Be Excellent To Each Other

Across the spider verse

After the first 20 minutes "They should make a Spider-Gwen spin off" (they are!)
After the next 20 minutes "This is great , they should also be making more of these with Miles" (they sorta are but in reality is the other 1/2 of this one)

Loved it but its going to be a long wait for the next part.

Just watched the new Ninja Turtle film.

Really loved the quirky art style. Passed the 6 laugh test.

There was humour in there for both kids and adults. Really really funny.

The Blackening is a very entertaining way to spend 90 mins or so.

Fast X was complete and utter bollocks, even by their low standards. More importantly, it failed to be entertaining so we stopped watching after an hour.

Mali is correct. Zoidberg is incorrect.

Watched two food based films back to back on Friday, The Menu & The Platform. Enjoyed both.

Also rewatched Mad Max: Fury Road and enjoyed that again too, was there ever a follow up mentioned?

Oh and I tried to watch Dune but my family forcefully rejected it. I’ll finish watching that on my own as I liked what I’d seen.

I don't think there's a "follow-up" to Fury Road in the works, but there is a prequel movie centred around Furiosa (called, funnily enough, Furiosa) with Anya Taylor-Joy taking over from Charlize Theron.

Helen actually stayed awake right to the end of Dune!

The Platform is superb.

I watched Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

Look, imma say this first: it was an entertaining and fun film. It feels like an Indiana Jones film. I thought it was alright, even. But after I’d finished watching it, when I thought about it, I liked it significantly less. Fewer.

Anyway, I’ll say this an’ all: it looked expensive. Like 90% of the 300 million dollar budget had been spent on VFX. But when you’ve got a film based on a beloved trilogy you probably don’t want your film looking like every scene is filmed on a green screen and your face filled with particle effects. It really needed to look more grounded than it does during every action sequence. It’s a fun ride but it doesn’t compare to the practical effects of the originals when it’s so obvious that no one is actually in the scene being rendered by the power of a million computers. Sometimes less is more. Fewer.

There’s one egregious bit that just stuck with me and it’s a fake Indy hopping over trains in the distance. It was so shit. It’s only a couple of seconds, but still. And just other stuff like this diving sequence… oh man, it’s so terrible in retrospect with zero atmosphere. All these computer generated eels some out of nowhere and fill the scene like so many ‘end of a marvel film’ enemies. God, I just wanted them to put just a couple of eels in and make the scene more scary. Scarier.

So yeah, it’s pretty decent for a big budget film that unfortunately falls into the same traps as every single other big budget film these days with the new modern clichés.

Yes...pretty much the above.

That abrupt ending tho? Christ, the more I think about it the more I want to punch someone in the throat.

I also watched Strays.

I love dogs. I FUCKING LOVE THEM. Ok, well, I love my dog. But this film about dogs made me so angry. Basically it’s Sausage Party but with talking dogs.

And what’s with “adult comedy” just saying “fuck” in every sentence as being the joke? I was fuming how shit it was. If you’ve watched the trailer - you’ve literally seen all the decent jokes. I imagine lots of this was improvised with Will sodding Ferrell doing his usual schtick, which, frankly, has got real stale recently.

Trailer: https://youtu.be/26Xq6_g2r6Q?si=OfsbJdy3Y4Bv-6Y9

Gotta say though, the CG for the dogs talking and stuff is really great though, especially since dog faces are so hairy.

You might get more mileage with it then me, but I was a bit bored by it.

I also watched Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

AHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAHHA

1/10 and yet better than the previous instalments.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem is GREAT!

Proper great. I had a really great time watching this. It’s propah funny, looks AMAZING (kinda like CG plasticine, stop motion and a comic book), the characters are all great, Ice Cube is TERRIFIC, the story belts along at a nice pace, Jackie Chan is ALSO ACE, and I don’t think I can say a bad word about it.

I might have enjoyed this more than Spider-Man to be honest. No, hang on, maybe slightly less.

Go. See. It.

Wow, that's certainly got me interested.

The Barbie film is absolutely brilliant

Two thirds through it now, and yes it is.

Watched 'No One will Save You' last night on Disney. Excellent stuff, it was about the hour mark until I realised that no-one had said anything. Well worth checking out.

Help Ashens out: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/as ... in-reverse

Looks like he’s smashed it!

I watched some films recently:

The new Turtles (whatever it was called) film at the cinema: It was pretty good, and yet I wasn't all that into it, it just didn't really grab me but I was kinda tired even before it started. For me, it was not as good as any of the spiderverse films (which are excellent, and TBH many films would struggle in comparison to spiderverse). I think I may have dozed off a little bit in the final part of the film.

Beauty and the Beast - the recent (2017) live action one: Lady T and her sister went with our daughter to see the stage show the other week. Actually, the film isn't that recent at all, 2017 was six years ago... where has the time gone??? Anyway, I enjoyed the film, the actors for Belle and Gaston were both really good in the role, Cogsworth and Lumiere were excellent too. I genuinely really enjoyed this, much more than i was expecting. Although, the beast himself was a little disappointing.

Men in Black International - I went into this expecting to HATE it but it wasn't that bad. Perhaps going in with such low expectations made the film feel less bad. The chemistry between Thor and Valkyrie was still there, somewhat, but felt diminished and a little forced and awkward. As a film, it didn't seem particularly inspired but it was a mildly entertaining diversion. I can imagine that if I was on a boring long haul flight I'd watch this film, and then tell people that I thought it was OK.

Marvels (The). Good, but runs out of steam. The leads are good, and it's great pretty much whenever Kamala Khan (and to an extent her family) in on screen. The very end is nice, but odd as an ending - sure it would once have been a mid-credit sequence (now there is one of those, but nothing substantial at the very end. I didn't stick around to hear it).

I watched a filum!

The Killer

The David Fincher filum. It’s paced excellently and old “I’ll do the fingering” Fasbender is excellent. As I was watching I was thinking it’s sort of like a modern take of American Psycho yet not as complex or enthralling. Shame really, but it’s still excellent.

I watched 21 and 22 Jump Street, which remain excellent.

I have mixed feelings about this.

Chris Pratt. Sigh.

Totally, they're incredibly funny. The first one caught me by surprise - I wasn't expecting such brilliance.

Watched this for free (thanks Idris Elba and Sky Cinema)

I quite enjoyed it, not amazing, but adequate and fun.

My biggest disappointment was:



My favourite thing was every scene with Kamala in it. She's just wonderful.

One thing I noticed

The Equalizer 3 aka the Equalizer goes on holiday aka the Equalizer goes on a side quest is a movie. Just about. It has some fun kills but that amounts to about 5 minutes of filum. The rest is the Equalizer chilling in some Italian hamlet having tea and getting to know the locals. It ain’t great.

Ooh and I finally watched Barbie an’ all.

I liked it a lot! I thought it was genuinely funny in parts.

But I was a bit bored by the final act after the incredible dancing had finished. Wrapping it up just got a bit tedious for me. Ryan Gosling’s bod was a bit weird and distracting as well. He’s got a weird musculature hasn’t it? Was some of that CGI or what? Kept weirding me out. That kid was a bit annoying as well. And the mum too.

The Marvels made me smile all the way through. Iman Vellani’s obvious joy is contagious.

I remember seeing adverts for 'Cock Blockers'* and thinking it looked funny, John Cena looked funny, and would be a fun film. So I finally got round to watching it. There were a couple of really good laugh-out-loud moments, it was pretty funny but it wasn't a hysterically funny film. A solid 73% and I have no regrets watching it, but at the same time if it was ever on tv and all the other channels were for some reason mysteriously unavailable, I'd probably go and do something else instead of watch it again.


*(or, just 'Blockers' as they don't want to fall fowl of any rules - I'm sure there is another word I could use to describe this ever so slightly cowardly approach, but I just can't think of it. It's probably some animal or something).

How does a film like The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent get made, even allowing for the unlikely existence and success of Nicolas cage?

Being John Malkovich was a one off, an anomaly, and here we are with this as well!

Surely Jeff Goldblum gets the third entry in this trilogy at some point?

Enjoyed watching Renfield last night. Fans of Nicolas Cage, gore and daftness will not be disappointed.

It's a bit of a meme on the Interwebs that you can watch Gary Oldman in a movie without realising it's Gary Oldman, because he's just *that* good at diving deep into the roles that he plays.

Some people might experience this, but not me. I've always been able to instantly tell that it's Gary Oldman -- he's just got too distinctive a face. Doesn't matter what role he's playing, it's always clear to me.

I've never seen True Romance. But I saw a clip of it earlier, where Oldman's character (Drexl Spivey) is essentially showboating and taunting Christan Slater's character shortly before they get into a fight.

And whilst I could instantly tell that it was Gary Oldman, for the first time I was genuinely taken aback at the fact that it was Gary Oldman. He might have looked like him, but he sure as fuck didn't sound like anything I expected Gary Oldman to sound like. An incredible turn.

I love True Romance, One of Christian Slater's best films, and cameos from Brad Pitt, James Gandolfini, Christopher Walken and Dennis Hoper just add to it

However, I really dislike Gary Oldman's performance in it (and other 90s films like Leon , Air Force One and Fifth Element)

Giphy "bring everyone":
https://media2.giphy.com/media/M2u5HF6f721LzmmI2A/giphy-loop.mp4

He's done some good stuff since then, but I was not keen on him for some time.

FFS Giphy

Fine,

I'll do it manually

Gary Oldmsn in the 5th Element is my personal favourite.

Is gud, but he was amazing in Sid and Nancy tooey for me.

I watched District 9 again last night. It's still fokkin' brilliant.

My local cinema chain went under, but fortunately the site is being bought by an Irish chain and reopens soon.
https://deadline.com/2023/12/omniplex-c ... 235649823/

Mali's Xmas movies.

1) A Merry Christmas Wish - a lady who works in The Big City in a trendy job of Marketing returns to her hometown as her great uncle died and there's a farm. And a Christmas show to put on. And homely stuff. Hallmark made this so that automatically means a solid 7/10 and it gets an extra point for me thinking Negan from Walking Dead was. In it (he isn't) so 8/10. Also, police.corruption and nepotism feature heavily, so 9/10.

Spoilers,.film number two on the list is already up to an 8

Just dropped to a two as a result of "turning up somewhere and cooking in someone else 's kitchen"

2) finding santa - a stunning deep dive into moving out of the shadow of ones parents as a business savvy lady faces a struggle to put on a Christmas parade. A solid knitwear game from the costume department deserves applause.

9/10 and 7 of them are for a brilliant joke in the first ten minutes.

@maliA Mrs Grim... is addicted to Christmas movies in this "period" (which began on November 1st when the Christmas 24 channel returned) so I've probably seen about 20 Christmas movies so far. The best three so far this year have been Love Hard (Netflix), Holidate (which has a properly funny bit at the end) and Will you Merry Me, which is a bit older now but actually a good movie.

A Christmas Prince is this years "big" Christmas movie, and it was okay, I guess.

Also, you didn't mention that Finding Christmas has the hot Cylon lady in, or that A Merry Christmas Wish was directed by Bradley Walsh. This makes me doubt your Christmas Movie credentials, although not as much as giving any of them more than 6 out of 10.

Finally, It's A Wonderful Knife should be your next stop.

But not THE Bradley Walsh

edit: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0909568/?ref_=tt_ov_dr

This Dude found his niche and stuck to it!

I never thought to check that when I saw his name. I'm sticking with my head version.