deep blue sea - somehow feels like the movie version of its own licensed ps2 game. i like that ll cool j’s character has three times as many character details as every other character in the movie (by which i mean he has three character details, instead of one) and so ends up taking over the whole rest of the narrative by default. weirdly unmemorable sharks, good credits rap. the ocean IS haunted!!
i guess the sharks are meant to evoke stem cell research or something and then ll stabs one of them in the eye with a crucifix, which means this counts as “elevated horror”
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Watched a very Netflix-coded but still enjoyable recent Chinese rom-com called Her Story. It’s absolutely familiar territory when considering just the landscape of American films of late; a story about young women, men, and children all struggling against patriarchal structures whether systemic or internalized, to sad or comedic affect with nice lessons in the end. Described as such, it sounds pretty trite; and it probably is, to the extent that I kept having serious (positive) reasons to compare this movie with 20th Century Women, like scenes, dialog, emotional moments… Saccharine for the same reasons as that film, but expressed in a wholly different way. But there were some moments that really highlighted a cultural difference that interested me. Like, I kept thinking how this same kind of story could be told as a nostalgic American 70s period piece, in the case of 20th Century Women, but in the case of Her Story it was a modern one where women who can’t be more than late 30s would imply that feminism was something their mothers could never really engage with. There is also a light theme about the conflict between individualist vs collectivist thinking that the characters were sort of contrasted by.
I liked it. Would recommend it if you enjoy romcoms and are curious about popular cinema outside of the US.
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felt a sudden strong compulsion to watch alien 1 and alien³, the former of which ive watched before but maybe 10 years ago, and the latter i’ve never seen.
i watched aliens last year and wasnt very impressed, tho i didnt hate it. im not much of a james cameron fan, i do appreciate how many puppets and animatronics and foam alien suits are in it. i just think space marines and triumphant heroism is one of the more meatheaded and less interesting directions this series could have taken
alien³ of course opens with the cuddly cast of characters assembled in aliens dying horribly, which i think is pretty key given that like sheer nihilism feels central to the series. it was kind of weird and not great overall and i think that contrary to forum poster consensus the assembly cut, which is the version that i watched, seems a little overlong and excessive in terms of stupid character relationship building between random guys who are just grisly horror movie death fodder, and also i think adds all of those truly hideous vfx alien shots that defang how cool it is. also people seem super incensed that a dog dies in the theatrical cut, when its an ox that dies in the assembly cut instead—how this is supposed to be an improvement is lost on me but i’ve come to understand that to many people a dog is worth more than not just other animals, but other humans as well. anyways now that ive managed to talk shit on james cameron and dog ownership in one post my work is complete
but yeah it was weird and uneven and felt like it was almost kind of brilliant at points (multiple characters begging for death, etc.), i liked it more than aliens and i thought it was a good end to the Ripley Cycle. effectively nasty and unpleasant and grimy movie that looks like quake and which feels like part of the dna of hundreds of videogames. the lighting could have been moodier and more sinister i think. i can tell you one thing i dont think i could be convinced to watch the fucking joss whedon-written alien resurrection.
alien is amazing, one of the most visually textured, amazing sets and incredible lighting, layered sound design movies ive ever seen… its a great movie, idk if anyone knows about it but i recommend it. i watched it on headphones and the machine drone and breathing noises and room tones all really did it for me…
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Well, the movie was directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and he and Whedon hate each others’ guts:
In another interview that same year, Whedon put the boot in further. “It was mostly a matter of doing everything wrong,” he said about the finished film. “They said the lines… mostly… but they said them all wrong. And they cast it wrong. And they designed it wrong. And they scored it wrong. They did everything wrong that they could possibly do.” He added: “It wasn’t so much that they’d changed the script – it’s that they just executed it in such a ghastly fashion as to render it almost unwatchable.”
“I know Joss Whedon said some bad things about me,” says Jeunet. “I don’t care. I know if Joss Whedon had made the film himself, it probably would have been a big success. He’s very good at making films for American geeks – something for morons. Because he’s very good at making Marvel films. I hate this kind of movie. It’s so silly, so stupid.” About the changes he made to Whedon’s script, Jeunet jokes: “Too bad, Joss Whedon!”
IMO it’s worth a watch. Truly bizarre movie but fun.
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It is a good old fashioned time and the hideous hybrid alien at the end is probably the grossest the series has ever got
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The ripley basketball shot in the 4th movie was something sigourney weaver pulled off irl, just watch the bts on that scene to see ron perlman lose his mind and nearly ruin the shot when it happens. Rest of the movie not worth watching but jeunet put in a heroic effort to make whedon’s shitty script almost worthwhile.
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resurrection is definitely not the worst alien movie despite being the one that feels the most like an afterthought. depending on your personal ranking it’s probably second worst but most people would rank a different one as worst
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alien resurrection is like the last one they made that has good elements or is watchable. all of the new ones are worse
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a fun game to do is drink or take a hit every time you see a cast members tonsils in alien resurrection because there’s SO MUCH YELLING
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Resurrection is kind of an okay movie on its own, but a bad Alien movie imo.
Prometheus is bad but I can kind of respect it for trying something different with the franchise, whereas Covenant was obviously one big apology and reversed course back to the old series formula and is less interesting as a result.
AvP sits alongside the Underworld movies as ‘stare at the wall next to the TV instead because that’s more interesting’ level of bad. Never watched AvP2.
I can’t even remember much of the latest one right now, even what it was called.
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avp is awesome honestly but I don’t consider those “alien” movies because besides xenomorphs avp has less to do with how alien or predator stories were presented in their own series separately than you would think. however it is an amazing distillation of the comic book writing that created avp in the first place. meanwhile avp2 is a garbage piece of shit that was also a precursor to every movie being too dark
the first avp rules because Paul W.S. writes richly detailed fan fiction AUs of videogames he likes, and avp is like the ur-crossover fan fiction lore franchise. the maze pyramid is a perfect setting for one of Paul’s games. A thinking man’s film…
the predators enslave “lesser” populations to provide game and hunting grounds for their society, it’s how they become men. We side with the predators because the aliens are the greater existential threat. Or do we side with the predators simply because their way of life is more recognizable to us…
it’s like if they let vin diesel’s character from billy lynn’s long halftime walk come up with an aliens vs predator story
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I got to go watch FROM HERE TO ETERNITY on the big screen down in Kamakura at the Kamakura Film Society. It was as small a room as you could make and still call it a proper theater. I was by far the youngest person in the room at 2pm on a Wednesday at my spry 40 years old.
What I took note this time was how the men will compromise everything to maintain their moral standards and the women will sacrifice everything for happiness. These opposing forces slam into each other at one hundred miles an hour as Honolulu burns.
I also complained about it a lot when we were doing warmovis where movies of the last 30 years just do Shot Reverse Shot Shot and much older movies would just have two actors (or more!) on screen and you could see how they are emotionally affected by what the other person was saying even if the other person didn’t and that is such an easier powerful reason to A. let actors act B. Let us make our own judgments about what is happening. And there is so much in From Here To Eternity because everyone is a broken human being. The men are bent on their own destruction and the women so desperately want to escape it.
I’ve grown to love this movie more each time I see it. Its handling of complex gender roles and sacrifices and the emotional rollercoaster and how is both straight and gay at the same time. Seeing all the actors including Sinatra at their absolute prime. And Then Pearl Harbor Happens. After 2 hours the theater got to stretch its sound system as the Zeroes buzzed overhead. And explosions rocked the room.
Just because a man loves something doesn’t mean it has to love him back.
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This seems like the right thread:
I’ve been a fan of his for a long time and it’s overall a good special. There is some very slightly edge-lord bullshit like his accents and one use of the “W” word 
but it’s self aware and minimal. Well, the accents aren’t minimal but that’s like his thing and, being half Phillipino means his mom’s maiden name is almost definitely Spanish so he gets a pass from my half-carribean ass.
He ends it with a musical section where he plays piano which is interesting because I don’t think he’s ever done this in his standup despite being a super accomplished jazz pianist. IMO it is worth the watch and if you aren’t really into his stand-up it might be worth skipping ahead to.
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The… W word?
N word but for white people. I klnow I didn’t like hearing it. Dunno how it sits for folks in general.
God damn lol. I haven’t heard that one in a decade at least. A golden oldie
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I was in disbelief that it was indeed that one. I thought there was a mind freak switcharoo and that was the word in that casket the naacp buried at their convention in the early 2000s rather than the other word.
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watched “king of new york” ln that was way too good
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wow and I thought I could not like rivette more but there he is giving the mvp award to sigourney weaver
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