Kaos' way behind movie reviews

[Kaos]

Added note: 

The tone-deaf caterwauling at the end was Snyder's homage to his daughter who'd committed suicide. They had that played at her funeral.  

I'm sorry.  

But that choice only amplifies just how out-of-touch he is musically.  The score for JL is just dreadful.  It's horrendous.  The Islamic wailing every time WW was on screen?  Her "theme" is so much more compelling than that and would have been a better selection.  I wouldn't suggest listening to it, but if you doubt my perception of this cattle-prod to the labia rendition of this song, here it is for your agony: 


If you want to projectile vomit as your eardrums turn to dust, push forward to 4:44 of this god awful disaster of a song.  This bellowing woman should have her vocal cords ripped out.  I cannot sing a lick, but I could do a better version than this.  

There's no getting around the fact that this selection certifies Snyder's poor decision making.  It's just awful and out of place.  It's horrible. It sucks. I'm sorry for his loss and pain, but this is just the worst. 

[Kaos]

I Care A Lot

Misguided story about a shark (Gone Girl) who preys on the elderly until she meets another  predator (Tyrion Lannister) who's inclined to destroy her plans when she chooses the wrong old lady to fleece. 

It's not a bad movie, but there are a handful of problems.  

1) Gone Girl plays the cold-blooded reptile extremely well. But when called on to emote as a human, she fails miserably.  The "steamy" lesbian love angle between Gone Girl and a delicious piece of Michelle Rodriguez-looking sweetness (See below) has all the spark of a campfire in a tsunami.  None.  There's not an authentic exchange between them.  They were flat as a flitter. 
2) Tyrion just doesn't have the menace you'd need to see from the character he portrays. I kept laughing when he was supposed to be seriously threatening. It just didn't play. Good actor, wrong here. 
3) There's nobody to root for. You don't want any of them to win in the end. When all the players are bad and there's not even a degree of badness you can support, the end result just doesn't have any resonance. 

The basic storyline: 
Gone Girl (I can't remember her name and don't care to look it up) bilks the elderly by colluding with doctors to have wealthy older people declared unfit to care for themselves.  A dimwit judge rules that Gone Girl should be their legal guardian and she then proceeds to sell everything off to pay for "care".  Houses, cars, jewelry, furniture, all of it. Gone.  It's a nice scam until she picks a sweet old lady who isn't exactly who they think she is.  

Would I watch it again?  Probably not.  But I also wouldn't tell you not to watch it.  Just don't expect much. 

[wesfau2]

That's Vincent Gallo in drag.

[Kaos]

That's Vincent Gallo in drag.

Let's change the hairstyle just a bit... 




I know sexy when I see it. 

[Kaos]

Godzilla vs. Kong 
First off, this is a complete coincidence, but the sexy in the post above also plays a part in this film as the daughter of a mad scientist.  She's a caricature (as are most human parts of this film), but gives the hint of an extremely impressive rack.  

Now onto the review. 

Love the Godzilla mythos. Love King Kong too.  All the way back to the old black and white rampaging on cardboard cities.  I did watch the King Kong one with Jessica Lange (which wasn't great in retrospect).  Also watched the one with Jack Black and the follow up Skull Island with Loki, Captain Marvel, Nick Fury, Dr Dre and Eazy E (review here: http://tigersx.com/forum/index.php?topic=5634.msg437123#msg437123). I've also watched the unfairly panned Ferris version of Godzilla (which spawned that great Puff/Jimmy Page mashup), the one with Walter White and the overwrought middle one where horse face farmiga dies several times (reviewed here: http://tigersx.com/forum/index.php?topic=5634.msg482134#msg482134)

This movie promised to erase all the mistakes of the prior films and bring the two biggest titans in cinematic history face to face in an epic quest for domination.  Which it did, sort of.   

There are always problems. You know that.  Always.   

Here are a few: 
1) The science was so wonky it was hard to swallow, even in a film that featured a giant ape and an snarling sea beast laying waste to block after block. Hollow earth? Sheesh. 
2) The human characters are all caricatures. The dialogue was stilted and emotionless. It was cheesy. "Kong bows to no one!" Their motivations were suspect.  "Your brother was killed by the gravitational flip.  I'm sorry.  But we have a machine that can minimize that. You in?"  Brief moment of sadness. "I'm in!  And can I bring a bunch of other people and maybe a kid with us? That would be cool." 
3) This film was a continuation of the prior Godzilla movie and as such it pulled characters over. But it pulled the ones nobody gave a shit about and handed them far too much screen time. 
4) You had to have watched King of the Monsters -- the "middle film" -- to know who the people were or what they were doing. It was extremely confusing to someone who hadn't seen that film. 
5) Contrived situations. So there's this massive fight between the rivals. Skyscrapers are leveled. City blocks reduced to rubble. Yet somehow two people who are in the city of Hong Kong, completely unaware that the other was there, run out into the street and find each other immediately.  Bullshit. 
6) The cost.  I lost track of the number of multi-story buildings that were demolished. How in the world are they going to pay for all that?  How did thousands not die?  C'mon man! 
7) I'm big on musical choices. Some of these were pretty off base. Bad. 

Some of what they did right? 
1) The film started with Godzilla blasting Pensacola. I found that amusing. 
2) In the past, particularly in King of the Monsters, the fight scenes were always at night in some fog or haze that obscured the action. That wasn't the case here. The fights were straight WWE and everything was clearly visible. It's a pretty impressive spectacle -- even if the final fight isn't at all what you expect. 
3) They try with the muddled science and ridiculous leaps of logic to at least explain the motivations of the two titans -- even if it is incredibly hard to follow.  I watched with someone who didn't see King of the Monsters and there were a lot of "what the hell?" moments. 

This really isn't the movie I expected to see. It's more -- and it's less. It honestly hews closer to the Japanese version of the series. Like the black and white Japanese versions it throws asinine, ridiculous, preposterous scientific exposition in merely as a vehicle to move the main protagonists into conflict.  I sort of respect and admire the fact that they just said "ok, we're going to take this utterly absurd concept and run with it, so you guys play it seriously and we're good, kk?"   A lot of it feels extremely rushed and glossed over -- to the point that about two thirds of the way in I started to wonder if there would ever be a four-hour director's cut that would bring back all the scenes that were left on the cutting room floor. 

The little deaf kid is good. I liked her.  She's adorable. Rebecca Hall needs to eat a box of sandwiches. 

Of all the movies I've watched that debuted on HBOMax (including WW1984 and Little Things) this is far and away the best.  I'm going to watch it again just so I can ignore the laughable science and focus only on the battles between Kong and his ancient rival. Those are done about as well as you could hope for.  

The city-destroying battle in neon is sheer destructive spectacle and good enough on its own to carry the movie.  

Watch it for what it is.  Leave your brain at the door and revel in the two biggest and baddest monsters in movie history deciding once and for all who reigns  -- or do they? Hmmm....  

[Saniflush]

Does it stand alone alright or do you need that first turd to make sense of it?

[Kaos]

Does it stand alone alright or do you need that first turd to make sense of it?

It can stand alone.  You just might not know where the characters came from or why they (particularly a teenage twit) were over acting. 

I’m watching it again.  The music is way worse than I remembered. Really, really bad choices. 

[Kaos]

Unhinged

Russell Crowe in the story of a guy having a really bad day who collides with someone else who is also having a bad day and expresses it with her horn at a traffic light. Mayhem ensues. 

Crowe is fat.  Like wheezy fat. That’s part of his character I guess. But he’s fat.  

This movie is far more violent than I expected.  There were several “oooohhhh, damn....” moments of carnage. That’s good. 

It’s a little unrealistic and over the top in places, but it was a better and more engrossing movie than I expected.  

Russell Crowe is fat 

[Kaos]

Tomorrow War
You think the science in Kong v. Godzilla is contrived and wonky? Take a look at the Amazon movie Tomorrow War.  

Chris Pratt, Dexter's last (and only really hot) girlfriend, Schillinger from Oz (he's been in a thousand other movies, but he'll always be the ass-tattooing prison Nazi to me), and some other people you sorta recognize leap into the future to help fight a war to preserve the past. 

No worries about the reverse butterfly effect here.  When they start this circular shit, though, I lose the movie thinking about whether what I'm seeing happen actually happened or happens if they change the future and the past to prevent the future you're seeing unfold.  It gives me a headache.  

In this movie the future is overrun with violent alien creatures.  They are so invasive and deadly that future warriors come back into the past to recruit soldiers to make the jump forward to help fight the beings.  What?  

Oh, but wait!  There's some muddled time-crossed family dynamic storyline that includes time hopping to develop a method to kill the creatures.  

Hang on, let's ask a high school science kid what to do and DAMN!  wouldn't you know it?  Al Gore warned us.  Global warming is the real problem here.  

It was a really stupid movie.  It was clumsily done.  Not Pratt's best work.  Or anybody else's.  

[Kaos]

Independence Day: Regurgitation

I may have reviewed this before.  I don't remember.  

All I have to say is:  We waited 20 years and THIS is the best they could do?  What a big crock of biden.  

[Kaos]

Lansky

Meyer Lansky is one of the most fascinating stories in mob history. Arguably more influential and powerful than any politician, Lansky was the primary basis for Hyman Roth's character in Godfather II.  Lansky controlled politicians across the globe, was instrumental in the US effort in WWII, made significant contributions to Israel's self-preservation efforts, helped build Las Vegas and was critical in the consolidation of the criminal empire that is the Mafia. 

Portrayed in this movie by Winston Wolf himself (looking older than hell), Lansky's story is told in a series of voice-overs and flashbacks.  

Mr. Wolf is a fine actor and he inhabits the character well.  Unfortunately the remainder of the cast is far beneath him. That paucity of talent drags what could/should have been a fascinating story into something that resembles an elementary school drama class writing and performing a play about the mob. It's trite, it's superficial and it fails to remotely convey the power Lansky held. 

Sam Worthington as a journalist hired to tell Lansky's story is particularly bad, unable to generate a single realistic emotion or reaction. Paired with Harvey Keitel in many scenes, he's clearly out of his depth.  He's like a piece of drywall with a stupid expression drawn on it. 

John Magaro tries, but he's ineffective and unconvincing as the young Lansky. 

Minka Kelley is completely flat as a druggie informant, a cardboard cutout of a person.  The dude from Jag is a caricature as the FBI agent surveilling Lansky.  The people playing Bugsy, Lucky and the rest of the mobsters are jokes.  So bad. It's like they spent all their money on Keitel and had to pluck actors rejected for roles on REELZ "The Autopsy of:" recreations to round out the cast. In fact, that's about the quality you get with this.  It's as bad as a Breaking the Band episode acting-wise. 

Part of it is that they are fed corny, phony lines and expected to deliver them convincingly. Part of it is they are simply terrible in the roles.  The arrogant director also casts himself in one minor role, and he sucks like a Hoover in it.  

What's strangest about this film is seeing the City of Mobile substitute for Chicago and Havana, to see Gulf Shores pretend to be Miami. There are scenes on a wooden pier which is so clearly Eastern Shores with the skyline of Mobile visible in the background. Didn't even try to hide it.  I know most of those places. When I saw them pop up regularly it was jarring. It made it harder for me to connect with the thin, poorly-acted threads in this film. 

It's bad.  If you know anything about mob history, it tells you nothing you didn't already know and it tells you in a shuffling, stumbling manner.  Pass. Wait until it's free on some late night channel and then watch only to marvel at the audacity of trying to pass Mobile off as the Windy City. 

[Kaos]

Above Suspicion

Pretty bleak tale of an FBI informant played by a surprisingly salty sexy Khaleesi (Emilia Clarke) who embarks on a misguided affair with her handler, played by the half-face guy from Boardwalk Empire. How do you know it's a bleak tale? You can tell this just by the hazy blue overlay that tints every scene like Zac Snyder had a bluegasm. 

The best part of the film is Clarke who prances and struts just like a trashy Appalachian whore probably would.  She did a good job with that and even managed a passable hillbilly twang, although the ackuseeyunt sometimes strayed into caricature. Where she struggled most was in convincingly conveying her supposed drug addiction. Still, she was solid enough that anybody who's ever lived in a dying deep south town could put a name with the character. We all know who she was in our town.  

The rest of the cast does her no favors. Half-Face is numbingly robotic (for the record, he was the worst part of American Hustle, too) and his pie-eyed wife doesn't bring much to the role either even though there was something oddly sexy about her too.  Johnny Knoxville basically played a version of himself so that's hard to judge.  

What's fucked up is that this is a true story and unlike so many, it allegedly didn't stray far from the source material.  It's just a shame that Khaleesi's spitting, snarling redneck bobcat was smothered by an oatmeal-bland supporting cast. It kept the movie from being all it could be. 

It was fun to watch her, though.  She's really struggled to find her footing outside of Game of Thrones and it's interesting to get a glimpse of her potential.  




Tell me you don't know that same sassy southern tramp from where ever it is you live. 

[The Six]

Above Suspicion




Tell me you don't know that same sassy southern tramp from where ever it is you live.

That girls usually drove an IROC-Z Camaro or a Chevy Malibu.

[Kaos]

That girls usually drove an IROC-Z Camaro or a Chevy Malibu.

By the late 90s, that had morphed into a jeep.  I'm thinking of one in particular, actually.  Had a kid when she was 18-19.  Late 20s, early 30s by when I knew her.  Still single. Still hitting the bars, fucking to Guns and Roses on the stereo, kid stayed with mom when she was out.  Sundress and boots or jeans and a cami.  I called her RedneckRedJeep.  

[Kaos]

Werewolves Within 

Ever since Tucker  and Dale v. Evil, I've been waiting for the next film to successfully merge horror and comedy.  Fear and laughter aren't really that far apart when you consider the physical manifestations. Many people use laughter/humor to escape situations of fear, so it only makes sense that a marriage of the two is a formula for success.  

Unless it doesn't.  Like in the disappointing Werewolves Within.  

The film stars Lily from AT&T and Richard Splett from Veep (who's played a variation of the exact same guy in every film he's ever been in) and a host of other D-level actors.  And it does not deliver.  It fails dismally on the horror front and flops drearily in the comedy area.  There are a few moments here or there, but it's just a slow boat ride to nowhere.  

Short synopsis: 
Splett comes to a small New England town as the new park ranger and befriends the town's other newcomer, mailcarrier Lily from AT&T.  The tiny town has one hotel which is playing host to a prominent environmentalist and a oil/gas executive on opposite sides of a proposed gas pipeline that could change the town's fortunes or ruin it forever. A snowstorm, a potential werewolf attack, and a quirky cast of characters settle in to survive the night.   

By the time they get around to revealing the truth of the werewolf legend, you really won't give a shit. Although it does explain a thing or two, maybe.  

AT&T girl occasionally looks cute, occasionally doesn't. Watching her isn't enough of a draw to recommend. Neither is watching Richard Splett do Richard Splett in a funny hat.  

It's a D-minus movie pretending to be a B movie.  Doesn't get there. 

[Kaos]

Unholy

Lifeless, dickless, pointless, poorly edited story of religious possession.  

Deaf/mute has a vision of what she thinks is the Virgin Mary and gains the power to heal.  The Catholic Church rushes to set up shrine.  But Mary isn't the Mary she thought.  

Bad CGI, poorly executed jump "scares" and "get me out of this turd" emotionless acting for Jeffrey Dean Stanton (Negan from Walking Dead) and the dude that cut his leg off in Saw shoved this movie even further into the dumpster.  

It's just bad.  The deaf girl isn't bad and in the right movie, she might be something.  Here?  Nope. 

You've seen better movies. There's nothing new or interesting here.  Could have been, maybe, but no.  

[GH2001]

Unholy

Lifeless, dickless, pointless, poorly edited story of religious possession. 

Deaf/mute has a vision of what she thinks is the Virgin Mary and gains the power to heal.  The Catholic Church rushes to set up shrine.  But Mary isn't the Mary she thought. 

Bad CGI, poorly executed jump "scares" and "get me out of this turd" emotionless acting for Jeffrey Dean Stanton (Negan from Walking Dead) and the dude that cut his leg off in Saw shoved this movie even further into the dumpster. 

It's just bad.  The deaf girl isn't bad and in the right movie, she might be something.  Here?  Nope.

You've seen better movies. There's nothing new or interesting here.  Could have been, maybe, but no. 

Jeffrey Dean Morgan?

Funny because I saw him in another similar movie this weekend - The Possession I believe it was called. He and Kyra Sedgewick. It was "ok" I guess. Possession type movies are getting as oversaturated as zombie stuff now. 

[Kaos]

Jeffrey Dean Morgan?

Funny because I saw him in another similar movie this weekend - The Possession I believe it was called. He and Kyra Sedgewick. It was "ok" I guess. Possession type movies are getting as oversaturated as zombie stuff now.

Yeah.  That guy.  

[Kaos]

Arthur

I haven't seen this movie in years.  Ran across it tonight and sort of fell into watching it. 

I'd forgotten how easily this movie flowed. The essence of it became a Christopher Cross yacht rock staple - a cheesy, schmaltzy slice of the 80s that won an Oscar for Best Song. 

It's not Shakespeare. It's not Christopher Nolan.  It is, however, a breezy, funny, sweet, sentimental, touching movie. It's the kind of thing Hollywood didn't know what to do with then and would never consider making now. 

It didn't rely on exploding assholes, dogs jerking off, schlubs fucking, piss/shit/dick jokes or anything like that for comedy. 

John Gielgud was outstanding as Arthur's Butler, Hobson.  His stuffy, dry wit was the perfect counterbalance to Arthur's chaos. Won him an Oscar.

**side note: He may have been gay. I don't know. The thing is I don't care, because his entire existence wasn't predicated on his gayness or lack thereof. **

Dudley Moore was a better Arthur than the people first approached for the role (Pacino, Belushi, Travolta). He was really good.  I can't think of anything he was in before or after, though. 

The movie has one huge, glaring, almost unrecoverable error.  Liza Minelli. Hollywood was so set on making her a star they put her in the role of Arthur's object of affection and she's just terrible. Difficult to look at.  Zero authenticity. No chemistry with Arthur.  When I think of who was originally offered the role -- Deborah Winger -- it saddens me to think of just how much better the movie could have been had she taken it.  Hell, anybody but ugly ass Liza would have been an improvement. She breaks every scene she's in. 

Forgotten how much I enjoyed it.  I remember watching it in theaters on a date. It almost got lost coming out within a week or two of the release Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman II, Stripes, Endless Love (jeeez, Brooke Shields was hot), For Your Eyes Only, Cannonball Run, Wolfen, The Empire Strikes Back, Escape From New York, Nice Dreams...

Funny thing.  It debuted in ninth place and looked poised to slide off the map.  Instead, it became one of those few movies that builds over time.  Ninth, three weeks at sixth, two weeks at third, a week at second and then sliding all the way up to first in September -- ahead of Stripes, ahead of Raiders, ahead of Private Lessons.  It remained in the top four all the way until Christmas, something none of the other blockbusters that dominated that summer were able to do.  It stayed in the top 20 releases all the way through March of the following year --36 weeks. FWIW, Star Wars - as big as it was - stayed 44.

It's a shame movies like this aren't in the pipeline any more. 

Death watch:  Most of the cast of this movie is dead.  Hobson. Bitterman. Arthur. Burt. Martha. Ralph. The only ones still around are Susan (LA Law's Jill Eikenberry) and ugly ass toad face Liza. 

[wesfau2]

I disagree re: Minelli.  She had the annoying/brassy NYer thing down pat.  She was a good foil to Moore's urbane (if besotted) character.

Never a huge fan of her, but she was pretty great as Lucille 2 in Arrested Development.