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

[RedJed]

Really enjoyed Mid90s myself too. It was like a swansong of sorts to my childhood.

Yesterday: I think I enjoyed this more than any film so far this year. As an avid Beatles mark, I was bound to, but the writing was so well done in this regardless. Such a creative twist of a general story that really made it fun and easy to sit through and kind of let your mind go. So many subtle nods to lyrics in certain songs that were used as actual wink wink dialogue which got many chuckles from me during this. Both leads were tremendous in this and I swear Danny Boyle is one of my favorite filmmakers at this point.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Society (1989) is the unsung hero of Brian Yuzna's filmography. Though it takes a little to really get going and lead Billy Warlock is as lousy as you'd expect from a soap opera mainstay, the grotesque body horror and splatstick feel to it in the third act more than makes up for whatever shortcomings precede it. Lovely piece of trash and one deserving of greater cult status. 6/10

 

[Gary]

Society (1989) is the unsung hero of Brian Yuzna's filmography. Though it takes a little to really get going and lead Billy Warlock is as lousy as you'd expect from a soap opera mainstay, the grotesque body horror and splatstick feel to it in the third act more than makes up for whatever shortcomings precede it. Lovely piece of trash and one deserving of greater cult status. 6/10

Best use of the phrase "butt head" in movie history.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Just watched a pair of vampire movies

Living Among Us (2018)
Decent enough movie about a documentary crew dispatched to interview a family of vampires after vampires 'come out' on TV news upon being caught pilfering blood. It has a solid cast: John Heard, William Sadler, Thomas Ian Nicholas, Esme Bianco, and Andrew Keegan. Keegan is a highlight clearly having a ball with his character while Nicholas as the protagonist is surprisingly solid in the role. The characters are pretty underwritten with Jordan Hinson's character basically being a cameo. The strength largely lies in the pacing and the role of Nicholas as interviewer opposite Heard and Bianco as the father/mother of the family.

Portraits (2018)
Directed by Stephanie Paris, this is an updated version of the Camila story in which Mira (Olivia Bellafontaine) moves into an apartment only to gradually learn her deeper relationship with a group of other tenants, who turn out to all be vampires. It's a solidly written film although the final act kind of gets a little wonky as the film kind of rushes to wrap things up. Worth checking out if you're into European style vampire movies. I liked this more from a direction/writing standpoint but found the other movie a quicker, easier watch.

 

[RedJed]

Few flicks from the weekend run.....

Stuber: I will give it to Batista here, he showed a bit of range more than I ever recall. Well rounded film that had a little bit of everything in it, and a kind of wacky story that maybe, if anything, could have been done in more of a purely comedic tone instead of, at times, a bit too serious and straight forward. But worth a look, maybe not necessarily in a theater though.

Rocketman: The narrative here was uniquely its own for sure. Flowed pretty good and the writing were exceptional. I don't think he necessarily deserves a nom, but the guy who played Elton fuckin killed it in his body language and performance was pretty damn good.

 

[Master Thrasher]

I watched the last Halloween movie that came out. I kind of liked it. I thought the body count was too high and Michael really wasn't stealthy. Laurie was way to whacked out about something that happened 40 years ago. If Halloween 2 was canon, I think her paranoia would make more sense. In Halloween H20, she isn't as crazy.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Lords of Chaos (2018) is a mixed bag that's probably most enjoyed if you only have a passing knowledge of the events within. Sometimes it feels like director Jonas Akerlund is mocking black metal, justifiably so, and others like a great study of privileged kids getting in way over their heads. The soundtrack is great, and I can't mention enough how wonderful it was to hear actual feedback during the few jam sessions, but I was left feeling like the real story deserved more due to the impact it had on an entire musical world. A handful of teens and 20-somethings in a scene nobody knew existed changed one of the most widespread musical genres forever, all without releasing a true full length album. Unfortunately, this flips between comedy and grim seriousness a little too much, between dark biopic and tongue-in-cheek coming of age tale, and never stays in a solid groove for long. The cast doesn't quite deliver consistently, aside from Rory Culkin as Euronymous and Jack Kilmer as Dead, and while Emory Cohen as Varg is inaccurate in many ways (Varg is far more charismatic than Emory, and much smaller in frame)? I love the meta-casting of getting a husky Jewish actor to play a thin and vocal Nazi shithead. 6/10

 

[KingPK]

I got a free month of Hulu so I started watching The Looming Tower. I'm two episodes in and I really like it mostly because there are some tremendous performances in the cast. Jeff Daniels is great as is the guy playing Ali Soufan. They are quickly getting across the pissing match between the CIA and FBI that prevented any concrete action being taken against UBL and Al Qaeda that led to 9/11.

 

[KingPK]

So I finished The Looming Tower last night. Honestly, Daniels and Tahar Rahim pretty much carry the whole series as none of the other characters are really all that developed (and are apparently mostly amalgamations of multiple people) and are not very interesting aside from Robert Chesney because the actor puts out a great performance too. There are a bunch of great moments and individual scenes through the series, but as a whole something was lacking for me. They probably could have cut like half the characters we meet without sacrificing the story they wanted to tell (which is pretty much the CIA and FBI acted like territorial babies and missed multiple chances to even disrupt if not prevent what happened because they didn't take the threat seriously).

 

[Youth N Asia]

The notes I made on my phone are for a handful of movies. So I’ll post more another time.


The Final (2010) - Might be the worst movie I’ve watched in years. Torture porn movie about high school kids that were picked on and they end up getting revenge on their bullies. Terrible acting. Somehow the writing was even worse. The main kid has these obnoxious speeches that go on and on. One of those movies that pissed me off after I watched it because I could have watched anything else.

The First Purge - Least favorite of the series. 100% forgettable.

The House that Jack Built - 2 and a half hours. Watched this one in shifts. Little too arty at times, but interesting enough. And Dillion is great in it.

Deadwood the Movie - Loved the hell out of this. Great performances. Was a little saddened that everyone just seemed so much older since the show ended, which they were. I get it. They managed to get just about everyone back and it seemed to make sense for them to be there.

 

[Baby Shoes]

Decided to watch a couple movies today that were cluttering up my DVR.

First I watched Nightcrawler with Jake Gyllenhaal, which I liked more than I expected. This was one of those films that when it was done, I wanted to see what was written about it because of how the story played out.

After that I put on Pacific Rim: Uprising. I remember I enjoyed the first but that is really all I remember about it. I had been dragging my feet on this because everything I heard was people pretty underwhelmed. I don't know if it is the fact that they focused on such a younger cast that it felt off but it is basically the same thing as Independence Day Resurgence - a needless sequel to a popular movie without the key people or moments that made the first popular and instead a forced continuation with their "children".

 

[Fall of Epic]

Very late to the game but I watched Good Time last night. Necro appearing was random as fuck but otherwise it was an awesome flick. The hospital they talk about in the beginning of the film is actually right across from my apartment so that was cool.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Just saw Ready or Not! and it was a very fun movie. Not super ambitious but it knew what it was doing, had some solid gore, some laughs, and took itself just serious enough that as a viewer you were invested. Samara Weaving as Grace was a standout and really carried the movie much like Jessica Rothe in the Happy Death Day series.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Overlord (2018) is so much fun it's ridiculous. It's not an all-time classic but it's definitely going to be a fun addition to any b-movie marathons. 6.5/10

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Stay away from Gravy. Comedic parody of torture porn that would've been shit in 2005 where the jokes maaaaybeeeee would've felt more at home.

 

[Gary]

Just saw Ready or Not! and it was a very fun movie. Not super ambitious but it knew what it was doing, had some solid gore, some laughs, and took itself just serious enough that as a viewer you were invested. Samara Weaving as Grace was a standout and really carried the movie much like Jessica Rothe in the Happy Death Day series.

Just saw this, and I loved it. Probably the funniest thing I've seen this year.

 

[RedJed]

Ready or Not totally overextended itself to say the least. It felt like a horror and abrasive version of Clue somewhat and a really quirky script. Really well done overall.

 

[Gary]

"Hustlers" is for the most part a pretty impressive movie, and would make for a great companion piece to "The Wolf of Wall Street." Jennifer Lopez is as great as everyone says she is, though Constance Wu deserves a ton of praise too.

 

[KingPK]

I tried watching The Sum of All Fears and quit about an hour in. Kinda amazing that a movie based on a book can have no characters and no plot. It's like they fast-forwarded through 3/4ths of the book to get to the nuclear explosion. Also, why do these movies always do the character of John Clark so dirty?

 

[Master Thrasher]

For Friday the 13th, I watched Jason X and the reboot.

Jason X was a low budget movie of a Friday the 13th movie. Too bad there was no Aliens vs Jason crossover.

The reboot was okay. It was just a mindless slasher.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Saw The Peanut Butter Falcon with Lady Kamala tonight. I would say 909's 7/10 rating in his 2019 Movie Reviews thread is accurate. Really enjoyed the interplay between Zack and Shia LaBoeuf. I thought Zack was great, realistic depiction of disabled person mostly because they actually hired a disabled person!

I thought it was nice that they were gonna have a flattering depiction of pro wrestling but then they got to the actual wrestling scene. And well. I guess not everything can be The Wrestler. It was cool to see Jake The Snake play a secondary villain though.

 

[RedJed]

Honestly, I liked Peanut Butter Falcon so much the first time, I'm considering going to it again this week with my dad. Apparently Jay Lethal appeared in it at some point so I need to keep my eye on that the second time around. Completely missed him the first time.

Few films I caught over the weekend....

The Goldfinch: The story was rich at times, but in a complex (and sometimes confusing to connect the dots) way, but did this film need to be pushing 3 hours in length? That was a big blow to this one. Especially when the narrative was hard to follow and things got more tenuous in that aspect as the film progressed. This seemed like something that could have been so much better with a better edit job (the differing timelines were not cohesively flowed together at all) and at least a half hour cut.

Freaks: I went into this totally 100 percent blind. I only knew it was a sci-fi film....didn't read a description or see a trailer beforehand. Glad I went into this without any knowledge as I think I enjoyed it more than I would if I had. Really excellent performances by Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, and others. Real mind bender of a film that has horror elements for sure, but I'd consider it more of a dark sci-fi film. This was the biggest surprise standout film of the year to me so far which covers alot of ground.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

For Friday the 13th, I watched Jason X and the reboot.

Jason X was a low budget movie of a Friday the 13th movie. Too bad there was no Aliens vs Jason crossover.

The reboot was okay. It was just a mindless slasher.

I rolled a d8 and happened upon my overall favorite of the series, part 6. I totally see why my girlfriend doesn't like it, but the addition of actual campers, the Alice Cooper soundtrack, and the conclusion of the Tommy Jarvis arc redeem all the negative for me.

 

[BruiserBrody]

The scene in Ghost with Swayze and Demi Moore with the clay isn't quite as sensuous after 30 years and much parody. Demi may have made a penis while they were working the clay. Not sure if that was intentional.

 

[HarleyQuinn]

Just watched this one due to the cast involved: Timothy Hutton, Lara Flynn Boyle, Oliver Platt, Stephen Weber, Dwight Schultz, Faye Dunaway, and Maura Tierney.

The Temp [1993] 5/10
Decent film centered around Timothy Hutton's character, a junior exec looking at a potential promotion competing with Oliver Platt's character, who suddenly finds himself assigned a temp right as his company has been overtaken in a merger. The temp initially impresses in her job but soon starts going above & beyond what her initial job entailed.

The plot is basic, cliche stuff and the editing is fine if not a little rushed at times. The acting helps elevate this to a 5/10 for me as Hutton and Boyle have good chemistry and the rest of the cast are good enough in the roles they're working as mostly side characters.

If you've ever seen stuff like Fatal Attraction or even Single White Female, it follows that basic structure: a new female insinuates themselves into the lead character's life and causes mayhem/chaos to result while desiring to keep the lead for themselves by any means possible.

 

[KingPK]

I started watching 11.22.63 on Hulu. I'm enjoying it so far as I'm a sucker for alternative history stories and James Franco is pretty good.

 

[Big Papa Paegan]

Daybreak (Netflix) might be my favorite show since Community. It's far from perfect but it has a raw energy rarely found in a series, equal parts Mad Max and John Hughes.

 

[BruiserBrody]

Saw my first episode of the Goldbergs. Holy cow is it obnoxiously over acted.

 

[Gary]

"Heroes Shed No Tears" is a movie John Woo made before "A Better Tomorrow". As such, it may not be as good as that or several other films he did ("The Killer", "Hard Boiled" or "Face/Off") but it's still a very entertaining action/exploitation movie. Also really violent and bloody-not with as much finesse as his later films, but still a blast to watch.

 

[BruiserBrody]

Saw my first episode of the Goldbergs. Holy cow is it obnoxiously over acted.

They brought me back with the promise of Hogan appearing. As a collector, I was extremely jealous of them messing with the (now) stupid expensive Piper stretch doll. They also had the Ultimate Warrior LJN that runs 100+.

They broke timelines as the show was about WM 4 and yet they had a "Macho King" wrestling buddy (and the Warrior LJN) which were released well after.