First of all, i'm pissed because Canada Post just started a strike and i have a couple of things in the mail and some preorders. Anyway, venting over
Pleasantville (1998): What a pleasant movie (pun intended). And a stacked cast too. The scenes between Jeff Daniels and Joan Allen are the best to me. I wonder if Tobey Mcguire was already a douchebag or did it come with the stardom from Spider-Man. Either way, he's a good as he usually is.
That Thing You Do! (1996): That title song is a real earworm, just reading the title you got it stuck in your head. And it plays so often you'll hear that shit in your dreams. Make sure you listen to something else before bed. I watched the Extended Director's Cut, which is way longer (about 40 minutes) than the Theatrical Cut and it's great. The DC does seem more fleshed out from what I remember of the TC.
Hubie Halloween (2020): Patrick mentioned it one too many times and I finally caved. It's not a good movie, but I get it, I had a good time watching it. I could do without the silly voice, but the thermos gags killed me every time. And yeah, the throwing stuff at Sandler is very funny.
Not sure why but my memory of original viewing was that i was a bit underwhelmed? Upon revisit i had a GREAT time with this movie. Very little filler, outstanding performances, incredible period depiction, solid action scenes, and an overall enjoyable ride with Dillenger and his crew in a time of changing crime.
Training Day (2001 dvd)
Another revisit which simply reinforces what an incredible actor Denzel is. This movie starts with tension and builds on it exponentially throughout. Hawke is equally superb depicting innocence meets temptation and tough choices..life crossroads in one day. This viewing made me appreciate the script so much more as there are a LOT of storylines that weave together in create ways. Incredible Film
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016 bluray)
A new favorite podcast is 'the lonely island and seth meyers podcast' where the aforementioned group revisits their work on SNL. Hilarious discussions amongst friends. Has me revisiting their sketches and work. If memory serves, this movie underwhelmed at the box office, a shame really because its absolutely hilarious and sweet and silly and more. Also i'd say it pairs well with Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story as incredibly well done parodies of music industry/biopics/docs. (Good parody is realllllly tough to pull off).
update: just watched. holy sh@t its beyond hysterical!!! i laughed out loud pretty much throughout the entire thing. jam packed with jokes and crazy bits. Mike Tyson was particularly brilliant as was a callback at the end to one of his stories. HUGE thanks Kunider for the suggestion!!! im totally gonna revisit this flick a bunch...you're right..its one of the funniest things ive seen in a loooong time.
Howdy Kunider...not sure if its on your radar but i did some IMDB'in after watching Tour De Pharmacy. It turns out the same creative team (writer, director, samberg, hamm (narrator), and a few others) did another sports mocumentary on hbo. Its called '7 Days in Hell'. This one focuses on tennis. It uses the exact same formula: played straight, TONS of cameos, lots of jokes, some crazy over the line bits. I think Pharmacy is overall funnier but Hell is still a ton of silly fun!!!
ha! Actually i watched the Bash Bro's special a few weeks ago for the first time...i held off forever as i thought i wouldnt get alot of the jokes (dont really know much about those players or era). Turns out its the same amount of silly/crazy/over-the-top bits they have in everything. HILARIOUS. Also, once again, they manage to make a bunch of really entertaining songs (above and beyond being funny).
Got my gf into Star Trek a bit through watching Lower Decks a few months back. We've gone through Discovery, and she's caught up with Strange New Worlds. I've shown her some select episodes of TOS. We watched Wrath of Khan the other night and she liked it well enough. She doesn't have any sort of established fondness for the TOS characters in general, so I certainly wasn't expecting her to be blown away by it.
I think I realized while watching it though is that it's maybe only my 3rd or 4th favorite Star Trek movie. I'd put it behind First Contact, the Undiscovered Country, and maybe the Voyage Home. Now I understand it isn't Wrath's fault that some of it's major repercussions get undone in the very next film but it does take away a bit of the emotional impact. Also, this sort of drag-out, tactical, one-on-one ship battle hadn't been done before in Trek, but we've seen stuff of similar or larger scope now. Still like it a lot though.
Side note: I'm constantly amazed how convoluted the ST timeline is and how they seem to consistently make it hard for new people to find an entry point into the franchise. Strange New Worlds could function as that, but it spun-off from the 2nd season of Discovery (and also benefits from watching the Pike 2-parter in TOS). The J.J. Abrams movies could have served as a entry point but they decided to involve time travel, Spock from the main timeline, and then made the whole second movie a reference to Wrath of Khan. Haven't even mentioned to the gf yet that if she wants to see when Spock actually dies for real she's got to watch the third movie that takes place in an alternate timeline.
After a while, any franchise gets a convoluted timeline, especially in tv and movies, that's why they invented 'retcon'. Try not to put too much stock into continuity. I watched SNW without even knowing it was a 'spinoff' of Discovery. I didn't see TNG, DS9 and Voyager before I saw all the movies. I'm not a fan of TNG and DS9 actually, but that's my problem 😁
Continuity is the killer of enjoyment. Watch the show for what it is, not what it follows.
I mean sure, but Pike's whole story arc kinda revolves around things that happened in other shows. Also my point is less that you need to follow all the continuity to make it enjoyable, it's that I feel like the franchise has constantly shot itself in the foot in regards to making stuff that's accessible for getting new people into the franchise. Abrams films could have been an actual reboot but instead the plot of the first movie gets bogged down with kinda stupid time travel stuff (the cast fully carries those films because the plots for all three are bad).
"I feel like the franchise has constantly shot itself in the foot in regards to making stuff that's accessible for getting new people into the franchise"
That's not only a Star Trek problem though. Marvel, Star Wars, even Doctor Who have been doing this. That's a Hollywood problem. They can't do anything without heavily referencing the previous work.
The Pike thing, I barely remembered the character from TOS, but I'm sure we'll get more explanation as the seasons go on. I think they're doing it this season. To me, it's just part of the storytelling and the mystery of the character.
As for the Abrams movies, they just used a trope of the franchise, which is time travel. They kinda do it a lot across all series. As I said, I don't bother with continuity, so none of this bother me. I just enjoy the thing as it unfolds in front of me.
I do hope you find a way to enjoy any and all Trek, as you seem to like the franchise a lot
Star Wars has an easy entry point with the Original Trilogy. If someone wants to get into the franchise, there is an absolute clear cut place to start. It doesn't suffer from the datedness people might experience from trying to go back and watch TOS or the early Doctor Who stuff. Comic books do generally have and issue with continuity. That's why Marvel has tried stuff like the Ultimate Line, and DC has had their various Crisis things with varying degrees of success. It's also why they tend to start over with a new volume/#1 issue when a new creative team takes over. It signals "this is the jumping on point." But there's a reason why comics aren't really a growing market, even as the MCU became a massive pop culture success for a decade and a half (well, several reasons really, but continuity and starting points for new readers are a big one).
Star Trek is probably most similar to comics in just the sheer amount of content. You've got multiple seasons of multiple shows (a lot of them from a time when seasons ran from 22-30 episodes), movies, and the stuff goes back almost 60 years now. Comics tend to be much better now though about explaining a continuity point though if it's important to the story. ST often just seems to assume the audience already knows what is being referenced.
The flick and the book both begin with an outstanding premise and setpiece but then kind of fall apart. Quickly becomes a pretty mediocre rage virus flick. Too bad as i think you could maybe do more with the 'pulse' premise and build more around it...come up with some kind of creative origin...make some unique rules about its evolution..etc. In the end its not the worst watch but nothing special.
Yes, a bit of a problem today. The fact that they are showing up somewhere is positive. At other times I could not even accesss Blogger. Maybe the posts will show up here later.
I tried cutting down on the text for one attempt, but that did not work either. Beyond the documentary entry, there are no words that I can see as being problematic.
THE CROW (2024) Of course I knew this wouldn't be as good as the '94 classic. All I hoped for was some decent B-movie action. One big fight near the end was pretty cool, I'll give it that. But overall it's missing all the atmosphere and the intensity of the original.
CABIN FEVER (2002) I know there are a lot of Eli Roth superfans in the F This Community, but I just can't with this guy. I had some small amount of fun picking out all the little references to classic horror movies, and Cerina Vincent continues to be awesome, but my compliments end there.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 (2000) John Woo goodness!
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989) Take a drink every time Connery says "Junior."
EXECUTIVE DECISION (1996) What's that Kurt Russell rule again?
GOSFORD PARK (2001) Aw, Maggie Smith. She's totally part of my permanent psyche. I finally revisited this after her passing. It was advertised and available everywhere for a few weeks after. I can't believe this is a comedy. Finally, I get it. I see the humor. But it's SO dark and subtle, even for dark British humor. It's a whodunnit of a very different variety than I'm used to. Anyway, I loved it in 2001 and I appreciate it more now.
SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940) I want to like this movie more than I do. James Stewart is my favorite, Frank Morgan is delightful, but something feels missing. Margaret Sullavan not really doing it for me. I'm not a huge fan of YOU'VE GOT MAIL but I appreciate Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks' comedic timing even if I find Meg Ryan's characters (plural - almost all of them) irritating and immature 26 years later.
TAKE AIM AT THE POLICE VAN (1960, dir. Seijun Suzuki) - Seijun Suzuki begins his experimentation with Japanese genre cinema. I cannot say I understood everything happening in the story, but it is a compelling film visually.
PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953, dir. Samuel Fuller) - Cold War espionage meets urban crime drama in this film noir. Richard Widmark's wise-ass pickpocket is just one of many compelling characters.
THE DARK TOWER (1943) - A British circus drama that is very dated but shows aspects of circus life.
THE THING (1982, dir. John Carpenter) - Watched in spite of having some things to do. This was the first time I really connected with the paranoia of the film.
RIFIFI (1955, dir. Jules Dassin) - A French noir classic about a heist at a Parisian jewelry store. As usual for these kind of things, plans do not turned out as intended.
NO WAY OUT (1987) Kevin Costner works for military intelligence and is hired by US Defense Secretary Gene Hackman but he falls in love with Hackman's girlfriend, then she's killed, then Costner gets involved in the hunt to find her killer. Will Patton is wearing eyeliner. It's not really what I thought it would be just because the cast is a little reversed from what I'm used to. And the twist ending, which made me laugh.
First of all, i'm pissed because Canada Post just started a strike and i have a couple of things in the mail and some preorders. Anyway, venting over
ReplyDeletePleasantville (1998): What a pleasant movie (pun intended). And a stacked cast too. The scenes between Jeff Daniels and Joan Allen are the best to me. I wonder if Tobey Mcguire was already a douchebag or did it come with the stardom from Spider-Man. Either way, he's a good as he usually is.
That Thing You Do! (1996): That title song is a real earworm, just reading the title you got it stuck in your head. And it plays so often you'll hear that shit in your dreams. Make sure you listen to something else before bed. I watched the Extended Director's Cut, which is way longer (about 40 minutes) than the Theatrical Cut and it's great. The DC does seem more fleshed out from what I remember of the TC.
Hubie Halloween (2020): Patrick mentioned it one too many times and I finally caved. It's not a good movie, but I get it, I had a good time watching it. I could do without the silly voice, but the thermos gags killed me every time. And yeah, the throwing stuff at Sandler is very funny.
howdy all!
ReplyDeletePublic Enemies (2009 Bluray)
Not sure why but my memory of original viewing was that i was a bit underwhelmed? Upon revisit i had a GREAT time with this movie. Very little filler, outstanding performances, incredible period depiction, solid action scenes, and an overall enjoyable ride with Dillenger and his crew in a time of changing crime.
Training Day (2001 dvd)
Another revisit which simply reinforces what an incredible actor Denzel is. This movie starts with tension and builds on it exponentially throughout. Hawke is equally superb depicting innocence meets temptation and tough choices..life crossroads in one day. This viewing made me appreciate the script so much more as there are a LOT of storylines that weave together in create ways. Incredible Film
Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping (2016 bluray)
A new favorite podcast is 'the lonely island and seth meyers podcast' where the aforementioned group revisits their work on SNL. Hilarious discussions amongst friends. Has me revisiting their sketches and work. If memory serves, this movie underwhelmed at the box office, a shame really because its absolutely hilarious and sweet and silly and more. Also i'd say it pairs well with Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story as incredibly well done parodies of music industry/biopics/docs. (Good parody is realllllly tough to pull off).
Have you seen Tour De Pharmacy (2017), from the Lonely Island gang? Funniest thing i've seen in a long time
Delete@kunider OMG...i have not! I didnt even know about it!?! thanks for the heads up, will watch this weekend for sure!!!!
DeleteAll right, can't wait to read what you think
Deleteupdate: just watched. holy sh@t its beyond hysterical!!! i laughed out loud pretty much throughout the entire thing. jam packed with jokes and crazy bits. Mike Tyson was particularly brilliant as was a callback at the end to one of his stories. HUGE thanks Kunider for the suggestion!!! im totally gonna revisit this flick a bunch...you're right..its one of the funniest things ive seen in a loooong time.
DeleteGlad to read that. I'm gonna rewatch it too later tonight actually, it's been a while
DeleteHowdy Kunider...not sure if its on your radar but i did some IMDB'in after watching Tour De Pharmacy. It turns out the same creative team (writer, director, samberg, hamm (narrator), and a few others) did another sports mocumentary on hbo. Its called '7 Days in Hell'. This one focuses on tennis. It uses the exact same formula: played straight, TONS of cameos, lots of jokes, some crazy over the line bits. I think Pharmacy is overall funnier but Hell is still a ton of silly fun!!!
DeleteYeah i saw it. Super funny too. I saw most of their 30-40 minutes stuff.
DeleteThe Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience (2019) should be next for you 😁. This one is on netflix i think
ha! Actually i watched the Bash Bro's special a few weeks ago for the first time...i held off forever as i thought i wouldnt get alot of the jokes (dont really know much about those players or era). Turns out its the same amount of silly/crazy/over-the-top bits they have in everything. HILARIOUS. Also, once again, they manage to make a bunch of really entertaining songs (above and beyond being funny).
DeleteGot my gf into Star Trek a bit through watching Lower Decks a few months back. We've gone through Discovery, and she's caught up with Strange New Worlds. I've shown her some select episodes of TOS. We watched Wrath of Khan the other night and she liked it well enough. She doesn't have any sort of established fondness for the TOS characters in general, so I certainly wasn't expecting her to be blown away by it.
ReplyDeleteI think I realized while watching it though is that it's maybe only my 3rd or 4th favorite Star Trek movie. I'd put it behind First Contact, the Undiscovered Country, and maybe the Voyage Home. Now I understand it isn't Wrath's fault that some of it's major repercussions get undone in the very next film but it does take away a bit of the emotional impact. Also, this sort of drag-out, tactical, one-on-one ship battle hadn't been done before in Trek, but we've seen stuff of similar or larger scope now. Still like it a lot though.
Side note: I'm constantly amazed how convoluted the ST timeline is and how they seem to consistently make it hard for new people to find an entry point into the franchise. Strange New Worlds could function as that, but it spun-off from the 2nd season of Discovery (and also benefits from watching the Pike 2-parter in TOS). The J.J. Abrams movies could have served as a entry point but they decided to involve time travel, Spock from the main timeline, and then made the whole second movie a reference to Wrath of Khan. Haven't even mentioned to the gf yet that if she wants to see when Spock actually dies for real she's got to watch the third movie that takes place in an alternate timeline.
DeleteAfter a while, any franchise gets a convoluted timeline, especially in tv and movies, that's why they invented 'retcon'. Try not to put too much stock into continuity. I watched SNW without even knowing it was a 'spinoff' of Discovery. I didn't see TNG, DS9 and Voyager before I saw all the movies. I'm not a fan of TNG and DS9 actually, but that's my problem 😁
Continuity is the killer of enjoyment. Watch the show for what it is, not what it follows.
I mean sure, but Pike's whole story arc kinda revolves around things that happened in other shows. Also my point is less that you need to follow all the continuity to make it enjoyable, it's that I feel like the franchise has constantly shot itself in the foot in regards to making stuff that's accessible for getting new people into the franchise. Abrams films could have been an actual reboot but instead the plot of the first movie gets bogged down with kinda stupid time travel stuff (the cast fully carries those films because the plots for all three are bad).
Delete"I feel like the franchise has constantly shot itself in the foot in regards to making stuff that's accessible for getting new people into the franchise"
DeleteThat's not only a Star Trek problem though. Marvel, Star Wars, even Doctor Who have been doing this. That's a Hollywood problem. They can't do anything without heavily referencing the previous work.
The Pike thing, I barely remembered the character from TOS, but I'm sure we'll get more explanation as the seasons go on. I think they're doing it this season. To me, it's just part of the storytelling and the mystery of the character.
As for the Abrams movies, they just used a trope of the franchise, which is time travel. They kinda do it a lot across all series. As I said, I don't bother with continuity, so none of this bother me. I just enjoy the thing as it unfolds in front of me.
I do hope you find a way to enjoy any and all Trek, as you seem to like the franchise a lot
Star Wars has an easy entry point with the Original Trilogy. If someone wants to get into the franchise, there is an absolute clear cut place to start. It doesn't suffer from the datedness people might experience from trying to go back and watch TOS or the early Doctor Who stuff. Comic books do generally have and issue with continuity. That's why Marvel has tried stuff like the Ultimate Line, and DC has had their various Crisis things with varying degrees of success. It's also why they tend to start over with a new volume/#1 issue when a new creative team takes over. It signals "this is the jumping on point." But there's a reason why comics aren't really a growing market, even as the MCU became a massive pop culture success for a decade and a half (well, several reasons really, but continuity and starting points for new readers are a big one).
DeleteStar Trek is probably most similar to comics in just the sheer amount of content. You've got multiple seasons of multiple shows (a lot of them from a time when seasons ran from 22-30 episodes), movies, and the stuff goes back almost 60 years now. Comics tend to be much better now though about explaining a continuity point though if it's important to the story. ST often just seems to assume the audience already knows what is being referenced.
Cell (2016 Freevee)
ReplyDeleteThe flick and the book both begin with an outstanding premise and setpiece but then kind of fall apart. Quickly becomes a pretty mediocre rage virus flick. Too bad as i think you could maybe do more with the 'pulse' premise and build more around it...come up with some kind of creative origin...make some unique rules about its evolution..etc. In the end its not the worst watch but nothing special.
This movie being on Freevee is the reason Freevee is shutting down
DeleteAHHHH! I didnt know they were shutting it down!?! Lameola!
Delete@Casual
ReplyDeleteHaving trouble posting your stuff? I get notifications for this thread, i got 4 from you so far
Yes, a bit of a problem today. The fact that they are showing up somewhere is positive. At other times I could not even accesss Blogger. Maybe the posts will show up here later.
DeleteThe fact that I can log into Blogger is a positive sign.
DeleteI tried to post one more time, but Blogger does not seem to want to work for me this weekend. Oh well.
DeleteI tried to post your stuff, didn't work. Maybe it's too long, or there's a word that Blogger doesn't like.
DeleteThanks, Kunider.
DeleteI tried cutting down on the text for one attempt, but that did not work either. Beyond the documentary entry, there are no words that I can see as being problematic.
THE CROW (2024)
ReplyDeleteOf course I knew this wouldn't be as good as the '94 classic. All I hoped for was some decent B-movie action. One big fight near the end was pretty cool, I'll give it that. But overall it's missing all the atmosphere and the intensity of the original.
CABIN FEVER (2002)
I know there are a lot of Eli Roth superfans in the F This Community, but I just can't with this guy. I had some small amount of fun picking out all the little references to classic horror movies, and Cerina Vincent continues to be awesome, but my compliments end there.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 2 (2000)
John Woo goodness!
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989)
Take a drink every time Connery says "Junior."
EXECUTIVE DECISION (1996)
What's that Kurt Russell rule again?
GOSFORD PARK (2001)
ReplyDeleteAw, Maggie Smith. She's totally part of my permanent psyche. I finally revisited this after her passing. It was advertised and available everywhere for a few weeks after. I can't believe this is a comedy. Finally, I get it. I see the humor. But it's SO dark and subtle, even for dark British humor. It's a whodunnit of a very different variety than I'm used to. Anyway, I loved it in 2001 and I appreciate it more now.
SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940)
I want to like this movie more than I do. James Stewart is my favorite, Frank Morgan is delightful, but something feels missing. Margaret Sullavan not really doing it for me. I'm not a huge fan of YOU'VE GOT MAIL but I appreciate Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks' comedic timing even if I find Meg Ryan's characters (plural - almost all of them) irritating and immature 26 years later.
Well, here's the summary.
ReplyDeleteTAKE AIM AT THE POLICE VAN (1960, dir. Seijun Suzuki) - Seijun Suzuki begins his experimentation with Japanese genre cinema. I cannot say I understood everything happening in the story, but it is a compelling film visually.
PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (1953, dir. Samuel Fuller) - Cold War espionage meets urban crime drama in this film noir. Richard Widmark's wise-ass pickpocket is just one of many compelling characters.
THE DARK TOWER (1943) - A British circus drama that is very dated but shows aspects of circus life.
THE THING (1982, dir. John Carpenter) - Watched in spite of having some things to do. This was the first time I really connected with the paranoia of the film.
RIFIFI (1955, dir. Jules Dassin) - A French noir classic about a heist at a Parisian jewelry store. As usual for these kind of things, plans do not turned out as intended.
All right, finally. Good stuff, and i was able to read the director's cut 🤣
DeleteNO WAY OUT (1987)
ReplyDeleteKevin Costner works for military intelligence and is hired by US Defense Secretary Gene Hackman but he falls in love with Hackman's girlfriend, then she's killed, then Costner gets involved in the hunt to find her killer. Will Patton is wearing eyeliner. It's not really what I thought it would be just because the cast is a little reversed from what I'm used to. And the twist ending, which made me laugh.