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It is getting a lot of positive response in the critical community, but that may be timing since Pitt was so good in ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD. Kermode liked it, he says, but most of his review was to downplay expectations. I think “It’s not a masterpiece” was his takeaway. The “pitch” is 2001 meets APOCALYPSE NOW, but it’s really more like FLASH GORDON meets EVENT HORIZON.

I was going to see it this weekend, but I’m gonna wait a while.

Tag

Conceptually this is solid – a group of 40-somethings have been playing the same game of tag (for one month a year) for 30 years and are determined to finally get their one friend who hasn’t never been tagged in this, his final year before he “retires” and during his wedding. That should be a pretty good recipe for mad hijinks, crazy actions scenes and nonsense. And it is, to some degree. The problem comes in casting. Jeremy Renner is the untagged friend and he really does not have the charisma to make the character anything other than a spectacular asshole. Part of that is the character on the page, who is hyper-competitive and sets up elaborate schemes to avoid his friends, but I think it’s possible to do that without coming across as a total dick, which Renner does not manage at all.

The real star for me is Isla Fisher as one of the guys’ hyper-competitive wife, who is just the right level of manic. That balances out some of the film’s manufactured sentimentality and triteness. Overall it’s far from brilliant, but it just about hangs together well enough for an hour and a half or so, but could have been better if it had dared to be wilder and more anarchic. The film ends with a glimpse at the people the real article the film is based on was about, with some camera phone footage from their tagging. There’s actually 10 of them which would have been less focused for a film but makes way more sense for the logistics of the game compared to the five in the film.

Sup y’all, guess my inaugural post is going to be this review of Joker

I’ll get right to the point. I almost loved this movie. I still really really like it. To get it out of the way, the movie is at its worst when it’s playing into the expectations that it’s set out for itself. This idea that it’s meant to be some sort of prestige drama. Some deep character study and exploration. When it’s really not. And I was shocked that it wasn’t. Going into this I was dreading it…because the idea that it was supposed to be some sort of artistic thematic construct sounded ungodly boring and overcooked for this character. It could have worked, I guess, but the marketing and trailers all made it seem flat and one-note. Like it would be going through the motions of what an elite drama should be.

But yeah, I was in for a surprise once the movie actually started and got underway…because it ended up being this honestly silly, goofy, and ridiculous movie. A movie that is at it’s core something slapstick, something almost vaudevillian, and revels in it. The direction, the visuals, the editing, Phoenix’s performance, all work to make each and every gag and punchline, where outright or implied, hit with startling regularity. That’s not to say there isn’t a serious edge to it. It doesn’t completely bypass the darker, more tragic, hefty, elements…but it doesn’t let it get in the way of being this kinda wacky farcical adventure either. It’s like the movie is the punchline itself to a joke set-up by the trailers. Promising one thing, and sucker-punching the audience with something completely different and unexpected. And I couldn’t have been happier. It ended up being this frantic, nigh-on screwball, madcap dark comedy and I nearly fell completely in love with it by the end.

If it weren’t for the few drawbacks…and like I said, it’s when the movie tries too hard to be something it’s not. When it tries too hard to force some artistic or poetic merits to itself. Scenes that slow things down to a snails pace or are unnecessary and honestly almost nonsensical diversions. They come off as more of what something thinks a depthy movie should have rather than having any meaning in and of themselves. It’s just kinda annoying and confounding.

But other than that…it’s a fun ride. Wild, exhilarating, shocking, and carried by assured direction, editing, and the most amazing and kinetic physicality the Joker has seen in a while. While the flaws keep me from wanting to see it again any time soon, I have no doubt I’ll get to it eventually. I just can’t imagine these past few days, reading reactions to this movie from others saying that it left them feeling hollow and empty…and, like, what kinda dramas are you seeing if this makes you lose faith in humanity?

Overall: 8/10

Jon wrote:

I’m watching the end of Millarworld ='(

Terminator Genesys

We need no introduction here, right? Everyone knows the score with the plot? OK? OK.

So, this felt like a Terminator TV show. It had some interesting twists and elements to play around with, but everything is cleaner and brighter, and none of the actors are as good, and everything’s just a bit bleh.

And yet, somehow this cost ten times as much as the original Terminator, and that’s taking inflation into account. And the low-buget as h*ck Terminator TV show felt more like a proper follow-up to the original movies, and played around with a lot of the same concepts!

There’s no danger here, no excitement. The ways the timeline get messed with are interesting, but there’s no meat behind them, the emotional core of the movie is Sarah’s relationship with the Terminator as a father figure, but like, T2 already did that, and way better. Jai Courtney is barely competent as Reese, but he’s Brick Hardcheese while Micheal Biehn was lean and athletic, and it’s like one of the worst recastings ever.

This carries over to the action scenes, which are mostly CG and bereft of excitement and soul. Once again there are some nice ideas and touches, especially the traps laid specifically to take out the T-1000 early in the movie, but they’re executed badly. This is another movie I would have walked out on had I gone to see it in the cinema, but it kept me on Netflix over two non-consecutive hours, I guess.

Ready or Not – Clare and I watched this movie about board games connected to a wedding after our wedding had board games at the reception. It plays on various tropes, subverts and manages elements of realism whilst mixing in bits of the fantastical. At times very tense, then subverting it so the audience veered between gasps and stifling loud laughing as if they were not sure they should laugh. Luckily not too gory, but not afraid to hide from what it is depicting. The second Adam Brody movie we saw in a week after rewatching Shazam.

I don’t understand how you can be Jai Courtney and still have been wasted in Suicide Squad.

I watched the original Suspiria last night. Visually and aurally, it’s a beautiful and well crafted movie. Unfortunately, the story is just not there. Susie, the protagonist, just reacts and wanders from scene to scene. It’s okay at best but it really just drags on.

That’s irritating. I’m really looking forward to Dark Fate too and I’m hoping to avoid spoilers, although reading between the lines it seems fairly likely that a certain thing has happened to lead to the events that are going to be central to this movie.

Other than that, though, I know relatively little beyond the basics.

Preacher: Season 4
This was a hell of a crazy ride to one of the most insane series of recent years. So, the finale?
There was only one major screw-up in the finale – Starr lives. He should have died horribly. The rest of it worked quite well, especially the last 15 minutes. There was the sequence between God and the Saint in Heaven. Seeing that was very satisfying, even more so given how the adaptation rendered God. A macho, swaggering, rapist, domineering super-bastard psychopath. He had to go.
One of the biggest surprises and departures from the comic was the addition of Jesus, in the role of an unwanted and dismissed son. God would much prefer a drooling idiot, likely because he’d never get any criticism from it. For all that Preacher is highly critical of religion – and especially the Old Testament God, which is what God here is, it leaves a good amount of room for the compassion of the new, which you see Jesus demonstrating at the end in the DIY store. Also really liked that he killed Hitler.
Featherstone – there goes a stellar example of a prize idiot with legendary level plot armour.
One guy I felt quite sorry was pilot Steve.
Frankie Toscani. This guy, you know? Thinks he’s such a fucking hardarse? And look what happened after he fucked with the wrong person – brains blown via a bullet from a gun shoved up his arse. Moral of the story, kids – don’t fuck with vampires, no matter how much cash you’re offered.
Oh and it took me ages that the distant screaming in the bar near Masada was Genesis’ parents killing each other over and over for months.
The final scene was particularly effective – Cassidy deciding his time was up, at the graves of his friends from 40 years ago.
More than anything, the four series collectively demonstrate that you can have both a very faithful adaptation to the essence of a property while departing from the original material. Each of the series, but this last one particularly, went far farther than I would have ever expected – did anyone expect the Chunt brothers? Or De Sade and his gang of perverts? I didn’t.
It also had a unique sense of style. There are sequences with some brilliant shot execution and structure. Things that I haven’t seen before and probably won’t again. Plus, it mostly, very mostly, pulled it off at the end.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Ben.

Edit: Uhm there’s something werid going on with the “edit” function… so this might show up as a double post, let me know…

Yes it was fantastic. I didn’t mind that survivor you had gripes with (too lazy for spoilers, I’m sure you’ll get it) because of how *** was played throughout the show… I didn’t really want that person to die, tbh.

The only real gripe I had was the very last thing with the “girl”, I would’ve prefered another actress to play the role, it looked to… I dunno, stupid, honestly. At least some prosthetics or something…

But other than that it’s interesting how the series kept escalating the ridiculousness, and the Ennis-ness of the story… first season probably seems VERY mild in comparaison despite still having some “shock” in it, but it makes for one hell of a ride. I think they touched on most major points and I’m quite happy with the pacing of it all, I think they managed to condense it well enough, skipping some of the more boring parts.

It truly is a great show, I wish people will give it another chance, specially with The Boys getting all that hype, but I suspect most people won’t know or care to find out the connection between both… =/

I saw the stage version of ‘Ghost Stories’ tonight.

I never saw the original run so I don’t know if they’ve changed anything after it was made as a movie two years ago year?

To my mind there were definitely bits that felt like movie scenes which didn’t quite translate to live theatre (I felt the same about The Twilight Zone and The Exorcist, which I saw over the last couple of years), but overall it’s still a lot of fun, often quite creepy and very well performed by the cast.

Happy Halloween!

Jon wrote:

It truly is a great show, I wish people will give it another chance, specially with The Boys getting all that hype, but I suspect most people won’t know or care to find out the connection between both… =/

I plan to get back to preacher eventually but I can’t motivate myself to watch it

I’ve watched up to the end of season 2, i think the last episode I watched was at some point last year

I don’t think the writing on the series is very strong at all.
If you are going to have so very little happening in a season then the writing needs to be stronger and more interesting.

Compare it to something like The Haunting of Hill House, where the pacing is glacier slow but the writing is so good that the slow pacing actually becomes a strong point.

I think there’s some stuff that Preacher did well from what I’ve seen, but it’s done all very knowingly and designed to shock, so even the good bits fall a bit flat. It’s all a bit nod nod wink wink and totally in love with its own jokes.

It’s not a patch on the comics, not even close.

I never watched Twin Peaks when it was on originally, I didn’t have television reception after 1990. When I heard they were filming a sequel series right down the road from us (had no idea the original was filmed here) I thought it would be fun to check out on Netflix and see familiar sites in a TV show. It was so bad my kid was asking me to turn it off halfway through the pilot. I insisted we plow through and even give the next episode a shot but aside from Cooper it was a soap opera Trainwreck of bad acting, bad dialogue and terrible pacing. The god awful music being poorly cued at odd moments didn’t help either. We gave up after two episodes and that was that… except it wasn’t!

I got sick as hell last week and have been in bed for most of 6 days (I went into work Monday but was sent home by my foreman) I was bored so I started watching it again. I made it to the middle of season 2 when the main plot line gets resolved but lost interest in all the loose ends that weren’t tied up by then. I think this show survives (and got a sequel) based on mostly nostalgia. In 1990 it was pretty edgy compared to most TV so I can see the attraction at the time but it doesn’t hold up very well any more.
Highlight: seeing David Duchovny in drag

The original couple of seasons of Twin Peaks have aged badly, it’s probably fairly impossible for those to attract new viewers.

However, the recent season is must watch tv. It’s absolutely mind blowing.

It’s honestly worthwhile making the effort to grind through the old episodes just to get enough background to get the most out of the third season.

I’m looking forward to seeing it.

General release in the UK is the end of November though.

Uncut Gems was good. It doesn’t have the sustained intensity of Good Time and played more like a drama than a thriller to me, but there are definitely suspenseful sequences. Adam Sandler is really watchable and the score is great. It really isn’t for everyone, but if you’re interested then I say it’s worth a watch.

Le Mans ’66 worked really well for me, as someone who didn’t really know the story or any of the key players. Matt Damon and Christian Bale work well together (and separately), while most of the the racing scenes are top-knotch. Hell, some of the themes of the story work as an analogue for filmmaking. They probably stand out as more meta for me than anyone involved intended, purely because of the angle of Disney buying Fox.

Amyway, if this is the final blockbuster to come from Twentieth Century Fox proper, I hope that it’s a hit. It definitely seemed to please the crowd that I saw it with.

Not yet. It looks like it’s still five or six weeks away, but I’m at the London Film Festival this week and making the most of it. I haven’t posted about everything I’ve seen, but it’s a fun time here.

I’m excited to see what you make of this one anyway, given your interest in the subject matter.

I saw Gemini Man in 60FPS 3D last night. Fourth movie I’ve seen in 3D, and first I’ve seen in HFR.

The story was a bit too basic and predictable, with no real surprises. I thought Smith was great, and liked Winstead and Wong, even if Wong seemed to be in a different movie. Clive Owen was a fairly uninspired villain; it’s the same character he’s played before and will probably play many times again.

The HFR is very weird, especially in the brightly lit outdoor scenes. It kept reminding me of those cheap-looking vanity movies that go straight to Amazon Prime or are sold by the directors by mail, while still looking expensive.

The depth of field stuff is very distracting. The characters will be in focus in the foreground, but my eyes kept drifting to the background, looking at random extras, or just the landscapes. There’s one part, set at fancy resort, where there’s a big dialogue scene happening, but I kept looking at the background where an old man in black swim trunks kept wandering in and out of frame.

I do think the HFR works great for the action scenes. I loved the Columbia setpiece, and the Smith-vs-Smith hand-to-hand fight in the catacombs. It definitely becomes less distracting in the third act too, probably as it’s mostly set at night. The few underwater bits look fantastic too, and makes me curious to see what James Cameron could do with the tech.

Overall, I enjoyed the HFR experience more than I expected. The movie’s not great, but I think it’s definitely worth watching.

I just watched El Camino too. I found it a bit mixed.

On one hand, it’s a decent curtain call for Jesse (and a few other characters from Breaking Bad – I won’t spoil it by mentioning who does and doesn’t show up here) and there are some good individual scenes with the kind of building of tension and clever twists that Gilligan always does so well.

But at the same time, there’s never a sense that this was a story that needed to be told. There isn’t a huge urgency about it, and the scenes that work well individually don’t come together as a particularly coherent whole. It’s almost as though these were individual scenes knocking around in Gilligan’s head for a while that he decided to string together as a two-hour movie.

Also, it’s a bit too unrelentingly bleak for me. Breaking Bad always had its moments, but it also had a certain levity and balance that is largely missing here.

I don’t regret watching it, but I also kind of wish they’d left the Breaking Bad finale as it was, rather than giving it what amounts to a slightly limp epilogue.

I liked Breaking Bad a lot, and I thought the last couple of episodes were great – but I did feel like the final season was generally a bit of a step down from what came before it, and El Camino feels of a piece with that final season to me.

It is more like that, yes.

A lot of the ideas and scenes here would have made for good single episodes – but strung together as a movie-length viewing experience it doesn’t quite hang together as a satisfying whole.

The final film that I saw at the London Film Festival was the Friday night screening of First Love, directed by Takashi Miike. The story has a fairly large number of characters spread across the Yakuza, the Triads and some characters caught up in-between. It never becomes confusing though, as each character is distinct in classic Miike fashion.

True to its title, this is a love story. But it’s a pretty violent one and very funny. I had a great time and can’t wait for it to come out in properly in the UK next year so that I can see it again.

Yeah the El Camino movie was a nice epilogue to the series, but it was just that, an okay extended episode to give Jessie and some of the other characters a nice farewell… wouldn’t say it’s essential, but it was a nice throwback.
 
It did make me think though, they could totally get away with re-launching breaking bad as an anthology kind of series, focusing on other or even new characters, but with that same style of gritty story-telling… I guess that’s what BCS is though…

• This reply was modified 5 years, 2 months ago by Jon.

I posted this in the Marvel movies thread because I’m an idiot:

Luc Bessons Anna

I liked it. It’s check your brain at the door and go for a ride flashy espionage stuff. The action scenes are pretty good and, frankly, it’s well shot.

I don’t really understand the mediocre reviews. It’s not pretending to be something it’s not. If you like any of Bessons films, you’ll like this.

RonnieM wrote:

Tim wrote:

I’m an idiot

Boooo down vote

Finally caught the ending of Preacher. I think it did a great job, but I’m a little sad because the show is ending and I really enjoyed it. I’ll miss it very much – the cast were so strong and the production so wild that you just never knew what was going to happen. I found it was always best when it meandered around rather than hitting necessary plot points. It really added a large amount to the comic book series, and I think ranks among the best comic book adaptations – even though I know many didn’t like it. Ennis should be very happy with how it finished, this odd book and TV show that defined his career.

Dood, do you even Scorsese?

Talking of runtimes. I Watched IT: Chapter 2….All 2hrs 45min of it.
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I liked the casting, especially Bill Hader who has some funny lines. And a lot of the individual scenes worked in isolation. But the runtime really killed anything enjoyable about this film.
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There is just no need for it to be this long. There is a whole middle section where you have each character going off on a separate adventure. But they all play out the exact same way. There are flashbacks to the younger cast, that feel useless most of the time. And we get the pointless return of the crazy kid from the first film..You could cut a load of this and end up with a more reasonable length.
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Honestly I think the first one works perfectly well on its own, so I can’t see ever wanting to revisit this.

Will_C wrote:

Dood, do you even Scorsese?

My favourite Scorsese movie is Raging Bull, which manages to be a pretty much perfect film and barely break two hours.

Spoilers Christian, jesus.

SteveUK wrote:

The Lion King (2019 edition)
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So, obviously, this adds nothing important to the story.

I take it there’s no point watching this if you’ve already watched the animated version?

The whole thing just feels superfluous and a cynical creatively bankrupt move from Disney to make money.

They can do what they want and these remakes seem to be working very well commercially but I think the time gap thing is always a little nebulous with Disney cartoons. Most of the ones I watched as a kid were made before I was born. It’s the same with my kids.

I think a lot of punters like the familiar, it would explain those novelists who get great success churning out the same story with slightly different characters.

Ian Smith wrote:

Chris-S wrote:

Ian Smith wrote:

Talking of runtimes. I Watched IT: Chapter 2….All 2hrs 45min of it.
.
I liked the casting, especially Bill Hader who has some funny lines. And a lot of the individual scenes worked in isolation. But the runtime really killed anything enjoyable about this film.
.
There is just no need for it to be this long. There is a whole middle section where you have each character going off on a separate adventure. But they all play out the exact same way. There are flashbacks to the younger cast, that feel useless most of the time. And we get the pointless return of the crazy kid from the first film..You could cut a load of this and end up with a more reasonable length.
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Honestly I think the first one works perfectly well on its own, so I can’t see ever wanting to revisit this.

I honestly feel that I’ve gone mad when seeing the response to these movies. I’m utterly baffled by the success. I say this as a fan of horror and King is my favourite writer.

I thought the stuff with the kids was fine and the cast was decent but the horror elements were pathetic and both movies were beyond tedious by the end.

That guy is a terrible horror director. Absolutely dreadful. He takes strong material that is perfect for scares and turns it into an overblown mess of crappy, unrealistic CGI and that takes me right out of the movie. It was the same with Mama which also had a great premise, how managed to fuck that up with CGI is beyond me.

Utter toilet.

————————————————————————–———————————–

Oh yeah, it’s not scary at all. And chapter 2 definitely felt like they had a larger budget, so went crazy with the cgi. Which tends to add a lot of gloss to scenes that are meant to be more murky. I can’t really remember the last genuinely scary horror film I’ve seen.

Yeah it’s been a while since I’ve watched anything effective either.

I think my first watch of the conjuring was the last time I genuinely felt frightened and the conjuring 2 had a handful of moments, but I’ve recently watched it again and I didn’t get the same thrill from it, possibly because I knew well what to expect.

The best horror and closest thing to scary I’ve watched since is the The Haunting of Hill House.

There’s some great directing going on there from Flanagan; less is more, building tension using clever filming techniques and sound, its really clever what he has used there, especially the way he uses the great cast and well written drama as a key component to building that tension.

I feel like it’s the best thing I’ve watched in ages, every night I was looking forward to my wife and kids going to bed so I could sit up and watch it alone with the lights out.

‘Rear Window’ is my favourite; it balances all the suspense, melodrama, humour and technical skill better than any of Hitchcock’s other (very good) films.

Having a beer and watching the original Terminator.

Each makes the other that little bit better.

Also, first two eps of Doom Patrol: way better than I would’ve expected.

Dave wrote:

Having a beer and watching the original Terminator.

Each makes the other that little bit better.

Are you saying that Terminator was so bad you need to be drunk to watch it?

Tell me one movie that isn’t.

KandorLives wrote:

Tell me one movie that isn’t.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_CometYear of the Comethttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_of_the_Comet

• This reply was modified 5 years, 1 month ago by Todd.

I think Night of the Comet is very much a beer movie. it is very much a popcorn movie and beer goes well with popcorn.

Sweetbitter

I’m enjoying it. It reminds me of younger times.

Now I have seen Aquaman. It was ok, in a totally predictable but at least visually interesting way.

I find it fascinating that both in this Movie and in Black Panther, they seem to find it reasonable that an extremely advanced society is not only ruled by a king selected by genetic lottery and wearing clothes from the middle ages, but also that they are totally ok with the king fighting to the death with his siblings for the right to be king. Imagine if Prince Charles bastard brother showed up outside Buckingham Palace: “I have found Excalibur, and will now challenge you to a duel to stop Brexit!”

The “one true king” is a very old story. It doesn’t ring true for me either really, but something about it still appeals to a very wide audience.
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And what’s considered “advanced” varies from culture to culture, and “tradition”, “our ancestors” etc. get rolled out to excuse stuff all the time.
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It’s the way it’s always been.

Or you could do yourself a favour and NOT look at ‘Jupiter Ascending’.

Watched the first episode and a bit of Swamp thing Across 4 attempts, 3 of which I fell asleep

It’s fucking crap

So much great source material and they come out with this less than mediocre effort

10 minutes of plot so far, bland actors giving bland performances to a poor script, bland sound, bland effects – just boring and uninspiring

So little going and so undemanding of your attention that you could easily have this on in the back while doing household chores with the odd glance up and follow everything that is happening

I was sad to hear that this got cancelled, now that I’ve watched the first episode and a bit I honestly couldn’t give a fuck – it can bore off

I’d like to enjoy this and watch this show, because of the character – has anyone watched it and does it get significantly better

DavidM wrote:

But I liked how they left all the cast in places that felt satisfying and appropriately earned. I wish the series hadn’t ended, but if this has to be the end then it ended in a good place.

Having followed the cast and crew on social media and in person Q & As, they were a tight family so I can imagine that the end of the episode was written especially so that all these characters go out on top. My favorite parts were the returns of Pip and Lucy. When Lucy called Nucy her and Johnny’s child I laughed so hard . I think the boss fight was underwhelming too but The Lady was too foreign at her core to have a real knock down drag out.