This is the first thing that pops up when I hit play on Dial of Destiny. Probably won’t finish this tonight but this seems like an ill omen.
(Crystal Skull was dumb, I forgot about the pompadour monkeys)
Edit: the second thing that pops up is even worse
Edit 2: oh my god, PS3 CG de-aged Harrison Ford but with his 80-something year old voice coming out of it. Why did they do this.
Thoroughly enjoyed The Holdovers, it was kind of the perfect movie to watch this time of year. It is just really pleasant watching Giamatti lob shitty self-satisfied insults at the kids under his charge and see what fires him into indignant rage. This felt well-balanced between the three leads.
Also, helps that there isn’t a character here that detracts from the story. The little bit parts throughout don’t play much into the larger story, and that doesn’t matter, because they spent their time on-screen well. To me, it’s a sign of a good movie where you can just have a scene that doesn’t contribute much to the story and have it be meaningful in another way, like that bit with the mormon kid chucking his shoe into the river.
Dial of Destiny was a pretty miserable movie. Didn’t even get a good main villain death out of it.
And Capra did Why We Fight
I will say that I was impressed the climax actually went there (literally).
Replace Vidor with Sturges and I think it plays.
If this had happened like halfway through the movie and not as the contractually obliged final act supernatural deus ex machina spectacle I would have respected it more
I think it’s gorgeously shot, well crafted, excellently performed, and one of the most boring movies I’ve ever seen.
Not to be like “this remake of a movie from the 1920s is too predictable” but it’s so lifeless, so lacking in verve. Dafoe injects a little into the movie once he shows up, but by playing it as such a straight remake, it ends up being plodding instead of ominous, predictable instead of tense. So naturally there’s a couple random jump scares to wake you up.
I think giving the female lead a little more to do - involve her more in the investigation, allow her some agency beyond laying in bed ranting and raving for 3/4ths of the movie - would’ve dramatically improved it.
I do like that it actually plays with light and shadow, and all the tracking cuts and flips were nice. It makes an effort to be artistic. But it’s like water off a duck’s back. There’s nothing to hold onto, nothing about it that’s actually a standout.
I watched the Herzog one the next morning because I was so disappointed and that one is a million times better imo. I feel like the Herzog one actually had something to say about the tension between the occult/“modern science” that didn’t feel like reactionary edge lord shit? I don’t know if that’s exactly what eggers is going on about, but it certainly feels that way to me with the line about Nosferatu being an appetite and the line in the witch about living deliciously. I don’t know if that’s articulate. I guess what I mean is that it feels like eggers thinks it’s cool to be into the occult in the way teenagers get into it by drawing pentagrams on their folders whereas Herzog seemed to be talking more about how ignoring folkloric occult stuff gives the bourgeoise another reason to dismiss the poor folk.
It also looks a lot better! I was pretty underwhelmed with the light and shadows in the eggers one, I didn’t think that bluegray coloring was doing much for it at all.
Just saw Nosferatu, adored it, felt very much like my 2024, all the being sick and puking and bleeding and seizing, I just kept going “damn, that’s me” throughout, haven’t seen the others so maybe that colors my opinion (also miffy had my hand in a vise the entire time that was cool) but damn I had a great relatable time, damn,
Harrison Ford cums on screen?? I gotta see this
I love that the deaging CGI isn’t even the funniest part of this, it’s when deniro starts stomping on him like goodfellas but it looks like a fucking mdickie game because he’s 100 years old
That shopkeeper selling getting beaten up by a geriatric with the muscles of a Chihuahua deserves an Oscar
its like a fight in a family guy cutaway
I watched Spice World for the first time in my life despite living through Spice Girl fever growing up. I was under the influence of two Truly Unruly tall cans and I’m not sure I could sit through this movie sober. There’s so little connective tissue despite there being some interesting bits with weird cameos and some cut away bits that don’t seem to mean anything. What a weird product of the time. At best it feels like a mockumentary shot by a Dr Who crew.
Have been reading Hellboy lately (just the main series, omnibuses 1 and 2 so far) and watching the first movie. How disappointing! I don’t think directly adapting early comic issues would have been a better answer tbh, but this is booooring. L
Edit: “L” was a typo on accident right before I hit post. But it’s staying in.
I watched New Gods: Nezha Reborn, the first in Light Chaser’s Taoist Avengers franchise.
It has a pretty good setup, the first half of the movie sort of feels a bit like a steampunk Akira set in a 1920s Shanghai-style city. You’ve got your unruly punk in a cool jacket and a souped-up motorcycle who has a run in with some smug rich guy which causes him to awaked to his latent god powers. Then in the second half, it basically becomes Iron Man, right down to the makeshift power suit etc.
It’s pretty good, although one problem I had with all Light Chaser films is that they always seem to feel like they have 3 hours worth of story crammed into 2 and a bit hours. So they tend to feel a bit exhausting.
I also watched White Snake 3, which chronologically fits between the first two. Like it’s wedged right in there, starting at the exact moment the first one ends, and ending with them heading off to do the first scene of the second one. Because of this it does feel a bit like it doesn’t have a proper beginning or end. Besides that it’s pretty good, although coming off the batshit crazy second one, which I described as:
This one feels more like “what if the sequel to Frozen was like Frozen 2”.
It’s significantly less violent, and a lot more focused on romance and comedy.
They still haven’t delivered on the fox girl revenge plot they’ve been teasing since 2019, what’s the deal with that, Light Chaser?
rewatched fury road which is still good but it’s very funny to me that the start of the movie has like AAA videogame ass mental illness representation that consists of like, a mysterious ghost child appears and says “why didnt you help us” and whooshes at you. and then it basically stops coming up after the first 15 minutes of the movie. having watched them both i think the commercial failure of furiosa is bc that one didnt have a weird lightning bolt ass guy driving around in a big truck and playing guitar riffs in time to the car chases.
watched bell book and candle yesterday and was charmed that psychosexually tormenting jimmy stewart was a whole cottage industry in 1958.
