Went and saw It. Strong opening, but rather lacking in subtlety, It does away with a lot of the more thoughtful stuff in the book (and the TV series) in favour of loud, blaring scares. I think this was a case of a project ballooning to justify its budget, complete with some very grandiose imagery that doesn’t really fit, and makes no sense. The cast did not have the same sort of chemistry you see in The Goonies or Stand By Me. A lot of changes for change’s sake. Pennywise still looks like Syndrome from The Incredibles.
next on my list to see:
by the same director as The Girl Walks Home Alone at Night which was fantastic
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I barely ever get to the theater these days as I have limited free time (read: small children) and I use up most of my wife’s goodwill when I fish. I may try to see the next Blade Runner, though (brace yourself) I thought the original was grossly overrated.
The last few movies I’ve rented have been stinkers. Alien: Covenant comes to mind.
When I do watch anything, it is usually whatever I am binge watching with my wife (Last Man Standing) or watching with my kids (Star Wars: Rebels).
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Covenant was truly bad. They tried to depict an act of colossal arrogance in the vein of Milton’s Paradise Lost without ever having read Paradise Lost, and that act became making that film itself rather than any of the incredibly stupid things that happen within it. The first Alien film to descend into a farce, complete with pratfalling.
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We watched the original a couple of weeks ago to prepare ourselves for the new Blade Runner.
I quite agree. It was pretty overrated, though still enjoyable.
Our next movie is the Kingsmen sequel. Next Tuesday (we’re on vacation)!
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I agree with everything you said … honestly, I didn’t find the movie to be that scary, whereas the book scared the crap out of me when I first read it. I occasionally burst out laughing during the film, and I probably wasn’t supposed to.
Still nice to see a non-kids movie. The last one I saw before It was Dunkirk, which was a very well-done film I never want to see again. Kudos to the writer & director for not trying to create false moments of happiness in that story, but I guess I’m looking for entertainment when I go to the theater, not 2+ hours of tension and impending doom.
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The Limehouse Golem. Excellent turns by Bill Nighy, Olivia Cooke, and Douglas Booth. A slightly predictable plot improved by exceptional performances and some fine writing, courtesy of Jane Goldman, who is a dab hand at adaptations.
Judging by the book, this should be good:
Intelligent sci-fi, should be on your radar if you enjoyed the likes of Arrival and Ex Machina.
Speaking of intelligent scifi, Bladerunner 2049 haha just kidding it’s a pile of shit. No, it’s not that bad, and it looks lovely, but I don’t think it’s on par with the first. Whereas Gosling needed the kind of impassivity he had in Drive, he’s rather more emotional here, Robin Wright is just as good as she is in House of Cards but her role has little to it, Sylvia Hoeks is a great foil for Gosling (or he for her) but has the exact same issues. Lots of brilliant small performances.
Avon Barksdale is hardly in it, which is a crying shame.
Picked up Annihilation based on the trailer and really enjoyed it. Grabbed the second one but have yet to start it - have you read the whole trilogy?
It’s quite good. It’s probably better than that, actually. I don’t like VDM’s prose style that much, but I ploughed through the trilogy.
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I actually enjoyed 2049 more than the first, which I found highly overrated, as I mentioned earlier. I don’t know that the movie is as deep or profound as some critics try to make it sound, but it is a solid, well-acted, beautiful science-fiction mystery that at least raises questions about what it means to be human. The movie is certainly better than a majority of modern sci-fi, which often replaces thought with action.
The first film is backed by a great (if very different) book, and has had Ridley Scott going “Deckard’s a Replicant? I mean, Deckard’s a Replicant!” about it for years, the massive compulsive bullshitter that he is. It’s got an incredible reputation now that no film or sequel could live up to.
I think the problem is that the first doesn’t do the book justice. And I can’t stand Scott’s waffling.
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I recently watched “Land of Mine”, a film about German POWs who have to clear mines off the beaches of Denmark in 1945. It was nominated for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film last year. It’s a little slow, and it’s subtitled, but it’s one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time.
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Goon: Last of the Enforcers. An unimaginative comedy about hockey. I don’t give a shit about sports, but the heart of this film is firmly in the right place, concerned with friendship and being part of a team, and it is so wholesome and sentimental apart from being mostly about men punching each other, that I find it impossible to dislike. The role Sean William Scott was sawed off to play, plus Liev Schrieber, Kim Coates, Callum Keith Rennie, and a bunch of "Hey I know that guy"s make up a surprisingly good cast.
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Deranged. A South Korean film about an outbreak of parasitic worms. While it has some interesting wrinkles, the best thing about it is the 100% certainty in the incompetence and corruption of institutions/businesses, which can only be remedied by popular action and individual initiative. While this is unsurprising given South Korea’s history, it’s also brilliant to see such a national idea expressed so strongly, and unwaveringly, given the amount of time that has passed since. Doesn’t make too much of the worms exploding out of orifices, which is a surprise.
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I just saw the My Little Pony movie.
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We saw it last weekend, my 5yo’s favorite show and her first time at a movie theater.
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My kids were utterly delighted with it. It was our first time in a recently-renovated theater, with the massive reclining seats and enough space between rows to get up and dance during the musical numbers. Probably helps that we’re couch people, and don’t have a recliner at home. My daughter was apparently really impressed that everything in the bathroom was automatic.
I’m just hoping Amazon Prime music doesn’t have the soundtrack, and that the kids aren’t motivated to pay for it. For some reason, I was fine with Moana, but I still twitch at the thought of the Frozen soundtrack.
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Wind River. Renner gives this an unpleasant white saviour edge, but there’s a good role for Elizabeth Olsen as the FBI investigator (which should have had even more teeth), and plenty of small, quality performances in the supporting cast, all in service of the story of a grim little murder on a Native American reservation. Some brilliant individual scenes and a fantastic shootout, although the overall story is nothing exceptional. Impressive for a director’s first.
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I was babysitting my niece and took her to see My Little Pony last weekend as well while the rest of the family saw Hamilton at Pantages theater. My movie was also in a theater with the nice leather reclining seats. It was wonderful. We were in the back row so I was able to kick my feet up and read the news, check the Dodgers game, and play a couple of games of Dream Quest. My niece had a blast watching the movie and getting sick on a gigantic bag of M&Ms that I told her to go easy on but was advice that she promptly ignored. Good times.
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