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The Vinegar Syndrome hype for that got me good, then I watched that blu ray and it was like watching a fever dream.
On topic:
Valerian
-it was ok, a couple of casting mistakes were made.
Movie opinions thread (what have you seen, what did you think?)
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The Vinegar Syndrome hype for that got me good, then I watched that blu ray and it was like watching a fever dream.
On topic:
Valerian
-it was ok, a couple of casting mistakes were made.
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Valerian is pretty nice eye candy on 4K disc. Bought a 4K TV after I watched it with a friend.
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After Spider-Man I thought Dean Dehan’s career would take off a little more
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Just scooped Macross +. Yeah the price is dumb for dumb dumbs-but they had me at arcade game content *and* putting everything in a LD sized box, w/ the ‘94 LD artwork.
Seems to have been put together by people that give a shit. Word to the pre-Malcom in the Middle’s Dad’s Isamu dub!
Seems to have been put together by people that give a shit. Word to the pre-Malcom in the Middle’s Dad’s Isamu dub!
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Fast Times At Ridgemont High- God damn what a cast, every time I watch it I spot another familiar face. Great pacing, great soundtrack and possibly one of the most realistic and relatable teen movies ever made. John Hughes stuff is too insulated, shamltzy and teen angsty, they work for what they are but they're never really very relatable. This on the other hand is for the most part a more accurate portrayal. The characters are more grounded, the world they're in is more real and the things they go through are portrayed less dramatically even though they are much more important and life changing. By the 90's forget about it, our generation got absolute garbage in the way of teen movies like American Pie and crappy Hughes retreads. (Can't Hardly Wait and Not Another Teen Movie are fun though.) The only other teen movie that comes close to this is Dazed And Confused but it's much lighter movie.
I can't emphasize the pacing enough though, it just goes from the opening frame and sets everything up on the way and it totally works.
Oh yeah and Phoebe Kate's titties.
Absolute classic.
I can't emphasize the pacing enough though, it just goes from the opening frame and sets everything up on the way and it totally works.
Oh yeah and Phoebe Kate's titties.
Absolute classic.
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The whole time I watched that movie, I couldn't stop thinking about how obvious it was they were hoping for a new franchise. One that was so clearly not going to happen. Poor Besson.
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Fast Times is great. I don't really wish to compare it to Hughes's stuff (which I really like) but I would say I think Heckerling got a pretty nice break with a Cameron Crowe script. I don't see anything else shes done really. Look whos talking, Clueless? Hughes wrote his own stuff and has more memorable movies imo. He eventually became a hack too and did shit like Flubber. Dazed and Confused is wonderful.
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Yeah Crowe's script definitely helps a lot for sure.
Hughes stuff is fine but it's all just so safe. Bunch of rich white kids in the Chicago suburbs whose biggest problem is going to prom or trying to get laid.
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Welp, Civil War (Garland, not superheroes) finally hit streaming here, so I watched it.
It was...okay. Other than the fetishizing of newspaper reporters, which seems so anachronistic in the post-1990s world. And since that's about 80% of the movie, that does hurt it a little. But the complete glossing over of the politics, which I thought was going to be a negative, actually helped the movie (other than me being completely unable to buy into the idea of Texas choosing to team up with California under any circumstance). I thought the depiction of the US as a failed state, devolving into a shithole third world country was pretty well done. And Todd from Breaking Bad playing the most depressingly-recognizable and believable character in the film.
Easily my least favorite of Garland's movies so far, but I do think it will be helped by the passing of time. I think if anyone watches this in another 20 years, well after however long the Trump era lasts, they will have a completely different kind of experience to us watching it today. Still probably won't be great, though.
It was...okay. Other than the fetishizing of newspaper reporters, which seems so anachronistic in the post-1990s world. And since that's about 80% of the movie, that does hurt it a little. But the complete glossing over of the politics, which I thought was going to be a negative, actually helped the movie (other than me being completely unable to buy into the idea of Texas choosing to team up with California under any circumstance). I thought the depiction of the US as a failed state, devolving into a shithole third world country was pretty well done. And Todd from Breaking Bad playing the most depressingly-recognizable and believable character in the film.
Easily my least favorite of Garland's movies so far, but I do think it will be helped by the passing of time. I think if anyone watches this in another 20 years, well after however long the Trump era lasts, they will have a completely different kind of experience to us watching it today. Still probably won't be great, though.
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Oh, and I liked some of the directorial choices, like the Lincoln Memorial being blown up treated completely deadpan, almost a background detail, rather than played for spectacle like the White House in ID4.
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The potential was there but casting Dean as a heartthrob when he clearly is not did the movie zero favors
On topic:
The Big Hit
-such a fun movie
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@terry.330 I'm requesting this one more time
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I'll have to see if it's on any streaming service. Last time I looked it wasn't on anything and the DVD/Blu-ray was stupidly expensive. I've wanted to watch it for a while but just never run across it.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice- Eh, this wasn't an embarrassment but it was still pretty lousy. It could have been better but Burton didn't seem able to rope himself in. The movie is so overstuffed it's ridiculous, There are like 6 different plots and none of them feel very connected to each other. By the end they just kind of cram everything together at the last second and it's really awkward.
On the plus side everyone seemed to be having fun and the performances were good for the most part. There were some fun visuals and a bit of the classic Tim Burton touch but it just wasn't enough to overcome the mess of plots or how disconnected everything felt.
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The Assassination Bureau (1969). It was fun, but the humor wasn't quite as dark as it should have been. I laughed very hard at the part where Curd Jurgens delivers a bomb hidden inside a sausage, completely oblivious to the fact that his careful disguise has fallen to pieces. Royal Flash (1974) is a better time.
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Made in U.S.A
Godard made this simultaneously with Two or Three Things I Know About Her. It's an incoherent mess, which seems intentional and therefore self-indulgent. It's set in '60s France. A girl journalist hears her socialist activist ex has been killed. She tries to track down who killed him, and the various plot points come via instant knowledge transfer, deus ex machina, etc. There are a bunch of political and semiotic diatribes, and the movie is visually an indictment of pop art, graphic design / advertising, Disney, etc.
That said, stop paying attention to the story and it's a great looking movie. The colors are wild, the mod fashion is fantastic, and if you take a random screenshot at nearly any point and you have a great piece of pop art. There are a few great scenes, to be fair. For example, there's one where the two leads are standing side by side, looking direct to camera and delivering two different dialogues at the same time.
Godard made this simultaneously with Two or Three Things I Know About Her. It's an incoherent mess, which seems intentional and therefore self-indulgent. It's set in '60s France. A girl journalist hears her socialist activist ex has been killed. She tries to track down who killed him, and the various plot points come via instant knowledge transfer, deus ex machina, etc. There are a bunch of political and semiotic diatribes, and the movie is visually an indictment of pop art, graphic design / advertising, Disney, etc.
That said, stop paying attention to the story and it's a great looking movie. The colors are wild, the mod fashion is fantastic, and if you take a random screenshot at nearly any point and you have a great piece of pop art. There are a few great scenes, to be fair. For example, there's one where the two leads are standing side by side, looking direct to camera and delivering two different dialogues at the same time.
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Basic Instinct. I'd somehow never seen this before. This movie cracked me up, because right from the beginning, it played out as if Paul Verhoeven had watched a De Palma movie, and suddenly decided he wanted to render Brian's entire filmography redundant.
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Yeah, Basic Instinct is awesome. It's too bad that all anyone ever brings up about it is the nudity, it's a legitimately great movie. Verhoeven's style really compliments that sort of heightened atmospheric sleaze that a lot Neo Noir movies had been trying for.
Puppet Master 2- Oof. I wasn't expecting much but damn, this was a big step down from the first. Which is saying a lot because that's not exactly a high bar to begin with. This one is boring as hell and noticeably cheaper. There's a good 25 minute chunk between the opening scene and when anything actually starts to happen, which is a lot when the movie is only like 75 minutes long. Even then it's still just really dull and awkward. You would think with how weird the plot is the movie would be a little more interesting but nope. I will say the end where they transfer their souls into the life sized puppet bodies is legitimately creepy.
Psycho Goreman- I gotta say I was a little disappointed by this one. I was expecting it to be on the level of Hobo With A Shotgun or Turbo Kid but it's not. It's still pretty awesome though, the effects are all really fun and there's a ton of creativity on display. The premise itself is great and there's some pretty funny stuff going on. I'd say I really enjoyed about half the movie.
Unfortunately for every time I laughed there were probably 10 jokes that just made me groan or just don't make sense. It feels like they really misjudged how funny a lot of the stuff actually is. It's hard to tell, some of it almost seems like inside jokes. Either way it's a movie that thinks it's a lot more self aware than it actually is.
Also I was prepared for the little girl to be annoying and weird but she was way worse than I thought she'd be. The manic, borderline psychotic shtick just didn't work for me. Same thing with the dad, I know he was supposed to be unlikable but him and the daughter are just despicable. Which I could take if the movie ended with Psycho Goreman just killing everybody horrifically, which I honestly think it should have. Thankfully there's enough stuff in it that I still enjoy it quite a bit but it does test my patience at times.
Puppet Master 2- Oof. I wasn't expecting much but damn, this was a big step down from the first. Which is saying a lot because that's not exactly a high bar to begin with. This one is boring as hell and noticeably cheaper. There's a good 25 minute chunk between the opening scene and when anything actually starts to happen, which is a lot when the movie is only like 75 minutes long. Even then it's still just really dull and awkward. You would think with how weird the plot is the movie would be a little more interesting but nope. I will say the end where they transfer their souls into the life sized puppet bodies is legitimately creepy.
Psycho Goreman- I gotta say I was a little disappointed by this one. I was expecting it to be on the level of Hobo With A Shotgun or Turbo Kid but it's not. It's still pretty awesome though, the effects are all really fun and there's a ton of creativity on display. The premise itself is great and there's some pretty funny stuff going on. I'd say I really enjoyed about half the movie.
Unfortunately for every time I laughed there were probably 10 jokes that just made me groan or just don't make sense. It feels like they really misjudged how funny a lot of the stuff actually is. It's hard to tell, some of it almost seems like inside jokes. Either way it's a movie that thinks it's a lot more self aware than it actually is.
Also I was prepared for the little girl to be annoying and weird but she was way worse than I thought she'd be. The manic, borderline psychotic shtick just didn't work for me. Same thing with the dad, I know he was supposed to be unlikable but him and the daughter are just despicable. Which I could take if the movie ended with Psycho Goreman just killing everybody horrifically, which I honestly think it should have. Thankfully there's enough stuff in it that I still enjoy it quite a bit but it does test my patience at times.
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He completely out-De Palmaed De Palma. Verhoeven made movies like Body Double and Dressed to Kill look quaint, and he did it without appropriating an already existing Hitchcock movie as a base to hang everything on.
I dunno, I was just kind of shocked by this movie. I'm used to hearing old interviews of John Carpenter talking shit about his contemporaries like De Palma, but here came Verhoeven without saying anything, just TOOK a shit all over De Palma.
I dunno, I was just kind of shocked by this movie. I'm used to hearing old interviews of John Carpenter talking shit about his contemporaries like De Palma, but here came Verhoeven without saying anything, just TOOK a shit all over De Palma.
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No! Who in the heck would do that? It's pixelated as heck since it's basically a bad 1080 p upscale at best, according to sources. Stone herself has gone on record as saying that she never agreed to do that shot whereas she wouldn't have panties on and she'd uncross her legs while the camera was shot right up her yeah, no. NO!!
Um, like, were they trying to shoot the nice pleats on your skirt?
Anyway. Few films to comment on.
Terrifier 3 - the Terrifier franchise is fascinating to me. It's a relatively cheap, sort of basic idea of a killer clown/spirit going on an extended rampage and then [ugh] a warrior chick to fight him. IMO: Terrifier is a classic. It's just so brutally nasty without the baggage of trying to carry sequels. Some nasty kills, and Thornton establishes himself as a very unpleasant guy. Terrifier 2. Eh, it works. It's long as hell, but again, Thornton is fucking incredible as Art and LaVera is perfect as Sienna (she's never been good at any role ever or since but get what works!).
Then after T2, Leone got various offers from studios to sell the franchise rights from him but he decided that they were too low, so he decided to self-finance (not quite! Cinescape in there a bit I may or may not forget that part!) Terrifier 3. Bet was a good one. Went on to become the highest-grossing unrated movie to ever release in theaters.
And then, I finally watched it a few days ago. Can't really do much to write up to that up above, but it's very good if you're a fan. Kind of fascinates me how there's a market for a clown/Santa demon who literally bombs a room of little kids but the major studios manage to lose hundreds of millions of dollars per mainstream garbage Marvel movie.
ANYWAY AGAIN, more to the point, T3 was very good. I was assuming Leone would kill off Sienna and Jonathan to set up a new trilogy but [I guess?] only the latter is out, looks like T4 will be Demon Art versus Sienna.
I am oddly not mad at that.
edit I also did finally watch All Hallows Eve to finish up my Leone anthology. It has the same bizarrely nasty sense of random brutality, but man, the old Art could not bring it like Thornton does. It's worth watching to see where Leone started from, but it's not great by any means.
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Hmmmmn... pixelated pussy.... yummmm....
Anyhoo...
Dragnet - spoof continuation of the original 50's TV show starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks and an all star cast of supports including the legendary Christopher Plummer (who hams it up nicely as the bad guy), Dabney Coleman (as a sleazy Hugh Hefner ripoff), and Harry Morgan (Aykroyd & Hanks' boss).
Well paced and entertaining buddy cop comedy, that still raises a few smiles even after watching it god knows how many times since the late 80s.
The plot, about a demented TV evangelist planning to overthrow the mayor of LA so he can control the city, is silly and far fetched, but the film doesn't take itself seriously, and Aykroyd is on fine form as the straight laced Sgt. Joe Friday.
If you liked Trading Places, Spies Like Us, or the Money Pit, then you'll love this. Shame Hanks doesn't do films like this anymore... nor did any further pictures with Aykroyd, as they've got a good chemistry.
Anyhoo...
Dragnet - spoof continuation of the original 50's TV show starring Dan Aykroyd and Tom Hanks and an all star cast of supports including the legendary Christopher Plummer (who hams it up nicely as the bad guy), Dabney Coleman (as a sleazy Hugh Hefner ripoff), and Harry Morgan (Aykroyd & Hanks' boss).
Well paced and entertaining buddy cop comedy, that still raises a few smiles even after watching it god knows how many times since the late 80s.
The plot, about a demented TV evangelist planning to overthrow the mayor of LA so he can control the city, is silly and far fetched, but the film doesn't take itself seriously, and Aykroyd is on fine form as the straight laced Sgt. Joe Friday.
If you liked Trading Places, Spies Like Us, or the Money Pit, then you'll love this. Shame Hanks doesn't do films like this anymore... nor did any further pictures with Aykroyd, as they've got a good chemistry.
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Hey man. Where did you stream this? I don't see it on any of the domestic streaming services. A little help?
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Didn't stream it, I torrented it.
Venom 3: The first Venom was "ok." Venom 2 was ass. But I dunno man - I gotta say! Venom 3 is where they...
SIKE.
It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage. It's fucking garbage.
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Puppet Master 3: Toulon’s Revenge- Well it was better than part 2. There’s actually some really nice effects and they got to use the Universal backlot so the sets and everything are really nice. It‘s still a Full Moon movie so it’s super janky and they cut tons of corners but it at least feels like they were trying.
Dellamorte Dellamore- I know I’ve talked about this one before but I have to bring it up any chance I can. It’s just such an incredibly stylish and atmospheric movie, I love it. None of it makes a lick of sense but that’s part of its charm.
I got the new Severin 4k set during their Black Friday sale and it is a really nice release. Awesome packaging, 3 discs and the soundtrack. Highly recommended.
Dellamorte Dellamore- I know I’ve talked about this one before but I have to bring it up any chance I can. It’s just such an incredibly stylish and atmospheric movie, I love it. None of it makes a lick of sense but that’s part of its charm.
I got the new Severin 4k set during their Black Friday sale and it is a really nice release. Awesome packaging, 3 discs and the soundtrack. Highly recommended.