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

[HarleyQuinn]

high recommendation to "Squid Game" which is a Korean tv show. 456 people in debt are brought to a mysterious location and play deadly kids games for prize money. There's all kinds of shit going on of course. Super fun stuff.

Just binge watched all 9 episodes and it's great stuff. The series does a very good job giving about 5-7 core characters to focus on/care about and follow their individual arcs through. There's a lot of symbolism/reflection related to gambling, which makes sense given that's one of the reasons why most of the people are invited to play in the game in the first place.

If you can make it through episode 3, that's when the series really starts to take off and hooked me.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Finished all of Sex Education last night. Brilliant show that knows how to perfectly balance humor, insight, and drama. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that the relationship between. Otis and Maeve is oddly similar to one I had with an ex when we were still in high school (yeah, that one).

The oddly roughest parts involved a side character named Lily and her S3 arc (she's a complete alien-obsessed nerd who receives some overly harsh treatment by the head teacher), and a scene involving Otis's mother and her boyfriend arguing (rough because it reminded me of when my parents decided to file for divorce).

Excellent, excellent show. S3 ends with a level of ambiguity about everybody and their futures, both far and immediate, and I'd actually be happy if the series ends with this and doesn't get picked up for a fourth season.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Well, made it through episode 3 of Squid Game. Sat there for 50ish minutes just to get to something remotely entertaining. Meh.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Gave Midnight Mass a chance. Shit. Positive reviews must be coming from people who've never seen Silver Bullet, because there are a ton of similarities...but Silver Bullet at least has Gary Busey. This has shit acting across the board (unless you think "I'll stare at the floor to show that I'm in thought" is deep), bland cinematography, and a plot that's predictable in the worst of ways.

Safe, suburban, sheltered as shit horror. Mike Flanagan has let me down again (Hill House sucked).

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Gave Midnight Mass a chance. Shit. Positive reviews must be coming from people who've never seen Silver Bullet, because there are a ton of similarities...but Silver Bullet at least has Gary Busey. This has shit acting across the board (unless you think "I'll stare at the floor to show that I'm in thought" is deep), bland cinematography, and a plot that's predictable in the worst of ways.

Safe, suburban, sheltered as shit horror. Mike Flanagan has let me down again (Hill House sucked).

I didn't have high hopes for Midnight Mass based on his previous entries so I'm glad I didn't bother to give this one a chance. I'll probably pass on it now or watch it a year or two down the road when I have nothing else to watch and am bored.

 

[Youth N Asia]

I didn't have high hopes for Midnight Mass based on his previous entries so I'm glad I didn't bother to give this one a chance. I'll probably pass on it now or watch it a year or two down the road when I have nothing else to watch and am bored.

I’ll give it a shot. Laz said Hill House sucked. Other than the ending I enjoyed it. So we just might not be on the same wavelength there. I never gave Bly a watch. Just didn’t look or seen interesting.

 

[RedJed]

Eyes of Tammy Faye: This was pretty drawn out, but it seemed to cover everything and then some from the history of the Bakkers, and all of the moving parts and personalities. I can't say I was enthralled with this film (it dragged on far too long into over 2 hour territory) but it was certainly informative in a sense as I didn't know half of the stuff that was presented here. Jessica Chastain did almost a jaw dropping performance in ways, deserving of an Academy Award nom and they need to give the makeup job on her a nomination as well, especially showing her as she aged (not so gracefully) was so impressive that I couldn't even recognize it was Chastain. Andrew Garfield did pretty well as Jim Bakker too, but the rest of the cast was kind of just there performance wise. The runtime really hurt this one more than anything.

Free Guy: Man, they made a premise that sounded formulaic as fuck and very pretentious into a hell of a fun and meta-friendly film that actually even got a bit more dramatic and heartfelt on a positive level than expected.

Copshop: Really enjoyed this one. Felt like a bordering on grindhouse style of a 70s crime thriller, Gerard Butler and Frank Grillo nailed it on their roles and the premise was tremendous that led to an outragerous and chaotic last act that built really well. It really balanced well the genres of a dark comedy, action/thriller, even with some western tropes mixed in. Get baked and have a fucking ball with this one.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

I thought Free Guy was way better than it deserved to be. It's not a great movie or anything but much better than expected.

 

[RedJed]

I thought Free Guy was way better than it deserved to be. It's not a great movie or anything but much better than expected.

Yep, maybe I went in thinking this was just a typical video game type of thing that didn't have much else going for it, but damn did it ever overextend itself in the narrative. It never got dull or boring.

 

[Brooklyn Zoo]

Gave Midnight Mass a chance. Shit. Positive reviews must be coming from people who've never seen Silver Bullet, because there are a ton of similarities...but Silver Bullet at least has Gary Busey. This has shit acting across the board (unless you think "I'll stare at the floor to show that I'm in thought" is deep), bland cinematography, and a plot that's predictable in the worst of ways.

Safe, suburban, sheltered as shit horror. Mike Flanagan has let me down again (Hill House sucked).

maaan I disagree entirely. Midnight Mass is worth watching. I wouldn’t call it sheltered horror because it’s not meant to be straight up slasher shit. And yet it has some unsettling ass scenes. It’s like a spiritual and existential play (lengthy monologues) with some horror elements.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

AMC+ exclusive Kevin Can Fxxx Himself is hilarious and awesome. Annie Murphy (Schitt's Creek) plays the generic hot sitcom wife who has just absolutely had ENOUGH of her slovenly husband's bullshit. It also takes place in Worcester (@Kamala The Simp ) so that alone is enough to entertain me, but the jokes are on point at mocking sitcom tropes and the dichotomy of generic sitcom cinematography with the humdrum depression of the wife's life beyond the laugh track is marvelous.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Finally caught Pig, I definitely liked it a lot but maybe not as much as some people. Obviously, an A+ performance from Nic Cage (and throughout) but did anyone else feel like the way the film was scored and lit was kind of wonky? Like I know there was a lot of talk about it being mismarketed it as a revenge movie but there were times when I thought it kind of LOOKED and sounded like it was a revenge time. Like something that wouldn't happen would actually happen.

Idk. Maybe/probably thinking about this too much, which isn't a bad thing. I just feel like if it were shot more like a regular indie drama, maybe its themes would have resonated more but it also probably wouldn't have gotten the attention that it did. Still very solid movie! I'm just nitpicking, folks!

 

[BruiserBrody]

Watching Midnight Express for the first time in like 20 years. I totally forgot Oliver Stone had anything to do with it, or Randy Quaid.
It's pretty much totally Hollywood fake compared to the real story, but the movie itself is pretty intense. The fact that the Turks (god I hope that is an acceptable term yet) are not subtitled adds to confusion/drama/ambiance that an American may feel being locked up abroad.
Good heels, good acting, wonderful locations/sets. Plus it gave Art Bell that banger of a theme to use for years and years.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

I saw Beetlejuice for the first time in 20+ years at a local seasonal music theatre that's showing movies on weekends in October as their season winds down. I forgot how little Beetlejuice is in the movie he's named after! Alec Baldwin & Geena Davis really are kind of the leads. Also I couldn't shake how much Beetlejuice kind of reminded me of Sam Kinison. Really wasn't surprised to find out that Sam Kinison was one of the people considered for the role. Maybe him and Keaton's time overlapped on the stand up circuit? I also totally forgot Robert Goulet as a secondary heel in the movie.

 

[BruiserBrody]

I saw Beetlejuice for the first time in 20+ years at a local seasonal music theatre that's showing movies on weekends in October as their season winds down. I forgot how little Beetlejuice is in the movie he's named after! Alec Baldwin & Geena Davis really are kind of the leads. Also I couldn't shake how much Beetlejuice kind of reminded me of Sam Kinison. Really wasn't surprised to find out that Sam Kinison was one of the people considered for the role. Maybe him and Keaton's time overlapped on the stand up circuit? I also totally forgot Robert Goulet as a secondary heel in the movie.

Keaton did stand up? I didn't realize that. I know he worked on Mr. Rogers and I guess I assumed he was just an actor who moved up the food chain.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

He only did stand up for a couple years to supplement his acting income and wasn't v. good so it's not particularly well known. He was good enough to get passed at Comedy Store (where he may have interacted with Kinison?) and do some small TV appearances but not anything beyond that. it seems stereotypical hacky '80s stand up.

I guess Kinison moved to L.A. in 1980 before Keaton made it big so I supposed it is possible they interacted.

 

[Super Leather]

The fact that the Turks (god I hope that is an acceptable term yet) are not subtitled adds to confusion/drama/ambiance that an American may feel being locked up abroad.

Apparently native speakers were also confused at times listening to those actors butchering their language, speaking in broken Turkish. This was but a minor complaint compared to how the Turkish government felt about the portrayal of their country in Midnight Express.

 

[RedJed]

So I took a break from all of the horror the last 4-5 days to binge through all of the Daniel Craig Bond films, including going to the newer one in the theater last night. I felt like No Time to Die had flaws, but it was a nice fitting way to arc the character. Somber ending that I felt maybe missed the mark a bit though, all things considered (won't spoil tag it but I think most people know how it finished off). I think the way they handled the villians in this film also was a major letdown.

So where do they go now with the franchise? Things were certainly set up in No Time To Die to just continue on with the other characters they established particularly in the last three films. We will see what they do, but ultimately it won't be the same and you can't do the overflowing budget without that main hook anymore.

Or will they just reboot things again, and with whom?

Overall, I think this is how I would rate the Craig films....

1) Skyfall
2) Casino Royale
3) No Time to Die
4) Spectre
5) Quantum of Solace

 

[Fall of Epic]

I haven't seen the new one but I think that's a fair way to rank them. Casino and Skyfall are 1a and 1b for me with Quantum being a bottom 5 Bond flick IMO.

 

[Youth N Asia]

Back to back crappy recent horror movie night.

The Forever Purge.
I’ll likely remember almost nothing about this one. Just a big shrug. Still not as bad as The First Purge. Kinda feels like the villains in these movies are just the psychopath boss fights from the Dead Rising games.

Spiral.
While The Forever Purge was a forgettable shrug, this one was just an awful little turd. I’ve always wanted to like Chris Rock in things, but he’s embarrassingly bad in the one-two punch of Fargo season 4, and this. I understand not wanting to use Tobin Bell’s voice for the jigsaw videos, but they should have went with any other voice in the world than the one they settled on. Shouldn’t be a big deal, but it just makes a bad thing worse. This is bottom of the Saw series by a fair lead, and that’s saying something. Everything was bad about it.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Happy! deserves WAYYYYYYYY more love. I watched S1 when it came out, but we're checking out both seasons now and...holy shit, is it right up my alley. Chaotic, ultraviolent, dark as hell. Basically if Death to Smoochy was turned into a ridiculous action series.

 

[cobainwasmurdered]

Hellbound is another fun Korean TV show worth checking out.

 

[Gary]

I just really love "Robocop".

 

[muzzington]

Recently started watching The Goes Wrong Show from the people who do The Play That Goes Wrong. I've never been a theatre person but I imagine any who was would get a kick out of it.

 

[Fall of Epic]

Just watched Buffalo 66 for the very first time. I was reading up on Vincent Gallo recently and realized I hadn't seen a ton of his work (I think the only film of his I've watched before today was a small indy flick with Courtney Cox called Get Well Soon).

Anyway, Buffalo definitely feels like a film I would have adored in my late teens and early 20s when I was knee deep in indy/arthouse flicks. I liked it but found it more interesting than good. It's directed well and I like the cinematography (really enjoyed how Buffalo looks like the dirty, boring shithole it is) but there was a lot of expectant "indy" clichés (long takes with no dialogue is something I liked back them but despise now). Christina Ricci is nice to look at, at least. Wouldn't mind giving this one a rewatch.

Regarding Gallo, he's a far right-wing anti-semite hence why we don't hear much from him these days.

 

[RedJed]

Tried to catch some stuff on holiday break in the theaters....

Nightmare Alley: Looking at the box office from this past week, clearly this is going to be gone theatrically fully probably by Friday. I'm glad I caught this over the weekend, it is a film that has to play much better in a theater versus at home. Had a ball with this one, a two and a half hour film that felt like 90 minutes. There was a huge tonal shift once the main characters moved on to a different setting and situation, without spoiling anything....it felt like that transition dragged the film down a bit for awhile, but that's really all bad I can say about it. There was some strong written characters in this one and alot of smart storytelling going on.

House of Gucci: We got through maybe a half hour of the film when the digital projector died, and was so turned off by the way the theater handled the snafu (they had us sitting inside the theater for way far too long and didn't even try to fix the issue it felt like) that I never came back to watch it at a later time. From what I saw, quite frankly I wasn't fully impressed, but it was still quite early in this bloated runtime of 2 hours 40 minutes. I'll probably wait for this one until it hits HBO.

Kingsman: I guess I get why they decided to do a prequel on this franchise, but goddamn this movie dragged on and didn't have the same penache and feel as the other Kingsmen films. There was some connecting to the current Kingsmen stuff, but ultimately not enough to really feel warranted as a worthwhile prequel. Setting it a whole century before the events of the other films came off really strange. I actually thought this would have played much better as a one or two episode thing in a Kingsmen TV series that sounds like it's eventually going to happen.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Saw Nightmare Alley last night as well and glad I got caught it before it left theaters. What a deliciously nasty film and it didn't feel like a two and a half hour movie at all. If anything, I think it could have easily been expanded to a mini series. I wanted to see more of the carnival and get some more background on Richard Jenkins character (who looked and dressed uncannily like my best friend's dad)

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Nobody (2021) is what happens if they remake Commando in the vein of John Wick. Super fun movie with some memorable violence, but Bob Odenkirk could've made this work as an incredible hyper-violent serious thriller if pushed. Kind of a waste opportunity, if you think about it, but super fun. 6.5/10

 

[Gary]

Two films that might not be "good" in the traditional sense of the word, but that I enjoyed anyways

-Ricochet (1991)-this one stars Denzel Washington and John Lithgow, and if you go into it thinking you're getting a standard action/thriller, then you are mistaken. What you get instead is a bloody, sleazy and all around ludicrous experience that's essentially an exploitation movie that was somehow released in theaters and produced by a major studio with a good budget. Highlights (or lowlights, depending on who you are) include Denzel and Lithgow competing to see who can chew up the most scenery,

Spoiler

Denzel stripping to his boxers to distract a criminal, Denzel being forcibly injected with heroin before he is raped by a hot blonde woman who give him chlamydia, and Lithgow and Jesse Ventura having a sword fight in prison.

Just utter madness.

-Color of Night-Notorious both for being a huge bomb and

Spoiler

for having Bruce Willis' dong briefly showing up.

The end result is amazing, not because it's good, but because of how insane it is. The sex scenes themselves are overwrought and hilarious. The murder scenes bring to mind a Giallo (especially the first one). The cast of character actors (Brad Dourif! Lesley Ann Warren! Ruben Blades (he counts, right?) Scott Bakula (he also counts, right?) Lance Henriksen! Kevin J O'Connor!) are completely over the top. There are moments such as a snake in a mailbox that are baffling. Even crazier is that it's the movie Richard Rush did as the follow up to "The Stunt Man" (which actually is a good movie), and I have no idea if any of it is meant to be a parody or not. Any answer will suffice.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

The Fallout (7/10) on HBO Max

A really strong film centered around Vada (Jenna Ortega), whose character survives a school shooting in a bathroom stall with another girl (Mia) and a guy (Quinton) who loses his brother in the shooting. Total character study about her character & the other two and how they are processing/dealing with the aftermath together and separately.