What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

I watched El Camino, the follow-up to Breaking Bad. It's good... but not amazing. If you are a fan of the show, by all means watch it. If you haven't seen the show, by all means DON'T watch it.

It has been 201 years since Mary Wollstonecroft Shelley first got her novel Frankenstein published. So, a year late, I have been watching Frankenstein movies lately, including a couple of good ones on Amazon Prime that you may have overlooked.

The Frankenstein Theory (2013) is a decent movie with a shoestring budget. It's a found-footage sort of movie in the style of The Blair Witch Project, but manages to deliver a superior viewing experience with better acting, dialogue, visual effects, and cinematography. The greatest strength is the plausibility of the titular Frankenstein theory as expressed by the actor playing a descendant of Victor von Frankenstein. He looks like a bit like a young Peter Weller or Paul Reiser, with chiseled cheekbones and a piercing blue gaze that is equally capable of conveying genius or madness. The female lead is leading a documentary team that is following Frankenstein on his expedition to a remote part of Canada in search of the creature. This journalist has a very specifically appropriate level of beauty that you would expect to find in a local tv reporter that does human interest stories. The rest of the documentary team and the guide are all stock characters that are well-cast. The Frankenstein Theory does a great job of grounding the movie with realistic attention to mundane details, paving the way for the suspension of disbelief when the going gets weird. Once the suspense arrives, the movie builds to a tense conclusion.

I, Frankenstein (2014) looks and feels exactly like it takes place in the same world as the Underworld movies (a thinly disguised version of the World of Darkness), in part because it shares the same writer. The focus of the movie is solidly on the Frankenstein Monster, played by Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight), and his alienation from the human race. His loneliness is also relevant, because he carries around his creator's notebook in hopes of someday possibly creating a mate. He unwillingly gets in the middle of a conflict between demons and gargoyles (angels), as the demons seek to create soulless creatures who are able to destroy demons. They want the Frankenstein Monster but are willing to settle for his creator's notebook. There is plenty of action and decent CGI in play, and some interesting ethical issues arise along the way.

Watched El Camino: dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2019/10/h...ruck-half-story.html

Zombieland: Double Tap. I thought Zombieland was okay, not great. This was more of the same, and not in a particularly good way. Decent actors doing a decent job in a mediocre movie. If you liked Zombieland, I recommend you hold off until it's available through Redbox or streaming.

Jackwraith wrote: Watched El Camino: dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2019/10/h...ruck-half-story.html

I pretty much agree with you. Much like prequels (speaking generally; I haven't seen Better Call Saul) I'm not sure I see the point of this movie. In my opinion, it doesn't add anything to story and tries to fill holes that didn't need filling. The final scene in Breaking Bad of Jesse driving away in the car gave me as much closure as the final scene in El Camino of him driving away in a car.

Midsommar was very disturbing. I think it was even better than Hereditary. Can't wait to see what this director does next.

Just came out from Terminator: dark fate. I was holding back on my expectations, but uneccessarily so. It’s good, and a worthy sequel to the first two movies. The first five minutes are legitimately shocking and one of the best scenes in the franchise so far. There are explosions and vehicle chases aplenty, this is more of a straight up action flick and less timey-wimey navel gazing.

Although it is predominantly a chase movie it takes the lore/plot into a completely different direction and becomes its own movie which is very welcome after the last three attempts tied themselves in knots in an attempt to preserve continuity.

Speaking as someone who finds T2 a little corny I’d even put Dark Fate as my favourite after the original.

Disgustipater wrote: I pretty much agree with you. Much like prequels (speaking generally; I haven't seen Better Call Saul) I'm not sure I see the point of this movie.

I liked El Camino because it was fun to revisit the Breaking Bad world and spend more time with Jesse. I agree it wasn't necessary, but it was a nice addition.

Better Call Saul, however, I absolutely adore. I think I actually like it more than Breaking Bad.

I just watched Glass on HBO. While it takes a long time to build up speed, once it gets going, it's really great. I haven't seen Unbreakable in a very long time, but I think I liked this film the best of the trilogy.

James Macavoy is SO good!

Saw Monos. Really good.

dichotomouspurity.blogspot.com/2019/10/empathetic-vistas.html

Glass received some very harsh reviews, but I enjoyed it as well.

Gregarius wrote:

Disgustipater wrote: I pretty much agree with you. Much like prequels (speaking generally; I haven't seen Better Call Saul) I'm not sure I see the point of this movie.

I liked El Camino because it was fun to revisit the Breaking Bad world and spend more time with Jesse. I agree it wasn't necessary, but it was a nice addition.

Better Call Saul, however, I absolutely adore. I think I actually like it more than Breaking Bad.

If El Camino features Jesse, I will probably pass on it. In hindsight, I'm not sure why I watched all of Breaking Bad. I didn't like Walter's family, and I really didn't like Aaron Paul's acting. For at least the first two or three seasons, his acting was the blustering forcefulness of an incompetent liar. Eventually, he settled into the Jesse role and was okay, but it's hard to shake off so many bad performances leading up to that point.

I watched Event Horizon the other night. I’d never seen it, had heard that it hadn’t aged well, but I’m looking for some inspiration for running Mothership (go look that RPG up if you don’t know what it is).

Man, what a frustrating movie. Not because it hadn’t aged well but because it’s so close to being something really special. The concept is killer, the 90s CG looks bad but the ship itself is amazing. While watching, I couldn’t shake the feeling that this movie was rushed. Turns out I was right, this thing was given no time to be refined and it’s missing over a half hour of footage.

Paul WS Anderson is not a good director by any stretch of the imagination, but I wish he were given more time with it. Say what you will about it, and while I was ultimately underwhelmed, its not dull and there’s still something about it.

Couple reasons I continue to think of Event Horizon as one of my guilty pleasures/so bad it's good:

1. The ship was clearly inspired by GW's Adeptus Mechanicus. I'm an age-old AM fan, so I thought it was kind of awesome that someone shared my design affectations.

2. Most of the actors have genuine talent and/or presence. From Laurence Fishburne to Jason Isaacs (late of Harry Potter and Death of Stalin(!) fame) to Kathleen Quinlan to Joely Richardson and, especially, Richard T. Jones as Cooper, the cast was delightful, even if the screenplay was poor. The one counterpoint is, unfortunately, Sam Neill chewing scenery.

3. I like that they tried to stick with the Alien model of space travel: It's an industrial thing and industrial things are dirty. Rather than write a story about the Federation sending their flagship to investigate the strange phenomenon, they send a salvage crew.

But, yeah, way too many production problems for it ever to have been a success with that script.

Don't know whether this counts, but I saw No Retreat, No Surrender (could be the other way around) an 80s "karate" "action" movie I hadn't seen before (but my wife had) as part of an MST3k live event in Chicago. It was part of Joel Hodgson's alleged last tour for MST, and other than the streamed RiffTrax for "The Room," it was probably my favorite live or semi-live riffing-type event. Spoiler: There was a lot of retreating in the movie.

I agree that Zombieland: Double Tap, while not being a direct plot ripoff, was adequate, unnecessary, covered the same emotional ground, and was a decent evening. They should do one every ten years, like the "7-up" movies. That would probably be the most interesting part.

Hustlers is pretty much what the reviews say--a strong performance from J.Lo in an otherwise decent film. It's no "Big Short"--it covers the period of the Great Recession and after, hence the (loose) connection--but it still had some decent commentary mixed in with a lot of trope-y action and sentiment.

Judy avoids the worst sins of biopics (for me)--(1) heavy reliance on flashbacks and (2) use of an "interview" or "trial" frame to drive the exposition and hammer home the themes--and has a pretty good performance from Zellweger in the lead but is otherwise pretty unremarkable.