What have you watched lately?

[anarky]

I think I'll wait for streaming. There are some fucking horror stories out of cinemas. I'm not scared, but I don't want to waste money on a movie I'm prevented from watching.

My son (who thinks "chicken jockey" is the funniest joke ever and, damn, even with my stupid sense of humor, just don't get) played the soundtrack in the car, and it's not Top Gun or GOTG or TF:TM, but it's definitely not bad.

[Tom Foolery]

I have a habit of rewatching movies I’ve seen 50 times over trying something I didn’t see when it originally came out. I’ll fire up Princess Bride or Monty Python without hesitation instead of watching an old unseen film that’s gotten ‘buzz’. But I’m trying to watch ‘new’ stuff.

This week’s foray was Requiem for a Dream. Wow. Once was enough. What a fucking downer.

[Tom Foolery]

Last of the Mohicans. From the director of Miami Vice, Heat, and Collateral. Daniel Day Lewis and his adopted Native American family fight thru the French and Indian war of the 1750s. Gorgeous cinematography and a killer score elevate a decent film into a classic.

The Patriot. Mel Gibson during the Revolutionary War. Melodramatic and cheesy throughout, but not necessarily awful.

The first three Fast and Furious movies were on Tubi. I had them playing in the background while doing other stuff. I had managed to never watch Tokyo Drift before. Wasn’t missing anything. The series got ‘good’ with the fourth movie. By good, I mean ridiculously implausibly goofy over the top car stunts. I make no apologies for enjoying this franchise.

Fall. Two girls scale a 2000’ TV tower in the middle of the desert(its a real tower) and get trapped at the top with no way down after the rusty ladder breaks. Typical trapped thriller like 47 meters or similar films in that subgenre. I was impressed the filmmakers forwent doing it against green screens in a studio somewhere and actually filmed on location.

Inhumans. Over the past couple months, I finally muscled my way thru this eight episode series from Marvel. There was a skeleton of some redeeming ideas that could be used somewhere down the road. I thought Blackbolt and Karnak were done pretty decent. But mostly it was between meh and bleh. Not a concept that lends itself to low budget episodic television. Once was enough.

[anarky]

The first three Fast and Furious movies were on Tubi. I had them playing in the background while doing other stuff. I had managed to never watch Tokyo Drift before. Wasn’t missing anything. The series got ‘good’ with the fourth movie. By good, I mean ridiculously implausibly goofy over the top car stunts. I make no apologies for enjoying this franchise.

For real. It's fucking insane and I love it.

I often hear people complaining that they don't like what it's become and want it to go back to basics. There's few ways to convince me more quickly that you're a goddamned moron. Cars in space? Fuck yes, please.

[Tom Foolery]

The first three Fast and Furious movies were on Tubi. I had them playing in the background while doing other stuff. I had managed to never watch Tokyo Drift before. Wasn’t missing anything. The series got ‘good’ with the fourth movie. By good, I mean ridiculously implausibly goofy over the top car stunts. I make no apologies for enjoying this franchise.

For real. It's fucking insane and I love it.

I often hear people complaining that they don't like what it's become and want it to go back to basics. There's few ways to convince me more quickly that you're a goddamned moron. Cars in space? Fuck yes, please.

I remember Jason Statham did an interview where he pooh-poohed super hero movies and said he’d never be in one. Then he fucking went and did this franchise and the spinoff Hobbes and Shaw. Haha, like seriously?

[Diabolical]

People want Vin Deisel and his family to steal DVD players again?
Two things in that first movie bugs the shit out of me.
1. The 1/4 mile races take like 5 fucking minutes.
2. The movie doesn't have an ending. It just kind of stops.

[Tom Foolery]

People want Vin Deisel and his family to steal DVD players again?
Two things in that first movie bugs the shit out of me.
1. The 1/4 mile races take like 5 fucking minutes.

Especially when they are constantly going on about ‘10 second’ this and ‘10 second’ that.

2. The movie doesn't have an ending. It just kind of stops.

I don’t think that bothered me as much the first time I watched it back in the theater in 2000. But this time around I definitely LOLd at the abruptness of it. Like there’s several dead bodies laying all over the city…
The other thing I noticed was that they had been planning this big heist for months, and were gonna leave town after. But I realized you never know what's in the truck, because that heroic truck driver successfully prevented their heist with his shotgun.

To be continued in the Riddick topic.

[anarky]

The Mask.

Been a couple of years.

That shit never gets old. Thirty-one years old, and still a fucking masterpiece. CG looks a bit dated at times, but who cares?

And one hell of a killer soundtrack.

[Tom Foolery]

Predator:Killer of Killers. Animated film. A viking, a ninja, and a WWII era pilot all defeat Predators in three separate short stories. Their rewards for victory are to be put in suspended animation and taken to the Yautja homeworld where they are forced to fight each other to the death. And the victor faces the head Predator in an arena with 10,000 yautjas watching. Bloody, badass fun. Has ties to both Prey and Predator 2, which places it firmly in the greater Predator movie mythology.

[Diabolical]

I've been wanting to go through the Predator series again before the new live action one comes out.

I've seen Predator several times. Classic.
Predator 2 - it's been a while, but I liked it.
I've only seen Predators once and I don't remember much of it.
Still need to watch The Predator and Prey.
Man, those titles are a clusterfuck.

Fuck the AvP movies.

[Tom Foolery]

The first AvP movie is okay. It was by the numbers and not inspiring, but didnt hate it. The second one was not okay.
I think I’ve seen Predators more times than Predator 2.
Only seen THE Predator once…and cannot recall a single thing about it other than that there’s a stupid physics defying fight on the surface of a spaceship at the end.
Only seen Prey once, but it was fucking awesome. They need to do more Predator movies like that, set in other eras. Which KofK does.

[anarky]

The family was out of town for a few days. I was able to rescue the TV from the Modern Family binge and catch some flicks. (Not that Modern Family is bad; far from it. It was just on TV for twelve centuries and it's a lot to take in when you get outvoted on the "let's take a damned break from Al Bundy and his wacky family for just a day or two" every time.)

The Day the Earth Blew Up. Tough to believe this is the first completely original, fully-animated Looney Toons movie. That shit is seriously like a century old. It was not the best LT feature ever. There are several that are just damned near impossible to match ("One Froggy Evening" and "What's Opera, Doc?" come immediately to mind). But it wasn't anywhere close to the worst. It was a worthy addition to the franchise (if that's even really the right term for something as generally unconnected as Looney Toons is). Daffy is especially entertaining, as he's closer to the original batshit nuts, bounce off walls while screaming nonsense version, and not the sarcastic asshole who mostly exists as a foil to Bugs Bunny that he eventually evolved into. (I like later Daffy. But in a movie geared towards kids, most of whom have terrible parents who never showed them classic Looney Toons shorts and don't know the characters, and which doesn't have Bugs at all, crazy-ass Daffy works better.) It's definitely worth watching, if only to send Zaslav a huge "fuck you with a splintered broom handle dipped in hot sauce."

Ironically, this proves that, while Disney doesn't know what the fuck to do with the Muppets but will put out all sorts of "wrong" stuff, WB finally has been able to recreate the old Looney Toons magic, just it's a complete toss-up as to whether it will actually see the light of day.

Anora. I'm cheating here. I was unable to finish it. It won Best Picture and has a lot of sex and nudity, so I wanted to see it. There were a lot of comparisons to Cinderella, and I guess I was expecting the second coming of Poor Things. But I tried twice, and fell asleep both times. It was just a slog, and I gave up after only getting a half hour in on the second attempt. Pretty much everything is unremarkable, and I legitimately think this was one of those political moves by the Academy--a chance to say "Rah, rah, sex workers are humans, too." Even the sex scenes are just dull, maybe because the actress (not even bothering to look up her name) won't shut her mouth and sounds like she's doing a terrible spoof of Marissa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny (better movie, more deserving of an Oscar, and Marissa Tomei is still far easier on the eyes thirty years later). I wanted every character, without exception, to get run over by a truck.. This is going to go down in history alongside Annie Hall beating Star Wars, except I could get through not only one, but multiple viewings of Annie Hall. Maybe since the Hollywood machine decides to un-cancel people seemingly at random, they could admit Woody Allen is a creep but makes funny movies and collectively stop ignoring him, because even his dullest work is like fucking Casablanca compared to Anora.

Super Troopers. Believe it or not, another movie moved off the "I should've seen this years ago, and just never have" list. It was a fucking blast. Completely bonkers, and I laughed pretty constantly.

On a similar note, Hot Tub Time Machine. Maybe not quite as funny, but way more bonkers. Again, just a fucking blast. I love how it didn't even try to make sense with the time travel. And it's a shame Chevy Chase is by all accounts testicular cancer given human form and stuck in a DMV line, because the man is never not hilarious.

Lastly, Happy Gilmore. My son got home from camp earlier than the rest, and had never seen it. God, Adam Sandler was just on a roll in the 90s. I've always preferred Billy Madison, but I have to reassess that--Billy Madison has more slapstick sequences, but Happy Gilmore is the better film overall. I was iffy about the upcoming sequel, but now I want to see it and hope it's Sandler actually trying for the first time in decades and returning to form. (Not holding out too much hope, though.) And speaking of Modern Family, Julie Bowen is completely unrecognizable here. Only thirteen years apart, and she looks like a completely different actress.

[Diabolical]

I would recommend the fun, but not as good sequel, HTTM2.
Craig Robinson has one of my favorite random bits in any comedy in the past 20 years.
I don't want to spoil it if you don't know, but it's a recreation of something.

[Tom Foolery]

Tomorrowland. Hadn’t seen it since it came out ten years ago. Got about thirty minutes in and realized I was bored out of my gourd and turned it off.

The Menu. Ralph Fiennes is an eccentric chef that runs an exclusive invite only restaurant. He sends out invitations to a dozen wealthy people, and as the courses are presented, the film gets more sinister and macabre. From the trailer, I kind of assumed he was serving them humans, but that wasn’t it at all.

Tomorrow War. Chris Pratt sci-fi movie. I thought the premise was one giant plothole when I saw the trailer a few years ago. But the movie itself was a decent monster flick. Not great, but better than my low expectations.

[Diabolical]

I haven't seen Tomorrowland in a while, but i remember loving it. It's on my rewatch list.

I completely forgot about Tomorrow War. It was decent and watchable, but forgettable. It was also cool to see Yvonne Strahovski again.