Board 8 > ~ BCT's Epic 169 Movie Watch-Through (mostly '00s): Topic 1 [THE LIST] ~

(+) Yeah! (+)

Oh whoops I completely forgot to respond to the write-up and post a new nomination. But I'm glad you enjoyed Mean Girls, it's like one my favorite pure comedy movies ever.

Anyway - next nomination is Fight Club

Donnie Darko is probably my favorite movie of all time. Kitty Farmer and her godawful standards on personal responsibility and emotional spectrums is hilariously despicable, and I'm a total sucker for the mind bending sci-fi stuff

I believe I saw an explanation years back that Frank appears to Donnie because he's essentially outside of time, due to be killed by Donnie himself, which is a Paradox because Donnie himself shouldn't be alive. Also, Franklin foreshadows his own death, when Donnie asks him about his stupid rabbit suit. Frank replies asking "why he's wearing that stupid human suit." Later in the movie, when Donnie kills Frank, he's wearing a skeleton Halloween costume, literally a "human suit"

Yeah, Mrs. Farmer was just awful - but in a way that you couldn't help but mock her. The actress portraying her did a good job in making her a truly awful, yet also true to life, character. We've all met somebody who's that cluelessly entitled. And I certainly wouldn't want my kid in her health class if she's gonna be like that (her gym class wouldn't be a big deal, unless this was supposed to be gym and she was making them watch irrelevant videos instead of letting them exercise, in which case she's not doing her job).

Those spoilers are certainly fascinating, and something I didn't quite think about because I prefer to simply experience the movie as it comes on a first viewing. Those additional layers are things I think about on subsequent watches - because that's what later watches are for. There's a lot of little tie-ins like that in this movie. The "human suit" - the skeleton costume - is something I missed because I didn't quite hear the comments. I couldn't tie them together the way I did Graham Greene and the thugs breaking in to Granny's house, or Donnie returning to the location he woke up in at the end of the movie to restore the timeline, or the wallet, or obvious stuff like the cellar door. There were parts that were hard for me to hear or understand and I had to replay a couple interactions several times, such as "Howmucharetheypayingyoutobehere?" I didn't get the full extent of the subsequent insult, either, just that it was an insult, which was enough for me.

The paradoxes of death are another fascinating layer - Donnie escaping death is weird, as if the whole movie was a dream of the next month of his life coming to him. But he took the jet engine back in time with him... and it all came crashing down. So many layers to this, and it's brilliant. I do think Donnie was the only one who actually died in the real timeline. Samantha might not have even been dancing because of the grief from the loss of her brother, but if she was, the plane was okay, so she and Rose were safe. Donnie wasn't alive so he couldn't shoot Frank in the face. And Gretchen wouldn't have even been there so she got to live too. The jet engine would later turn up on Unsolved Mysteries.

Overall, the payoff in his movie was huge, and it's something I'll want to revisit just to see everything I missed. May want to do that when I don't have earwax issues.

Also, one of the best soundtracks of all time, hands down

There's a reason everyone knows the Gary Jules cover of Mad World more than the original

Just revisited this topic after a while off. Glad you seemed to enjoy Pulp Fiction! Youve been writing some killer write ups here, BCT!

Id honestly like to see your reaction to Fight Club next.

Oh and it seems that one just got nominated anywaysoh well. Move it up a notch maybe. Haha.

American Psycho (2000)
Directed by: Mary Harron
Written by: Bret Easton Ellis, Mary Harron, Guinevere Turner
Starring: Christian Bale, Willem Dafoe, Chloe Sevigny, Jared Leto, Reese Witherspoon
Previous status: Never seen

"It's impossible in this world we live in to empathize with others, but we can always empathize with ourselves."

This is one of those movies that I have to be in the right mood to see. I was just feeling it tonight for whatever reason. And... well... it's October, so it's the time to watch something like this.

Let's start at the beginning. The apartment is so white that it's obviously designed to show blood. Bateman - I presume "Bate" comes from "Bates" - narrates his skincare routine for no reason. It's boring, but it becomes quickly clear that this guy's not all there - an allegory for the whole film. He is rude to his secretary, Jean, about her choice of work clothes - though, like Donnie Darko, this is quickly established as 1988 (how uncanny, they take place the same year) thanks to Robert Palmer, so norms were different back then. Bateman then goes on some rant about women's rights and I'm not buying that he actually believes that given how he treats Jean.

He makes his first kill: A hobo in the alley, and to firmly establish what a fucking monstrous asshole he is, he also stomps the guy's dog to death. Like... what the fuck is wrong with him? The "Hip to Be Square" kill of Paul Allen (no relation to the actual Paul Allen - RIP) was shades of Reservoir Dogs using "Stuck in the Middle with You" for a torture scene. It was actually kind of hilarious. As was Courtney ODing on drugs... what the heck happened to her? She just disappeared in the second half of the movie. One of many things I... didn't quite like.

Okay, let's make it clear: I didn't like this movie much. Too many unresolved plotlines, too many odd questions (who was Elizabeth, anyway?), and Bateman's kills were just too perfect, save for "Christie" who almost got away after he had a second threesome with her. He killed Paul Allen, and it's never explained why a private investigator was the one asking questions, not the NYPD. He admitted he was into "murders and acquisitions" and nobody was profiling him. Nobody NOTICED him dragging a body bag and shoving it in the trunk. That's reason enough to call 911 and report the cab number. Perhaps it's just NYC's big city apathy. Or maybe it's because this wasn't real.

Seriously, he got angry over something as petty as lettering on business cards. He almost killed Jean for no reason, but she was spared because his high-maintenance fiancee (who Reese Witherspoon embodied perfectly) interrupted with a call. And then, boom, dropped. It doesn't become apparent that things are very wrong until the ATM asks for him to feed it the stray cat... and instead of killing the cat, he kills an old lady and a bunch of cops... and then it's dropped when he goes to Paul Allen's apartment to find it empty, and is told to leave because the realtor recognizes his psychopathy. "Set under construction - please come back later." it could've said. Also: He was wearing an N95 type of mask and nobody said anything, which is quite normal now.

At the end, when his lawyer mistakes him for someone else much as Paul Allen had done before, I ask: Is he even Patrick Bateman? What's real, what isn't? But... the movie didn't give me enough thinking ammo to care, the way both Black Swan and Donnie Darko had invigorated me. This was just "Was any of it real?" - either it was, or the ending was the dream. I think this is a movie you're supposed to watch a second time to fully get, but frankly I found a lot of what was happening when he wasn't murdering to be dull. Christian Bale sells the part brilliantly, showing off Bateman's love of music simultaneous with his complete apathy toward everyone around him, but I think Bret Easton Ellis was right: This is best told as a first-person novel, which is what it was intended to be.

Unfortunately, this is the first one I've watched that I'd say I didn't really enjoy. Perhaps it's because I'm not much of a horror fan. Perhaps it's because I can't relate to Bateman. Or perhaps it's because the movie didn't give me enough to chew on. Sorry @Snake5555555555 , but it's a 2/5 from me. This may change with reassessment (if I ever watch it again) but... maybe it's just not my thing. I guess my tastes are complex, but isn't everyone's? I may have to lay off the psychological thrillers for a while tbh...

American Psycho can be interpreted many different ways, but I think the film staunchly makes everything out to be decidedly all in Bateman's head. The climax murder spree is enough to push it over the edge into pure fantasy. Though whether it's real or not never actually felt like an important question to me. American Psycho feels more interested in commenting on 80s excess through the head of its main character. The audience already understands that Bateman is unhinged from the opening scene; what it does after that is examine pathological disorder to an almost cartoonishly extreme degree. Representing warped morals, rampant misogyny, exploitation of women, etc. American Psycho succeeds to me not through the stabbing or screaming of violence, but rather the apathy of its protagonist and the culture he immerses himself as a whole. Bateman says it himself - "He just wants to fit in." He doesn't actually feel connected to the music he listens to or the restaurants he goes to, or even the culture that consumes him. Bateman is himself as much a victim of the culture he's a part of as he is an exploiter. The film is definitely a perfect condemnation of the 80s and the excesses of capitalism, but it's also more specifically a critique of the excesses of American culture at that time. It takes on the constant cultural relevance and superficial consumerism of the era and satirizes every clich trope there is. To me, it goes beyond just being a horror movie. It can practically be considered a straight up comedy if there wasn't all the murder!

That being said, I understand your criticisms perfectly. There is a reason that it's a divisive film. All the disparate threads of the story definitely do go a pace at which it does it doesn't make much sense sometimes and that can be frustrating if you're not so much into symbolism.

(sorry if I went in a little bit but American Psycho is my favorite horror movie so I kind of had to!)

Fun fact about Dafoe's character - they had him film all his scenes in 3 different ways - one where he doesn't think Bateman committed the murders, one where he's unsure either way, and one where he thinks Bateman did it. And they used some parts of all three takes & shuffled them into every scene he's in, this way both Bateman & the audience is never really sure what Dafoe feels when he's questioning him. There's a video on YouTube that actually lays out when and what take is being used at any given moment, it's pretty neat.

As you saw, I noted a LOT of what you outlined here (for some reason I didn't mention how frequently he goes to expensive restaurants, whoops), though he actually talked at length about the music he listened to - I think he truly likes it even if he doesn't actually connect to it. I also didn't pick up on any satire, because this felt like a much more seriously-toned film.

I do like symbolism when I feel it's done right. Black Swan used Swan Lake to great effects as an allegory, and I loved it for that. Here... I didn't quite follow it all, and I took a lot of what I was seeing quite literally. The end result is quite weird. The reason this film is polarizing is because people either understand it or they don't, and for me I didn't process that many layers - maybe because I only saw it once. You've seen it several dozen times. You fully understand it, and I expected a spirited defense and got it. But I don't think I'm going to appreciate it on a second watch. I try to follow plotlines and analyze them. If the plotlines just hanging there IS the symbolism, I am left unfulfilled.

You are allowed another nomination btw

Edit to reply:
Snake5555555555 posted...

Fun fact about Dafoe's character - they had him film all his scenes in 3 different ways - one where he doesn't think Bateman committed the murders, one where he's unsure either way, and one where he thinks Bateman did it. And they used some parts of all three takes & shuffled them into every scene he's in, this way both Bateman & the audience is never really sure what Dafoe feels when he's questioning him. There's a video on YouTube that actually lays out when and what take is being used at any given moment, it's pretty neat.

Okay, now this is cool. Brilliant directing.

Sure, Bateman might truly like the music, but his long spiels on music actually lack substance and he's just mostly parroting what's he read elsewhere and spitting out surface level facts. It's all part of his image to appear hip, smarter, and more cultured than he actually is.

Let's see I'll nominate Taken since I haven't seen it in a while and have no idea if it holds up anymore.

Today called for something easygoing that I'd preferably seen before and remembered decently enough. So, without further ado...

Finding Nemo (2003)
Directed by: Andrew Stanton
Written by: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds
Starring: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould, Willem Dafoe
Previous status: Saw ages ago

"Fish are friends, not food."

This held up decently well, but I do wanna start by saying I remember the long trek, "Just keep swimming," the climax, and numerous other little details, but I'd forgotten a lot of other little things. I remember it being feel-good fun, but unlike most people at the time I didn't particularly understand why people were calling it Pixar's "Magnum Opus." It's not. It's merely another great movie by them, one that isn't without its flaws. I'll get to those in a bit.

The movie opens with Marlin, a clownfish who isn't exactly funny, and his wife Coral looking over their many eggs, until a barracuda comes and eats them all. Worth noting: Coral tipped the barracuda off to the cache of eggs by diving for them, instead of trying to spare herself. Marlin gets away, as does one egg that hatches into Nemo, whom Marlin cares for as a single dad. Since Nemo has a birth defect that caused one of his fins to never grow, and he's an only child, Marlin is extremely overprotective of him. I think a big part of it is because that's Marlin's last connection to Coral, something he doesn't want to lose. Nemo, starting to develop some angst, chases after a "butt" (LOL, it's a boat!), gets himself captured by divers, and thus the plot starts off.

Marlin encounters Dory, a blue tang with short-term memory loss whom Ellen pulls off with aplomb, in a chance collision, and the two are taken aside by a shark named Bruce, who's... mostly vegetarian, for whatever reason. There, Marlin finds the mask the bad guy, a dentist, dropped, and after accidentally setting off the underwater minefield (geez, those mines look REAL), that tips Dory, who can read, off to P. SHERMAN 42 WALLABY WAY SYDNEY. This is told during an amusing chase sequence with an anglerfish.

Nemo wakes up in Dr. Sherman's fishtank, where he's accepted by the rest of the Tank Gang in this absolutely ridiculous ritual. It's hilarious how this is pulled off by fish, and it's animated pretty well - the animation here definitely holds up, even if there are some very unrealistic things that transpire. The leader is Gil, who also has a gimpy fin, but he's the sagiest of the bunch so they all trust him, and he longs to return to the ocean where he was born and recognizes Nemo's potential in an escape. The informant is a pelican named Nigel, who wants to help them all escape to the sea. All this is told well. After the help of a DUDE (a turtle named Crush, apparently voiced by the filmmaker himself), a whale, Marlin makes it to Sydney, but not before Crush's son starts a huge game of telephone about all of Marlin's epic escapades so everyone in Sydney Harbour is aware. This gets back to Nigel, who recognizes Marlin when his buddy tries to eat him. Nigel takes Marlin and Dory to Nemo.

All hell breaks loose in the dentist's office when his young niece Darla, who shakes fish bags until the fish is dead, is there, and Nemo... gets knocked down a drain that's right next to the chair? The wut? I've never seen something like this. There's the water sprayer, sure, but a drain? It doesn't make any sense to me. If it was on the counter by the wall, then that would make sense. But blah blah blah Nemo gets out and reunites with Marlin, then Nemo helps a huge school of fish escape a net since Dory got tangled up in there. He recognizes that Dory is now essentially his aunt, so that helps. Everyone lives happily ever after... except for Dr. Sherman, seeing as the Tank Gang managed to finally pull off one of Gil's escape plans, still stuck in the bags. LOL. At least they eventually manage to get out, probably because one of those seagulls going "MIKE MIKE MIKE" pecking at it, not recognizing that lets the fish get away.

Now, while I enjoyed this, and thought the animation was beautiful, I do want to note a few things. The first is a lack of a villain that you rather dislike. Dr. Sherman was there, sure, but he was more an obstacle than anything, wanting to what was best for his life since he's a human who doesn't seem to recognize the implications that fish have families, too. That's normal of humanity; I at least recognize this and thank any fish who has given their life to end up in the deep fryer and then my plate. This felt very episodic, yet interconnected, and it was done in a marvelous way with great payoff - it's just that I prefer something like Monsters Inc. to this when it comes to a climax. There were plenty of little things paying off here, like Nemo learning from Gil that fish swimming down weighs a net and Marlin's mollusk/sea cucumber joke (that ended up making no anemones with people), and that helped this stay amusing throughout. It's just enjoyable, feel-good fun, and that makes it more of a "mood movie" than something fully accessible. But hey, this is what tonight called for, so this is what tonight got.

Dory is epic comic relief, and Ellen SLAYED that part. The acting was consistently good throughout, making the characters believable, though I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the lack of a relatable female character (since most of them are used as comic relief). That's just a minor thing, honestly, since I can't see what, say, Coral surviving would've done to better the movie. It's still a good movie with a good statement about the environmental impacts of man on the oceans, and how keeping fish as pets isn't necessarily a good thing. (That said, Wikipedia says that ppl r dum and many bought clownfish as pets anyway, which is tragic. Other idiots blindly released their fish into the ocean and this caused invasive species to appear. My goodness, people. What is wrong with you? Did you NOT understand the message here?)

Overall, I enjoyed revisiting this, and will give it a 4.5/5. Additionally, @MetalmindStats , I have moved this nomination of yours to The Incredibles per your initial logic (it will move to Ratatouille, Wall-E, and Up thereafter).

Finding Nemo is still one of my favorite animated movies ever. Everything about it is endlessly creative, funny, & emotionally moving with not one wasted scene if you ask me.

Snake5555555555 posted...

Finding Nemo is still one of my favorite animated movies ever. Everything about it is endlessly creative, funny, & emotionally moving with not one wasted scene if you ask me.

That's peak Pixar for you. I do agree with that. It's still a great movie - anything Pixar is, and I'd definitely say I liked it. Maybe I should've put it as a 4.5 since my quibbles are so minor, and it's still creative, fun, and emotional all at once. The right blend of everything.

The Green Mile (1999)
Directed by: Frank Darabont
Written by: Stephen King; adapted by Frank Darabont
Starring: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, David Morse, Bonnie Hunt
Previous status: Never seen

"John Coffey. Like the drink, only not spelled the same."
"What happens on the Mile, STAYS on the Mile."

This was a longie. A bit TOO long tbh. But the length is really the only knock I have toward this movie - there were some scenes that could've been trimmed out, and I'd think the overall product would be even stronger. Now, worth noting that I'm not ordinarily a horror fan, so the Stephen King things I like are those that are less gory or scary, such as this. The movie made me want to read the book.

It starts with a very retired Paul Edgecomb in a nursing home getting sentimental about an old movie, sentimental in ways that deeply affect him (certainly more than the hilarious Jerry Springer clip - that show is only enjoyable if you take it as parody of the talk show genre). He tells the story of working on death row, and how an inmate named John Coffey changed his life back in the Depression.

Now, it's immediately apparent that John Coffey is innocent. Like this guy is huge, and he's very much black so racists, particularly in places like Louisiana in the 30s, immediately think he's a thug. This is obviously one of the things Stephen King was commenting on, alongside the death penalty - which imho is only acceptable for extreme individuals proven guilty by DNA evidence (which did not exist back when this movie is set) and when carried out swiftly in a simple, painless manner (none of this "waiting 20 years" crap). The electric chair here is too elaborate and painful, and can certainly go wrong as... one idiot certainly proved.

That idiot, Percy, is a very different kind of villain. He doesn't fit the archetype of most villains. He's spoiled and sadistic, yet has connections so he thinks he can get away with whatever his impulses lead him to do; he's essentially an amalgamation of several villain archetypes. He murders the poor mascot Mr. Jingles, only for John to revive the little mouse. This is when it becomes apparent to everyone, as Paul already knew from having his bladder healed (which led to lots of fucking with his wife - zesty!), that Mr. Coffey was something special... and probably someone innocent. And it turns out he was: Billy did it. The same Billy who got hosed for pissing Harry off. John found the two girls and was sorry that he was too late to heal them. That was the only reason he was there! He was condemned for helping because he was black. And the public defender was certainly a racist too, as he compared Negroes (the term he used) to dogs. Like... wut?

Percy wants to watch someone fry, so poor Del, Mr. Jingles' master, has an agonizing death since he neglected to wet the sponge, then played dumb. The punishment was delayed; he got gagged and thrown in solitary, the same place Billy had been, while the guys smuggled the big man out to heal the warden's wife from a brain tumor. This entire sequence is wonderful. When they get back, John regurgitates the tumor into Percy's head, leading Percy to lose his mind and shoot Billy multiple times in the chest for making some homosexual remark. This is absolutely delicious. Both of them got theirs good, and John is relishing in it. After this, Percy's request to transfer to an insane asylum is granted... as a patient. OH HOW I LOVE THAT KIND OF IRONY!

The ending was just... brutal. Well, not the character Brutal (Paul's right hand enforcer), just... brutal. Coffey got to watch the movie that had made the elderly Paul lose it. And then he was taken to his execution, with the parents of the two girls who'd been killed wanting to take it out on him, not knowing the truth, NEVER knowing the truth. Paul shakes Coffey's hand... and unwittingly gets pseudo-immortality. Back in the present, Paul reveals that he's been caring for Mr. Jingles, who's somehow still alive after 60 years, and that's because John gave him a gift of eternal life too. Now, Paul has seen Highlander before, and probably knows the lyrics to "Who Wants to Live Forever?" and believes them. He thinks this is more a curse than anything, since he's 108 y/o and doesn't have any family left. He gets to see everyone he cares about die before him, just for working on death row and allowing John Coffey to die. That said, I don't know if there was a way out of it back then. Appeals were less sophisticated, and a pardon probably wasn't going to happen since the governor was married to Percy's aunt. This event caused Paul and Brutal to both put in their two weeks' notice. They couldn't do this anymore, not after they'd been touched by such a guy, a guy who never deserved to die.

Tom Hanks played Paul Edgecomb perfectly, just as Stephen King had thought he would (he was King's choice, apparently). Michael Clarke Duncan was fantastic as John Coffey, playing the emotions well and making him appear as a very intimidating guy simultaneous with the "gentle giant" he actually is. This is the kind of complexity I like in characters, and it's awesome when actors are able to pull it off (my previous familiarity with Duncan is limited to Benjamin Motherfucking King in Saints Row, as well as Brother Bear [he also was in Armageddon but I haven't seen any part of that in forever]). I also have to mention the direction of the scene where Coffey "coughs" the brain tumor into Percy - that entire thing was fantastic. And the ending was touching and meaningful. Really, the only people who deserve no mercy are those who showed no mercy to their own victims - and are proven innocent beyond ANY doubt. John Coffey was the antithesis of this, and it's sad that this was basically a very real story, with similar biases seen in To Kill a Mockingbird (which everyone over 18 y/o in the US has read).

Really, my only issue is the movie's length. They spent too much time on redundant executions and rehearsals for them, and could have easily truncated the first guy's execution significantly to speed up the reveal of John Coffey's powers, which happens an hour into the movie. That's a bit too late to get the plot really moving. Really, if this were 15-20 minutes shorter, with more scenes toward the front cut down, this would've potentially been a gold. It's still a 5/5, but it's not a movie I see myself watching often simply because of how long it is. @GavsEvans123, you get another nomination; @Johnbobb , I've reverted yours to Brokeback Mountain, so you're back at 5 finally!

I'm glad you liked it! The Green Mile is one of my favorite books, and I somehow loved the film adaptation as much, possibly even more. Michael Clark Duncan as John Coffey is a strong contender for my favorite film performance of all time

I'm glad you liked it too! This is another film I watched for the first time recently, and it's one that stuck with me long after the closing credits rolled. It is a long film, but to me it didn't feel long when I was watching it, because I was engrossed throughout. For me, the earlier executions and rehearsals helped demonstrate how Paul and the other guards were able to desensitise to an extent by making the process into an almost mundane routine, before their interactions with John Coffey make it increasingly difficult to do this job. Of course, we also get to see why the rehearsals are so important, because things get really ugly really fast when they aren't spot on.

Since it's October, the spooky scary month of Halloween, I'll use a nomination on Resident Evil.

GavsEvans123 posted...

For me, the earlier executions and rehearsals helped demonstrate how Paul and the other guards were able to desensitise to an extent by making the process into an almost mundane routine

Which could've been more effective had it been truncated, honestly, like it's nothing to them. Drawing it out made it feel less routine, since they had to rehearse and all.

Of course, we also get to see why the rehearsals are so important, because things get really ugly really fast when they aren't spot on.

This is also why I don't like the idea of an electric chair execution. It's too elaborate. And too cruel of a way to go. The guillotine may be a violent instrument but the reason it was created was to deliver a swift and painless end to anyone condemned to it. The only reason people went away from it was the violence.

May get another in tonight, but gonna play a little Zestiria first.

tag

Wasn't in the mood to write tonight, so I watched something mindless. Then Firefox was like "FUCK YOU!" to me and froze, so... UGH.

300 (2007)
Directed by: Zack Snyder
Written by: Frank Miller, Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, Michael Gordon
Starring: Gerard Butler, Lena Heady, Dominic West, David Wenham
Previous status: Saw ages ago

"Madness?! This is SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

Had to go with the iconic quote. Anyway, quick list of things, because I'm not writing all my thoughts in the same level of detail again:

• I hardly remember anything, and only ever saw this once because this board insisted back in the day. I just remembered it being mindless.
• The movie was clearly ridiculous from the getgo, and why it gets negative reviews is probably because ppl r dum and take things too seriously. I mean, there's this Pride Rock sequence above a pit of skulls, a shot of young Leonidas that looks like Gollum, a CGI wolf getting skewered, a bunch of shirtlessness, an overdramatic warrior culture made romantic through narration, full frontal nudity (I wrote "Cersei's boobies" on here - it's not like I haven't seen them before, and Lena Headey is an excellent actress as proven when she did drunk Cersei, but this was a nice surprise since I didn't think this was unrated)... the list goes on. Don't take something like this seriously. It's not meant to be taken seriously.
• The mindless violence was over-the-top, as were the CGI animals. EVERYTHING was over-the-top. There was that great rock music - kinda like an electronic Led Zeppelin - that they marched to. Really stood out. And was hilarious, much like how unserious this movie was.
• Xerxes was bribing a lot of people here to get his way, which should prove he's not a god right there. I didn't really like the portrayal of the Persians as one-dimensional baddies but it's not a big deal - I wasn't taking it seriously at all. The historical inaccuracies make it clear that this isn't a serious war movie, but the biggest one is the shirtless fighters. Like how much more ridiculous does it get than that?
• This movie is ripe for a drinking game. Every time someone says "Sparta" or "Spartan" take a drink. You'll get plastered in no time!

Here's the rest of what I had before btw since I screenshotted it; I was about to fix the "os" to "so"):
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/8/0/AAR0ZFAADzeg.png
Was also going to add about how awesome it was that Gorga skewered Theron for betraying her and projecting his own lies onto her, and the council believed her when Persian doubloons turned up on his corpse. It was AWESOME.

Really, I enjoyed the hell out of this movie for what it was. It's something I went in knowing was completely mindless but still was impressed by just how mindless it is. And how much I was laughing and reveling in how violent it got for no reason, when I don't usually like that stuff. It's a visual masterpiece even though there's plenty of green screen and CGI that was probably obvious back then too. All the animals were computer-generated and that made things look... unrealistic. But it doesn't matter. Realism was out the door here. The romantic narration over crazy meathead warriors wielding swords while shirtless is just hilarious to me. And I'm very much straight.

This is kind of hard to rate, honestly. It's by no means a grand achievement in storytelling, but it's a great achievement in visuals and ridiculousness, punctuated by some of the performances of the guys. The scenes back in Sparta seem like they're from a different movie, and the contrast actually works wonders. I'll give it a 4/5 - it's definitely something I'll return to if I'm ever feeling like watching something totally mindless and dumb like this, but really only in those circumstances. And for that, it's glorious.

@GavsEvans123 you get another nomination!

Fun fact, 300 was the first ever R-rated movie I saw in theaters when I was 13 years old

It's such a relief to hear this one holds up! I was 14 when it came out, just the right age to think it was the coolest thing ever. I've been meaning to watch it again, but I've been scared to, for fear that if I did, the magic would be gone. Sounds like I have nothing to worry about in that regard!

Another reason I remember this film fondly is that I started using Youtube around this time, and there were all sorts of spoofs, mashups and remixes on there. I still quote this one to this day.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDmZp9ktZuA

I'll use my next nomination on The Day After Tomorrow.

Emperors New Groove

Johnbobb posted...

Fun fact, 300 was the first ever R-rated movie I saw in theaters when I was 13 years old

I didn't see it in theaters and I turned 19 y/o around when it came out. I saw it after because memes.

GavsEvans123 posted...

It's such a relief to hear this one holds up! I was 14 when it came out, just the right age to think it was the coolest thing ever. I've been meaning to watch it again, but I've been scared to, for fear that if I did, the magic would be gone. Sounds like I have nothing to worry about in that regard!

It's still ridiculous and, while the CGI hasn't aged well, the visuals are still the most entertaining part. It's funny just how violent it is, and, really, my only issue wasn't okay in 2007 either: Leonidas being ableist toward Ephialtes, the real version of whom wasn't disabled. As you know, I don't take well to that, as someone who has been treated unfairly many a time for "not being neurotypical enough." Fuck people like that. This one shouldn't have been staged for amusement, because that's not cool. Sure, it does give Leonidas a character flaw, but making him a bully is not how you get people rooting for the "hero" of the story. But I loved how Ephialtes didn't just take it and was like "Fuck you, I'm defecting."

And, yes, the Internet took to 300 just like it had Snakes on a Plane half a year earlier. Aside from that one thing, which was never okay to begin with, it's held up well as a visual masterpiece, and it's still quite hilarious even without male stripper jokes. That's the only reason I watched it way back when, and frankly I barely remembered a thing. 15 years and having watched it pirated on a laptop would do that.

I haven't been feeling well until today, so I don't want to have to process thoughts (Zestiria is very much mindless at the point I'm at) and thus haven't watched anything. I'm sorry.

I'll try to do two tomorrow.

The Incredibles (2004)
Written and directed by: Brad Bird
Starring: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Jason Lee, Sarah Vowell, Spencer Fox, Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson
Previous status: Saw ages ago

"Every super hero has a secret identity."

When it first came out, I loved this movie, and it was my favorite Pixar movie, and still was in my head. I mean, it was Pixar tackling superheroes, and it was BEFORE there was another goddamn superhero movie every other month. Really, it was engaging, and I remember things like "No capes" - which pays off at the movie's end. Do I remember all the reasons why I loved it? Not quite.

But now I do.

This is like a cross between a spy movie and a superhero movie, and then it makes fun of itself on top of that. The end result is a thrill ride that knows when to be hilarious, knew when to be provocative, knew when to be fun, knew when to be action-packed, and knew when to call its shots. The balance between everything is quite perfect, as the action sequences are evenly spaced and planted among running gags (capes, seat belts, biggest fans, gum kid, etc.).

After a few incidents (that DB5-like spy car was awesome, by the way, particularly the ejector seat - though that predated Bond, I think? Also Bob and Helen got married with only superheroes as their audience.), superheroes get sued into oblivion, and the super villains probably go into hiding too for the same reason; this is probably why "Bomb Voyage" - a French-speaking mime who makes explosives - disappeared without a trace, and him not making a reappearance in any shape or form after that is unexplained. And that's really the end of my problems with this movie: It's never really explained what became of the supervillains during the time the government shut the superheroes down (how'd the lawyers get away with that?). There's also completely insignificant stuff that I'm not gonna talk about since there's no need to - it's insignificant.

After being forced into retirement, about 15 years later (I presume late 1960s) Bob has a truly awful boss that reeks of "corporate stooge." Bob feels like a soulless automaton and rebels against it by "faking" claim denials, then explaining how to beat the system. Boss doesn't like this. He doesn't care about happy customers, he's a money grubbing executive with a Napoleon complex. He goes on this rant about cogs and, boy, did that incense me. I've ranted many a time about how I'm being told I'm nothing but a cog and rebel against that. And, since the boss was complicit in a mugging in an alleyway, and also demeaning Bob, he throws the guy through a series of walls and puts him into a coma. Good riddance to bad rubbish, I say. Bob suddenly is much happier and healthier without a job to tie him down - GEE I WONDER WHY THAT IS. (Spoiler alert: I haven't had a job in a year, as of today, when I get let go by a shitty company that's since shuttered that shitty business. Just like with them, schadenfreude galore.)

This is among many "life" scenes. There's one where Dash gets sent to the principal's office, only for his teacher to be the one to get in trouble for using a camera to record students without their knowledge. Violet's got her first crush, and yet she's too shy to express herself - something that comes with her story once she somehow materializes a headband that can somehow also become invisible with her (this is unexplained, but still insignificant). Violet and Dash have a typical sibling rivalry made atypical by their superpowers escalating fights. Violet can knock him backwards with a force field when he tries to run at the speed of sound, then become invisible so he can't find her. She has a huge advantage in these but it's a total mess, a mess that continues once they realize it's Uncle Lucius at the door, who's in on the whole thing, being Frozone (I mean, it's Samuel L. Jackson being Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson, what more could you ask for?).

Frozone and Mr. Incredible are reliving their "glory days" and it doesn't go well in a certain burning building, but a Bond Girl named Mirage is monitoring them, and once Bob's let go from his job, she offers him a contract to "help recover some equipment" - for the government apparently, but it reeks of a trap. I'd forgotten about her, to be honest, but how could I? She's a Bond Girl! More on that bit later, but Bob disposes of a robot by making it annihilate itself, a crafty little thing nobody expected him to do. Her "employer" is most certainly not the government, but Bob doesn't raise any questions and just trusts her. This comes back to bite him, once he's summoned and her boss is revealed to be Buddy Pine, aka the former "Incrediboy" brat who interrupted Mr. Incredible's superhero business. The 8 y/o Buddy was traumatized by his hero being so cold to him, and became desperate to prove himself. He became a serial killer of superheroes, using Mirage to lure them into it, and she knew she couldn't betray him without getting killed since he made all kinds of crazy gadgets, including this "learning robot." I mean, he was a psychologically disturbed serial killer. Why go against him if you don't have help?

Bob visited Edna Mode on a whim to get his supersuit repaired (this is the "No capes" speech which has even more examples than I recalled), but she made new ones for him and the whole family, then tipped Helen off as to the truth about her husband. Edna's great, and this isn't the only Edna I've been saying this about, given Zestiria Edna is similarly snarky (though much younger in appearance) in all the right ways. Is that just what the name "Edna" entails or something? (Worth noting: Edna Mode is voiced by the director, Brad Bird, doing an impression - hilarious little factoid.)

But... Helen never noticed the missing supersuit for whatever reason, and it was seeing a stitch that tipped her off. She knew she had to go rescue him from some crisis because of what he'd gotten himself into, and the kids stowed away on the plane, which then blew up because Violet hadn't had enough practice making plane-sized force fields. Too much to ask. All this family drama feels so real, and it's quite fun how it's dispersed throughout the film and not squared away at the beginning. There's also clever combinations of superpowers, like ElastiGirl turning into a boat and Dash being the motor, or Dash running inside of one of Violet's force fields like a hamster in a ball. It's pretty nifty, and there's no shortage of it. Also cool: Dash causing two of the thousand goons to have their hovercrafts collide. BOOM!

(more - can't condense)

Mirage shows she's charmed by Bobnd (okay, yeah, that wasn't funny, sorry - but this is why she's a Bond Girl: She betrays the Big Bad upon realizing he is bad) after he refuses to choke her after grabbing her by accident, and she recognizes it's not because he's weak: It's because he's a good guy. He could never kill someone who isn't trying to kill him. She comes in later to free him... followed immediately by Helen, who catches Bob embracing Mirage to thank her for the freedom. She completely misunderstood, but thankfully let this go once Mirage helps them procure an "aircraft" and informs them where her boss is headed (this is after Violet epically frees everyone by abusing her force field to nullify the shock absorbers, something Syndrome couldn't have planned for). She really is on their side, since she's wanted to get away from Syndrome and his advances, since he's an immoral superhero serial killer who is bent on making himself into the greatest hero there ever was. There's a layer here: Syndrome went around killing superheroes for funsies so he could kill Mr. Incredible later. But the reverse wasn't true - Mr. Incredible wasn't going to kill Syndrome's secretary and supposed lover because his beef wasn't with her. It was with Syndrome. (It's also never explained how her name is Mirage or what her powers are, but that's a question for another day.)

The climax is FUN. Syndrome, despite his genius with inventions, is a moron. He taught his robot to learn from an opponent but forgot to make himself an exception; the robot quickly picked up the remote as a threat and shot it off his arm, knocking him out in the process as the Incredibles (despite Bob and Helen having a fight now of all times, because dysfunctional sitcom family) + Uncle Frozone (despite Mrs. Frozone's true to life attempts to get him to come to dinner) took care of the robot old-school style. Everyone was appreciative, and superheroes had their day once more... and Syndrome wasn't a part of it. BACKFIRE! Love it.

Syndrome apparently knows where the Parrs live so he goes to relieve their sitter, "Mozart makes babies smarter" girl (hilarious), and surprises them with a force ray. He's about to abduct Jack-Jack the baby to be his sidekick, spreading lies as he grows older, but Jack-Jack has a few powers, as the babysitter had discovered. One of them is an ability to sense malice, it seems. He can tell that Buddy isn't his buddy. He can also change his molecular composition, so he becomes a fireball, a metal version of himself, and a little imp in a short span of time. This leads Syndrome to have a fit mid-air and accidentally kick one of his hover boots off. Jack-Jack falls and Helen saves him, then Bob throws the spy car as a weapon (that's okay, Q Branch can always fix that) and knocks the plane off balance, leading to more payoff: Syndrome, having chosen a cape as part of his attire, gets caught in the suction of the plane engine, much like a different superhero had in Edna's "No capes" rant. The engine tears him to shreds, and the world breathes a sigh of relief that they won't have to experience a fake superhero, one the government was putting the kibosh on anyway as a con man.

After this, there's a quick array of closure: Dash finally tries out for track, but is unable to know how fast he's supposed to go without tipping people off to his mutant powers. Violet finally gets asked out by the boy she has a crush on, in large part because she "looks different" thanks to the headband and a huge boost of confidence she got from having both eyes able to see at once... and from killing many of Syndrome's thugs before they got her, probably. And then, a supervillain finally decides to come out of hiding: The Underminer, who's the Big Bad in a follow-up video game, since they didn't make a sequel to this movie for far too long. Something which I'll be watching eventually.

Honestly, this is Pixar perfection. There's a great Big Bad in Syndrome, and Mirage is a great character as well. Edna Mode is awesome. Violet's great too. Bob's very real struggles with corporate nonsense shook me, and that's a good thing - it makes him relatable and likable. Frozone is Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson, minus the cussing. This entire cast is great! And, to add, gags like the cop telling Frozone to "freeze" only for him to get iced, or the thug who told Violet to "show yourself" like a certain Disney Princess, or the bubble gum kid witnessing Bob totaling the little car and later seeing Syndrome die before the plane crushed their house (but not them, because Violet) add a lot. And then the credits is awesome, a sort of "Mission Impossible meets comic books" sort of reel. Again, this is part spy movie (as Brad Bird has stated), and that's one of the reasons I love it. 5/5, gold. No surprise. Glad I watched this again!

@Zachnorn @MetalmindStats I have moved your nominations appropriately, to Incredibles 2 and Ratatouille, respectively. But I thought I'd tag you both anyway

Happy Halloween, everyone!

Dawn of the Dead (Snyder Cut) (2004)
Directed by: Zack Snyder
Written by: James Gunn
Starring: Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames, Mekhi Phifer, Jake Weber
Previous status: Never seen

"Hell is overflowing."

Oddly, that wasn't Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson, whom I'd first thought it was. Grainy TV effects can do that. No, that was a guy from the original movie, the George Romero version.

Before they took over the DCEU, Zack Snyder and James Gunn were making zombie movies together, back when they were frat boys. And frankly... aside from the ending, I really can't tell much of a difference between this one and Shaun of the Dead, its complementary release. There's comedy and romance in this one, too; the romance is even more overt, and... pretty much everything else is the same kind of thing. The humor in this one kinda dies off just the same, but doesn't resurface like it does in Shaun.

Gotta mention this early that the film is set in my home state of Wisconsin, namely south of Milwaukee (as implied by the radio mentioning Racine County, which I would think a script would leave in to pinpoint the location, as opposed to it meaning nothing in reality). I found it unusual that a gun shop was near Milwaukee Mitchell airport - the general area to which I'm referring, as that's more Waukesha. There's also whatever "Fort Pastor" is (doesn't actually exist) and... islands in Lake Michigan? Uh, what? Those are all to the north!

What may explain all this is that it was filmed in Toronto, which doesn't exactly double that well - it certainly didn't feel right to me, but I stopped caring when they were inside the mall (which apparently was slated for demolition, but they delayed it to film this). The mall was gorgeously built (just like the brilliant makeup - like that had to take half the budget alone), and certainly had a lot of things one could find helpful - not to mention fresh clothing for whenever the old stuff got bloodied, as happened frequently. Why Ana spent so long in her pajamas, stained with the blood from her zombified husband, is beyond me. And then she changed outfits several times with stolen clothes. It's also odd that nobody but Tucker thought a hat might be useful. Keeps blood splatter out of your eyes and can be used as a shield if a zombie is gunning for your neck. Just feed it to the zombie, run, and get another one later.

Snyder said his cut this time was "more personal and more gory" - I can't imagine how much more was added, since this movie wasn't as gory as I was expecting it to be. The casualties, however, were numerous; in fact, everybody dies. I don't really know if I like that ending or not, but I'm leaning "not." I'd have much preferred an ambiguous fate to it being very apparent that they all got cornered in an inescapable situation. This is why I prefer Shaun's ending; it was unexpected, and it was funny. This was neither. It was grim, it was bleak, and it was dry.

Even so, this movie was pretty much what I expected it to be: People shooting zombies. Or lighting them afire, because zombies are weak to fire. That's something often exploited: Either blow their brains out, since they don't have that much left up there, or light them on fire, since their decaying skin is highly flammable. It was dark. It was violent. And it was sad, too, but despite Snyder's statement that there was more character development in his cut, I felt that was a weakness of the movie. Ana's husband became a zombie, then she got away from him and never saw him or thought of him again. It's also weird how she was suddenly fighting him off just hours after they were fucking in the shower - how did she know he'd turned? How did she think a zombie outbreak was immediately possible? Was it the kid, Vivian, who was bloodied that got her to think something was wrong? It doesn't really make sense. She didn't operate like a normal person in regards to that, and he was forgotten halfway through the movie when she hooked up with Best Buy TV Guy Michael. Ana also took the pulse of that dead woman, forgetting that she could suddenly reanimate.

Her behavior wasn't the only one who was weird. Nicole's freak-out and pursuit of Chips the dog was odd. She'd had the dog a day and suddenly felt like he was worth risking her life for in a zombie apocalypse. I think the problem was the writing: This was back when Snyder and Gunn were young and dumb, long before the latter got canceled for such shit. He redeemed his image, sure, but I still think he's a douche, even if I enjoy Guardians of the Galaxy and am interested in what he'll do with DC. I don't think he'll any good for the female characters, though that's already a shitshow given how the second Wonder Woman movie was atrocious and another is played by a vicious harpy who shits on beds and lies on the witness stand. But I'm getting off topic. It's Halloween, I can talk about costumes, yes? My point is that the female characters here don't seem to be written well. The guys are also mostly generic, though Kenneth is great - Ving Rhames (whom I last saw as Marcellus in Pulp Fiction). I lol'd at his whiteboard sign chess match with Andy (who met such an unfortunate fate, as someone who shares his name). CJ was, however, the most interesting character; he was such an ass, and his stoolie Bart followed his example. And then he started warming up to people once they told him he needed to not be an ass, or he dies. And he died anyway - as a hero who blew himself and a couple dozen zombies to bits with one of his propane tank grenades. It was awesome.

A few rapid-fire notes here:

• It's also weird how they just knew what boat was Steve's, since Steve was very much dead by then. Like... did he give them every nauseating detail in case anything happened to him?
• Andre, a criminal and Kenneth, a cop, came together - but may or may not have realized that it didn't really matter what they were anymore now that they had to survive off the land. Things changed fast. It's anarchy, and that was indicated when CJ got locked up and everyone did whatever the hell they wanted. Including Kenneth.
• Andre and Luda breeding a zombie babby was... yeah. Shooting the little imp had to be traumatizing.
• Why didn't they think to use the sewer earlier, when Andy needed food? There had to be a way to get the food to his door, get back into the sewer, close the grate, and not attract the zombies.
• Glen and Monica's deaths felt very forced, since it made no sense why Glen was wielding a chainsaw at that point.
• It was weird how, early in the movie, the two groups just magically found each other without having encountered much in the way of zombies.
• Watching the "Special report" they missed... what the hell is "the Heartland" and who the hell says that around here? Do your research, guys!
• Michael giving himself up wasn't too saddening to me, since he was pretty generic. Just "generic Prince Charming" type of guy

So, in the end, this was pretty much not too different from Shaun. I liked some things more about that one and other things better about this one. I think Shaun had better characters and a better ending. This one had better fights/action and art direction (including makeup). The art direction matters a lot in a zombie movie for sure, but I think that because Shaun is better written, I have to give it a slight edge, and give this one a 3/5 also. It's not exactly my thing, but it was a good mood movie for Halloween.

@BetrayedTangy you get a new nomination!

Next movie will probably be either tomorrow or Friday (not sure what yet). And then V for Vendetta on Saturday because November 5th, its fixed date thanks to Guy Fawkes. (write-up for that may be Sunday morning jsyk)

Surprise! Sometimes something new drops and you just can't wait to watch it. Tonight is one of those nights.

Please note this won't be common as I seldom see movies at release. Also note this will be heavily spoiler tagged - it's too new to have them unlabeled.

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)
Directed by: Eric Appel
Written by: Weird Al Yankovic, Eric Appel
Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Evan Rachel Wood, Rainn Wilson
Previous status: N/A (?!)

"Let's get weird, boys!"

The first trailer for this movie came out over a decade ago as a joke. People wanted it to be real, and with films like Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocket Man taking unique icons of music and telling their stories in a slightly exaggerated way, it felt like the perfect time to put money into something fully exaggerated about a unique icon of music. Who better for that than Weird Al? Roku wanted to attract attention to their own channel and they've certainly succeeded. My understanding is that this movie starts out as mostly truthful, but becomes more and more a parody of biopics as it goes on.

It opens with Al being revived in a hospital by Lin-Manuel Miranda - not like a surgeon or anything - and then flashes back to Al's life. Starting when he was about 10 y/o and dealing with psychologically abusive parents trying to force a lifestyle upon him, refusing to accept him for who he was. This, of course, got him to rebel more strongly. I'd think this is rooted in reality, but exaggerated. Taking "Amazing Grace" and making it about grape juice at that age... well, it's Weird Al. His parents are cruel, telling him to fall in line and stop being himself outright. A few weeks later, an accordion salesman shows up and Al's dad assaults the guy. After sending the dad for a walk, his mom buys the accordion anyway, so long as Al practices in secret; I think she's afraid of her husband and toes the line. I already doubt what I'd heard is accurate: This reeks of pastiche from the start. That HAD to be exaggerated. A "polka party" in Lynwood, CA getting ambushed by the LAPD is ridiculous enough, and I don't think Al's actual dad was an asshole since Al said his parents' death was the worst thing that ever happened to him.

Did "My Bologna" really come out of spontaneous coincidence? Public bathroom recording studios... too shitty to be real. The same-day mega-hit thing... the subtle hilarity Al's known for. Al himself - the REAL Al - is a record suit who is quite the hardass, and his character's brother is an asshole who lays into Al, the way young Al probably felt. Al's character then gives the character Al some advice, leading to character Al's bar performance (after the goth punk band who rejected him got literally murdered) where his roommates abruptly start performing with him. Because of the bologna's first name, I had a feeling they were meant to be Steve Jay, Bermuda Schwartz, and Jim West. Dr. Demento so happened to be there. (In real life, it was Jay Levey, an up-and-comer back then who is STILL Al's manager.) Demento offers to take Al under his wing, and gives him the moniker "Weird Al." (side note: Amazing how Dr. Demento is still doing his shtick after 50 years!) Also parody: After Jack Black asks the crowd, John Deacon suggests Al parody his song "Another One Bites the Dust" on the spot, so Al busts out "Another One Rides the Bus" and then shuts down the idea of performing with Freddie Mercury. It's hilarious how this is just mocking Bohemian Rhapsody. Al just KNEW the notes and rhythm! Clearly false, but it's funny.

Complete falsities continue. Then, Dr. Demento in a bathtub gives Al LSD and Al sees a hellscape, and the "Lucy" is an angelic Demento. This sequence is absurd and hilarious (mocking "God told me to start a music career!" types), and somehow all this turns into "Eat It" before MJ does it, which gets Al a record deal after he'd already released a record. In the 80s. Lots of plot holes, but they're intentional. This is Weird Al. And MJ's apparently parodying Weird Al instead XD. Madonna shows up to come onto Al - in reality, she asked a mutual friend if Jay Levey said anything about "Like a Surgeon" and said friend asked Levey who then asked Al who then wrote it, but said he'd never again take parody ideas from original artists. More falsity: Al never had a mansion to glorify his ego. And he certainly never fucked Madonna or went on a date with her. This is young Al's fantasies manifested.

Daniel Radcliffe is fantastic pitching a conniption in the restaurant; the dysregulation looks real, and Madonna's seeming apathy veiled with attempt to care is perfectly embodied by Evan Rachel Wood. It's like she said: This satire of Madonna is a total sociopath. A drunk Al shows up at soundcheck, and Demento says Madonna's a bad influence... in front of her. She hands Al his car keys, and he gets in a head-on collision with a Mack truck, returning us to the Lin-Manuel Miranda cold opening that gives him the idea for "Like a Surgeon." He goes to perform it, with a very... gay performance. I couldn't look. I went back to look at that pretty chick from the T-Mobile commercial that had played multiple times (I took a screenshot). A completely plastered, shirtless Al refuses to sing "Eat It" and insults the audience. He keeps imbibing and is arrested on stage by Miami police.

As Al explains to Madonna how he's a trainwreck, she is abruptly divanapped, and the chefs are somehow in on it. A legit knife fight sequence ensues, where Al kills or seriously injures everyone who comes at him. The thugs yell that they're working for legendary drug lord Pablo Escobar. It's a trap. Cut to: Al, in camo, kills two commando goons in a jungle. Even more absurd and fantastical! He takes the goons' rifle and threatens Escobar and his entourage. Apparently Madonna was bait to get Al to come perform at Escobar's birthday party. Escobar dares call "Eat It" a Michael Jackson parody and Al subsequently kills everyone in the room, save for Escobar and Madonna. Escobar shoots him, not realizing that Al's platinum CD necklace serves as body armor, which he then uses as a ninja star to split the boss's head. After Madonna suggests taking over the cartel, Al realizes she is indeed a greedy sociopath, and she admits their relationship was just business. He leaves her there, but not before she shoots at him. Luckily, she's a bad shot.

For no apparent reason, Al's career is stymied, so he shows up at his dad's factory workplace. His dad inquires why he's there and admits he was wrong - a complete U-turn, particularly the Hawaiian undershirt. In reality, I'd guess Al's parents didn't support his career until he made it, since they had their insecurities. His dad says he'd grown up in an Amish Paradise but was kicked out for playing the accordion, so Al's accordion caused of baggage to resurface, and he didn't want Al to experience the same failure. This is a time warp of a decade: Al's rut was broken by Nirvana, not Coolio. Al's dad also scribbled lyrics to "Amish Paradise." Which Al performs live. And then Dr. Demento offers... adult adoption...? Uh. Al then wins an award and some commando comes in with a sniper rifle and... nobody says anything. He's working for Madonna, and... BLAM! Shocking ending. Hilariously shocking. Real pics ensue in the credits, followed by some very fake ones. Post-credits, Madonna tries to offer a rose at Al's grave (he "ate it"), but a hand comes out of the dirt and grabs her. Fade.

This movie gets a Weird Al/5. From someone who got his autograph after a show... that's a 5. Well-acted, finely written, actually decent production value, and brilliant parody in the Weird Al fashion. Gold.

See ya tomorrow for V!

I had a meltdown earlier today. I am thankful that I did not have to choose a movie to fit my mood. It's like I said about these fixed-date movies: I like it when the choice has been made for me. And that helped me feel better.

V for Vendetta (2006)
Directed by: James McTeigue
Written by: The Wachowskis, David Lloyd, [recanted]
Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, John Hurt
Previous status: Saw 2019ish

"No more tricks, no more lies, only the truth."

This is one of the few movies on THE LIST I already "caught up" with seeing, and I remember it pretty well. Some Matrix action (because Wachowskis), the dystopian near future, Evey's head getting regrettably shaved (Natalie Portman looks better with the long hair, but she's hot regardless), and Evey pulling the lever despite having the detective guy point his gun at her. I tend to remember things well until I haven't seen them for years, but the film is fixed date to today.

It starts out with "Remember, remember, the 5th of November." With V adding "The Gunpowder Treason, the Gunpowder plot, we cannot let the treason be forgot." Or something poetic to that effect. It's awesome. So are all the V-words he uses. So is the flashback to the actual Guy Fawkes being executed for treason for threatening to blow up Parliament (the old building, which didn't explode for another 229 years). And so is how he blows up the Old Bailey set to the 1812 Overture to get everybody to take him seriously. V is awesome.

The movie is set in London after the Nazis have seized power - under the name "Norse Fire" - and have suppressed rights, including free speech, free religion, free sexuality - practically everything the actual Nazis did. They use the press to disseminate fake news that the public continues to question, to the ignorance of the powers that be. This is all fantastically established setting. It's easy to understand what's going on, and it's easy to see that the negative press covfefe is used for fearmongering - much like pretty much ANY real-world "news outlet" tries to do. Don't just say ONE of them does it - one certain side always tries to paint these things to look like the other side, while the other just denies how bad they are. Not naming which is which. This is VERY clearly commentary on the press feeding lies to the people to protect "government interests" - and boy does that ring true.

Not getting into too many details here, since I've realized just how verbose my recent reviews have gotten (which could be turning people off), but the government created V through abuse, so they deserve what he became. V is a fantastic character and a real brilliant strategist - he'd planned everything to a T, except for the part where a detective held him at gunpoint and it took reinforcements with pepper spray - Evey - to dispatch him. He saved her life, so she saved his in return, and thus he took her in and used her as bait to help assassinate a pedophile bishop who had a certain fondness for teenage girls. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

There's funny shit like Gordon's late night mock interview with "the Fuhrer" (which got him executed, even though it certainly incited the public to agree) and V's execution of that pinhead in the shower. There's scary shit like V replicating what the bad guys had done to his friend Valerie, who was only imprisoned for being a lesbian (geez, why do they care so much who she fucks? Like seriously, so long as she respects others' sexuality, they should respect hers) by shaving Evey's head and torturing her, only to reveal the put-up job that was to numb her to her fears. She's like me. I don't really feel afraid of anything and have simple apathy toward the world. Nobody likes me. Nothing scares me. But nothing gives me joy, either. Even if I did love this movie... again. But I digress. Maybe it's a mask. Maybe I've been so concerned with being fake that I've forgotten who I really am. But I'll leave the deep statements with just that.

The best part is how it all comes together, how everything is a coincidence and how there are so many layers to every little detail - it was a master strategist's web woven. There are little payoff parts like The Count of Monte Cristo (I haven't seen it jsyk), the jukebox ("revolutions" and "dances" being paired sounds like Hamilton, lol) and V's burned hands being revealed to be from Larkhill. There are huge payoff parts like the 1812 Overture being played at both the destruction of the Old Bailey and that of Parliament a year later, and Evey talking to Chief Inspector Finch (who agreed the country needs hope, especially after he uncovered the crimes his comrades had committed) similarly to how V had talked to her the first time. Finch was the one uncovering all the coincidences that just lined up too perfectly. V had manipulated everything to his advantage, outplaying Finch every step of the way until Creedy's men killed him (but not before all of them died first, of course, in that epic fight scene right after herr Fuhrer was executed). V was always a step ahead, erasing every lead Finch could possibly find and brilliantly distracting him. Finch at least saw that V was dead right before Evey gave him a good ol' Viking funeral, putting him on board the train with explosives on it (yes, a "Viking Funeral" can refer to something other than a boat), heading straight for the blocked tunnel under Parliament to go BOOM and take Big Ben with it (RIP).

My only issues with this are quite minor. I am not quite sure how Evey seemed to have access to clothes that fit her at all times in the movie - it doesn't really make sense, but it's a small cosmetic thing that ultimately doesn't matter much. I also think the V/Evey love story could be better conveyed - clearly, he fell in love with her at first sight, because she reminded him of Valerie but was, y'know, straight, and this was affirmed when she took out that detective that had him at gunpoint. This really only percolated toward the end, and felt kind of weird when looking back to all the torture. What was going to happen if she did squeal? How long did that last for? That took up a good portion of the year between the two bombings, but again, that timeline thing is minor - it's left up to imagination, and I believe that was the intent of the Wachowskis. It's not problematic in the slightest, just fuel for thought.

Overall, the message here is to not believe the negative press covfefe, because it's totalitarian and trying to push an agenda - it was just used to a ridiculous extent in the movie, which is what the US is certainly trending toward. Suppression of truth is adjacent to suppression of rights. Morons think they know things, but they really don't. And we need to band together to rise up against the negative press covfefe, against tyranny, against single-party terrorism, and against suppression of rights. This movie rings more true than ever and both the Wachowskis and David Lloyd (and that other guy, who does not want his name associated with this movie in any way) had insane foresight. It rings true, it's fun to watch, and it's a superbly crafted thriller narrative... oh, and Natalie Portman's always amazing to look at (especially the first half of the movie), plus she's a fantastic actress. Hugo Weaving does an excellent job as V, conveying his mystique and intelligence in an interesting way - even though we never really did see him without the mask. Still... 5/5, gold.

This went longer than I intended, whoops! You can tell I liked it a LOT.

@Snake5555555555 you get a new nomination! (Thanks for nominating it so it had to be watched today because of its fixed date)

Well you covered pretty much everything! Excellent write-up for one of my all time favorite movies. I'll pick out another in a bit.

Apologies for my recent lack of activity. Been going through shit and my dad's been in town so that's made things a little harder - I usually can't get started on stuff until 9 pm, so I just play Zestiria for an hour for that project, which is close to its conclusion.

The Emperor's New Groove (2000)
Directed by: Mark Dindal
Written by: Chris Williams, Roger Allers, Matthew Jacobs, Mark Dindal, David Reynolds
Starring: David Spade, John Goodman, Eartha Kitt, Patrick Warburton
Previous status: Never seen

"Squeak squeakity squeak squeak"

This movie came out when I was reaching "that age." I was 12 y/o, sure, but I'd just been exposed to James Bond movies and that transformed my interests. This coincided with the end of the"Disney Renaissance - which this movie is considered "after" probably because of Dinosaur (I forgot that existed) preceding it. This was released as Disney was falling into a rut; AFAIK, only Lilo & Stitch during the eight-movie span after Fantasia 2000 is considered better? Maybe?

Going in, I know this movie adapts "The Emperor's New Clothes" into something goofy; we're talking llama instead of a nudist emperor. Clearly, with llamas and a name like Kuzco, this in Peru. The Disney silliness is at its best with its ridiculous opening - after the mopey rain bit - that feels like it's attempting to be "Prince Ali" meets "Be Our Guest." It's nowhere near as catchy as those, even though the animation is stunning. Despite the huge names on the soundtrack - Sting, Tom Jones, Eartha Kitt, and a young Rascal Flatts - the songs lack the same memorability as the Broadway-focused Renaissance era. This is because of the development hell this movie went through, causing Sting's penned songs to be dissociated from the project. The lack of the villain anthem was quite damaging.

Kuzco shows himself to be a dick by insulting several women chosen as potential brides for him. He terminates his advisor Yzma for no reason. He asks Pacha (who sounds exactly like Sulley, because that's the "John Goodman Disney voice" apparently) for assistance... only to unwittingly be told his village is going to be destroyed for Kuzco's summer resort. He's a judgmental prick, and I'm quickly awaiting his humbling. I am rooting for Yzma at this point, as Kuzco feels like he's the villain. Yzma and Kronk, her henchman, get this entrance like spy movie scientists. Ridiculous and humorous, particularly the part where there's a trap door lever for no reason.

Yzma's plan to murder Kuzco gets him turned into a llama, which is worse if you think about it: Kuzco has to live his life as a llama, on the outside looking in to how he used to live, ruing that he's a piece of shit. His reaction to being llamafied is pure schadenfreude, especially since Llama Kuzco proves he's still an ass. Okay, llamas and asses are different, but he's still an ass. The panthers nearly eating him for breakfast is foiled by Pacha imitating Tarzan for no reason, in a GREAT Disney cross-reference. Pacha questions his actions when Kuzco insists on building his stupid resort in place of Pacha's village, but Pacha handles it well by giving him an ultimatum. Yzma takes over the kingdom and nobody really feels sad about Kuzco's passing. I don't feel bad for him. Not at all. I do feel bad for Pacha taking a beating as a result of Kuzco being awful.

It's funny when Kronk talks to the squirrel, because that's cheeky and unexpected. It's not funny when Yzma is running from the locusts in the background, because that's been done a thousand times, another thousand if you count every bad guy in a mask on Scooby-Doo. It's funny when Llama Kuzco dresses as Pacha's wife. It's funny when Yzma shows up at the table next to Pacha, in the ironic sense. It's funny when the chef quits on Kronk of all people and Kronk just takes over, and the revolving door where Kronk is too daft to notice is great, particularly how they don't realize they're next to each other. It's not funny how Kuzco wants to go to his death, only to quickly overhear that Yzma poisoned him, as that's too convenient. I don't know if that was meant to be funny but Kuzco sucks, and he deserves the moping in the rain. He's a total Aaron who literally says "bUt It'S aLl AbOuT mE!!!!1!!" His reactions are funnier than anything that happens to him, really.

Having unexpected company, Mrs. Pacha and the kids clearly see through Yzma's bullshit. The Mrs. sees her husband in the window telling her that Yzma is his enemy, so the family springs a booby trap upon Yzma. This is amusing, but remind me why I'm supposed to enjoy her suffering... because Kuzco is her enemy? I don't follow. The intentional plot hole of Yzma returning to the palace first wasn't overly funny (a joke without a punchline), but boy did I like it, because I find myself to be unsympathetic to Kuzco. He's not a very complex anti-hero - he's someone abhorrent that I'm rooting to lose. The amount of payoff in this climax in the lab - how Kuzco knew about it is beyond me - is great. The lever, the lab coats, the Kronk angel and devil, the potions, the cliff-walking... this was great. I'm a fan of that payoff, as you guys know by now. I'm not a fan of some other things, namely Pacha going from 60 potions to 5 for no reason, the lack of urgency, or the repetition of Yzma taking the potion, it falling to a ledge, and then A MIRACLE OCCURS. The satire became a little too much, but I LOVED the trampoline, given how the Renaissance movies had numerous villains who fell to their deaths.

Kuzco develops a sense of humor, and makes amends for his prior misdeeds, acting as if he's a completely changed man. He shows this by wanting to build his Kuzcotopia elsewhere... apparently? I don't buy that he's changed, though he seems to be living a more humble life in his summers, in a way that shows like Undercover Boss want to make us believe changes people. It doesn't.

Reading up on the development hell, I note how this movie is in an identity crisis, much like Disney itself at the time. They wanted the 00s to "not be like the 90s" - forgetting IF IT AIN'T BROKE, DON'T FIX IT! The reason the Renaissance was so great was because there were these magical singalong songs with equally beautiful animations to accompany them, making for an engaging product infinitely rewatchable by elementary schoolers. This is not that. This is filled with the slapstick gags that were often relegated to one or two sequences in those superior Disney outings, but lacks the same soul. It's a simple movie that suffers from a lack of rewatchability; if you've seen the gags and know what happens, there's no reason to revisit.

For this reason - and how I found myself rooting against Kuzco - I can't say I LOVED this movie. There were gags I laughed at and the payoffs were enjoyable, but it's not overly memorable. The hugely downgraded soundtrack didn't serve this movie well, though Sting had the ending changed because Kuzco was originally going to just build Kuzcotopia on another hill. If that had stayed, I'd have hated it, because it would've justified my dislike of Kuzco. If you're rooting for the villain, the movie didn't do something right. In this case, it's that they made the supposed hero the least likable character. Pacha is fine and I feel for the guy getting caught up in this, but he kept trusting Kuzco for no reason. Yzma wanted to dispose of the jerk of an Emperor for the good of everyone, and I can't for the life of me understand why I was supposed to root for him over her. I'll give this one a 3 because it was still fun, but it's not as remarkable as other Disney ventures. Still glad I watched it, but it's "a funny little thing I watched once" instead of a cinematic marvel.

@Johnbobb @hylianknight3 you each get a new nomination!

Absolutely adore that movie and have seen it more than probably any other single movie. And it still makes me laugh consistently

a few quick questions. I can see from the spreadsheet what's been covered. Can't tell for sure what has been nominated yet and what hasn't, so looking for clarifications before I make my 5 (mostly to avoid redundancies, both direct and in case of genres/styles heavily nominated and queued already, would rather steer against those to nominate more variety :D)

FigureOfSpeech posted...

a few quick questions. I can see from the spreadsheet what's been covered. Can't tell for sure what has been nominated yet and what hasn't, so looking for clarifications before I make my 5 (mostly to avoid redundancies, both direct and in case of genres/styles heavily nominated and queued already, would rather steer against those to nominate more variety :D)

Users who nominated are off of the right edge, after the rating column. Some users have done so privately. Nothing has more than two nominations, but I will pick anything with at least one.

Okay

my 5

Zoolander (fun classic, silly humor, VERY quotable and just a great sit back, laugh and turn off brain comedy).

Thor: Ragnarok (One of the better MCU movies imo. You seem to be interested in MCU, so as a casual MCU fan, this is one I definitely recommend).

Quick and the Dead (Probably my favorite Western. It isn't regarded as highly as the older classics, but the story is solid and I like the pacing better than a lot of the better-regarded classics. I've watched several times over many years and I always enjoy it).

No Country for Old Men (very intense, I have never seen anything from the Coen Brothers (movie or TV) that I haven't loved).

Lucky Number Slevin (A neat and stylistic caper flick and a very fun watch. A fun slow burn that takes itself precisely as seriously as it should. I went in with low expectations and was very impressed).

A lot of others I would recommend, but I read the rules so I will have to wait to earn more nominations. Started at the bottom and worked my way up and there are several others to recommend, but I will have to tune in before I can do so (I saw something about trading, so I'll read more on that too). For now, this is a group of movies I really like and I feel like they are well spread out in multiple categories. They all jumped out at me though as I was scanning the list, like "ooh I have to nominate this!"

Just rewatched Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story and I still love it, but I already nominated that one

so instead I'll nominate the next best thing, The Godfather

FYI:
I am watching the Packer game tonight. Unless the Titans crush us, I won't be watching a movie.

I also have an anime con tomorrow through Sunday so I won't be getting any movies in until at least Monday. This applies to Zestiria as well.

Many apologies for not being as active in this as I would've liked. This last week has been weird.

Tonight. Been sick since coming back from the con. Finally feeling well enough to watch and understand a movie.

I was gonna but the day went longer than I thought and then I realized there was a volleyball match at night (we won the conference title!). Then there was another of those tonight....

Yeah, I know I'm making too many excuses. I'm gonna buck the Packer game tomorrow night since we're gonna lose and maybe try to watch two movies. I AM SORRY FOR ALL THIS!

Time to go into overdrive to make it up to you guys. Plan was to watch two shorter movies tonight

Burn After Reading (2008)
Written & Directed by: Joel & Ethan Coen
Starring: George Clooney, Frances McDormand, John Malkovich, Brad Pitt, Tilda Swinton
Previous status: Never seen

"I thought... you might be worried... about the security... of your shit."

It has been a long time since I laughed like that. That one line was so perfectly delivered and equally perfectly staged. This not only shows the Coen Brothers' genius (this is the third of theirs I've seen, after True Grit and Big Lebowski) but also how good Brad Pitt was in this role, the dumb jock who only ever wears his personal trainer uniform (unclear why that's a polo, but still). Really, everyone was great - and they felt typecast. And that's because they were. The Coens wrote these roles for their stars, and it shows. George Clooney womanizing the middle-aged feels very apropos given how many ladies that age love the guy.

The first thing I must note is that the movie drops us RIGHT into things. We first get to see Ozzy Cox (Malkovich) getting demoted, which leads him to quit his job as an intelligence analyst. And later, Frances' McDormand's character Linda is getting examined for plastic surgery (why she'd need that, I do not know), and that's our intro package for her. You have to watch closely to understand who's who at first but it works fine in the end, when things come together nicely. This may have just been 90 minutes, but it was a GOOD 90 minutes. So many moving parts of what can feel like a conspiracy to most of these dimwits just interlock perfectly to make a beautiful mess.

Ozzy's wife, Katie (Swinton), is both a doctor and a criminal; wanting divorce from Ozzy to be with Harry (Clooney), who's also seeing at least three other women, including his wife, who's ALSO cheating on him, who... you get the point. Because she sucks, Katie changes the locks so Ozzy can't get his stuff and empties his bank account under the logic that "it's her money, too." When it was HIS account, and she stole from him. Why a doctor would need to become a thief, I do not know. Sadly, she never gets her comeuppance - really, the only thing is Harry leaving her because she's such a Karen. I really liked how he called her ass out - she deserves to be alone.

The best part after the "security of your shit" phone call (my goodness, that was AMAZING) was probably Chad (Pitt) breaking in to the Cox house to spy music, thinking he could steal more files even though what he has hasn't amounted to much. Chad and Linda had tried to fence the DVD-R with Cox's memoir on it, thinking it was "serious intelligence shit," to the Russians, because you know darn well that Vlad would LOVE to get involved in this. Other characters are confused but I am not, but this was 2008. This was before Vlad started nosing his way into our elections (FUCK VLAD!). Still, there's a CIA spy who redirects the DVD, even though it doesn't have anything of value to the government on it. It's just a memoir and financial records of Ozzy and Katie, which Katie is using to embezzle because, again, she sucks. Katie is a crafty crook, mind you, and she's running circles around the idiots surrounding her. I presume this is indicative that to get ahead, you gotta get dirty.

But with the break-in, Ocean's 11 this is not: Both Chad and Harry are idiots (in the "League of Morons" as Ozzy put it), and because for whatever asinine reason he chose to go upstairs and hide in the closet (when knew that Harry was wearing exercise clothes when he'd left), Chad ends up getting shot with Harry's finger and Harry's subsequent freak-out was amazing. Even though he's the one who killed the intruder, he's paranoid and freaking out (despite being a U.S. Marshal) and presuming he's being spied on (he really only is by a grunt working for his wife's divorce attorney). It all unravels when he learns that Linda, whom he's also fucking, was Chad's associate, and there's MORE spy-shit freakouts. There's also Ozzy killing the gym manager, Ted, with an axe for burglarizing his home, and the CIA spy murdering Ozzy for no reason thereafter. Like... hello? Clearly he's chasing out an intruder.

Really, this movie had a lot for just an hour and a half, with old people fucking (okay, late 40s, but still), money-grubbers, a brief car chase and a brief foot chase, dildo chairs (the fuck is the point of that?), conspiracies like it's a thriller... honestly, what genre is this? It has comedy. It has relationship drama. It has political commentary (kinda). It has interlocking pieces. It's really trapped in a zone that's not bound to any genre. The movie is enjoyable for that at times, but confusing at others. With it being difficult to place, there lacks a basis for comparison; it stands out as unique at the same time it's hard to discern if you're supposed to take anything from it. But it's enjoyable while it lasts, so for that, I'll give it a 4/5.

@BetrayedTangy @Snake5555555555 you each get another nomination! Keep the good ones coming!

And now, I'm gonna go watch another one. Hence the less detailed write-up. See yas soon!

I need to watch it again. Been awhile since I seen it last. But definitely one of the best comedy-thrillers ever made.

Let's go with Joker. (also sorry it completely slipped my mind to pick another movie last time)

"Comedy-thriller" is a pretty apt description. It builds up just like a thriller, but it's all for laughs. Not really a kind of movie you see very much.

And now, on a completely different note...

Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within (2001)
Directed by: Hironobu Sakaguchi
Written by: Hironobu Sakaguchi, Al Reinert, Jeff Vintar
Starring: Ming-Na Wen, Alec Baldwin, James Woods, Donald Sutherland, Steve Buscemi, Ving Rhames
Previous status: Never seen

"I thought we weren't supposed to say the S-word."

No, not shit. "Spirits." Because JRPG. This really feels like a JRPG in movie form, highly condensed to fit the two-hour runtime. Which means the story isn't as rich and deep as it would've been as a game. Really, the writing here was nothing special, but the movie compensates for it by being a technical marvel - ESPECIALLY for 2001 (like wtf, this was when the PS2 was new, for fuck's sake!) - and having the good world-building you expect from a Final Fantasy game. That's really the gist of it. You don't need to read on from here if you don't care.

The world-building is basically the Phantoms have inhabited the Earth (odd that a JRPG-based story is actually set in OUR world) and rendered it uninhabitable for humans, because they eat human's spirits upon contact. The Phantoms are aliens who are lost souls, mistaken for attackers - but they'd inadvertently been jettisoned from the destruction of their own planet, landing on Earth with a huge impact, killing them all. Protagonist Dr. Aki Ross (Wen) is determined to send them to the Farplane by gathering eight spirits alongside her mentor, this Final Fantasy's Cid (Sutherland). It sounds like standard JRPG stuff, which it is, but it's GOOD JRPG stuff.

The plot has a stereotypical megalomaniac villain bent on destroying the world, an inhumane traitor, a standard trigger-happy military baddie named General Hein (Woods). It's incredibly one-dimensional - stupid, stubborn, and unrelenting, stepping on anyone who gets in its way. Its comeuppance isn't as satisfying as it could've been, largely because it got its way and almost actually destroyed the planet (though thinking it was being a hero), then simply blew up with its beloved cannon. No boss fight with the bastard, even though he destroyed the city by allowing the Phantoms in for no reason. He wanted to prove a point, but he ended up proving a completely different one instead. Whoops! I do hope that Aki set the record straight and made it clear that he was the one who almost caused the planet to blow up while the Council was on it. Why Keith David was okay with letting him fire that cannon is beyond me.

You also can't not mention how many JRPG cliches are in here. A romance between the two leads, Aki and Grey (Baldwin). They sure argue like a couple! "Courage is the magic that turns dreams into reality" stuff. Sacrifice (honestly, it would've hit me harder if Ryan, Jane, and Neil had a little more story to them). Evil wins, then suddenly doesn't. The plot necessitating a necessity that was in fact only necessary because it was necessary (Grey sacrificing himself to the spirits to send all the aliens). You all have played JRPGs before. You know what I mean. These are used because they actually work... well, some of them. The "...and then a miracle occurs..." part I could've done without. I did mistakenly conclude that Aki was gonna die in the Tucson sequence. Was surprised that it wasn't her giving herself up.

So the story's nothing special. The characters really aren't either. But, back to the good, the character design is absurdly detailed, and it's incredible how this actually came together - it's just that it was a wee bit too expensive for what it was, and this caused it to lose significant money at the box office, which thus made it so this is a standalone. Dr. Aki Ross was supposed to appear in more movies - at least the character model was, and trust me, she looks real. The other characters are less remarkable, save for Hein, but the animation and environments make up for it. It's true cinematic marvel that so happens to have words and some semblance of a story, and that's really the best way to sum this up. I can't give this anything but a 3/5 for that reason - there's nothing story-wise to make me itch to come back, but if I wanna watch some cinema porn, this one is definitely an option.

@Robazoid @Mobilezoid not sure which account I should be tagging here, but I thought I would. If you wanna nominate something else, feel free!

I mostly nominated it because Max from the video game Life is Strange thinks its one of the best sci-fi films ever made, but I remember enjoying Spirits Within myself too! Granted it came out when I was a kid and I haven't seen it since then, but, still. It really was a technical marvel when it came out, and one bit of the ending managed to stick with me all these years when the main guy says he finally believes, right before sacrificing himself. It wasn't super amazing or anything, but I think it gets too much flak just because people blame it for killing the old Square.

Anyway, glad you watched it! I'll try to think of another movie

Robazoid posted...

I mostly nominated it because Max from the video game Life is Strange thinks its one of the best sci-fi films ever made

Yup, she's got a valid opinion there, from the technical viewpoint of how it's gorgeous and engaging to watch. Life Is Strange is awesome too, of course. Well... the first one and its prequel, anyway. Haven't played True Colors yet, but LIS2 sucked.

It really was a technical marvel when it came out, and one bit of the ending managed to stick with me all these years when the main guy says he finally believes, right before sacrificing himself. It wasn't super amazing or anything, but I think it gets too much flak just because people blame it for killing the old Square.

That was the best part of the ending. Can see why it stuck with you! And you're probably right that it gets flak because it flopped and took parts of Square down with it, and those people weren't fond of the Square/Enix merger. This doesn't change that it's a technical marvel and I really think it should've 100% been the visual baseline for sci-fi movies until Avatar came out. I can't think of anything else that compares from a visual/technical standpoint. But sadly, since this one failed financially... (I'm surprised nobody else gave this model a chance for a non-Final Fantasy movie tbh). Thanks for nominating it btw!

I do plan on watching one more tomorrow (today now, technically). Wanna try to get 5 in this week, as well as finishing Zestiria so that project can be done with. Which means I should be able to watch more regularly too since I won't be recapping any game-playing.

Fight Club (1999)
Directed by: David Fincher
Written by: Chuck Palahniuk; adapted by Jim Uhls
Starring: Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter, Meat Loaf
Previous status: May have seen back in 2008, but IDK

"The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club."

I'll be breaking that rule right now, thank you very much.

What. A. Ride. Like seriously. I went from feelings of ambivalence, to loving it, to having no idea what the fuck I was watching, to loving it again, to STILL processing all this. Like what the hell was that twist? Like... FOR REAL?

tbh, I should've seen it coming when he beat himself up in his boss's office, playing mind games with mind control games, but I so did not see that coming. Dissociative identity disorder as a twist for a thriller's central psychopath, when ALL evidence until that point says otherwise, is just NUTS. Like... how did Tyler know about Jack, yet Jack didn't know about Tyler? I get that Jack was meant to be an unreliable narrator - that was established quickly with the time-skips, the cold open (which was easy to forget about fast), and him changing identities for each support group he went to. Cornelius be damned.

The honest truth of the matter is that this is what American Psycho was trying to be; from a film standpoint, it was based on a book much more adaptable into a movie, a movie that did not lose its identity with the loss of a first-person perspective. I think it's because Fight Club actually still has that narration, whereas American Psycho often carries it through conversation. Both movies have societal commentary, each about a different decade, but this one does it better, showing that being free from consumerism doesn't make you free in general - in fact, the guys who broke from it were instead enslaved to a different cause, a criminal one at that. By being zombies to vandalism, they're bound just the same as working for "the man" with the main difference being that office work is more disguised in its corruption instead of openly so.

My initial reaction to the shirtless guys was... not ideal, honestly. I'm not gay. I like looking at beautiful women, and often turn the other way when a shirtless dude comes out of a locker room shower. This is that kind of thing, but it quickly started to click as I recognized that the club itself was a way for Jack to fight his insomnia, to give him a sense of purpose, a way to release his emotions similarly to crying about guys who were castrated because of cancer. In fact....
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/1/6/AAR0ZFAAD76I.jpg

Yup, it got me to realize I could be taking out aggression by punching something, instead of ventilating it through my mouth, instead of crying about things like being alone. This, however, is a material good I am examining, which feels contradictory to the point the movie is making about what I will refer to as, to reference Brad Pitt's completely different yet still just-as-brilliant performance from Burn After Reading, "shit." Pitt's Tyler says "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." and he's certainly correct about that, but we're only free to do anything because we've lost everything. We can still put our minds forward to do things while still having shit, like Jack does with quitting his job and utilizing a severance package for the betterment of Fight Club. I don't work right now, and I don't feel free. I feel bored, because I lack the money to do stuff, and am thus frugal. But it's the point about trying to be in control, and to just let go, that makes sense to me. I have too much anger and depression pent up inside me. I need to let it all out. I need to stop trying to control the things I can't. Not gonna resort to Project Mayhem, though, as that'll land me in jail. The cops won't be in on it like they were here.

But right now I am still buzzing about what was real, and what wasn't. Did Jack/Tyler actually go without sleep? How did he manage to be in two places at once? How did he start a club by beating himself up? How did Meat Loaf's Bob Paulsen not recognize "Cornelius" as Tyler? Why did Tyler blow up what was essentially his own condo (a twist I 100% saw coming pretty quickly)? How were the two selves able to communicate if they were the same person? How did Jack get in control of the gun from Tyler? How did the gun kill Tyler but not Jack? How insane was this guy? Like seriously. I have a character with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and his two selves are aware of each other, and it feels like he's eerily able to change at will.

That mindfuck brilliance aside (I really oughta read the book; the only Palahniuk I've read is Snuff, which was back in college right after it came out... yes they made me read a porn book in my Cont Lit class), there are a lot of little details here, like the breath in "The Cave" and all the dark effects to make the movie reflect its tone. Lots of nice special effects, and funny little details like Jack's head hitting the ticket button in the parking garage fight. And soap made from human fat sold to humans to use on their skin, which was a hilarious point about material goods. You really don't have to spend $30 for a bar of soap if you can get one for $3 that does its job.

Really, this was a fun watch. I enjoyed the hell out of this ride, and am still stunned by that plot twist. I also like how it wasn't right at the end of the film, and there was time for it to unravel. And I really found myself identifying with Jack quite a bit (though not always). I really can't give this anything but a 5/5, and, even if there were bits I hated, make it gold. I'll be coming back to this. Though IDK about reading the book if I know the twist.

@Snake5555555555 @junk_funk you each get a new nomination!

Next one should be Thursday. Not sure what yet.

Part of me wonders if The Spirits Within would have done better at the box office if it featured established characters from the games instead of taking the game approach of introducing a new cast and world with each new game. Would Advent Children, as a sequel to Final Fantasy VII, the most well-known and iconic instalment of the series, have done better in place of The Spirits Within?

I rewatched it recently and yeah it blew me away all over again. Love when that happens.

Pretty in Pink

I don't think I've used noms yet so let's put in The Usual Suspects

Maniac64 posted...

I don't think I've used noms yet so let's put in The Usual Suspects

I don't own that one, but it looks like you can watch it on Amazon Prime, so if anyone else wants to second this, I will add it! (IIRC, I saw it at PrePlayed but decided against it because of a certain dickwad starring in it).

Will be back in a little to recap the one I'm about to watch...