The Berlin Syndrome:
I thought it was great. Theresa Palmer I enjoy in most things and she is great in this. Really if you didn't know what the movie was about, you wouldn't really expect the sharp turn into crazy town it goes. My only real issue with the movie was that it did feel a bit overly long. It was a two hour movie that I think they could have condensed into 90 minutes and it not taken away anything. I give it a B- .

I would personally disown any young family member who wasn't engrossed in the Lion King. Life's too short to have toxic people in your life.

Lion King can still tug at my heart strings and bring out some tears. Every time Mufasa kicks the bucket and that bastard scar tells Simba that he's to blame and must run away...oh fuck you scar! The songs are pretty sweet and Nala's fuck me eyes to Simba, it's all really enjoyable. To me it's still the best animated Disney jam.

Caught Black Panther, Marvel does it yet again. Great flick, entertaining performances, solid story, some good action, just entertaining almost start to finish. A few lulls, but nothing too tedious. 8/10

Starting to miss having cable so I bought a subscription to Starz through my Amazon Prime account and I picked up a DVD box set of the full Married With Children series, my go to show to watch when I get up early enough to enjoy a cup of coffee before I'm off to work. It's really the perfect 5:30 AM show that puts me in a good mood for work, nice for a few laughs and some eye candy in Kelly Bundy. I used to watch this on TBS in the mornings but it's like they kept repeating the same dozen or so episodes over and over again, now I have every episode to watch whenever the fuck I want to without using the internet. The packaging for the set is garbage though, all the dvd's are in paper sleeves.

But Starz is pretty sweet. It's much better than Showtime and HBO for what I'm into(80's and 90's movies). I watched Raising Cain with John Lithgow doing split personalities. This was directed by Brian Depalma however you spell his name, he directed Scarface and Carlito's Way. This movie was really not good at all, even though Lithgow however you spell it was pretty good playing all these different characters. The way they told the story just could have been way better.

Also recently watched Hard Rain, slightly above average 90's action movie that I'd take over a majority of action movies released in the past couple of decades. Morgan Freeman is interesting playing the heel plus you got Christian Slater. Story is very unique and original and moves along at a nice pace, I like the part where they are riding their boats through the cemetary and it's flooded so much that the caskets are popping out of the ground and floating around, that was a nice setting.

And I watched the 1989 Punisher movie. Always really loved this one. I remember my parents renting this as a brand new release, this was what got me into the Punisher comic books when I was a kid(Punisher, Ghost Rider, and X-Men comic books were my jam). The movie has a lot of flaws but it's the story that makes it great for an action movie and the stories like this are the reason why I prefer older movies over newer ones. The Punisher has wreaked so much havoc on the crime bosses of the city that they've weakened to a state where the Japanese Yakuza comes in and takes them over and kidnaps all their children to hold hostage. So the Punisher's actions directly led to these innocent children suffering so he has to save them even though he's not that type of hero, he's just a vigilante that kills people that got it coming to them. Dolph Lundgren is great for the role but holy shit his acting is pretty bad, still a very awesome 80's action movie. They just don't know how to make action movies anymore, too busy molesting each other out there I guess, bunch of fucking weirdos in hollywood now don't know how to make a movie. So many of the movies released in the last 18 years are so fucking disposable, use once and destroy. 

I watched Fear last night on Starz, I'm going to say this probably came out in 1995 or 96 judging by the music and clothes, it has super young Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon and a smoking hot Alyssa Milano, plus that one guy from Manhunter/CSI and Robert Deniro's girl from Heat. I loved this movie even though it's really corny at times, Wahlberg is great. I love the scene where he's trying to get in the house and he screams into the peep hole "NOW OPEN THE FUCKING DOOR!". :lol: Great stuff.

Just watched Three Billboards... what the fuck was that?!? I was entertained throughout but holy shit half that movie makes no sense.

I have loved Rockwell and McDormamd forever, but I’m a little sad they’re getting all the awards when I liked Woody’s performance more.

Woody was well casted, but it wasn't a stretch for him to play a beloved community figure. Meanwhile Rockwell & McDormand had to play characters that developed over the course of the film.

The scene that really threw me off was when Rockwell threw Landry Jones through a second story window and only lost his job. I suppose Landry Jones took pity on him after Rockwell was caught up in the fire and it was playing on the message of the film, but it seemed too on the nose.

I'm going to be very interested to see what the reaction will be when it takes best picture. I would not be surprised if in a year or two, we see complaints about 'Get Out' or 'Call Me Your Name' being snubbed. I would argue that Dunkirk makes the best use of the form, but it's seemingly been written off as a meat & potatos war movie.

As long as The Darkest Hour doesn't take it out, I'll be cool with anything.

The window was about my breaking point in the movie making no sense. The reaction to it having no consequence was what really killed much credibility with the reality of the situation.

I love Rockwell, but found myself frequently confused by if his character was drunk, dumb, or disabled. I’m not sure if that’s his fault or the scripts, but I just wasn’t wowed by any moment of his acting and never got his character until they introduced narration to explain him.

I thought the movie was entertaining and an interesting commentary on anger accomplishing little, but Get Out was more consistently great. I haven’t seen Shape of Water, but I’d be a little disappointed in the academy if they gave it to Billboards.

Watched V/H/S: Viral. In a series that set the bar extremely low, Viral doesn't even come close to reaching it. Not a single watchable thing about this movie. There also wasn't a single fucking VHS in the entire damn thing. 1/10 (the one is because the acting was competent).

One of the channels I pick up with my antenna was playing Charles Bronson movies all day yesterday. I caught Death Wish 5 last night. I honestly have never gotten into the Death Wish movies. My dad was a big fan but they were just a bit before my time I guess, I couldn't get into them. Death Wish 5 though I've always really liked, this one came out in like 1994 and is really solid, Bronson goes around getting revenge by taking out mafia wise guys. This was easily the best Death Wish movie imo, I love Bronson's lines before he off's the bad guys. 

Another Bronson movie came on last night called 10 To Midnight. I had never heard of this before but I seen that it was a Cannon Films movie in the opening credits so I stayed up to watch it. The opening few minutes was really intriguing to me because the killer was a very interesting character. The movie falls flatter than hell really fast though, I ended up falling asleep about an hour or so into it.

Charles Bronson reminds me very much of Steven Seagal in his straight-to-DVD phase of his career, dude just does as little as he possibly can to get through a movie, it's like he never raises his voice above a whisper and you never see him in any action scenes(stunt double), he barely moves or makes any facial expressions.

Mar 5, 2018 0:33:06 GMT mikec said:

The window was about my breaking point in the movie making no sense. The reaction to it having no consequence was what really killed much credibility with the reality of the situation.

I love Rockwell, but found myself frequently confused by if his character was drunk, dumb, or disabled. I’m not sure if that’s his fault or the scripts, but I just wasn’t wowed by any moment of his acting and never got his character until they introduced narration to explain him.

I thought the movie was entertaining and an interesting commentary on anger accomplishing little, but Get Out was more consistently great. I haven’t seen Shape of Water, but I’d be a little disappointed in the academy if they gave it to Billboards.

I thought they avoided some insightful commentary by hand waving the entire issue involving Landry Jones. Had they actually used it as a turning point for how the police were perceived in the town and even Woody's legacy as the figurehead. Meanwhile Frances' character could be struggling with it because really what does it matter if the police are incompetent? It isn't going to bring her family any resolution. I think all of that would have been more interesting than Rockwell getting burnt, Landry Jones giving him something to drink and the whole red herring situation at the bar.

Rockwell brought sympathy to an incredibly flawed character. It would have been so easy to have seen him as a two dimensional racist cop, but he's really just a manchild who was dealt a shitty hand and doesn't know how to deal with it. Withholding that information was supposed to help with the character's growth, but I agree it may have been too little too late. Still, I don't mind Rockwell being recognised by the academy. He's been doing great work for years now, hopefully Jenkins can receive recognition for another role.

Lars and the Real Girl - First heard of this movie thanks to the romcom countdown and decided I needed to see it. Like it a lot, although I'm a little annoyed we get the happily ever after I was hoping for (Lars and Biancia together forever) but I suppose synthetic love is just not something we can expect in the mainstream.

One of the channels I pick up with my antenna played two very interesting movies that I had never seen or heard of before late last night. The first one was a 1989 crime drama called "Johnny Handsome", starring Mickey Rourke, Lance Henrickson, Morgan Freeman, and Forrest Whitaker. This movie wasn't anything special, I'd probably give it a 6/10 or 7/10, solid but not great. There was something about it though that really stood out, there was this really great dreary sound to the music that really gave it a great atmosphere, this droning guitar sound that I can't really describe. It sounded really familiar to me so I looked this movie up and found out that it was directed by Walter Hill, the same director that did the 1992 action movie called Trespass that I previously wrote about in this thread. That movie had the exact same type of sound to it that really benefited the atmosphere of the movie. I found out the same guy did the music for both movies, Ry Cooder. Also found out that Walter Hill directed Crossroads(1986) which is one of my favorite movies, and he directed a few episodes of Tales From The Crypt. 

I actually watched Trespass again about a week ago, this time I watched it with my little brother on the Starz channel I recently subscribed to. I couldn't help but notice that the movie really lost some of it's grit compared to the VHS version. Something about the way it looks, it just lost something in the transition to HD on this format, on VHS it just has a visual tone to it that really gives it a certain charm that works with the overall grittiness of the movie, in digital HD form it has a certain weird glow to it like a soap opera on TV. Also can't help but notice the older Disney movies looks great on VHS, almost like the fuzzy look gives it a certain tone that adds to the charm and maybe some of that is lost in the transition to HD/DVD/Blu Ray etc, while on the other side of it the Pixar movies I have on VHS like Monsters Inc. and Toy Story 2 just don't have the same visual pop to them that they would in HD/DVD. 

Ok back to my original point of this post, later last night after Johnny Handsome another very interesting movie came on called Backtrack from 1990, starring Jodie Foster, Dennis Hopper(who also directed it), Vincent Price, then you had Dean Stockwell who played Al in Quantum Leap, and also the guy who plays Paulie Walnuts from Sopranos. Also has Jesus from The Big Lebowski, plus Charlie Sheen and Joe Pesci also appear in the movie in minor roles. This was actually pretty good. I fell asleep and missed the end, definitely going to look this up and watch it sometime. 

I watched They Live yesterday on Starz for the first time in ages. My god it's the fucking perfect 80's movie, thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it, 10/10, 5 Stars, they don't make'em like they used to.

IT:
The newest adaption. What can I say, it was awesome. I did automatically feel weirded out by all the kids hanging out in their underwear though. I guess it's just all the Hollywood sex scandal stuff that just made it more glaring than it probably otherwise would have been. Anyways the updated pennywise was really good and the kid actors all did great. So I'm pumped for chapter 2 and interested to see how it plays out. I know I read that the kids will also be back in flashbacks...I don't know if that means just flashbacks of what we already saw which would be fucking dumb or new flashbacks which would seem odd as it seems they hit all the flashback worthy moments the kids would have in this installment. A+

Also had a date last night and decided to check out The Strangers: Prey At Night...oh man, what a piece of shit. This felt like a direct to video kind of sequel. There is really no bridge to the first and the pacing is tiresome and the movie tended to focus on the characters I didn't care as much about. The entire last 40 minutes just felt like screaming and running away from a knifed killer. There was just no heart or imagination. Also in the first installment, the killers at least seemed grounded in reality somewhat. In this installment they just throw that shit out the window and pretty much make them invincible. Also our victims are stupid even by horror movie standards. There was nothing intense about this. The first at least had that but this had nothing. It was just boring. D-

Just got back from Game Night. It was great. Laughed pretty good throughout most of it. Definitely recommend.

I watched Firestorm on Starz last night, this was from like 1997 with Howie Long and William Forsythe. I haven't seen it probably since it was a new release VHS or maybe it aired on FOX once maybe in 98 or 99. The first 20 minutes or so I'm thinking damn, this is a forgotten hidden gem action movie from the 90's. This thing goes off the fucking rails quick though, some terrible acting and some really corny moments(and some horrendous CGI), I laughed pretty hard. This was so bad it was good. Poor Howie Long deserved so much better than this, he could have been a solid b-movie action star, I think this movie squashed any chances of that happening.

Mar 4, 2018 7:14:19 GMT Big Pete said:

Woody was well casted, but it wasn't a stretch for him to play a beloved community figure. Meanwhile Rockwell & McDormand had to play characters that developed over the course of the film.

The scene that really threw me off was when Rockwell threw Landry Jones through a second story window and only lost his job. I suppose Landry Jones took pity on him after Rockwell was caught up in the fire and it was playing on the message of the film, but it seemed too on the nose.

I'm going to be very interested to see what the reaction will be when it takes best picture. I would not be surprised if in a year or two, we see complaints about 'Get Out' or 'Call Me Your Name' being snubbed. I would argue that Dunkirk makes the best use of the form, but it's seemingly been written off as a meat & potatos war movie.

As long as The Darkest Hour doesn't take it out, I'll be cool with anything.

Three Billboards.. was robbed!

Shape of Water was 6/10 at best in my opinion. It just splashed in themes of racism and homophobia and won best picture, would not have even been nominated without those elements IMO.

Isn't that something it has in common with Three Billboards then?

Mar 11, 2018 7:42:44 GMT Big Pete said:

Isn't that something it has in common with Three Billboards then?

Yes, but it actually ties into the story well, it’s just so obviously thrown into The Shape of Water for the Oscar bait. Otherwise it would just be seen as an odd fantasy film IMO.

Both films suffered for it. Three Billboards was so overt with it's messages that it was painful at times and took away from the performances and better comedic moments. The biggest issue with Three Billboards is that it presents this ultra gritty movie, and then has characters commit these awful acts in full view of the public and little is done about it.

I wasn't blown away by either movie - Dunkirk was an excellent genre movie that was incredibly well done. However, since it didn't pad it's story out with shit backstories the academy couldn't get into it.

That is what I hated about Dunkirk so I'm with the academy on this one. I really couldn't connect to any of the characters really like I could in lets say Hacksaw Ridge or Saving Private Ryan and that is a big thing for me. This movie is far shorter than both of those movies but somehow felt waaaay longer. I just couldn't get into Dunkirk at all.

I heard that the dissonance may have been caused by watching it on TV instead of watching it in theatres. I can't relate at all about it feeling long, it felt exactly right at 90 minutes and it captured how chaotic war can be. There wasn't a time to reflect on what had happened, characters just had to do whatever they could to survive.

I loved the use of long takes as well. In terms of using the cinematic language to tell it's story, none of the other films did as well as Dunkirk. My only gripe is that it was a genre film. That and the section about the 'newspaper' felt like a 'fuck you, here's your precious characterization moment, now buzz off'.

I haven't seen Shape of Water yet but the rest of them went like this for me:

1. Dunkirk
2. Ladybird
3. Get Out
4. The Post
5. Three Billboards
6. Phantom Thread
7. The Darkest Hour
8. Call Me By Your Name

I thought both The Darkest Hour and Call Me By Your Name were terrible. Not the strongest of years.

I really wanted to give Call Me By Your Name a fair chance, but I couldn't stand Chamelet's character. Were we supposed to find his bratty tendencies interesting? Were we supposed to relate to his exotic lifestyle?

I thought I may have missed some really powerful scenes about internalized homophobia, but reading around even gay people found it intolerable.

The Show:
It was a little hammy and a little on the nose with it's "society loves violence" message but overall it kept me engaged from start to finish. I will say this is probably Josh Duhamel's best acted movie. Which isn't saying a ton but he's enjoyable here. This is also directed by Giancarlo Esposito of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fame and he also stars in it. It's not amazing but worth checking out. I give it a C+

Brawl in Cell Block 99

I had heard good things about this film so I gave it a shot on Amazon Prime. I'll admit it started off a little slow but it really picks up as it progresses and gets really intense. Vince Vaughn was great as the lead character, Don Johnson is in this and he was good too as was Jennifer Carpenter, who was Dexter's sister Debra on that show for those that don't know. It is pretty violent at times and brutal with the violence, so if that isn't your thing then you probably won't like this, I personally don't mind that stuff so I really liked this film.

4/5

Mar 11, 2018 20:56:00 GMT Jason said:

Brawl in Cell Block 99

I had heard good things about this film so I gave it a shot on Amazon Prime. I'll admit it started off a little slow but it really picks up as it progresses and gets really intense. Vince Vaughn was great as the lead character, Don Johnson is in this and he was good too as was Jennifer Carpenter, who was Dexter's sister Debra on that show for those that don't know. It is pretty violent at times and brutal with the violence, so if that isn't your thing then you probably won't like this, I personally don't mind that stuff so I really liked this film.

4/5

Yeah man, feel ya.  I thought a lot of fun was to be had with it.  

Also I dig your banner.  

I just got back from the Korean theater near my apartment and I was completely blown away. I cannot recommend the movie I saw enough. It was called Golden Slumber. I watch a movie at this theater like once a month and I don't think I have ever seen a film that wasn't really good there. The Korean film industry as a whole tends to be incredibly solid, but this was good even by those standards.



It's basically like...a Bourne movie mixed with Disney style warmheartedness. I don't know, it sounds weird...but Korea just makes movies work. I don't want to say more because I don't want to spoil things, but I strongly recommend it to everyone...then again I'm not sure how anyone would watch it...unless they are near LA where the only two Korean CGV theaters in the country are.

Well, I think it will remain my #1 favorite movie of this year.