I did two oldies both are two of my favorites:
Tremors:
Ever see a movie where everything just works. Where every single aspect just comes together to make for such an entertaining viewing? Tremors is one of those.
I got to see the Bacon Brothers in concert once and Kevin Bacon actually wrote a theme song for this movie and pitched it to the producers. It was called Under Paradise. They rejected his proposal, but it is a good song.
We Were Soldiers.
Back when it was unknown how fucked up Mel Gibson is and when his career was peaking. He had a stretch where he had one hit after another. This is a based on a true story of the first major battle the US had in the Vietnam war.
Based is the key phrase as it is pretty much Hollywood fiction but it is a fun war flick. Back from when I could actually enjoy those.
I can’t stand Mel Gibson, he’s retroactively ruined great films.
I watched Relay. I really enjoyed it
Also watched Caught Steeling which was entertaining and decent enough but not really a great movie although I enjoy a lot of movies that aren’t great movies
And, fantastic four. I liked it, some parts more than others. the action was really exciting and i thought they used their powers/intellect well against the more powerful Galactus
Superman/Batman Apocalypse 2/5: despite all the words in the title, this is a super girl movie. I’m not opposed to having a supergirl movie but it’s goofy to get Darkseid involved in the story but make the stakes basically a magical brainwashing. That’s like getting in a property dispute with Thanos
Pirates of the Caribbean: the Curse of the Black Pearl 3.5/5: I got to see this with a live orchestra playing the score. The first one really holds up, and the theme is so good that having a live version is cool. I don’t think this is a must see performance but it’s worth $45
7 Days in Hell 4/5: Basically an ESPN mockumentary. I love getting a mix of real athletes and sports presenters with the actors because sports people can be surprisingly funny in context. It’s a great pregame while everyone gets ready
Roofman 4.5/5: This is a local story so I was pretty excited for it. Channing Tatum is funny and charming while Kirsten Dunst really pulls off a tired southern mom who is just trying as hard as she can. It leans in a little on the whole “reality is stranger than fiction” thing by tying together a few things that didn’t actually happen but nothing that substantially changes the plot. Bonus half star for actually filming on location for a lot of it
Avatar: the Way of Water 3.5/5: There is just so much to talk about with these movies. James Cameron loves the ocean more than I will ever love anything in my life, and you go through a whole journey with him. From “yeah the ocean is cool” to “Jesus Jim, you are corny as hell” to “Alright, I guess I’ll go sign up for snorkeling lessons”. Truly, nothing else looks like this movie, he put so much money and work into building a truly alien world and it’s breathtaking at times, especially in imax
Although, I’m knocking half a point off for the variable framerate. I noticed it a lot during the movie and had to go online to confirm my suspicions but apparently the movie alternates between 48 and 24 FPS in action scenes and dialog scenes. Except it kinda does what the LotR extended cuts do and mixes those styles within a scene. So you can have a shot in 48 fps, cut to someone shouting in 24 fps for half a second and then back to 48. If that sounds jarring that’s because it is
I finally got around to watching The Life of Chuck a couple of nights ago. I had intended to see it in the cinema but I was pretty busy around the time it released and it didn’t get a long run. I didn’t know much about the film at all and was mostly drawn to it by Mike Flanagan, whose writing and direction I have really enjoyed in the past. Anyway, I had pretty high hopes despite knowing very little about the film and it met or maybe even surpassed those. It’s the best film I’ve seen this year, I think largely due to how well it delivers its core themes. I don’t want to discuss it too much without spoiler tags, since it is best watched without any expectations or preconceptions.
Spoilers for The Life of Chuck
I understand why the film was somewhat polarising, as it’s not for the cynical or those with poor attention spans (seems to be a good chunk of the audience these days). I think the themes are very relatable and can be very inspiring for most people, but that does rely on not knowing too much about them going in as they have been explored many times before. I have always found the concept of death terrifying, so I found The Life of Chuck to be very effecting (similar to the long monologues in Midnight Mass). I think perhaps part of the reason why I found it so moving right in this moment is because my grandparents are getting very close to the ends of their lives and just recently I attended the funeral of a friend who died very young in a freak accident. The film forced me to think about mortality which is a topic I so often try to prevent my brain from lingering on, particularly these days as death seems to be all around me.
I did have a couple of nitpicks. Firstly, Nick Offerman as the narrator. I think he has a great voice for narrating and his performance was good, but I’m not sure if his voice was the right match for this particular film. He has a very dry comedic tone to his voice, which worked well in a couple of scenes but was jarring for the majority. Initially I didn’t like the narration at all, but on reflection I think it was important to make the story more abstract. If you don’t have a narrator, you need to show and tell more through conversations and behaviours involving the characters, which adds a level of realism that would have worked against the film’s messaging; the characters in this film are deliberately underdeveloped, allowing us to replace them with ourselves. The excessive explanations did dumb things down, but after seeing how many people online didn’t understand the film at all, even with a narrator hitting them over the head constantly, I feel like it was worth it for accessibility.
Speaking of dumbing the film down, the ghost story twist at the end was too literal. I prefer to think of that scene as a visual representation of an existential crisis. For a young Chuck in his late teens, maybe that is the first time it has really dawned on him that death is coming for him at an unspecified time in the future and that he only has a limited time left before that happens. That’s a very relatable fear/realisation that many of us grapple with throughout our lives, including in old age as Chuck’s grandfather did. Upon entering the attic, they didn’t actually have visions of the exact moment of their death; it was just a combination of age, reflecting on the passing of loved ones and the emptiness and silence of the space that forced them to contemplate their own mortality. I think this better emphasises the choice we all have to take risks in the pursuit of living our lives to their fullest, fully aware that our time is limited, or playing it safe and closing ourselves off from opportunities for short-term joy because we are so focused on a long-term, almost infinite, approach to life.
I’ve had this same problem discussing it. I was really surprised by how much I liked this movie and I think it’s because I didn’t know anything going into it. I also know everyone hates getting recommend anything described as “go in totally blind”. I re-watched it within a month and it’s really good the second time around too because:
spoiler
you start seeing the repetition of the story but with the context of where it’s from. You understand why certain characters are in the first third based off their context in the last third. I especially like that he associates waiting for death with the cosmic calendar because of the scene with Mark Hamil drinking and the whole weatherman stare thing with the funeral director. Plus that dance is just joyous to behold
Thank you for the spoiler tag. I’m not reading that part because now I have to watch the film.
You’re welcome, I hope you enjoy it!
Boyz n the hood (1991). I knew very little about it beforehand and it turned out way better than I anticipated. Tough one but worth watching.
Perfect Days, 2023
Really love this. It lures you in and casts a spell with its mindful observation of a few days in one man’s life. Feels timeless, the film seems to do little but so much is said. Director and star use the lightest touches to invoke something deep. The scenes with his sister are just beautiful in how they show us so much with so little. It’s just an exquisite film.
One Battle After Another, 2025
So good - how it’s told, the soundtrack, acting, just everything. Yes it’s characters are somewhat cartoonish and it covers a lot of ground without much depth but it’s a great ride so for me its forgiveable. Can’t wait to see it again on streaming.
It was a scattered week, but I actually saw a current movie! I’ve mostly stopped doing that because I’d rather wait for stuff to stream.
- One Battle After Another (2025): recommended. Illuminati-esque and military battle revolutionaries and immigrant activists. Despite being a salacious cash-grab, the story is more interesting and realistic than most – especially compared to super heroes. Everyone is an over the top caricature but that works for what is essentially an action movie.
- Megalopolis (2024): recommended with caveats. Must-see for visual beauty. The good part of this mess is Coppola showing us what it feels like to be a director. The bad part is that by making Our Hero an architect designing a Utopia for the ungrateful masses, it rings of Fountainhead and gives credit to the falsehood that rich geniuses know better than the people under their rule. ::: spoiler Digression
At least the film points out that rich and connected charismatic leaders who DO associate with the common man should be eyed with suspicion, but one could interpret that to mean ‘trust the rich unless they appeal to the poors’, which is an even worse message than ‘trust the rich’. It would have felt less cringey if instead of all the Roman Empire, the stakes were a Hospital or the studio of a marble sculptor where one dictator had to order others about, but he was irrelevant to most people until his shining creation was made – with questions about his methods and supporters getting a chance to say, 'He struggled to afford supplies and cast out those who called him a fool. Yes, he worked his supporters like dogs, but all he asked was that he have the chance to complete his work without interference from the outside."
::: - Save the Children (1973): So much good source material of concert footage but they clipped the songs, which diluted the quality. Still good, and there’s nice oration by Rev. Jesse Jackson in there.
- Once Were Brothers (2019) - Doc about the Band and getting booed for being Dylan’s electric band (rather than acoustic), made their own way, found heroin, then played with Dylan again in addition to playing as themselves.
- Happy as Lazzaro (2018): recommended. Naïve and honest Lazzaro makes the people around him better, but he can’t cure the world.
- Nocturna (2007) - fanciful imagery and charming characters make for a light little film despite a vacuous plot with both kind and questionable messages.
- Skin Game (1971): James Garner scams slave owners by repeatedly selling Louis Gossett Jr. then helping him escape. It’s better than I expected.
- The Murderers Are Among Us (1946) Die Mörder sind unter uns – Germany! This was the first film made & exhibited in West Germany after WWII. Director Staudte, who stayed through the war, said the film is about his shame of being used for/by Hitler. This initiated the sub-genre ‘trümmerfilme’ (rubble films). ::: spoiler Digression
It starts with bold text: Berlin 1945 DER STADT HAT KAPITULIERT… (ellipsis included) translated, this is ‘The city has capitulated…’, but seeing it spelled out and then immediately followed by the camera showing a grave amid rubble, reminds one of the nearness of ‘kapit-’ to ''kaputt" (broken/destroyed) – and if one has ever heard the Ton Steine Scherben song of the same name, one may imagine the refrain overlaying the film, Macht kaputt, was euch kaputt macht (destroy that which destroys you). Surely Rossellini knew this film before he made Germany, Year Zero, and there’s much to compare between them; the choice of endings, in particular, because they each take something of a cop-out as was need for the times. TOTAL SPOILER FOLLOWS: Because the Allies wanted to tamp down any vigilantism and impose rule of law, the ending here doesn’t give us the satisfaction of a justifiable homicide and the repercussions of such. Instead, there’s an implied future that resolves in more proper justice maybe being done in the future. Rossellini used a different cop out.
::: - Berlin Express (1948): not first film, but first Hollywood film of post-war Germany (the 2nd was Wilder’s Foreign Affair). Frankfort and Berlin are ruined backdrops to quite a thriller with lots of Pro-UN type politics.
- One Last Fling (1949) : missable romance
- Tarzan the Ape Man (1932): Animals WERE harmed in the making of this film. This is worth watching for a view into a past time, but there’s lots of imperialist whiteness to complain about. Filmed in California with some footage from the 1931 movie Trader Horn. The not-pygmy-dwarves are white people in black face.
- Tarzan and His Mate (1934): Similar, but this has a lovely scene of swimming where Tarzan and Jane slip beautifully through the deeps.
- Tarzan Escapes (1936): More of the same, but the first two were pre-code (technically in place for the 2nd, but not adhered to for that pic) and by '36 they couldn’t show so much sexy skin so they had to have more plot.
Out of curiosity how did you watch Megalopolis? I imagine that impacts the experience
That movie is so crazy and I’m glad it exists. My criticism is that it seems to be arguing that utopia is a solarpunk libertarian commune, which are certainly contridictary words to describe something. It’s like it believes in the “free market of ideas” while ignoring that ideas inevitably become actions. Like there was a way to connect Driver’s desire to achieve perfection with the fall of the
RomanAmerican empire around him but instead goes for a goofy handwave ending. I think there’s something here but you’d need to do a lot of work to drag it outAlone at night off blu-ray with 5.1 sound (I only have 6 speakers, not 8) and a big screen. The disc appears to be a legitimate import but who knows? I’d link you to the store, but its page now says they’re sold out.
The Lost Bus and then Rebuilding Paradise.
I don’t know how to describe it. It was amazing seeing all the footage but in a devastating and sad way.
I watched the Lost Bus, it was entertaining. One thing the movie did a great job with is capturing the power of fire.
I have watched a doc on the fire not sure if it is the Howard one, but it is a crazy story.
Wheelman(2017), and then Baby Driver(2017). Back to back.
Driven 3000km this week and felt like some driving movies. Both are passable getaway flicks.
