Amph What was the last movie you saw? (Ver. 2)

Passenger 57. This is a very nineties action-thriller. It’s fairly dumb, fairly clever, and fairly fun, without ever quite being good. It mixes bombastic action-movie nonsense and incredibly cheesy villainy with a bunch of good little minor touches and underplayed gags. It’s corny as hell, but it’s solidly entertaining.

Our protagonist is Wesley Snipes, a security expert who takes a flight that happens to also carry psychotic terrorist Bruce Payne, a real cartoon nutjob who’s been captured by the FBI. Payne’s colleagues hijack the plane to bust him out, and Snipes has to stop his evil plot.

The Die-Hard-on-a-plane setup is pretty fun, but there’s not actually a whole lot to Payne’s plan, and not a lot of cat-and-mouse. We never really see what makes Snipes such a badass security expert — he’s supposed to specialize in counterterrorism and aviation security, but everything he does is fairly generic tough-guy stuff. It feels like a film that could be a lot more distinctive than it is. It’s enjoyable, dumb fun, but too corny and bland to really distinguish itself.

 

There Will Be Blood
2007

This movie is so intense everytime. Top notch production all around. Daniel Day-Lewis is a genius.

 

Stand by Me. There’s something about that late-fifties/early-sixties setting that is just perfection for childhood and coming-of-age stories. Absolute perfection. In this case, it’s a story about four boys who find out that the body of a missing boy is way out by a set of train tracks, and hike overnight to go see a real live dead body. The goal is one of those weird kid fascinations; the unsupervised journey is the point, the bonding and camaraderie of preteen boys out in the woods. The execution is pitch-perfect, with really deft characterization of the four boys and fantastic performances from Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, and Jerry O’Connell as the boys. A fantastic effort from Rob Reiner, who seems to have an unlikely touch for Stephen King adaptations.

 

SherDil (2019)
Does it count as a Bollywood movie if it's made in Pakistan? Whatever, it looks like Bollywood. While this year's Fighter was made in India about the Indian Air Force as heroes and Pakistanis as villains, this one was made in Pakistan about the Pakistani Air Force with Pakistani fighter pilot heroes and Indian Air Force villains. They're both patriotic films, but SherDil has a lot less jingoistic flag waving than Fighter. OTOH, SherDil's plot is much messier and the characters don't grab me as much. Both of them have almost purely CGI fighter combat scenes which are mostly entertaining although obviously fake and jampacked with errors. Planes don't fly like that, weapons don't work like that, and those "tactics" will get you killed. Fighter's action is more over-the-top ridiculous, and maybe a bit more entertaining. SherDil's dance scenes are a bit more believable, but again, less entertaining. On the plus side, I learned a cool new catchphrase: "The sky is mine."

 

I watched this one fairly recently having not seen it for a long time. My memory of it was that not a lot actually happens in it, and I think thats still the case, its certainly in the next tier down from the first 3 Die Hard movies.

Such a great film and I think it resonates with kids because I assume we've all been on 'adventures', it certainly does with me (not because of the dead body but there was an instance of an abandoned jeep that we had to find hidden in some woods). Back in the 80's we would disappear on an adventure on our BMX's, whether that be riding off down a canal for miles on end or down the old dis-used railways just to see where they go. Playing in derelict factories, building sites, abandoned cars, frozen lakes, jumping rivers, whatever we could find and back in an era when health and safety / site security was a lot more lax than it is now. Happy days.

 

Good movie, though not a typical Stephen King film/story, I really liked it.

 

As soon as a reviewer complains about the lack of plot, I stop reading or listening. A film reviewer that holds to the assumption that a movie has to be plot-driven is not worth taking seriously.

And so is PT Anderson.

Along with The Green Knight, I think it’s one of the best movies of the century.

The Pakistani version is Lollywood.

Both these movies are ethno-nationalistic nightmares, though, and not your typical fun Bollywood/ Lollywood affairs. The Fighter, in particular, would be silly fun if it wasn’t for the racist, ethnonationalist cult Modi has popularized across the country, and the murders and displacements that have resulted from it.

Phew. That’s too many topics. I’m tired now.

 

Did I mention this already?

I saw The Green Knight (finally).

 

Glad to hear it!

 

I want to see more movies like it, but don't know where to start.

Most likely, I'll probably get distracted by another genre, but I love adaptations like The Green Knight (and it helps that it's one of my favorite medieval short stories). I think the trailer was the final push for me, otherwise I may not have gotten around to it. Oh yeah, and the "twist" ending threw me for a loop (not the "strike" but the sequence preceding it).

I must say, I may prefer movies now, especially since too many TV shows get either cancelled or delayed constantly nowadays (due to the production studies, of course, at the end of the day; it's sort-of why we had the SAG-AFTRA strike and other strikes regarding Hollywood last year). Funny how it wasn't always like that. I prefer Star Wars TV shows but that's only because Disney seems to have the opposite problem (they can't seem to make a Star Wars movie to save their life).

Edit: Or rather, they haven't made one for a while, it seems, and there seem to be no plans to make any other than a spin-off movie of a TV show, which I find a bit boring, but that's just me!

 

Maybe try The Northman by Robert Eggers, to get a similarly authentic historical-mythical vibe? Though it’s a lot more realistic than The Green Knight, it takes occasional flights into Nordic fancy (frightening fancy, in a couple cases) that make it more than just another grim Viking tale.

As for Star Wars movies, Disney did manage to produce my favorite one yet, Rogue One, but otherwise yeah, their TV shows have been much better (with a few exceptions).

 

To Leslie (2022)

A single mother wins the lottery in a rural Southern town, and over the course of six years blew it all away on booze and pot; and left her son because of her indignity. It follows up with her homeless and in desperate need of support; either from her son who's now living on his own or the Church friends from her hometown. The film's lead, Andrea Riseborough, was phenomenal in her role and certainly earned the Oscar nod from 2023 for Best Actress.

 

Suspiria (1977).

So I don't normally put a lot of weight on the "viewing format" thing that Quest and some other folks emphasize but, uh, this was on Tubi, so this review takes the form of an anecdote. Suspiria is a gorgeous, vaguely surreal, all-killer-no-filler rollercoaster with a couple of absolutely brutal on-screen murders, set in Freiburg (now, you might think to yourself "I'm pretty sure that's Munich, I've been to that exact square, that is downtown Munich" but it's definitely Freiburg, shut up). Now when I say brutal, I mean brutal bordering somewhere on the line between grotesque and parodic, and not for the faint of heart. It alerts you to this more or less immediately, as after some fairly intense tone-setting content with a storm and classic Italian prog outfit Goblin's soundtrack going ****ing nuts, you watch a woman get stabbed to death in a manner the specifics of which would probably get me banned - putting Suspiria in an odd context where you know if you don't want to watch it a hair too late to unsee things. Then you linger a bit on the corpse, it's all harrowing but iconic, blood dripping in brilliant Technicolor, yadda yadda... this is where Tubi cuts to commercial. ARBY'S - THEY HAVE THE MEATS

So anyway after I almost died laughing from the sheer comedic impact of the timing, I kept on watching and was thoroughly rewarded with a great film. But if you're intrigued by anything I've written, uh... go with rental.

 

Sadly, that one was nowhere near a commercial break, but the second it happened there was a part of me that hoped.

 

Your Name (2016)

A rewatch for me (I own the Blu-Ray), but I don't think I've posted about it in here and it's been years since the last time I've watched it. If Spirited Away was Hayao Miyazaki's Magnum Opus, then this film is certainly that of Makoto Shinkai's. Through some astronomical miracle, a teenage boy and girl from hundreds of miles away from each other swap bodies. They experience each other's lives every so often, and then they'd wake up the next morning back to themselves. When a cataclysmic event threatens the town where one of them lives, both of them make an attempt to meet each other. It's a moving story that keeps you guessing on what comes next. I have seen Shinkai's subsequent movies to date (Weather With You and Suzume) and while both were fine in their own right, they just don't compare with the one that pretty much put him on the map.

 

Pan’s Labyrinth. I just watched this film about a girl sent on a quest by a faun in the aftermath of the Spanish Civil War. I love the intercutting of the guerrillas’ desperation and Ofelia’s attempts to help her mother and brother as well as fulfill her quest.

 

The Godfather Coda: The Death of Michael Corleone. The Godfather Part III never lived up to the incredible greatness of its predecessors, but it was never as bad a movie as it was made out to be. With this recut, Francis Ford Coppola has attempted to polish it up some more. I think it’s successful. The film still suffers from the absence of Robert Duvall, but the small changes make the film feel stronger. The themes of Michael Corleone’s desire for legitimacy and acceptance, for forgiveness of his past, while surrounded by people who refuse to give up the surface appeal of gangster machismo and the satisfaction of mafia violence were always there, but they feel more clearly highlighted, and the narrative drive increased, by a bit of rearranging. It’s still not the film the first two are, but the recut demonstrates that it’s a strong film working with compelling material.

 

I loved the "originals" but love this every bit as much. Just fantastic. Can't recommend enough!

 

Journey to the Centre of the Earth 1959 thriller about a scientist, Sir Oliver Lindenbrook, finds a message from a fellow scientists research that leads him to finding a way to the earths core through a cave in Iceland. With a rag tag group consisting of a colleague, newly found friends and a duck, he ventures deeper to the centre of the earth. However they are not alone down there as the evil Count Saknussem has murdered his way to finding the location of the cave and he wants to claim the centre of the earth as his own.

This is so typical of its time in its look, effects, the colour and the way its shot is very reminiscent of other 50's and 60's effects thrillers that present outlandish locations and monsters. But theres a real quaintness and naivety that draws me back to these types of films. The rear projected shots that seem to pervade the films of the time are always jarring as they go from a location shot to rear projected studio shots of the leads. We also get the lizards with the stuck on fins to make them out to be prehistoric, but again its keeping with the times and is no different to many other films done this way. James Mason in the lead role is fine, but for me he is never that strong to be a leading man, hes fine here and is ably assisted by Pat Boone as his sidekick. The villainous Count is played excellently by Thayer David and oozes bad guy. Arguably it runs out of a bit of steam as the goal is to get to the centre of the earth, but when they do it then becomes a battle for survival to get back to the surface. I much prefer this over the updated 2008 Brendan Frazer CGI version though.

 

Glass Onion. This was fun and the 2020 setting really sold it to me in its '20 minutes into the future past' vibe, complete with masking. Benoit continues to charm, Rian to construct characters and events that amaze (and are very funny!), and the McGuffin got me to wondering, "Does the red envelope refer to the Chinese custom of gifting cash in red envelopes at special occasions, such as the 2024 Chinese New Year, in which I saw the film?" *ponders*

 

eXistenZ (dir. David Cronenberg, 1999)

I have seen this film before, shortly after it came out. I rented the DVD from Blockbuster.

The setup: The world's most celebrated virtual reality game designer, Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh), is demonstrating her latest game eXistenZ, to a focus group, at a church-like facility, with a large number of people in attendance. A member of a radical group called Realists, who oppose the "deforming of reality," has secretly entered the facility, and he attempts an assault on Allegra Geller's life (with a gun that appears to be made out of bones and gristle, and shoots human teeth). She escapes, with the help of security guard Ted Pikul (Jude Law). After they've reached safety, they both plug into the game pod and enter eXistenZ. The game's reality very much resembles our own, and in the game's reality they find another game to enter (a game-within-a-game), and in that new reality they find a new game to enter, and so on; they keep entering and exiting different "levels" of the game until we're not certain anymore what reality is.




There have been a bunch of sci-fi movies, especially in the in the mid/late '90s and early 2000s, where "alternate realities" or identities are explored, either through virtual reality, drugs, entering dreams, or implanted memories; 1999 alone also featured The Matrix and The 13th Floor. This movie probably got a bit overshadowed by the former.

One of the things that make this films stand out from some of these other films exploring similar concepts include the reality-within-reality-within-reality thing (Inception subsequently did that as well. Gawd that movie is overrated). Another thing is the designs, which are organic to the point of being pretty gross. The "game pods" that players use to interact with the game are bio-technological, look flesh-like, and undulate; the the cables looks like umbilical cords. The "bio-port," the surgically installed port that allows the player to plug into the game, is located at the spine at the lower back. It resembles another orifice found in that vicinity, and Cronenberg has some fun exploring that. Yet another thing I found intriguing is that some actions aren't chosen by the characters but are determined by the game ("that wasn't me, that was my character"), possibly exploring how the way we interact with the world around us is in part determined by the social roles we adopt. I guess Cronenberg is too much of a Freudian to put much into the notion of free will.

The title of the film, as well as some of the dialogue, is a bit too on-the-nose for me:

Anyway, very good film but not peak Cronenberg. In terms of ratings, I think rating films in 2 decimals is a bit silly, so I'll just go back to rounding in halves, where 4.5=excellent, 4=very good, 3.5=good, 3=just OK, 2=not good but has some merits, 1=****. (I reserve 5 for best-movies-ever material, but I don't think Cronenberg is quite there. But IMO his work as a whole, and the themes that characterize his work, are more interesting than any given individual film, in a "the whole is more than the sum of its parts" kind of way.) So I'll rate this 4 orifices on the lower back out of 5.

1. Videodrome (1983) 4.5
2. Crash (1996) 4.5
3. Eastern Promises (2007) 4.5
4. Naked Lunch (1991) 4.5
5. Dead Ringers (1988) 4.5
6. A History of Violence (2005) 4.5
7. A Dangerous Method (2011) 4
8. The Fly (1986) 4
9. eXistenZ (1999) 4
10. M. Butterfly (1993) 4
11. Scanners (1981) 3.5
12. The Dead Zone (1983) 3

Side note: another film that's about alternate reality and identity, in this case by altered memories, is Total Recall (1990). Cronenberg was originally scheduled to direct it, and wrote a number of scripts for it, before he bowed out; eventually it got made by Paul Verhoeven. There are a number of Cronenberg elements that remain in the Verhoeven movie, including the mutants.

 

Saw this one on a date with a girl when it came out

 

This is one of the funniest things I’ve read all century.