Might be the worst movie I've ever seen. Blumhouse's recent string of woke politics has now infected one of the most beloved classic Universal monsters, in an abhorrent display of boredom and disrespect to the original character, James Whale's 1933 masterpiece, and H.G. Wells' novel. This has even less to do with the Invisible Man than the Hollow Man does, the main antagonist (who is repeatedly told to the audience that he's a BAHD man from the mouth of our lead, never from his own), doesn't even turn invisible, it's a suit. So, he's not actually an invisible man, he's just created a cloaking suit. What a load of bullshit. I was talking to an audience member in the elevator on the way to my car, and he asked, why doesn't he sell the suit to science? Literally do anything else than building such an elaborate contraption, just to stalk his ex creepily. He doesn't even have any goals or personality, all he wants is to have a baby with Cecilia. What for? No idea, use him for science? Control over her life even more? It's never answered, the Why? for his plans, which drains the tension from the film, and conclusion. All the scares are played out, by the books. Oh my, she's walking slowly through the dark attic, I wonder what's going to happen next. Hey guys, everyone thinks she's going crazy, because Adrian is making it look like she's doing terrible things. Totally haven't seen that from Saturday morning cartoon skits. Thanks Leigh Whannell for lying that we hadn't seen the entire film from the trailer, playing damage control, because we totally did. It's a boring, tedious, predictable "thriller" that doesn't do anything unique that any other horror film from the like seventy years has done, If you've seen any movie in your life, you will get on the edge, of falling asleep. The sad thing is, because of the micro budget, this will still be a success and we have to deal with another classic monster getting a similar treatment. What joy.
Unironically may be one of the most important films for 80's film preservation. No film captures the childlike spirit of that time than this sweet little film about a couple kids traveling cross country to a video game competition. The film starts with a little boy, Jimmy, walking across the deserted country road alone on his journey to get to California to properly bury his sister's remains, and by the end, is driving back with his family, happy and fulfilled. It's genuinely funny, heartwarming, and fun for the whole family. The product placement and Nintendo partnership is just an icing on the cake that adds to it's dated charm. This will definitely go in my collection.
They should rename this film
DON'T ASK QUESTIONS: A STAR WARS STORY
There is so much I could write about this nightmare of a production, but I think the general consensus surrounding it summarizes my feelings more, especially from the "fandom menace." How a world class beloved A-list brand like Star Wars could reach this point in it's lifespan, no better than a Sci-fi channel film, completely baffles me. In less than 4 years, Disney was able to grab such a loved property and turn off every audience member imaginable from ever investing in it again. In just 3 films, fans are now crawling back to George Lucas asking him to redeem the saga and asking for forgiveness for all their words about the prequel trilogy. The cynic in me just says they deserve this. They were so quick to throw Lucas under the bus and put the mouse on a pedestal of, "Oh, look at how great Marvel and the Avengers are! Surely Mr. Iger and Lucasfilm can "return Star Wars to it's former glory" now that it's out of that George "Special Edition" Lucas' hands!" The rose tinted glasses were rip torn from the blind fans faces with Rian Johnson's subversion fueled train wreck of a movie that derailed any semblance of cohesion the trilogy may have had, which there wasn't and there was no plan day one, exposing the rat underneath the sheath of painted glass that was being fed to the general audiences. But with Solo bombing, it finally cemented what state the brand was in for the viewing eyes, that Disney had force feed way too much bad way too quickly and was able to dilute a classic property in to the ground, the actual red negatives in stock and profit. Toys began collecting dust on shelves, Toys R' Us went out of business, hurting merchandise moves even more, and events around the world cancelled in wake of diminishing interest in this brand. It failed to please the OT fans. It failed to please the prequel fans. And most importantly, it failed to attract a new audience of youth, like what fandom Star Wars had garnered when it first premiered in 1977. The series by 2018 had reached a point of no return. No one was on board anymore except for the extreme die hards. This fate is something not uncommon though, unfortunately, anymore. Time and again this decade, Hollywood has declared it's war to market as many nostalgia properties as possible because originality when given monumentous blockbusters budgets, which is the standard now, is not encouraged. So the familiar is the norm, while the challenging is to the way side. The only solution, given the failure of such like Voltron, Ghostbusters, and the success of Joker, is hopefully the heads will learn to start lowering it's budgets are trusting it's creative leads. Because I can't think of a more better example of everything wrong with Hollywood and the current system of moviemaking than The Rise Of Skywalker. I know that's a phrase tossed around a lot now, "this film is everything wrong with [FILL IN THE BLANK]," but this latest J.J. "Trek" Abrams bombshell of a fanservice, retcon baffling shitstorm is the embodiment of it all. If any of you want to point from this day forward what happened to cinema in the 2010's, this is the ultimate lead up to it all. What a perfect way to end 2019, with the most corporate driven, committee driven, test screen driven, pandering garbage to ever been conceived by Hollywood. The entire premise of the film is to walk back what everyone hated about The Last Jedi, which even though that received glowing praise from the "critics," which have now all been debunked as shills looking for publicity, the audience and majority of fans were then rallied to talk about how this film went wrong and what it meant for the rest of the series. Disney became well aware of the reception, and especially the financial bomb of Solo: A Star Wars Story, so Rise had an unachievable challenge. It had to answer questions from the previous two films, wrap up all remaining open arcs, which there were a shit load of them, tell it's own story, create a satisfying conclusion to all 9 films in the saga, and still be a coherent, fun experience. It achieved none of them. Nothing in the movie makes any sense, not even joking or playing dumb. It has so many balls to juggle and consistently drops them at every turn, it becomes embarrassing, hilarious, then boring, and then depressing to watch. I was sitting watching in like an empty void of sadness and disbelief that something I used to love so much be reduced to this, all because of a lack of planning and bad decision making from every angle, starting back in 2014. If J.J. had for just a minute listening to George's story plan and stopped using his story breaking "mystery box" technique, maybe we could be here this year with something that's passable. Not good, passable. The film opens with Palpatine back. No reason. He's just back. Turns out he created Snoke himself and he has cryo tubes full of more. I'm not even kidding, it's hilarious. He also has an entire army of Death Star Destroyers, like thousands of them, that he controls by hand. He raises them up out of the ground. He's lifted around by a Glad0s crane. He looks younger than he did in Return of the Jedi. Don't ask questions. Leia's CG reused footage is horrible. Rey is incredibly overpowered in this movie. The wayfinder shit is boring and tedious. There's no reason for Lando to be there. Nothing about the force use in the movie makes sense. The transfer of life energy makes no sense. Kylo putting his helmet back together, why? Don't ask questions. Rey kisses Kylo after he saves her. Why? Don't ask questions. Rey goes to Tatooine, she somehow knows it's there, and makes that her new home. Why? Don't ask questions. She adopts the name Rey Skywalker. Why? I'm done with that. So many things happen in this film that require you to suspend your disbelief, you will detach and the film will exhaust, and then make you cackle and howl with laughter at the absurdity of what happens. The fact they had to bring Sheev Palpatine at all because Snoke was out of the picture just screams desperate. It's backtracking retconning to make Snoke seem like less of an important factor in the previous two films. I guess you can just clone force users now. How? Don't ask questions. They bring back Palpatine just so Rey can one up him in the same film. They completely take away Anakin's redemption and Sacrifice and Luke's journey, just so Rey can have all the glory. Kylo dies, so the Skywalker lineage just ends. What a slap in the face.
"I am all of the Sith." - a wasted Ian McDiarmid
"No! I'm all the Jedi." - a Mary Sue
The exposition dumps and lack of motivation in the story makes this truly the spectacle of chaotic awfulness that can't even be ranked higher than The Room. What's the point of this story? Really, why are we here? What is the goal of this? What set up was there for this? There was none. There was no road map. There's no moral, no intrigue, no grand vision, no borrowing and inspiration from classic serials like Lucas was. Nothing artistic or respectable about this waste of human resources and time. This is a film made for everyone, but pleases no one.
May the 2020's bring about the death of fake nerd culture! Give comics back to the real nerds!
This is the best cinematic universe currently going on besides the Monsterverse. Going to be sad sending off the Warren cases, but it's been 7 or so films at this point, I think it's time for James Wan to kick start a new horror franchise for the 2020's.
Women deserve better films than this, don't give them this. We're not helping women, whatever the hell that means, by giving them the most basic, bare bones, modern, disgusting trite nonsense this is. There's an eyerolling "girl power" montage right before the main titles appear. For no reason. It's not a commercial on television, it's not an advertisement, it's just a random clip show of girls doing stuff. It's just gross. There's no point to it other than flaunt, "Aren't I doing the female sex a positive by saying how good it is to have a vagina?!" All of the male characters are very comically sexist, white, and troublesome, outside of Patrick Stewart of course. The action is tired, a lot of it borrowed from stuff like Now You See Me and Mission Impossible, except much more obnoxious, thanks to Banks needlessly making all of our three new leads as insufferable as possible. Stewart especially I've never hated this much, not even back in the Twilight days. None of her jokes make any sense, she babbles every line, and she does it every time she opens her mouth. I was able to endure fifty minutes or so before realizing I didn't even know any of their names or what was going on because the film's priorities lie in all the wrong places, establishing the organization and the villain rather than our leads. There's even a humorous piece during the first major car chase where one of them asks, "Who is that? Why is he shooting at us?" And I was like, "I'm asking the same thing!" The first line in the film is, "I think women can do anything." Is this really a debate we're still trying to have and the media trying to push on to the general American public? Women in the west are the most freed and supported than at any other point in human history. How fucking ironic that this film that wants to act as a female power move is funded in part by China, a place that has internment camps for Muslims; they show happy Muslims in the film in that opening montage. Hey Banks, why don't you use some of your money you had to make this movie and go help out those people instead of sucking more Hollywood dick to get to make the Invisible Woman film you're now directing? I guess virtue signalling is more important. I only get heated about this because how hypocritical the people who are making this film are being. Glad this shit bombed.
After Terminator: Dark Fate, you all need to give this movie an apology.
Tim Miller, your career is over.
Cameron, you have created your own Alien: Covenant. Now, I have an interesting relationship with this film, before it was even announced. I liked Genisys quite a lot. I've liked all of the sequels past Terminator 2, especially the action heavy and emotional Terminator 3 that takes up the responsibility of carrying the development of it's lead, John Connor, and expanding on that. John in that film has brought the trials and understandings from the Terminator's sacrifice at the end and understands that a Terminator can grasp the concept of the value of human life. That part of him is still there, which is why he can accept another T-850 has come back to protect him and he doesn't stay prejudiced to it the entire film. The new challenge has to take up is his responsibility as the leader of the future resistance. He's run away and he's living off the grid, but over the course of the film, leading up to the brilliant ending, has accepted that he must come forth and take the mantel of leading humanity to ultimate victory. That is what his mother taught him, which is why I could accept her being killed off screen, because her development had been completed in the second film, John had a new burden to overcome, it was his journey by that point.
So tell me why this is acceptable. Why has it become accepted in our society that we can just throw a number of films, all with different creative leads, teams, and producers, under the bus and say they were all terrible, and this new version being created is the true sequel to what are supposedly universally accepted films, determined somehow. This botched move is what killed the 2018 Halloween reboot, which for some reason felt the urge to make the original sequel and Season of the Witch no longer canon, which makes no sense and it's a slap in the face to the original lore, just cause some redditors thought it was "a little silly" Michael and Laurie are siblings, even though Michael had a sister in the opening scene. There was no reason to remove the second from existence and it's put the franchise in a creative dead end, resulting in many logic gaps and ridiculous connections. You begin to realize this is all a tactic, this is the new remake craze like what was going on in the 2000's. Instead of just remaking the classics to varying degrees of quality, the new explosion of bait and switch is making a "correct" version of the original, i.e. in sequel form or reboot. This has happened with Star Wars, Digimon Tri, Scooby-Doo, Ghostbusters, Voltron, and so many more. It's become a franchise wasteland out there, with every company ready to kill off whatever it was you loved in your childhood. It's ripe for picking.
Dark Fate decides to forgo any profit from the Chinese market and any fans that may have been forged out of the 440 million profits of Genisys and ops to wipe the slate clean again, for some reason. Think about it, five was all about multiverse hopping and time travel, different timelines interconnecting, it actually explains away some time paradoxes created from previous films, because now anything can happen. Other characters can exist in new timelines and kill blood related family and suffer no consequences. Anything is possible with what Genisys introduced, but no, it's better to kill the potential golden goose. I was even cool with John Connor becoming a villain in his respective timeline, because a) it throws the development back on to Sarah and Kyle struggling with the idea of their child, originally prophesied to be the savior of humanity, now villain, and b) a good John Connor could still exist in another timeline. The floodgates of crossovers and mayhem were opened.
But, 'kay, fine, let's throw all that talk out the window. Cameron is back, Tim Miller is on board (yay?), David S. Goyer is writing, we're just getting rid of everything creative that was done before and going back to "basics." What does that entail. How is the brilliant writer's room going to top all out of the outings that it has to top, and prove that it's worthy enough of saying it is better than all of them, and it's the true version that should be canon? I know! Kill John Connor four minutes in to the movie. You think I'm joking. Let's have a T-800 walk up to child Johnny, who's a digitally recreated young Edward Furlong, and shoot him in the chest with a shotgun. Brilliant, oh, you guys outdid yourselves. The "mythos" of Terminator are important to them, this is the real Terminator 3 everyone. That's why Terminator 1 and 2's importance and story no longer matter since all the effort of saving Sarah, and then following up the born child, just results in the kid being shot in the chest in under a minute. Hey Cameron, what was that you said about Alien 3? That it was dumb and maybe a little disrespectful to kill your characters, Newt and Hicks unceremoniously? Aren't you being a little hypocritical constantly trashing on that film, yet you just wrote and produced the love child to it? Like, do I even need to continue the review? You've shot yourselves in the foot not even a few minutes in to the film. Sarah I can believe killing off, John was the product of those two films, he is who needs to survive, that was the entire message of Terminator 3, the T-850 sacrificed himself and lied to save John and Kate's lives. He is the backbone of the series, outside of Sarah Connor.
But, 'kay, fine, let's throw John in a lava pit. He doesn't matter. Where do we go from here? Answer is you don't. You know the trend. We have to regress every character's development from the previous entry so we can essentially remake the film with the same script and lesson. Worked so well for Incredibles 2, amiright? Sarah is now back to being a paranoid Terminator expert who doesn't trust a T-800 look-alike because they killed a significant other of hers. In T2 it was Kyle Reese, in this one it's John Connor. What a load of shit. Way to show massive disrespect to the films you claim to be honoring. May I remind you this isn't even really Sarah's film. We haven't even gotten to the new bland leads they've had to scrounge up because there's nothing to go off. So now that Skynet doesn't even exist anymore and John is just dead, we can now just remake the original The Terminator with a new super evil robotic massive conglomerate in the form of something called "Legion," with direct rip-offs of scenes from 3, Salvation, and Genisys, films they claim to hate, but will still copy from. Real class act. This future soldier named Grace is sent back to protect a new leader of the resistance, Dani, a total (wo)manlet that does not look like a feasible leader of the resistance. No disrespect to Natalia Reyes, she seems like a nice actress, but she is horribly miscast. If they had switched around the leads, Davis as the leader and Reyes as the protector, I'd believe it more. But okay, Reyes lives in Mexico and works in a car factory (social commentary), lots of Spanish language is used in the film, an overwhelming amount, and her Papi is taken over by the new Rev-9 terminator in an attempt to kill her at the factory. A Terminator 3 and Genisys ripoff chase ensues and we end up meeting a beaten down Sarah. From there, we just go through the motions of exposition, who are you, who am I, what are we doing, taking cues from some The Terminator deleted scenes, and flashforward glimpses of the surprisingly bland looking Salvation copying future war. That's a thing I really have to deduct points from this movie significantly. Tim Miller, I don't know what happened in your three years from Deadpool but the action in this movie is shockingly bland and boring. How can you make a truck chase that exceedingly tiresome, a finale at the Hoover Dam that anti-climactic and kind of laughable. The CG effects have downgraded so much, it would be Stan Winston to shame, the poor man. Compare the effects in this film to Terminator 3, and it's just evident as an audience, we have accepted lower standards as a thing. We are okay with shiny, video game tier special effects. Especially during the D-Day Saving Private Ryan inspired future war scenes, the Terminators are hideously over shiny. The liquid T-1000 effects in Terminator 2 still look better today, I don't believe for a second this film cost 180 million legitimately, a lot of that was probably forfeited to Linda Hamilton and Arnold, both of whom are on record hating this franchise and wishing it would end.
But okay, we find ourselves in nap inducing action, bland rushed characters, retreaded existing characters, and then we delve in to border hopping. Not making that up either. Sarah is banned in all fifty states for what she's done in the previous films, but since this takes place in Mexico, we can have social commentary about the leads sneaking across the border and getting caught by Border Patrol, and subsequently being held up in psuedo-ICE camps. I'm not even making that up, that's a crux of the film, the Rev-9 joins the Border Patrol (like the T-1000 taking the mantle of a police officer) and hunts them down in an ICE camp. There's even a back in forth with Grace and a patrol officer. "Where are the prisoners?" "They're called detainees." This is where we're at with propaganda. It's okay to illegally border hop because the protagonists of the film are supposedly good people. That's how they're trying to shove this nonsense on to you. It's not even subtle or clever. How can you get the blatant with the reality bending. From there, they hijack a helicopter (Genisys reference) and some more hijinks ensure. They do meet up with the T-800 from the opening scene of the film that killed Johnny. There's some faux deep themes like, can a Terminator understand human life, can it evolve in to a normal functioning person after completing it's mission, all of which were explored in 2 and Genisys better, and then we get in to the final climactic Furious 7 and Rampage rip offed plane finale and Dam showdown. From there, Grace sacrifices herself to save Dani, i.e. Kyle Reese, and the T-800 kills the Rev-9 while saying "For John," which is a bullshit final attempt to show they care about Johnny, which the film doesn't. Then the movie just ends. It just ends, there's nothing more to it. They don't defeat Legion, there's a little scene with a speech Dani gives in the future war, which was done better by John in the opening of Genisys and actually plays off with the role reversal later in the film, this is just a B-grade schlock speech about rising up and shit. Nothing interesting. There's no mid-credits scene, nothing. It just ends. This movie is pointless. There is no point to this movie. Why does it exist? Answer me that. Terminator 3 was about Judgement Day finally coming to fruition and John accepting his fate at a future leader, Genisys was about stopping a new Skynet while Kyle comes to terms with the fact his friend and hero John is now an enemy that must be destroyed. Grace and Dani have no charisma. There is nothing to either of them. Sarah regresses as a character, and Arnold is there to just please the fans. All the while the film just rips off the films it hates.
I would say the only positive of the film, not even much so, is some of Junkie XL's score, he can always put together something halfway decent, but anything else, the cinematography and color grading especially are awful. Nothing pops out of the screen, the lighting is horrible, very bad contrasting, silhouettes, no impressive shots to speak of. This is some of the most amateurish direction I've ever seen in a major studio film, only rivaling Joss Whedon's Age Of Ultron
Cameron, you are on my shit list now. I defended you with Avatar and the recently produced Alita: Battle Angel, my favorite film probably of all time, but this, this is gross. This is another in an evergrowing list of franchises that have been shameless ripped apart and put on display in a freak museum. How much longer do we have to endure this before people say to stop. Don't go see this movie, go watch the other sequels. Terminator 3 needs to be vindicated, it needs to get the respect it's been wrongly taken away from.
I know I'm going to be in the minority when I say this, but let the Monsterverse end here. I don't mean that in the way that, I hate these movies. Exact opposite, King Of The Monsters is my second favorite film of 2019. But given the history of cinematic universes (MCU), the Toho Godzilla series, and the current situation of the Monsterverse, I would rather see this little series end as a trilogy of sorts, discounting Kong Skull Island, and let it stay a self contained epic that completes all it's arcs over the three Godzilla films it currently has. I wouldn't want them to (((drudge))) this out, change it up to be more mass appealing, and lose the spark the series currently has. Legendary currently has the option to keep making Godzilla films as long as they want so long as they renew the license, Toho would let them. But given the financial returns, I don't think that'll happen. They're going to release this early in China, get some money back on their investment, and release it for the fans that still like this stuff. Neutering it down is the last thing I'd want and I'd rather it end now. I know you all would disagree, but end it on this "high note."
EDIT: Fuck, this didn't age well at all.
Man, these Trump 2020 campaign ads are getting pretty elaborate.
I don't know how to rate this right now. It feels like The Room 2.0. So hilariously partisan with it's image of what a right winger looks like, while basically telling a story how a racist, misogynistic guy goes off to shoot cuck porn because he's desperate for pussy. It's almost so bad and outlandish with it's acting and scripting that I was laughing a good portion through. If you don't take this seriously, which I don't know how you could, you can get some fun out of this. It's also a classic crux of, "Everything you said is wrong, but I'm not going to explain why," sort of thing. Not the obviously misogynistic parts and the bits of clear mental illness, but the politics. Ronnie as a character shows no growth and stays the same from the start, to the end, only changing is his incite to violence. The mindset lingers though, which begs the question how this is social commentary. The amount of people like this main character that exist are astronomically slim, you can't help but feel the writing suffers from an forced perspective. The music is at least decent. Lambert, you may be the next Tommy Wiseau.
This is one of a handful of Disney sequels that actually surpasses the original. That's not saying much, though.
"Now we can have a real day of the dead."
It's like time never passed. I mean it when I say 3 From Hell feels like it was shot at the same time as it's acclaimed predecessor, The Devil's Rejects. Zombie's still got it and he absolutely nails his toot fucking fruity balls deep gore fest with near perfection. Now, I won't go too much in detail, because I'm assuming if you're reading this you're either a follower of me or a big fan of Rob Zombie wondering if this film is worth checking out. As a biased fan of all of his work, I would argue aspects of this surpass the sequel. Seeing this back to back as a double feature, I didn't get the impression I was watching a different film, made fourteen years later, but like a four hour epic of blood soaked proportions and twisted humor. Zombie understood what his fans were looking for, this plays off like a partial remake, only expanding the story to really where the Firefly family plans to go after their escape from prison. Sadly, during the film's production, Sid Haig was hospitalized and couldn't really reprise his role as the clown Captain Spaulding, but reduced to a really small role where he's given lethal injection on death row after his monologue is over. It was clear he was sick during the filming, but glad he was able to make an appearance. Instead, Richard Brake comes in to the picture as Otis' half brother, and he fills the shoes just fine, playing a deranged hillbilly that's obsessed with getting in to the Hollywood movies. With these three back in their usual shtick, Zombie just goes nuts. Whatever you liked about the previous, it's amped up a couple notches and played more for amusement. It doesn't shy away from the idea you're supposed to sympathize with these awful people. You have to disconnect their horrible crimes with where they are now to really get all the fun, and that may be difficult for some people. It's a lot like if Warren Betty's Bonnie and Clyde was turned in to a funny action movie, where Bonnie starts massacring the police with a bow and arrow as "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" plays. The kills are as creative and brutal as ever, turning in to a southern fried Mexican showdown in the second half of the film, whereas the previous was the family on the run and being persecuted by the avenging sheriff, this film was finally their stance against the system, the battle to make up for their defeat before. They have a chance to escape from all their troubles and making a life for themselves out there, as odd and confusing as that sounds. The only thing I would say that just barely brings the film down is the main antagonist doesn't receive as much screen time as Forsyth's character, so the conflict of the justice system taking matters too far and having the audience ask the tough question, "Who's in the right?" This film answers the question for you and it delivers that answer coldly. But everything surrounding it's loose core is the spectacle. The witty jokes, the funny character moments, the exploitation, the profanity, the sex, and above all John Wick inspired action is what you're coming for. This film is obviously not for everyone, but for those that it is for, the depraved, the mad, the clowns, and the Zombie lovers, this has it all. It's one of Zombie's best films, on top of an already great catalogue. Check it out when it comes out on video.
That... that fucking rocked. badum tiss
"For me, Godzilla represents our need to look outside ourselves, for me as a person opening up my horizon and realizing that there's hope in nature, and nature gives us the option to do the right thing at all turns, and it's up to us to follow it's voice, and to listen to something bigger than ourselves, listen to God, whatever that means to each one of us."
"If you want to look at Godzilla from, a strictly entertainment value, you can, that's great. It's like, if you want to swim in the shallow end of the pool, that's fine. If you want to go in to the deeper end of the pool and really peel back his layers, and look at him as a mythological figure, it only makes him that much cooler."
This is the Batman v Superman of Kaiju films, and I mean that in the best way possible. I want to autistically rant about this movie's reception later.
With Chappelle and Burr coming out against all the bullshit going on with the world right now, it's quite refreshing. Plenty of good jokes this time around, Burr's special from last year wasn't the greatest, but the vulgarity and timing this time around was much better.
Okay, now that you finished that little Godzilla movie, can you get back to this, please?
Whenever someone tries to give Stuckmann any modicum of credibility, just show them this disaster of a film. I've seen middle schoolers make better shit than this.
Need I remind you only the first part of the story is being shot right now. Be prepared for this to bomb and part two never getting made.
"What the fuck did you do to Bruce Lee?"
Tarantino's simplest script, yet biggest production value to date. It's a fairy tale, and Quentin doesn't overcomplicate things. It's just a story of a man who wants more out of fame and a bigger presence in Hollywood, and we see the pieces to reaching those heights are fun, nostalgic fueled remnants of the experimental 60's cinema. It feels a lot like a Roman Polanski film, fitting that the crux of the movie and striving goal for Leo's character, Rick, is to meet the rising director. It uses the era and it's celebrities to tell a more fantastical and satisfying story that looks back on the decade with extreme fondness. If Stranger Things is a sucker for the 80's, this blows it's rose tinted goggles off it's face. It's worth watching this for it's atmosphere and presentation. Much of the budget is spent recreating the entire Los Angeles city, getting down to the costumes, vehicles, set dressing, and most of all, the films and stars of the era. He really dug up a vault of the films that were coming out, the variety and accuracy to what was being shown, rather than it just being a blanket of all popular movies that came out the decade, is oddly lovely. Despite the story not being accurate, given then Manson murders in this do not at all go like how it went down, the window dressing on top of it is the most accurate a period piece of this time has looked since a real film from then. I'm glad Quentin didn't go convoluted this time. It's an inviting heartwarming at times and rowdy revisit to his favorite part of Hollywood.
I WANT MY TWO DOLLARS!
If you paid for a ticket for this, you're the problem.
Not even discussing the quality of the film it's about, The Last Jedi, this is actually a poorly structured documentary. From it's first introductions, it's the wrap party followed up with clips of internet buzz about the film's director choice, and from there, starts showing off the cycles of the production. The big issue, in comparison to The Beginning film showing The Phantom Menaces's shoot, is there is hardly a straight timeline of events. You don't know how far away pre-production is from shoot, how far Rian was along writing the script when the sets were being built, when storyboards were being drawn and colored proper for practical and digital techniques, when effects demonstrations started, any conversations really between Rian and the producers, etc. The entire ordeal is glossed over with rapid pace, never stopping it's stock orchestral score to showcase the fancy B-roll they took for this. The style of which this is edited is less of a documentation of what happened, and instead a very fancy marketing show-reel. Pieces of conversations are let to breath, but sometimes the punch line or follow up to conversations are not finished, random choices of what to include and what not is jarring, i.e. the comment about Russian tweets which has nothing to do with the preceding and proceeding sequences, and nothing ever really makes sense. It's like a jumbled compilation of pieces of the production with graceful intent, but no foundation. Everything feels out of order and it doesn't make me feel like I'm actually there experiencing the labor intensive shoot with the crew. I feel like I'm being told what happened, rather than being shown it, which brings me to one of my major gripes, is the over extensive use of narration and interview footage/audio instead of raw B-roll conversation. There is some to be found, sure, but it feels less personal and intimate when a lot of what is being fed to me is not the initial or in the moment feelings of the people involved with the production, but heavily scripted and filtered interviews after the fact. There's a manufactured feeling which I can't shake, and that's my question. Why was this made? Genuinely, I want a real answer, why was this produced and released? Why wasn't one done for The Force Awakens or Rogue One, especially the latter, I would have loved to have heard from Gareth Edwards' mouth his process for making the movie, especially in regards to his documentaries for his film Monsters. What was the goal here? Well, I'm going to put my tinfoil hat on and conclude, the studio probably knew there was going to be backlash, or at the very least, misunderstandings about the creative choices taken with the script and presentation as a whole. It's almost like they anticipated the vitriolic response to the final picture, so my guess is at some point in pre-production they started making this. They probably loved what Rian was doing, "being risky," but that's the point of this, it's a piece to convince the viewer why Rian is a misunderstood, genius director, in a veil attempt to save face, to show the public that they actually "make creative decisions" and this film is some kind of work of art. That's why there's inclusion of a number of interview pieces from actors Mark Hamill and some of the crew facing their concerns about aspects of Rian's planning, but are painted in the light that, oh, he know what he's doing and it should be supported. I want to respect the work by the cast in the background that actually seemed to care, but there's something so disingenuous about everything here. In comparison, Rob Zombie's Halloween documentary that is over four and a half hours long uses almost no interviews, only when it helps the day of shoot, not much narration, just straight B-roll from the start of pre-production, to the very end, and it is one of the best documentaries I've ever watched. The important thing is it's a day by day look in to it, not a shimmering gloss. It's actually a journey, you become attached to the crew through it, nothing is left out. This, it feels like revisionist history.
All the people talking about race and whatever bullshit with Peele's films kind of sour me on the projects. It's reminding me of Hideaki Anno and the collective analysis that happened with Evangelion. People trying to find this grandeur meaning behind the imagery used in the film, when the mundane reality could just be Peele is making more cliché horror, albeit with a more careful and artistic lens. Everyone labeled Get Out as this masterpiece of screenwriting that's a commentary on whites using blacks for their own gain, and that's not to say those themes aren't present, that doesn't mean it makes the film's formulaic storytelling a step above or revolutionary, or dare I say it, "brave." Peele's previous felt very much like a typical Blumhouse horror movie, but because some notes about his views of race where used as a piece of the storytelling, the critical circles lavished it with, in my opinion, unwarranted praise. It was a standard family horror fair, if you've ever watched horror, you can pick out the set pieces and notes from a mile away, I know I did, but oh, now critics will pay attention to horror because it has some undertone "messages" about race relations. Just because you have those themes does not automatically elevate your film above others, and that's the sad narrative surrounding Peele's otherwise decent movies.
I've enjoyed both of his films so far, and Us I actually enjoyed even more. It's a neat little film that has much more in the way of set ups and pay offs. This is a better constructed screenplay. Every beat and cue comes back to finish off it's arc with amusing grandiose. The hands across America commercial, use of handcuffs, the flare gun line (which comes back in the form of a weapon), and little pieces in the dialogue like, "Doesn't anyone care about the apocalypse?" there's quite a jam packed screenplay in the first and third act. I think it's the second act things get a little too padded out. It's entertaining with some almost hilarious displays, like the neighbor (on her last breath) telling the device to call the police, but it turns on Fuck the police the song instead. There's a surprising amount of humor in here, some working better than others. The family is likable enough, but isn't developed much outside their ambiguous goals, like the daughter conveniently was on the track team, and she's the one who's told to run. The characters serve the plot for the majority of the run time, it's not about them, it's what happens to them and their clones. If you just want action, there's lots of it in the second part, like I was saying, it just gets too long with seemingly not much purpose, upon which is gets exhausting. The third act comes around to finish off the story (and show off the facility underground I called) that was set up and kind of forgotten about, in a nice little bow that's not as clever as any of Shyamalam's twists, but at least brings everything full circle. Maybe everything was a little too predictable. My family guessed the mother was actually switched around in the Merlin's Forest like a half hour before it was revealed. I think this is a case of a script, and I know, who am I to judge Peele, but everything was in place here, I just wanted more a reason to care. I don't really know anything about this family or why I should care about them. The mother is coming to terms with her fear and really, the fact she stole her way in to what she wanted, so there's some nice conflict there. The daughter is mostly a reclusive young girl that sticks to her headphones, the boy likes to wear masks and is also a bit reclusive and weird, and the dad is... well, dad. I enjoyed it enough, but nothing that sets much apart from other things like it. Just some nice camera work (the telephoto shot of the clone boy walking backward in to the fire was a real treat) and editing that kept me engaged. Probably won't rewatch it soon.
Made it fifty minutes in before I shut this pathetic crap off. Russo brother plays a gay guy for some reason? Hulk is a shell of his former self and he dabs? What the hell is this? Might try to finish the rest later and write more but hell, this was boring (and tedious) above all else. This was about as frustrating to sit through as that The Dark Tower film a few years ago. I've sat through fifteen of these cashgrabs and I still don't care about any of these characters. At this point, I'm here for the memes. At least it's not as awful as Thor Ragnarok.
"You have a chance other people only ever dream of. You can say good bye."
You know that saying that people always use that, "It hits you right in the feels," but some overuse it? I rarely ever feel it. But fuck, oh fuck me, I need to come here and say that Happy Death Day 2U did something I was not expecting at all. This is not a straight horror film, barely. This is a science fiction action mystery romantic comedy. Horror hardly fits the description, and that's what makes this so amazing. I feel bad I skipped this one out and saw Alita so many times, this came out the same weekend. Jason Blum, if you ever read this, know I'm sorry and I hope you continue to fund even more films like this. I know the general public flat out refuses original and poignant screenplays like this today, especially when this properly subverts expectations, but keep doing it. Give money to it. This got so much more complex and deep than I ever imagined a film like this could get. If you're going in to this expecting a romping slash-em-up and nothing more, you're going to leave more than empty handed. It's the equivalent of asking for fun bedtime story from your grandmother and she starts talking to you about the death of her husband. The overwhelming majority of the run time is the dilemma Tree must face between choosing to live in a timeline where her mother is alive, or where she's with her boyfriend Carter. The implications that because of this unforeseen consequence of this science experiment, she's actually given a choice to live a life that isn't hers, and if she doesn't, gets to do what others can't, and make peace directly with a lost loved one. The heavy hitting notes and the scenes where Tree breaks down to her mother, asking her what decision she must make, I could just imagine audiences checking out. There's this gut wrenching scene where she's choosing to sit down and spill it all out to her mother how much she loves her because she know it's the last time she'll see her, and just damn, it's intense. The rest when it isn't covering this raw family plot, is a literally by the numbers science fiction piece, in that it actually gets in to the technicals. They sit down multiple times to explain the way the universe has multiple dimensions and how she crossed paths with herself from her original dimension, etc. This makes Spider-Verse look like a second grade picture book. I was not expecting Landon to double down on what created the time loop in the first place, but it's surprisingly magnificent and doesn't tarnish the first in any way. In fact, it enhances itself above the original. I have more reason to care about this universe and these characters because of this follow up. It's given me more reason to care than I did before, by giving everyone more motivation for what has happened before. This is how you do a sequel ten-fold and this is how you make a fucking good film. It feels like an 80's college (romantic comedy) movie at times, this is exquisite work. Landon, you are on my director watch list. I see your name, I'm getting excited from now on.
I mean, the sex scene was nice I guess, the computer generated effects that make up a majority of these shorts is fabulous, but we accomplished that shit years ago. The majority of these Love, Death & Robots shorts suffer from wasted potential. It's nice some of these concepts are brought to light and shown what can be done with them, but by the time you get into their stories, they're over. Beyond the Aquila Rift is a doomed story of men who get caught in a literal spider's web when transporting across space. I love body horror and downer stories, but there isn't much to chew on. No exploration of itself, no messages about temptation, just nothing. I'm having a hard time finding things to write there's so little to discuss. The other one I watched was the werewolves in Afghanistan one, that one was okay, but your time is better spent elsewhere, preferably off Netflix since that platform is mostly the same: The promise of original, fresh work from auteur directors, only to be saddled with waste of time affairs that fall under the guise of "entertainment." I always feel like I waste my time with the service. Pirating is where it's at.
These films are the ultimate pleb filter. How you can watch the last 30 minutes to this and not think it's the most amazing finale you've ever seen in a feature film is beyond me.
I'm glad this show is going to expose more people as to what happened at Chernobyl and why it was one of the greatest fuck ups in human history, making 18+ miles in a circle radius completely uninhabitable. The show does a great job creating shocks and presenting it in a dramatic fashion. Despite one or two things that are fabricated for the sake of showmanship or turning elongated events into concise ones, the show doesn't tarnish anything that happened and paints a very disturbing picture that hopefully illustrates to new audiences why the event was so tragic. This is extremely good work and I hope even more mini series' come out in it's wake.
Also, I liked Superhero Movie, so I was here first.
initial impressions incoming
Just like the characters in the film repeatedly like to chant in gleeful unison: Everything is not awesome. Coming from someone who had a deep admiration for the first film way back five years ago, because of it's inventive storytelling, quotable dialogue, and surprisingly lovable brick characters, I was given the impression the follow up would match or come close to capturing that lightning in a bottle the first had. However, about fifty minutes in, I realized this film straight up barred in to awful realms. This film is now proof that having an inventive style doesn't mean anything if not for the characters. Oh sure, the presentation here is top notch, as is expected from Phil Lord and Chris Miller's other work, I'm looking at you Spider-Verse, but unless you can enrich my experience with some amazing action to fill that void, or characters that I can at least follow through the dreck, there won't be anything to chew on. The Lego Movie 2 suffers from extreme sequelitis, much in the same vein as Incredibles 2, where in order for a sequel to justify it's existence, characters have to take steps back in their development, arcs have to be completely disregarded that way the sequel can essentially remake it's predecessor to keep that tone and flavor audiences liked about the previous installment. This has only worked a handful of times on some films I find guilty pleasures, but rarely does this tactic pay off. It comes off like you're watching a shittier version of something you liked. Trust me, they try to redo that ingenious human connection that the first's twist gave us, but it's almost overdone to an annoying extent and doesn't have any of the impact the first had, where the LEGO story was revealed as one big parallel to the boy's real life relationship with his father. Doing that again, offers nothing new. Now that little kid has to overcome his sibling rivalry with his sister, as the two bicker over who should have control over the lego's, and at a few moments, you feel like it'll work, but just comes across stale and almost like a television continuation. This doesn't have the grand, epic scope of the first, instead opting for something more personal, that oddly, doesn't explore the characters it's attempting to deconstruct. It acts as a self reflection of Emmett and his relationship with himself, and in turn, affects his interactions with his sister. Something much more ambitious could've been done here, but it feels like half a script is missing and a ton of filler is thrown in instead, like the cringe inducing musical numbers. I wouldn't recommend checking this out, which is a shame, and my expectations weren't high.
All the people giving this film lower reviews legit don't understand it. This is one of the greatest blockbusters ever crafted, not just in it's visuals, but writing.
Laika will stay in business forever. You may ask, how? They currently employ over 300 employees at their main location and each of their films consistently underperforms, the last two straight up bombing. May I inform you the president also owns Nike. He's worth 35 billion dollars. To his son, Travis Knight, who just did Bumblebee, this is pocket money for them. I can see the conversations now.
Phil Knight: Alright son, what do you want?
Travis Knight: Hey dad, I just want to make another movie with those dolls. You think you can spare some money?
Phil Knight: No problem my child. How much?
Travis Knight: The usual, 60 million.
Phil Knight: Why, go right ahead, you little wiper snapper! Just bring some of it back.
Travis Knight: Thanks daddy! I'll fund the next one with my Bumblebee money!
As for the movie itself? No idea, didn't see it, no one did.
