Movie opinions thread (what have you seen, what did you think?)

[Tarma]

McBain - no, this is not (sadly) a feature length cartoon featuring the eponymous character from The Simpsons, this is an obscure 1991 war film starring Christopher Walken and Michael Ironside. Directed by 1980s action indie helmer James Glickenhaus (The Exterminator, The Enforcer, Shakedown), this is probably one of the most ridiculous films I've seen for a while. The main plot is that McBain is out for vengeance against a Colombian dictator who killed a revolutionary leader who happened to save his life in 'Nam 18 years earlier.
A lot of the film was shot in the Philippines, which is great for the 'Nam stuff at the start of the film, but is rather weird when the action "moves" to Colombia and they're still using filippino extras for crowd scenes and stand ins for the "Colombian" army. Since when a filippino looked the same as a latino is beyond me.
Anyhoo, provided you don't take this film even remotely seriously, it's good fun, and Walken and Ironside are both highly watchable, even though we don't see Walken as a one-man army... which would have been awesome. Probably the nearest we have seen Walken to starring in an action film? I know he was in The Rundown, but that was a supporting role as the bad guy. Would love to know what persuaded his to star in this...
As I say, the whole film is bat-shit crazy, but worth watching if you can track it down - it also features some great cinematogrpahy, especially the aerial sequences.

 

[SouthtownKid]

Beau Is Afraid

This movie is like someone held a seance to summon the ghost of Franz Kafka so that they could ask it to write the movie Big Fish.

I'm not sure what else to say about it. I did like it a lot. Maybe not the best date movie.

 

[Average Joe]

The Substance

Holy fuck... where the hell did this inevitable Body-Horror future classic come from? The fact that this was running on the screens of major theaters is wild to me as this feels like a film that is meant for specialized smaller venues. It has the look and feel of some weird amalgamation of Cronenberg/Yuzna/Henenlotter and holy hell was I there for every second of it.

I feel corny as hell saying this, but Demi Moore gives a surprisngly raw and vulnerable performance here as she is often displayed fully-nude and bathed in light that is not entirely kind to her aging body. She's still a beautiful woman, but in the world she lives in, every bit of sagging flesh and every wrinkle must feel like a spotlight is being shone on it for the world to see and judge. Major kudos to her for putting herself out there like for a film like this as I don't see too many people of her level and status willing to do the same.

Dennis Quaid deserves some props too as despite his somewhat brief screentime, he is an absolutely delightful lunatic every second he is.

The other main actress (forget her name currently) did a great job as well, but she felt overshadowed by Demi here and didn't stand out in one way or another to me.

Anyway: This is Body-Horror and there is a lot of it; especially the last 20 minutes which is an absolutely insane spectacle that will stick in my brain forever. All the effects are practical, well-done, and sprinkled enough throughout the film to keep it interesting throughout the lengthy runtime.

And the running time is pretty much my only issue with the film. While I was never bored and the film breezed by before I knew it, I'm still not a big fan of that level of minutes used for a Horror film. I'm no professional, but after watching it my brain did some auto-editing and easily could have snipped away many tens of minutes from the footage. I mostly take issue with it when accounting for theatrical preview time, which for some insane fucking reason is still stuck in the 20+ minute range these days... so being in a theater for nearly three hours is a big ask.

Either way: this is already a classic to me and can sit right up there with the Body-Horror greats.

 

[Tarma]

Sudden Death - Die Hard in an ice hockey stadium, starring JVCD. Nuff said.

 

[Lastblade]

I saw The Substance as well. I am not a horror fan at all, so the whole last 1/3 of the film felt like a comedy to me. However, both Demi and Margaret Qualley gave amazing performances (along with Dennis Quaid). The concept is really well done, I was hooked for most of the movie but that ending, tho, just too much and I laughed through most of it. Not sure if that was the intended effect but I am glad I saw it, even if I can't decide if I liked it or not.

 

[Average Joe]

I saw The Substance as well. I am not a horror fan at all, so the whole last 1/3 of the film felt like a comedy to me. However, both Demi and Margaret Qualley gave amazing performances (along with Dennis Quaid). The concept is really well done, I was hooked for most of the movie but that ending, tho, just too much and I laughed through most of it. Not sure if that was the intended effect but I am glad I saw it, even if I can't decide if I liked it or not.

100% supposed to be comical.

Pulled off some Society level shit where as gross as it is it is also equally hilarious.

 

[100proof]

I also made it to The Substance this evening. It's a little broad in places where subtlety would've maybe gone down better but it's otherwise a devilish little chunk of body-horror madness that pays tribute, both obvious and subtle, to many of the 80s horror greats and will likely sit alongside them when all is said and done. It's delightfully trashy without seeming low-brow.

Demi Moore plays an aging starlet who gets shit-canned from an exercise TV show to make way for a younger, hotter woman by the world's sleaziest TV executive. Rather than handle her ego death with grace, she gets hooked up with a mysterious product that promises her youth and beauty. As one might imagine, it doesn't go well. What happens for the next 90 minutes borrows from every source you can think of (The Giving Tree, Dorian Grey, Re-Animator, melt movies, Videodrome, The Fly, The Shining, etc.) and ends in a way that would make Gwar and Screaming Mad George smile.

Demi Moore gives a great performance (the Italian Cuisine scene is an all-timer) and she looks fantastic at 60 (she's a metaphorically perfect casting for the role). The nudity didn't bother me (and there is a LOT of it) but all of the Michael Bay-esque glamour montages with the constant parade of T&A made me seriously uncomfortable after a while. I understand that that was the point but it honestly made me more uncomfortable than any of the body horror shit. The "male gaze"/"Hollywood chews up and spits out women" messaging is handled with the subtlety of a chainsaw lobotomy but the darkly comic tone lets you know that it's not shooting for subtlety in the slightest. On a similar note, I've seen some people complain about the last 15 minutes (everything after the third title card) being too silly and while it is very absurd, it makes total sense with the rest of the movie, both in tone and messaging (women who mangle themselves for the sake of beauty/looking younger are treated like monsters/freaks... has anyone dared look directly at Madonna lately?). I mean sure, it's like 10% goofier than what came before it but a wide-eyed Dennis Quaid eating shrimp poorly is not that far a stretch from Cronenbergian blood geysers.

I liked the stringent rules (horror movies with rule sets that people inevitably don't follow are always a treat). Loved the sound mixing (always makes these movies ten times worse). All of the obvious nods to 80s horror classics (the bright green Re-Animator serum, the decomposition scene is basically Brundlefly's progression, the Shining carpet and bathroom, the Videodrome pulling things out of your stomach homage, Monstro Elisasue looks like a Toxic Avenger villain/side character, etc.). A lot of show, don't tell screenwriting (the opening scene, never bothers to over-explain what the Substance is or its maker).

Good shit. Recommend it if you've got the stomach for gross-out horror movies.

 

[Ralfakick]

McBain - no, this is not (sadly) a feature length cartoon featuring the eponymous character from The Simpsons, this is an obscure 1991 war film starring Christopher Walken and Michael Ironside. Directed by 1980s action indie helmer James Glickenhaus (The Exterminator, The Enforcer, Shakedown), this is probably one of the most ridiculous films I've seen for a while. The main plot is that McBain is out for vengeance against a Colombian dictator who killed a revolutionary leader who happened to save his life in 'Nam 18 years earlier.
A lot of the film was shot in the Philippines, which is great for the 'Nam stuff at the start of the film, but is rather weird when the action "moves" to Colombia and they're still using filippino extras for crowd scenes and stand ins for the "Colombian" army. Since when a filippino looked the same as a latino is beyond me.
Anyhoo, provided you don't take this film even remotely seriously, it's good fun, and Walken and Ironside are both highly watchable, even though we don't see Walken as a one-man army... which would have been awesome. Probably the nearest we have seen Walken to starring in an action film? I know he was in The Rundown, but that was a supporting role as the bad guy. Would love to know what persuaded his to star in this...
As I say, the whole film is bat-shit crazy, but worth watching if you can track it down - it also features some great cinematogrpahy, especially the aerial sequences.

Appearance by Luis Guzman as Drug Dealer. The film almost has a Cannon Films Vibe about it

You ever watch Dogs Of War? That’s another Walken action film vehicle

I watched Civil War today. It kind of reminded me of Children of Men. I thought it was good kind of disturbing in a way. Had a lot of those small skirmish battles like COM. Kirstin Dunst has not aged well.

Afterwards I watched Garfield quite a switch lol. I thought it was going to be terrible and it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. The story could have been better but it was tolerable just like the Despicable Me movies

 

[Taiso]

I watched Unforgiven with the roomie over the weekend.

Holds up.

In fact, I think I appreciate it even more now that I'm older.

It's in my personal top 10 all time.

'It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. You take the only thing he's got, and the only thing he's ever gonna have.'

 

[Hot Chocolate]

100% supposed to be comical.

Pulled off some Society level shit where as gross as it is it is also equally hilarious.

I think because that it fully commits to going bonkers that Demi committed to it and didn't care that it said "look at this old broad", especially that third act body suit.

on topic:

Megalopolis
-it is as pretentious as the trailers made it out to be. This is definitely a movie that had it come out back in Francis heyday would be talked about as much as Godfather 1 & 2/Apocalypse Now but now just comes off as the incoherent and out of touch ramblings of a passed his prime auteur director, given the fact that everyone is over acting by x12 I'm happy that Larry Fishburne got a pay check.

 

[famicommander]

Scream VII drops in February. Hopefully Neve took those bastards to the cleaners for saving their franchise after they lowballed her for VI. They tried to throw her away but then Jenna Ortega became way too big for the franchise and they fired Melissa Barrera for criticizing Israel's genocide, so Campbell had them by the balls. Without Campbell they'd have to point a camera at Courteney Cox's horrible face for the whole ass movie.

 

[Taiso]

Melissa Barrera can get it.

 

[famicommander]

Melissa Barrera can get it.

Ortega too.

Neve has aged pretty damn well also, even though her titties are weird.

 

[HornheaDD]

Flow and Robot Dreams.

Both of these movies are animated and zero dialogue but convey all emotions, intentions, struggles, etc through visuals. Enjoyed both of them quite a bit.

Robot Dreams: Based on the comic of the same name. I hadn't heard of it so I plan to pick it up and read it. The premise is about Dog who lives in New York in the early 80s. He is lonely and purchases a robot friend. They bond and become fast friends, and then things change.

I thought it was sweet, funny at times, and heartbreaking. Some review called it a "tragicomedy." I dunno, its more tragic than funny, but definitely enjoyable.

Flow: Latvian computer animated movie about several animals that end up on a boat after a flood destroys the world. Its intense at times. Tragic. But ends on a high note, though it seems not to. There is an end credits scene. I dont know how I feel about it, but thats the scene that is the high note. If youve ever lost a pet, this movie can be hard to watch. For those worried if the cat or dog dies I'll spoiler it just in case.

Thankfully Cat and Dog do not. But there is sort of a death midway through the movie, and a death in the final scene (before the credits).

 

[Taiso]

Ortega too.

Neve has aged pretty damn well also, even though her titties are weird.

No weird titties for me, thanks.

 

[famicommander]

No weird titties for me, thanks.

Just saying her face looks pretty good for 50.

 

[fake]

I Saw the TV Glow
This looked like a mumblecore nostalgia jerk-off to me, so I avoided it. But then the polarized reviews dragged me in. It's exactly what I thought it was: A half-baked attempt at using millennials' fascination with Nickelodeon shows as a way of showing the journey of becoming transgender.

Two strangers meet and share a bond over a TV show that takes clear references from Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Pete & Pete, and some other shows. When they get a little older, the girl runs away. She comes back 10 years later and tells the boy that she went to live in the TV show by paying someone to bury her alive. This is the allegorical character who became trans. When the boy says her name, she always says, "That's not my name anymore," which is heavy-handed. The boy continues to live an uncomfortable and stunted life in the real world – the allegory of living a forced cis life – until he starts to believe what the girl told him. He smashes his head into the TV. Nothing happens beyond Fred Durst pulling him out of the TV, so he goes back to work and is a weirdo.

The ethereal neon lighting comes off as "We have an A24 movie at home," even though this is an A24 movie. The characters are painful to listen to. The whole thing could've been an OK short if it weren't told across three time periods and was so overwrought in its trans-ness.

Transamerica is still the best trans movie.

By the way, this is what the director looks like. I don't like to make fun of the things people can't control about themselves, but their image is an accurate encapsulation of the movie.

Spoiler:

 

[Stefan]

The ethereal neon lighting comes off as "We have an A24 movie at home," even though this is an A24 movie.

As in, A 24 pound bag of dogshit to immediately put outside in the trashcan.

Director IRL could easily be GregN's theoretical trooned-out younger anti-capitalist cousin from the Twin Cities

 

[Tarma]

High Plains Drifter - another classic Eastwood western, this time about a mysterious drifter who comes to town to avenge the death of the local sheriff. Eastwood's dark humor breaks up the dark violence of the film, and the whole thing is beautifully shot. Perhaps not as strong as the films in the Dollars Trilogy, or some of his later westerns, this is still well worth watching if you're a fan of the genre and want something that's a bit beyond "cowboys & Indians" in its content.

 

[100proof]

Beetlejuice x 2 - Completely unremarkable corporate swill. Went in with pretty low expectations (just hoping to get some fun Michael Keaton riffing) and still left underwhelmed. It has a couple funny lines here and there and there are some clever moments (mostly from Katherine O'Hara and Michael Keaton getting to fuck around with those old characters) but everyone else might as well be cardboard cutouts and the story is like six unrelated screenplays that just smash in to each other in the last five minutes.

It has the same kind of irreverent spirit of the original movie but none of the humanity. The original movie was a pair of ordinary people trying to navigate the weird world of the afterlife so there was a grounding element to the story that made all of the weird Tim Burton-y shit seem interesting. This movie is just a cartoon where all the human characters are fucking weirdos who don't look remotely out of place next to all of the blue people with head wounds. The entire "Corpse Bride" subplot is a complete waste of time and there are several characters with a lot of dialogue who serve no purpose other than getting the main characters to where they need to be in the third act. Just awful writing.

That said, I do like how they handled Jeffrey Jones's absence. I enjoyed Beetlejuice's "Black Sunday" adjacent backstory, complete with Italian dubbing/English subtitles. The "I tolerate you" evolution of the stepmother/stepdaughter dynamic between the Deitzs is amusing enough, I guess. And Katherine O'Hara is obviously just having a ton of fun.

At this point, I know what I'm getting with these way too late sequels to beloved movies and this movie at least had the decency to not just directly replay all of the greatest hits for nostalgia (save for the behind-the-back scary face gag and a wedding scene at the end interrupted by a sandworm). It's just a shame that what they replaced all of that stuff with was largely boring family drama and ugly VFX.

 

[Average Joe]

I'm doing my October Horror watches and been plugging away at Friday 13th, which is a staple for me this season (and in general.)

Nothing much of note as I've seen these films so many times now, but I have come around to make Part 5 one of my favorites despite the general consensus still being fairly negative on this one.

It almost feels like a different film entirely from the mainline series; with its overwhelming tone of sleaze and exploitation. There's also plenty of kills that are noteworthy and start off almost immediately, as well as tons of characters with wacky lines of dialogue that are actually memorable unlike the bulk of the characters from the rest of the series.

The killer is still very lame and makes almost no sense, but you can honestly just kind of pretend it's still Jason and the movie doesn't really change except during the unveiling.

But yeah, this movie rules.

 

[Taiso]

The Friday the 13th films have a very complicated and fascinating legal history regarding ownership of the IP.

 

[LoneSage]

surprised none of you gooblets didn't see Transformers One

 

[HornheaDD]

surprised none of you gooblets didn't see Transformers One

Watched the trailers a while back and its clear our age group is not the target demo.

I might download it when its online but Im not setting a reminder or anything.

 

[Tung Fu ru]

surprised none of you gooblets didn't see Transformers One

kernow has seen it ten times!