Kaos' way behind movie reviews

[Snaggletiger]

Porky's



If you can get through the scene where Beulah is asking for a tallywhacker lineup while the coaches break up in the background without laughing at all?  We're not going to agree on much.

Top 10 comedy scenes for me.

[Kaos]

Top 10 comedy scenes for me.

Can’t disagree.  

Today, though?  Tommy is charged with sexual harassment, expelled from school and branded as a “sexual predator.”   He can run for president one day as a democrat but he better not be nominated to the Supreme Court by a Republican.  Schumer, Pelosi, Feinstein and Harris would call every girl from the shower as well as Beulah to testify about the time he raped them with his eyes.  

Meanwhile the principal and all three coaches would be investigated for fostering an atmosphere of systemic sexual abuse.  Pussy hat wearing Madonna, Rose McGowan and Alyssa Milano would descend on Angel Beach and ring bells outside the school chanting “our vaginas deserve respect!”All four would be fired and their careers destroyed on social media.  

Beulah would do guest spots on The View and be hailed as a hero of the new #nomoretallywhacker movement. She’d eventually move to Portland, undergo a sex change operation where she was allowed to have both organs simultaneously and then be elected mayor. 

As much as I sorta enjoyed watching that movie again it really made me sad thinking about the world we’ve lost.  

[Kaos]

Hollow Man

Probably reviewed this before.  Second look gives me a different perspective, particularly when compared to the recent Invisible Man film. 

Much better film than I remembered. 

Rhona Mitra's glorious titties.
Elisabeth Shue's sultry fuckable everything.  Her hair is atrocious in this, but I'd put it in everything else she has.  Nose holes, ear holes, knee joints, elbow joints... like all of it. 
Superior CGI -- for the most part the invisibility is carried off almost flawlessly.  There are just a couple of herky-jerky unhuman movements, but beginning to end, the invisibility is done stupendously well considering this is a 20-year old flick.  Especially good is the part where dude is killing Sarah and you can see through his body to hers.  Impressive work, honestly. 

You've also got baby Thanos, pre-bloat Snap Wexley (Greg Gunberg), Joey Slotnik (a guy you think you know from a lot of things he's never been in), Joanie Stubbs from Deadwood, and William (Rosland Capital) Devane in it.  Kevin Bacon (he's in everything isn't he?) owns the role of the guy you can't see.

Yeah, the story is a little silly at times. It's going to require you to suspend logic and ignore the technical fallacies that permeate it. There are a thousand "why?" questions I could ask, not the least of which is why all the rage?  In this case I'd rather ignore it and go with the flow.  I bitch so much about execution, it's sort of weird to see stellar execution marred by a weaker story so just let it ride. 

THIS is what Invisible Man should/could have been.  Done like this, maybe with a little sprucing up, the whole Universal Monsters Dark Universe could possibly get off the ground. 

Nope. 

Universal gave us strident #metoo Invisibility that turned potential horror into a pathetically weak "abusive husband" story.  That they did this on the heels of a shitty and essentially unwatched/unwatchable Tom Cruise mummy movie may have driven a stake through the heart of a franchise that has so many great stories to tell -- Dracula, Wolfman, Mummy, Frankenstein, Creature, Invisible Man, Phantom, Bride.  I wish they'd let me direct one.  I know I could make a better movie than Cruise's Mummy or that female-empowerment horseshit of Invisible Man.

Back to Hollow Man.  I mean, seriously...

[Kaos]

Black Christmas (2019)

Bob Clark essentially gave the world three films.  The Christmas classic A Christmas Story, the father of the teen sex comedy Porky's and in 1974 he helmed Black Christmas.  That movie, while lightly regarded at the time of its debut has grown in stature over the years.  It's rightfully credited for giving rise to the entire slasher movie genre that followed. John Carpenter acknowledges that it had a major influence on his ideas for Halloween. 

That movie isn't perfect (drunken Lois Lane Kidder is awful in it) but it does have a delicious Olivia Hussey and in an odd turn a pre-SCTV Andrea Martin.  THAT movie tells the story of a shadowy figure that stalks a sorority house at Christmas slaughtering the co-eds. When you watch it now, you can see clearly the influence on Halloween, Friday the 13th and innumerable other "stalker in the house" films. 

So when I saw the movie had been remade I thought that was cool. Be interesting to see it updated. 

Well FUCK THAT.  The new version --re-written and directed by a mommy part/whore named Sophia Takal -- is total bullshit.  It's fucktard level horse manure.  THIS film?  It features a strident, militant piece of shit spouting off about white privilege.  It features an asinine side story about a sexual assault.  And the crux of the film is a fem-power assault on a fraternity, which just happens to have the statue of a former slave owner as its centerpiece -- a statue that leaks black goo which turns frat boys into rapist-murderers. 

The trash bitch Takal actually said in an interview she based the devil-rapists in the fraternity "on Bret Kavanaugh."  I fucking hate that whore.  I'd punch her in the face and in the mommy part if I could.  If I'd known that before we picked the movie I would never have watched it.  Fuck her, her mother, her grandmother, and everybody else in her shit-stain of a family. 

It's offensive on about 1,974 levels to me.  All I actually wanted for Christmas in this movie was for every single one of the whores in it to be decapitated. 

It's as awful and mis-guided a movie as I've ever seen.  I loathe the fact that I wasted money to watch it.  I detest every person in it and everyone associated with the film.  Fuck them all. 

There was one 70s/80s style throwback girl in it who looked pretty good. But the "star" was Imogen Poots who desperately needs both a hair stylist and an acting coach.  She was abysmal.  Also abysmal was the BLM mommy part/slut/bitch/whore.  I wanted to watch her get burned alive.  That's the only thing that could have possibly saved this #metoo shitfest.  No such luck. 

[Kaos]

Christmas two-fer

Took in a pair of Christmas-ish movies today while working on some projects.  

Anna and the Apocalypse
Started this not knowing what it was. Turns out it was - get this - a Scottish Christmas Zombie Teen Musical.  That's right. High School Musical with zombies. When the first song broke, I almost turned it off thinking "how could this possibly be any good." 

Fatman
Mel Gibson as a world-weary Santa pursued by a hit-man (Walton Goggins) with a score to settle. Watching Mel channel his elder Lethal Weapon as Jolly Ol' Saint Nick?  That had to be fun.  

I couldn't have been more wrong about either.  

I stuck Anna out at first mainly because the lead was intriguing and solid.  So many teen movies are so stupid in how they portray kids, getting the behaviors and interactions completely wrong. This one didn't. It missed a little with the stereotypical bullying act, but it wasn't completely over the top. The song and dance numbers were more than I needed and some of the parts were gleefully/purposely over-acted but this wasn't a bad little film. I probably won't watch it again, but it was better than I expected. Didn't always anticipate the action that was coming, enjoyed watching the lead actresses (including a blonde in a beiber haircut).   Just a little puff of a movie that hit enough of the right notes to surprise. 

Fatman I stuck out because I kept hoping it would improve.  It did not. A flimsy story, carried dourly along by Gibson and Goggins. No joy, no fun.  I think they were aiming for dark humor but they failed miserably to achieve it.  It was pretty awful, honestly.  I won't watch it again and I don't recommend it.  

[GH2001]

Christmas two-fer

Took in a pair of Christmas-ish movies today while working on some projects. 

Anna and the Apocalypse
Started this not knowing what it was. Turns out it was - get this - a Scottish Christmas Zombie Teen Musical.  That's right. High School Musical with zombies. When the first song broke, I almost turned it off thinking "how could this possibly be any good."

Fatman
Mel Gibson as a world-weary Santa pursued by a hit-man (Walton Goggins) with a score to settle. Watching Mel channel his elder Lethal Weapon as Jolly Ol' Saint Nick?  That had to be fun. 

I couldn't have been more wrong about either. 

I stuck Anna out at first mainly because the lead was intriguing and solid.  So many teen movies are so stupid in how they portray kids, getting the behaviors and interactions completely wrong. This one didn't. It missed a little with the stereotypical bullying act, but it wasn't completely over the top. The song and dance numbers were more than I needed and some of the parts were gleefully/purposely over-acted but this wasn't a bad little film. I probably won't watch it again, but it was better than I expected. Didn't always anticipate the action that was coming, enjoyed watching the lead actresses (including a blonde in a beiber haircut).  Just a little puff of a movie that hit enough of the right notes to surprise.

Fatman I stuck out because I kept hoping it would improve.  It did not. A flimsy story, carried dourly along by Gibson and Goggins. No joy, no fun.  I think they were aiming for dark humor but they failed miserably to achieve it.  It was pretty awful, honestly.  I won't watch it again and I don't recommend it. 

He’s pretty damn funny in Daddy’s Home 2 if you can get past your disdain for will ferell. Ferell actually isn’t his silly normal self in this one. He’s a beta male who is shamed by both Gibson and wahlberg’s alpha male roles. Good stuff. 

[Snaggletiger]

He’s pretty damn funny in Daddy’s Home 2 if you can get past your disdain for will ferell. Ferell actually isn’t his silly normal self in this one. He’s a beta male who is shamed by both Gibson and wahlberg’s alpha male roles. Good stuff.

Did not see II, but the first one was pretty good.

[Kaos]

Did not see II, but the first one was pretty good.

It's hard to get past Ferrell's dumbassity.  He ruins every movie he's in except for Elf. 

[GH2001]

It's hard to get past Ferrell's dumbassity.  He ruins every movie he's in except for Elf.

Total change in direction for him in daddy’s home. I would not steer you wrong maestro. 

[Kaos]

Wonder Woman 1984

HBOMax comes through.  I'd been sort of looking forward to this for a while, at least since it was originally scheduled to come out as a summer blockbuster.  Guess they just got tired of waiting.  

Overall the movie was something of a disappointment.  The storyline, such as it was, was completely asinine and had no connection to anything remotely possible.  

Good lord, she's something to look at.  

The two main bad guys (Pedro Pascal from Game of Thrones and Kristin Wiig from SNL) were horribly, atrociously, miserably miscast.  Pascal, who sort of sucked as Oberyn Martell to begin with, was even worse here.  He leered and mugged his way through his misbegotten role in one of the worst efforts in a superhero movie I've ever seen.  He made nerd twig's Lex Luthor in Justice League look Shakespearean in comparison. It was almost as bad as Tobey McGuire's "emo Spidey" from Spiderman 3.  It was just awful. Wiig was flat and never really drew her poorly defined character out.  Neither of them worked at all. 

But good GAWWWD, Gal Gadot is delicious. The way she moves, I'm gonna dream about that. 

One of the biggest expectations I had was setting the movie in 1984, which is in my teenage wheelhouse. Recapturing that vibe (like, say, Fast Times did) was a huge draw.  But they didn't do it.  The whole 1984 setting was really only used to give Chris Pine a chance to do some wardrobe shots, for a brief opening scene with a red Firebird that was actually a 1981-82 model (and did the damn things even COME in red because I remember black, white and gold but not red) and a quick battle sequence with some thieves in a mall.  Other than that it could have been set in 1974, 1994, 2004 or any other random year.  The 84 was superfluous.  

But damn almighty, that woman looked spectacular in that white dress.  Holy fucking lassos.  I can't get that out of my mind. 

The story itself was so utterly ridiculous and contrived that it just had no weight at all. It's the same story I told my kids about the woodcutter and his three wishes, the same story I told my kids about the Monkey's Paw.  But my stories were better and they didn't last almost three hours.  

Damnation, Gal Gadot is hot. 

I just don't think this movie is going to wear as well as the first one.  It was bloated, the villains were buffoonish, the story absurd and the whole 1984 angle a complete letdown.  

I think it was maybe trying to say something, but who knows?  

Great googly moogly that woman is delectable.  I could watch her move for hours.  She's got a lithe, athletic, graceful way of moving every part of her body that makes my hope spring eternal.  

[Kaos]

Promising Young Woman 

I had some reasonably high expectations for this based on the trailer.  It was portrayed as a murderously fun romp through a field of cads by a woman bent on righting some past wrong.  

It didn't get there.  It's not those things.  

The film took too long to draw out the motivations.  The lead murderer was unconvincing emotionally and her resolutions were so completely improbable that it just didn't make logical sense.  

The end?  Nah.  

I wasted money on this one.  

[Kaos]

The Little Things 
HBO Max again.  I sort of like getting new movie releases that I don't have to gag up $20 buck to "rent."  I just wish the movies were better.  

The Little Things brought Denzel "damn he's getting old" Washington, Rami "Mercury" Malik and Jared "weirdo" Leto in a movie that wanted to be S7ven but just lacked the gravity and power.  

Washington's performance was about on par with his turn as Equalizer. He wasn't bad, but you know he's capable of so much more.  By the way, they're remaking Equalizer with freaking Queen Latifah.  I've got a few other ideas that might work just as well!  How about Vivica Fox as Perry Mason?  Kerry Washington as Magnum PI? Angela Bassett as Andy Griffith, with Wanda Sykes as Barney Fife?  Pathetic. But I digress.  

Rami is, I think, going to struggle beyond the Queen biopic.  He's a weird-looking guy and that oddness didn't lend it self to this character in the least.  He just didn't resonate.  He wasn't believable. I could think of a thousand other guys who would have brought more to the role. 

Leto, on the other hand, was almost too weird.  He fit the role very well. 

The movie just felt very flat to me.   The storytelling was sloppy, the issues raised were dealt with poorly in this "new reality."  

It just didn't live up to its promise. 

[Kaos]

The Omega Man

Also available on HBO Max:
One of Charlton Heston's greatest roles, this 1971 film was the bridge between his time on Planet Ape and "Soylent Green is peeeeeeopllleee!!"  It's a somewhat forgotten movie, although it was the basis for the infinitely inferior Will Smith vehicle I Am Legend. 

Stop me if you've heard this:
Germ warfare, in the shape of a virus unleashed from China, decimates the globe. The government declares martial law, restricting citizens to their homes. But it doesn't work.  People drop dead in the streets. 

Military doctor Colonel Robert Neville is working on a vaccine, and as the plague starts to take him, he injects himself -- thereby becoming the last living man on earth (or so he thinks). 
(Side note:  I sometimes wonder if Bill Gates grew up watching this and jerking off to visions of himself as Neville)

Some of the scenes in this pre-CGI vision are striking and in light of today's world a little eerie.  Deserted Los Angeles streets, empty buildings, vacant shops.  Looks a little too familiar. 

Side note 2: To achieve the 'deserted city' look, crews filmed in the very early morning in LA's business district which was typically empty then.  If you look really closely, though, you can occasionally see people and cars in the distant background. Having watched this movie many, many times it's still not easy for me to always spot them.

Turns out the plague doesn't kill everybody.  Some people it just turns into light-sensitive, almost albino destructive night creatures.  As was the habit in 70s era movies, the creatures form a quasi-religious cult with a messianic leader and don dark robes. They're literate, organized, and rational. Able to carry on conversations. They want to punish Heston because they blame him for the plague and hate him because he represents the evils of the past. Because of their light sensitivity, Heston has relative freedom during the day. When it's dark, however, he has to barricade himself in his apartment and ward off the creatures (led by a former newscaster) who are determined to destroy him.

The early part of the movie follows Heston as he (shirtless as usual) prowls the empty city in cars he picks up off the street, stalks the empty stores, dines alone, talks to himself and plays his 8-track tapes. 

During one of his daytime forays he discovers another human. A black woman hiding in a store.  Later that day the creatures break through his defenses and capture him.  The leader (who also played the diabolical robot creator in KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park) delivers a long winded-harrangue about the Heston's curse because he didn't catch the plague and sentences him to death.  Just as they're about to set him on fire in Dodger Stadium, the black chick (think foxy afro momma) shows up to rescue him.  She's part of a band of people (mostly kids) who have a natural immunity and have been hiding in the hills. (A little Manson Family-ish almost) 

The rest of the movie is their fight to recreate the vaccine using their natural antibodies, avoid the creeshtures, and build a new world.  It doesn't all go as planned and sacrifices (literaly) are made along the way, but this is dystopian 70s cheese at its absolute best.  Watching Chuck skeevily seduce the last living woman on earth with candles, music and wine is unintentionally hilarious.  I mean, really. Only two people in the world... what else you gonna do?

[Snaggletiger]

Coming 2 America

I was texting with the cool group, GF and GH, when I was about 20 minutes in.  GF said he turned it off about that time and GH hit the nail on the head. 2 is just a walk down memory lane.  That's exactly what it was and seemed more like what they were trying to do rather than make the sequel even half as funny as the original.  It wasn't!  They made sure to bring back every character from the first that I guess was still alive.  That's one of the biggest things that hurt it in my opinion because they just tried too hard to give everyone at least a cameo, including the twin rapper girls.  My name is Peaches, and I'm the best.  All the DJ's want to feel my breasts.

Eddie looked swole and old.  But then, you think about the fact that the original was released in 1988.  I imagine I'm swole compared to my Greek God-like physique of the late 80's.  John Amos had a small part in it, but I'd rather not have seen him.  Amos has always been the the hard ass dad in Good Times and the Cleo McDowell who wanted to break his foot off in the King's royal behind.  He's in his early 80's now and looks every bit of it.  They introduced some new characters in Jermaine Fowler, who played the "Bastard son" of Murphy, and Leslie Jones, who played his street-wise mom from Queens.  She was one of the few comedy bright spots.  Wesley Snipes was pretty solid in his role as dictator of a neighboring land that was on the verge of war with Zamunda.

Again, this absolutely pales in comparison with the original, most notably from the fact that they treated it more like a family reunion than anything else.  It had the occasional funny spot, which is inevitable when you bring the Barber Shop characters back in tact.  I'm actually glad I watched it so I can say I did.  I won't do it again.     

[GH2001]

Biden’s Speech to the Nation


Lame as fuck. Incoherent. What a dumbass. Wont watch again. 

[Kaos]

Coming 2 America

I was texting with the cool group, GF and GH, when I was about 20 minutes in.  GF said he turned it off about that time and GH hit the nail on the head. 2 is just a walk down memory lane.  That's exactly what it was and seemed more like what they were trying to do rather than make the sequel even half as funny as the original.  It wasn't!  They made sure to bring back every character from the first that I guess was still alive.  That's one of the biggest things that hurt it in my opinion because they just tried too hard to give everyone at least a cameo, including the twin rapper girls.  My name is Peaches, and I'm the best.  All the DJ's want to feel my breasts.

Eddie looked swole and old.  But then, you think about the fact that the original was released in 1988.  I imagine I'm swole compared to my Greek God-like physique of the late 80's.  John Amos had a small part in it, but I'd rather not have seen him.  Amos has always been the the hard ass dad in Good Times and the Cleo McDowell who wanted to break his foot off in the King's royal behind.  He's in his early 80's now and looks every bit of it.  They introduced some new characters in Jermaine Fowler, who played the "Bastard son" of Murphy, and Leslie Jones, who played his street-wise mom from Queens.  She was one of the few comedy bright spots.  Wesley Snipes was pretty solid in his role as dictator of a neighboring land that was on the verge of war with Zamunda.

Again, this absolutely pales in comparison with the original, most notably from the fact that they treated it more like a family reunion than anything else.  It had the occasional funny spot, which is inevitable when you bring the Barber Shop characters back in tact.  I'm actually glad I watched it so I can say I did.  I won't do it again.   

If "Loudmouth Leslie" was one of the movie's bright spots I will NOT EVER be watching.  She's obnoxious.  

And fuck Biden's pre-recorded ramble.  Standing there shitting in his pants.  

[GH2001]

If "Loudmouth Leslie" was one of the movie's bright spots I will NOT EVER be watching.  She's obnoxious. 

And fuck Biden's pre-recorded ramble.  Standing there shitting in his pants. 

All that jello and cream of wheat gave him the runs. 

[Kaos]

Justice League: The Snyder Version

Let's get the bad out of the way first. The film suffered from the usual Zack-isms.  

1) Absolutely TERRIBLE musical choices, particularly the end title with some tone deaf whore caterwauling the song from Shrek.  That was ear-melting. Some of the other song selections were jarringly out of place as well. 
2) The color palette was his usual combination of washed out blues and greys. That odd preference is part and parcel of any film he's ever done, including Sucker Punch.  He's never really grown from that. This movie bears a striking visual resemblance to that one. 
3) Slow motion. He loves slow motion. There was too much of it. Just too much. 
4) Good lord it's long. It's so, so, so long.  It's over four hours.  It should really have been three or four separate movies ... Flash origin, Cyborg origin, JL team-up, JL fights silver horny dude and gray Thanos. 

Now for the good. 
1) If you saw the theater release of Justice League you can watch this four-hour movie and only recognize a small handful of parallel scenes. It's almost like a completely different movie. 
2) If you saw the theater release of Justice League, you were probably confused by the motivations and emotional responses.  Almost all of that was cleared up.  It didn't just throw characters at the wall without exposition. This movie actually made sense, something JL in the theaters didn't come close to doing.  You understood what the DC versions of the Tesseract were. You understood why silver horn wanted them. You understood why Cyborg was a surly bitch.  It filled in the cornucopia of blanks that the theater-release left steaming on the floor. 
3) The expanded exposition gave you reason to be invested in the journey. It made the interactions more realistic. 
4) Gal Gadot is the most mesmerizing woman on the planet and she was not wasted here. Good lord, she's amazing.  Like all the rest of the characters (Batman and Alfred included) she's given enough to do. It does a good job of fitting all the particular skills of each of the characters into the narrative of a cohesive unit.  
5) It minimized many of the things I hated about the theater version. It toned down AquaBro for one. 

If I had seen this version first? I would have maintained a lot of hope for the DC Universe. It was a franchise builder. It created enough momentum that I would have had interest in seeing the planned (and now scrapped) follow ups with Angry Gray semi-Thanos bringing his army to earth.  I would have been willing to see this whole group -- even BattFleck -- together again.   

My big criticism of both the Marvel and DC Universes, though, is why do we have to dwell on these enormous galaxy-threatening alien conquerors assaulting the earth.  Thanos, angry gray DC-Thanos (Darkseid)....  why can't we just deal with real earth situations?  

Pay attention and you'll see several character cameos and references to characters sprinkled throughout this movie.  

I still think Snyder is a terrible director and an horrible, awful, fatal choice to helm the franchise.  I blame him for the sickening betrayal that was Dawn of Justice. Aquaman was almost certainly the worst superhero movie I've ever seen. Suicide Squad was an absolute abortion. Man of Steel blew. The reason the franchise crashed and burned while Marvel soared is almost entirely because of him.  His washed out palette of darkness leached all the fun out of the entire cast of characters across the whole spectrum of films.  It was no surprise to see his stupid name attached to WW:1984 which was a colossal misstep.  It set that character to scratch almost.  

But this one?  It was so far superior to the franchise death knell of the theater release of Justice League that it's almost a shame the dangling storylines that remain from this revised version will likely never be explored.  

It's too bad Flash can't actually turn back time so we could get a DC reset even if it were only for this one film (and not a reset that includes a twinkling fucking vampire as Bruce Wayne).  If we could go back and erase the theater turd that was Justice League, DC (and these particular characters) might still have a future.  

I've read that Snyder is sniveling around trying to cajole DC into bringing him back to do Justice League 2 and 3.  While this movie did ignite my curiosity I hope they never do.  He's a fucking hack.  Get him as far away from the franchise as possible.   He came very close to killing it.  Yeah, this film is better.  But it wouldn't have to do much to be better than the frothy character-killing turd that was the theater version of JL.  

[wesfau2]

I agree with pretty much all of this, actually.

Also, as to why do we have to fight Thanos/DarkSeid/etc...

It would get so tiresome watching the JL just trounce every pissant human-based villain they came across.  They need a challenge.

[AUJarhead]

I agree with pretty much all of this, actually.

Also, as to why do we have to fight Thanos/DarkSeid/etc...

It would get so tiresome watching the JL just trounce every pissant human-based villain they came across.  They need a challenge.

A Legion of Doom would be pretty badass, though.

And I'm hoping Doctor Doom makes a Marvel appearance soon.