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

They are fun books for kids, no doubt. But they ain't great. Has Rowling published much since? I know she did a book or 2 under a pseudonym but if she really had writing chops she ought to be putting more out. Maybe she is taking the time to plot it all put in advance now, or just can't find her typewriter under all the money lying around in her mansion

My wife is out of town this weekend and I lack the energy or attention for anything beyond passive media consumption after a full day with the boys, so it’s Days of Mindless Violence for me.

Day of Mindless Violence the First: Ninja: Shadow of a Tear

It’s a movie perhaps better enjoyed in YouTube clips. I don’t want to say the fight scenes (the only reason to watch this) are masterful because they’re not the equal of Jackie Chan but highly competent is too faint of praise. What they are are showcases for actors dedicated to action at their physical peak and a host of extras willing to take falls through tables and hard hits. There are simultaneous jump kicks to two different men, and triple kicks landed in a single jump. The director doesn’t do anything flashy at these times, but having the good sense to just light the fights well, stand far enough back to capture every move and hold the shot is a talent in itself.

The only problem is that the fights lack variety and feel a little samey despite the skill on display. A hotel chase stands out for a change of scenery and goals from two alley fights and two-and-a-half dojo showdowns.

Everything in between the fights? Boilerplate and forgettable. Scott Adkins’ wife is fridged faster than John Wick’s dog, and he goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. The only thing that stands out are some of the extras. The casting director did a great job finding people with interesting faces and voices to fill out the minor roles.

I felt the same way about Yakusa Princess (this was a rental). It has nice fight scenes and an impressive amount of John Rys Davis dong...hang on, I mean Johnathon Rys Meyers dong ... but the story between these things is just tepid. San Paulo Brazile must be giving out a lot of movie credits because I see a lot of stuff set there.

Watched some oldies this weekend:
The Warriors - still ridiculous, still awesome. Just a fun movie.

Soldier - It had been a long time. Kurt Russell plays a heavily indoctrinated soldier with no will of his own. He has only a handful of lines in this film. Physical effects, a decent B movie. Also a much younger Michael Chiklis shows up.

For a Few Dollars More - If you want to watch Clint when watching Clint was good... Clint tries to take down a gang of bank robbers for the reward money. But Lee Van Cleef has his own plans... This movie has more character development than you might expect in an old western. Great stuff.

hotseatgames wrote: Watched some oldies this weekend:
The Warriors - still ridiculous, still awesome. Just a fun movie.

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CAN YOU DIIIIIIIG IT !!

A local weekly radio show opens with the sound of Sully clinking the bottles ( which the actor ad libbed IIRC)

Day of Mindless Violence the second: Boyka: Undisputed

It’s the fourth in a franchise that began with Wesley Snipes and Ving Rhames, moved on to Michael Jai White and is now lead by Scott Adkins. I think he was an antagonist to White before, but I don’t think I’m missing much backstory by jumping in here. How much history do you need to bring to underground MMA fights?

The budget is bigger than Ninja but not that much bigger. The sets are nicer, the lighting is more dramatic and scenes are filled with extras. The fights are even less varied than last night. The director insists on at least one slow-mo jump kick and three kip-ups per fight, but the spectacle of the physicality remains otherwise top notch.

At least this director gives us a reason to care about Boyka and gives him a history and future and, in a shocking twist, motivates him not by revenge but by a desire for forgiveness. There’s a hint of something interesting when Boyka claims that his ability to fight is a gift from God, a claim that appears at odds with his ferocity and need to pull himself back from brutalizing a helpless opponent. It could have been something but goes unexplored.

Ninja may be more pure in being what it wants to be, but Boyka is an actual film.

Msample wrote:

hotseatgames wrote: Watched some oldies this weekend:
The Warriors - still ridiculous, still awesome. Just a fun movie.

.

CAN YOU DIIIIIIIG IT !!

A local weekly radio show opens with the sound of Sully clinking the bottles ( which the actor ad libbed IIRC)

Yes, the famous bottle scene was off the cuff. Incredible!

The story I heard is that it was based on the actions of a creepy neighbour the actor had when he was a child. In any case, it's amazing how effective and memorable such a simple act is.

Day of Mindless Violence the third: Nobody

It was marketed as an heir of John Wick, but it’s more a lighter History of Violence. What if a past life of murder and casual disregard for human life didn’t degrade the soul but made you awesome? That’s the thesis of Nobody. For what it is, it’s fun. There’s a sly, understated sense of humor, and nothing is belabored or repeated. It trusts the audience to pay a little attention and keep up. It reminds me a lot of Mr. and Mrs. Smith, another film I adore for what it is.

And the bus fight is better than anything in the Matrix sequels. It lacks the technical wizardry, but it reveals character and advances the plot while remaining dynamic and visually interesting. Odenkirk does very well for being two years older than Keanu.

Since the spookiest of months is almost upon us I celebrated by watching Horror of Dracula, or just plain Dracula to all you UK people. This was my first Hammer Horror movie, and my first time seeing Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in anything besides Star Wars or Lord of the Rings.

I really liked it! While I've never read the original novel, I've seen several iterations in movie form, and this was among my favorite interpretations. The best part was the production. I loved the sets and the saturated look of the movie. It had a sort of heightened pulpy feel that I think suited the material really well. My understanding is that Hammer films got progressively more lurid as they went on, but even in this movie the color and atmosphere lend it a sort of melodrama that I loved.

Obviously the performances are iconic. Lee and Cushing are at their best. I also was surprised at how gripping the movie got by the end. No doubt that's owing to the somewhat more pulpy influence of the movie, but it really made the creeping dread of the Count palpable.

Anyway, for someone who didn't grow up watching pulpy horror at all, I'd be interested in more recommendations for Hammer films on HBO Max. I'll definitely be hitting The Curse of Frankenstein and The Mummy, but anything beyond that would be welcome.

I'm having a lot of fun reading reviews of No Time to Die and then the reviews of those reviews as folks go back and forth over wokeness and whatnot. So much fun in fact I'm a little reserved about watching the film myself and forming my own opinion

This must be what it's like in Europe normally when America got all the hot films weeks before. If the trend of big films hitting across the pond first continues I may end up seeing a lot fewer films as the more reliable audience reaction score has time to form vs critic acclaim of dubious value. Also softening on Dune since my worse fears (long and slow) are getting confirmed. Please don't drop Top Gun 2 over there first!!

Moving from big to small: Storm Lake is an amiable documentary about a small-town twice-weekly family-owned and -run newspaper in northwest Iowa, about a half-hour away from the even smaller town where I grew up. The editor, Art Cullen, won the Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for commentary and has attracted a fair bit of interest since. The film basically chronicles the team over roughly a two-year period, ending with pandemic season 1 and their interactions with the community, which is a bit of blue inside a region (even a county) of red due largely to the influx of immigrants to work in meat processing. The film touches on many interesting aspects of the community, including its political divide (including relative to its own county), covering politics, balancing serious and light stories, the difficulty of getting advertising funds, and the Cullens' and colleagues' arduous work experiences, but for me it never really coheres or delves as deep as I wanted it to. As my wife noted, it never seriously examines or questions the Cullens' liberal views--which I generally share--or how that situates them both in and outside the larger community. At most, it has people observing that they don't read the opinion section, and although it notes that there was some tension between Art Cullen and local officials after the Pulitzer, probably not least because it involved commentary on dark money funneling into the county, the film just kind of accepts that Cullen is this quirky, irascible crusader in the cornfield. I'm perhaps not the best one to "review" this film because the rural agrarian issues are not unfamiliar to me, whereas they would likely be to citified folks, and the landscape and its inhabitants verge on overly familiar to really register. It also feels overlong at even its under-90-minute runtime. It'll be on PBS, which I believe coproduced, around November, so that would be a decent place to check it out. It has been well rated by critics and has won some awards, so I'm probably (lightly) sprinkling on the parade for no good reason.

I went into the weekend excited because there were TWO new streaming films that interested me. Yet here I sit, broken.

The Many Saints of Newark - This Sopranos prequel is a miss. Multiple plotlines, all going nowhere. Some good performances, but ultimately this movie accomplishes nothing. I don't think even the most die-hard Sopranos fan will enjoy this. You do at least get a lot of Ray Liotta, and this kind of movie is right up his street. Also notable, Leslie Odom, Jr.

The Guilty - I like Jake Gylenhaal, so I was interested from the jump. Unfortunately this is one of those "it should have been a one man play" films. See Tom Hardy in Locke. I actually bounced off this one at the 39 minute mark. Stupid writing, stupid premise, and I don't care how great an actor is, I don't want to stare at them on the phone for 90 minutes.

I enjoyed Locke, may check out that JG film.

In fact, I kind of enjoy that whole genre of movies that are really stage plays. Fences, Glengarry Glen Ross, 12 Angry Men, even Reservoir Dogs to a degree fits that category.

How come I've never heard of Oats Studios before? It's Neal Blomkamp's film studio and there's a collection of sci-fi live action shorts on Netflix under the same name. Some good stuff in there.

Wanted to get into the October mood, so I watched Constantine: City of Demons, an animated movie on HBO Max. This is John Constantine, the gutterpunk mage of the DC Universe, played perfectly by Matt Ryan, the same actor who played Constantine in various Arrowverse tv shows. This is an R-rated movie, and definitely a bit too gory for kids to watch.

If you are a fan of the Hellblazer comic, this is a classic John Constantine story. The wit, guile, cynicism, and guilt are all present. There are a couple of interesting ideas and surprises, and the whole business gets very dark in tone. There is even a recounting of the infamous Newcastle incident, though heavily altered to suit the purposes of this movie. If you are more of a fan of Constantine from the Arrowverse shows, you might find this movie too dark and nasty.