Movies you've just watched

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Roger Corman's classic 1980 "Humanoids From The Deep," was a staple at the local mom 'n' pop indie video rental shops and at Blockbuster Video back in the late '80s and early '90s as a VHS video cassette rental. The tiara crowned gal with the bikini top and sash that says "Miss Salmon" that gets ripped off by a humanoid creature has a bigger starring role in the 1983 Screwballs flick if you want to see more of her, actress/director Linda Shayne, (I thought she looked familiar and yes, it's her in both films indeed). One of the humanoid creatures was portrayed by practical EFX master, Rob Bottin (the guy who did the special EFX for the classic 1982 "The Thing") but is uncredited according to IMDB.com site.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[neorichieb1971]

Beverly Hills Cop Axel f.

Netflix.

A great way to feel nostalgic, the soundtrack kicks in and the grin hits your face. Its all good.

[vol.2]

Le Samouraï, starring the somehow still miraculously alive Alain Delon.



My expectations were all over the place on this one. I didn't do much research, but I saw that it was getting "masterpiece" level scores on the apps, so naturally I went into the movie thinking that I would probably be disappointed.

I wasn't, but I also didn't walk away with the 10/10 vibe that it seems to give off online. It's somewhere in the middle, like a 8/10.

What it gets right is atmosphere and cinematography. There's no faulting Henri Decaë's excellent camera work and the mood is just thick and murky as hell. I actually felt the weight of the thing on my chest the whole time I was watching the movie and then some. The skill of the filmmakers to draw your body into the life of the antihero and make you feel it (feel your version of it) is exquisite.

One nit about the photography is the dark filter; I think it works in the film of course, but I have grown tired of all the movies from the last 20 years or so that are just overusing it or using it inappropriately. It crossed my mind a few times during the film and took me out of it. No fault of theirs for sure, but there you have it.

The story was okay. Nothing to write home about, but it fulfilled its job admirably. In place of an interesting story, we are left with interesting, deep characters with relatable motivations and emotions. The rest is tension and style. Which is a pity, because that left very little room for the humor and the music that permeated much of the French New Wave era films. There is nothing fun or light to break up the dark underpinnings of this one; it's all doom and gloom and keeping on your toes.

Near masterpiece of a film let down a tiny bit by a somewhat limited range and a cliché story with less substance than an episode of Columbo.

[Sima Tuna]

I like Rififi much more.

[Lord British]

I like Rififi much more.

I like both. Rififi is very stylish but Le Samourai is pretty much ALL style (and mood). Like Rififi, another good French heist film of that time is Don't Touch The Loot starring Jean Gabin, also very stylized.

Out of the three JPM movies I've seen I probably liked Le Cercle Rouge the most. Army Of Shadows is awesome too but I bought it digitally on Amazon (which I rarely do) and it turned out to be a poor DVD rip. Uggh. So it feels like I still haven't seen it.

[vol.2]

I haven't seen any of those yet. I binged a bunch of French New Wave films about 25 years ago, but I didn't have access to everything (or time to watch it all).

I definitely appreciated this film, but not as much as say Breathless or Band of Outsiders. There is a playfulness and more experimental feel to a lot of FNW stuff that I felt was subdued in this one; it was more of a crime genre film that artfully integrated elements of FNW filmmaking.

[RZM]

Yeah Rififi is awesome. Don't like much Le SamouraÏ, cops are way too dumb in it. But if you're into 60s/70s french movies, I'd highly recommend my favorite war movie ever, The 317th Platoon (1965), starring Bruno Cremer and Jacques Perrin, directed by Pierre Schoendoerffer, who was a photographer during Indochina war, especially in Dien Bien Phu. The movie is criminally unknown, even in France.

In 1954, the Indochina War begins to come to a close following France’s defeat by the Viet Minh at the deadly Battle of Dîen Bîen Phû. French forces are in full retreat and risk being overrun at every turn — including the 317th Platoon, a unit of French soldiers and Laotian allies who are led by the idealistic but inexperienced sous-lieutenant Torrens and adjutant Willsdorf, a former soldier in the German Wehrmacht during WWII. Their survival depends on completing a trek through the dense, jungle-laden, expanse of enemy territory that stands between them and the safety of the nearest French outpost.

[Sima Tuna]

I like Rififi much more.

I like both. Rififi is very stylish but Le Samourai is pretty much ALL style (and mood). Like Rififi, another good French heist film of that time is Don't Touch The Loot starring Jean Gabin, also very stylized.

Out of the three JPM movies I've seen I probably liked Le Cercle Rouge the most. Army Of Shadows is awesome too but I bought it digitally on Amazon (which I rarely do) and it turned out to be a poor DVD rip. Uggh. So it feels like I still haven't seen it.

I watched Le Cercle Rouge and Rififi back to back. I still hold my opinion that Rififi is just the absolute top tier. As a film noir, and as a heist movie, it is unmatched. Le Cercle Rouge was good though.

It's absolutely heartbreaking to go back and watch the extra materials on Rififi discs, and to realize how little Dassin was paid for Rififi and how he was blacklisted because of McCarthyist bullshit.

[Vexorg]

Inside Out 2: ***

Much like the first one this is a reasonably entertaining movie, but while leaving the theater I came to a realization about why some Pixar movies work well and some don't: It occurs to me that Pixar tends to invest heavily into world building, and this is one of the things that sets them apart from many of the other studios that make similar movies. When you see something like (for example) Monsters Inc, Cars or even one of their lesser films like Elemental, you can tell they spent a lot of time on the environment the story is being told in. Where this falls apart is when they use that well crafted environment to tell a boring story. In both the first Inside Out and in this one, it feels like they've built a compelling storytelling environment that we'd love to see a lot more of, but the plot only gives us occasional glances at this environment, and sometimes it feels like the best parts of the film are in the throwaway gags and the stuff we see only in passing.

In much the same way the first film gave us a number of potentially interesting characters in the various emotions and really only focused on two of them for most of the runtime, this film expands the cast even more with four more emotions (Anxiety, Envy, Embarrassment and Ennui) and then relegates most of them to the background for most of the runtime, focusing almost entirely on 2 or 3 characters. To be fair, the other emotions from the first film seem to get more screen time overall, but really it's Joy and Anxiety running the show here. Even so, it's one of the better recent Pixar films I've seen, and has just become the highest grossing animated film of all time (likely welcome news for the studio after a recent string of misses in films like Elemental, Lightyear and Turning Red). I particularly liked the random parody of toddler shows like Blues Clues and Dora the Explorer...

[Lander]

Groundhog Day

Watched it while overtired and fell asleep halfway...

So I guess it's going to be Groundhog Day, again, when I go back to finish it up

[Sima Tuna]

If you keep falling asleep and restarting the movie then you'll have the ultimate Groundhog's Day experience.

[emphatic]

Deadpool & Wolverine - 5/5

Loved it. Better than Deadpool 2 IMHO.

[NYN]

Loved it. Better than Deadpool 2 IMHO.

I'll take that.

From what I care to remember, while the original could at most times amuse (I caught myself grinning several times) me, the sequel was exactly all that what film-making dreads: greedy, overwrought, and the ending (correcting mistakes) was the pivotal fart joke for grinning nerds, which robs all emotional content when the murdered gal can be marvelously resurrected, with no additional cost. I am at a loss, scratching my head coming up with more asinine content. This must be a record. So. When I now read about the next one even "better", skies are falling in my mind. No conceivable way this would have been rolled if RR wouldn't have teased, begged, and media-manipulated HJ for years into this. But it's good to hear you had fun. I know I wouldn't.

[Air Master Burst]

When I now read about the next one even "better", skies are falling in my mind. No conceivable way this would have been rolled if RR wouldn't have teased, begged, and media-manipulated HJ for years into this.

I laughed a few times at some deep cut background jokes, but it's at least an hour too long and the action scenes might be the stupidest in any modern comic book movie yet. You're not missing much.

She-Hulk did a much better job at breaking the 4th wall for comedic effect, despite them doing my boy Mr. Immortal all kinds of dirty.

[NYN]

Little Children

Again, after maybe a decade. Naturally the nasty bits stayed in memory. That it's fairly funny, too, I will take from it now. Watching, I can feel my own changes through it. The first time I chose to understood the ending as a failure to follow through, to get out. All-too-human. Now I feel that the two central characters achieve what they set out to do. Whether it is was they want or what they need, I'm not able to determine. I am not a parent, so I can only consider my "inner child" on this. Sometimes easy, sometimes hard, always a great film. Reading up, director Field only recently released his third movie, not for a lack of intend over the many years. If this is the one of his I will ever see I can be content. It's that rich.

[emphatic]

But it's good to hear you had fun. I know I wouldn't.

Different strokes for different folks.

[Mortificator]

Little Children

Again, after maybe a decade. Naturally the nasty bits stayed in memory. That it's fairly funny, too, I will take from it now. Watching, I can feel my own changes through it. The first time I chose to understood the ending as a failure to follow through, to get out. All-too-human. Now I feel that the two central characters achieve what they set out to do. Whether it is was they want or what they need, I'm not able to determine. I am not a parent, so I can only consider my "inner child" on this. Sometimes easy, sometimes hard, always a great film. Reading up, director Field only recently released his third movie, not for a lack of intend over the many years. If this is the one of his I will ever see I can be content. It's that rich.

The scene that's stuck with me is Kate Winslet's character spying on the guy she was having an affair with with his family, and can't help crying over how much prettier (in her mind) his wife is than her.

[NYN]

Aaah, yes. Strong pick for a memory. Self-perception. What she never registers, I think not even in the double couple dinner scene, is that the "knockout-wife" is as cold as ice in personality.
So much so that others would perhaps call her a bitch.

[vol.2]

Deadpool and Wolverine 7/10

The MCU finally ate itself. But it tasted pretty good. All 4th wall nonsense withstanding, I enjoyed the romp for almost the whole way through. There were a couple of moments that the train started wobbling off the tracks, but they managed to correct the steering and get things moving again before I fell asleep. I chuckled a few times too. It wasn't as funny as the first Deadpool movie, or as exciting as The Wolverine, but it was enough of both to make it worth the trip. It also did a good job of bookending the Fox movies and baptizing some new characters.

It's not a perfect movie by any means, but it's the most interesting thing they've done since the first Ant Man movie. Critically speaking, I want to give it a 6 because it's not as clever or well produced as the last two Thor movies were (and I'd give those a 7), but the weird thing Deadpool and Wolverine does, that few of the other MCU films do, is make watching the film feel like reading a comic book. When you can harness the feeling of being engaged in a comic, in a movie, you have got something there.

So, I guess 6 for execution, but 7 for taking chances and mostly pulling it off? They could have done better.

[Some-Mist]

I saw the third man in 35mm which was just as great as I remembered. It was nice seeing it on the big screen and I wish I could own the criterion version instead of the Studiocanal version that I have. Not much needs to be said about the classic other than it still holds up.

Mad god was next up, which I might not ever watch again because of the brutality throughout the entire thing, but the visual effects are quite wild and it was impressive seeing Phil Tippett's project come to life after his work on it across 30 years. My s/o definitely won't watch it again.

Blackberry was streaming on Hulu (iirc?) so I decided to throw it on, and I really enjoyed my watch through, but it just felt very cookie cutter when bumped up alongside other "founder" biopics. regardless, I had fun with it and would probably rewatch it even though Glenn Howerton's bald head was way too distracting.

I saw the Glengarry Glen Ross Broadway announcement with Kieran Culkin/Bob Odenkirk/Bill Burr, and realized I had never seen the movie. I made it about halfway through before switching over to The Gentlemen TV series, but I plan to finish it tonight (it's real good so far but I realized I just wasn't in the mood for it last night).

[PC Engine Fan X!]

The much eagerly awaited/anticipated Alien Romulus sci-fi/horror hybrid genre film, chronologically, takes place after the events of the first Alien film occur (circa 1979) but before the superior Aliens sequel (circa 1986) -- therefore AR would categorized as a true sequel to Alien and a prequel to Aliens in that regard, canon-wise. I was wondering where this newest Alien movie fits within the entire Alien mythos/universe.

With Ridley Scott's "Scot Free" film production company at the helm, it makes sense to do so (after having done Prometheus back in 2012 and it's follow up sequel, Alien: Covenant, circa 2017). The mega joint collaboration of the current Weyland-Yutani corporation is still up to "no good" this time around in this newest Alien theatrical release with an August 16th, 2024 date for the USA (with an advance "sneak peek" showing on Thursday, August 15th, 2024).

Those damn face huggers creatures are super fast in this newest Alien flick, indeed, as depicted in the movie trailers.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[Some-Mist]

I wasn't really hyped on Alien Romulus, but after seeing some of the behind the scenes practical effects, my interest is growing. That along with the alamo drafthouse in my area is showing it, I still haven't visited, and it still hasn't been changed over since the Sony buyout makes me want to go see it.

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Originally, Alien Romulus was slated to be a Hulu streaming movie exclusive but the ultimate decision was made to have it with a theatrical release back in June of 2024 (Disney is glad that this decision was made to view it properly on the "big screen"). This newest movie takes place in between the years of 2122 through 2179 timeline of the Alien mythos/universe. AR is regarded as the third Alien movie to get the specialized IMAX treatment (after Prometheus in 2012 & Alien: Covenant in 2017) with it being delivered on encrypted HDD format for it's grand opening "four day" debut.

With a runtime of an hour and fifty-nine minutes, audiences will get their money's worth (AR is the seventh Alien film to be released within the ongoing Alien film franchise). Director Ridley Scott gave Fede Alvarez a note after having screened AR for the first time at it's Los Angeles movie premiere, Fede kicked the wall and hit the wall after reading the note. The note mentioned to "trim it down" but Fede agreed with Scott's handwritten opinion as most film directors think their own film is the right length, duration-wise -- or simply "too long" as other film directors might see it as).

Director James Cameron had a hand in developing the AR script with Fede as not to mess up the already well-stablished Alien films' continuity -- makes logical sense given AR's placement after Alien but before Aliens, continuity-wise. The iconic "pulse rifle" shown in Aliens makes a return appearance in AR but as a general purpose Weyland-Yutani issued weapon this time around (whereas it was featured in Aliens, is a military-grade issued one with the option to add a grenade launcher below it if it needed be -- the "smart-guns" with it's accompanying stabilizer support mounting apparatus sure packed some serious firepower though when used).

I wouldn't be surprised if a Director's Cut of AR is released down the road with deleted scenes restored/included.

Director Fede Alvarez says AR takes places twenty years after the end of Alien (and 37 years before the Aliens sequel) -- so Ellen Ripley's still drifting out in hypersleep somewhere out there in space.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~

[GaijinPunch]

Alien Romulus

Watched in IMAX here in Berlin, on my GF's birthday. I really enjoyed it. It was far from perfect, and some of the more heavy handed throwbacks I could have done without, but they didn't really take me out too much. Feels like these sequels contractually have to have a certain amount of fan service. It was quite an intense ride, and some of the action scenes had me on the edge of my seat. Practical effects shined, and the actor that played Andy was impressive. From the previews and the first handful of minutes I was sure he was going to annoy the fuck out of me but I was wrong.

Some of the story/setup was not my favorite, but it is such a small part of the flick. It's a re-telling of being trapped on a ship w/ aliens, with the more claustrophobic elements taking charge - and that it does well.

Anyway, IMDB has it going between 7 and 8 which feels fair, if the first two Aliens films are between 9 and 10.

[RGC]

[...] heavy handed throwbacks [...] Feels like these sequels contractually have to have a certain amount of fan service.

This sort of feedback helps me keep expectations very low. I'm skeptical about these so-called fans, allegedly being serviced by callbacks. Callbacks are an absolute pet peeve of mine and I would consider myself a fairly big fan of Alien(s) (1-3, at least). Are there really people out there who can't accept it's set in the same universe unless a character does that thing with the knife, says "Game Over, Man!", or force feeds someone a magazine?

[Randorama]

I am going to watch Romulus tonight with my father, so I am leaving this post as a sticky note of sorts. The fancy word for this type of movie would be "inter-quel", i.e. between two other movies in a series. I believe that marketing people actually "ask" directors to insert a certain amount of movie time and number of scenes featuring fan-service "stuff", these days. I cannot find any references reporting numbers, though.

I will report later today, as watching this with "the ol' bastard" should be an entertaining experience. Maybe I will tape his mouth to avoid getting us kicked out Perhaps naively, I am hoping that the upcoming TV series will be good (Noah Hawley is behind it). If somebody can create something decent with this IP outside comics and before I die, I would be moderately satisfied.

PC Engine Fan X! factoid: I have a picture of myself hugging a Xenomorph steel statue that I took when I was living in Gothenburg (SWE), as I used to go often to the local chapter of the "SF bookshop" chain often (they also had a beautiful SF-themed coffee shop and good coffee). I keep the photo in my "pics with distant relatives" folder, and one day I will buy one such statue for my apartment: I need some more unique furniture ^__-;

EDIT: Competent movie that starts being a bit boring the moment it rehashes set pieces from the previous movies. For once, I will use a spoiler mark:

Spoiler

The final human/alien hybrid was one more fight/set-piece too many. We get it: the xenomorphs don't disappear until the protagonists blow up the infested ship/colony/environment, ok. We also get it: xenomorphs and mutated/hybrid variants can magically grow to impressive sizes (the new hybrid is four metres or something) without eating, and within minutes of hatching. Science miracles?

Frankly, I had the impression that the practical effects artists just wanted to pilfer some ideas from Alien: Resurrection and drop in a reference to Prometheus, so director and writers added one more scene ("hey, let's have the pregnant woman who used the mutation virus to to hatch a baby/alien hybrid!"). The fact that the scene takes 10 minutes or so and involves magical near instantaneous mutations tells me that they were just running outs of ideas to reach the 100+ minutes mark.

As far as I am concerned, the last 30-40 minutes trying to mimic Aliens were just a long fan-service sequence, with some choices clearly being based on keeping costs low. Frankly, I would have preferred another appearance of the Queen Xenomorph, which however would have cost a fortune to build again. So, production went for another 10 minutes of convoluted references to other movies in the series. All of this was also shot so that a casual spectator could have enjoyed the movies without knowing the references. That is, it was shot in an half-baked manner (e.g. casual mentions of "Prometheus" stuff, the final hybrid's whole look, black goo, etc.). Bah, modern movies.

I am nevertheless OK because this kind of movie is absolutely gorgeous on a big screen: the visuals are worth the price, all in all (...and my father paid tickets, drinks, pop-corn, and everything else). I admit that I liked the retro-futuristic style, too ("We will conquer the space with MS-DOS and CRT monitors, yes!").

I went back home and there was a big cricket (i.e. insect) on the kitchen table. I thought that in an Alien movie, the protagonist would have blown up the city or at least the building with nukes, in order to solve the infestation problem. I grabbed an empty jar, let the cricket jump inside, and brought the creature outside. I don't know if my hometown has a self-destruction procedure, to be honest.

[GaijinPunch]

[...] heavy handed throwbacks [...] Feels like these sequels contractually have to have a certain amount of fan service.

This sort of feedback helps me keep expectations very low. I'm skeptical about these so-called fans, allegedly being serviced by callbacks. Callbacks are an absolute pet peeve of mine and I would consider myself a fairly big fan of Alien(s) (1-3, at least). Are there really people out there who can't accept it's set in the same universe unless a character does that thing with the knife, says "Game Over, Man!", or force feeds someone a magazine?

This is a fair complaint (as are Rando's, but I personally had no real irks, but I also had expectations quite low). I think there are plenty of things that are homage, and a great (eg the circular opening vents, etc.). But the lines being repeated I can always do without. Maybe a bit w/ the synthetics here and there is okay as they are all... well, kind of the same to some degree, but it was a bit too much.

But again, I didn't give much of a shit in the end - I had a lot of fun with it.

[Randorama]

OK, I also had a lot of fun because the movie is really well-executed even when it panders to the fans.

Some more moderate criticism:

I watched the first two movies no more than twice in my life (dub, original) and I spent whole sequences during this one feeling that director and other crew were re-enacting scenes from the old movies, to some extent. At some point I was also tempted to just open a wiki page for the movie and check out all the "references to canon", as the name-drops were getting irksome to my geek side of the brain.

This is a general problem I have with everything Alien, to be fair (and since the 1980s, duh). For instance, the old Dark Horse Comics and the books (I read those) had a tendency to start with a new and sometimes interesting idea, and then conclude with a lengthy "alien chase" sequence and/or "bug hunt" fight. The fans want "eternal returns", and this movie caters to the fans more than director and PR people claimed.

Some praise:

Visually, it is *magnificent* and made me completely satisfied. The "new" parts are brilliant, also because they give a strong rendition of the world setting in just a few scenes (e.g. the scene in which the protagonist tries to leave Weyland-Yutani). Some sequences are deliciously horrific (e.g. the room full of face-huggers), and in general the "new" material completely intrigued me.

I also believe that there are a few "new" interesting scenes hidden amongst all the re-enacting. If this director can work on more titles and get rid of the demands from studios regarding fan pandering, he could create great Alien works. Also, the sound production was *fantastic*, as I honestly felt the music and SFX via my colon or something, so viscerally they were.

This, and the retro-futuristic look of the movie left me almost drooling, sorry. Loads of fun, but I want to see this again when it's winter, and cold and dark and depressing

General:

Again, I am hoping that Noah Hawley goes the Fargo and Legion way, and delivers a great TV series. Personally I would be delighted if he would just pilfer ideas from the Dark Comics and the new Marvel comics, because they would be interesting to see on the screen (I am avoiding spoilers). My caveat, though, is this.

Alien is now a retro-futuristic type of SF, especially when it comes to the basic themes (e.g. evil corporations, crio-stasis travel, humans being "out of place" in space, the Xenomorph itself as a concept (=impossibly tough but dumb killing machine), etc.). If authors can re-elaborate ideas from the "old stuff" rather than just "re-enact", it could be really "entertaining" though not necessarily "good" material.

This could be said of any of these old franchises: sorry for the "Captain Obvious" post.

Still, studio I.G. and Masamune Shirow have been recycling Ghost in the Shell series/ideas for decades now (same for Yamato, which I am mentioning just to make GP upset ). Should we mention Gundam stuff? Fox/Disney/etc. could learn a thing or two from Japanese approach to recycling.

Please feel free to cite this comment in any future conversation in which you feel the need to embarrass me via past ultra-cringe comments of mine

[GaijinPunch]

Noah Hawley's Fargo is nothing short of magnificent, and it is chock full of throwbacks, but you really have to know the Coen Brother's library of work to catch all of them, and they are, for the most part, quite subtle. That stuff I quite enjoy b/c it takes effort.

[Randorama]

Oh, my father acted as the host of an “annotated viewing” of seasons 1 & 2, for Fargo. Legion is also technically excellent even if it involves too much super-hero stuff. It is based on a Marvel character that has tons of cognitive disorders due to his vast mutant powers. The non-superheroic bits are great, for obvious reasons; the superheroic bits were narcolepsy-inducing. I stopped at season 1, anyway.

Re: references. Lately, I struggle to watch movies or tv in general without getting bored, so having some “extra information” to process (spotting references/throwbacks, listening to someone’s comments about references) during a show is a small help to avoid getting bored.

I also struggle to find a balance when there is an “information overflow” (too many references, people talking too much). This movie gave me a bit of trouble; for Fargo we have the right balance and the “pause” button.

Anyway, the Alien tv series should be due in 2025, and should be a prequel to all the movies (i.e. it should be set 30 years before the first movie).

Personally, I am curious to see if and when Michael Nolan will release a remake of The Prisoner (it should be a movie, I believe). Not sure that I will be watching much else until then, but I will keep peeping at this thread