time bandits may be the only film i watched more as a nipper than the star warses new hope to jedi
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Time Bandits is the greatest kids movie. So glad I got exposed to something where god is essentially the villain at a young age.
We mainly rented tapes back when, but Time Bandits was one of an elite few movies I actually owned (along with Star Wars, Indy, and that McDonalds promo copy of TMNT).
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I was just telling I think cointelbro I haven’t seen that movie still I should watch it
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right i quoted the thing satan said about lasers
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the George Harrison song that ends Time Bandits is one of my favorite songs evar and thus it has one of my favorite endings evar
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I always see people call Gone Tropo the absolute low point of Harrison’s career. Maybe it is? I’ve never bothered to give it a whole listen. But the fact that Dream Away is on there makes me think it can’t be that bad overall.
Electronic Sound?
Finally saw Battlefield Earth perplexing movie but honestly… not the most obnoxious thing I’ve ever seen.
That’s either The Legend of Tarzan or How to talk to girls at parties
been watching a bunch of Chinese animation since Nezha was mentioned a month ago
Ne Zha (2019)
ignore that poster, 90% of the movie is early afternoon children’s style CGI characters
the Chaos pearl is divided into two parts: the Spirit Pearl and the Demon Pill (orb) by the Lord of Heaven. each part is entrusted to a disciple with a specific purpose: to reincarnate the Spirit Pearl into the third-born son of General Li Jing, and to keep the Demon Pill safe for 3 years until a heaven-made curse takes effect to destroy it with lightning in 3 years. naturally, the orbs get switched and the general’s son is born as a chaotic malignant force of mischief. blah blah blah, overcomes his destiny, and so on
this was fine. there is a lot of comic relief but there is also a lot of visual jokes that make the most of the medium of animation. which stick out since so many other animated movies aimed at children are visually pretty staid. Kpop Demon Hunters using funny faces/Toriyama designs really tickled my fancy, the visual gags in this are not as slick. though I thought Taiyi Zhenren having seemingly every legendary aritfact of myth available (stuffed down his pants) was a good one
the story is good (adapted from a 16th century novel). the storytelling is ok, better than the average children’s fare, plenty of showing instead of telling. the theme of imminent unavoidable death is maintained, so I could interpret Nezha’s wilful recklessness as self-destructive. the animation is fine, up to the last major scene, where it changes to a different movie (see the poster) and turns everything up into an epic final battle. which works because there’s very little of this hinted at in the run-up to the scene
Ne Zha 2 (2025)
this starts with with Nezha and Ao Bing (who died in body in the final scene of the previous film) getting new bodies made by Taiyi Zhenren from lotus root powder. which makes a thick jelly, so they have to sit still while they set. they don’t so the animators go wild with stretch and bounce, hilarious. more jokes, more themes (this time, duty & authority), more fights
this picks up the plot immediately from the end of the previous film and maintains the heightened stakes. it’s good, Ne Zha meets his brothers, they team up, fight in a war in heaven, etc. the piss joke in this one is much more drawn out
The Storm (2024)
again ignore the poster. more indicative of the Ghibli-esque style is:
I watched a bit of the other movie from the director Busifan, The Guardian/Dahufa, China’s first animated 12A film. it was good but I’ll write about it when I finish it
this was a little less poignant. Mantou (in the wooden hat) goes to Dragon Bay wth his guardian Daguzi, to recover the Yeling Cloth from the sunken Xigu boat. the YinJiao jelly in the bay engulfed the wreck. now a great storm will cause the boat to rise. the King is also coming, bringing troops to recover the treasure from the boat
the jellies have a special power, that their bite is poisonous and transform the victim into a delusional servant of the jellies/boat. which, as I gleefully pointed out to the eldest as it’s a favourite shitpost catchphrase of theirs, is a metaphor for capitalism
god damn this looks amazing, fluid and colourful. the storytelling is patchy, some gaps of “why did that happen/who are these characters/what is their significance” is sometimes not addressed and is left up to the viewer to fill in based on their understanding of similar stories. which I’m lacking in. but the main plot points land solidly
not so many animation gags (a little too serious, a lot of deadly firefights in this for a kid’s film). but one funny one where the viscera from a dead jelly-zombie leaves a trail on a rock that looks like a snotty nose
and the King’s lieutenants all have such stupid fashion choices. Uncle Big Hat, your hat is too fancy
New Gods: Yang Jian (2022)
the god Erlang has fallen from grace and is now Yang Jian, a bounty hunter in a mythical world of steampunk magic and Dark Souls-style titlecards for locations. he has to… look, I forgot the plot, it was slightly too confusing and had too many twists. his sister is trapped in a mountain? his nephew is trying to free her with the Lotus Lantern?? he put her there & is after the bounty on his nephew’s head???
there is a well-realised world for spirits to live in outside of the mortal realm, most of the action happens there. every major character ends up summoning a giant spectral version of themselves, artistically themed in the colours of their elemental damage type. these fights still manage to be cool
animation-wise, the mechanical designs are a surprise and good
there are a lot of goofy faces as blows land
and in the final scene there is a big change in rendering styles as Yang Jian is trapped in a scroll
The Legend of Hei (2019)
ignore this image, this design gets about 5 minutes of screen time
Hei is a young cat spirit in a forest, rudely dumped into a city built by humans after razing the trees. adopted by a pack of slightly-feral spirits/pokémon/furries, they take him to their hideout for peace and quiet. until the world’s most powerful spirit cop (literally called Infinite) storms their hideout. the pack escape, destroying the way back, leaving Hei with Infinite to return to civilisation as reluctant buddies
the visual style is “Pokémon”
the plot is “Jujustu Kaisen”. wait, this is a prequel for a 2010’s web comic/flash animation? ok, nice
there are some funny jokes, after travelling for days, Hei and Infinite make land and go to a restaurant. getting the check, Infinite pulls out a handful of sodden, destroyed notes. “we take mobile pay” the waiter helpfully informs. the incredibly powerful magical being then pulls out a mobile phone, with predictable comedic development
there is a cameo from Nezha at the end, which we recognised instantly before he was introduced
Nobody (2025)
look, I’m trying to watch it again to recap it and it’s too funny. there’s a pig yao tasked with scrubbing one of four pots that his king wants to use for cooking the Tang monk + his three companions in. legend says that any yao who eats the flesh of the Tang monk will become immortal. nothing mentioned about the three companions: a monkey guy, a pig guy, and some sandy river guy, all on their way to the west on some journey for scrolls
pig yao ends up escaping with frog yao, and plan to capture & eat the Tang monk themselves. but on finding out that it’s crazy impossible, get a new, better plan: recruit a monkey yao and anyone else, and journey to the west before the real party catch up & gain immortality via returning the scrolls
it’s written like a transcript of a D&D campaign for 1st-level characters, looks gorgeous, and is animated like demented Flash videos
there is a touch of moralising, “together we are stronger”. but I agree with that
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crossposting here, because this movie fits two of my shticks, and WHO can say NO to a romcom where a Saturn LS is flipped and explodes? — Moi for sure cannot, that’s established now.
On-topic now:
idk why, but even when the chemistry between Robbie and Farrell was a lesser version of Stone × Gosling, still stuck around till the end and had a good time.
Also, imho the LS is a beautiful wacky car and earned a 
for being a part of the cast, similar to the Saab 900 in Drive My Car or the De Lorean in BTTF.
=> 4/5 Crash-rating- 
s for the BBBJ 1994 SL
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Finally got around to watching Sorcerer after watching The Wages of Fear about 20 years ago
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apparently Resurrection has been available to watch on the Criterion Channel service since 3/24.
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I saw it in theatres back in February. Movie absolutely rips.
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project hail mary was a pretty enjoyable piece of mass market fluff
anytime someone makes a reddit movie and it’s not primarily about how awesomesauce the US military-industrial complex is i count that as a win. there’s a carrier in this one but they don’t really dwell on it or on america, which is refreshing. it’s mostly about international cooperation etc.
i said this on letterboxd but it’s interesting how andy weir is basically just an unreconstructed obamanaut, with his ‘yay space awesome diversity win’ storylines. woke 2 will require this as well
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It got me emotionally because Gosling and also because I’m an old spacehead but I also kept being annoyed by the 1000 ways it seemingly willfully avoided being hard sf, in exchange for… nothing? 7% more dumb-audience legibility, I guess?
It was kind of like “what if Interstellar had less human interest but was also somewhat less stupid but still kind of stupid”
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I also enjoyed Project Hail Mary, it’s nice to see a sci-fi movie about exploration and peaceful interaction, working an environmental issue.
Thoughts on Project Hail Mary (spoilers)
I really love the design of the alien, very very different than humanity in even how it sees the world. That it does not use light is something I greatly enjoyed seeing, and every time it would jump to its POV you understood a lot of why it took interest in some things but not others (screens, for example).
I think my favorite moment of the movie is the detail that the aliens go completely dead to the world when sleeping, so there’s always some to watch over the clutch. The bit with Gosling bringing his bed into the tunnel so it could sleep over him was genuinely touching. I also liked how their science and areas of interest are different than humanity’s, with them not considering radiation to be a big deal because they’re probably subterranian and their bodies are more resilient than humans are.
THE WEAVING and spider-like stuff was among my favorite elements, what a great idea. That Rocky was probably the engineer of their crew, and thoughtlessly would create a mile of chains was a really fun and earned moment. Any of the webbing and fabrication elements were wonderful.
I liked the source of the conflict a lot, the Astrophage is a unique and cool idea. I think the tether is a bit of a stretch that makes it convenient and possible to solve for humans, but I’m willing to gloss over stuff like that.
I did come away from the movie not having felt a whole lot, and I think part of that is just that I don’t like how Andy Weir does The One Character he always has as a protag.
A Few Gripes (spoilers)
The character feels like he’s always trying to Make Content for an audience, quipping constantly in a way that doesn’t feel like it’s for him. When John Crichton does it, though still grating, he seems like he’s trying to keep his sanity intact. Here and in The Martian, I dunno, it feels too much like he’s trying to entertain his “viewers”. This was particularly annoying when he DOES have someone to talk to, and instead is more interested in his non-existent audience than the person he’s alone with. It’s very Twitch Streamery?
I would also say I never really felt like they were taking the situation seriously (end-of-two-worlds stakes), like, they needed to keep the tone light so he’s like burning through supplies and taking big risks because it’s a little more entertaining I guess. The alien was also very much made to be a lovable scamp than a more realistic person you could imagine has lived a life up until that point.
It’s a pretty nice movie for kids to see too because a bunch of it is about having a theory, testing it, being wrong but learning something useful, and trying again. I really like the detail that the main guy’s entire initial value to the mission was his theory that water wasn’t necessary for life, and this ends up not being true in this case, and he takes it as a interesting data point rather than some devastating failure. It’s fun to set up a character as an expert in x and x is disproven almost immediately.
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dito, that also struck me as a good decision to show (and not tell) that it’s OK to be wrong, as long as you learn from it and move on — even more so when you see daily many powerful people being unable to do exactly that very easy thing.
the Gosling-wearing-his-heart-on-his-sleeve vibes in this movie.
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after project hail Mary I decided to watch arrival and thought it was actually offensively bad
the fact it has such acclaim is really making me question the intelligence of the world around me (in 2026, I know). you’re telling me halfhearted racism, unspoken global fascist takeover, lying about basic linguistics facts, and female lead with one facial expression is Oscar worthy now? because what, it’s about motherhood and how every moment is precious? get a grip
Ted chiang short story which was the source material blows it out of the water, by not actively insulting my intelligence
rant copy paste from letterboxd
the entire political setting of this movie is unironic Starship Troopers. every public is a mob, every government is rightfully a military dictatorship. you wouldn’t know America had a president if not for being mentioned on a diagetic news clip. and the Chinese Communist Party seems to have completely been coup’d by the PLA. not to mention every other country’s civilian leadership. is the future just ‘eggheads’ and ‘good/bad guys with guns’? what is this, Halo 4?
quote: “project hail mary makes arrival look like triumph of the will”
i did derive some pleasure from the fact that literally every linguistics fact quoted in the movie is literally incorrect. like, that’s not the sanskrit word for war. that’s not what the sapir-whorf hypothesis means. citing the ‘kangaroo’ etymology as false doesn’t absolve you of literally using it as a piece of dialogue. and all of the actual linguistic work of translation is cut and summarized by a piece of jeremy renner exposition. really dire for anyone who likes language. romantic dialogue though. “you wanna make a baby? with goo?”
would it shock you to learn that everything I complain about here is not present in the original? no overbearing military, no gifts or weapons, no alien offers in general, no squid ink, no incorrect Sanskrit, much more actual linguistic and scientific discussion, no soldier mutiny, no bombs, no riots, no child cancer, no actual spaceship landings, no sudden reveals… right down to fundamental plot points, this movie is Ted Chiang’s short story “Story of Your Life” given a lobotomy, the brains scooped out like crab meat and replaced with basically reactionary pap.
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Arrival totally pissed me off when it came out, for the same reasons. I was a big fan of the short story, and it hurt to see it adapted by total imbeciles.
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Sicario is a very good movie and I am increasingly convinced it is entirely by accident / because the actors knew what movie they were making even if Villeneuve didn’t exactly
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