Trying to stay on top of this tide

[trinityvixen]

Instead of doing a year-end dump, I thought I might review the oodles of movies I manage to watch on a month-to-month basis. Of course, I'm half a month late already, but, still, I'm going to try. I'll try to keep it short, too.

Only You: I've got to stop watching young Robert Downey Jr. movies because his schtick has only become tolerable as he's aged.

Thirst: I've said it before, I'll say it again: Korean movies seem to be UNIVERSALLY fucked up.

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies: This movie was awful, but it takes a special kind of loathsome terribleness to make both myself and darkling1 cry out in horror, wincing and making the sign of the cross against what we were seeing.

Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson: I think I could have learned more about him if they'd done more clips of him talking; from other documentaries I've seen with him in it, he speaks for and about himself better than others do.

Sunshine Cleaning: Meh.

The Hangover: Dear God, I did not want to like or laugh at this movie, especially not as I watched it with my Dad in the room, but I surely did. ("Holy shit, there's a tiger in the bathroom!")

Beautiful Creatures: I actually thought I'd taped Heavenly Creatures, so I was confused but not entirely bored when this movie happened instead.

Beowulf: This movie is why I cut Avatar so much slack on all its weaknesses as a film--because at least Avatar made its fake characters look like they could possibly be alive. ::shudders::

For Your Consideration: Really weak outing by the normally fantastic Guest faux-documentary crew. Disappointing.

Out of Africa: Very good but far too long and far too...highbrow for me to SWOON over it. (I acknowledge and recognize it as a good film, but I'll never love it.)

G.I. Joe: Resolute: Some nerd website promised that this would be better than that horrible live-action movie. They fucking lied.

The Thing: Awesome. I'll not hear a bad word about this film. It's a perfect storm of gross-out, paranoia, and humor. Loved it.

Daybreakers: Interesting concept, but this vampire movie was much more notable for something unrelated to vampirism: it did not feature, at any time, a romance subplot. For that alone, I liked it.

Ed Wood: I simultaneously wanted this movie to be zanier and less.

Absolute Garbage: Would have been nice if there was actually a documentary in there instead of news clips about the band.

Sherlock Holmes: Like Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, this movie should not have been able to make the hodge-podge of disparate images from the trailer work but it managed, admirably.

High Tension: Aside from the cop-out ending, it was a nearly perfect way to have a horror movie in which neither the killer nor the victim were idiots. Shame about that ending.

Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder: The bad parts were easily the worst parts of any Futurama movie to date (worse, they were also lazy and overused sexist "jokes"), but overall it's probably the easiest to watch and filled its time the best.

Comments

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

I could not get into those Futurama films. I've only seen the first two and while those aren't terrible terrible, they fuck with the Holiness of the original series enough for me to be pissed at them. Those movies are a large reason I'm not interested in the show being picked up again.

I found High Tension to be really predictable. But the tension buildups were amazingly done, I just wish I could've got into the story more.

The Thing! I HEART THAT MOVIE A LOT. Despite being an amazingly bleak film, it still has some funny moments: "I do not want to spend the rest of this winter TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!"

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

The Futurama films just demonstrated the power of the show is all within the 30 minute installment plan. All of them felt like they were disconnected, usually at the 30 minute marks. This last one was one of the better ones, if not the best. However, I say that and still warn against the gratingly sexist jokes that they didn't even seem to care about making in the first place.

High Tension was remarkable, to me, for the fifteen minutes wherein the killer comes into the house and the girl manages to disguise her presence. Because she doesn't rush out to help or run screaming into the night or a hundred other things that would just get her killed. She manages to figure out, in a short span of time, that she needs to hide her presence if she wants to do anyone any good. And she's right. The fact that the killer still checks on all the ridiculous things that she does to disguise her presence gave me chills. It was a cat-and-mouse that was worth watching.

And they ruined it with the ending. Blah.

The Thing was made of love for me. I wish I'd had the time to go back over watching it with the commentary because John Carpenter and Kurt Russell had some fun things to say (or so I gathered from the 30 mins or so I listened to). Some gems: one, they were very aware that this was not only a movie only about men but that there were no women making the movie either; and two, they gave up much love to all the supporting players, especially Keith David, just proving their good taste. It's rare that someone can be so entertaining by basically love-festing on their own movie, but they were very good.

And the movie? To die.

[saturn-shumba.livejournal.com]

gratingly sexist jokes that they didn't even seem to care about making in the first place.

That's really depressing. I expected better from you, Futurama!

The commentary for The Thing is fantastic. Seriously, one of my favorite commentaries ever. They do a good job of reflecting on the filming and also discussing the themes the movie presented. And there's a lot of giggling by Kurt Russell when something gets particularly gruesome.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

Kurt Russell giggles? This revelation will make it so hard to watch Escape from NY/LA again!

Which? I hear they're remaking...??? Not happy about that one..

[droidguy1119.livejournal.com]

The one bit of silver lining to the Escape From New York remake is that New Line, to get the rights, had to sign a contract with John Carpenter that stated that the lead 1) "must always be called Snake", 2) "must wear an eye-patch", and 3) "must always be bad-ass".

I would recommend the John Carpenter 4 Film Collection, but The Thing, while it has the best transfer you'll find of it on DVD, does not have any bonus features. For the other three (They Live, the underrated Prince of Darkness, and Village of the Damned), it doesn't matter, because there were never any US extras, but The Thing is stripped.

[edgehopper.livejournal.com]

Re: Futurama - Into the Wild Green Yonder may be the only movie that is watchable despite going straight downhill from the first instant, i.e., dQuality/dt < 0 for all t. The title song is outstanding, the gambling scenes are great, then we move into meh mini-golf, and then into the terrible sex/environment sections. Maybe if we stop it right after they dig up Bender--that's a pretty clear break point.

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

That pretty much describes all the Futurama movies to me. I think it's clear that their situations last only so long before they collapse under the weight of their own ridiculousness. Here's hoping for a return to form with the new series.

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

I think we have the Kevin J. Anderson novelization of the Superman/Batman movie on our shelf. Despite my locust-like reading habits, consuming all in my path, I refuse to read that book. (Chuckro hasn't read it yet. His father dumped it on us.)

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

See, if the movie had been written by him, it would explain why it sucked so very hard. But supposedly the guy who did the comic wrote the screenplay, which makes me very scared for the state of comics today, let me tell you.

You know it's going to be a bad movie when you have to shout at the screen for roughly 30 minutes of a 70 minute movie, "YOU CAN FLY, SUPERMAN. STOP LETTING YOURSELF BE BEATEN UP BY PEOPLE WHO CAN'T." I think Batman flew around more than Superman did. And that wasn't even what made my soul die about this movie. ::shudder::