of wish there hadn't been such a big reveal at the end about why Simone drank all the time. It seemed unnecessary for me! But I watch too many movies. And I still liked it overall. Wish I heard a bit more from the nice mechanic.
Gretel and Hansel(2020) - Great movie, not too much horror, and not too much anything really. Just scary creepiness, good actors, lots of suspense, and magic. Fun fairytale time with a good plot. Very unlike the fairytale, in a good way.
Grimcutty(2022) - I thought the mask was great, I thought the preview looked dumb and I really liked the movie. It's all about the selfish authority of the parents harming the children.
The Guest(2014) - Good lord, I haven't seen a funner Drive gank in quite some time. The music is absolutely amazing, I do actually have the soundtrack now. And I very much enjoyed the movie itself. Top notch funsies.
The Guilty(2021) - Great! Gyllenhall is great. And he chooses good movies. Even when it's mostly a bottle episode. Snakes. Yikes.
Gunpowder Milkshake(2021) - I thought it looked too exploitative-y to enjoy, but I got into the story, thought the dead arms bit was pretty great, like the fun action, and the librarians with their books. This is a great movie and am looking forward to a sequel that isn't terrible.
Gwen(2018) - Everything could have happened in twenty minutes, tops. Easy fixes: The mother could have been actively pretending that the father was coming home. I did not for a second believe the father was coming home ever because of how hopeless and grieving the mother was, so the reveal was irrelevant. 2)Gwen could have it in her head to ax-murder the rich man trying to steal their farm, happens ten minutes in, the movie is an excitng teen murder taking care of family, town growing suspicious movie.
Happy Death Day 1 and 2 - I love groundhog day movies, and this one did it right. The killer's weird baby face mask was good and...yea it was fin. I don't think they needed to explain why everything happened like they did in the second movie, but it was still fine . The main actress has a cold sore or something in the corner of her mouth throughout both movies and it was very distracting.
Hangover(all three of them) - Well I laughed a LOT at the first one. And I remember most of it. But Galifianakis is just way too funny. I thoroughly enjoyed the first movie and like the second movie too, and was so surprised at how funny they were that the toxic dump the third one turned out to be shocked me. Galifianakis is never not funny, but he is the only redeeming character. helms is tired, Cooper wants to be anywhere else. Zack is still great. But the first one and even the second one are still good comedies.
Hellboy(2019) - I wasn't excited to watch this without del Toro or Perlman. And I was right for a long time, except for Hellboy! I was really into whoever played Hellboy, thought he did the gruffness and humor perfectly, even compared to Perlman. So I looked up the actor and it's frickin' Hopper! From Stranger Things! He is a perfect Hellboy. So I wanted to enjoy this movie a lot, and I do think he did a great job but woo boy, is this production bad. The costumes look cheap, the special effects are clipping, the writing is....eh. It definitely seems like when Perlman and del Toro didn't return the studio spitefully made an R-rated hellboy just to, idk, hurt their feelings? The scenes with Hopper were good, And Milla Jovovich was fine, terrible in the first scene, then fine later. The deer hat that the giant hunter wears looks ridiculous. Like a beanie baby head. Like I could have made it. Ian McShane is in it, and it's nice to see him, but, uh...they did not try to make a good movie. Baba Yaga was great!
Hellraiser(2022) - I like this one, I enjoyed where he asked her if he can't get her to reconsider and she says no, you can't get me to do anything spoiler. I like the writing and the more coherent plotline than the original Hellraiser. One minute previously he betrayed her. They all act the same as a real person would if they were lying to someone they love. I was very bored with the orginal hellraiser, but I'll have to watch it again because apparently a lotta people like it.
Hilda and the Mountain King(2022) - It's a great show that they continued with a great movie. It's very exciting and emotional and fun.
The Holy Mountain(1973) - Are you kidding me? It's Jodorowsky. Written and directed and everything. Go frickin' watch it. Have you not seen it already? Go. Go watch it. I did like the Gunfighter better. The gunslinger? Cowboy man? I don't know, I'll look it up and write about it later.
Horror Express(1972) - What a weirdo movie. Very much in my vein though. It's fascinating to watch the way they crudely recreated a pterodactyl in the blood drop from the eye and everyone at the time they made the movie, scarcely fifty years ago, was expected to swallow the story. But that's the thing with cinema. In most places, a movie is still a televised play, with emphasis on the story and performance, rather than trying to convince you that these people or this place is real. On the other hand, American cinema is investing a lot of money to make you forget that there is a reality and a silver screen, that perhaps you should be more like those silver screen heroes. The plot itself was better than many monster movies today, I'd like to see a remake.
Hotel Transylvania(2012) - Really great. The previews must have been terrible, I remember having zero interest in this before, even though it's just my type of movie. I loved it. All the performances and designs were great, and very fun. And I teared up with the roomance and the independence stuff, it's very nice because it's a story about a bunch of types of love.
The House(2017) - Dumb jokes with Will Ferrel and Amy Poehler and Jason! Jason Stamatoplous. He was very funny. The movie was fun. Their daughter was a little lowww energy among the rest of the cast.
Hunter Hunter(2020) - I happened across this horror survival movie and was hooked immediately. Good characters, constant twists and turns through latent horror bleeding through the plot. And the ending! woo! Horror recommend. Oh right, the hunter goes after a wolf and leaves his family behind. Yup, this endng was bonkers.
Hush(2016) - some deaf lady is stalked by a murderer who doesn't break any of the windows in her house to get at her oN PurPOse and then she kills him. PRETTY one note.
ID: Invaded(2020) - This was great. The serial killers were terrifying, all just one step over the edge, and while the scientific premise is silly, idealogically, tracking serial killers by their intent to kill and living inside a world subconsciously constructed by their intent to kill and deepest values and emotions was really interesting. I knew who Jack was instantly, I guess that was supposed to be a twist? But I really liked the story overall. It was wild.
Idiocracy(2005) - This was a lot of fun to watch again. I learned that during the filming, they had to find a shoe that only idiots would wear in the future and the costume designer proudly bought the dumbest shoe she could ever find that nobody would ever wear because they were so hideous. Crocs.
The Immaculate Room(2022) - Eh. Long. Weird. Ending is good. Content was good not great, felt a little unfocused. That guy is always so good no matter what he's in. but I wasn't really grabbed like I wanted to be by the story.
In the Mouth of Madness(1994) - I love that this is Sam Neill the year after Jurassic Park. It has a genuinely twisted ending that is very mind-bending, and John Carpenter does his usually fantastic job at presenting a creepy and terrifying experience. I like Hobbs' End as a town, and am also glad we didn't focus on how weird a town it was for too long. The plot didn't belabor the point that Hobbs' End is a fucking weird place, it just kept showing weird, awful things happening because of awful mystical hell intentions. Recommend.
In the Shadow of the Moon(2019) - If Tenet made sense, it would look like this movie. It was a fun time travel movie, little straightforward ironically, but still o good watch.
Incoherence(1994) - This is getting its own slot since Bong Joon Ho deserves more than one entry and there are three directors who made different parts of the movie. Very bumbling and strange and goofy, and then the ending scene where you find out the main morally corrupt characters are the three panelists who discuss the problem today with morality is surprising and hilarious. It's great! A student film by Bong Joon Ho, not...intense or insane, but very satisfying to watch and not too long, just like staring at and enjoying a painting for fifteen minutes.
Independence Day(1996) - For Jesus' Christ, I still get excited about this movie. Perfect cast, perfect plot, so much fun action and horror. I mean. Geez, you know what? I'm going to have to watch some critiques. I still get shivers every time I see Bill Pullman's speech. It's such a great movie.
Invitation(2015) - Thi movie is super fun in a relaxed, creepy way. Show up to a dinner party, your ex brutally slaps the jokey friend, a scene which really schocked me, and everyone is mostly normal but a little weird. And then you're like, haha, what a cult! And they're like, haha, no, and then they all pull out knives and try to kill you. It's a lotta fun.
It Follows(2015) - I stumbled upon this movie again looking for good contemporary horror movies and am glad I did. Because otherwise I would have forgotten the most out of place costume design and opening scene in an otherwise good film. There's an invisible shape changing corporeal being that walks after it's victims, the designation of said victimhood is transferred sexually, and the monster only follows the most recently touched by carnal action. Once it kills the newest recruit, the one who gave it to them is targeted, and so on down the line. It's a new concept, it's done well, the slo-mo terror in the kitchen scene is fantastic, there is so much creativity and originality in this movie that I watched it all the way through a second time. It was good. And weird. But let's talk about the opening scene. Which views almost like a home movie. And for some reason, the girl bursting out of her house to escape the invisible thing is not really running away(see the thing is, the monster walks...so if you run, you can stay ahead of it. But it never sleeps). Apparently it found her in her house, so she's running away. But she isn't running. She is hobbling. Why? Because she's wearing high heels. Well, sure, maybe she just got back from dinner-no. She isn't wearing any pants, just panties and a tank top - oh, so she's getting eady for bed? But what about the high heels? Maybe she was changing out her evening wear...and she took her shoes off last? And then what? She saw the monster that she can only escape by running away from so she leaves her fully strapped high heels on to run away? She acts like this is totally normal, clearly uncomfortably galumphing around click clacking down the street. Her dad asks her if she's alright(also the sun is setting at this point, so it's a little early for bed and the evening wear hypothesis) and she says "I'm fine, dad!" and sprints click-clacking down the sidewalk in heels...so she runs back into her house, grabs her car keys, drives to the beach, and then lets the monster catch up to her and grotesquely kill her. Still interesting and fun, but the awkward opening minute is so out of place. If you need the death in the beginning, which I think should be kept in, just start it at the phone call on the beach. Not...in a flippin'...high heels scene that you are uncomfortable wearing. The rest of the creepiness is good throughout the movie. It's good! Watch it. Check it out.
Jago(2015) - Not particularly relevatory, but a nice story about a man who lived most of his life underwater. His real life. I feel like I know this guy, that I met him in Malaysia and Thailand several times over, so I guess I wasn't shocked that their are island subsistence hunters in the world. But I liked it. Peaceful, nice doc about an interesting guy.
Jeepers Creepers saga - One and two? Great. The first one has good storytelling, good actors, weird twists and is very creepy. Great new monster. 2 is still pretty fun, there's a lot of tension and crazy action and suspense and new scares. 3 has the same feel, but there's no life to it. And the acting was...woof. And then they made Reborn, to reboot the franchise. And it is the worst movie I have seen in years. It was very frustrating. The creeper is a foot shorter, not very strong anymore, doesn't have any gear, and now whistles and gets rejuvenated via crow. The acting was ROUGH and I went back and watched one and two and they'll have to stay as Jeepers Creepers in my head for now until they make another reboot.
John Wick(2014) - Boy, this trilogy. The first movie sets up such a perfectly callous beginning that it's almost as artful as a comic. The entire movie is an amazing revenge story. No faults that I could find, and even some very creative points. I loved it, really, just had a fun action time. The second? Not memorable, but definitely made sense and was another fun action movie, but not as good as the first. Holy crow, the third? I couldn't get over how lazy every part of the movie was. The main female assassin was my favorite part, but she couldn't have weighed more than a hundred pounds and was arm-barring people twice her size. John seemed tired during all the action sequences, like he was thinking "Well, if they shoot me, it's fine, I"m in a movie," and the main...bad...assassin, whatever, was a crushing disappointment. It was my good friend from Brotherhood of the Wolf, but it seems like they wanted to pretend so hard that he was part of the orginal story that the injuries he sustained and kept going away at were disappointing. There was...boy did I not enjoy that third movie. I liked the first two enough that I actually went to a midnight showing in Queenstown, thinking there was no way even a third movie could mess up what I had enjoyed thus far in the trilogy. And I was humbled by the amount of laziness put into this movie. I don't know if they were playnig it safe, but, dang. I will have to watch it again some day just to make sure it's as bad as I remember, but...man. First movie? Almost perfect. Second? Very fun ride, could easily be redeemed by a solid closer. Third? Bored after thirty minutes, bored bored bored, irritated irritated never stops, then bored then it's over. I was sitting there in mild shock while the credits were rolling, and the guy sweeping up popcorn told me there was no after-credits scene. I had to ask what he thought of the third movie, and he said "I thought it would be good, but, I don't know, I guess it...you know...." and trailed off. He couldn't even look at me, the poor guy seemed so embarrassed. Luckily New Zealand rocks, otherwise the third John Wick would have tainted the country for me. It's the only trilogy I can think of where the third installment left me as destitute as the first had left me ecstatic.
Johnny Mnemonic(1995) - Wow, took me a long time to watch this considering it's right up my alley. Pretty fun, pretty goof, but enjoyable overall. I won't watch it again, but it is amazing to watch it and compare it to The Matrix, although it's insane to look at any cyberpunk film even from the 1999 or after and compare it to The Matrix.
Kate(2021) - Boy, talk about a mish-mash of tired ideas. It's like "you're my friend and the only person I trust." Okay, so he betrays you. "Hey, I don't kill kids." Leaves syndicate. "Man kids suck." Befriends and has sappy moment bonding with kid. Then she fucking dies. I think the writer got a hold of the script for Gunpowder milkshake, which is awesome, then stretched out the abstract into a two-hour who cares with way less fun, less plot, less action, less creativity, and less act-ing. Sorry, Mary Elizabeth, you are a great actress, but you're too - cool for this movie? Too laid-back? Gunpowder Milkshake killed!
King Arthur(2004) - A great retelling of King Arthur(if you couldn't guess). I liked all the characters, even Stellan Skarsgaard. Who is about as potato-bland an actor as they come, for me. Mads Mikkelsen has a great Killshot vibe, there's a child to take care of, some revolutionary action and very fun sword slices. Wouldn't mind seeing it again sometime. Thing is, I watched it so many times that I don't think I'd appreciate a rewatching now. Oh! The song that Bors' wife sings the night before everyone departs is beautiful. Yea. Good flick.
Knock at the Cabin(2023) - This was good, I like SHyamalan movies! Just a good, creepy, weird apocalyptic tale. Nothing more or less, and it didn't need to be.
Knock Knock(2017) - I felt like he just betrayed his wife and then got what was coming to him? So I couldn't feel any sympathy when they tried to extort him. I mean, it is difficult to blame the guy since they are both GORGEOUS but you made that bed. I think? You know what it's been a while. If that is what it was about then boo hoo for you you.
Krampus(2015) - I love the weird Krampus folktale, and I think I had fun watching this, but there is almost nothing that sticks except the sleigh attack at the end? I don't know, maybe I was filthy drunk. I'll watch it again sometime. Overall, I got a positive vibe.
The Lady from Shanghai(1947) - I liked it, but the tension seems forced in the wake of how many twisty endy movies I see these days. I was surprised to find out Welles played O'Hara, I'm not very familiar with Welles and just thought "Geez this guy likes himself so much he found an Irish actor to play him!" Hahaha, but I watched the whole thing. I like that the Rita could speak Mandarin at the end of the movie. And how uncomfortably bubbly Grizbee was.
Lamb(2021) - A good modern fairy tale that ends like a traditional fairy tale. I liked it, it surprised me quite often. And the beaty of Scandinavian countries is unfair.
Last Shift(2014) - fun ghost zombie losing your mind in a police station movie. It's some horror, and it has enough suprises and creepiness and twisted scenes to keep your eyes glued the whole time.
The Last Wave(1977) - A fantastic look at oboriginal Australian mysticism and I guess catastrophic climate change? The story is very engaging, very nebulous, and the foreboding atmosphere really takes you along for the ride. A group of aboriginals are accused of murdering another, and the secret is that they are actualy tribal aborigines living in the city, which is thought to be impossible. The corporate tax lawyer who becomes their advocate realizes that the dreams and visions he's having are related to something much more important than the court case. David Gulpilil and Nanjiwara are real aborigines acting in the film, and their story is just fascinating, as is the lawyer's mystical descent into madness or premonition.
The Last Winter(2006) - Weird, weird movie. Has a bunch of great actors, and a good enough story for me, but everyone died before they got to interact with the bizarre arctic beasts that were around. I feel like the beasts weren't explained well enough and there was zero conflict once everyone realized something was wrong. No defense. No logic at all, just bullheadedness as everyone gets picked off one by one. For a compelling theme, the execution was oddly sterile.
Layer Cake(2004) - Fun heisty drug thing, interesting to see Craig right before he became 007. Gott, how good is Casino Royale.
The Ledge(2022) - Pretty weird. Like unbalanced in its execution. The chase was exciting after the main girl is discovered to have seen the four 'friends" disposing of her friend's body, but other than that most of the plot was ridiculous. The bad guy was instantly, from his first shot, sinister, and then from the second, violent and rude and creepy. And one friend left her other friend with four unknown guys to get drunk and take drugs at three in the morning. Then goes back, and remembered to bring her camera. And nobody else likes the bad guy of the four friends, but all three are fiercely loyal to him. Like, unreasonably, for no reason, will die for him. While he's sleeping with one of their girlfriends. They just kept introducing ways for the bad guy to be worse throughout the movie, but hey. He killed a girl because she wouldn't let him rape her right in the beginning of the movie. We don't ned any more convincing that he's an awful person.
Let the Right One In(2008) - They took a book that really pushed people away with all the pedophilia and crafted its bones into a pleasant friendship story between a vampire and a little, lonely boy. I like this movie. The pacing is great, the attitude of the little vampire, the surprising, frantic violence, the strangeness that such a powerful being needs to rely on a helper. It's great though.
Life(2017) - was surprised I hadn't heard about this movie, with all the fame-os. Then I saw it and understood. Fun creaure. Other than the creature, nothing was fun or engaging. Everyone was just dead. And SUPER unprofessional, for professional astronauts. It was dingus.
Lights Out(2016) - I know I've seen this before, but I got it mixed up with another shadow people movie I saw. Anyway, I ended up watching this again and really liked it. Luckily I didn't become afraid of the dark after watching it, but boy they do the creepy real creepy. And it's exciting.
Lilo and Stitch(2002) - Idk, fun premise? I do like that the title credits said "based on an idea of..." some guy I can't remember. But it wasn't even a story, some guy was like, what if an alien crashed on Maui? And they were like yeah, that's a movie. And then it was super successful. Like crazy successful. At least in Hawai it was. Idk, the two people trying to catch him were kind of funny. Hm. Yea I wanted to see Stitch do a bunch of stuff he never did. I feel like he could've rebuilt the house or idk it seemed like making him not evil took a REALLY long time and his destructive tendencies got tiresome way before the beach scene. He didn't really repent until there were like twenty minutes left? I feel like. Weird pacing I guess. I played the opening song from Beauty and the Beast for Gena while I was watching this. She got bored. She gets bored easily. Oh and what I mean to say is if Stitch is an indestructible genius, he prubably could have done...anything...in the movie. All he did was fight. He never built anything, or solved any problems, or...he just fought. That was it. Being a super-genius didn't even help him fight better, he was just good at fighting because he was so strong and indestructible.
The Little Girl that Lived Down the Lane(1976) - Really good. Sheen was detestable, Jacoby was charming and Jodie Foster was an amazing actor with insane self-possession for a 14-year old actor. It was gread. Very compelling. And I was deeply disturbed not even five minutes in. It felt like a play, but it was based on a novel. Probably worth reading.
The Long Dumb Road(2018) - Very funny, with a good shot of drama. Well-rounded.
Long Shot(2019) - It was a goofy movie that I laughed at a bunch of times.
Looking Glass(2018) - not a good movie. I like it when he finds the 2-way mirror and then literally could not understand anything else in the movie.
Looper(2012) - The opening sequence of this movie with Paul Dano is still one of the most disturbing scenes I've ever seen. I liked the story, yea. Probably won't watch it again, but I'm glad I've seen it.
Lou(2022) - Uh. Too long. And I don't even think it was very long. But it did seem to take a while. I didn't recognize Allison Janney at first, just a few of her characteristics, and when I did recognize her it was fun. She did great. Jurnee Smollet always seems like she's olmest an actor but can't quite push herself fully into the role, but will still do the movie becase she needs to stay relevant. The dad was also pretty good, but after a while it was just like, okay, he's crazy, geez. And then the movie JUST KEPT GOING. Forever. As a note, I did think Allison Janney was beliveable as an ex-CIA operative who could kick ass in her older years, but boy. By the end of the movie I was playing on my phone and had the movie playing at 1.5x speed. Oh, the last fight in the surf was pretty cool. Oh and the bridge was surprising.
Love and Monsters(2020) - Great fun, the writing was mostly okay, the monsters there were were a lot of fun, but you could tell they needed more money to fill in the world the way they wanted. Having said that, they did great with what they did have and I was really interested in the movie. I wanted more, actually. They left me wanting more Rooker and the little girl, more monsters, and made the movie as good as they could with what must have been a limited budget. It was really fun.
Mad God(2022) - Wow. I watched the first 45 minutes, then took a break. It really is just unending madness and grotesquerie, high-octane, relentless grotesquerie. Very well done, and pretty insistent on being consumed. Took a short break, then finished the second half, which just happened to be a lot less disgosting and a lot more thematically creepy than I was expecting. I wouldn't worry about the plot so much, the overarching theme seemed to focus on how impossible it was to find meaning through work in a brutally relentless world of production, and we sacrificed everything, even the one in a million chance in beauty just to feed the burning engine of production. I'm curious if that's what he meant or if that's what I read into it living in stinkiy ol' murica.
The Man from Toronto(2022) - Really funny. Super goofy, which can be tiring, but I laughed out loud several times at Kevin Hart. And I watched it with Gena, which was nice for a change since she usually gets bored of movies after five minutes. But she thought Kevin Hart was Jordan Peele and was really excited because she likes Key and Peele. Hahahah, she was shocked when I sent her side by side photos and laughed at her mistake.
The Man in the Glass Booth(1975) - I like films based on plays because they are so often more dense than screenplays written to be screenplays. With a finished theatrical work, it's like the writers feel compelled to squeeze in as much magic as possible from the original work. I loved this movie because I thought the main character was a perfect genius, and while I don't know why he pretended to be a Nazi, I feel like I could understand why during my watching. Then, when the movie ended, the spell ended. I might watch it again, or more likely, read the play. But very entertaining, and horrible. Much respect to this movie.
The Matrix series(1999) - When I first watched the movie, I thought I identified with the actual premise for a while, that the world around me was literally artificial. I now think that I identified with the artificiality of my society rather than the physical compenents that made it up. I think I already identified with people believing very strongly in the world they grew up in to the point that anything outside of their known world was "impossible." And I liked all the kung fu and weird characters and superpowers. That closing scene in the first movie is friggin' perfect. I like 2 and 3 also. Number 4 I did not like so much. The story was fine, but everyone was old and the story was unnecessary. 1, 2, 3 progressively build up to one of the most exciting wars and fights I've ever seen in a movie was like, "hey, guess it's not done yet? i guess? I still enjoyed the movie as much as I can enjoy any unnecessary sequel. I'm glad it wasn't as awful as the previews made it look, but the first think I noticed in the movie was the "Sabor de Mierda" hotel, the Flavor of shit? I thought that might have really been what happened, WB forced the Wachowskis to make an unnecessary sequel. I do like the new Morpheus being contemptuous of what we call choices and Neil Patrick Harris as the analyst and the breaking down of the us vs them "real world" machine world duality. But there was a lot unsaid and trinity being the one at the end was a barely connected plot point. If this was a forced movie by WB, it was a mistake. If the Wachowski's did it on their own, they didn't need to, but I hope everyone had fun. I feel like it became cool to hate on Matrix 2 and 3 like hating on Pennywise or something. 2 and 3 fit perfectly into the story and like I said, were progressively very well done for a series. I really like the post credits scene talking about how cat videos are the next thing while discussing a Matrix sequel. Right after I got to China, I noticed that all public transportation had screens playing cat and dog videos and I thought, what an easy way to placate people. Hope I don't see that in the US. And then I think I was visiting New York, and saw the same type of cat videos on a screen ona bus or something. Then Americans elected Trump. Boy do Americans need accessible education. 4 made me think. I liked the Animatrix too, I like this universe with old-fashioned concepts like true love in the midst of a relentless progressive society. I remember I wanted to find the Matrik novel that the movies were based on, and I was literally shocked to discover that the movie was made before any novelizations, that it was a creative endeavor straight to screen. Pretty impressive.
Megamaind(2010) - Finally watched it. I can see why everyone liked it. I thought it was pretty funny, the animation was good, I liked the idea that superheroes are not static characters but have to move beyond the chapters of their lives they're most known for.
The Menu(2022) - This was kind of fun to watch with how extremely campy it was, but I thought it was too on the nose condemning food critics. It kept reminding me of how everyone hated Lady in the Water(Wait was John Leguizamo in Lady in the Water also? huh. Nah, doesn't look like it) ANYWAY it was just a joke for people that like to criticize cooking shows and foodie magazines. The whole movie was kind of like two wine moms bitching about how nobody cares about the food anymore. With the exception of Tyler, who really did deserve everything he got. His was probably the most abhorrent character to me.
Merantau(2009) - obviously their first movies, both the actor and the director, fun enough to watch, but very, very formulaic and choreographed and shot poorly. Amazing that the raid is so good two years later with both of them just in prime form.
Metropolis(1927) - This movie was crazy. It's crazy that theis was made a hundred years ago, and it's so easy to see how the terror and theatrics burned their image onto the culture of America. Maybe the first silent film(no-talkie) that I was actually captured by.
Midnight Sky(2022) - Pretty boring. I'd much rather see what happens after the end of this movie and how those two people who are about to have a daughter on a new planet intend to repopulate the human race with two parentsa nd one daughter. They are both scientists, very focused dedicated scientists and rationalists, so I'm wondering if they're going to condone incest because of the need to repopulate, or if they're just planning on being the last three humans in the universe and then dying out on a pretty planet. That would be a pretty interesting movie. I think- oh, what if it was a sci-fi Blue Lagoon? Yikes. I think I've read so many good post-apolcalyptic and apocalyptic novels and watched enough apocalyptic movies that unless the plot is elevated and so creative that I would never have thought of any of it myself then the average lone person in a world just seems plodding. Plodding. Plodding.
Moana(2016) - I didn't watch this movie when it came out because I hated the memories of growing up in Hawaii, but I do like Disney movies, and after Arin on Game Grumps started singing the song in Beauty and the Beast, I watched that and then was like Hey I never saw Moana and I'm far enough away from tha part of my life I can enjoy the story without being reminded of all the racism! But boy that opening song is boooring. But I did like Moana's song. And I laughed, once? It seemed sort of unfinished. Like all the animation was pretty good, but not great. Shiny was pretty funny, glad to heard Jermaine singing again. I thought I recognized the girl who voiced Moana, but I think I just knew a girl with that last name because she would have been like, four, haha.
Mom and Dad(2017) - Man, this movie blew me away the first time I saw it. White noise somehow brainwashes all parents into attacking their children with the intent to kill. And Nicolas Cage and Selma Blair! Very fun movie, the kids are good actors also, everyone is. And the rules are very compelling, the in-world rules. Anyway, I watched it again for Halloween and enjoyed it just as much the second time. It does loook very closely at the identity crisis parents go through when they realized the life they had is over and their new one revolves around someone else who is not obligated to care about them at all and slowly pushes them away or distances themselves for an extended perioud.
The Monster(2016) - Found this movie just because I was searching for movies taking place during rainstorms. This one does. The acting by both the mother and daughter astuounded me, I became really invested into their story. And then a monster shows up and that is rad also. Pretty silly ending, unfortunately, but I enjoyed the opening and meat of the movie.
Mortal Kombat series(1995) - I liked all the live-action movies and the TV show, but there just wasn't enough interest in video games twenty years ago to justify proper budgets. The new Legends movies in 2020 and 2021 were both good, I think the 2020 was a litle better. But it's a great series overall and fun to watch. And it has the best mindless theme song ever. MOR-TAL KOM-BAAAAAAAT!!!
The Mummy series(1995) - I watched the first one maybe twenty times because the hot priestess in the beginning has golden blue boobs and Brendan Fraser is so funny and Rachel Weisz is cute and the story is amazing and the monster is monstrous. Loved everything about it. I watched the second Mummy maybe a hundred times. I got into this routine where I would watch the first half after school and fall asleep just as the pygmummies leapt from the trees. Pass right out. It was pretty cool.
Nebulous Dark(2021) - Total garbage, but I shockingly watched the whole thing in maybe five different sittings. Aliens are ruining the earth, and there's a captain who...keeps reliving the same day...boring, not necessarily poorly acted but a little...it's a student film. It mush have been made for $40. If the story could have had more signals to the audience as to what the hell was happening, it might have bene a fun early film, but it was just so loosely connected that it was difficult to care about. I'm not sure why I finished watching it. THere was something interesting about the look of the movie, the textures and colors and desperation.
Neighbors(2014) - Not super funny, but I watched it all. Rose Byrne was about as funny as Rogen, and he has a baseline funny appeal that is pretty high to me. A lot of the jokes were on point and delivered well, but I didn't really laugh out loud until the airbag scene happened and then I exploded into laughter. Then the movie kept going and it eventually ended. Maybe I just have too much time these days(Philly 2023). I think I have to start writing books again. I think it was good how positive the frat interactions were also.
Nightflyers(1987) - Wow. This...okay. It has Catherine Mary Stewart. Who is the best. Night of the Comet. But every single component of this film aside from the acting is...absurd. CGI is just awful, props are awful, the writing is the worst, the character relationships are entirely random and awful, the laws of reality are absurd, everything is terrible. Sorry Catherine, you're still the best. Go watch Night of the Comet. It rocks. Gosh I hope they make the reboot so she can cameo in it.
The Nightmare on Elm Street(1984) - This became very interesting to me as it was the only horror series which consistently held my attention and interest, up to the point of looking forward to the next installment. Heather...Lagenkamp! Yea, I don't know the names of any actor from Friday the 13th except for Jaime...Curtis. But I really liked Heather Lagenkamp's performance in every single movie. Including the last one. The last one I watched is where Freddy invades Lagenkamp's life in the "real world." Gosh. Gosh oh gosh, it's really good. I really like this series.
The Night House(2021) - So, a guy commits suicide, and his wife stays at the house he committed suicide nearby, and discovers he had a whole other life she didn't know about that is tied up with his suicide. Sounded like a very promising story to me. Except, despite the twists and reveals, we don't find out why he did kill himself. And hos note to his wife is a chep added one liner that doesn't explain anymore of the story, and when Tulpas are revealed, the "hint" that he's been killing Tulpas to appease Death, which has been following her doesn't make a lot of sense since Tulpas are thought beings and the ladies he's been killing are real people, not tulpas. And then there's a friendly neighobr who saves her from killing herself at the end, who, like most elements of the story, seems to be disconnected from the overarching story of discovery. There were a lot of interesting individual elements, but the main story was so inconsistent and taped together and broad that it ended while I was trying to figure out why they were showing me all these trees without mentoining the forest.
Night Teeth(2021) - Little Silly, pretty fun. I bet everyone had a good time making it. It felt like the 90s horror genre again.
Ninja Scrool(1993) - I'm intersted in where this fits into the wandering samurai who kicks everyone else's ass timeline of animation. Worth watching, except for the sexism that is even worse thirty years ago in Japanese animation than it is today. The girl MADE OF POISON is not used at all in the movie even though she is the 2nd lead except to...have sex with the main guy. The old man is fun, lots of the story and characters are great, but geez, can we do something with her? "Oh, what about if she bangs the main character?" Thank you. Inspired.
Not Another Teen Movie(2001) - I watched this again after reading about how underrated a movie it is. I dunno, seems rated pretty well. I appreciate the breasts and I did laugh out loud once in twenty minutes, but I don't want to sit through the whole thing again. The ironic line "there's paint on her overalls!" to show how gross Janey is probably is the funniest part of the movie for me.
Old(2021) - Great. A lot weirder than I thought it was gonna be, plenty of twists and introductory curses throughout. Then it turns out it was an evil corporation. So it makes sense, too. I like Shyamalan.
Old Boy(2003) - I will punch you in the face if you tell me anything could improve this movie. Goddam, what a suspenseful amazing thriller. With tons of good fighting and the first twist that fucked me up for weeks. This movie is so well crafted and complex while remaining coherent that I...liked it. Sorry I couldn't finish stronger there. Omigersh, the hotel room? The octopus? Everything. What an amazing performance by the main character who is Korean so I don't know his name. Uh, the 2013 remake does not deserve a separate entry, it was bad.
Operator(2016) - good slow indie drama and I actually teared up a bit at the end. Plodding in the first couple acts, but I was interested enough to continue and finish the movie, and the premise and acting is all good.
Once(2007) - A fantastic Irish romance movie with original music composed by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova. I think I loved it because happy endings are for idiots, and this movie has a very happy ending, and you don't get to see it. Beatiful, fun, very moving because of the score. Soundtrack? Very moving because of one of those. I took several friends to this movie and one fell in like with me and her boyfriend was upset about it and was not upset when my girlfriend(not his girlfriend) cheated on me while she was drunk. Falling Slowly is a very good song from this movie. But so is the battery song? Whatever that battery song is. It's great.
Palm Springs(2020) - was not expecting this to be so good, but I laughed a LOT and was invested in both the characters. The character and story development was great, and all the comedy was on point. High five Palm Springs.
Pearl(2022) - Great movie, super weird and good horror, just like X. And that girl definitely has something about her, Mia Goth, I loved the credits scene. Great movie, I'm looking forward to MaxXxine.
Pig(2021) - Totally awesome, pretty fun. And weird enough that I didn't expect every turn. And fun stuff.
Plane(2023) - I was shocked at how much I ended up liking this movie. I do like plane movies ,and this movie is named plane, but it was fun and fresh and completely original while remaining mostly grounded wit the pirates, except I'm pretty sure they were all American and speaking Tagalog phonetically. And the CGI was was yeeeesh, but the actors and story were all measured and exciting and gratifying. Apparently they're making a sequel called SHIP? Hahahah, which I Will Watch.
Possessor(2021) - Yea, good. Loved the ending. The main lady who possesses people to turn them into psycho assassin-suicides for some high-level job ends up being taken over by her host mind and kills her family herself and then I think succumbs totally to the host mind and he takes over her body and job? The ending was a little confusing for me after the murders. the final murders. Of that movie.
Prelude to a Kiss(1992) - HDTGM - had a weird 90 desperation where you knew everything was going to resolved by the end of the movie, so everything that goes crazy in the episode is kind of "well, it's okay, becaues this will all work out in the end." And the characters themselves, even though their lives are completely ruined, they just shrug because "eh, i read the script, it'll be fine, no worries." Except when Baldwin held Meg Ryan hostage with a knife. That was pretty intense! maybe he filmed that before he really read the script.
Premature(2014) - very funny movie about I heard about on a podcast that I didn't watch initially because it sounded like a dumb teen comedy(ANALYSIS: CORRECT) but then I thought I'd give it a shot and am really glad I did, it had that "fun, we're all making a movie that makes us all laugh" vibe to it and I liked a lot of the answers. I thought everyone acted well, especially with the main characters best friend. He was a great comedic actor. And what was really interesting is that it fits the comedy sense of the podcast I was listening to, Sleepy Cabin. They're all animators and there's a joke in the movie: "'Isn't the mascot a bulldog?' and his friend looks really sad and says "I can't draw bulldogs.'" and I bet the podcasters loved that line because they all relate to it as animators. Very fun and funny. Oh and it reveals itself as a Groundhog Day movie forty minutes in, which is one of my favorite types of movies. So it was great.
The Prestige(2006) - Good movie, makes me want to see the other one. Ed Norton one. I believed I watched them both at the time.I remembered Jackman's secret, but I had to figure out Bale's again, which I did early on since there are SO many hints. Still, they're both such good actors, and Scarlet, it was good.
Prey(2022) - Most fun I've had watching a Predator movie in a while. The Comanches in real life say that it was very faithful to ancient Comanche culture, which does still concern me with Hollywood productions(Thanks Dances with wolves) and so I was free to just enjoy watching a Predator kick a grizzly bear's ass. They went Katniss of course, and she did a little too much spider-man parkour while nobody else had her skills, but I had a lot of fun watching it. I was hoping that they kill one predator and then a predator blitz happens, but...that's fine.
Prisoners(2013) - Yikes. Good movie, loved all the acting, Paul Dano is a good weirdo, Hugh Jackman is good, I really like Jake Gyllenhall. It was just a good movie.
Psychokinesis(2018) - This was the first SK movie I was not behind the overacting. The guy gets the most amazing superpowers in the wordl and really doesn't do anything. And the entire plot is hey, this construction company is trying to tear down our restaurant. So the guy, like, with the most amazing superpower ever, stops them? And then willingly goes te jail. Like? Don't think my heart beat quicker once during this...my heart probably slowed down while watching this movie. I was pretty bored!
The Purge series - I liked the first one for the creepy home invasion it was, and was encouraged to watch the rest of the series for their political stances. which seemed unoriginal to me, but I love Carrie Anne Moss and thought she did great as the upstart politician. Forever purge was fun and I guess scary with the current news cycle going on, but it...eh, was fine. About as salient as a well-done reddit critique of republicans. Pretty one-dimensional for me.
The Quest(1996) - I haven't seen bloodsport. This movie was terrible and nonsensical. So I started watching bloodsport and was like "oh, this is what that movie should have been. In fact, bloodsport already did this movie, way better, 8 years ago, why...did you make the quest? I guess because jcvd wanted to be a clown this time? Weird. Terrible movie.
Rad(1988) - Like calling a movie about fire "water." This has to be the most boring movie I have seen in a verrry long time. HDTGM. Hard to watch. I think I had it on double speed most of the time. It's just...the tricks were boring, the script was ridiculous, the teenagers were all 40, there was...nothing? Lori Laughlin was ridiclously good looking. Straight up nanners. But that's the only redeeming part. Ass-sliding is a game they play in sewer water in this movie. Don't like it!
The Raid Redemption(2011) - Probably the best action movie I've seen since B13, very fun and exciting. So was the second one. But the first one is the best of course.
Reefer Madness(2005) - I love this movie. So funny, everyone is beautiful, the dancing is amazing, the set and costumes are frickin perfect. The songs are fun! The animation is great. Everything is great. And it tells the squares to get out of town.
Red Notice(2021) - Fun dumb fun. Didn't learn anything. But I liked all the running and the snarky comments.
Regarding Henry(1991) - Pretty boring, but very heartwarming? And I'm sure it received so many accolades at the time because the baby boomers were just starting to realize that American capitalism and worker exploitation is not the most satisfying lifestyle to attach themselves to.
Reno 911: The Hunt for QAnon(2021) - Haha, this was funny! I never really got into the show much when I was younger, but I do want to try watching it again, because this movie was very funny.
Resident Evil series - I think I've seen all the Jovovich ones. I was obsessed with them and her for a long while. But she gained like telekieneses and pyrokinesis at the end of the first or second movie and was basically godlike and then still had to punch stuff in the later movies? That was a weird series. But fuuuuuun. But the 2021 reboot is great! I liked the characters, but they didn't take things too far, they didn't go crazy with special effects, it's the story of how a town is betrayed by a corporation and turns everybody into mutants, with tons of betrayals and secret knowledge poked about. I'm looking forward to further installmentns in the reboot.
Riddle of the Stinson(1987) - True story about a 1936 Crash of a Stinson in some mountains near Sydney. A reclusize bogun(yea, I know the word) who is suave and clever and suspicious of the government's capabilities goes out and finds the plane himself! That's the movie. Could have been shorter.
Rocky saga - I just rewatched this after seeing Creed, and it's such a good movie. So insane. The characters are all insane. I'd love to read a book about the making of the movie. I'm sure I can find some good behind-the-scenes videos on youtube. The violence and emotional abuse of Paulie, the practically dumb ADRIAAAAN who I love, it's just such a crazy movie. Makes me want to watch the first Rambo again.
Ronal the Barbarian(2011) - wanted to like it, but the animation was dull and entirely uncreative, the colors were dull, the jokes were crude and shallow(except to June's point on HDTGM, the background tags which were funny sometimes) and the themes were as trite as you could conceive. And the plot didn't flow at all. Disaster. June loved it, so maybe she is right and this is a movie for adult women and literally nobody else on the planet, but I doubt it. Garbage boring garbage.
Rush Hour(1998) - I thought this movie was hilarous. My friend and I saw it about six times in the movie theater? Roughly. I would watch it again. I remember the second one was fine and the third one was embarassing, but...the first one is gold. So much good action, before I know Jackie Chan was a very likely drug runner and sex trafficker. Recommend!
Salo(1975) - I'm not sure if this movie is generally positively reviewed because so many people are sexually repressed and feel like they have to artistically congratulate a completely disgosting film glorifying the sexual abuse of children via genital mutilation and eating fecal matter, but I just found it disgusting and without redeeming value. Positive reviews on it seem to liken it to the horrors of Nazi Germany, but I don't need a crude metaphor to understand the horror of genocide. And it's a ridiculous and thoughtless comparison to make. Watch it if you want to see how disgusting a movie can be while adhering to a strict "no-redeeming-qualities" mantra, but I don't think you should watch it since the movie is just humiliating, violent, excrement-laden child porn.
Saturday Night Fever(1977) - Fine. less dancing than staying alive, so, eh. But I did like the last twenty minutes. I'm glad Tony just instantly knew that he was beat at the dance competition, then I liked that he was such a bad friend that his friend killed himself, then I liked that he became friends with,,,girl at the end. Suzanne? But I was bummed that immediately after they're like "We're friends and that's it," the first thing she's scripted to do is take his hand and kiss him. Hey, friends don't do that. Especially after you try to rape them. Weird movie. I would have enjoyed following Frank a lot longer. I'm kind of bummed that none of his family is in the sequel. Except his mom. But I mean, his sister, brother, his father, nobody? Weird. Oh, and I can't really think of another movie that surprised me with a gang rape scene after everything else. That was uncomfortable.
Scott Pilgrim vs the World(2010) - The actors are all perfect, the adaptation is amazing, it's so funny and exciting and a great story. I love this movie! My mom loved it, and even Gena was absorbed in it for more than 30 minutes, which is some kind of record. Too bad Isa couldn't make it, she probably would have loved it too. That's alright, we can watch Terrifier.
The Screaming Silent(2016) - Found footage film that I liked more than other found footage films. I liked the scene in which Shea is convinced of the worthiness of the movie script. I like the interplay between Kurt and Bryan. I didn't like that Kurt is only 0 or 100 in terms of psychosis. He hits 100 several times in a row, so what I expect is supposed to be his developing madness is no surprise later in the film. But if you want a found footage horror film, it's fun, the writing and cinematography is mostly good.
Sea of Love(1989) - This is the first move I didn't hate Pacino the entire way through. I don't know what it is, but every time I see that guy acting, his nervousness really gets to me. This was good and actually climactic. And pretty exciting, when he confronts her in her bedroom with the gun becaues he thinks she'll use it on him. Yea, pretty good. Weird confrontation with his ex-wife's new husband though. But I guess he does work with him every day. Al Pacino is weird.
Shadow in the cloud(2020) - I like goblins. Gremlins! in planes. And I always wonder why there aren't more shows or movies about them. This one was good. Chloe Grace Moretz is good. And they make the fight believable enough that she could have killed the gremlin? I think.
The Shape of Water(2017) - It's like Amelie. Wait, it's nothing like Amelie. They speak French. Everything else is gold. I like French. It's all gold. It's a great movie about a girl falling in love with a merman. Totally ridiculous unless Guillermo del Toro is directing and you have Michael Shannon as the bad guy! Who is amazing. And all the other amazing crew members and cast. And a perfect dialogue. And visceral special effects. Amazing movie.
Shark Side of the Moon(2022) - I stumbled on this while looking for a different movie, thought I'd check it out on a bicycle ride home with a dozen beers in my bag, and in that context, stopping at various picnic tables and enjoying a beer and ten minutes of the film at a time, I enjoyed how ludicrous everything was. Like the space shuttle commander gets appendicities so tehy need teh backup pilot but they immediately cut to him on a motorcycle so they must have raidioed him on his motorcycle and hu just drives up to NASA HQ or whatever and gets on the shuttle like, Okay, ready to rock. But when I had to really dig into the second half, the movie didn't end. It just kept...occurring and the tedium took hold.
She's Missing(2019) - This is good. I like Lucy Fry, and she did a really good country girl portrayal here. Culty weirdness.
Significant Other(2022) - Well, I did not see that coming. So far, Maika Monroe only chooses good movies to star in. Gonna keep watching things.
Single White Female(1992) - Geez, I've been hearing about this movie my whole life. It's a trope. It's pretty crazy. Tobolowsky is disgusting, Leigh is scary and believably unhinged. I'm brining a turkey right now, Thanksgiving Eve, Nov. 22 2023, sea salt and brown sugar.
Sky High(2005) - A fun superhero high school movie. Much better than the concept sounds. Great actors, good writing, very good technical roundabouts avoiding the CGI of the day. Fun. Oh, and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is as babe as ever. She's such a good actor too. I think I've liked every single time I've sen her act. Even in that super Shitty Will Smith Will Smith movie. She was still good even though that movie SUCKED.
Skyggen(1998) - Weird Danish hacking cyberpunk movie, much more interesting than its acting and production budget would suggest. Especially interesting with how many similarities there are to the Matrix since it came out before the Matrix although the Wachowskis performed alchemy with their movie and this one is fairly mundane. The aesthetic, smooth skinned protagonist, Matrix sunglasses, Trinity fights back, the agents putting a "bug" in him, lots of similarities. Worth watching at double speed.
Southern Comfort(1981) - Weird. None of the charcters were good people. Everybody was an undisciplined idiot that only cared abuot themselves. And then the Louisiana national guard, undiscipline and irreverent as they were, attacked Cajun rivermen with blanks, stole their boats and then seemed surprised for the next 90 minutes that the Cajuns wanted to kill them. "What the hell's going on?" was a really popular refrain even though they guardsmen knew exactly what they did and that the Cajuns were after them for revenge. Why did everyone act so confused? Odd movie.
Star Wars - 4-6 are cool, 7-9 were fine, then frustrating and then terrible. I've just rewatched the prequels, and while the first and second were very difficult to watch because of the poor, poor acting and boring plotlines, I liked #3. The backgrounds at least had some depth to them, which let me focus more on the scenes, Anakin's surliness finally made sense, Obi-wan's devotion and belief seemed genuine, Portman still acted real rough, just not good. And Hayden. And a lot of them. But 3 at least felt like a movie and I enjoyed it. Watched the Anti-Cheese Edits btw, don't think I could have survived the extra 30-40 minutes in each film.
Staying Alive(1983) - This was a weird doozy. I definitely just like dancing, because even though Tony is such an awful person and the lead female dancer is such an awful person, I kept watching the movie and enjoying it just because of the dancing. I was very surprised that Tony "changed" halfway through the movie and realized he was being selfish and controlling toward Jackie, that half-a-change(he was still selfish and controlling after) at least made it possible to watch him succeed in the Broadway show(with his impromptu solo, which it is ridiculous to imagine could be allowed to happen). And the ending scene of him strutting is maybe the funniest ending series of shots I've seen in a long time. And he just leaves Jackie behind again, to go 'strut." Pretty funny.
Suzume(2023) - A good cartoon movie. I enjoyed it the whole way through, but I laughed in the theater and even find it funny hours later that the climax of the movie is her spoiler kissing a chair spoiler, ahhaha! It's such an emotionally charged movie pretty much the entier time, and then she kissed a chair and I realized it was the climax of the movie and just lost it. Very pretty, lots of interesting details in the animation.
There's Someone Inside Your huose(2021) - Terribly bland title, great movie, bland ending.
There's Something in the Barn(2023) - Very excited to see Martin Starr star, but boy this movie was a mess. Didn't know if it was rated R or not, jokes were all over, the plot was a little janky, it was real messy.
Triangle(2009) - I remember stumbling on this while searching for maybe a Bermuda Triangle documentary, or...something. Anyway, I liked it. Lots of fun twists and dimensional issues. Hm. Maybe I'll watch it again actually. After the other hundred things on my list. Just checking the year for this movie, I am going to watch a goofy Bermuda Triangle miniseries with Lou Diamond PHilips. And Sam Neill. Like, a lot of big names(this was boring and i didn't finish it).
Somali and the forest Spirit(2020) - Really good story that starts out a little too cutesy for my taste and ends up getting pretty dark and sad, but exciting and touching as well. I dig it.
Southbound(2015) - A good anthology. The stories all fit together well, although I wish I knew what the dad in the last story had done to warrant what happened and why those masked characters were after him The special effects kept up with the creepiness, and there were a lot of pretty gruesome scenes that managed not to seem gratuitous to me. I liked it. Don't usually like anthologies, but I guess since these all seemed to fit into a larger tableau it was pretyt good. And none of the horror went overboard or was pedantically explained. Yea. good.
Space Jam(1996) - The first Space Jam is obviously a very fun, inspirational national treasure. I couldn't get past fifteen minutes of the second. "A New Legacy" iiiiis rough. Lebron is such a bad actor I want to go back to the first one and see how bad Jordan et al. were.
Speak No Evil(2022) - Okay. I liked the first and second acts. The suspense builds, the characters are believable, it's all good. And you know a turn is coming, of course, with all the suspense and mundane domestic terror BUT the last twenty minutes or whatever are ridiculous. The movie does not have to have a happy ending, but the sequence of events that leads to the unhappy ending completely upend credulity. It makes no sense that they stay at the house after going back for the rabbit. No sense that nobody saw the rabbit in front of the little girl. Unlikely, but at least possible. way less likely and ridiculous - husband doesn't tell wife that crazy family KILLED their son and dozens of other children and that he found a murder mememnto cabin? And then, even crazier, he LEAVES his family in the car, alon, with no instructions to not open the door for the murderers! Then the murderers kidnap the family, pick up the husband, who does not fight back and is completely subdued by a single punch from Patrick? the unrestrained Mother doesn't fight back AT ALL while they cut off her daughters tongue in front of her, in the car. I guess the lesson was like, stand up to evil or this will happen to you - but the mom and dad had been standing up to the bad stuff, and disengaging when confrontation seemed unnecessary by leaving the house completely, but the movie should be caulled see no evil. Because they preteneded things were okay according to the movie? Is it called speak no evil becaues they cut out the girls tongue? Because the wife didn't tell her husband that someone brushed their teeth while she took a shower? Pretty big consequence for not speaking about the "evil" act of leery toothbrushing. Okay, then we get to the end of the movie, after mutilating the little girl and then just taking her and the parents don't fight back or try to get their little girl back, they just accept their fate and strip naked and allow themselves to be stoned to death. Totally unrestrained and not even hurt. They just march to their murder. But it just didn't fit the story. The mother was very protective of her daughter until she was compelled by the script not to be in the last twenty minutes. It would have been so easy to hit the husband on the back of the head to incapacitate him rather than one short punch in the stomach that...knocked him out? or restrain them! None of them were restrained the whole time, including the girl, who couldn't pull her tongue back? They could hold her tongue with their fingers? Dumb. Just restrain the family, make them not communicatie anything with each other the whole movie, instead of being largely communicative and then not talking about murder or fighting back or what is happening at the end. Very easy fix plotwise that was not fixed. Frustrating in such a suspenseful, quality story until the murder cabin. The ending twenty just seemed like a plot mess they tried to force through with violence porn.
Spiderhead(2022) - Pretty good, but the big reveal was not such a big reveal because Chris Hemsworth is the most commanding presence in the movie. So of course he's actually in charge of everything. He's the only one who exercises, he has the biggest room, he's allowed to go behind everyone's back, the only one who lies, the only one without any rules and he's the physically biggest person in the movie. Maybe except for Rogan? But he's a prisoner, soooo. So when the movie is like, hey, it was HIM all along! You're like, well, fucking yeah. Even if it wasn't his company, everything would have been the same. I did like a lot of stuff, the detail about leaving the star off center and Rogan talks, and ethical vs practical dilemmas. It was good, but not particularly memorable for me. Oh, and when the main characters laughed at the end on the boat, it seemed pretty out of character for both of them.
Spree(2020) - I don't know whose fault this is, but if you're going to make what I guess is supposed to be a horror movie, you can't make your main character and killer so incredibly non-threatening and irritating. I don't know if the main actor chose to act this way or if he was written as such an annoying loser, but...if this is a movie about how this could happen, a centent creator getting fed up and killing people, pretty boring nothing going on, and if it's supposed to present the possibility in some horrific mark, totally missed the boat by making your scary character so whiny and ineffectual. "That was the point." Okay, well, it didn't click. And why did you make him kill morally shitty people? Were they more okay to kill than any normal character with more than one side to their personality, who didn't exist in the movie? Wow. I dislked this movie much more than I thought.
Starship Troopers(1997) - The changes were not great, but it's a movie adaptation. The book is so serious I'd like to know how they came up with a goofier idea. But it wasn't AS goofy as I remebber it also. I nonstalgiacally like the teacher/sergeant Dubois who became Zim or Radcyk, I coudln't even keep him straight, but that actor is great. The funniest part was during the giant fight scene between Rico and intruding love interest, I heard the gentle, lacrimose twangs of "Fade Into You" by Mazzy Star playing while they threw each other into tables and punched each other. Hoo boy, Denise Richards was HOHoooooo boy. ST2 - Pretty terrible, the CG of the bugs was the best part of the movie, if that says anything, being the same as the first movie and only about five minutes of the movie. The bugs being inside people was interesting, but it was shot like a student film, and then the ending was one of the least sensical or explicable things I've ever seen on screen. A helicopter comes down to rescue the two survivors, and Dax puts Sahara on the plane, and then stays behind to die. Everyone's like "just get on the chopper" and he just tells them he'll hold them off, even though he easily could just step on and they could go. He has plenty of time. They all do. Then Sahara cries out his name as they fly away. The whole thing was weeeird and bad. Pretty on par with expectations for it. On to 3! With 2, I thought that at least they still had the cool CGI to carry them along with the weird bugs. With three, it seems like the CGI got worse. The final scene, where they spent their entire $600 I'm guessing as their CGI budget, in 2008? Totally ridiculous graphically. I liked that part where everyone got naked. Other than that, the movie is pretty unforgettable with some interesting storylines that were not made compelling at all. I'm gonna watch the tv shows they made of them though. I just found out that the earliest video adaptation is actually an anime too, so I'll have to watch that. I watched traitors of Mars(2017), which was a fun sequel, but would have been better with a slightly larger production budget or slightly better animators. The animation felt pretty stiff, although the character models were done well and could have been more visually capturing with an eye on animation. The storyline with Carl pretending to be Diz could have been interesting, but was ignored largely and there was no funny moment where Rico realized the kiss Diz gave him to wake him up in the desert was Carl. Idk, it was good, better than the other sequels, but it fell a little short in character development and largely animation. I think with animation and a few more pivotal character choices(and definitely better dialogue, wow, the writing was BORING and actually literally repetitive, which was weird), it could have been a great movie. I hope they make another and it remedies these issues.
Storm Boy(1976) - This is another good, very Australian, film. It's necessary to watch on my David Gulpilil journey. What's interesting is, I took a break after watching most of the movie, and got back to it later that afternoon. Checked the timestamp, I was only 19 minutes in! A shocking amount is packed into this pretty short movie. Clocks in under 80 minutes I think. David Gulpilil is amazing, of course, but it's the complexity of the character dynamics and the trained pelican that really threw me off. The star is a young Australian who is named Storm Boy by Bone-finger Bill, Gulpilil's character. The boy, 10 or something, lives with his dad, who wants his son to stay with him in his sea shanty instead of going to school in the city, his dad doesn't want him raisisng orphaned pelicans that the boy found. The dad is unhappy the boy is making friends with Bill. But the dad isn't even an unlikeable character. He's suspicious and...ornery, but he consistently proves that he loves his son and is willing to take a chance on a new path in life if it will benefit his son. Then there is everything that bill does, his cool pelican dance, his amazing storm singing, and jogging up with a rifle to confront poachers. Throw in some Australian mythology and amazing tricks the pelican in the movie does, like playing catch and...I'm sure there were other things. I just thought birds were dumb as hell! Turns out *I* am dumb as hell! Who knew?
Submarine(2013) - I'm very surprised I remembered this movie. I started it up and before anything was on screen had like a flash that turned out to be a flashback of an intrictaely painted 70s type van and thought oh that's weird, and then I recognized it after watching a few minutes.
Suspiria(1977) - The actors were all wonderfully strange and many of the scenes were drawn out to uncomfortable silences and the weirdness about how interested everyone was in money and their shortness with the main character made a great atmosphere. I'm excited to see the remake. I also liked this main actress, and that her voice was somewhat low throughout the movie, it was strange since she's a petite waif. Just a good weird movie about a ballet witch and the institution she controls. I'm looking for the 2001 documentary about it.
Sword of the Stranger(2007) - A pretty well-done anime with likeable characters that didn't wow me. The fighting animation was aways impressive.
Tau(2018) - Described as "A girl must befriend an AI to escape her house" it was nothing like I expected. Pretty good. The broken rules for the AI were a little ehhhh, but it was a fun movie.
A Taxi Driver(2017) - great dramatization of the Korean Civil War. Whoever that most famous Korean actor is, he is great. I don't like historical fiction novels, and few of the movies, but this is a pretyt fascinating story with a narratavie by the German journalist I found fascinating.
Terrifier(2016) - This movie is great for a horror fan. The clown is creepy and aggressive and just a great monster. But it's pretty gross, soooo watch out. There's a second one! Not out yet, but I'll watch it when it comes out. It's impressive to have such a new character in a horror movie. Well, not new, but original and so unique. Okay, so with the first Terrifier, eveyything except the last violent scene where he saws a woman hanging upside down in half, I did chalk up to mad horror clown. That scene seemed a little glorify-y. This second movie, a whole lot of it seemed just angry with women and glorification-y. The second movie worried me a lot more for the writer/director than the first one did. Men did die also in the movie, but not as brutally or cruelly as the women. I did like the ending sequence where the main actress' sword magically healed her and she went back and cut off Terrifier's head. But I hope Damien Leone is just trying to do a new style of horror movie instead of secretly being a murderer or something else horrible like Salvo.
They Look Like People(2016) - I've watched all of his movies now, this one started me off. Very weird, all schizophrenia, half a question. I was pretty captivated by it, and it's amazing what they can do on all of these movies considering what I'm assuming is a shoestring budget. There is a lot of tension.
Threads(1984) - A film we should show to every elected politician so that they understand the consquences of nuclear holocausts. Caveat: must elect politicians who care about people.
Till Death(2021) - Very good movie. Really shocking and suspenseful, and it's Megan Fox! I liked "Jennifier's body" too that everyone hated.
Tim's Vermeer(2013) - Tim is one of those guys that has got things right. Tech genius who sold his company for a bunch of money and then focuses on one interesting project to the next. On this project, he spends a lot of resources and time recreating the setting of and painting a Vermeer because he thinks he figured out how Vermeer painted color so perfectly. Technology and art combined. And he probably did figure it out. It was a very good documentary.
Toast(2010) - Goddammit, I just waited an hour and a half for the cooking to start and then it never started and the movie ended. This could have been a 30 minute movie and had far more emotional impact. Good actors, extremely slow movie that didn't need about an hour of footage.
The Tomorrow War(2021) - It was good, but I feel like it should have been less forgettable? The creatures were fantastic, loved them. And I liked the interplay between father-daughter, and the timestream narrative was compelling without being pedantic. But the movie still ended up just being fine. Hm.
Tourist Trap(1979) - Wow, lot going on. A telekinetic schizophrenic artistic masked serial killer wax museum and BnB/grotto host systematically murders a group of 35-year-old teenagers out for a joy ride. The special effects are laughable, The girl in the tube top is fine(damn fine) and the movie is so strange that it's worth watching if you like campy horror flicks.
Train to Busan(2016) - I mean, zombies on a train. Acutally not as...suspenseful? Thrilling? As I expected, but still action packed and very well executed. Maybe it was just the fastidiousness of the main character that put me off. But I liked the movie.
Tremors series(starting 1990) - The first movie was probably my introduction to monster movies. I remember the jokes, the terror, the horror, and the romance. I loved this movie and watched it endlessly. The strangest thing in the world was, our VHS tape of this movie listed Elisabeth Shue as the main actress. I noticed this and pointed it out to my siblisngs, who didn't notice or care. Elisabeth Shue was not the main actress in Tremors. I borrowed Tremors from different movie places and watched all the versions I could of it, and the credits at the end of the movie always listed the lead actress as Finn Carter, the actual lead actress. I thought I had just gone crazy. Then, in Maui, I think, I was at a hotel with a friends family and at the end of a very fun day riding Zodiacs across the water and driving around and walking through strip malls, Tremors was playing when we walked in the door! Okay. I didn't say anything, but even though we were all exhausted, I stayed up to the end of the movie, and when the credits started to roll, I almost woke up my friend because there it said: Elisabeth Shue as the main actress. What the heck? What the heck was that about? After it scrolled past, I was very angry I couldn't share this error with anybody else, because who cared anyway, but I was vindicated. Whatever copy this evening cable monster movie came from also had the wrong credits imported from somewhere. It was a weird mystery to me for years. And then I solved it. Or was granted a reprieve, I guess, by the fates.
Trespass(2011) - Boring and bad. I remember Frank once mentioned to me while i was housesitting for him that he didn't like Nicole Kidman, and I liked Moulin Rouge so much that I couldn't understand why. But boy, is she just...barely even there. Barely even there in her role.
Trollhunter(2010) - Thank you, Angie. Angie described the best scene in the movie to me and I watched it, and it's one of my favoriet movies. A crew of young strapping adults go searching for trolls in Norway and find them just a few seconds after a bearded hermit Troll hunter comes screaming out of the woods. And then things just keep getting better. What a great movie.
Tuff Turf(1985) - Robert Downey Jr. always has way too much makeup as a younging and I'm always surprise nobody mentioned it. Any movie before he's 40, RDJ looks like a ventriloquists dummy. Okay, but this movie stars James Spader. HDTGM, but I liked this movie a lot. Spader was already Spader, guess he always was, and I couldn't believe how violent and...lethal this movie was. Like, it's a high school movie, supposed to be set in high school with high school students, but in the first ten minutes, not as an accident, one student tries to murder another one with his car. Another "hoodlum" beats the shit out of his girlfriend and her dad. The bad high school students straight up shoot someone else's dad TWICE, then at least one of them gets killed at the end by Spader, RDJ gets shot in the femoral artery, like. It is a violent movie. In the midst of wacky country club hijinks and a Spader love ballad. I walk the NIGHT!" But it's good. Oh and their mom is sleeping with her son(keeps stroking his arm, leaning in and whispering things to him, coy smiles, inside jokes and looks) and it made me uncomfortable.
Twilight(some year, who cares?) - Yea, I saw it. I wanted to date a girl in college, she liked the books, I read them all the same weekend and discussed them with her, it worked, we dated three years. I loved her. But boy. Boy did I not want to see this movie. I did. And there was two minutes where the vampires played baseball, the most boring sport, where I was slightly interested in the movie. Then that ended and I can't remember anything else. He smelled her? Garbage.
The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent(2022) - I loved the first half. Everything was funny, then there were high stakes, but the joke did start to wear old as the movie kept going...and going...and going... I still liked it, and it was fun, but maybe a bit too long? Pedro Pascal was the performance of the movie. Which is...ironic.
Underwater(2020) - I liked it. Didn't love it, but I liked it. It is intense as shit. I just feel like maybe the pacing was off? I didn't have a lot of time to become scared of those weirdo monsters, they were just there all the time and everyone was screwed. Should have been longer?
Uninvited(1988) - I guess I watched this stupid movie about a mutant monster cat. Don't worry about it.
Us(2019) - Boy oh boy, this might be my favorite horror movie. Home invasion movies are always weird and creepy, and I liked Funny Games, but the pure recklessness just didn't ring true. This has everything. A strange setting, strange creatures, strange worlds, and a beautifully circular plot that manages to stay thrilling for two hours straight. I could watch this again tomorrow. What a great horror movie.
Voyage of the Rock Aliens(1984) - this movie - HDTGM - is AMAZING! This might be one of my favorite movies of all time. Worth every shitty movie I watched for that podcast. This is amazing. Great songs, really fun, VERY funny, I laughed out loud the first AND second time I watched the movie. clever, tiny side jokes all around the place. Everything was so satisfying. And the dancing and singing was choreographed well. VOYAGE OF THE ROCK ALIENS! Inexplicable and undeniably funny.
The Wailing(2016) - A new ghost movie that felt old to me, just 90s ish. The way the ghost was dealt with and uncovered and everything was creative and creepy. I liked it, overall, but I got a little confused at the end, and definitely frustrated with the Dad who just refused to stick to ANYTHING. Seems like he coulh have avoided a lot of pain if he wasn't such a lazy non-thinker. But definitely worth a watch if you like ghouls and creepers.
Until We Meet Again(2002) - Wow. This was a bad movie. Intensely forgettable and wildly inconsistent. Ghost piano man, I watched it for HDTGM.
Vacation Friends(2020) - John Cena is so funny. Everyone else was fine, and the sequel means everyone was a better actor, but John Cena carried bouth movies on his absolutely ridiculous frame. He really is so much fun to watch. It was great to see Buscemi too. Not going to learn any lessons, but it is fun to hang out with some cocaine-wielding come-what-may wackos and their friends.
Vengeance(2022) - This movie is great. I was surprised at how well everything was written and played off the tropes of city boy down home, the very meaningful and heartfelt speeches given by the record producer. I loved that part where Novak visits his studio. The only weird part was how qquickly he turned on the whole family directly after having his "aha" moment that everything really was pretty good in the South when you have family. He basically tells everyone he meets he loves them and then finds out about one lie they told him and really freaks out, 0 to 100. I would like to see if that scene made more sense in a director's cut, but I wouldn't bet on it since the "come together" moment and the "Get thee behind meee! satan are staged at the same table, maybe 30 seconds apart. That pacing is my only problem though, I liked all the characters, and the jokes, and again, the great speeches by the studio producer. And the story was satisfying over all. And the ending was surprising! All good.
Vertigo(1958) - This movie showed me exactly how important it is to have a good actor in your movie versus a bad one. And it may not be down to training or experience but simple perspective and atmospheric context. I think part of why we idolize actors in bygone days is because they just moved slower. They talked slower, they waved an arm slower, they considered slower and more fully. And I think that resonates more with modern humans. In Vertigo, we don't have CGI to tell us how scary it is to be dangling from a rooftop, we have to rely on the full conveyed experience of the actor. The actor takes their time to convery that fright, theat height, that fear, and the camera takes its time to capture all of that. Today, we have a perfectly rendered model of streets five hundred feet down and that background image is so frightening that directors simply film their actors screaming their lines and then move on to the next scene. "Uh, yeah, it was terrifying, did you see the dailies? It looks like a real street five hundred feet below." The actors are rarely called on to give anything more than their presence.
Voyage of the Rock Aliens(1984) - Heard about this from HDTGM, enjoyed the first viewing so much I had to watch the entire movie again the next day. Almost dressed up as Arnold for Halloween, then realized I had to be a ROCK ALIEN! I listen to some of these songs pretty often just riding around. This movie is about aliens looking for rock and roll under xenophobic suspicion by Ruth Gordon as sheriff of Heidi, the town where the local battle of the bands is playing, where the leader(who doesn't sing or play instruments) of the best band in town bans his girlfriend Pia Zadora from participating in, who joins the aliens and gets attacked by a swamp monster whose internal chemistry is composed of bubbles while the leader of the aliens woos Pia and convinces her to run away with him into the galaxy to make rock music, but not make love during a jailbreak at the town psychiactric hospital that the local organizer/mechanic will quell by falling for the chainsaw murderer, who really just needs a firm and competent romantic partner.
Why Him(2016) - Funny. Bryan Cranston is such a good straight man and Key is in it doing a terrible German? accent and is hilarious. The parkour is great, and Franco is funny, everything is pretty funny. Pretty trope-y but a lot of fun.
Wicker Man(1973) - Go watch it. Great, great acting, great story, amazing set and costumes, the songs are genuinely beautiful to listen to, and it's a twisted sex island murder island. What a great movie. The remake is not gettin its own entry and can go fuck itself, one of the worst movies I've ever seen.fur
Wide Awake(1998) - One of Shyamalan's films. Very well done. The build up was touching and engaging, but the ending was an anticlimatic twist that perhaps would have been more interesting to a religious audience. Shyamalan was more spiritual then.
Willy's Wonderland(whocares?) - Nic Cage. Why? Why did he make this? No lines, Just beats the shit out of robots(Five Nights at Freddy's ripoff), which is actually pretty fun. I did watch the whole thing. Which shocked me. The characters, the writing . Yuck. Nic Cage? Juts a joy. But probably not worth watching this movie anyway. It's amazing he didn't have any lines.
Winnebago Man(2010) - A welcome expansion of my understanding of the man behind one of the funniest youtube videos ever.
X(2022) - I thought this was a fun creepo horror flick. The alligator chase scare in the beginning was very nervewracking, the hammer on her hand in the basement door was horrifying, the old people having sex was bizarre spoilers, and I thought the writing was very coherent. Sometimes one line of a movie feels like ti's from a different movie altogether, but I thought this was a very well-crafted story with charaacters I was sad to see go bye-bye into deathland.
XX(2017) - a collection of creepy bizarre short stories. I liked 'em.
xXx(2002) - I'm just including this movie because I have X and XX on the list already. I don't know, I'me pretty sure I liked this moive when I was fifteen. Maybe I should watch it again?