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Um, we saw F9 last night? Anyway. As a fan of the series, I'd rank it as mid-tier but largely entertaining. Definitely better than F8, which, while not as dismal as, say, Rise of Skywalker or Spectre (in terms of long-running series comps), was pretty not-good. The repetitive emotional beats are running out of steam, and if you like your movies with, say, any relation at all to the real world and science and how they operate, I would suggest you, um, steer (or drift) clear. For a slightly contrarian point, my F&F-loving wife said F9 was the best action movie ever. I demurred, but she's had a rough month so I'm happy to see her excited about anything. This was also our first time back in a theater. I think we had the whole front section to ourselves, so I wasn't too concerned. This is actually a movie where I might've welcomed some boisterousness, but it was pretty much crickets from the fairly sparse crowd at the first showing of a "blockbuster."
jason10mm wrote: F9 is out???? How does it rate to Shaw and Hobbes? I felt the cheese to action to comedy ratio was just about right with that one.
The later F&F movies are probably more "serious" (in a very narrow sense), mostly melodrama plus stunts. I think F9 aims to be a little more serious than Hobbes and Shaw, though there's still the mix of those three elements.
My son demanded that I drive him out to the wilds of Snellville 45 minutes away to the last theater near ATL still showing Demon Slayer. I took a crash course on the show by watching the first five episodes and steeled myself for big standard Shonen “I’mma be the pirate king/hokagae/whatever kind of champion” hollering and lots of talk about how characters are going to fight before they actually fight.
But the show is...actually pretty good? It is still definitely Shonen AF but there’s more depth to it and some actually quite moving stuff- it almost feels like Mushi Shi is an influence. Some real pathos, themes about dealing with grief and shame...but I saw right away why it is so big. It does the lightsaber/wand thing where each character gets a special katana. People love that.
The movie is now the #1 anime movie of all time, overcoming Spirited Away. It’s not that good. It plays like an extended episode of the show, which is fine because the animation is outstanding for a serialized show to begin with. It’s highly stylized and it just looks beautiful in motion. The story is fairly easy to follow without having seen the 26 episodes even though it is essentially a direct follow up and there is lots of backstory implied. The setup is pretty cool, with the Demon Slayer Corps (including this incredible boar-headed dude that is just a total weirdo) on board a train with a demon that manipulated dreams. The exposition is pretty heavy on Shonen hollering and there is a lot of crying. A touch of kid friendly body horror too. I think it’s way better than Naruto, DBZ, One Piece, Bleach, etc.
We (somewhat belatedly) saw A Quiet Place Part II. I thought after the first one that a sequel was neither necessary nor desirable, and apparently (and I kind of believe them) Krasinski and Blunt mostly thought the same, but the results are pretty exceptional. The hour-40 or so flew by, to the point where, when it looked like it was wrapping up, I glanced at my watch and was surprised.
HBO Max has the whole set of Harry Potter movies. I never read the books, but I did see the first three movies at some point. I thought that I would take a fresh look at them. But there isn't a lot of story in that first movie. Maybe 20% story and 80% Hey Look At This Magic Thing! And This Magic Thing! Oh! Look! There are some really good actors in this movie, and the three lead kids are pretty good for their age, but the script is uninspired. I am probably too old for Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.
I personally think Harry Potter (books and films) is WAY overhyped but who am I to argue with billions of dollars? FWIW the films start to take a more serious turn around 3 IIRC with a tone and look that is probably more appealing to adults. The problem (for me) is that the writing of the books never really changes so there is always this very immature approach to everything and a lot of "wow, I never heard of this amazing and widespread thing until JUST NOW" moments. I'm just glad the series keeps away from a lot of melodramatic twists and turns (Voldemort is my
Warning: Spoiler!
FATHER????
) and the films at least are pretty entertaining for what they are.
In 20 years someone is gonna do a very nice revamp of the whole thing I suspect and hopefully iron out all my issues with it.
Agree that Potter is massively overrated. Rowling was pretty clearly making it all up as she went along, and it leads to a lot of stupidity and plot holes. There's something to be said for deliberate worldbuilding.
I do like how to tone of the books gradually becomes darker. I've heard that's deliberate, so that the tone and subject matter would mature along with the first crop of kids who read the first book.
True story here. I just watched Call Girl of Cthulhu (2021) on Amazon Prime, and it was bad. Residing at a queasy intersection of bad horror and bad comedy, Call Girl of Cthulhu features unattractive people, bad acting, and really bad fx. There are occasional flashes of quality and dark humor, especially with some clever transitions between scenes. The writer knows a thing or two about sex work, and demonstrates a fair amount of knowledge about the Cthulhu Mythos. But the only reason to really watch a movie like Call Girl of Cthulhu is so you can brag that you watched a movie called Call Girl of Cthulhu, and that is a very small payoff for enduring this movie. The soundtrack is all original music, and some of it is pretty tolerable at a garage rock level.
So the natural question is how do YOU know a thing or two about sex work:p
The Tomorrow War on amazon. This is a fun, but INCREDIBLY stupid alien action film. I can't even begin to explain how dumb this film is. But Pratt, Strahoski, and the rest (Chloe from 24!) do their best and it's fun enough without being funny.
It will end, and then there is another 20 minutes. It's the most bizarre amalgamation of other films I've seen in a while.
Title is not as catchy as Call Girl of Cthulhu though, how did that take so long????
Many years ago, I picked up some extra cash on the side by working as a driver for an escort.
Kill Me Three Times (2014) is a fun movie. It opens in media res, but hooks the viewer right away. Simon Pegg stars, and Luke Hemsworth (best known as the chonky security guy in Westworld) is in the mix. Dark humor, intrigue, and violence. It's an Australian version of Blood Simple, with a lush soundtrack of reverb spy music.
So there are bad movies that are stupid fun to watch, bad movies that are knowingly bad and play with it, and bad movies that are just plain bad.
And then there is a weird category of bad movies, that end up being good and you are not sure why because they are unequivocally bad and you don't doubt that. Zardoz for me is the epitome of this. It starts bad and corny, gets worse, but somehow at the end I have to admit it was good as I was captivated and admire it, and can't quite work out why I have a begrudging admiration for it.
I watched another film in that weird category last night Death Bed: The Bed that Eats. Patton Oswalt has a stand up routine about how bad this film is, and it is definitely a bad film, don't get me wrong, possibly amongst the worst ever made. But there is something there, and I can't put my finger on it. I do like it, and would recommend it, but I honestly don't know why because the story, acting, sets, etc are all pretty terrible. The director somehow gets a preposterous scenario, goes 100% for it, and doesn't seem to doubt themselves, and in the end produces something with artistic merit and I just have to give him credit for that.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, Rogue Nation, and Fallout - Hadn't watched this series since III and decided to catch up on a whim. These actually make a good trilogy of action movies on their own. They're nothing mind-blowing but they're entertaining with old-school spy movie flair.
A Quit Place II - Not as good as the first one but I thought it was a solid follow-up. It shows the monsters a lot and because we learned how to kill them in the first movie this one has a bit more of an optimistic feel to it. The beginning when they show the initial attack was great.