Dec 14, 2021 2:48:52 GMT 🤯 said:

Dec 14, 2021 2:47:43 GMT UT said:

Do it bro! My second favorite behind the almost House of Roads.

Where does Red Dawn slot in? I've only seen the remake, and for how much I surprisingly enjoyed that, I bet the original would slay me.

The remake was like Red Dawn with a sugar coating...original definitely feels more weighty, where the remake is pretty much just a straight forward action flick. Original had some grit to it. Definitely OG all the way.

JFK was so fucking boring. May have been a good 90 minute film in it, but not a near four hour one.

The only of Stone's political biopics I liked was Nixon.  

Frozen (2013)
Yeah I'm nearly a decade late but it's the winter season so I decided to check this out with the girlfriend. It's fine. Just OK. It was entertaining and a good family film but didn't carry much emotional heft, even though it tried. The only standout feature was Olaf the snowman, wonderfully entertaining. Everything else was just fine. Oh, and "Let It Go" is a fantastic song and fully deserving of all the hype it received.

A Fish Called Wanda (John Cleese, 1988)
For those who don't know, John Cleese is one of the members of Monty Python. For those who don't know, Monty Python is a British comedy group who made numerous TV shows and films in the 70s and 80s. For those who don't know, comedy is a form of entertainment designed to invoke laughter.

Despite the connection to Monty Python, this is not a Monty Python film. Certainly it has an essence of the English goofiness of Python, but in general it is its own film whose humour is not overly British. A crime caper with an interesting plot and some remarkable characters. For instance a criminal with an exaggerated stutter plays host to several gags. It has much more of a professional sheen than the comparatively amateurish Python films. Also has a big star in Jamie Lee Curtis, who is omnipresent in the plot and weaves the male characters around her little finger. She absolutely steals the show.

Bit of a deep cut but it has a cult reputation in Britain and well worth checking out.

Love Actually
Has there ever been a bigger ensemble cast in a worse movie? Because I can’t think of one. Holy hell is this one boring.

I watched it a long time ago and didn’t remember it. Mrs RT was in the same boat. She wanted to watch a romantic Christmas movie today so we threw it on. 1 hr 15 mins into the movie she shut it off and was like “I don’t remember that movie being that boring.” I was being polite and trying to enjoy it but was thankful she came to her senses and turned it off.

Dec 11, 2021 15:20:55 GMT rad said:

The Humans will convince you of one thing: that movie critics are stupid and pretentious. The fact that Amy Schumer isn't even the worst part of this movie is just mind-boggling. The sheer nothingness you endure while waiting for just something to happen that never does is.

It was apparently a play originally and won a Tony somehow. It's literally just a film about nothing other than Thanksgiving drama unfolding within a spoopy NYC apartment. That's it.

Insert some "iT pErFeCtLy eNcApsUlAteS tHe hUmAn eXpeRieNcE" bullshit praise. No offense to the actors, they were perfectly fine here and the cinematography was well done. But... My god, I don't understand people who gave this a 6/7 on IMDB. Don't waste your time. (2/10)

I watched Trainwreck. Although. Amy Schumer had some tinder moments, she ranged from annoying to unlikeable for me.

Matrix is a wild film. REALLY good cyberpunk story. Really stupid move to push it back against spooderman though.

Dec 20, 2021 0:20:55 GMT RT said:

Love Actually
Has there ever been a bigger ensemble cast in a worse movie? Because I can’t think of one. Holy hell is this one boring.

Movie 43?

Dec 20, 2021 3:48:45 GMT RagnarokMike said:

Dec 20, 2021 0:20:55 GMT RT said:

Love Actually
Has there ever been a bigger ensemble cast in a worse movie? Because I can’t think of one. Holy hell is this one boring.

Movie 43?

Sure but, at least there was that supermarket scene with Emma Stone. I need another shower now. :lol:

Dec 20, 2021 0:20:55 GMT RT said:

Love Actually
Has there ever been a bigger ensemble cast in a worse movie? Because I can’t think of one. Holy hell is this one boring.

I watched it a long time ago and didn’t remember it. Mrs RT was in the same boat. She wanted to watch a romantic Christmas movie today so we threw it on. 1 hr 15 mins into the movie she shut it off and was like “I don’t remember that movie being that boring.” I was being polite and trying to enjoy it but was thankful she came to her senses and turned it off.

This post makes me sad.  I adore Love Actually.  It's no Family Man or White Christmas, but it's a fun, uplifting movie and one we watch yearly at Christmas.  

Dec 21, 2021 23:27:29 GMT iron maiden said:

Dec 20, 2021 0:20:55 GMT RT said:

Love Actually
Has there ever been a bigger ensemble cast in a worse movie? Because I can’t think of one. Holy hell is this one boring.

I watched it a long time ago and didn’t remember it. Mrs RT was in the same boat. She wanted to watch a romantic Christmas movie today so we threw it on. 1 hr 15 mins into the movie she shut it off and was like “I don’t remember that movie being that boring.” I was being polite and trying to enjoy it but was thankful she came to her senses and turned it off.

This post makes me sad.  I adore Love Actually.  It's no Family Man or White Christmas, but it's a fun, uplifting movie and one we watch yearly at Christmas.  

We watched Family Man last night. Wasn’t as good as I remember (saw it a long time ago) but it was fine. I felt bad for Tea Leoni by the end though. She should have gone to Paris! Screw Nic Cage! Miserable bum. He doesn’t deserve her.

The Last Duel:

Enjoyed it, pretty confronting and it’s sad a lot of this saw mentality still exists with a lot of people to this day. Shame Ridley Scott had to blame millennials for this flopping as if there’s is a huge market for a medieval rape film that it’s two and a hour hours long and only had limited showings.

SPOILER: Click to show

I thought the ending was going to go the other way as my friend did the classic “I want spoil it but the ending is messed up” thinking the villain would win, not referring to Driver’s gruesome death.

I mean, The Last Duel may have had some success if they like you know, did some marketing for it. When people first hear about a film from the director complaining about it doing badly it is a really bad sign.

Pig: I’d heard this was basically John Wick with a pig. It’s not that at all, even if I hadn’t been sold on it that way this movie is incredibly boring and I love all the out of left field Nicolas Cage movies. Basically Cage mumbling and looking defeated for an hour and half as people ramble on with shit.

Dec 22, 2021 6:21:19 GMT c said:

I mean, The Last Duel may have had some success if they like you know, did some marketing for it. When people first hear about a film from the director complaining about it doing badly it is a really bad sign.

Exactly.

To be fair I saw a decent amount of trailers for it, however I go to the cinema a lot. It had limited sessions so couldn’t find a time that suited considering it’s long time so I skipped it.

Matrix Resurrections was okay enough, maybe the best of the sequels, but that’s not a high bar, still nowhere near as good as the original. Solid restart, not great.

A Christmas Story (Bob Clark, 1983)

8-Bit Christmas (Michael Dowse, 2021)

I'm doing a joint review because I see many similarities between these two family-friendly Christmas movies.

A Christmas Story is a story about a family at Christmas time. The story is told by an adult, narrating a particular childhood Christmas where he desperately wanted a toy rifle. 8-Bit Christmas is a story told by an adult, narrating a particular childhood Christmas where he desperately wanted a Nintendo Entertainment System. The stories follow these children, their families and friends through the Christmas period. Events unfold.

Narratively speaking, the main difference is that the toy rifle is not really the focus of A Christmas Story. It's just one of many subplots, for most of the film it's completely forgotten about. It's more of a jumpy sequence of short stories than a coherent narrative. 8-Bit Christmas is more focused on the Nintendo, which gives it more concentrated, linear plot, although it's not completely single-minded. Another difference is that we see the narrator in 8-Bit Christmas, played by the wonderful Neil Patrick Harris as he tells the story to his daughter. The narrator of A Christmas Story is unseen, speaking in a form of English that's charming but far too advanced for the younger portion of the film's audience.

Both movies hit the right notes, capturing the joy, laughter, love and craziness of the Christmas season. They both have a large cast of mostly children who get up to the things that children do in the snow. Both films have nasty bullies that receive their comeuppance, but in different ways. Both films are light-hearted, evoking laughter.

Where they differ is that A Christmas Story never really goes to that next level in terms of capturing that Christmas spirit. It's content to stay at its base level of light-hearted fun, without too much emotional depth. 8-Bit Christmas is similar for most of the film, but takes a more weighty path near the end, which is beautifully done, capturing the family love and coming together that, to many people, is the essence of Christmas, as opposed of the material gifts. Personally I prefer 8-Bit Christmas in that respect, although I'm certainly not knocking A Christmas Story, that film had a mission and it passed with flying colours.

A Christmas Story loses points for me because some of the 80s humour doesn't land, and there are a couple of politically incorrect moments that produce that kind of reluctant laughter we do when encountering casual racism in entertainment medium. Besides that, it's really charming. Meanwhile 8-Bit Christmas doesn't lose any points. It's basically perfect. The only criticism I can think of is that the bully is a metalhead, the only one in the movie, and I'm disgusted by how my kind has been represented. Just kidding. It's fine. Maybe.

Both films are awesome, but I enjoyed 8-Bit Christmas a little more. It's current, the video game nostalgia trip is great, and it's a little more weighty. Gotta say though they picked an awesome cast of kids for both movies.

Merry Christmas!

Don’t Look Up was a solid though entirely unsubtle satire of science denial and a post truth, social media obsessed, world.

Good performances all around. Not outright hilarious, but funny enough. Dragged a bit here and there, being somewhat long in the tooth, but mostly flows well. Wrapped things up nicely. Fairly, maybe even very, good…not quite great. But a pretty spot on satire.

Home Alone has some dumb moments but I still love it. The Wet Bandits are the worst thieves ever though. The amount of times they persist when 99.9% of burglars would have said "nah fuck this, time to find an easier mark" after just the first break-in attempt lol.

I also find myself hating Kevin's uncle more and more each year. He only has maybe 5-10 minutes of screen time and a paragraph of dialogue but it's just enough to majorly douche up the place.

John Candy was just kind of there in thr film when I was a kid. Now that I'm older, I always look forward to him showing up to whisk milf Moira Rose off her feet in a steady mobbin' polka van.

The Green Knight:

I normally love artsy pretentious wank fest style films but this was insanely boring and one of the most tedious movies I’ve ever seen.

How this is on top 10 lists of the year baffles me, it looks amazing but that’s it.

Mitchells vs The Machines - I found this film funny, watched it today when my Niece came to visit, and she demanded I watched it. Can't argue with that logic, I guess. As I said I enjoyed the film, animation was great....and it took me way longer than it should have to realise Danny McBride voiced the father. 


P.S I didn't like Furbys years ago, and I don't like them in this movie.....and why my niece asked why she didn't get one for Christmas. screw you film for that....

This year we watched four Christmas movies, ranked from beat to worst I’d go with -

Home Alone, Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, 8 Bit Christmas, Christmas Again

The first three are all pretty close and annual watches in the mikec house. My daughter hates A Christmas Story but needling her about it almost makes it better. The new movies were cute but not ones I’ll return to, though I will say the reveal with the present at the end of 8 Bit Christmas did tug on the heartstrings (though them bouncing up and down on the point during the dinner scene made it feel a little less poignant). Christmas Again was a Christmas kid ripoff of Groundhog Day but was fine for a Disney channel movie.

We also watched Sing 2 today. Improvement on the first which was one of my least favorite movies that my child has enjoyed rewatching.

I don’t know why so many artists want to dictate who their art should appeal to. I enjoyed the first Matrix film but I’m not a fan of the franchise, but it’s clear it wanted to beat everyone over the head with how much they hate their fanbase and even having to make said film.

If you’re going to spend the first act of your fourth film bashing the original and bashing certain people in your film’s fanbase don’t make the second and third act insufferably boring.

Dec 23, 2021 11:48:04 GMT RagnarokMike said:

Matrix Resurrections was okay enough, maybe the best of the sequels, but that’s not a high bar, still nowhere near as good as the original. Solid restart, not great.

Hoping not a restart, because that implies there will be a Matrix 5.

The writer pretty much said in the beginning that she had nothing more to say, and at that point the film shifted to what felt kinda like a band's farewell tour (play the familiar songs, Neo takes the red pill and wakes up, Agent Smith does the MISTER ANDERSON line, Morpheus does the kung fu training bit) and while the one-last-ride vibe was fun for what it was I dunno if I'd want more of that.

Dec 28, 2021 0:02:53 GMT Michinokudriver said:

Dec 23, 2021 11:48:04 GMT RagnarokMike said:

Matrix Resurrections was okay enough, maybe the best of the sequels, but that’s not a high bar, still nowhere near as good as the original. Solid restart, not great.

Hoping not a restart, because that implies there will be a Matrix 5.

The writer pretty much said in the beginning that she had nothing more to say, and at that point the film shifted to what felt kinda like a band's farewell tour (play the familiar songs, Neo takes the red pill and wakes up, Agent Smith does the MISTER ANDERSON line, Morpheus does the kung fu training bit) and while the one-last-ride vibe was fun for what it was I dunno if I'd want more of that.

If it is standalone, that makes it entirely useless, seeds a number of circumstances but then just fucks off into the sunset. So continued from a poor resolution for a poor resolution.

I was an enormous fan of the original Matrix, it was exactly the movie of my generation.
The sequels were wildly awful, but they stood in the shadow of the original.
Resurrections takes the original and pisses on it much in the way the Star Wars sequel brutalised the originals.

This seems to be what Lana needed to finish their personal transition story and they subjected Neo and Trinity to their fantasy.

Dec 28, 2021 12:05:50 GMT iNCY said:

I was an enormous fan of the original Matrix, it was exactly the movie of my generation.
The sequels were wildly awful, but they stood in the shadow of the original.
Resurrections takes the original and pisses on it much in the way the Star Wars sequel brutalised the originals.

This seems to be what Lana needed to finish their personal transition story and they subjected Neo and Trinity to their fantasy.

Please tell me the climax involves Neo cutting off his penis and Trinity stitching it over her vadge.

Dec 28, 2021 12:17:29 GMT 🤯 said:

Dec 28, 2021 12:05:50 GMT iNCY said:

I was an enormous fan of the original Matrix, it was exactly the movie of my generation.
The sequels were wildly awful, but they stood in the shadow of the original.
Resurrections takes the original and pisses on it much in the way the Star Wars sequel brutalised the originals.

This seems to be what Lana needed to finish their personal transition story and they subjected Neo and Trinity to their fantasy.

Please tell me the climax involves Neo cutting off his penis and Trinity stitching it over her vadge.

Metaphorically?... Pretty much

There will only ever be one Matrix movie.

I've read such mixed reviews of The Matrix I don't know what to believe. I've read everything from "it's the best Matrix movie," to "they literally took a shit in my mouth." And these are from various people with varying views on the original + sequels.

I'm easy to please though so I'll probably end up liking it. I liked the new Star Wars movies minus what they did to Luke. Even bringing the Emperor back from the dead didn't bother me all that much (even though it was stupid).

Death to 2021 on Netflix was fucking hilarious. For those who did not see Death to 2020 this is Charlie Brooker (Black Mirror) year in review series. It is a mix of real news footage, and real events as told by fake experts with fake footage from "people" who lived through them. Given it is British in nature, they give no fucks about the American divide and hit both sides hilariously.

Clip of it:

Watched Death to 2020 this morning and it was so savage. Def toned back a bit for 2021. Much stronger cast in 2020.