Kaos' way behind movie reviews

[wesfau2]

Thanks for this.  Probably my fave horror franchise...including 3.  Silver Shamrock, bitches.

[Kaos]

Thanks for this.  Probably my fave horror franchise...including 3.  Silver Shamrock, bitches.

I’m one of the few known fans of Halloween 3.  I thought it was a brave decision to take the series in a completely different direction and begin the process of creating different stories in the same horror world.  Carpenter gave us They Live The Thing, Philadelphia Experiment, Christine, and more - many of which could have been branded with a Halloween tag. 

I liked the movie from the start. And found myself on an island.  But the girl was hot - though I found her opting to fuck old grumpy a bit contrived.  She was hot. 

Funny how over the years I’ve seen references to that movie snuck into everything from Knight Rider to Mr. Robot.  Always get a kick out of seeing it. 

[GH2001]

Caught Halloween Kills yesterday as well.

I echo Kaos here. I loved it. Meaning - for what it is and what I was expecting. It does a great job with continuity and going back the 2018 and 1978 movies as K mentioned. Very few plot holes and very few complaints from me. It's just solid. Especially by todays horror/thriller standard. I really enjoyed it.

And I don't think this works without Jamie Lee, Carpenter and Blum all being involved and steering it in the correct direction. Jamie Lee understands the dynamic of Laurie Strode well and really gets that across to the audience well. Her character is truly the only one who understands Michael and what its gonna take to off his ass. Because no one else ever does - for various reasons, some explained in this movie. But JLC does a great job in that regard. It was also an interesting tie in with Officer Hawkins in 2018, 2021 and also 1978 and how it ties into the overall arc - even reaching further into the teenager who helps him and who that teenagers dad is in the 1978. Just well sewn up.

Revealing anything else at this point would be a spoiler. Go see it. Worth the 8-13 bucks depending on where you live and what time of day you go.

[wesfau2]

Dune was really well done.

Didn't know until a few minutes before walking in that it was planned as a two-parter, though.

See it on the IMAX screen if you can.

[GH2001]

Dune was really well done.

Didn't know until a few minutes before walking in that it was planned as a two-parter, though.

See it on the IMAX screen if you can.

it looks visually appealing.....albeit the story looks complex as hell. I want to go see it in Big/Imax just for the visual piece of it. At least they were smarter than Zack Snyder not to try and make a 4-5 hour movie in one sitting.

[wesfau2]

it looks visually appealing.....albeit the story looks complex as hell. I want to go see it in Big/Imax just for the visual piece of it. At least they were smarter than Zack Snyder not to try and make a 4-5 hour movie in one sitting.

The benefit to breaking it into two pieces is that the story has some room to breathe.  Lynch's Dune (which I loved) tried to cram it all into one feature.  I don't think you'll have any problems with the plot line...it's not particularly convoluted. 

[GH2001]

The benefit to breaking it into two pieces is that the story has some room to breathe.  Lynch's Dune (which I loved) tried to cram it all into one feature.  I don't think you'll have any problems with the plot line...it's not particularly convoluted.

Duly noted. I’ll try and catch it close to the weekend. Just need to find 2.5 hours to squeeze it in at some point.

[Kaos]

Escape Room: Tournament of Champions

The first Escape Room wasn't that bad.  Walked a group of participants through increasingly complicated and deadly puzzles where escape meant you got to live. 

The problem with this film is I recently finished Squid Games which rendered ERTOC lifeless, absurd and emotionally bereft. 

It wasn't a good movie.  It wasn't well acted.  Do not recommend.  Squid Games or Alice in Borderland are better.

[AUJarhead]

Dune was really well done.

Didn't know until a few minutes before walking in that it was planned as a two-parter, though.

See it on the IMAX screen if you can.

About as good a movie you could do with that storyline, although a good bit cut out from the book that helped explain things.  Didn't feel like Yueh's choices made a lot of sense to the average viewer.  Also felt like Thufir and Gurney were very under utilized.  Didn't mind Feyd, Fenring, The Emperor, or Irulan not being in the movie - although Fenrig's wife did help further the "who is the traitor" subplot along - which may have added 30-45 minutes onto the run time had it been included. 

Wonder if we will get a director's cut with deleted scenes like we did for the LOTR trilogy.

Always thought Dune was better suited to a Game of Thrones type series on HBO, though.

[GH2001]

AntlerS

Weird. Very weird. Based off a book by a different name apparently. Some parts were good. Some were sloppy. They left a lot of things unexplained. But it was a well shot movie cinema wise. Just thought both the story and screenplay were choppy. It could have been better. They also left it open to a sequel but not sure if that’s in the plans for them.

[Kaos]

AntlerS

Weird. Very weird. Based off a book by a different name apparently. Some parts were good. Some were sloppy. They left a lot of things unexplained. But it was a well shot movie cinema wise. Just thought both the story and screenplay were choppy. It could have been better. They also left it open to a sequel but not sure if that’s in the plans for them.

I started seeing trailers for that movie in like 2017-2018 or so.  That's not usually a good sign. 

[wesfau2]

The Many Saints of Newark<Valid critiques>

Gotta say, I didn't hate it.  I didn't expect the Sopranos.  The cast wasn't there, the writing wasn't up to snuff...basically there was no spark to start any fire other than your prior knowledge the characters (or prior knowledge of their older selves....trippy).

I thought the casting worked, though, in the sense that the current cast took pains to pick up some mannerisms of their character's older versions.  You could see Livia hiding behind Vera's smile sometimes; Uncle June's insecurity and pettiness dripped off Stoll in a couple of scenes; Bernthal was an inspired choice for Johnny Boy, given Jonny's propensity for violent solutions and JB pretty much owning that character in whatever he's cast; There wasn't much resemblance, but Magaro did a pretty passable Silvio...though it's pretty much just an over-the-top guido.

I enjoyed the slightly different perspective about the day that Tony followed Janice and Johnny to the amusement park and witnessed his dad getting cuffed. 

The Gandolfini kid wasn't awful...but he certainly wasn't good.  It's like watching Jason Bonham play Zep songs.  You see the echoes of the lineage, but it's still a poor substitute.  That's harsh and I hope the panning of this show doesn't discourage him, but taking an iconic role (that your father owned) as your first major gig?  Maybe slap your agent.

[Hogwally]

Any Wheel of Time fans here?  Amazon has supposedly dumped a fuck-ton of money into doing it Game of Thrones style, with the lawyer from the Jack Reacher movie playing Moraine.

[Saniflush]

Any Wheel of Time fans here?  Amazon has supposedly dumped a fuck-ton of money into doing it Game of Thrones style, with the lawyer from the Jack Reacher movie playing Moraine.

Never heard of it but will give it a look

[Kaos]

Night Teeth

Vampires are back. Re-imagined. Of all the traditional cinematic monsters vampires are, to me, the most intriguing. Could there really be a secret cabal of immortal hunters living in the shadows who prey on society?  When you consider that more than 600,000 people a year go missing in the US alone maybe it's not completely out of the realm of possibility.

Over the years we've seen multiple variations of the vampire theme.  Interview with the Vampire, Near Dark, The Lost Boys, Underworld, 30 Days of Night (to me the most horrifying version and an underrated movie), Let the Right One In, Byzantium, the idiotic Twilight films, and even Dark Shadows all gave us different (and still similar) versions of the mythos. 

Night Teeth doesn't so much add another layer as it borrows from pieces and parts of various previous incarnations.

This movie wasn't made for me.  Garish neon colors, swimmy camera angles, thumping shitty rap soundtrack.  Most of the acting was pretty bad, too. 

There's a war in LA because one splinter group of vampires led by Game of Thrones eunuch Theon Greyjoy (who can't act) has decided to break a centuries old truce and take over the city.  Basically vampires are allowed to exist after agreeing to feed only on the willing in sanitized blood extraction centers where people go to be bitten. 

Theon and his two female minions (one of whom is Debby Ryan from Disney Channel) kick off a night of terror by hiring a limo driver and going from party to party creating chaos. 

The storyline is muddled and doesn't make a lot of sense.  The blood and gore is toned down presumably for a PG-13 audience of kids who grew up watching Ryan as Jessie. Ryan's a weird one.  One minute she just looks horrible,  then seconds later you think 'hmmm, she could be pretty hot'   then she abruptly switches back.  (She's almost 30 so it's okay to speculate, dammit) Kind of reminded me of the Seinfeld episode with the two-face girlfriend. 

It was an easy, cheesy movie that sort of gnawed its way through a senseless story to what was a predictable end.  It wasn't groundbreaking, it was/is instantly forgettable and nobody's building a career from their participation in it. 

Still.... I've seen much worse. 

[Kaos]

Mario Puzo's The Godfather, Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone

Godfather 3 was an abomination, better left forgotten. I and II are cinematic masterpieces, among the greatest films of all time by any standard.  III? It was an affront to the greatness of its predecessors. It was burdened with an almost incomprehensible storyline, a boatload of shitty acting choices (Joe Mantegna, Andy Garcia, Bridget Fonda, and of course the worst choice of all... Sophia Coppola), and a self-inflated sense of importance that are anchors around its neck.  It should never have been made. 

The question now is whether it should have been "re-made".

This version is Coppola's effort to re-cut the movie and resolve the sins of the first. 

It does help streamline the muddled story -- it jumps straight into the deal with the Vatican which helps explain the story and the motivations.  That much was okay.  But it did nothing to correct the remainder.  In fact, it may have only amplified those grievous flaws.

Sophia Coppola was the worst part of the original version of the movie, her wooden acting, lack of range and inability to express a single realistic emotion or deliver a single line with authenticity jarringly horrendous.  Coppola originally cast Winona Ryder and then had options to cast Madonna, Julia Roberts or any other number of budding actresses but instead chose his own worthless, fugly, talentless daughter who was hanging around the set while on spring break.

She's not minimized in this version. If anything her dreadful performance is amplified.  That's like a shitty band deciding that turning the volume up to 11 will improve their act.  It doesn't.

She's so fucking awful that everyone else in the film seems determined to act just a little bit harder to overcome it.  Every performance is over-the-top, overacting at its worst, turning the film into almost parody.  To the point of caricature almost. 

Andy Garcia is particularly grating. He's a lightweight. The decisions made in regard to his character by Michael have no basis in reason.  For that matter, this Michael bears little resemblance to the shrewd, calculating Michael that was formed by the events of the first two films.  That Michael would never have trusted his business or interests to an impetuous, volatile street-level punk like the character portrayed by Garcia.  That was a glaring flaw, one that destroys whatever validity this film hoped to have.

I hated G3 and have basically ignored it like it didn't exist.  I saw it once back in the day and despised it. I watched it again later in life to see if my feelings changed (they didn't).  I gave this re-cut version a chance to see if it could erase some of the sins and more gracefully resolve the story.  It did not. It sucked hairy, sweaty balls. 

Oh, it could have been better. It had some potential. I get what it's trying to say about a man who lost everything (including his soul) in his quest to gain everything. I can even accept the moping, beaten down version of Michael given the choices he's made and the emptiness it brought him.  But the rest -- Garcia, dick nose Coppola, and pretty much everything else in this film -- is broken and not salvageable. 

If you have any questions let me leave you with this.  Father Guido Sarducci (if you know your SNL history, you'll know that name) has a part in this film.

I've seen it.   I must turn my back on it again. It's out of the family business. That's its punishment.

[The Six]

Night Teeth

Debby Ryan

She's got that "Jersey-hot" thing going. Movie was fine; exactly what I expected.

[Kaos]

Blood Red Sky

Okay, so the motivations and story were a little wonky.  But it is a German film so I assume something may have been lost in translation.  Doesn't matter. 

Plenty of action and a moderately different take on a familiar horror theme. While the story may have been a little gappy the attention to detail in the design and development of the protagonist was outstanding. 

Basic storyline.  Young child travels with his mom from Germany (I guess) headed toward the US where she's to receive a new treatment for her blood disease.  The leukemia has her really sick and struggling to make the trip. 

Except she doesn't have leukemia.  It's worse.  And she might be contagious.

That's all I'll say because you might want to watch it and I don't want to destroy the narrative. 

It's one of the better movies in this genre I've seen in a while.  Whoever was in charge of designing the look of her illness was out-fucking-standing. 

[Kaos]

Red Notice
What if you could have Deadpool, Wonder Woman and Central Intelligence version of The Rock in the same movie.  What if you did?  You'd have Red Notice.

It's a fun movie with a lot of action and a healthy dose of snark (from Deadpool).  I think there's a story but I'll be honest. I couldn't tell you what it was about. 

Every second Gal Gadot is on the screen my mind short circuits.

There's this one scene where she's wearing this amazing red dress slit up to there.  She kicks her shoes off to engage in a fight and...

Clean up on aisle me. 

[Kaos]

In Bruges

I thought I'd reviewed this movie before, but it's apparently lost to the ages.  So I'll give it a go, as long as you retract that bit about my mommy part fuckin' kids.  That's going overboard, mate!

If you asked me to describe the perfect movie I'd say quality actors, intelligent dialogue, engaging story (writing), the ability to entertain in multiple genres (action and comedy, for instance) and outstanding cinematography.  This film has every single bit of that.  It's brilliant and one of my favorite movies. 

The film follows the efforts of a pair of hired killers who are trying to lay low in the medieval town of Bruges after a botched job puts them and their employer at risk.

Actors
Collin Farrell - I'm not a huge Colin fan, but in the right role he's done some good work. This is the right role, by far his best.  As one of the hired thugs in hiding, he delivers a simultaneously funny and morose performance that tops anything he's done before or since.

Brendan Gleeson - One of the best character actors around, he is the perfect straight-man for Colin's manic performance. He's got his own issues and job to carry out, one that weighs on his conscience.

Ralph Fiennes - The irate, vulgarity-spewing boss who set up the hideaway and over-reacts angrily to any deviation in plan. A load of serious-funny lines delivered perfectly. 

Clémence Poésy - At the height of her lanky hotness, she plays a con artist who ends up falling for the vulnerable danger of Colin's character.

Every single performance is about as good as you can get.  Throw in a racist dwarf, some languid prostitutes and a bunch-a fuckin' elephants and the cast is solid.

Cinematography
Bruges is gorgeous. It's a beautiful town full of history. It's like a fairytale. Watching Gleeson and Farrell navigate it with varying degrees of interest and disdain was extremely well done, even if you grew up on a farm and was retarded.

This movie put that town on my bucket list.  I want to go there at some point before my time is up.

Dialogue
The constant banter between Farrell, Gleeson and eventually Finnes is some of the best ever put on the screen.  It rivals and is probably better than anything Tarantino has ever done (and I have great affinity for the dialogue of his movies).

Story/Entertainment
The story, the background, the decisions that have to be made and the challenges along the way are told in near-perfect fashion.  It has everything. 

There's the humor that permeates the interactions between the characters, there's the pain of remorse from both Gleeson and Farrell for the things they've done and will do, there's the playful sweetness of Farrell and Clemence discovering their affection for each other (an affection that breaks the boundaries of who they are supposed to be), there's action.  It's drama, comedy, action, romance, bromance and pathos all rolled up into a thoroughly entertaining package. 

I can't understand why anyone wouldn't like this movie.  It's one of my favorites of all time.  Highest recommendation.

Don't even try to tell me it's not your thing.  It's a fairytale town, isn't it? How's a fairytale town not somebody's fucking thing?