Watched (at least parts of) over a dozen movies last night. I watch them while working, and I put the speed on at least 1.30 to keep them moving. I go mostly by title, YIFY gives a slight synopsis but I rarely read it. I just wade in. Here’s what I watched last night. Here’s my ratings:
1 good, saved on HD for re-viewing
2 okay, maybe I’ll save it maybe I won’t
3 fair, ok to watch once, but then delete
4 poor, barely watched it and deleted immediately
5 sucked, didn’t watch all the way through
So here’s a loooong nights movie fest:
First the best ones:
Behind the Candleabra (2013)
Michael Douglas is amazing queening it up as Liberace and I’m sorry, Matt Damon plays stupid too well not to be stupid himself. He’s dumber than Dirk Diggler. Everyone is probably at least somewhat familiar with the story, so we know what’s coming, but still hilarious and also disturbing (because it’s purportedly somewhat true) what some people will do to avoid working while living in (campy, kitchy) luxury. Score: 1 KEEPER
27 Dresses (2008)
Ok first thing, the protagonist for this story, if it were based on a book, would be, if not homely, very plain. This girl is waaaaaaaay prettier than her sister, who steals the man she’s wanted for years (or something). There’s a new guy in the picture and everyone who’s ever seen a romcom can see where it’s going. She’ll finally get the man of her dreams, but then she won’t want him because of this new perfect guy. All the tropes are covered here, she doesn’t know who he is at first, she’s hard-working and indispensable but under-appreciated, mutual hatred (at first) between the two leads, brat sister gets comeuppance, etc. The only sour note is the brat gets the rich guy in the end after all, which sucked. I give them 2 years, tops, after which she takes him for half his company, the bitch. However, I really liked whats-her-name, Heigl, that famous diva. Everyone else was just annoying, but she saved it. Oh and of course she has an ascerbic best friend who’s not afraid to tell her the truth on things! Anyway, it was good, as big studio stuff can be with all that staff and money behind it. Score: 2 OKAY
10 Years (2011)
Ensemble dramedy with (the ones I recognized) Channing Tatum, Justin Long, Kate Mara, Rosario Dawson, Max Minghella, a fat Chris Pratt and a bunch of others who are probably starlets and starlettes but whom I didn’t recognize: Jenna Dewan Lynn Collins Brian Geraghty Ari Graynor Oscar Isaac Ron Livingston Anthony Mackie Scott Porter Aaron Yoo and Aubrey Plaza, who is turning up in every 3rd movie I happen to watch. One was a black guy, like they had one black guy in their HS class, which was having its 10 year reunion and all the married people are sorry they married or who they married and all the single people are sad they never got married and looking to re-hook up with old loves and it pretty much plays out like you think it would, but no one changes and nothing changes other than one guy, who happens to be a rock star now (that would be pretty schweet going back to your reunion a big rich star with songs everyone knows) finds the girl he loved in silence, plays his song which she recognizes is for her and I dunno, do they hook up? Something about he lives in LA so how can they and I’m not sure they ever figured it out. However, good actors, pretty to look at, some funny moments and it was worth a watch. Might keep it but really, would I pull this out to see again knowing what it is? Probably only by accident. Tatum is an engaging actor though, I liked him in this movie, as I usually do. Score: 2 OKAY
Bleeding Heart (2015) This was actually ok, even if derivative of 100 other stories of people trying to save the hooker with the heart of… I dunno, not gold but maybe, crack? With the crazy ass bf who is doomed, anyone who spends most of a movie smacking women around is going to get murdered by the women. It would be impossible for it to end any other way. However, not bad story, good actors (none of whom I knew at first, Jessica Biel, Zosia Mamet, Joe Anderson and Edi Gathegi) and I might watch it again in a year of so. Score 2: Solid OK
Angels One Five (1952)
British RAF drama with plenty of pilot banter and jargon which is far enough removed now that it’s just hilarious. Rogue pilot Septic keeps disobeying orders but does heroic deeds in spite, but in this case he’s kind of a fuckup who does shit like crash into the commander’s house and leaves his radio on, blocking all communication. However, he honorably dies fighting with a stiff upper lip so all is forgiven. I liked it, especially after watching 4-5 modern hollywood atrocities. Love the old acting and just general worldview. Score: 4 KEEPER
Colossal (2016) Anne Hatheway slumming and dowdied up, Jason Sudeikis, don’t really like the guy, and Tim Blake Nelson, sounding like he’s ad-libbing as a conspiracy nutcase in a very strange story of a girl who has this guy who loves her in an odd way but has been tormenting her since childhood, she comes back to town and he gives her a job mostly so he can keep his bootheel on her, and her anger and frustration at his bullshit manifests itself as a Kaiju to attacks Seoul (what they did to deserve it, god alone knows). She’s a drunk, and in her drunken state, even after she realizes she IS this monster which has materialized out of nowhere, she manages to kill hundreds of innocent people, but to her credit, she does feel a little bad about that and stops drinking for a few days, but soon relapses (she feels bad again, though). Turns out Sudeikis controls a monster also, a big robot, and their ids (or egos, never did remember which was which) fight it out through the Kaiju until she ultimately throws him into the distance, probably taking out an orphanage or kid’s hospital, but she’s free!. I did enjoy watching it but can’t imagine wanting to see it again. BELETED!! (as strongbad would say) Score: 3, weak 3, liked it but never want to see it again, hate YOU GO GIRL empowerment movies. Ugh, they make me shiver with disgust. These encourage women to get physical and even kill a guy who “wrongs” them but the problem with this is all women are batshit crazy and we don’t need them “empowered” to fuck with men any more than they already do. BUY IT on Amazon
Deadfall (2012)
Stop me if you’ve heard this before: guy gets out of prison and is headed home to Ma and Pa, meanwhile some crooks on the run crash their car and and lam it across the country-side and end up where? You guessed it. Protagonist falls for the girl criminal, showdown at the end where she has to pick the guy she’s known for all of 2 days or killing her partner (who in this case is also her brother) and I’ll just let you try to guess which she picks. Lotta stars in this one: Eric Bana as the baddie, Olivia Wilde the love interest sister of the baddie, Charlie Hunnam the flawed hero (he does that part alot!) and once again Kate Mara, if not for the romance, which I would bet was tacked on later, she would have been the lead as the scrappy Fargo-type deputy whom noone respects and who goes against orders but gets results and in the gets the bad guy and gains everyone’s respect. Except, since they tacked on the romance, the SISTER gets the baddie in the end after hunk Hunnam beats the shit out of him and all poor Kate managed was to get herself captured and then shot by her dad, Treat, the sheriff. Anyone can see there’s a busted trope in there because they tried to have both stories. She should have been written out, but wasn’t, probably because they needed her name. Why she stayed on when she’s a subplot I have no idea. Maybe it was in editing she got fucked? Who knows. Treat Williams and Kris Kristopherson wasted here, Sissy Spacek plays the only roles she can get these days, wife to some old country coot (in this case Kris) and Score: 3 Meh BUY IT on Amazon
Columbus Day (2008)
Kilmer looks pretty good in this one, but my god it’s thin on story. Most of the time he’s moping around the park with a little black kid he befriends, the criminal with a heart of gold, while he’s waiting for a deal to go down. Other times he whinges and mopes on the phone to his teen daughter or his ex-wife. The cops and other baddies are looking for him. Finally the deal goes down, he gets back with his wife, after some hijinks everything resolves and happy ending I guess? Other than he got shot, dunno how bad. Slow and pointless, but Kilmer is Kilmer and that’s better than at least 80% of the actors around. He’s not grotesquely fat here either, dunno if he slimmed down or this was before he got fat but he looks good. Score: 3 Meh BUY IT on Amazon
Columbus Circle (2012)
Selma Blair, Kevin Pollak, Beau Bridges, Jason Lee and Amy Smart in another slooow, thinly plotted pot-boiler of a poor little rich girl recluse who won’t go out, the cons who try to steal her money only to be outwitted by this witless nitwit. If not for the rep of the actors involved you’d guess it was a cable movie, it takes place in like 3 interior sets, mostly her apartment and must have cost all of a million to produce. I like Bridges and Lee and Blair is at medium annoying. Not worth a reviewing though, no way. Score: 2 Nearly a total waste of time, which is why I watch movies while working BUY IT on Amazon
A Ghost Story (2017)
This reminds me of that Tree of Life in that its got long passage with no dialog, moody, times of the day and seasons changing, you dont’ really know what’s going on but it’s fairly enjoyable because of the actors, in this case Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara, though Casey spends most of his time under a sheet. It’s a good movie because it’s well-made and the characters are good, but again, CAN NO ONE IN HOLLYWOOD WRITE A FUCKING SCRIPT ANYMORE?? Domestic scenes, he dies then spends a while with her in the house, then another family, then goes back in time somehow to Indian massacre times, then time loops around again so he sees himself and his gf enter the house. He finally gets the note she tucked in a crack in the wall the 2nd loop around, reads it and disappears. Of course, we are not told what’s on the note, it’s very short, but set up to be a MacGuffin like the Pulp Fiction briefcase or what Bill Murray whispers to Scarlet. Probably “you’re free!” or something, because he readds it and poofs. I know this must be a quality movie, but I didn’t enjoy it, sorry. Score: 2 low meh BUY IT on Amazon
Bushwick (2017)
This was ok as far as it goes, the setup was idiotic (the Southern states are seceding, so to get the president to agree they attempt to take over Bushwick? WTF? Anyway, the premise that the natives could and would fight back against a well-trained, well-equipped army with tanks, automatic weapons and helicopters is pretty idiotic as well. However, suspend all that in your disbelief, and we get to a good-hearted ex-Marine who befriends a useless girl (I mean, if he’s going to buddy up he could have done a lot better, you figure she’s eventually going to get him killed right off the bat). Instead of sheltering in place, after all they know the territory the invaders don’t, they go off half-cocked looking for Gramma (what are they going to do with her if they get her? Luckily, she’s dead! Hooray) then off to collect her greasy whore of a slut sister, have adventures with the good-hearted Negro gang members with a huge arsenal of guns. Happy ending I guess as they make it to extraction point (well, some of them do) with the city crumbling around them. Should have just stayed at home where it was safe, but then we’d have had even less of a story. It was ok but now that I see it was pointless I would never watch it again. Score: 2 less than meh BUY IT on Amazon
A Family Man (2016)
Jesus, I get tired of movies where the wife (in this case a stay-at-home mom who contributes NOTHING financially, here in the real world that’s a big deal, not so much in movies, where a homemaker is every bit as important as the breadwinner, and the landlord might even take it into account and give her credit for it. As someone who has done both at the same time, a full-time homemaker with 2 young kids has plenty of leisure time and is in fact a lazy bitch if she can’t contribute in some way. But no, in this movie, as in so many others, she spends all her time bitching and nagging that the father doesn’t do enough parenting. He’s highly successful, they obviously have plenty of money, he’s not a drunk or a druggie and he doesn’t fuck around, he’s just driven and motivated. For this, his rotten kids constantly bitch and whine and his wife nearly threatens divorce. I guess, in addition to a fulltime, highpressure job with lots of after hours work he’s supposed to do HER fucking job and spend time he doesn’t have with the kids. If only movies were like real life, this never happens. The wife would be very happy he’s a dedicated worker, the bills are paid, they live nearly in luxury. They cheat by giving the kid cancer (CANCER, for fuck’s sake) and the guy does sacrifice his job, which is necessary to pay the kid’s medical bills for fuck’s sake, to be around him more. I could have slapped the wife the 20th time she bitches about “you promised to spend more time with the keeeeeds” while as far as I can see he spends plenty of time with them, he’s there for breakfast and he’s there after work, just like a real life dad here in planet earth, but no, he’s still a bastard and must be schooled and at the end he’s fired from his amazing job he does so well and gets to, get this START HIS OWN COMPANY! Which of course will give him plenty more time with the kids, god knows starting from scratch and running your own business takes MUCH less time than working for an established concern, right?? Jesus, only in the movies. This film offended me so much the good acting and half-ass script were not even a factor in my deleting this as soon as possible. Willam Defoe picks up a paycheck here as a hard-driven, successful, practical businessman who ends up throwing away his own hard-earned business interest out of sentimentality. Only in the movies. Don’t watch this unless you are an ungrateful lazy bitch of a stay at home mom, in which case you’ll eat it right up with a spoon. Score: 1 – I watched this through, but it was only because I enjoy Gerard. I wanted to slap his wife’s face off and push his kids into a closet. ENOUGH OF THESE MOVIES ATTACKING DADS WHO WORK FOR A LIVING AND GET THE BILLS PAIDFOR FUCK’S SAKE! BUY IT on Amazon
2:22 (2017)
Quit watching this, boring and derivative, how many guys have we seen who all the sudden develop this unique power, what does it mean, it’s all building up to a huge climax where they alone can save the whole fucking world!! But can they do it in time???? I don’t know yet, might start watching it again but it bored me so much my hand reached over and crashed VLC. Score: inconclusive BUY IT on Amazon
and now the really bad, from the recycle bin, don’t waste your time downloading these:
Age of Tomorrow (2014)
It takes about 3 lines of dialog, if you haven’t noticed the bad lighting, poor sets and shabby costumes, to tell an Asylum joint. I knew there was zero chance this would even be entertainingly stupid so I junked it 3 lines in. My loss I guess. Asylum is pretty good at coming up with faux titles, Age for Edge of Tomorrow. Score: 0 BUY IT on Amazon
Darling (2015)
Jesus Christo, I just saw Annabelle Creation, creepy nun (in that case) tells the girls there’s a room she must never enter, and she might as well have told her it was full of bon bons and My Little Ponies because in both movies the stupid girls go in the forbidden room. This movie is particularly hackneyed, I mean, how many times do we get an innocent girl who goes to a haunted school/house/infirmatry/farm what have you and who is driven mad (with zero evidence of actual monsters, just creepy ambiance), kills herself or others and then we see the replacement coming in and getting the same introductory lecture we saw at the beginning of the film, this time given by the creepy Sean Young. How the fuck do people keep getting these movies made? The critics apparently liked his ripoff drivel, praising its “atmospherics” well fuck atmospherics, I’d like a plot, an original one, and at least some kind of monster. Avoid at all costs, sucks balls Score: 1 quit watching, got ending from Wiki BUY IT on Amazon
666 Beast (2007)
The acting sucked quite early, but I got all the way to the highschool drama production version of Hannibal Lector disemboweling a nurse and pinning her to the wall spread eagle before I Xed this piece of crap. This is so bad it will never be a cult movie or ‘so bad it’s good’ it’s just badly acted, scripted, costumed, lit, set, etc. Terrible, terrible waste of film or more likely video. Score: 0 crap BUY IT on Amazon
Anomalous (2016)
Fantasy · A young schizophrenic who felt threatened by a presence he was unable to define turns up gruesomely dead in his bathtub. Maybe this is true, I never made it past the first 3 minutes. Your milage may vary. Score: -0 barf Not even available on Amazon, truly the mark of a shitty movie.
Complete Unknown (2016)
Talky, pointless piece of crap, must have been a vanity project. Hateful woman lies to everyone about who she is and what she does because she’s constantly “reinventing” herself, even to the point of giving medical advice to some poor old lady (Kathy Bates, playing for scale for a friend I guess) and her husband, Danny Glover, who’s just glad to get a paycheck these days. Michael Shannon and Rachel Weisz star as 2 annoying jerks. Score: 0 avoid like rotten meat BUY IT on Amazon
Apocalyptic (2014)
Lower your expectations and achieve enlightenment., 3 September 2014. Author: rushknight from United States. In general, all found footage films require you to lower your expectations. The very nature of this method of filming is to eliminate the need for special effects, large crews and complicated staging. I stole all that from someone else because I only made it a couple of minutes into the film. Score: 0 BUY IT on Amazon
Fay Grim (2006)
This sequel to Simon Grim, which I suffered through, is a big studio big star atrocity with no excuse to suck as badly as it does. Parker Posey and her gang all smirk and nudge us all the way through that they know it’s all a joke and the film is a farce or something but god it’s dreary and retarded. Run don’t walk to push the VLC button, lurking there beneath the taskbar like a child who’s wet her bed. Score: big fat 0
Blood Money (2017)
John Cusack has been playing villains long enough now it’s no longer against type, he is a creepy, annoying villain whom you know is going to get his in the end. This direct to vid (John working for a paycheck here) started sucking right away, with the whiny boys and the bratty, asinine and greedy little bint of a chick (I FOUND THE MONEY! she screams very early on, telling you she has the money lust immediately) she also fucks one guy, then the other to totally fuck with the first guy’s head, but tells the 2nd guy it’s just all in fun so as to set them against one another. I suspected this was going to suck so I read the Wiki synopsis and found out, sure enough, she was going to murder her friends after the badguy was dispatched and get away with all the cash. Fuck that, not with me watching. BELETED Score: minus 100, you piece of shit BUY IT on Amazon