Films Recently Watched

[Nebraska]

 

classic early 80s cheapie drive-in slasher that's somewhere betwix between boring, silly and mindless. it's also the one and only performance of early scream queen cecile bagdadi who ended up doing no more films but kept that amazing last name for prosperity

[doublename]

Really dug Hereditary.

[zaphod]

for some reason i watched solo. i was in a pretty bad mood before it started. then i saw the trailers. one of them is literally a movie about a black kid who finds a big gun. in those interminable five seconds between each trailer there was a little ad for some grinch movie where he walks across the screen and basically tells the audience to fuck off and buy soda, or snarkily says "oh great, more trailers" and makes a jack off motion with his hand. thanks grinch, thanks for letting me know i don't have to be here either. i felt violated. i wanted to leave. then the movie started. somehow one of the most expensive movies ever made (250 million fucking dollars) looks like it was soaked in toilet water and left out in the sun. multiple times i couldn't even tell who or what i was supposed to be looking at. half the movie is out of focus or bathed in shadows. i was so baffled by this that i did some mid-movie iphone research and found out the director of photography made an "artistic decision" akin to gordon willis' work with lowlight in the godfather to reflect the darkness of the world in these trumpian times we all exist in now. you know, in a star wars movie! 

"acting": you have alden ehrenreich doing an impression of five easy pieces era jack nicholson, looking like he's in his late thirties, playing a twenty something harrison ford, standing maybe five foot nine inches tall, acting opposite emilia "franchise killer" clarke, who is a pair of eyebrows attached to a middling 6 of a body. you have a trans sjw robot who is so badly written that it comes off as a parody of trans sjws, who near the end of the film sets all the robots free and then dies while characters literally roll their eyes at it. way to make me more open minded disney, you created a character even the movie hates. you have donald glover once again proving atlanta was an accident, playing lando as some kind of cape collecting intergalactic dandy. oh, but he's pansexual. don't forget star wars was always about the sex. there's so much fucking in star wars. remember the twincest scene between luke and leia after she strangles jabba where han gets in on it and uses salacious crumb's head as a pocket pussy? neither do i. what about ron howard's direction? has anyone ever asked that about a movie? not that anyone cares but darth maul is in this. i thought he was dead but nope, he's back, the fucking legend. 

there isn't much else to say about the film's content. solo feels like forgetting to do an important essay in high school and then frantically completing it in homeroom, fingers crossed, then realizing you turned in a story about cucking your dad. there is no reason for it to exist, there is no reason to ever watch it. it proves that star wars is only as interesting as the canon characters and the actors who inhabited them, and so it proves that star wars is effectively dead. its existence begs the question of why? why keep beating this pinata full of money even after it's given you billions of dollars? with marvel films disney has found a perfect formula for serialized, neverending content that yields infinite returns. they use the aesthetics of whatever social movements are popular at the moment to imbue their films with cultural relevance, to make them events, which of course brings people out to see them, but all of these films are empty. they have tricked people into believing that something like black panther is an artistic statement and not a calculated piece of marketing, released during black history month, with a very loud advertising voice that reminds everyone that watching it is literal social activism. and then three months later release a new movie that makes everyone forget black panther existed. they inject identity politics into the movies and the media frenzies around the movies to generate discussions, to make them impervious to criticism. solo is a failure because of white males. the last jedi isn't bad, it's the alt right. when you allow corporate culture to dictate every creative decision in an industry, the industry dies. the marvel model of a cinematic universe is now being applied to every property that has ever existed. it has effectively turned big budget films into television shows. they have trained audiences to define movies this way, so big budget spectacle that exists outside the realm of a recognizable ip simply doesn't get made. 

looking back, there's one film to blame for all of this. star wars: a new hope.

[cichlisuite]

Is that actor's last name is really Realm of Honor?

[dr lopez]

 

for some reason i watched solo. i was in a pretty bad mood before it started. then i saw the trailers. one of them is literally a movie about a black kid who finds a big gun. in those interminable five seconds between each trailer there was a little ad for some grinch movie where he walks across the screen and basically tells the audience to fuck off and buy soda, or snarkily says "oh great, more trailers" and makes a jack off motion with his hand. thanks grinch, thanks for letting me know i don't have to be here either. i felt violated. i wanted to leave. then the movie started. somehow one of the most expensive movies ever made (250 million fucking dollars) looks like it was soaked in toilet water and left out in the sun. multiple times i couldn't even tell who or what i was supposed to be looking at. half the movie is out of focus or bathed in shadows. i was so baffled by this that i did some mid-movie iphone research and found out the director of photography made an "artistic decision" akin to gordon willis' work with lowlight in the godfather to reflect the darkness of the world in these trumpian times we all exist in now. you know, in a star wars movie! 

"acting": you have alden ehrenreich doing an impression of five easy pieces era jack nicholson, looking like he's in his late thirties, playing a twenty something harrison ford, standing maybe five foot nine inches tall, acting opposite emilia "franchise killer" clarke, who is a pair of eyebrows attached to a middling 6 of a body. you have a trans sjw robot who is so badly written that it comes off as a parody of trans sjws, who near the end of the film sets all the robots free and then dies while characters literally roll their eyes at it. way to make me more open minded disney, you created a character even the movie hates. you have donald glover once again proving atlanta was an accident, playing lando as some kind of cape collecting intergalactic dandy. oh, but he's pansexual. don't forget star wars was always about the sex. there's so much fucking in star wars. remember the twincest scene between luke and leia after she strangles jabba where han gets in on it and uses salacious crumb's head as a pocket pussy? neither do i. what about ron howard's direction? has anyone ever asked that about a movie? not that anyone cares but darth maul is in this. i thought he was dead but nope, he's back, the fucking legend. 

there isn't much else to say about the film's content. solo feels like forgetting to do an important essay in high school and then frantically completing it in homeroom, fingers crossed, then realizing you turned in a story about cucking your dad. there is no reason for it to exist, there is no reason to ever watch it. it proves that star wars is only as interesting as the canon characters and the actors who inhabited them, and so it proves that star wars is effectively dead. its existence begs the question of why? why keep beating this pinata full of money even after it's given you billions of dollars? with marvel films disney has found a perfect formula for serialized, neverending content that yields infinite returns. they use the aesthetics of whatever social movements are popular at the moment to imbue their films with cultural relevance, to make them events, which of course brings people out to see them, but all of these films are empty. they have tricked people into believing that something like black panther is an artistic statement and not a calculated piece of marketing, released during black history month, with a very loud advertising voice that reminds everyone that watching it is literal social activism. and then three months later release a new movie that makes everyone forget black panther existed. they inject identity politics into the movies and the media frenzies around the movies to generate discussions, to make them impervious to criticism. solo is a failure because of white males. the last jedi isn't bad, it's the alt right. when you allow corporate culture to dictate every creative decision in an industry, the industry dies. the marvel model of a cinematic universe is now being applied to every property that has ever existed. it has effectively turned big budget films into television shows. they have trained audiences to define movies this way, so big budget spectacle that exists outside the realm of a recognizable ip simply doesn't get made. 

looking back, there's one film to blame for all of this. star wars: a new hope.

 

lol @ cucking your dad bit 

[Lada Laika]

for some reason i watched solo. i was in a pretty bad mood before it started. then i saw the trailers. one of them is literally a movie about a black kid who finds a big gun. in those interminable five seconds between each trailer there was a little ad for some grinch movie where he walks across the screen and basically tells the audience to fuck off and buy soda, or snarkily says "oh great, more trailers" and makes a jack off motion with his hand. thanks grinch, thanks for letting me know i don't have to be here either. i felt violated. i wanted to leave. then the movie started. somehow one of the most expensive movies ever made (250 million fucking dollars) looks like it was soaked in toilet water and left out in the sun. multiple times i couldn't even tell who or what i was supposed to be looking at. half the movie is out of focus or bathed in shadows. i was so baffled by this that i did some mid-movie iphone research and found out the director of photography made an "artistic decision" akin to gordon willis' work with lowlight in the godfather to reflect the darkness of the world in these trumpian times we all exist in now. you know, in a star wars movie!

"acting": you have alden ehrenreich doing an impression of five easy pieces era jack nicholson, looking like he's in his late thirties, playing a twenty something harrison ford, standing maybe five foot nine inches tall, acting opposite emilia "franchise killer" clarke, who is a pair of eyebrows attached to a middling 6 of a body. you have a trans sjw robot who is so badly written that it comes off as a parody of trans sjws, who near the end of the film sets all the robots free and then dies while characters literally roll their eyes at it. way to make me more open minded disney, you created a character even the movie hates. you have donald glover once again proving atlanta was an accident, playing lando as some kind of cape collecting intergalactic dandy. oh, but he's pansexual. don't forget star wars was always about the sex. there's so much fucking in star wars. remember the twincest scene between luke and leia after she strangles jabba where han gets in on it and uses salacious crumb's head as a pocket pussy? neither do i. what about ron howard's direction? has anyone ever asked that about a movie? not that anyone cares but darth maul is in this. i thought he was dead but nope, he's back, the fucking legend.

there isn't much else to say about the film's content. solo feels like forgetting to do an important essay in high school and then frantically completing it in homeroom, fingers crossed, then realizing you turned in a story about cucking your dad. there is no reason for it to exist, there is no reason to ever watch it. it proves that star wars is only as interesting as the canon characters and the actors who inhabited them, and so it proves that star wars is effectively dead. its existence begs the question of why? why keep beating this pinata full of money even after it's given you billions of dollars? with marvel films disney has found a perfect formula for serialized, neverending content that yields infinite returns. they use the aesthetics of whatever social movements are popular at the moment to imbue their films with cultural relevance, to make them events, which of course brings people out to see them, but all of these films are empty. they have tricked people into believing that something like black panther is an artistic statement and not a calculated piece of marketing, released during black history month, with a very loud advertising voice that reminds everyone that watching it is literal social activism. and then three months later release a new movie that makes everyone forget black panther existed. they inject identity politics into the movies and the media frenzies around the movies to generate discussions, to make them impervious to criticism. solo is a failure because of white males. the last jedi isn't bad, it's the alt right. when you allow corporate culture to dictate every creative decision in an industry, the industry dies. the marvel model of a cinematic universe is now being applied to every property that has ever existed. it has effectively turned big budget films into television shows. they have trained audiences to define movies this way, so big budget spectacle that exists outside the realm of a recognizable ip simply doesn't get made.

looking back, there's one film to blame for all of this. star wars: a new hope.

I actually want to see this more now

[Alcofribas]

i am moved by zaphod’s essay. 10/10

[Nebraska]

 

the story for this film is a little complex.  a princess gets kidnapped. a hero (?) goes missing. they find each other and fall in love. but the princess is supposed to be used to united two waring factions. then you get a bunch of cheesy dialogue to put things together- which it sort of does if you're into that kind of stuff- but let's face it- who's watching this for anything less than frank frazetta's animation and the rotoscoping which is top notch.

 

1983/amazing for that time. 

[sweepstakes]

Really dug Hereditary.

Same. Definitely not a feel good movie but the editing, pacing, cinematography, acting, and sound design were top-notch. It's the first movie I've seen in a while that dialed in the surrealism just right - no sloppy obvious CGI and lots of great practical FX. It has a weird dreamlike but deadpan vibe throughout and no condescending exposition or handholding, just a little light set up and off you go into weirdsville. There were moments where I was getting really creeped out in a way most horror films don't even come close to pulling off, and there were other moments where I felt like I was supposed to be creeped out but wasn't (not in a bad way... like it was kind of the point... hard to explain without seeing it).

 

I think the score, at least in the first half, was somewhat influenced by Selected Ambient Works Volume 2, with the muted square/clarinet swells and the noxious ring-modulated stuff.

 

Big Shining/Duvall vibes from the lead too. I can't imagine anyone else making this whole thing work; her face is kind of the keystone of the movie.

Edited June 16, 2018 by sweepstakes

[tec]

I have been hoping for that solo review and it was fantastic.

[olo]

Hereditary - Enjoyed it. Not the "scariest movie, blah, blah, blah" bullshit many have stated. Unsettling...definitely. That's not a critique, I enjoyed the slow burn. Could have actually used a bit more of it. I have dwelled on it for a few days, so the movie did the trick. It really was a grim film. Well acted for the most part & visually lovely. Enjoyable soundtrack & design. I can see where supposedly moviegoers were laughing and what not. (The teenage son crying was bad. completely took me out of what should have been freaky) Definitely laughter in the theater for that. A few other scenes had the same missteps. All forgiven though, the whole was not compromised.There were some sounds & lowlight scenes that may not translate to the home viewing experience. Hell, I don't think the theater noticed the the setup of the one scene towards the end. A pretty confident feature debut for Aster. I look forward to more of his work.

 

I do have one question about the end. Major, Major spoiler. Major! Don't read unless you've seen it. It will ruin the movie for those who haven't.

 

 

 

You've been warned

 

When Annie is doing her thing with the piano wire at the end. You get a closeup of her face. My first impression was a look of disgust/anger on her face. But, thinking back, was it actually a look of terror for her son, where she finally knew what was to become of him? Was she lucid at that time, but unable to control herself? 

 

 

 

[T3551ER]

 

for some reason i watched solo. i was in a pretty bad mood before it started. then i saw the trailers. one of them is literally a movie about a black kid who finds a big gun. in those interminable five seconds between each trailer there was a little ad for some grinch movie where he walks across the screen and basically tells the audience to fuck off and buy soda, or snarkily says "oh great, more trailers" and makes a jack off motion with his hand. thanks grinch, thanks for letting me know i don't have to be here either. i felt violated. i wanted to leave. then the movie started. somehow one of the most expensive movies ever made (250 million fucking dollars) looks like it was soaked in toilet water and left out in the sun. multiple times i couldn't even tell who or what i was supposed to be looking at. half the movie is out of focus or bathed in shadows. i was so baffled by this that i did some mid-movie iphone research and found out the director of photography made an "artistic decision" akin to gordon willis' work with lowlight in the godfather to reflect the darkness of the world in these trumpian times we all exist in now. you know, in a star wars movie! 

"acting": you have alden ehrenreich doing an impression of five easy pieces era jack nicholson, looking like he's in his late thirties, playing a twenty something harrison ford, standing maybe five foot nine inches tall, acting opposite emilia "franchise killer" clarke, who is a pair of eyebrows attached to a middling 6 of a body. you have a trans sjw robot who is so badly written that it comes off as a parody of trans sjws, who near the end of the film sets all the robots free and then dies while characters literally roll their eyes at it. way to make me more open minded disney, you created a character even the movie hates. you have donald glover once again proving atlanta was an accident, playing lando as some kind of cape collecting intergalactic dandy. oh, but he's pansexual. don't forget star wars was always about the sex. there's so much fucking in star wars. remember the twincest scene between luke and leia after she strangles jabba where han gets in on it and uses salacious crumb's head as a pocket pussy? neither do i. what about ron howard's direction? has anyone ever asked that about a movie? not that anyone cares but darth maul is in this. i thought he was dead but nope, he's back, the fucking legend. 

there isn't much else to say about the film's content. solo feels like forgetting to do an important essay in high school and then frantically completing it in homeroom, fingers crossed, then realizing you turned in a story about cucking your dad. there is no reason for it to exist, there is no reason to ever watch it. it proves that star wars is only as interesting as the canon characters and the actors who inhabited them, and so it proves that star wars is effectively dead. its existence begs the question of why? why keep beating this pinata full of money even after it's given you billions of dollars? with marvel films disney has found a perfect formula for serialized, neverending content that yields infinite returns. they use the aesthetics of whatever social movements are popular at the moment to imbue their films with cultural relevance, to make them events, which of course brings people out to see them, but all of these films are empty. they have tricked people into believing that something like black panther is an artistic statement and not a calculated piece of marketing, released during black history month, with a very loud advertising voice that reminds everyone that watching it is literal social activism. and then three months later release a new movie that makes everyone forget black panther existed. they inject identity politics into the movies and the media frenzies around the movies to generate discussions, to make them impervious to criticism. solo is a failure because of white males. the last jedi isn't bad, it's the alt right. when you allow corporate culture to dictate every creative decision in an industry, the industry dies. the marvel model of a cinematic universe is now being applied to every property that has ever existed. it has effectively turned big budget films into television shows. they have trained audiences to define movies this way, so big budget spectacle that exists outside the realm of a recognizable ip simply doesn't get made. 

looking back, there's one film to blame for all of this. star wars: a new hope.

 

 

This is brilliant. All my future movie reviews will no longer be rated out of 10 but, rather, "X/Zaphod Reviews" because you, literally, couldn't make a movie as genius as this commentary. Hats off. Please go see more terrible movies and review so a)I can be sure to avoid them and b)somehow still derive enjoyment out of them. 

[hello spiral]

Saw Hereditary in the cinema today at 12:20. Was one of 10 people in the theatre. Great fun, v-good.

 

With regards to what people said earlier in the thread, it was quite obvious that the people I was watching it with were also not noticing certain low light things at the end.

[auxien]

^was waiting for the Dr. H. Spiral thumbs up on this, will go see it this week. :)

[Schlitze]

funeral smiler and low light doorway smiler being one and same is a detail everyone I've spoken to about the film has identified, even non arty farty types.

[hello spiral]

not that. That was rad though.

[Schlitze]

I thought that was the most subtle touch to those dark end scenes, now I'm thinking I've missed something. It wasn't the more obvious background detail was it? We have to tip toe round spoilers so even the merest hint will suffice.

[auxien]

if only there was some way to discuss spoilers in a thread without ruining it for everyone

 

oh well

 

one day perhaps?

 

maybe when the new forum goes live

 

the technology of the future will save us, eventually

 

i guess

 

 

until then tho

 

sucks

 

 

 

huh

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Lada Laika]

 

for some reason i watched solo. i was in a pretty bad mood before it started. then i saw the trailers. one of them is literally a movie about a black kid who finds a big gun. in those interminable five seconds between each trailer there was a little ad for some grinch movie where he walks across the screen and basically tells the audience to fuck off and buy soda, or snarkily says "oh great, more trailers" and makes a jack off motion with his hand. thanks grinch, thanks for letting me know i don't have to be here either. i felt violated. i wanted to leave. then the movie started. somehow one of the most expensive movies ever made (250 million fucking dollars) looks like it was soaked in toilet water and left out in the sun. multiple times i couldn't even tell who or what i was supposed to be looking at. half the movie is out of focus or bathed in shadows. i was so baffled by this that i did some mid-movie iphone research and found out the director of photography made an "artistic decision" akin to gordon willis' work with lowlight in the godfather to reflect the darkness of the world in these trumpian times we all exist in now. you know, in a star wars movie!

"acting": you have alden ehrenreich doing an impression of five easy pieces era jack nicholson, looking like he's in his late thirties, playing a twenty something harrison ford, standing maybe five foot nine inches tall, acting opposite emilia "franchise killer" clarke, who is a pair of eyebrows attached to a middling 6 of a body. you have a trans sjw robot who is so badly written that it comes off as a parody of trans sjws, who near the end of the film sets all the robots free and then dies while characters literally roll their eyes at it. way to make me more open minded disney, you created a character even the movie hates. you have donald glover once again proving atlanta was an accident, playing lando as some kind of cape collecting intergalactic dandy. oh, but he's pansexual. don't forget star wars was always about the sex. there's so much fucking in star wars. remember the twincest scene between luke and leia after she strangles jabba where han gets in on it and uses salacious crumb's head as a pocket pussy? neither do i. what about ron howard's direction? has anyone ever asked that about a movie? not that anyone cares but darth maul is in this. i thought he was dead but nope, he's back, the fucking legend.

there isn't much else to say about the film's content. solo feels like forgetting to do an important essay in high school and then frantically completing it in homeroom, fingers crossed, then realizing you turned in a story about cucking your dad. there is no reason for it to exist, there is no reason to ever watch it. it proves that star wars is only as interesting as the canon characters and the actors who inhabited them, and so it proves that star wars is effectively dead. its existence begs the question of why? why keep beating this pinata full of money even after it's given you billions of dollars? with marvel films disney has found a perfect formula for serialized, neverending content that yields infinite returns. they use the aesthetics of whatever social movements are popular at the moment to imbue their films with cultural relevance, to make them events, which of course brings people out to see them, but all of these films are empty. they have tricked people into believing that something like black panther is an artistic statement and not a calculated piece of marketing, released during black history month, with a very loud advertising voice that reminds everyone that watching it is literal social activism. and then three months later release a new movie that makes everyone forget black panther existed. they inject identity politics into the movies and the media frenzies around the movies to generate discussions, to make them impervious to criticism. solo is a failure because of white males. the last jedi isn't bad, it's the alt right. when you allow corporate culture to dictate every creative decision in an industry, the industry dies. the marvel model of a cinematic universe is now being applied to every property that has ever existed. it has effectively turned big budget films into television shows. they have trained audiences to define movies this way, so big budget spectacle that exists outside the realm of a recognizable ip simply doesn't get made.

looking back, there's one film to blame for all of this. star wars: a new hope.

I actually want to see this more now

 

 

very disappointed, i actually liked this movie just fine. misleading article.

[usagi]

so review zaphod's review.

[Lada Laika]

so review zaphod's review.

just because i disagree with god doesn’t mean i have the ability to rewrite the bible

[hello spiral]

I thought that was the most subtle touch to those dark end scenes, now I'm thinking I've missed something. It wasn't the more obvious background detail was it? We have to tip toe round spoilers so even the merest hint will suffice.

 

 

 

Yeah I was talking about the mother on the ceiling above his bed.

I had a girl sat behind me who was jumping out of her skin at stuff like the mouth clicking noises and she didn't react to that at all, so I assume she didn't notice it.

 

 

[olo]

 

I thought that was the most subtle touch to those dark end scenes, now I'm thinking I've missed something. It wasn't the more obvious background detail was it? We have to tip toe round spoilers so even the merest hint will suffice.

 

 

 

Yeah I was talking about the mother on the ceiling above his bed.

I had a girl sat behind me who was jumping out of her skin at stuff like the mouth clicking noises and she didn't react to that at all, so I assume she didn't notice it.

 

 

 

 

 

funeral smiler and low light doorway smiler being one and same is a detail everyone I've spoken to about the film has identified, even non arty farty types.

 

Yea, both of these. 

 

again, can someone who has seen it go back to my earlier post with the spoiler and give your take?

[eugene]

ready player one - it seems like it tried both to subvert and celebrate its subject matters at the very same time, obviously such inherent logical contradiction can't really result in anything sensible. its idea of a happy end is just bewildering - humanity spending 5 days in VR world of warcraft and 2 days in real world dystopia instead of the whole week. in general it just throws a lot of ideas into the air without assembling them properly into something meaningful. the characterization is nonexistent apart from basic biography stats and the now mandatory sexual orientation. i could just take it for the cgifest trip which was pretty well done but even that gets stale and dull after about 30 minutes without anything to interesting to support it. i also couldn't shake the feeling that there was something really nasty and not just typically lame and groan inducing about this whole nostalgia/reference-bating, especially that lengthy shining bit is pretty much spielberg jacking off on kubrick's grave.

[T3551ER]

Lol, basically you summed up all the problems with the book (well, except the Shining stuff - that's unique to the movie) - funny thing is, the movie actually improves on all these aspects (but, yeah, still ends up a confusing muddle). 

 

That being said, I enjoyed it - probably b/c I went in knowing all of the inherent issues with source material. Plus, say what you want, but Spielberg is a more than capable director. The action scenes in particular are some of the most coherent, well carried off spectacles (even when 10 bazillion things are happening all at once I had 0 issue tracking what was going on).