Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[The Cat]

"Dorothy Mantooth is a saint." Is the best line in this movie.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I'm normally disinterestested in the "nuclear family survives the apocalypse by surviving in a cabin in the middle of nowhere" subgenre of horror, but this held my interest for some reason. What are they afraid of and how exactly are they safe in their area?

 

[The Cat]

I'm normally disinterestested in the "nuclear family survives the apocalypse by surviving in a cabin in the middle of nowhere" subgenre of horror, but this held my interest for some reason. What are they afraid of and how exactly are they safe in their area?

They're afraid of being taken by whatever it is that they cant really see. Because in nature prey animals tend to be blind to their predators until it is too late. People work like this also. Its not just the being dragged screaming into the night its what might happend to you to cause you to start screaming in the darkness or calling your loved ones calling from the shadows. they're safe because they're literally each others life lines. fun idea curious to see how it goes

 

[Lexicon]

On an 80s movie kick.

Haven't seen Sixteen Candles in like, 20+yrs. That's uh... interesting to look back on.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

They're afraid of being taken by whatever it is that they cant really see. Because in nature prey animals tend to be blind to their predators until it is too late. People work like this also. Its not just the being dragged screaming into the night its what might happend to you to cause you to start screaming in the darkness or calling your loved ones calling from the shadows. they're safe because they're literally each others life lines. fun idea curious to see how it goes

It seems more like an unstoppable force, and that's more interesting than something that rushes you if you fart too loud or whatever that movie was about.

 

[The Cat]

It seems more like an unstoppable force, and that's more interesting than something that rushes you if you fart too loud or whatever that movie was about.

An Unstoppable force can be one little thing. A germ can be an unstoppable force.

So can ants.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

An Unstoppable force can be one little thing. A germ can be an unstoppable force.

So can ants.

Nah, just get an anteater

 

[The Cat]

Nah, just get an anteater

I'm pretty sure not even Hollywood is that desperate yet. Though the unstoppable threat of ants has long been established in montster movies. All the way from giant radiated ones, to you basic run of the mill fire ants. Army ants also are used more than once.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I'm pretty sure not even Hollywood is that desperate yet. Though the unstoppable threat of ants has long been established in montster movies. All the way from giant radiated ones, to you basic run of the mill fire ants. Army ants also are used more than once.

You forgot carpenter ants and velvet ants. I don't think we've seen those.

 

[The Cat]

You forgot carpenter ants and velvet ants. I don't think we've seen those.

velvet ants are vespids. they're wingless wasps.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

velvet ants are vespids. they're wingless wasps.

They're in the same order, tho.

 

[The Cat]

They're in the same order, tho.

Indeed they are. It wasnt a correction it was a random bit of trivia. For fun. You know? Now people know. It might not be the best bit, but its my bit. This is the show folks. Comedy, romance, cosmic horror. It aint exactly vaudville, but these days what can you do. The talkies changed everything and like the old saying goes boom or bust but most likely do both because life is cyclical.

 

[Totenkindly]

Welp, give Jenny another gold star for taking one for the team and watching bad superhero films so that you do not have to.

Today's torture was Madame Web. I know it has been called the "worst superhero film ever" but I think people just have really bad memories. Between me deciding that the Marvels needs to be shifted down further and Morbius being really awful AND boring, I would actually give Madame Web somewhere around 1.5-2 stars out of 5 and being in the same category -- and actually being more watchable in respects aside from its badness.

I think any value in the film is that it tries to actually have a plot (unlike The Marvels). And I actually do feel like the writers cared about Cassie and the three teenage girls. But the actual turns and twists of the plot itself are very inane, and a story that sounds like it should have been full of stakes (a mean older guy with powers trying to murder three teenage girls before they grow up to kill him) doesn't really ever feel like it has stakes. The other saving grace is that the cast actually is not bad (except for maybe the villain). Dakota Johnson and Adam Scott are decent together and elevate their scenes; and the three girls are solid. Emma Roberts is so cast against type here. I felt bad for Sweeney who is still young and doesn't need a film like this on her "Bad Past Mistake" list, but she will recover. It feels like everyone in the film realized how awful the script was but they still make an effort to be professionals.

But... the script. The overall concept of the film is okay, but the execution in the script and direction is just befuddling at best and laughable at its worst. Would three teenage girls go to a diner while hiding from a man they know will murder them and then slutty TABLE DANCE for a bunch of 20-something guys they don't know -- and would the staff just ignore this going on? Can a woman just swipe a flashing-light ambulance at an actual call (to get someone) and drive away with it, without getting pulled over by police? Could she then request a heli-vac to come and land on the roof of a condemned fireworks factory without expecting some kind of reprimand or reprisal -- if they ever bother to show up? Do you know how much a medi-vac would cost to fly somewhere? There's so much crazy shit that goes down where the world never works like its supposed to, in terms of cause and effect and believability.

But I think the rogue cab is literally the silliest and the worst:

• Early in the film, after Cassie saves the lives of the three girls and makes them come with her, she steals a cab as the cabbie gets out, and drives off with the girls.
• She turns off the radio when she hears that SHE (and not the killer) is the object of the police search.
• After tucking the kids away, she drives back to her city apartment in the same bright orange cab.
• To make the cab harder to identify (good thing?), she picks up a convenient crowbar and pops off the license plate... which she leaves lying next to the cab in the parking lot while she goes into her apartment to hang out and read her mother's diary for a few hours.
• She then goes back to the cab and drives through the city with no license plate -- a cab that almost certainly was reported as stolen by the cabbie, by a woman who had the three missing girls with her at the time.
• Cassie then almost causes a logging truck to overturn, then barrels the same cab through the wall of a diner during dinner rush to save the three girls from the killer. Literally she crashes it into a crowded diner while everyone gapes.
• Forcing the girls into the cab (which is still driveable), she then drives the cab with the mangled grill to a nearby motel, where she parks the cab in the parking lot overnight in front of her room!
• There are other cars in the lot, but NO ONE reports this damaged and license-plate-less cab.
• Cassie continues to drive this damaged cab with unique call signs on its roof + no license plate throughout the film and is never pulled over or noticed by anyone -- until she ditches it in her friend's driveway to steal an ambulance parked next door for further mayhem and destruction.

Don't any of these vehicles have trackers?
Are people blind as bats?
Some guy calls in seeing the three girls in a crowded diner, but for some reason NO ONE NOTICES THE BRIGHT ORANGE DAMAGED CAB WITH NO LICENSE PLATE.

Bottom line is that this is a film for people who don't like superheroes. The references to superheroes is almost superfluous and the action scenes are anything but. The film is primarily about a psychologically damaged woman with attachment disorder and a distinct lack of ability to function in society (to a CRINGY level), who comes to term with her negative feelings towards her dead mother to the degree she is then able to babysit and then den mother three young girls who have all been conveniently abandoned by their parental figures.

(By the way, to reiterate how inane the plot details are -- the one girl's dad was deported while she was at school, so she claims she's just been living alone in their apartment for five months. WHO IS PAYING FOR THIS APARTMENT? WHY ISN'T THE LANDLORD THROWING HER OUT? Like, it took four people to write the script, and it seems completely negligent of feeling real on any level.)

Along with the bad scripting, the direction is flavorless, and the cinematography is just that glossy, colorful, well-lit quality belonging to prestige TV but not really fitting the feel and theme of the film. It's all so thoughtless. No one seemed to have a cohesive vision of what this film should look or feel like. The director has no real stamp on the film. She just directed the shots, I guess, but pretty much every major crew member just did their own thing (lighting, camera, music, editing) and none of it was shaped into a cohesive feeling or idea.

Which leads me to no longer feeling surprised about this past news clip:

In 2019, a prequel show to Game of Thrones was announced for HBO with Clarkson attached to direct and executive produce the pilot, in addition to being involved in the creation of the series.[6][7] The show, reportedly entitled Bloodmoon, took place 5,000 years before the main series and starred Naomi Watts in the lead role. The pilot had reportedly been shot, but the show was subsequently shelved at HBO in late 2019.[8][9]

Yeah. I can imagine the pilot felt flavorless and uninteresting. She "contributed" to the writing of Madame Web too, and it's not really her thing either.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The director has no real stamp on the film.

I so want to make a joke about how things might have been better if they went with Marc Webb, but he already directed a Spiderman movie, so I feel like the joke has already been made.

 

[Totenkindly]

I don't think Webb was bad. I think the first Andrew Garfield film was solid and actually doing a new villain convincingly -- and the second film I don't blame Webb for, it's all freaking Sony who veers between complete negligence and psychopathic heights of control when it comes to producing superhero films.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I don't think Webb was bad. I think the first Andrew Garfield film was solid and actually doing a new villain convincingly -- and the second film I don't blame Webb for, it's all freaking Sony who veers between complete negligence and psychopathic heights of control when it comes to producing superhero films.

I thought that movie was ok. The first difficulty I had was that I seemed like they were trying to make Peter Parker cooler, and that bothered me (as it did the woman I saw It with). The second difficulty is that they took too long to get to him becoming Spiderman, which was unnecessary because most of the people in the theater already knew Spiderman's origin story.

 

[Totenkindly]

I thought that movie was ok. The first difficulty I had was that I seemed like they were trying to make Peter Parker cooler, and that bothered me (as it did the woman I saw It with). The second difficulty is that they took too long to get to him becoming Spiderman, which was unnecessary because most of the people in the theater already knew Spiderman's origin story.

Yeah, at some point they need to stop doing origin stories. I don't think the new Superman film will start with Krypton, for example. The audience (even non-comic book readers) should be pretty familiar at this point regarding Batman, Superman, Spiderman, etc.

 

[The Cat]

Madam Webb missed the best thing they could have done. One scene with the evil spiderman fucking with a young J Jonah Jameson. Thus laying the foundation for our Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman's greatest rival's origin story.

 

[Totenkindly]

Madam Webb missed the best thing they could have done. One scene with the evil spiderman fucking with a young J Jonah Jameson. Thus laying the foundation for our Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman's greatest rival's origin story.

Damn, dude. You are exactly right, lol!

The origin of JJJ's spider-hatred is the story none of us thought of but the one we deserved.

 

[The Cat]

Damn, dude. You are exactly right, lol!

The origin of JJJ's spider-hatred is the story none of us thought of but the one we deserved.

I honestly thought that was the whole point of the evil spiderman looking so much like the FNSM. It was very shocking to me that it wasnt even hinted at. At least one consultant for every lore heavy multi picture cinema verse, should be autistic with a special interest in the project. This stuff wouldnt happen anymore.