Chat! culturecrossfire.slack.com

I Just Watched... (Movies/TV/DVD)

Youth N Asia

Boners, and farts.
Messages
11,692
Reaction score
561
Points
253
Location
Michigan
Surprised by how much I’m enjoying the Ted series on Peacock. Didn’t care too much for the first movie, didn’t bother seeing the second one, gave up on Family Guy a decade or so ago.
 

Brocklock

Integral Poster
Messages
9,189
Reaction score
1,634
Points
228
Location
Illinois
The Beekeeper - 6.5/10

This would be a 7.5/10 without the two cop characters. Completely obnoxious and unfunny. The actress gave one of the worst performances I've seen in a while, and did not sell anything well. She didn't react to anything properly and was so snappy and cynical. I can't tell if it was the intention, but she wasn't entertaining and her line delivery was so off.

With that out of the way, I had a blast otherwise. The script really is garbage, but Ayer and Statham know it and play it more straight than usual which really works. Ayer's directing really elevates things and this film is much more meaner and violent than I was expecting. Statham is ruthless and this might be his best action film since the Crank movies. Without him, this could've been really bad. Mark Wahlberg or Vin Diesel as The Beekeeper would be so much worse. Statham has so much more presence and intensity.

Josh Hutcherson is also really entertaining as the douchebag villain. I got Logan Paul vibes at times and he was such a shithead. Very fun performance. And the villains in general were loathsome and fun to see get taken out by Statham.

Action was pretty terrific and versatile. It also didn't drag and was perfectly paced. I want to like this more, but the cop characters and the lead actress, in particular, really hurt the movie for me.
 

RedJed

Rasslin' Rambler
Messages
5,862
Reaction score
422
Points
188
Location
Mankato, MN
I enjoyed Beekeeper just as much. On a side note, I thought MJF would have been a perfect casting choice for Josh Hutcherson's character.

I agree that without Statham, this would have been something competely different from an entertaining standpoint. It had John Wick vibes often.
 

Laz

Making dumb observations since 2002
Messages
19,905
Reaction score
2,621
Points
253
Location
Music City
Enola Holmes (2020) wants to be so much more than it is, and fully embraces the "Netflix original" issue of overloading ideas and tropes and story beats in quick succession so that very little of it has a chance to settle. We're introduced to the titular character (Millie Bobby Brown), the (much) younger sister of famous detective Sherlock (Henry Cavill), who shows just as much a flare for investigation and deduction as he does. Her only problem? She was raised fairly reclusively by their mother Eudoria (Helena Bonham Carter), a proponent of women's suffrage and equality in late 19th century England.

After her mother disappears one morning, Enola becomes the ward of eldest brother Mycroft (Sam Claflin), a Lord that is determined to send her to a finishing school so that she knows her place as a Lady of the era. Enola escapes and runs across the also-escaping Tewkesbury (Louis Partridge), an aristocrat and future Lord that shares the same Reform ideals as his murdered father.

The movie is carried kicking and screaming by how insanely loveable Millie Bobby Brown is, and her charisma shines through in each decision and discovery. She escapes the overused "Mary Sue" critique by regularly coming up short and only realizing how to read the clues she's found to not only her mother's disappearance but also the murder plot against Tewkesbury when it may be too late. The pacing is mediocre, the tonal shifts from fun mystery to frenzied action to screwball comedy to sentimentality occur with little time for any of it to digest, and there are too many plot threads for any of it to hold the weight they deserve.

This may be based on a YA novel series, but not all elements need to be shown, nor does the regular breaking of the fourth wall. 6/10

Enola Holmes 2 (2022)
, however, fixes each and every problem the original had. After a few brief minutes detailing the original's plot synopsis and what's happened in the ensuing timeframe, the plot is brought forth, and each scene feeds into it. The returning characters (Enola, Sherlock, Tewkesbury, Eudoria, and a few others) all develop while the story moves forward rather than at the expense of the story, and their chemistry has only gotten better.

This time, Enola takes on the case of the missing Sarah Chapman, a worker at the local Lyon Matches factory that has also been accused of theft and blackmail. Enola finds her paths crossing with Sherlock as they both realize they're working the same case (Sherlock attempting to discover who is blackmailing Lord McIntyre), and her relationship to Tewkesbury deepens as we realize they're both working toward helping the less fortunate. The Holmes sister must navigate the rough streets of Whitechapel, overt corruption at Scotland Yard, and posh London society all at once, and it fits into the very real movement of the era for women to have equal rights to men.

Now THIS is how you craft a PG-13 murder mystery that has a blatant political message. Sarah Chapman was a very real figure in the movement of the age, and her spark is what led to equality in England between the sexes. Having this fictional story surround her, but not be the "cause" of her mission, was a brilliant move.

Oh. And we get a fun spin on Sherlock's classic arch nemesis Moriarty that legitimately caught me by surprise. 7.5/10, a rare sequel that learned from its predecessor's faults and delivered on every level.
 

cobainwasmurdered

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
24,630
Reaction score
3,888
Points
333
Location
Abbotsford, BC
The Beekeeper - 6.5/10

This would be a 7.5/10 without the two cop characters. Completely obnoxious and unfunny. The actress gave one of the worst performances I've seen in a while, and did not sell anything well. She didn't react to anything properly and was so snappy and cynical. I can't tell if it was the intention, but she wasn't entertaining and her line delivery was so off.

With that out of the way, I had a blast otherwise. The script really is garbage, but Ayer and Statham know it and play it more straight than usual which really works. Ayer's directing really elevates things and this film is much more meaner and violent than I was expecting. Statham is ruthless and this might be his best action film since the Crank movies. Without him, this could've been really bad. Mark Wahlberg or Vin Diesel as The Beekeeper would be so much worse. Statham has so much more presence and intensity.

Josh Hutcherson is also really entertaining as the douchebag villain. I got Logan Paul vibes at times and he was such a shithead. Very fun performance. And the villains in general were loathsome and fun to see get taken out by Statham.

Action was pretty terrific and versatile. It also didn't drag and was perfectly paced. I want to like this more, but the cop characters and the lead actress, in particular, really hurt the movie for me.
Agree with all of this. The FBI characters were awful but Statham was fantastic. I love how he decided to play this completely straight. The one FBI actress is actually decent enough in "Umbrella Academy" but she was completely wooden here.

The over the top bad guys were all hilarious as well. We needed more with the New Yorker Hype Guy.
 

HarleyQuinn

Laugh This Off... Puddin'!
Staff member
Messages
22,115
Reaction score
2,003
Points
313
No Escape (1994)
Starring Ray Liotta, Ernie Hudson, Lance Henricksen, Kevin Dillon, Stuart Wilson, and Michael Lerner

A science fiction movie set in 2022 very influenced by Mad Max where Ray Liotta's J.T. Robbins (notably influenced by McClane from Die Hard as the everyman "hero" post Schwarzenneger/Stallone) is an anti-authority prisoner thrown onto an island, called Absolom, by the Warden he went up against (but didn't kill) where he eventually joins the good guy "Insiders" (aka the rebel group) led by Henriksen's The Father whilst wanting to escape off the island and not get killed by the bad guy group "The Outsiders" led by Wilson's Marek. Since it's two factions on an island with The Outsiders having a 6-1 number advantage... you know where that plot is going.

The film throws us into the prison setup but there's only 5-10 minutes of screentime before we get to Liotta's J.T. Robbins getting thrown onto the island, where the film quickly slows down to a crawl as we spend time with the good guy and bad guy groups just waiting and biding time to get to the eventual 3rd act.

Liotta's good but feels... miscast and out of his element as a lead action hero actor. There's some talent around him but the set design is very basic and largely contingent to its island premise so there's not a lot of space/screen time for elaborate stunt pieces (despite a few fun explosion pieces typical of the era) or fanciness and the script doesn't develop the characters depth-wise enough to counter this flaw. The big fight scene halfway through the movie feels like something you'd eventually see in Xena or Hercules on television. For a 2 hour movie, it turns into a sheer slog halfway, and even by the end it doesn't feel worth seeing it through.

4/10
 
  • Like
Reactions: Laz

Laz

Making dumb observations since 2002
Messages
19,905
Reaction score
2,621
Points
253
Location
Music City
I'll give Ti West credit for X (2022) in that he's truly refined his strengths of utilizing the scenery and location to their strongest possible advantage, and that he builds and builds the tension before pulling the trigger and letting it flow. Where it falters, though, is also in Ti West's ongoing weakness: the third act feeling less-filling than it should after such a great build.

In the summer of 1979, Wayne (Martin Anderson) is an adult film producer out of Houston who's rented a boarding house in the sticks to film his latest project, the Farmer's Daughters, starring his troupe of actors Maxine (Mia Goth), Bobby-Lynne (Brittany Snow), and Jackson (Kid Cudi). On camera is RJ (Owen Campbell), an aspiring filmmaker with delusions of grandeur, and on sound is RJ's girlfriend Lorraine (Jenna Ortega), who is initially hesitant about the content of the project before ultimately deciding she wants to be included. Wayne and the old man renting out his property, Howard (Stephen Ure), don't quite get along, but Howard ultimately agrees to his property's usage after an increased rental payment and the promise that the film crew not bother his wife Pearl (Mia Goth in heavy prosthetics).

Welp, they accidentally do so, and it awakens the murderous jealousy inside of Pearl that she is no longer young and beautiful.

If there's a real fault here, it's that the movie would have ultimately been more interesting as a Boogie Nights-esque foray into the world of 1970s erotica and the motivations for those who entered it. In particular, the scene where Lorraine questions Maxine and Bobby-Lynne for their motivations and then decides she wants to be involved deserved more depth and time, as the interaction between her and RJ during and after posed a solid question of "progressive" views toward sexuality and relationships, but it then feels rushed and ultimately serves as the bridge between a solid hour of character building before a rushed finale.

In many ways, this feels as though Ti West took an unused Rob Zombie idea and made it his own. Whether that's an insult or a compliment depends on the scene, really. As it is, I can understand why this garnered as much attention as it did on release, even beyond the setting of the film crew and their content, but the best parts of the film (an exploration of sexuality and nostalgia for one's sexual prime) deserve more than the slaughter this turns into. Ti West has an Oscar winner in his head and soul, I just know he does, and would be best served moving on from genre to achieve it. 6.5/10
 

Laz

Making dumb observations since 2002
Messages
19,905
Reaction score
2,621
Points
253
Location
Music City
Well, they did it. A "snorecore" flick that I didn't think was suburban trash, and it's one that's apparently divisive: Don't Worry Darling (2022].

Is it a bit uneven? Yeah. I'll accept that criticism. I'll also point out that it's intentionally so, given what's going on. I really appreciated the tonal shifts, as they kept a major throughline steady while swapping from growing suburban horror to idyllic paradise. Olivia Wilde nailed it out of the park in the director's chair, really, because this just builds and builds before a frantic close that leaves so much open...because the epilogue isn't important to the story once we get the truth.

Florence Pugh is going to get an Oscar one day, and it will probably be on the sooner side, and she will deserve it even if all she does is sleepwalk. Harry Styles delivers every time he needs to (loved the swapping between accents and how it worked into the story). Olivia Wilde herself does a solid supporting job. Chris Pine, as has been said many times over, has grown into a great talent once he left the Star Trek stuff behind and focused on indie films.

Sure, you've seen similar movies before, but not like this. The creeping sense of some sort of eldritch dread gets thicker with each scene, and by the reveal? It all makes sense. This doesn't spell everything out for you, it requires some understanding of a topic that relates directly to Jack's (Harry Styles) motivations, and I love that about it. 8/10
 
Last edited:

909

909
Staff member
Messages
40,137
Reaction score
3,928
Points
313
Location
West Point
That was a WB movie not a24. I didn’t like it but there were lots of things in it that studio movies usually don’t have.
 

Laz

Making dumb observations since 2002
Messages
19,905
Reaction score
2,621
Points
253
Location
Music City
Noted. Could've sworn I saw the A24 logo at the start.
 

HarleyQuinn

Laugh This Off... Puddin'!
Staff member
Messages
22,115
Reaction score
2,003
Points
313
A Murder of Crows (1999) - 6/10
Starring Cuba Gooding Jr, Tom Berenger, Eric Stoltz, and Marianne Jean-Baptiste

A very '90s John Grisham-esque (who gets namedropped) mystery thriller about a disbarred lawyer who "writes" a novel, only to find out after the fact that the novel depicts 5 true murders with Tom Berenger's detective suddenly on the case pursuing him while Cuba tries to solve who the real killer is while on the run.

There's some noir-ish elements to this and it's paced pretty well although it adheres to the usual reveal in the 3rd act that kind of hampers the overall story because the character kind of comes out of nowhere. Solid acting from Cuba, Marianne, and Berenger helps keep this movie a bit above other similar '90s titles with similar plot lines.
 

Laz

Making dumb observations since 2002
Messages
19,905
Reaction score
2,621
Points
253
Location
Music City
Thanksgiving (2023) is Eli Roth's best movie to date. It's packed with fun twists and red herrings, with the prologue setting up no less than 3 potential identities for the masked killer. In fact, the actual reveal was a bit of a letdown, as I was hoping it'd be someone else in a fun return of slasher tropes past.

Regardless, this is the type of slasher that all of the other indie slashers yearn to be. 7/10
 

Youth N Asia

Boners, and farts.
Messages
11,692
Reaction score
561
Points
253
Location
Michigan
Watched Tulsa King recently. I don’t know if it’s good. But it’s watchable, and fun enough. Certainly not top tier mob media. Couple instances were just bad where there’s a character that gets killed, and it’s made like it’s a big sad deal… but you barely got to know them at all, and there’s really no ties there. Similarly there’s a scene where someone’s told they’re good with a gun, then they let you know their daddy taught them… before he killed himself. This character has been given even less to do all season, and it means nothing at all.

All that being said I still enjoyed it for the most part. It’s fun seeing Sly take a tv roll.
 

cobainwasmurdered

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
24,630
Reaction score
3,888
Points
333
Location
Abbotsford, BC
is aonyone watching "Shogun" I don't know if its worth making a thread for it but it's great so far. They've changed the story a bit from the book and previous mini-series but all for the better. The acting and visuals are fantastic. Loving it so far.
 

RedJed

Rasslin' Rambler
Messages
5,862
Reaction score
422
Points
188
Location
Mankato, MN
Lisa Frankenstein: Was this horror? Yes kinda but I would call it more a rom/com with horror homage elements intermixed. I still am not seeing how this connects at all to Jennifer's Body (other than the writer is the same) but the verbiage had similarities, I suppose. Enjoyed this somewhat, and it would probably play well best with a double feature of this with Weird Science as it had the 80s vibe fully engaged here. Film started out shakey a bit, but it did gain traction as the film went on.

Drive Away Dolls: This was 90s nostalgia, mixed with a zany more ungrounded direction from one of the Coen brothers. Different levels of lesbian lifestyles was in a very in your face way in this one (sexually charged too), kind of a refreshing comedic look within it. There was some pretty harsh dead-pan moments of really wacky humor that I never expected from one of the Coens, then again it kind of fits within their storytelling context in some ways, especially within the last third/final act. There was some characters I wish could have been fleshed out more, and the decision was to make this runtime real short at only 80 minutes sans credits. Could have used maybe another 20 minutes to give some fun characters more time on screen.
 

HarleyQuinn

Laugh This Off... Puddin'!
Staff member
Messages
22,115
Reaction score
2,003
Points
313
Watched several movies yesterday...

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022): I enjoyed it, I guess? I liked the concept and the execution although I'm not a Pete Davidson fan. I do think they could've ran with the game setting up things a bit more strongly. 5/10

Road House
(2024): Very heavily UFC inspired, and as somebody not into UFC/MMA that did not draw me in at all. Some questionable choices made, especially after seeing the original, and it really just tumbled off a cliff once Connor McGregor's character came into the fold. A lot of graphic violence but the scenes that did carry over felt much stronger/earned in the original. Big shout out to Jake Gyllenhaal's body & workout routine though, whooo. I can see why Amazon dumped this thing to Prime instead of theaters. The "Road House" (being on the beach was stupid IMO and the location change to Florida didn't make sense either) literally just being a place where people came to fight all.the.time got old pretty fast and it never felt like a location people would want to go to otherwise. Also Jake's character just breaking people's bodies, literally, seemed anti-spirit of the first movie and more an excuse to lean on the UFC/Fighting side of the story. 4/10

Road House
(1989): I enjoyed this quite a bit. I liked that it felt like the Double Deuces was actually improving over time thanks to Swayze's character (just a little thing like having the mesh chicken cage disappear in front of the band) and the side characters were just more interesting. The villain felt like a real villain and got the final fight unlike the remake (which confused me to be honest as there was all this build up behind the rich spoiled brat character). I liked that Swayze wasn't gung-ho about being violent and was trying to marry philosophy and bouncing. 6/10
 

cobainwasmurdered

Administrator
Staff member
Messages
24,630
Reaction score
3,888
Points
333
Location
Abbotsford, BC
Saw "Monkey Man" tonight and I thought it was really good. A little shaky cam action at times but the fights were great, some very nice song choices and seeing Indian culture/religion/etc used in wide release movie was really cool.
 
Top