The Movie I Just Watched Thread 2: Revengeance

The final 10 minutes or so on the streets of NYC when they're trying to find 'the bad guy' are pretty strong. Some actual tension is developed.

I love Peacemaker, it's totally worth watching the rest of the film.  In fact the clashes between Clooney's bullheaded character and Kidman's more calculating character are a highlight, and she holds her own well without having to shout, or punch anyone.  As Dock said the bad guy is humanised which really makes everything much more dramatic and even relatable.  And the big finale in (mystery city) is terrific.

Also the depiction of the nuke going off at the start and taking out the old farming couple is one of those iconic shots that legitimately gives me chills.

The jab at Joel Schumacher in the film is pretty hilarious.

Speaking of that scene: I've used Clooney's line "This is....my plan!" a lot and sadly, no one ever gets the reference.

(For reasons I don't fully comprehend, I watched the SHIT out of this movie on VHS.)

Well, I think I have to watch it now.

THE LOST CITY (2022)

You know, sometimes you go to a movie for the deep message and powerful theme. Sometimes, you just need mindless but cool looking action with explosions and if you're lucky, giant robots. This is not either of those. This is a movie that coasts by on charm, charisma, chemistry and goofiness. There are movies you just go 'Oh, these actors are having a hoot and a half.' That's The Lost City. Yes, it looks "like a Netflix movie" but man, I was just delighted by this. It made sense that my wife and I ate caramel popcorn: sweet and empty calories, just like this film. Bullock and Tatum have excellent banter together; Radcliffe is clearly enjoying his post-Harry Potter life and does whatever the fuck he wants because he has all the money and Brad Pitt, in a glorified cameo, is just the best. Everyone looks amazing. The locations are romantic. It has just enough plot to keep the characters together. I never stopped smiling.

Someone please do a wellness check on doc. I believe he's been drugged. Or suffered a TBI.

You suffered a TBI!

RETURN TO OZ

Good entry in the run of 1980s fantasy films, with plenty of cool practical effects and more than a little darkness. I can kind of see why this wasn't a hit upon release, but I'd say only the mental hospital scenes early might approach being "too much" for kids. Oz being full of freaky, surreal things is to be expected, and Dorothy confronts them in a very matter of fact manner. Fairuza Balk handles the lead well, and the villains, both in Oz and Kansas, bring plenty of menace.

Big fan of RETURN TO OZ. Disney deserves a lot of credit for making it.

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD (1988)

Probably the most visibly compromised entry in the series. There’s a solid premise here, but despite the intention to shake-up the formula a bit, this still manages to feel pretty by-the-numbers, and it boasts one of the more nonsensical endings in the franchise. There are worse overall FRIDAY installments, and with the kills presented as-designed, they could have had something here.

OPERATION MINCEMEAT (2022)

Engaging stuff, not just because the actual story is quite intriguing, but also because the cast of characters is top-notch; watching these performers bounce off each other is very entertaining. The dialogue’s good, too, filled with enjoyable banter that makes those character interactions as important as the plot. But that plot is also quite compelling; being mostly unfamiliar with this particular chapter of World War II intelligence history, I found it legitimately fascinating to follow such a complex scheme being planned and executed. There’s also some surprisingly moody imagery peppered throughout, too.

The only real negative is that there’s perhaps a little too much time spent on a love triangle situation that serves to juice-up some character drama that didn’t need it, but other than that, this is a quite good depiction of WWII intrigue.

The King Is Dead! - Part of a refresher course on Aussie director Rolf De Heer for article research. Easily the worst thing of his I've seen. It's a stab at the 'Neighbours From Hell' style of suburban farce that is not only unfunny, it actively struggles at delivering on even the simplest comedic setups. It feels like an AI trying to approximate the Coens, with jarring tonal shifts and some of the most laborious dialogue I've seen this side of the Prequels.

The Northman - Still processing this one, but I will say that this film is metal as fuck. The script is fairly straightforward, but it's fun, nice and gory and beautiful looking (Can't wait for the 4K blu). I can imagine John Milius not needing viagra anymore after seeing this one.

SENIOR YEAR on Netflix is a fine comedy. I will admit, a thinner Rebel Wilson kinda short-circuits my brain; but she still has the same energy and is fine behaving as a 17 year old trapped in a 37 year old's body (her character was in q coma for 20 years). As with these things, the supporting cast really helps it. Sam Richardson, Zoe Chao, Chris Parnell all bring the laughs. It is everything you expect. Plus an Alicia Silverstone cameo!

Yes, Dock Fight, I'll get that MRI soon.

Guess who's still in lock-down? WALL OF TEXT INCOMING-

Fear is the Key (1972)
I’m just gonna go ahead and pre-emptively *SPOILER* this one because it’s the kind of movie that’s tough to talk about without just talking about it. A solid take on the “infiltrate the criminals for revenge” schtick, what it lacks in any sort of plausibility it makes up for with a fun performance from Barry Newman, some solid twists and a car chase that really doesn’t fit the movie but it’s so good you can’t really complain. Not every element works (aside from an incredibly young Ben Kingsley the rest of the cast is pretty forgettable), and a ton of disbelief has to be suspended to roll with the premise that for revenge purposes a man could become not just an undersea salvage expert, but an infamous undersea salvage expert in the span of three years, yet this is a perfect example of a movie where I’m willing to overlook some sketchy plotting because it sets up interesting scenarios. The final reveal of Newman’s motivation, and his showdown with the criminals, is a great set-piece that makes all the preposterous elements worthwhile. Easy recommendation.

No Sudden Move (2021)
Man, with a director as talented as Steven Soderbergh and a cast as stacked as this, it’s amazing just how...fine this movie is. Like...almost bizarrely fine. Totally watchable, mildly entertaining, and aside from Soderbergh’s weird obsession with fish eye lenses it looks good. It’s just not really memorable in any way, either good or bad. I could say the *SPOILERS* semi-feel bad rich guy wins ending and odd real-world postscript feel kind of unnecessary, but I’d be lying if I said it really bothered me a ton because I just wasn’t that invested at that point. The kind of movie that if you asked me “Is it worth watching?” I’d probably say sure, but I could also probably think of a dozen more interesting movies in a similar vein you’d be better off picking first.

The Outfit (2022)
This is way too new (and to good) to spoil, so I’ll just say unless you’re the kind of movie fan who only goes for blockbusters (hey, no shade), you should probably just watch this. An old school small scale picture in the vein of 12 Angry Men that relies strictly on a single location, a clever premise and some great acting to craft a story as exciting and engaging as anything I’ve watched recently. Mark Rylance is an actor who hadn’t been on my radar up until now, but it’s hard to overstate how good he is in this playing the world’s most British man. Check it out ASAP before it gets spoiled for you.

The Protégé (2021)
I don’t know if it’s a product of budget, motivation or just the film-making team he surrounds himself with, but Martin Campbell has got to be one of the most hit or miss directors I know of. Need to re-boot your James Bond franchise in spectacular fashion? He’s your man. Need to churn out some incredibly middling action schlock to throw up on your streaming service? He’s also your man. Between this and The Foreigner Campbell really seems to have found a totally unsatisfying middle ground between movies that aren’t really good enough to be great action dramas, but also take themselves a little too seriously to be fun pulpy romps. At least The Foreigner had a strong Pierce Brosnan performance and some novelty in Jackie Chan playing against type. Here we get Maggie Q, whose performance perfectly embodies the movie: pretty good with the action, blandly cliched everywhere else. Michael Keaton at least livens things up when he’s around, but it mainly just makes you wish the movie was actually about him and Q being frenemies rather than some convoluted revenge plot with a heaping serving of pace killing dramatic flashbacks. Listen, either Maggie Q’s all traumatized about being an assassin, or she’s quipping about shooting Michael Keaton in the dick, pick a lane movie!

12 Monkeys (1995)
A re-watch decades in the making, I remember this being one of my most vivid childhood rental disappointments. I mean, look at that poster, it’s pretty clearly implied that Bruce Willis is some kind of time traveling cyborg right? Right? I can’t be the only one who thought that. Regardless, this is very definitively not that, as while it’s more grounded than some of Gilliam’s other work that I’ve seen it’s much more surreal dramedy than, say, Looper. Which unfortunately is where I bounced off it pretty hard. As a more open-minded adult I can certainly appreciate what Gilliam is going for, for me though his particularly style works better when completely unleashed as in something like The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Here it just seems an odd fit, flights of bizarre fancy that butt up against more straightforward sci-fi fare. To be clear, I don’t think sci-fi needs to be grimdark by any stretch. I mean, to keep the Bruce Willis comparisons going, The Fifth Element easily makes my top five all time. Here though it just didn’t click, and honestly I think Willis performance is the only part of the movie that effectively straddles all the different elements. It’s amazing, and makes his recent decline even more depressing. Everyone else is game, but seems stuck between different extremes, most notably Brad Pitt who is in full-blown cartoon mode. I will say even though it’s not as fresh of a conceit as it was in 95 I do think the construction of the *SPOILERS* time-loop is clever and while I’m not usually a fan of the downer ending here it seems appropriate to the movie’s themes. Just not my cup of tea, though on the flipside I can certainly see why it might be someone’s absolute favorite.

The Time Machine (2002)
Another way-back re-watch, I remember catching this at the dollar second run movie theater back in Rochester, New York and being pleasantly surprised, and while it’s hardly some lost classic I was pleased to discover it help up decently. I know I often use “fine” as a cudgel for movies that fail to impress, but really this is just an affable schlocky blockbuster that I’ll freely admit triggers a little nostalgia. To the movie's credit, I’d also argue that it does things at least a little bit better than a lot of its contemporaries. Guy Pearce brings charisma to spare in a pretty vanilla role, there’s some decent practical effects (with the exception of the time machine itself, which is straight up awesome), the plot is goofy but manages to inject a few clever ideas and I got a kick out of Orlando Jones as a caustic library A.I. Really my only complaint is that Jeremy Irons as the Über-Morlock is such a great character both in terms of performance and look (love the brain spine!) that it seems a shame he’s relegated to a few minutes at the very end of the film. Again, I don’t want to oversell this thing as none of it ever rises above brainless fun, but there are worse ways to spend 90 minutes and whoa, 90 minutes, this thing is a throwback.

No Escape (1994)
It’s like a poor man’s Waterworld, and folks it doesn’t get much poorer than that.

Friday the 13th Part 2 (with The Halloweenies commentary track) I'm not a fan of the Friday the 13 franchise, but I do enjoy discussions about it; I've watched the Camp Crystal Lake Memories doc a couple of times. I also listen to all of the episodes of Halloweenies podcast on the movies. Last Friday I had a good time listening to three of the members talk about the movie. It is much more like hanging out with friends then listening to a film scholar talk about the movie's subtext.

I do get why Amy Steel is consider one of the better final girls. She is scared senseless, but she still does the smart thing. At first that is fine a car; when that doesn't work, she runs like Hell. Then she uses psych background to trick Jason.

Next Friday the 13th, which is January, I listen to their thought on part 3. I'm assuming there will be some riffing on whether or not Shelly is an incel.

MONSTROUS (2022)

I'm not saying it's bad. I'm not saying it's great. It's definitely good. But it's good even though it's at time getting away from itself - I'm still not sure of all the details of why, or even how, these things happened. It almost feels like there are twists here for the sake of twists; I'd have to go back and rewatch. The directing is competent, which is a shame because it needed a more visionary eye to really let the story reach the next level.

Luckily, it has Christina Ricci who is beyond excellent; the main half of what is essentially a two-hander, the other major player her son (also excellent). She's a woman clearly escaping from something, though what is left vague. She moves into the middle of nowhere in the 1950s with her son, already odd, and then the place - in particular, her son - is...visited by a strange "monster" from the pond in the backyard. Ricci becomes more and more unhinged and she sells every scare, every moment of anger, rage; it's another of those films where the true horror is some part of parenthood, and as a parent, I could absolutely relate to the struggles she went through. She had me tearing up at the end.

So it's good. It feels like it should've been better, but it also could've been a lot worse. Ricci is having a bit of a moment (I hear she's excellent on Yellowjackets and she continues it here. It's 90 minutes (and that's with credits) and if you're in for a bit of slow boiling existential treatise on motherhood, then this could be worth the 6 buck rental.

I've been heaving very mixed things about MONSTROUS, but may give it a look at some point.

Agreed that the Bruce Willis sci fi of 12 Monkeys is very very different to Fifth Element. But I honestly love them both. 12 Monkeys is brilliant, and very dark but I cling to the final shot of that passenger next to David Morse who was also on the panel in the future. She says to Morse "I'm in insurance".

LAST EMBRACE (1979)

A Hitchcock-esque thriller with a bit of a quirky and dreamlike streak in Jonathan Demme’s direction. The heightened opening sequence sets the tone perfectly, and lets you know immediately whether or not you’re going to be on this movie’s wavelength. If you are, you’re going to be in for a pretty enjoyable ride; if you’re not, I think you might be baffled and find the thing silly in the wrong way (i.e. laughing at the movie rather than with the movie).

Roy Scheider is the type of performer who can seem almost effortlessly credible in the right role, and his performance here -- one that never gets talked about, because the movie is relatively obscure -- is one of his best. He’s able to perform a balancing act that not many actors could have nailed quite like he does. Janet Margolin is a very engaging scene partner for him, plus there’s Christopher Walken being enjoyably weird.

A lush, romantic score from the legendary Miklos Rozsa ties it all together in a classy bow, too.

In a Valley of Violence (2016)

Occasionally after watching a movie I'll throw it on the re-watch list hoping my opinion of it might improve on a second viewing. That was the case with Valley, a movie I remembered being a generally solid Western with some fun dark comedy elements that never quite gelled into a totally cohesive whole. Unfortunately, second time around I basically walked away with the same impression. It's a perfectly fine low-budget Western, but there are elements of it that hint at the potential for something more interesting than that, a potential it never quite capitalizes on. It's clear Ti West has a keen awareness of Western tropes and the movie is most entertaining when it tweaks them, with John Travolta as the put-upon "evil" sheriff being the best example, but too many of the characters and plot points rely on cliches. Well-executed cliches, sure, but it makes the film feel overall feel slighter than it should. A strong "for fans of the" style recommendation, but not an all-timer.

The Punisher (1989)

As a big Punisher fan growing up (I know, I know), this was a movie I'd occasionally catch bits and pieces of on TV but never sought out as I felt it was obviously an unfaithful adaptation unworthy of my support (I KNOW). Fast forward a couple of decades and between the problematic nature of the character and the general strip-mining of nerd properties my fanboy levels are basically nil, so I figured what the heck. Turns out, I wasn't missing much. As a Punisher adaptation, it is indeed pretty surface level. The missing skull is a pretty big tip-off, but really everything from Frank being an ex-cop rather than an ex-soldier, to the outfit to the motorcycle speaks to not really understanding where the character is coming from. That said, in the movie's defense the Punisher didn't really become an interesting character until Garth Ennis got his hands on him so I can't really fault them for the big takeaways being "guy with gun, shoot criminal."

So if you strip away any of the comic elements, what you're left with is a VERY 80's action movie. Frank has to team-up with the mob to take on the Yakuza, and this being an 80's movie it's handled with exactly the tact and sensitivity you'd expect. Yes, the Japanese are here to steal the jobs of hard-working Italian-American criminals and sell their children into slavery, and you'd best believe the head villain is going to be wearing geisha makeup by the end. At least we only get one racial slur and it isn't from the protagonists, so it's got one up on Black Rain at least. Taken in context it's certainly not egregious by the standards of the era, and there is some fun to be had. The action is generally satisfying, we get a fun Louis Gosset Jr. turn as Frank's former partner, and the movie manages to include both a scrappy kid AND a comedic sidekick that didn't make me want to claw my face off. As for Dolph Lundgren as The Punisher...uh, did I mention the action was pretty good? Look, I do think the man was trying and I'd guess he's going for traumatized with his performance, but it reads less as PTSD and more as under the effects of horse tranquilizers. Not a great movie by any stretch, but honestly better than I thought it would be, and probably still ahead of the 2004 version.

The Platform (2019)
The type of blunt-force sci-fi that should be mandatory viewing in high-schools, I haven't felt this angry after watching a movie in a long-time. The central conceit may be a thinly veiled metaphor (it's set in a prison where food is passed down from level to level, leaving those at the bottom starving), but that's very much to its advantage. In scaling a societal problem down to such in immediately personal level it lays bare a lot of the hollow arguments and excuses use to justify wealth distribution in the abstract. It's a movie that makes you want to eat some billionaires, and it helps that the whole thing is anchored around some excellent performances and at it is core is a genuinely disturbing horror film. I don't want to spoil too much because I think it's absolutely worth going in to fresh, but suffice to say this is one that's going to be running around my head for a while.

The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf (1979)

A decent but ultimately muddled crime drama with a truly reprehensible character at it's center, this is the kind of movie that's going to be a hard "nope" for a lot of people, and I can't really blame them. Yūsaku Matsuda is a charismatic actor (it's not hard to see why his popularity was so outsized compared to his filmography), but the character of Asakura is straight-up villainous. We're talking murdering an innocent person and rape within the first 30 minutes villainous, and the movie's attempts to paint him as some sort of cool tragic anti-hero are, frankly, kind of gross. Ultimately though it's sort of a moot point because morality aside what starts out as a focused revenge flick quickly meanders into various sprawling sub-plots, before the whole thing *SPOILERS* coasts into a classic "but who cares, because they all die anyway" ending. If you're looking for some "wait, this is our hero?" exploitation thrills, stick with The Street Fighter.

American Psycho (2000)

A movie that's fascinated me since I first saw it back in high-school, as my taste in film has changed over time I've wondered if I would still find this palatable. My tolerance for evil protagonists has definitely waned in recent years as I tend to think we spend enough time celebrating real evil people, but something about this movie continues to work for me. A lot of that is down to the fact that not once during the entire proceeding do you get the impression that the movie likes or sympathizes with Patrick Bateman. He is a monster from minute one, and I think a lot of that is down to having a strong female voice from director Mary Harron and writer Guinevere Turner, who very deliberately focus on the satire (idiot me finally picked up on the TCM nod many years later) without any sort of glamorization. Credit too needs to go to Christian Bale in a performance that is truly an all-time great study in being completely unlikable. He's not Hannibal Lecter, he's not Michael Meyers, he's just an obnoxious loser and honestly that takes some selflessness as an actor. Bateman is charismatic in a way that only his morally bankrupt friends and acquaintances could appreciate, and there isn't an ounce of tragedy in his fate or sympathy for a character that absolutely doesn't deserve any. He isn't an anti-hero answer to the yuppie establishment, he is the yuppie establishment taken to its logical extreme: sociopath behavior that doesn't just go unpunished, but literally cannot be punished because of his wealth and status. A bit surprised, but for now this one definitely remains a personal favorite.

I loved this. Did a double feature with THE GREEN KNIGHT last night and I can safely say I was very satisfied with my choices.

That is a solid double feature, HF. Have a preference?

I greatly enjoyed THE GREEN KNIGHT, especially the last ten minutes of it. Wonderful stuff.

EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE stole my heart though. Can't stop thinking about it.

THE GHOST AND THE DARKNESS (1996)

Underrated adventure-horror fare from the 1990s. Val Kilmer’s accent is on the questionable side, but other than that, he gives a fine “leading man” performance, while Michael Douglas adds some quirky and memorable touches. The lion attacks are visceral and frightening, and director Stephen Hopkins stages some suitably tense sequences throughout. And Jerry Goldsmith’s powerful score is absolutely tremendous, bringing equal parts heroism and terror to the proceedings.

This is apparently not a picture where historical accuracy was the primary motivator, but strictly as a period “when nature attacks” thriller, it works.