The Movie (and TV show) Watching Thread

[Meclazine for Israel]

I love English films when they are made well.



A great story.

[Anna Komnene]

Last month I got an HBO Max subscription to see Wonder Woman 1984. My thoughts are hard to put into words. I loved the first half of the movie, but it felt like it just went off the rails in the 2nd half. They should have kept with the old school adventure/romance they had going because it was really good while it lasted.

Anyway, for the rest of the month I went on a mission to watch as many movies as I could. Here are the results...

Mulholland Dr - Still one of the most captivating movies I've ever seen. Beautiful, creepy, and magical. Better not trying to make sense of it. I don't want to ruin anything for anyone who hasn't seen it, but Naomi Watts has a line in this movie that ABSOLUTELY SLAYS ME.

Emma. - There are so many pastel colors in this movie, it feels like it was produced in a birthday cake factory. It's actually the first adaptation of Emma I've seen. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not. The slapstick took some getting used to, but it had a lot of heart and a really good performance by Bill Nighy.

Their Finest - Another movie with a great performance from Bill Nighy. Parts of this movie actually reminded me of the first Wonder Woman movie. The relationships were well done and I really enjoyed the film within a film thing too. Something happens that makes it really hard to love this movie, but it was still worth it.

The Photograph (2020) - I really wanted to like this movie because of the photography angle, but it felt like there was just too many moving parts to keep me focused on the central story. It was okay.

Shakira in Concert: El Dorado World Tour -            

Howl's Moving Castle - Great for those times when you just want to escape into another world. Consider me transported.

Spirited Away - Too weird for it's own good. Don't eat food if you don't know where it came from!

Scoop - Super fun and charming with a nice twist.

V for Vendetta - It's an interesting watch in light of current events. There's a lot of things I like (V has a lot of great lines. Natalie Portman has majestic hair, etc.), but I just can't get over the presentation of stockholm syndrome as the cure for anxiety. S for Stockholm?

The Mummy - A magical, fun adventure that I could watch a million times without it getting old. "I... am.. a librarian!"

The Mummy Returns - Awful cash grab!

Cats - I was morbidly curious to find out if it was really that bad. It is... but the Beautiful Ghosts song was nice at least.

Earwig and the Witch - There is no story here tbh. Just animation.

Harley Quinn (2 seasons) - My dreams turned into canon. I LOVE this show. I feel like the best way to describe this is "wholesome violence." Harley and Ivy are the best pair.

[John Dule]

Nomadland: Tonight I watched (ok, pirated) this Frances McDormand movie, which many critics named as their top film of 2020. While I liked certain aspects of it, I was nevertheless constantly comparing it to Leave No Trace in my head (a 2017 movie that dealt with similar subject matter, and I think in a better way). McDormand was solid, but I think the film often shied away from depicting the harsh reality of homelessness, painting an annoyingly romanticized image of life on the road. Practically every character was a serene, vaguely spiritual, innately altruistic do-gooder; there was strangely very little diversity among the nomads, and they only seemed to represent one particular segment of the American poor (that segment, not coincidentally, is the one that appeals the most to coastal liberals). Altogether I'd say it was a fine movie, but it wasn't as good as Leave No Trace and it frequently overreached in its social commentary. 6/10

[Former Lincoln Assemblyman & Lt. Gov. RGN]

Mostly Tarantino films such as Inglorious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

[An American Tail: Fubart Goes West]

Rewatched Jojo Rabbit last night. Obviously holds up. Noticing more and more things though.

Also watched The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, which is new and free on Amazon Prime. It wasn’t bad, somewhat a rehash of Groundhog Day (as it even references), but different.

Over the weekend, I watched Sahara, which I will defend as an amazing movie. Likable protagonist, hot chick, one and a half funny sidekicks, a cool car, bad guys lose, good guys win, and rare coins are involved. I don’t care if it bombed in the box office, it’s a great movie.

Tonight is Thursday night, so no movies for me, but we’ll see what I end up watching on Friday night.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

What i've seen in the last month and I can tell you: i've never seen so many good movies in such a short time. Though i've been focusing on what I think I would like most (for the most part), and most - but not all - fullfilled their expectations. Some overexceeded those even.

Somewhat in order, all above 3 stars is what I like generally.

The Tale of Princess Kaguya: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Midsommar: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Blade Runner: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (*)
Home: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (*) -> the Belgian psychological drama from 2016 about miscommunication between parents and teenagers. I don't understand why this doesn't have more international recognition.
Nightcrawler: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (*)
La haine: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Climax: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ -> A nightmare-ish ed up bad trip movie. Visually stunning.

Ex Drummer: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ -> Belgian black comedy, but i suspect you have to be flemish to fully appreciate it, because of the references to our languages and to other things. Very hilarious though.
WolfWalkers: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ -> From same director of Secret of Kells and Song of the Sea, but great!
Videodrome: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Wicker Man: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ -> the original one from 1973
Walkabout: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Joker: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Hereditary: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Blade Runner 2049: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Like Me: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (*) -> It's like Nerve but better. Goes all in on style, but the story is while good, not as good as the style.
Europa Report: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ -> Extremely underrated, somewhat of a realistic low-budget sci-fi.
1917: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Calvaire: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ -> Belgian surrealist horror, some kind of crossing between Aronofsky, The Wicker Man and New French Extremity. Style reminded me of Mother!
Baby Driver: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ -
La Tortue Rouge: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ -> I like it, but it's not for everyone. Quite slow (esp. for animation), and no dialog so everyone can watch it. It's good though
Perfect Blue: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ -> if you like this, you might like Sono's Antiporno. Both films thrive on continiously tricking your mind, blurring lines between what's real and what's not. Very exhausting and watch with a clear mind (both are very short movies)
The Big Lebowski: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (*) -> appreciated it much better at the second viewing. I wasn't too impressed at first, but I feel like it's growing on me.
Goodfellas: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (*)
Howl's Moving Castle: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Mud: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Lion: ⭐⭐⭐ -> Good story, but nothing special as a movie. Makes some mistakes, and can't give four stars because of that
Cashback: ⭐⭐⭐ -> fun but slightly overrated. Pretends to be more than what it actually is.
The Beach Bum: ⭐⭐⭐ -> fun but not as good as Spring Breakers
The Simpsons Movie: ⭐⭐⭐ -> Never saw an episode of it, but surprisingly fun but somewhat predictable
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: ⭐⭐⭐ (*) -> good, but way too moralistic, even for a 1937 movie
Hard Candy: ⭐⭐⭐ -> Good, but the moral undertone is disgusting. The 11 yr old is more at fault than the pedophile, at least from the viewer's perspective
La passion de Jeanne D'Arc: ⭐⭐⭐ -> my first silent, but the content bothered me more than the style.
Green Room: ⭐⭐⭐ (*) -> Could have been much more if it were more logical and less complicated. Very flawed movie, but not unwatchable.

Adrift: ⭐⭐ -> does many things plain wrong
Seul contre tous: ⭐⭐-> insanely unsympathetic protagonists made it hard for me to care about the characters and this movie
Martyrs: ⭐⭐ -> the original one from 2008, but a torture porn pretending to have psychological depth is still torture porn
Capharnaum: ⭐⭐ -> misery porn, couldn't give a **** either
Snatch: ⭐ -> not my cup of tea, very boring and despite it being from 2000, it's already painfully showing it's age and it has no psychological depth either. Insanely overrated movie, meh.

(*) = rewatch

[LAKISYLVANIA]

What i'm planning to see (this year mostly)

https://letterboxd.com/lakigigar/list/lakigigars-watchlist/

Some trailers:

[T'Chenka]

Spirited Away
Princess Mononoke
Instant Family
Miss You Already
Galveston
Dhobi Ghat
The Great Dictator
Da 5 Bloods

[John Dule]

The Long Kiss Goodnight: It's amazing I had never heard of this movie until yesterday, when I decided to watch it on a whim. That was a good notion. This Shane Black script clearly set the tone for countless rip-offs, notably the much less enjoyable Bourne series. Geena Davis plays an amnesiac housewife who, after hiring a private detective played by Samuel L Jackson, begins to remember her previous life as an assassin. Davis is shockingly believable as an action star; she plays the two personalities in clever and creative ways, ultimately blending them together in the end for a satisfying conclusion to her character arc. Jackson is as fun to watch as ever, and his hilarious dialogue rounds out a very enjoyable action/comedy. Despite an ending that arguably goes on too long (and too over-the-top), this was a real treat. 8/10

Unknown: I watched this Liam Neeson thriller about a week ago, but I'd forgotten about it until I realized that it ripped off The Long Kiss Goodnight (I won't get into specifics due to spoilers, but it's a very similar premise). It's a decently made movie, but without much humor, wit, or cleverly crafted set pieces, it's pretty forgettable. Not nearly as good as Taken. 4/10

Thoroughbreds: I'd been meaning to watch this film for a while; the trailers intrigued me, and many of my friends recommended it. While I enjoyed aspects of it-- mostly the two lead performances-- the movie was a bit dry for my taste, and its social commentary was nothing particularly original. While the setup for the story is interesting, the actual plotting is pretty threadbare; there are no twists or turns to this straightforward tale of suburban depravity. Altogether I liked it, but not as much as I expected to. 6/10

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Thoroughbreds: I'd been meaning to watch this film for a while; the trailers intrigued me, and many of my friends recommended it. While I enjoyed aspects of it-- mostly the two lead performances-- the movie was a bit dry for my taste, and its social commentary was nothing particularly original. While the setup for the story is interesting, the actual plotting is pretty threadbare; there are no twists or turns to this straightforward tale of suburban depravity. Altogether I liked it, but not as much as I expected to. 6/10

Do you need a twist in every story. I'm actually not a fan of it, since it requires deliberately misleading the viewer, and sometimes the whole story doesn't make sense because of a twist.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Ai No Mukidashi [Love Exposure] (2008): ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Princess Mononoke (1997): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Un Ange (2018): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Adoration (2019): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The Great Dictator (1940): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Pinocchio (1940): ⭐⭐⭐
Alléluia (2014): ⭐⭐
22 mei (2010): ⭐⭐

[Meclazine for Israel]

The Ballad of Buster Scruggs

I don't know how I missed this classic. No prelude. No info. Just a simply incredible film.

[Frodo]

I have watched all the James Bond movies starring Daniel Craig, as well as the Mission Impossible series starring Tom Cruise on my Amazon Prime account. 

Currently deciding whether to watch the Matrix trilogy, or the X-Men series... 

[John Dule]

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: I hadn't seen this classic for a really long time, so when I watched it tonight I felt like I was watching a wholly new movie. I think in retrospect, some elements of the plot could've been done better-- I'm not sure why the writers felt the need to give the two main characters such an age gap, for example. I think the racial divide was enough to highlight their differences, so the other questionable aspects of their relationship made me think "Yeah, I'm kind of on Spencer Tracy's side." However, the rest of the movie feels remarkably fresh, especially the way the scenes are edited and how the conversations flow. The dialogue proceeds naturally, and the uncomfortable interpersonal moments are enough to get your adrenaline pumping. Watching this movie, I noticed strange similarities with current comedies like The Office, at least in terms of how adeptly it crafts cringeworthy social interaction and then draws it out for maximum tension (and humor). 8/10

Thoroughbreds: I'd been meaning to watch this film for a while; the trailers intrigued me, and many of my friends recommended it. While I enjoyed aspects of it-- mostly the two lead performances-- the movie was a bit dry for my taste, and its social commentary was nothing particularly original. While the setup for the story is interesting, the actual plotting is pretty threadbare; there are no twists or turns to this straightforward tale of suburban depravity. Altogether I liked it, but not as much as I expected to. 6/10

Do you need a twist in every story. I'm actually not a fan of it, since it requires deliberately misleading the viewer, and sometimes the whole story doesn't make sense because of a twist.

Well, I don't mean a twist in the sense of a Usual Suspects twist where you have to reexamine the entire film and its story. Once the gears of the story were in motion, Thoroughbreds proceeds in a surprisingly linear fashion (to the point that I would argue it becomes predictable). An example: There's one sequence in the film where a character is hired to kill another character. A similar setup is present in Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder as well; in that film, the murder is botched in a surprising way that completely upends the story and sets in motion a third act that would've been wildly different if anything else had happened. In Thoroughbreds however, the killer just sort of... chickens out. And then he doesn't factor into the story ever again. The whole movie is remarkably anticlimactic.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner: I hadn't seen this classic for a really long time, so when I watched it tonight I felt like I was watching a wholly new movie. I think in retrospect, some elements of the plot could've been done better-- I'm not sure why the writers felt the need to give the two main characters such an age gap, for example. I think the racial divide was enough to highlight their differences, so the other questionable aspects of their relationship made me think "Yeah, I'm kind of on Spencer Tracy's side." However, the rest of the movie feels remarkably fresh, especially the way the scenes are edited and how the conversations flow. The dialogue proceeds naturally, and the uncomfortable interpersonal moments are enough to get your adrenaline pumping. Watching this movie, I noticed strange similarities with current comedies like The Office, at least in terms of how adeptly it crafts cringeworthy social interaction and then draws it out for maximum tension (and humor). 8/10

Thoroughbreds: I'd been meaning to watch this film for a while; the trailers intrigued me, and many of my friends recommended it. While I enjoyed aspects of it-- mostly the two lead performances-- the movie was a bit dry for my taste, and its social commentary was nothing particularly original. While the setup for the story is interesting, the actual plotting is pretty threadbare; there are no twists or turns to this straightforward tale of suburban depravity. Altogether I liked it, but not as much as I expected to. 6/10

Do you need a twist in every story. I'm actually not a fan of it, since it requires deliberately misleading the viewer, and sometimes the whole story doesn't make sense because of a twist.

Well, I don't mean a twist in the sense of a Usual Suspects twist where you have to reexamine the entire film and its story. Once the gears of the story were in motion, Thoroughbreds proceeds in a surprisingly linear fashion (to the point that I would argue it becomes predictable). An example: There's one sequence in the film where a character is hired to kill another character. A similar setup is present in Hitchcock's Dial M for Murder as well; in that film, the murder is botched in a surprising way that completely upends the story and sets in motion a third act that would've been wildly different if anything else had happened. In Thoroughbreds however, the killer just sort of... chickens out. And then he doesn't factor into the story ever again. The whole movie is remarkably anticlimactic.

I don't remember much of Thoroughbreds, but that killer isn't just very relevant to the story. It's about the quirkiness of the two lead characters, their interaction and the psychology behind them. The pacing and atmosphere was also quite good.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Sin City (2005): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Suzhou He (2000): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Fish Tank (2009): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Paranoid Park (2007): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Y Tu Mama Tambien (2001): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Lady Bird (2017): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Kaze Tachinu (2013): ⭐⭐⭐
Sameblod (2016): ⭐⭐⭐
Last Days (2005): ⭐⭐
Le meraviglie (2014): ⭐

I'll probably work on the filmographies of:
Mika Ninagawa (Helter Skelter, Diner, Sakuran)
Nicolas Winding Refn (i haven't seen any of his pre-Drive movies)
Sion Sono (intruiging director in general)
Céline Sciamma (Portrait de la jeune fille en feu, but also Bande de filles and Tomboy is something i plan to watch)
The essential movies of Roman Polanski (Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby, Le locataire, Chinatown and i've already seen The Pianist)
Entire filmography of Kar-wai Wong
The two movies of Robert Eggers (The VVitch: A New England Folktale and The Lighthouse)
The two movies of Gan Bi (Kailli Blues, Long Day's Journey Into Night)
The two latest movies of Yi'nan Diao (Black Coal, Thin Ice and The Wild Goose Lake)

I'm also planning on watching a few movies directed by female directors (Ninagawa and Sciamma are already female, and i've seen a few already):
Little Women (by Greta Gerwig)
The Bad Batch (by Ana Lily Amarpour)
On Body and Soul (by Ilyiko Enyedi)
Paris est a nous (by Elizabeth Vogler)
Promising Young Woman (by Emerald Fennell)
Ava (by Léa Mysius)
You Were Never Really Here (by Lynne Ramsay)

And that will be about it. If i have some time left over this month, i might watch a few other ones (Honey Boy, Nomadland, Saint Maud, First Cow, House of Hummingbird, Morvern Callar, The Virgin Suicides, The Miseducation of Cameron Post and perhaps a revision of American Honey too).

And i also want to see
Roma (by Alfonso Cuaron)
Three more movies by Gus Van Sant (My Own Private Idaho, Drugstore Cowboys and Gerry)
Princess Cyd (by Stephen Cone)

But it's possible some of them will be for next month. I don't have any kind of "director in focus" for april, mostly stand-alone movies, but i'm working on some filmographies by directors later this year (Werner Herzog, Hsiao Hsien-Hou, S. Craig Zahler, David Lynch, Takashi Miike, Wes Anderson, Tetsuya Nakashima, Yorgos Lanthimos, Dario Argento, Ken Loach, Pablo Larrain, David Cronenberg, the Coen brothers, Brian De Palma, Spike Jonze, Lars Von Trier, PTA, Takeshi Kitano, Akira Kurosawa, Michael Haneke, Andriy Zvyagintsev, Francis Ford Coppola, Sofia Coppola, Joon-ho Bong and Hirokazu Koreeda).

[John Dule]

Since a lot of people are no longer quarantined, this thread is now just the "Movie Watching Thread." What have you guys been seeing lately? Here's my list.

I Care A Lot: Perhaps the best movie on Netflix streaming I've seen in months, and a scathing indictment of both government overreach and obnoxious girlboss feminism. This movie has several themes that will appeal to Atlas users-- it's political, it's exceedingly modern, and it lifts the curtain on a particular type of scam that deserves more attention these days (elder abuse). Rosamund Pike is solid, with a performance that echoes her Gone Girl character in many ways. According to Rotten Tomatoes, critics loved this film while audiences hated it. As usual in instances like this, it is the mob that is wrong. 8/10

Suspicion: A bizarre, lesser-known Hitchcock film that I'd never heard of until a few days ago. For a good deal of its runtime it feels rather aimless, and the plot only really kicks in about halfway through the film. However, I think this is to the movie's advantage, as the gradual buildup fits the tone of the story perfectly. The audience, like the main character, feels like a frog in a pot of water that's slowly boiling. Cary Grant is disturbingly believable as a villain, and the movie has just enough edge to it that it doesn't feel dated. I will say, however, that the ending probably won't hold up under #MeToo scrutiny. 7/10

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country: The last truly good Star Trek film, and one that unapologetically leans into the political aspects of the series while eschewing flashy space action. In terms of pacing, this is probably the best of these movies-- its streamlined script and laser-focused plotting are a masterclass in screenwriting. Every scene is both its own compelling story and simultaneously a step forward in the plot, which makes the exposition go down nice and smooth. Of course, it all falls apart at the very end, which is pretty cornball even by Star Trek standards... but up until that point, it's a brilliantly constructed movie that expertly explores Cold War themes. 8/10

[Mr. Smith]

JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (1978): C+

Creepy animation and waaay too compacted storyline, but very nice music and excellent vocal performances from John Hurt and Anthony Daniels. Also a far better Frodo than that c^%t in Peter Jackson's movies.


Better than The Hobbit Trilogy for sure.

[T'Chenka]

Stranger Than Fiction
McQueen
The Mauritanian
Megamind
The Age Of Innocence
Coming To America
Bugsy
Kung Fu Panda
The Endless
Grease
Save The Last Dance
Bee Movie

[Meclazine for Israel]

The Devil All The Time (2020)

Not sure whether I will be visiting Ohio or West Virginia after this movie.

[Progressive Pessimist]

I watched a few movies recently, I'll try to keep my opinions on them relatively short. But before that let me suggest to all my fellow Jewish posters to start making the act of watching 'Uncut Gems' part of your Passover tradition. That gives us at least two potential Passover movies now! We can make a real movie night of it alongside your Exodus/Moses adaptation of choice (for me it's the Rugrats Passover special), or even all of them!

But I digress:

-Coming to America: I have seen this movie before, but not since I was very young. For some reason I was allowed to watch this R-rated movie (though honestly, it's probably the softest R possible, especially on cable TV where I probably saw it). I have little memory of familiarity of it aside from a few aspects of it that have been referenced elsewhere. So with the sequel (which I have zero interest in seeing) being recently released I decided to watch the original once more.

It was fine. There were some funny moments,-nothing too laugh-out-loud hilarious though-and I appreciate that it was a very rare successful mainstream movie with a majority black cast. But overall, it was just kind of a middle-of-the-road comedy with a very cliched, predictable, and uninteresting love story being central to it. I'm sorry but Prince Akeem and Lisa were boring as f***. I'm sorry. How do you make Eddie Murphy boring? Even in his worst movies you understand why the guy was the star that he was! I mean sure, he got his start portraying multiple characters in this same movie which he did to excellent effect, as obvious as the makeup was, but they aren't the supposed anchor of the film. Akeem is too perfect and too nice to be interesting. I also think the movie underutilized the fish-out-water concept, especially in New York City which is a location that should deliver a lot on that. Also the movie was just very slow to top it all off. Usually I can tolerate a slow paced movie when it promises horror, suspense, or thrills but when it's comedy it just wears on my patience. It's no wonder the sequel has gotten lackluster reviews. It's always hard to recapture the magic of an accidentally successful movie, but it's even harder when there really isn't much magic in the first one to begin with. I know I might be sitting at a table for one here with this response, but that's just what I got out of it.

-Dark Waters: Another movie that was perfectly passable in just about every way. It's basically 'Erin Brockovich' 2.0. That said, the environmental threat in this movie is more far-reaching and disturbing. It details a former corporate attorney's legal challenges against DuPont Chemicals for basically contaminating the entire Earth with PFOA chemicals which are found in 99% of all living beings' blood and can lead to certain cancers and other horrific diseases. That's more what I got out of the movie than as a piece of entertainment. It had an important message but the narrative is nothing I haven't seen before. It doesn't end on a particularly happy note like other legal thrillers (it's actually almost a horror movie) on the one hand, so perhaps that's something noteworthy, though it was also kind of anticlimactic.

By the way, what's with Mark Ruffalo appearing in movies involving the DuPont family? There's this and then there's 'Foxcatcher,' which I kind of prefer.

-Santa Claus and the Ice Cream Bunny: This is the absolute worst Christmas movie ever! No contest! It's a low budget movie about Santa Claus' sleigh getting stuck in the sand on a South Florida beach the day before Christmas and his reindeer abandoning him (this is also almost a horror movie because that premise sounds like Hell to me) and then compelling a gaggle of children in a one mile radius or so, through song, to help him out of it by bringing various animals (including a guy in a gorilla suit which I broke into hysterics over. there's something about guys in cheap gorilla outfits that always makes me laugh)) to try and move the sleigh.

That's the first agonizingly boring half hour of the movie-just a constant montage of animals failing to move the sleigh which is also pretty uncomfortable to watch because it almost seems cruel to watch these children push and drag the animals around to try and make them do what the movie needed. Then in order to inspire the kids after all their failure he tells the story of "Jack and the Beanstalk" and it cuts to an atrocious micro-budget, 1970's fashion filled version of the story being portrayed very obviously in a theater setting as footage of a play being reused to pad the running time of the movie. In fact, this segment is longer than the Santa plot. It features even more awful songs to boot! And every f***ing member of the cast gets a damn song from Jack to the salesman to the Giant who sings about how he smells the blood of an Englishman and then proceeds to do nothing but sit there and let Jack steal his s***. Though it is funny when a bottom dollar dummy of the Giant falls off the beanstalk. I guess I lucked out in the end because there is another version of the movie that has a cheap "Thumbelina" play in its place that is supposedly even longer and more boring!

After that "inspiration" the kids' dog recruits "The Ice Cream Bunny" ( a guy in a cheap bunny costume who doesn't talk and whose name is never explained) to rescue Santa in his fire truck. Who is the Ice Cream Bunny and what makes him special? How does that fire truck make difference in taking him to the North Pole compared to any other vehicle? Why does Santa's sleigh just disappear when he leaves with the bunny? Why is the audio so bad when the kids are singing their song about how they and the Ice Cream Bunny are going to save Santa? Why was Santa even flying around in his sleigh well before Christmas? Who made this movie and why? Why am I even bothering to ask all these questions? Well, it all happened. I watched it.

-The Ice Cream Man: Another movie with "ice cream" in the title! This somewhat famous B horror movie involves Clint Howard as a homicidal ice cream man but is simultaneously more interesting and confusing than that simple premise suggests. The movie can't seem to decide if the ice cream man, Greg, is supposed to be sympathetic or not. There are scenes which suggests that while he is a killer, he only kills bad people like a creepy, borderline pedophilic, park worker who intimidates our main kids early in the movie. He is also portrayed as being victimized by the police who destroy his warehouse in searching for evidence to implicate him. And he is also shown being friendly and warm to one of our kid protagonists. But then in the end he just ends up being a cold (pun not intended), sociopathic murderer who blends his victims' flesh and bones into his ice cream, made that way from his stay at a mental institution as a kid, or something?

But the protagonists are the kids and this flick seems to try and make them into something like 'The Goonies' or 'Monster Squad'-solving mysteries and riding around on their bikes, but none of them have anything to set them all apart other than the obligatory "fat" kid who is just an average looking kid with a pillow stuffed down his shirt. I s*** you not.

There's also a bunch of other pointless subplots to the film like an apparent romantic interest to Greg in the form of the neighborhood floozy, but I won't go into those. I will however detail the baffling decision to have the absolutely beautiful actress, Olivia Hussey (of 1968's 'Romeo and Juliet' and the original 'Black Christmas' fame), portray a kooky old lady-the former nurse who took of Greg in the hospital and is now his landlady-even though she was in her late thirties at the time this movie was filmed. She's having fun though hamming it up and probably being one of the few actors not to take this movie all that seriously.

I sort of recommend it even though it's far from my favorite bad movies. It will also make you want to eat ice cream, even when the ice cream is being shown to have cockroaches, human eyes, and rats in it.

-Who Killed Captain Alex: This film is becoming somewhat more mainstream as a "so bad, it's good" movie out of "Wakaliwood," a movie studio in Uganda that makes their movies, including this one, for less than $200 USD. The movie itself is a fairly conventional, weakly plotted action film about the Ugandan military commandos (take a drink every time that word is said if you want to die) led by Captain Alex (you never actually find out who kills him even though that's supposedly the movie's premise) fighting against a drug gang. It would actually be really boring, as cute as it is in being so cheap and sincere, if it wasn't for our "VJ," Emi- a guy who narrates and commentates over the film and even delivers some of the characters' lines. He makes the f***ing movie, which is bad but in not in any particularly intriguing way, so much better and is constantly hilarious from outright making fun of the movies' characters, talking s*** about Nigerian movies, and speaking directly to the audience about how great the movie is and how much action there is and going to be. Also of note are the bizarre inclusions of bad instrumental covers of famous music like Seal's "Kiss from a Rose." I also can't overlook a bad CGI helicopter that shows up.

Even though it isn't quite the funniest bad movie I have ever seen, it is probably the most endearing. For these Ugandans to get together and manage to make a somewhat competent (by the standards of costing between $80 and $200) action film is really inspiring and there is such an innocence to it that put a smile on my face throughout it's run. Everybody did their absolute best and seemed to have fun doing it. Hell, the movie even ends with a song dedicated to the director's mom and grandma and how much he appreciates them for what they did for him all his life. It's just so adorable and sweet, even though this song too is actually pretty bad. I actually recommend it to anyone even slightly interested in it. You can find it on Youtube in full. But if that's too much for you, at least give the trailer a watch, because that is even pretty great in itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BymeLkZ7GqM

WALALA! ACTION!

[John Dule]

Has anyone seen The Father? It's incredibly depressing, but it's an amazing visualization of dementia. Having seen my granddad go through a similar experience, it was painful to watch this. Probably Hopkins' best performance ever.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

Has anyone seen The Father? It's incredibly depressing, but it's an amazing visualization of dementia. Having seen my granddad go through a similar experience, it was painful to watch this. Probably Hopkins' best performance ever.

I thought Anthony Hopkins was much better in Magic, Nixon, and especially The Two Popes and The Silence of the Lambs, although it wasn’t a bad performance by any means.  

I’d argue The Father was a brilliant idea for how to depict dementia that should’ve been a great movie on paper, but somehow managed to just be passable.  The acting, directing, script, etc were all solid, but it just didn’t click for me.  Idk, maybe it’s b/c I saw it early in the morning and I was still kinda groggy, but I didn’t really have strong feelings about it one way or the other tbh.

I completely agree with you about Nomadland though.

[John Dule]

Has anyone seen The Father? It's incredibly depressing, but it's an amazing visualization of dementia. Having seen my granddad go through a similar experience, it was painful to watch this. Probably Hopkins' best performance ever.

I thought Anthony Hopkins was much better in Magic, Nixon, and especially The Two Popes and The Silence of the Lambs, although it wasn’t a bad performance by any means.  

I’d argue The Father was a brilliant idea for how to depict dementia that should’ve been a great movie on paper, but somehow managed to just be passable.  The acting, directing, script, etc were all solid, but it just didn’t click for me.  Idk, maybe it’s b/c I saw it early in the morning and I was still kinda groggy, but I didn’t really have strong feelings about it one way or the other tbh.

I completely agree with you about Nomadland though.

Perhaps I was particularly attuned to Hopkins' performance because I know someone who went through much the same thing. Still though, there were many subtle mannerisms and tics of old age that he nailed spot-on, to the point that I forgot Hopkins wasn't actually demented. The moments where he became distracted and confused (and then tried to cover for himself) were filled with little details like these; he conveyed overwhelming frustration and loss with a single twitch of his eyes. It wasn't a particularly showy performance, but it was astonishingly realistic.

The Two Popes was a great performance as well, though. I'd forgotten about that.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

V for Vendetta - It's an interesting watch in light of current events. There's a lot of things I like (V has a lot of great lines. Natalie Portman has majestic hair, etc.), but I just can't get over the presentation of stockholm syndrome as the cure for anxiety. S for Stockholm?

I haven't seen that in years, but looking back on it, it does romanticize domestic abuse in a certain lens, especially given that it's pretty clear the relationship between V and Evey was more than a platonic one.

But from what I remember, V's intent was to make Evey more dedicated to the cause by making her experience the conditions of prisoners living under the Norsefire regime. A pretty cruddy way of going about it, and the fact that Evey feels liberated after all of it and falls in love with the guy is... slightly disturbing. But it's still incredibly well-made and one of my favorites.