I'm Thinking of Ending Things (2020) Fuck spoilers, because fuck this movie. Sweet, merciful crap, this was bad. Jungle Julia wanted to watch this on Netflix last night, and I went along. She regretted her choice by the end. It's all about Todd from Breaking Bad, and how he never did anything with his life. He goes on this trip to visit his parents with his girlfriend* in the middle of a snowstorm, they have a weird dinner, then drive back, while having a really pretentious conversation about literature/ movies. (There's a reason why I dropped my English major in college, and part of it is people like that. ) Todd (not his name in the movie; I don't care to remember it) decides that he MUST have ice cream in the middle of the snow-storm, so they stop at this Tasty-Freeze-looking place, which is open in the middle of the night, for some reason. It's staffed by some weird girls, and this scene gave me a strong David Lynch vibe, which tricked me into thinking that the movie was going somewhere good. After an awkward exchange, Todd and his girlfriend get two large Oreo shakes and leave. Once on the road, they grow tired of the treats after the first few bites, and decide that they MUST find a trash can do dispose of them (instead of just chucking them out the window.). They end up at Todd's old high school, and then he gets all obsessed about the janitor working there, and there's a musical number that goes on for about 15 minutes (did I ever tell y'all that I hate musicals? Because I do. Even Jungle Julia told me to turn the sound off while it was going on.). It turns out that Todd was really the janitor, and the girlfriend was made up,and.... Some other shit. I understand that this movie is based on a book, and I'm sure that there will be some fanboys who scream "It would have all made sense if you'd just read the book!" And to them, I say: What is the purpose of a film adaptation of a book, if not to bring the story to people who can't/won't/ haven't read the book? *Not only does she not really exist, she looks uncannily similar to an ex-girlfriend of mine, so that's not helping anything.
TENET Spoiler: “it’s your choice to color your expectations." To steal the best Reddit comment: this film is everything you love about a Nolan movie, and everything you hate about a Nolan movie, all wrapped up into one product. All the dialogue is mixed too low and the actors who do the exposition all have weird accents that make it almost completely inaudible. I would have killed for subtitles. Once you understand the basic premise, then the rest of the movie is very predictable. Still very entertaining and I want to see it again. But it’s not one of Nolan’s best.
Now an old movie but what ever. Spot on review. Ultimately as a fan of Terminator you will just never get the same all time level of quality unless you have a writer/director that is of the same caliber as James Cameron. I will say this, the action set pieces were good. Better than anything since T2. Still the over use of CGI sucks the humanity out of a movie and a series built on that very theme. Arnold's shoe horning was inevitable but boy the back story they cooked up and tried to sell was the second stupidest thing the post T2 Terminators have done.* So he was a killer Terminator ala T1 but finished his mission and just kind of wandered the earth like Kane in Kung Fu until he found a purpose? The thought of a Terminator killer robot acclimating to a mundane 9-5 job as a blinds salesmen raising kids is just patently retarded. It made less than zero sense and was offensive to the franchise. The movie also just didnt have the same heart. You posted the scene in T2 recently where 10 year old John Conner prophetically ask about the fate of mankind with an underlying understanding we are dooming ourselves more than anything. A wise beyond his years insight that made you believe this 10 year old could grow up to be a leader of the resistance. In Dark Fate Linda Hamilton has a moment of frustration and despair blithely tells the others it is time someone else gets to play the mother Mary roll. It was a flicker of a deeper note in the film. Her character has fought and suffered and eventually lost her son, the savior of man kind, and she was fed up with it. How does the hot tomboy protector respond in the very next sentence? "If you are mother marry why do I want to punch mother marry so much in the face!?" Pathos, terminated. T1- 9 T2-10 probably and 11 T3- 2 Salvation- 3 Gynesyz- -17 Dark Fate- 4 *I will never ever get over John Conner diving out of a helicopter into a hurricane stormed sea to swim down to submarine to meet with the other leaders of the resistance in Salvation. Carl deciding to raise little Domingo is still not as stupid as this.
Zappa As a lifelong Frank Zappa fan I had been looking forward to Alex Winter's documentary on the musician, and overall I was satisfied. Winter had access to Zappa's archives, which meant that he was able to show rare footage from the musician's teenage years. The film did a good job covering Zappa's early years and showing his interest in filmmaking as well as the classical and jazz music that led him to want to be a musician. There are also a lot of clips showing Zappa working in the studio and of interviews that he did. Frank's late wife, Gail, was also interviewed for the film along with several of the musicians who worked with Zappa. The interviews provide good glimpses of what it was like to live and work with the man. There is also a lot of time devoted to his life in the '80s, when he got involved in politics and spoke out against censorship in music, and sadly when his health began to deteriorate. The movie did have a few flaws. One was that his "middle period" in the 1970s, when he put out a lot of his best work, was not really covered. It was also disappointing that we did not hear a lot of his actual music in the film--just snippets here and there. But it was an interesting documentary that I think did the man justice. 8/10
Mank When I saw this pop up on Netflix, I was totally pumped; a new David Fincher movie! It stars Gary Oldman! Trent Reznor composed the music! Oldman plays Harvey Mankewicz (it think that's how it's spelled), the screenwriter who wrote "Citizen Kane." I started watching it with Jungle Julia yesterday, and about twenty minutes in, she looked over at me and said: "This is boring. Can we watch something else?" I told her to give it a chance, that it was going to get better; it was a David Fincher movie, after all. IT NEVER GOT BETTER. She stopped watching after another ten minutes, but I stuck it out to the bitter end. Wasted time. Definitely not one of Oldman's better roles. Have any of y'all ever seen "Citizen Kane"? It's fucking boring; it'll put a meth-head to sleep. This was marginally less boring, but still a snooze-fest. I wouldn't even recommend this to Fincher fans.
Boss Level Saw it this week. It’s basically an action movie version of a Groundhog Day and Frank Grillo plays the main character in the most Frank Grillo-movie ever. It was pretty good and just a generally fun watch. It’s not mind-blowing or anything, but there are worst ways to spend 90+ minutes. 7.5 / 10
It’s probably the first 90’s-influenced action film done right. It has fun/hilarious casting and Grillo is right at home in this kind of role. Hard to believe he’s in his mid-50’s. “Time Loop” movies are starting to wear thin but this one makes up for sheer hysterical excess. Not a classic, but lots of fun and definitely worth a watch.
Yeah, Grillo is great in just about everything he's in. Even in Billions where he doesn't play the brooding badass he brings it. I feel like he should be bigger than he is, but there is probably too many guys that have carved out that archetype already (Jason Statham, etc.). Another really good one of his is Wheelman, which was filmed in my old neighborhood.
He wasted so much of his career being a soap opera actor, because he liked working with his wife on “Guiding Light”. He.has the perfect shtick for action films. Wheelman is exceptional, and I would have given him an Oscar for it. The angriest performance in movie history.
The best thing DC has done is Swamp Thing and they cancelled it before the pilot even debuted. Despite it being an excellent show. The people running DC productions are hopeless and clueless. They basically want to fail, instead pumping money into Titans, a “gritty” show for people who thought “Agents Of SHIELD” was too intellectual.
See it for yourself, hmmn? It's fine, in fact it's a lot better than most people expected. The 4 hours go partly towards giving Cyborg and Flash the introduction they should've had before the first JL was even made, same way Marvel gave its heroes a solo movie before The Avengers. Gone are the stupid Whedonisms like "dostoyevsky" etc. In all honesty I had an easier time sitting thru this than I did The Irishman, not tedious at all.
Snyder Cut is way better than the original, but still not "great." Flash, Cyborg, and Steppenwolf actually feel like characters, the MacGuffin is actually a MacGuffin and not just a McG, the story has room to breathe more generally, and it actually feels like part of a larger whole. Batfleck might actually be the best version of the character. That said, even with the expanded runtime, trying to do in four movies what it took Marvel 20 movies to do just doesn't cut it. The DCEU needed more planning and coherence, too much is still only hinted at or sort of foisted on the viewer to care about without the proper build up. And Gal Gadot just cannot act.
Those fucking detached dorks. That was a prime example of celebrities desperate for attention when they realize content creation isn’t at their disposal anymore. For modern movie stars, it’s ALL they have because their charisma is created by writers and directors.
O'Dowd at least only did it because he was asked, and realized pretty quickly how poorly it came off:
I set the bar pretty low thinking it was a Groundhog Day ripoff but we were pretty entertained. I'd recommend it if you have a night to kill.
I don't know how Cristin Milioti isn't a bigger name. She's been absolutely charming in everything I've seen her in. She should be on an Alison Brie/Anna Kendrick type plane.
Watched the Snyder Cut over a few days, an hour at a time. Frankly, I have no idea why they tried to do it in less time than that because in 4 hours there were still major gaps in the stories and a lot of character development that fell flat. Cramming character backstories into movies like this inevitably ends up in the movie saying, "here's an emotionally charged moment between two characters. Please consider all interactions between these characters to be emotionally charged from now on. It was okay. Breaking it up in pieces made it entertaining enough for me. Not good, not terrible, just meh.