I just watched Good Fortune starring Azi Ansari, Keanu Reeves, and Seth Rogan.
I really enjoyed it. Keanu plays an inept angel whose duty is to save people who text and drive, but wants to do more and save a lost soul.
It’s a nice comfort watch or would make a good palate cleanser after a more heavy movie.
I’m going to the Cinema to see Predator: Badlands tomorrow
The Ring (2002) 3.5/5: I liked the scares, the art house movie in the middle was weird, but overall worth a watch
Back to the Future 5/5: Watched it in IMAX and loved every moment of it. This has to be one of the single best screenplays ever written
The Predator 1/5: Finally watched the last movie I hadn’t seen in the franchise and with good reason. This movie is wildly offensive to the autistic community, insults the movies we like, and has stupid MCU humor. This sucks all around
The Rock 4/5: It’s easy to forget how star studded this is. Plus it’s also a Micheal Bay movie. It’s a little long and gets stuck in the weeds a few times but overall is a very solid film
I went on a Disney cruise for a family vacation this past week, and we got to see Fantastic Four, Freakier Friday, and Tron: Ares.
Fantastic Four was fun, but it’s kinda just another MCU movie.
Freakier Friday I had literally zero expectations for, but I honestly found it very fun and endearing. It’s similar to the first one, but different enough to feel fresh and new, and there really wasn’t that much Millennial/Gen Z/Gen Whatever humor in the movie either, which I appreciated. They brought back all the actors who were in the first movie, including Lohan’s old band mates, and her old crush (who, imo, has probably the funniest parts of the whole movie). I’d honestly recommend anyone who was even slightly entertained by the 2003 one to watch this sequel.
Tron: Ares was cool to watch, but a lot of the Jared Leto scenes made it feel painfully obvious that this was his movie that he wanted to make. Like it’s literally just Jared Leto talking about the stuff he likes like Depeche Mode (there are literally two scenes where they talk about DM, but the second one at least kinda makes sense imo). The action was cool, the effects were well done, it was cool to see programs interact with and be in the real world, and it had some very interesting mechanical ideas. The soundtrack was pretty good too, it felt kinda like a chunkier/grittier version of Legacy.
I watched Ares last night. I really liked it! Not the greatest movie ever but I liked that it was sort of “true” to it’s legacy.
spoiler
The soundtrack was very similar to the last one with Daft Punk. I like how Ares fell into the 80s world and they removed all the color from his face, just like the OG. They even had Jeff Bridges for a bit.
Event Horizon
I saw it mentioned on here a couple weeks ago as a lesser known horror film (or something along those lines) so watch it last night. I always assumed it was another of those sci-fi disaster movies from the late 90s and had no idea what it actually is. I won’t spoil it for anyone else but it’s great and I wish I’d watch it all those years ago.
The Long Walk
It was over before I knew it but in a good way. It was either over the top wholesomeness or brutality but either way I gave it my whole attention till the end.
I felt like The Long Walk was so just fundamentally flawed, in that the entire movie is about them trying to help other participants, knowing full well that if that person lives, they themselves will die. Like why did they sign up if they had no intention of winning? It’s as if they’re trying to help their friends cross a finish line. Except there is no finish line. You just keep going until the last man stands. Then they’re all shocked and angry when someone dies. Like they didn’t know it was going to happen to 99% of everyone at the starting line. Then they’re all chanting “fuck the long walk”, as if someone forced them to be there. It just makes no sense.
I know almost nothing about The Long Walk aside from it’s a Stephen King story, and the kid who played the synth from Romulus is in it.
Event Horizon fucking rules.
Lots of spooky movies.
- The Ugly Stepsister (2025) (Den stygge stesøsteren): Like Wicked, but for Cinderella. Dark and unsettling. Recommended.
- Late Night with the Devil (2024): Do tapes from 70s show demons? Skip.
- Dracula (1931): Bela Lugosi. Eminently rewatchable. Highly recommended
- Dracula’s Daughter (1936): Rather good follow-up where she is sent to a psych because they think she’s crazy, not undead. Recommended.
- The Bat (1959): Not great, but good unscrupulous characters (Vincent Price etc.).
- Mother Joan of the Angels (1961) (Matka Joanna od Aniołów): Like The Devils, but not raunchy. Probably source the material. Highly recommended . ::: spoiler Minor ending spoiler
At one point in film, we hear that the abbey bell calls out to the lost, and in the final scene, we see them toll yet only hear a nun sobbing. chef’s kiss ::: - Cure (1997) (キュア): Like Pontypool, but no zombies. People are commit murders without knowing why. Cops investigate.
- The Hypnotic Eye (1960) - Skippable B-movie.
Not spooky:
- Ganja & Hess (1973): Vampire movie, but much more. There are several cuts, but this was the restored version the director, Bill Gunn, intended. It is atmospheric and relates to: heritage of American black culture from Africa compared to the modern heritage of the Church, predation, class issues, and so on.
- Chang’an (2023) (长安三万里): Animated. Like Pocahontas in that it is supposed to be historical, but for Chinese general Gao Shi at Chang’an, explaining his lifelong friendship with famous poet while the enemy closes in. A bit too long, but it would have felt longer if not so light.
- Papa’s Delicate Condition (1963): Skippable. Jackie Gleason buys a circus.
- Southside 1-1000 (1950): Narration of Feds versus counterfeiter. Noir.
- All Night Long (1962): Othello, but jazz. Bad pacing but sweet tunes. Bits have Dave Brubeck on piano, Charles Mingus on bass, and many others.
A House of Dynamite
In Roshoman style the movie gives you three different perspectives of the same 20 minutes and man is it intense. Katherine Bigalow is one of the best.
In the same vein I revisited and 80s movie that has the same theme:
By Dawn’s Early Light.
Stars James Earl Jones, Powers Booth, Jeffery DeMunn and other. It is about the US’s reaction to the start of a nuclear war.
DeMunn is probably known by most from his role in The Walking Dead.
I decided to rewatch another movie that he is in called,
Warning Sign.
It is zombie flick under the covers, but the set up is a manufactured virus turns the inhabitants of a military lab into psychopathic killers.
Other than DeMunn it stars Yapet Koto,Same Waterston and Kathleen Quinlinn.
Watched Dynamite last night and was enraged.
SPOILER
Fuck you mean that was the end?! Excellent movie, engaging, on the edge of my seat, then, it, just, ends. No resolution, no nothing. I wanted to throw a brick through my TV.
Hehe it was a gut punch
I watched a few Korean films last week:
- Lover (2005)
- Love Guide for Dumpees (2015)
- Thirst (2009)
All three were quite middling but enjoyable enough. Lover was a very strange film that starts off almost as a softcore porn film but tries to become a serious romance film towards its conclusion. I didn’t find that transition at all believable, but it does have one or two very realistic and relatable scenes focused on emotional unavailability and lack of commitment in relationships which made it worth watching. Love Guide For Dumpees was pretty stupid but it did make me laugh and the two leads had good chemistry so it was also worth the time investment. It also had some surprisingly complex and dark themes around depression and suicide which I did not expect at all. Thirst was a much more serious film from Park Chan-wook, arguably my favourite director, but I found it to be inconsistent and not up to his usual high standard. I think it could have worked well if he’d played into the religion angle more and made it an allegory about the Catholic Church (there is a lot of potential with the themes and visual symbolism), but he doesn’t take that idea far enough so it ends up being this sort of quirky vampire/romance/dark comedy thing which is interesting but fairly predictable and never really that entertaining.
