Be Excellent To Each Other

thanks!

For some reason I stayed awake enough to watch “The Boss”. It’s a Melissa McCarthy vehicle which only goes to further prove my working thesis that Melissa McCarthy is the Adam Sandler for the 10’s. She’s got a couple of decent movies but most of her work is gash. The Boss is probably the worst I’ve seen. Just garbage.

Mind you, I went to see Midsommar last night.

Now, I think Hereditary is a virtual masterpiece of art and direction. Midsommar is more of the same and it’s great. There’s some really interesting shots that keep the film visually beautiful and some great movement and transitions that make it visually interesting throughout the quite lengthy run time.

The story however is the Wickerman. Even if you don’t know shit about the film before you go in (and I went in blind apart from watching a trailer), once you get past the introduction it’ll instantly click. So you know what’s going to happen (sort of like Hereditary and it’s peers) and you’re just along for the ride waiting for bad shit to happen. There’s lots of silent moments as you wait patiently for ‘something’ but unlike Hereditary there’s no big moments. Normally you’ll just sit there as these very strange otherworldly noises from the soundtrack honk in your face. In fact, I swear some of the soundtrack was in Hereditary. Outside of the soundtrack the performances are great throughout and it does have some comic relief sprinkled about the misery.

But even if the film is some sort of allegory for relationship breakups, when the credits roll you’ll probably sit there and think what the fuck did I just watch. I didn’t feel any of the dread that I felt with Hereditary; I don’t think the story is as strong as that film either and that was a load of bobbins; I just didn’t feel much at all and, for whatever reason, I simply found no pleasure in sitting through Midsommar at all. I’m trying to remember what I thought after I watched the Wickerman. Nope, it’s not coming back. Ah well.

Midsommar: Meh/10

I tho k we saw about three seconds of the advert for that before turning to each other and saying ‘oh, so they’ve made The Wickerman’. Weirdly, I still kind of want to watch it.

I watched Captain Marvel (but can't step into the Marvel thread as I still haven't seen Endgame yet).

I was quite enjoying it as I was watching, but on reflection it was fun but not overly exciting. There just wasn't much peril for her - like, not much adversity to overcome once she had her powers (outside of the flashback sequences, showing some of the 'past' struggles which of course we knew she had already overcome). It seemed to go from powerful, and can kick ass to really powerful and can kick even more ass, to finally basically way too overpowered for anyone else to even get close to. I did enjoy the final fight scene tho.

Have you seen CAN YOU EVER FORGIVE ME?

She's got some proper acting chops on her when given material that lets her shine.

Aw yea.

I enjoyed some of the Critters films, good fun. I seem to remember thinking the hunters guns were cool at the time.

Toy Story 4 was good fun, I liked it. Not really sure there is much to add, it's Toy Story, it's super well done and both joyous and a little bitter-sweet too. Duke Kaboom was most excellent, as expected.

Shaft (the recent netflix one) was quite good in a throwaway sense. Samuel L being a sweary badass tough guy is always going to be fun, right? Worth a watch when there isn't much else left on your list.

M.I.B. International is a film.

It’s not dreadful: it’s just background noise.

It’s not funny, there’s no good lines, it’s not quotable, it’s just serviceable nonsense.

The two leads have zero chemistry and Chris Pine/Pratt/whatevs does his daft Ghostbusters schtick again.

I’m not convinced that there’s a good black empowering female lead either. She’s smart, she’s brave and so on and it ends when...she falls for thicko Chris Pine/Pratt/whatevs. Yawn. Try searching for minority extras in the backgrounds though; it’s a fun game.

The CGI is noticeably crap in parts which I suppose is par for the course for MIB films. It wasn’t all bad, mind, and there’s some nice visuals and overall it isn’t too flat and bland.

The baddies are really shit though. Only one of them has a personality worth writing home about and it’s probably no surprise that her 3-armed fight sequence is the most entertaining thing in the film.

No, thinking about it, it was shit. It doesn’t need to exist and it just fills a void that something more creative and interesting could have occupied. Give us the fucking Valkyrie goddamn it.

3 arms/10

Christ, Critters.. Any one remember The Munchies?

God they made some quite terrible movies back then haha.

Leo DeCaprio is in Critters 2. And wonderful Brad Dourif is in 4. Great series.

Yup I like Tremors also.

I wish they still made comedy horror films now. I remember watching Night Of The Living Dead PT2 thinking I was going to shit myself. I ended up laughing all the way through. Best bit was when they electrocuted a load and the Michael Jackson guy jumps in.

I suppose Shaun Of The Dead definitely qualifies but we need MOAR.

The other week I found out that a guy I was besties with at high school is actually now a director in the world of horror movies. I was flabbergasted. He was always absolutely obsessed with them. Apparently he did a make up course at the school and it started from there.

Amazing really, but man I'm so happy for him. It's a real treat to see an old friend do so well and follow and achieve his dreams.

JC have you seen Dead Snow? I think someone on here recommended it to me a long time ago. Sounds like you might like it.

I, for some reason, watched 'Goon' on Netflix. It had Stifler as a tough-but dim guy that's good at fighting and becomes an ice hockey 'enforcer' (basically the hard man of the team that intimidates the opposition through punching and roughness). Despite being styled as a light hearted comedy it wasn't all that funny or charming and yet I found myself quite enjoying it, and by the end actually cared about how it would all wrap up. A reasonable way to waste some time, and I might even watch the sequel.

Film Review!
The Happytime Murders - like team America but different. Pretty good way to while away 90 mins on.

Nope not seen that I'll look it up cheers.

Finally watched Toy Story 4! Not the emotional rollercoaster like the others, but still enjoyable. Glad we've seen it before we go to Toy Story Land too.

Y'know what I watched again last night, The Nice Guys, with Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe.

Nice little story, RG is fantastic, the child actor is great, the cast are funny, the script is funny and basically I thought it was great. I still think it's great.

It absolutely is not. On all accounts (except it's different to Team America)(because it is)(because Team America was actually good).

A terrible film and some of the worst stinking shit I've seen. It's a real turd.

It's almost like this stuff is subjective.

For the record, I liked The Happytime Murders.

There can be popular consensus on media and the popular consensus on The Happytime Murders is that it is dog shit.

Rotten Tomatoes current has critic reviews 23% and audience 40%.

IMDB has it sat at 5.3/10 based on 18,000 user scores.

Metacritic has it sat at critic reviews 27% and user reviews at 4.3/10

Critics can be dicks, though. Rambo got 37%, Bad Boys got 23%.

Rambo 4? Sounds about right with 100% for the .50 cal scene and -63% for the dialogue, that annoying woman and the SAS guy.

Happened on this on IMDB

The greatest five-film streak from a director

It's tough. Hitchcock very much in with a shout, but then you look at Ford Coppola's. And to be honest, I'd happily choose Zemeckis, though I know they may not be so highly regarded (and it's cheating a bit with a trilogy).

And then there's Joel Coen, who enjoyed an incredible five-film stretch.

The sequence of films for Scorcese is an odd one, as you might be best returning to Mean Streets rather than his latter-day offerings (as good as Wolf and Departed are).

Lynch for me. Then the Coens, Kurosawa, Carpenter and Zemeckis.

I loathed the "new" Batman films so the fact Nolan's leading is hmm.

Michael Mann or James Cameron for me from that list.

Nu-The Lion King: eh.

It's like if some beautiful people got up on stage, and they looked so fucking good, but then they opened their mouths and you realise that they're just a bad cover band - they don't sound right. And they change some lyrics in the songs you know so well and make them worse. And they add extra bits to the songs that don't need to be there. And the new singers can't just sing the goddamn tune, they have to warble and show off and it's amazing you can hear them when their heads are so far up their own arses. And they're oddly expressionless, especially compared to the original band. And Beyonce is there, and she's shit. And they're replaced Jeremy Irons with Chiwetel Ejiofor and he just can't quite pull it off. Oh, but they kept James Earl Jones from the original band, but he's old now and doesn't sound as good. And they got rid of Ed. Why the fuck would you get rid of Ed?

But Gods, they do look amazing.

I liked it. And there were a couple of extra good drop-in jokes.

That didn't really make up for the ones that they took away.

It's half an hour longer! Why?!

Also - how the fuck have you seen this, but you didn't make it to the cinema for Endgame?

I know, right? I'm a puzzle.

It’s true. It’s true.

Heywaiddaminute

Cheers! Am now recording that for les enfants.

It's so good.

This was added to Amazon Prime Video today (keeping up their trend of adding only the best films) -



Cowboys Vs Dinosaurs (or Jurassic Hunters)

Terrible acting and special effects and that's just in the trailer

Hobbs and Shaw is everything you would expect it to be. It is great

I'm a huge fan of Mr Johnson, but this made for some really hard, almost traumatic, reading:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/a ... lose-fight

I had to read your comment a few times before I realised you weren't talking about Boris

That article is interesting and gets completely disproved by Hobbs and Shaw

I disagree. I think that happened because It Was Awesome

Well, it is the guardian.

'The Guilty' on Netflix is very good. Danish, low-budget (the whole film is set in one location with most of the cast being at the other end of a phone) film less than 90 minutes long and tells a good story.

Rocket Man. Wonderful. Not what I expected at all, in many ways. I really had no idea he was that bad (very young when he was) but "I'm Still Standing" makes all the more sense now. Really enjoyed it.

Got John Wick 3 tomorrow.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that, too. And JW3 is another excellent choice!

HMMMMMM!

Richard Stanley’s ‘Color Out of Space’




Director of thequite good 2000AD rip-off Hardware, and the notoriously aborted The Island of Dr. Moreau. Only drawback: fucking Nic Cage.

One of my fave tales!

It will be gash! Maybe?

I consider (and I think we've discussed before) Annihilation to be a fantastic 'head nod' of a film.

On the subject of Nicolas Cage, I did enjoy the NY Times interview with him. He's certainly an, um, eccentric fella.

.

I finally got around to watching Venom. It was very enjoyable. 8/10

Also, Slaughterhouse Rulez. Which was a movie. 5/10. A horror-comedy that is neither funny or horrific.

That was proper shit. It had some proper actors in as I recall, but I have no idea if they were going for the 80s b-movie style or if it was just... shit.