Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Doctor Cringelord]

Another fan of DH2 here. Even if some the plotting gets a bit silly at times.

It also has Robert Patrick in a bit cameo.

Pre Terminator 2 also. Forgot about that. Dennis Franz and Fred Thompson are good too. I always laugh when I see Thompson because all I can think of is his run for president. He basically plays himself in every role.

 

[Totenkindly]

Pre Terminator 2 also.

Yup.

Dennis Franz and Fred Thompson are good too. I always laugh when I see Thompson because all I can think of is his run for president. He basically plays himself in every role.

Oh totally. Cracks me up.

Remember him from "In the Line of Fire" too, where he chews up Clint Eastwood's ass. Not bad for a Senator from Tennessee.

 

[Totenkindly]

I'm a season or two into Community, now there is a brilliant show...!

Comedy, with a Chance of Meta-balls

 

[Burning Paradigm]

I'm a season or two into Community, now there is a brilliant show...!

Comedy, with a Chance of Meta-balls

It's not my favorite sitcom, but it's definitely a fun rollicking meta-trip.

*inhales* TROY AND ABED IN THE MOOOOOOORNING! *exhales*

 

[Tomb1]

It was actually a '69 Mustang Mach 1 and not the superior '69 mustang boss 429...

The True Story Behind John Wick's 1969 Mustang | HotCars.

 

[Stigmata]

I don't know where all the Leto Joker hate came from too. I mean, maybe it's not as popular an interpretation as some of the others, but I saw it as a valid one that I hadn't seen previously, so I was interested in seeing what would happen with it.

Snyder films also are better when they are not cut down a ton in editing, I think his theatrical releases (even Sucker Punch) has suffered from overzealous editing to meet a particular run-time. So it is more a matter of whether one is put off by his sensibilities or not.

To be fair, Snyder does suck at telling a concise and coherent story when he writes. For the life of me I cannot understand how Batman V Superman is 3 hours and yet the main characters only speak like 20 lines to one another. I've watched the movie several times and I still have no idea where all the time went. He just devotes so much time setting up the culminating scene that ultimately you run into theatrical time constraints that require large chunks of the formulative scenes to be cut out, leaving the finished edited product feeling incomplete and incoherent.

His directional cuts are really the only way to properly enjoy his films, where you can actually see the entire vision come to life.

Jared Leto's Joker was moreso a product of poor writing and vision of the character, imo, than bad acting on his part. Despite that, I thought he did OK for what he was meant to be -- more or a Mob Boss-esque Joker than the traditional psychopathic maniac Joker. I'd like to see what comes of his interpretation of the character with a director who adopt more of a purist approach when it comes to portraying comic book characters in film versus their comic counterparts.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

A talking snowman just isn't scary.

 

[Stigmata]

A talking snowman just isn't scary.

Indeed. When your entire rogue gallery consists of high-pressure wind systems and snow plows, it's hard to be taken serious as a legitimate threat.

 

[Totenkindly]

I feel like National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation consistency nails more of its gags than most of the others in that series, although I guess in seriousness it's really a competition between the initial film and this one out of the five made. Most everything seems to land, since it's got precedent of two other films to reference + so many of the experiences play off actual Christmas-style frustrations... accompanied at times by Chase's brand of reaction to things.

It's also weird seeing Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki as kid actors -- The Griswold/Griswald kids are played by different people in all the films, i guess -- along with Randy Quaid when he was just funny crazy, vs actually b*tsh*t cray-cray IRL. And Julia Louis-Dreyfus before her Seinfeld days gave her an avenue into VEEP and critical acclaim to numerous awards.

 

[Totenkindly]

Screenplay Review – Chaos Walking
This should be interesting.... six writers, starting with Charlie Kaufman and ending with the book author? Hoo boy.

Daisy Ridley says she was called 'intimidating' while filming latest movie
Yeah, that happens when you are previously cast with no prior exposure as a Jedi lead in a SW trilogy. Kind of curious to see where she goes, if anywhere, over the next 5-10 years. At that point either she will have proven herself to be a multi-faceted actress or just happen to be a one-shot SW actress. I thought she did fine in SW, although I'm aware she needed some guidance for the film first from the director.

 

[Totenkindly]

The A24 site customer service was nice.

My package for Midsommar (which now missed Christmas, I was ordering something for my son + me) had been sitting in pre-shipping since Dec 8 a state over, so I just decided to respond via Reply to the pre-shipping e-mail I had gotten from them.

Within 12 hours (and really, only about 2-3 hours into their business day) they had responded. They couldn't tell me anything about the package's specific location, but they did confirm that the package had been picked up by USPS around that date, so it WAS in the mail somewhere vs awaiting pickup three weeks later. THey also noted sometimes USPS will not scan it until it arrives in the destination state / near the destination, so that could be the case here; and to contact them again in a week if I still haven't received any notifications or the package from USPS and they would check further.

I am fond of A24 as a studio in general, even if they don't have a snappy logo; they put out films with sensibilities I enjoy. Glad their customer service is decent. Apparently my kids ordered me something different off the site for xmas, and now I'm curious what -- I am half guessing the fancy scriptbook to Hereditary (or something related to The Witch), but I really don't have an idea. But I had considered buying bound script treatments w/ annotations from them in the past.


EDIT: Okay, literally five minutes later I get an e-mail saying the package is on a delivery truck and will arrive at my house by 4:15pm today. USPS now says it arrived here in the city (after three weeks of crazy) yesterday at 1pm and made it to the local PO at 6am this morning. Which means if it is coming through my actual mail carrier, I'll have it by 11-12noon.

THis would be a copy of the director's cut of Midsommar w/ fancy packaging and book. I got a bluray for my son and a 4K copy for myself. The film quality (visually and sound wise) is pretty amazing just on bluray, but the DC has 30-35 more mins I think centered mostly on filling out Christian's character.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

A talking snowman just isn't scary.

I thought the light hearted Michael Keaton romp Jack Frost (not to be confused with the horror film of the same name released one year apart) played like an unintentional horror film. My son was cracking me up riffing on it when we watched it, doing a Pennywise voice whenever they showed him staring through the window or watching the son or wife characters.

It was also hilarious that the bully character was noticeably older and larger than the other children. He was very good on that snowboard. My wife wondered why he was using his time and talents to terrorize smaller children when he could've been practicing for the Olympics.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I also just saw Surviving Christmas last week. It had Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara, so it wasn't all bad. Gandolfini was basically playing a blue collar version of Tony Soprano

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I thought the light hearted Michael Keaton romp Jack Frost (not to be confused with the horror film of the same name released one year apart) played like an unintentional horror film. My son was cracking me up riffing on it when we watched it, doing a Pennywise voice whenever they showed him staring through the window or watching the son or wife characters.

It was also hilarious that the bully character was noticeably older and larger than the other children. He was very good on that snowboard. My wife wondered why he was using his time and talents to terrorize smaller children when he could've been practicing for the Olympics.

I was watching the rifftrax of the horror one on Tubi. I actually rented that from Blockbuster ages ago when those were still a thing. It was even cheesier than I remembered. The snowman mouth doesn't even seem to move. The acting is atrocious and all the snow is soooo fake looking.

I was trying to figure out why a killer doll is scary (IMO) and a skiller nowman isn't. Like, even if the movie were compently made, it wouldn't be scary. I think it's the uncanny valley. An innocent symbol of childlike fun can be scary if it approaches the uncanny valley. A snowman is too far removed.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

To be fair, Snyder does suck at telling a concise and coherent story when he writes. For the life of me I cannot understand how Batman V Superman is 3 hours and yet the main characters only speak like 20 lines to one another. I've watched the movie several times and I still have no idea where all the time went. He just devotes so much time setting up the culminating scene that ultimately you run into theatrical time constraints that require large chunks of the formulative scenes to be cut out, leaving the finished edited product feeling incomplete and incoherent.

His directional cuts are really the only way to properly enjoy his films, where you can actually see the entire vision come to life.

How is the director's cut of Legends of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole? Is there some perhaps key owl-pellet scene that clarifies Metalbeak's motivations?

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Also, this movie made me realize that I had Shannon Elizabeth confused with Tara Reid. I always thought she was a blonde, but it seems I was mistaken.

 

[Doctor Cringelord]

I was watching the rifftrax of the horror one on Tubi. I actually rented that from Blockbuster ages ago when those were still a thing. It was even cheesier than I remembered. The snowman mouth doesn't even seem to move. The acting is atrocious and all the snow is soooo fake looking.

I was trying to figure out why a killer doll is scary (IMO) and a skiller nowman isn't. Like, even if the movie were compently made, it wouldn't be scary. I think it's the uncanny valley. An innocent symbol of childlike fun can be scary if it approaches the uncanny valley. A snowman is too far removed.

yeah, it's leprauchaun territory for me. the silly quotient of a killer snowman is just too high.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I also recently watched the MST3k episode with the Russian Jack Frost (in Russian the actual name of the movie translates to "Grandfather Frost") . Nothing is more compelling than the romance of Ivanushka and Nastinka. My favorite part is when Ivanushka gets a bear head and he frantically runs around trying to do good deeds. "What, so speculating about good deeds is more important than doing good?" I think the idea there was supposed to be that he finally learned how to do good for non-selfish reasons. Before he was just trying trying to do good to get back his Prince Valiant haircut; when he tried to return the old woman's stick, it seemed like a more spontaneous thing without a specific goal in mind.

I also love the mushroom-elf in that. The movie really has all the random oddness of the original non-Disney fairy tales (if perhaps not the gruesomeness that is sometimes present). I'll bet if I were to track down some translation of the story the movie comes from, it wouldn't be that different.

 

[Jaguar]

I'd really like to see more intensity in film. Or maybe only Keaton and Pacino can get the job done.

 

[Jaguar]

Sigourney Weaver stealing Tess's idea in Working Girl pisses me off.