Last Movie You Watched

Extraction. 7/10.
Deep Rising. 8/10.
The Fifth Element. 8/10.
68 Kill. 9/10.

 

Never did... I will stream it. Have you?

 

You were so hyped for it... what changed your mind about it?

 

I'll take a wild guess: A 35% Rotten Tomatos score.

 

A Quiet Place. 10/10.
Kick Ass. 10/10.
True Grit (2010). 9.5/10.
Dredd. 9.5/10

 

Well, I was supposed to see The Flash again tonight, but the friend I was supposed to see it with hasn't really gotten back to me on whether or not he bought tickets, and now my schedule is filled with something else. Oh well. Movies I've seen this month so far:

Stagecoach (1939) - 8/10. It's a fun and enjoyable film with surprisingly great action scenes and a heartwarming love story. The portrayal of Native Americans leaves a lot to be desired though...


Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) - 9.5/10 with a chance to go up to a 9.75 or even 10. It's my movie of the year so far, pretty much perfect in everything it tries to achieve and with a soundtrack I've been listening to nonstop.


Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) - 7.7/10 - A fun and funny movie that felt like a tabletop campaign in the best of ways.


The Tragedy of MacBeth (2021) - 8/10. Highly stylistic with its retro filmmaking, minimalistic sets, and engaging performances, this movie lived up to my hype. (I still want to see Sir Patrick Stewart's rendition of the place, as well as Throne of Blood before the summer is over.)


John Wick Chapter 4 (2023) - 7.5/10. It was the MOST John Wick to ever John Wick, but not the best. Parabellum had more creative fights and the overall theme carried well from Chapter 2 into that. This one doesn't feel like it belongs, and it feels like it makes the choices from Parabellum pretty useless in retrospect. It reminded me of The Raid 2: Berandal in a way. Both sequels went bigger and better, but that didn't make them more beloved than their originals. (Although the fight scenes in The Raid 2 were freaking phenomenal.)


The Flash (2023) - 7.5/10. It's not a bad movie, but it's not the best superhero movie ever, nor does it really do a good job or restarting the timeline. Honestly, I think the focus on it rebooting the timeline dragged the movie down. Not to mention that this is the third time we've seen this particular Flash storyline play out at the very least. (There's a whole animated movie about it and The Flash CW show did this arc for the first few episodes of Season 3 IIRC.) Ezra did a good job in this movie, but their performance won't really be missed. Sasha Calle better come back though.


The Blackening (2023) - 7.60/10. A fun and funny movie that plays with knowledge of Black American culture and horror tropes to make a sharp comedy. It's really social commentary like Get Out, Us, or Nope is, but it's also not as meta-focused as the trailers make it out to be (or as You Might Be the Killer is). But if you don't mind vulgarity (COPIOUS uses of the N-Word), drugs, and playing with stereotypes, this is a movie worth seeing.


The Glass Slipper (1955) - 7.5/10. I liked the movie, but the ballet performances were pretty oddly spaced. They show up a LOT in the second half to pad out the runtime, but they don't do so as effectively as desired. Still, the ballet performances were phenomenal, the acting was pretty well done (Leslie Caron was a Cinderella unlike all of the other Cinderellas I've seen), and the narrator was bitingly humorous. It doesn't beat out the 1994 Rodgers & Hammerstein Cinderella I rewatch once or twice a year, but it's not a bad rendition either.

 

Eraserhead. 8/10.

What on Earth was that?

Going to gather my thoughts and see it again.

 

Finally saw Fast X!



This movie is weird. It's all spectacle, which is good, but despite the focus being about the suffering Dom needs to feel, it's not actually focused on Dom. Most of the movie lends its screentime to Dom's family as they go throughout their plots around the world. Yes, this movie is a "let's have our heroes separate" movie akin to ESB/AOTC/TLJ and the second LOTR film.

Despite the crew being split up, however, the characters themselves don't really have an arc, outside of Roman. They don't grow or feel introspective about things. They just go where they need to go and roll with the punches. I find this pretty interesting, especially when compared to the previous film (F9: The Fast Saga) where characters like Letty and Roman and even Tej to a degree all had arcs and feelings about their lives and their adventures. Here, while the story does go meta in some ways, it's more of a "let's use this to study our heroes" sort of thing. It's interesting but not inspired.

What IS inspired is Jason Mamoa's portrayal of Dante, our new villain for the movie. Dante is the Joker to Vin Deisel's Batman, hamming it up and playing a chaotic, psychopathic, and sadistic man on a quest for revenge. He wants Dom to suffer, and will pull out all the stops to do so. He's a fun villain and a delight to watch, but he doesn't feel like the type of villain he is. I guess that's part of the charm, but a lot of Dante's actions feel like they're more up Cipher's ally than his.

Speaking of Cipher and previous villains, I'm not as keen on their portrayal in this movie than previous ones. This mostly goes for Jakob. Don't get me wrong, I love John Cena as a comedic actor, and he's been killing that role for nearly a decade now, but I liked his more serious portrayal from the previous film alongside his rocky allegiance with Vin's character. Here, they're on good terms, with little to no repercussions or tension or any growth shown. It's not that I don't believe that those mentioned things didn't happen, I just wish I could have seen them.

Overall, this is a decent F&F movie if you're a fan of the franchise and a good time all-around, but I don't think I like it as much as F9*, and it doesn't remotely stand up to Fast 5, Fast & Furious 6, or Furious 7.


*To be fair, I have a weird amount of love for F9. I was still very much in my "compare every movie to TROS" phase, and that movie felt like Justin Lin's take on TROS. ...I also think Justin Lin would make a great Star Wars director in the future...

 

Clifford. 10/10.
Aladdin. The Guy Ritchie abomination. 1/10.

 

I still want a Lotus Espirit submarine car... missile launcher not a must-have but would be appreciated.

 

Megamind. 7.5/10.
Pineapple Express. 8/10.
Uncut Gems. 10/10.
Jonah Hex. 3/10.
Lethal Weapon 4. 8/10.
The Pentagon Wars. 6/10.

 

The Stuff (1985) - Probably the best movie ever made about a killer dessert treat

 

Finally watched Nope last night.
It's... it's a movie, for sure. But I still don't quite know what it is...
Loved it!

 

Clint Eastwood Dollars Trilogy and The Flash (two times in cinema, because I wanted to check it in Dolby Atmos).
I am a huge DC fan and the DCEU was largerly dissapointing to me as is the Warner Bros as of late. I have read many DC Comic books during the decades since my childhood and the movies make me quite sad in general, but I was really surprised by the Flash.
Some subpar CGI aside (and the behind the scenes drama) at times during the movie, it looked like the cast and crew had a lot of fun and love for the comic book material with their own spin on it and FINALLY, the hero had a meaningful story behind his motivations.
Probably the best classic comic book movie in a while...

I have heard that Guardians 3 are not bad, but I am not going on comic books to cinema anymore and wanted to see The Flash myself without spoilers and to check if there are any implications for larger plots or the whole DCEU reboot.
Looking forward to The Batman Part 2 and wonder, how will the sequel to Joker pan out, as the first movie was awesome.
Giving Gunn a chance to show what he has planned for the new slate of DC Comics, but somehow, nobody, except for their various takes on Batman (Burton, Nolan, Reeves) can grasp the feel and present interesting stories from DC (do you remember Batman The Animated Series?).

 

Excellent choice.

Me? - Still waiting for them show them in 3D.​