Movies you've just watched

[BurlyHeart]

Carlito's Way

Utterly fantastic. It has been a couple of decades since I last watched it, and it was very enjoyable to sit though again. The tense set pieces, music, camera angles. I loved it. Sean Penn is great as the lawyer - I didn't even recognize him the first time I watched the movie. Of course, Pacino is an amazing actor. He has received many plaudits for his talents, but one rarely mentioned is his ability to make others around him excel, giving them room to breathe and they often shine as a result.

Even my wife liked the movie, though she had a few choice words for the director Brian De Palma

[Lander]

Escape from L.A.

Going in, I knew this would be dialed up compared to Escape From New York - a fine film packed with signature Carpenter grit and atmosphere atop its entertaining Kurt Russell machismo - but much like action hero contemporaries Conan the Destroyer and Mad Max 3, EFLA loses what made its predecessor an earnest work of art, replacing it with greater scope and the comparatively bland taste of money.

By and large it's a beat-for-beat retread of NY, with bigger stunts, wackier factions, and a heaping helping of bad CGI gluing it all together. Snake seems to be regarded as even more of a legend this time round, making the jump from noted badass to near-superhuman - something at odds with the new "I thought you'd be taller" running gag that replaces the implication-rich "I heard you were dead" of the first film.

The lead villain, a dollar store El Che stand-in, pales in comparison to NY's pimptastic Duke. He has no chandeliers on his car, and therefore no swag, and that's all there is to say about that.

Though while trashy, the film does have its moment - spoiler for the conclusion of both films:

Spoiler

The retreading reaches its climax along with the film, as Snake once again sticks it to the morally bankrupt Commander in Chief in what might be one of the more notably Chaotic Neutral acts in action hero history.

This is the most interesting part to my mind - tearing up the mysterious tape at the end of NY was already a chaotic move, leaving the viewer to wonder at what kind of geopolitical consequences may result from Snake's moral judgement of the system and its figurehead. On some level this positions him as a force of nature - living cause-and-effect that will act on principle regardless of the scale of context or consequence.

LA takes this notion and triples down on it - a cartoonishly puritan president begetting equally cartoonish judgement - with Snake activating the Sword of Damocles superweapon and plunging the earth into a new dark age before lighting up a long-awaited smoke.

I felt that final shot had a piquant nature about it, right up until the series-ending one-liner into RUN BABY RUN ESCAPE L.A. YEAH YEAH Rob Zombie credits tune. In another timeline, there's a version of that scene that ends with the series' characteristic theme and is better for it, perhaps even following a version of the film that stands up to the first. Alas, wishful thinking

Apparently we were going to get a threequel titled Escape From Earth if LA had done well, with Snake blasting off and flying interstellar. Having now watched the second, I'm convinced that this would have been a straight-to-video tier death rattle with even more bad CGI, but am morbidly curious to know how they would have made an Escape From story work without a planet to set it on or a US city to lampoon.

The flying saucer touches down on the martian surface, its sleek chrome hull splitting open to reveal a debarcation ramp.
An alien figure steps out, surveying the smoking husk of a crashed emergency pod. Moments pass, and a man emerges from the wreckage.

Alien: Gleeble glarb gloop garp, wheep wheep! [Hey man, I know you - you're Plissken!]
Kurt Russell: ...Call me Snake.

Peak art, no doubt

[BIL]

wtb FRESNO BOB GAIDEN 3; (alt title "FRESNO BOB, WHAT'D THEY DO TO YOU" )

Like MGS3! Plucky bandits SNAKE, BRAIN, and FRESNO BOB set off to KANSAS CITY, on a Robin Hood caper to save the orphanage! Then Brain does the thing, and oh hell no Ah, shit! So that's why everybody think Snake is dead! And that's what they did to F(smash cut to title card and credits)

...yeah I know, it's in the novelisation. I just want more of the iconic FRESNO BOB 3;

[Lander]

Novelization? Consider my Kurt Russell lore bluff thoroughly called. Fandom clearly knows nothing about ol' Fresno Bob, as their wiki entry summates to "he was a man" once you dig past all the adverts. Though I see hints of skinning alive on the film nerd grapevine

I figure Snake has a list of war buddies as long as his arm - Fresno Bob, Carjack Malone, Alamo Andy, Steve 'Stumps' Steftofferson. Endless hookups who - if yet alive following an inevitable betrayal - can be dropped in on to have their arm twisted for a make-good favour in times of hardship.
But I wonder, what about the deep and nuanced Cabbie backstory? He seems too affable to be a hardened criminal, so I can't help but question whether he's secretly a New York elemental who steadfastly refused to up sticks when shit went to hell and got prisonified, opting to stick around come hell or high water.

And man, the iconic KEPCHAWAITIN really put into perspective how hard Koji took the character and ran with it for the various iterations of Metal Gear. There are enough layers of deconstruction and reconstruction at play that an untrained eye (to wit, me until recently) would think he invented the whole thing. Talentless hack auter genius

[Air Master Burst]

Escape From Earth should have been a crossover with Ghosts of Mars, that would've fucking ruled.

Escape From LA is every bit as great as the first one, but the genre change throws a lot of people off. You really have to be in the mood for a goofy 90s style action movie instead of a hardcore 80s one. Comparing it to either a Mad Max or a Conan movie isn't really fair, Die Hard 3 or Lethal Weapon 4 would be a much more apt comparison.

[Lander]

Kurt Russell, Stayfum and Ice Cube onscreen at the same time? Now there's a conjunction for the ages.

Watching NY and LA in the same week probably didn't do the latter any favours. You definitely have to step back and recalibrate your filmic enjoyment receptors to 'lol' so you can get the most out of it, and I'm not much for enjoying things ironically these days

Drawing comparison to Conan and Mad Max, I'm mainly focused on the way they grew from scrappy soulful beginnings to bigger productions that rounded off those characteristic rough edges for broader appeal. I suppose Terminator is a useful touchstone - namely the way it successfully transitioned from the robo-slasher horror grit of 1 to the action machismo of 2 with identity intact, and how various other franchises attempted similar but didn't stick the landing.

For instance, Conan goes from a mythologically-sincere character journey that's edited like a comic book (with some fucking killer acting from James Earl Jones), to a slicker more family-friendly adventure production feat. goofy sidekick and more ambitious scale, then culminates in the thoroughly kiddie (though nonetheless enjoyable as a spinoff) romp that is Red Sonja.

Mad Max is less cut-and-dry since the trilogy takes such a weird trajectory - i.e. 1/2 being the scrappy aussie equivalent of the aforementioned Terminator effect, with 3 being the point where it really stumbles and throws much of the mad world pretext to the wind so Tina Turner can get some screen time.

I'll have to table the Die Hard and Lethal Weapon series for a rewatch - I've yet to cover those in my recent trip through 90s friday-night-rerun nostalgia, so should be good fun and no doubt more reference material for this sequel theory of mine.

[BIL]

Novelization? Consider my Kurt Russell lore bluff thoroughly called. Fandom clearly knows nothing about ol' Fresno Bob, as their wiki entry summates to "he was a man" once you dig past all the adverts. Though I see hints of skinning alive on the film nerd grapevine

Yeah the novelisation (good pulpy fun!) reveals the post-apocalyptic US Police Force is comprised entirely of (wait for it!) psychotic war criminals. Like literally psychotic, because the gas weapons everybody used to circumvent M.A.D. eat your brain away, before finally killing you (hence also crazy people in THA STREETZ).

So poor ol' FRESNO BOB basically fell into the hands of a small army of Ramsay Boltons. 3;

I went on a small late 70s/early 80s SF classic novel cash-in *COUGH* I mean tie-in bender, a few years back; besides EFNY, Carpenter's The Thing (via ever-dependable Alan Dean Foster) is quite good. Some interesting action-oriented scenes that could've never worked for logistical reasons, even though ultimately, I'm happier with the more reserved final script.

Book Thing: "RAWRRR! FUCK ALLA THIS SNEAKY SHIT, IM JUST GONNA EATCHA! OH GOD I JUST ATE A BULLDOZER FULL OF TNT"

Movie Thing: "fuck going outside, colder than a motherfucker! imma snooze while those mahfuckas freeze lmao! Hey stop tryna blow me up. Look I got your plunger, nya nya, how you gonna blow me up n - well shit"

More terror but less man v alien ART OF WAR in the book, naw mean Best little treat, by far, is a scene where the men listen to a tape recording of the Swedish - I mean Norwegian scientists examining the alien, a would-be celebratory air palpably gone to black terror. FOOKIN CHILLS mon!

And man, the iconic KEPCHAWAITIN really put into perspective how hard Koji took the character and ran with it for the various iterations of Metal Gear. There are enough layers of deconstruction and reconstruction at play that an untrained eye (to wit, me until recently) would think he invented the whole thing. Talentless hack auter genius

What's that Wilde quote, "Talent borrows but genius steals?" In pulp context I gotta admit, it's kinda true.

[Air Master Burst]

I suppose Terminator is a useful touchstone - namely the way it successfully transitioned from the robo-slasher horror grit of 1 to the action machismo of 2 with identity intact, and how various other franchises attempted similar but didn't stick the landing.

Terminator 2 is the moment 80s action turned into 90s action. There were still a few outliers like Starship Troopers and Face/Off, but as soon as Edward Furlong appeared onscreen, the whole genre changed practically overnight. Last Action Hero and Demolition Man are HUGE tonal shifts from Commando and Rambo 2. Dolph Lundgren went entirely straight-to-video (Joshua Tree is fucking rad) and Steven Seagal became a thing. Even poor John Woo got stuck making toothless shit like Broken Arrow and fucking Mission Impossible 2!

[xxx1993]

Violent Night, quite possibly one of the best Christmas themed action movies I've seen in a while. Move over, Lethal Weapon and Die Hard.

[NYN]

What happened, Nina Simone?

Roll your eyes at me, since I am that kinda guy: What happened, MISS Simone? is the correct title. No offence.

Just out of admiration for the artist. Musicians always get the end of the stick, by my estimation.
I remember the gal coming home, yes, with a CD and "Listen to this" in a smile. I did, and thought: "Who else sings like that?"

If you have never listened to Miss Nina, treat yourself to her interpretation of Sinnerman.
You're most welcome at 10 minutes, y'all.

[MOSQUITO FIGHTER]

Troll - Made in Norway it has all the typical troupes of a Kaiju film but it's set in Norway and with Trolls instead of giant radioactive reptiles. It's big budget and has some quality special effects. If you a a total Godzilla nut like me you will probably like it. If not it will probably have you switching the movie quick. I managed to complete it and thought it was worth a watch. I thought it was a fun little spin on a Kaiju movie and I got to learn some Troll lore along the way.

Warriors of Future - This is the first big budget Chinese action movie that I've tried out. This is just a total special effects flick in the same vein as Marvel type stuff. It's so obvious that the in helmet shot is a total rip off of Iron Man. I mean they could've made those shots a little different. Something about the animation of the bugs seemed off to me. Anyway I guess it's worth a try. I was struggling to complete it. I really liked the scene with the Mech casing them. Reminded me of that one boss in Contra Hard Corps. Story and characters are paper thin but I guess that's par for the course with these kinds of movies. I'll probably be checking some more of these.

[Lander]

Re. Die Hard, I rewatched 1. Blood, glass, and some pieces of quality Willis acting. Loved the way Al's character arc ran parallel to McClane's and turned out to be so much more than Ha Ha Twinkie Cop. I wasn't expecting Gruber's ultimate fate - pitch perfect, but seeing Lord Rickman pop up in trailers for later entries over the years retroactively influenced the sense of peril. Blondie's last scene secured his status as ubermensch, but was justified by what it set up.

Ahead of the sequels, I can see how a series with a protagonist whose secondary defining feature is his mortality would eventually be forced to raise the disbelief-suspension ceiling to keep the broader concept afloat.

Yeah the novelisation (good pulpy fun!) reveals the post-apocalyptic US Police Force is comprised entirely of (wait for it!) psychotic war criminals. Like literally psychotic, because the gas weapons everybody used to circumvent M.A.D. eat your brain away, before finally killing you (hence also crazy people in THA STREETZ).

So poor ol' FRESNO BOB basically fell into the hands of a small army of Ramsay Boltons. 3;

Caramba, life imitates art imitates life. I hear Snake's erstwhile eye fell prey to the same gas through a cracked goggle, in what sounds like a faithfully Carpenter bit of gooey body horror

I went on a small late 70s/early 80s SF classic novel cash-in *COUGH* I mean tie-in bender, a few years back; besides EFNY, Carpenter's The Thing (via ever-dependable Alan Dean Foster) is quite good. Some interesting action-oriented scenes that could've never worked for logistical reasons, even though ultimately, I'm happier with the more reserved final script.

Ah, but you have me at a disadvantage - I was too much of a POUSSYBOI to experience The Thing in all its disgusting glory. Seems a bit silly now I stop and consider the volume of Thing-derivative horror media I've absorbed over the past decade-ish, having watched a Dead Space trailer over breakfast, and even once played the bit-part 'Detached Hand Of Thing' during a questionably-consensual stage adaptation in the venerable theater of Space Station 13.

Though if we're talking old school horror, I feel the need to work up to it by way of Alien...

Record Scratch, VHS Pause. (Yep, that's me. Painting a forehead bullseye for the whole movie thread to see. That swiss-cheese film portfolio was a landmine just waiting to be stepped on...)

What's that Wilde quote, "Talent borrows but genius steals?" In pulp context I gotta admit, it's kinda true.

I always thought my media professor a pretentious sort for having Steve Jobs' variant of that quote plastered across the desktop of his swanky iMac.
In retrospect, more a confident realist. And certainly one who would be smug to hear it

Terminator 2 is the moment 80s action turned into 90s action. There were still a few outliers like Starship Troopers and Face/Off, but as soon as Edward Furlong appeared onscreen, the whole genre changed practically overnight. Last Action Hero and Demolition Man are HUGE tonal shifts from Commando and Rambo 2. Dolph Lundgren went entirely straight-to-video (Joshua Tree is fucking rad) and Steven Seagal became a thing. Even poor John Woo got stuck making toothless shit like Broken Arrow and fucking Mission Impossible 2!

My list runneth over! Though the funny gory anachronism of Demolition Man sticks in memory more than most.

Speaking of Sly, his portrayal of Dredd seems to fit right in with this colourful 90s fare. Not quite a perfect portrait of the comic hyper-life of Mega City One - with a seriously skewed chin:helmet:face ratio and lawmasters that should never break down without inferference from perp scum - but close enough to hit those relevant wacky notes. I suppose I do have some love for that era after all

[BIL]

Ah, but you have me at a disadvantage - I was too much of a POUSSYBOI to experience The Thing in all its disgusting glory. Seems a bit silly now I stop and consider the volume of Thing-derivative horror media I've absorbed over the past decade-ish, having watched a Dead Space trailer over breakfast, and even once played the bit-part 'Detached Hand Of Thing' during a questionably-consensual stage adaptation in the venerable theater of Space Station 13.

Though if we're talking old school horror, I feel the need to work up to it by way of Alien...

Have you not seen The Thing? Lucky bastard, you're in for a treat. It is indeed a grisly affair, revolving around a creature with the troubling knack of replicating man like so much meat xerox - though personally, I never thought of it as grotesque-reliant. Most of its body-horror is so wildly exotic, almost florally vibrant (even without considering the sheer virtuoso FX skills of Rob Bottin & co); cunningly-deployed explosions of alien terror, in what's otherwise a suspense-and-subterfuge driven movie. Much of the alien's most enduringly troubling tricks occur offscreen, unseen acts of sabotage and fiendish psychological warfare.

There is one scene I admittedly find pretty goddamn foul, but grandfatherly Wilford Brimley is right there covering his nose and mouth and going "AWGHHH, OH GAWD" to lend moral support and take the edge off.

Maybe get a bit of a buzz going first.

EDIT: I'm stealing POUSYBOI (minus the second "S" for maximum gentility )

[xxx1993]

Saw Warriors of Future on Netflix, a fun Chinese action movie.

[Air Master Burst]

My list runneth over! Though the funny gory anachronism of Demolition Man sticks in memory more than most.

Speaking of Sly, his portrayal of Dredd seems to fit right in with this colourful 90s fare. Not quite a perfect portrait of the comic hyper-life of Mega City One - with a seriously skewed chin:helmet:face ratio and lawmasters that should never break down without inferference from perp scum - but close enough to hit those relevant wacky notes. I suppose I do have some love for that era after all

Stallone's 90s fare was mostly garbage like Assassins and Daylight, which is why the colorful ones are all anyone remembers. Sly tried his best to adapt to the changing times, but he never had the knack for comedy that Arnold did. Hell, even Arnold was a relic by 96; Eraser was pretty embarassing across the board (and I say this as an avowed Vanessa Williams stan).

The true ideal of 90s action is Harrison Ford running away from things and/or punching people. Between that and the unfortunate rise of Tarantino, the whole genre basically hibernated until well into the 00s, once the whole Matrix/Underworld era had run its course.

[vol.2]

Network (1976) played in the local revival theater last night. 9/10

Faye Dunaway as an Xer come Zoomer proto influencer, William Holden as her unwilling foil and Peter Finch as a mentally ill prophet manipulated by systemic woes and power.

Sidney Lumet reasserts his status as visionary genius in this tale of amorality and megalomania. Ostensibly a film about the negative effects of television and corporate control over the media, there is much more here under the covers waiting to be unpacked. Lumet touches on everything from exploitation of identity politics to the way we treat the mentally ill and the morality of interpersonal relationships.

The crux of the movie is the famous Ned Beatty speech (I feel like Mischief Maker linked it in a post once, though my mind may be playing tricks on me).

[Lander]

Horror movie education, night one; Alien. Magnificent. What could I even say that hasn't already been said.
Brett searching for Jonesy in the cargo bay was cinematographic porn - that set, that color grade. Phwoarr.
And despite decades of soft-spoiling by pop culture osmosis, the finale still managed to get me

Addendum:

Spoiler

AYO CAPTAIN DUDE GIMME A HUG

Have you not seen The Thing? Lucky bastard, you're in for a treat. It is indeed a grisly affair, revolving around a creature with the troubling knack of replicating man like so much meat xerox - though personally, I never thought of it as grotesque-reliant. Most of its body-horror is so wildly exotic, almost florally vibrant (even without considering the sheer virtuoso FX skills of Rob Bottin & co); cunningly-deployed explosions of alien terror, in what's otherwise a suspense-and-subterfuge driven movie. Much of the alien's most enduringly troubling tricks occur offscreen, unseen acts of sabotage and fiendish psychological warfare.

There is one scene I admittedly find pretty goddamn foul, but grandfatherly Wilford Brimley is right there covering his nose and mouth and going "AWGHHH, OH GAWD" to lend moral support and take the edge off.

Maybe get a bit of a buzz going first.

Ayup - I didn't get into space horror until Event Horizon, which in retrospect is a much more raw direct-inject approach to scares than the slow burning spine-chill of earlier film.
And there's no better praise than wishing you could forget something and experience it fresh loins girded and inebriation primed, Friday night shall be Thing night.

EDIT: I'm stealing POUSYBOI (minus the second "S" for maximum gentility )

Apply liberal London Rudeboy during intonation for maximum effect:
Silvergun for POUSYBOI. Bioship Paladin a BADMAN game yugetmebrav.

[Vexorg]

A Christmas Story Christmas: **1/2

The latest made-for-streaming cash in sequel to an old Holiday classic. To their credit they did get as much of the original cast as they could together for this one, which was probably a little easier than usual since most were kids at the time of the original film.

Set in the early 1970s, a grown up Ralphie Parker now has a wife and family of his own and returns to his home town when his father (the "old man" from the original film) passes away near Christmastime, and finds himself as the father trying to put together Christmas for his children while also trying to launch a writing career. Surprisingly little has changed in the time since he left...

As is typical for this type of thing it's not as good as the original, but still watchable and seems to be much better than the Ill-advised early 2010s sequel.

[vol.2]

A Christmas Story Christmas: **1/2

As is typical for this type of thing it's not as good as the original, but still watchable and seems to be much better than the Ill-advised early 2010s sequel.

There was a recent YouTube video about one of the made for TV sequels called "Ollie Hopnoodle's Haven of Bliss" that is reportedly pretty good. It stars Jerry O'Connell as Ralphie and Dougie Houser's Dad as the father.

[Stevens]

Damn. A first watch of Alien AND The Thing? Jealous.

[Air Master Burst]

The original Christmas Story is pretty bad too, though. Claymation Rudolph and Boris Karloff Grinch are the only classic christmas movies worth a shit.

Then again, I usually just put on christmas episodes from MST3K and Always Sunny and call it a season.

[Some-Mist]

I will forever love christmas vacation. I really don't care about any other national lampoon movie and maybe it just has to do with it being something I watched growing up every single year, but I still love watching it

[xxx1993]

Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again was a bit of an improvement over Secret of the Tomb!

[BIL]

Night of the Comet (1984) Oh no! A comet goes by Earth, its ENERGY BEAMZ reducing anybody not behind cover to so much red shite.



Oof, Christ. Was recommended this as a canny cult favourite, along the lines of 80s horror trifecta The Thing/Fly/Blob; knowingly affectionate 50s SF throwbacks, spiked with Reaganomic venom and balls-out monster FX. Wrong on just about all counts! This is milquetoast grrl power horror/comedy; Proto-Buffy vs Great Value Dawn of the Dead. All too unsurprised to learn Joss "beautiful needy women" Whedon really dug this, the gurning creep!

Competent within its silly niche, offering a genuinely dark, Blob-cynical portrait of the authorities; this thread featuring a credibly commanding female lead, one who'd have been at home in a substantial horror (or horror/comedy!) film. Like Day of the Dead! Not without visual nous, either, evoking a civilisation vanished with clean, frugal minimalism.

Soundtrack is far more of a menace than the quip-wracked cast or featherlight script - the incessant Top 40 caterwaul a hellish funhouse mirror of Scorsese's easy touch. I almost tapped out, when the girls ran around Deserted Shopping Mall™ to the startlingly original accompaniment of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," but powered through somehow! Don't bother, unless you're in the market for bubblegum.

[Lander]

That was gribbly as fuck

The Thing managed to inspire genuine horror a few times - not cringing in anticipation, making an exaggerated ooh-aah face, or other such mugging for an imaginary camera as is the norm.
Proper set-jawed staring disbelief.

Most of its body-horror is so wildly exotic, almost florally vibrant (even without considering the sheer virtuoso FX skills of Rob Bottin & co); cunningly-deployed explosions of alien terror, in what's otherwise a suspense-and-subterfuge driven movie.

Verging on literally floral in a couple of cases! My stomach churn gold star goes to the violently-shake-beef-out-of-a-can disgorgement of some awful camouflage organ. A real smorgasbord of knuckle-and-gristle practical techniques, I even noted a pinch of vintage Jason and the Argonauts stop-motion creep in there toward the end as one last flex on top of an already A+ thesis.

The subterfuge angle was very good as well - in particular, I liked how thick they made the initial casual cameraderie of the base crew. Small touches here and there that spoke to a bond of trust and implicit reliance embraced as a means of dealing with the isolation, all the more surface area to topple for effect.

There is one scene I admittedly find pretty goddamn foul, but grandfatherly Wilford Brimley is right there covering his nose and mouth and going "AWGHHH, OH GAWD" to lend moral support and take the edge off.

My imagination ran away with this one and had me expecting a terrified reaction to a whirling explosion of goo, gore and teeth, so olfactory horror was just about the last thing on my mind. But oh so effective - extra humid to remind us all that smell-o-vision died for a greater purpose.

After all that, I quake in my naive blue-red-blue booties what you would consider a truly, fundamentally grotesque film

I have to say, it was refreshing to see Kurt Russell, well... Act MacReady still has a bit of badass flavour, but with a welcome fallibility and honest-to-god lizard brain fear that give him more range than ol' Snake, leaving a couple of emotionally-charged close up shots still vivid in my mind. Also, Keith David! At last I can say I know him from something that isn't Saint's frigging Row.

Also has a few decent shots, like the one seen above.

That gradiating sky straight out of MechWarrior 2 hubba hubba.

Call me a deep-seated cynic, but the first-glance girlbud cop car perching imagery ended up being a pretty accurate precis to your final appraisal

[vol.2]

Night of the Comet (1984) Oh no! A comet goes by Earth, its ENERGY BEAMZ reducing anybody not behind cover to so much red shite.

I saw that one at a revival in like 2015ish. I remember being sorta bored, but that I dug the general aesthetic. If the music had been better it would have stood up as an art piece. As it was, I think it mostly filled a role as a drive-in movie theater flick (and filled it admirably). Also an interesting early appearance of Chakotay from Voyager.

[Vexorg]

Brahmāstra Part 1: Shiva

A Bollywood film currently being featured prominently on Disney+, so it's very likely going to be a lot of people's first introduction to Bollywood and it's inherent absurdity. Goes hard with a ridiculous fight scene and a giant dance number within the first 20 minutes, but it's got a run time of 2:47 so you know it can't keep the pace up. A suspiciously fireproof young orphan named Shiva falls in love at first sight with a girl named Isha (who, in a rare reverse case of the Dulcinea Effect, seems oddly willing to die for some man he just met 20 minutes ago), and soon finds himself involved with the Brahmānsh, keepers of a collection of mystic artifacts called Astras.

Following a bunch of random action and CG-powered wire-fu, Shiva learns from some low budget George Lucas clone that he is an astra himself, and soon had to defend the pieces of the most powerful of the Astras from some generic villains who appear to be trying to revive some random harbinger of apocalypse. It's all kind of hard to follow, but at least it's dubbed into English, although it sounds suspiciously like the dub was done over a Zoom call. Has a bad habit of introducing interesting characters and killing them off way too quickly, while leaving all the boring ones alive.

[BIL]

The Thing managed to inspire genuine horror a few times - not cringing in anticipation, making an exaggerated ooh-aah face, or other such mugging for an imaginary camera as is the norm.
Proper set-jawed staring disbelief.

Perhaps the best film to rewatch with newcomers ever. A treasured memory is my old seadog uncle's muttered "Jesus! What a situation!" in the aftermath of the Macready Method's calamitous - yet vindicated! - first run. "Cut me loose God damn it!"

(speaking of a certain hated piece of furniture - now you've seen the film, please enjoy The Musical, if you haven't already! masterful!)

There is one scene I admittedly find pretty goddamn foul, but grandfatherly Wilford Brimley is right there covering his nose and mouth and going "AWGHHH, OH GAWD" to lend moral support and take the edge off.

My imagination ran away with this one and had me expecting a terrified reaction to a whirling explosion of goo, gore and teeth, so olfactory horror was just about the last thing on my mind. But oh so effective - extra humid to remind us all that smell-o-vision died for a greater purpose.

Oof, yeah - audiovisuals are one thing, but nothing invades at range quite like teh frowze. We had a particularly brutal storm once, in our neck of the Caribbean; we lads volunteered to scavenge our BTFOd docks for foodstuffs. You know, to bolster our resumes! I mean the local foodbanks! All going well, with one hulking container after another yielding non-perishable bounties! Aaand then, we opened what had been a mains-powered refrigerated container (what could go wrong lmao) full of rotten meat (aieee!). Instantaneous pratfalling hand-on-stove retreat is all I recall. >w<

To Blair, classy hardman of science My report would've read "ROSES R RED, VIOLETS R BLUE, THIS MUHFUCKA SMELL LIKE SHIT AND LOOK LIKE SHIT 2 - PEACE" *sound of snowcat trundling into distance at farcically slow yet undeniably ardent pace*

After all that, I quake in my naive blue-red-blue booties what you would consider a truly, fundamentally grotesque film

I must confess to a spot of defintional wangling there; I was worried you'd soon find the film spoiled, with its latter-day ubiquity In the word's true sense of "outrageously distorted figures," The Thing is indeed A1, exemplary. But I genuinely distinguish artful body/xenohorrors ala Cronenberg/Carpenter, where the grisly is more in service of the uncanny, or eerie, or weird. More ineffable than flat F-this.

A better distinction would be "visceral;" to me, that describes the more lurid slasher, torture, and other quasi-snuff pictures. Carnage as the be-all, end-all; ultimately interchangeable with actual snuff, or even clinical footage. I find nothing remarkable in either; only a confirmation of things I maintain a grimly pragmatic awareness of. Tied to a chair and maimed with a blowtorch? Is this Hollywood ca 2004 or Santiago ca 1986? Oh well, RIP either way.

Not to get preachy, just not my bag. Also not to say I can't enjoy films in those genres - but again, my favourites again tend to involve a bit more than meatspace. Argento's Tenebrae, for example... some horrendously cruel slaughters in that one, but the film's real forte is a story so floridly insane, I'm kinda cracking up just recalling it (it's nuts, and excellent! killer soundtrack too).

Also, Keith David! At last I can say I know him from something that isn't Saint's frigging Row.

Investigate They Live post-haste! A film for all seasons, with David opposite an astonishingly capable (or maybe just expertly-deployed?) ROWDEH Roddy Piper. You may be aware of its legendary Alley Fight - a microcosmic masterpiece of cinema, all on its own - but it's even better in full rueful context! Keef's always excellent, though typically in shorter-lived roles ala The Quick And The Dead, Pitch Black and Nope. Pretty decent flicks all, now I line 'em up like that.

Night of the Comet (1984) Oh no! A comet goes by Earth, its ENERGY BEAMZ reducing anybody not behind cover to so much red shite.

I saw that one at a revival in like 2015ish. I remember being sorta bored, but that I dug the general aesthetic. If the music had been better it would have stood up as an art piece. As it was, I think it mostly filled a role as a drive-in movie theater flick (and filled it admirably). Also an interesting early appearance of Chakotay from Voyager.

A better selection of tunes would've helped immensely, and indeed might've transformed the film's effect; I felt like someone was beating me over the head with a rolled-up copy of the Billboard Top 40. Imagine Goodfellas set to the most popular hair metal and hip hop of the late 80s, aieee! Wait. No, that sounds amazing. Someone should do it. But that's a good movie, doh!

[emphatic]

Re-watched Zoolander for the first time since 15 years (I watched it several times back then) or so with my two eldest kids tonight. I don't think they really clicked with the humor in it, as you seldom do the first time you see it, but they didn't hate it either. It's still very funny.

[Vexorg]

Spirited: **


Yet another version of A Christmas Carol, only this time it's being told from the perspective of the ghosts and the gigantic celestial bureaucracy behind the annual Christmas Ghosts production. The whole thing goes off the rails when Will Ferrell decides to try to redeem Yet Another Indistinguishable Ryan Reynolds Character™ from his evil ways, only this one can't be bothered with inconveniences like the Fourth Wall and already knows the story all too well.

Has its moments, but you can tell exactly when the Oscar Bait song starts, and it feels just a little too much like they were trying to make a cozy little holiday classic but Apple kept throwing money at it and bloated the whole thing beyond recognition. I'm guessing someone is going to try to turn this into a big budget Broadway production within a few years.