Every Film You've Watched in 2019


Missy

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Burning: Starring Yoo Ah-in, Jeon Jong-seo and Steven Yuen.  

Based on a short story from Haruki Murakami's book "The Elephant Vanishes", this film watched as a much better representation of the man's writing than the movie adaptation of "Norwegian Wood". It was a million percent a Murakami story, even if the director was only loosely adapting the main beats of "Barn Burning". At two and a half hours, it's a helluva slow burn, but the hypnosis of following only three characters locked me in before long. I was never bored, never restless, and by the third act on the edge of my seat. This won't be for everyone, and I can see people crossing their arms and nope-ing the crap out of the movie for its inexorable pace, ambiguity, and eye-raising presentation of it's chief female character. But I'm such a Murakami fan, this rang so true for me that I loved it.

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Black Sheep: this is a much better film than Tommy Boy. It's more stereotypical, but that works for it. Farley is at his peak here. Spade is not super-annoying. Gary BUsey is in it.

Features: 39

Shorts: 15

Documentaries: 5

Rewatches: 4

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Justice League vs. The Fatal Five: 100% an extended JLU episode, about as enjoyable as any given season 2+ ep. There's scant language and some bloody violence they couldn't really skate by in the old show, but otherwise it's JLU like it's never left. Very much enjoyed it. The three new young characters are all solid with really strong characterization, although Ms. Martian is the least integral compared to Jessica Cruz and Starboy. And the continuity is pretty fascinating to eagle-eyed DCAU fans. Various references and off-handed mentions will have you guessing as to what's gone on in between the end of JLU and this film (the DCAU history of the GL Corps, the whereabouts of Hawkgirl). Harley and Ivy even pop up for a cameo, having me wonder when this takes place in conjunction with Batman and Harley. But this was one of those things where it was just simply nice to see everyone again. Sure, Newburn, Eisenberg and Conroy have voiced the Trinity before, but this is strictly in the DCAU continuity, and seamlessly at that. The music was the same, the storytelling was the same, and the action scenes were solid. Again, a nice, one-off JLU episode that keeps me wanting more from the show.

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Split: My take on M. Night: I feel like he works best when he has a relative microbudget, maybe four locations and maybe two Names in his movies, because then he can actually get creative. Because this movie? Rocks. The Visit? Rocks. Everything I've heard about Glass says it's dogshit, and, well, the rest of his career speaks for itself. 

Films Watched: 25

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John Wick Chapter 3: PARABELLUM: A great time at the movies. The action sequences in the first and third acts are wild and brutal, and this time out the film has more fun with itself. There's more gleeful humor in the action that just adds to the badassery. And I found all of the world-building expansion in this film more interesting than in 2. Can't wait to see what happens next.

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Got partway through Raiders of the Lost Ark last night before I got sleepy and had to go to bed. (I'm an old man. Get off my lawn.) Wow, this movie is violent for only being PG. One guy takes a bullet in the forehead and we see the blood pouring out.

Human memory is imperfect, but I was sure the one guy fell over and died after having all those spiders on him. Then again, that might be my arachnophobia coloring my memory.

Films watched: 14 and 1/2

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John Wick: A well-paced revenge tale that hits all of the simplest, but most effective beats, building to its climax as the title character topples increasingly larger dominoes in his way.  Enjoyed.

John Wick 2: Mystery is boring - let's EXPLAIN things. It feels like that's most of what this movie is, explaining things, then explaining them again, then showing you the thing it just explained in case you somehow missed it because we need a franchise, goddammit.  Ruby Rose has nothing to do but tries her best.  Ups the gun fetishism while making the fights feel like more of the same.  You are also now asked to buy in to the premise that 75% of the world's population is apparently part of the assassin's club.  Like, there are so many of them and they kill so many people in public that you wonder why they even bother being secret.  Thinking about this movie now with the context of 3 makes more sense, but still doesn't do enough to justify its runtime.  It exists to be the bridge between two better movies.

John Wick 3: I liked this movie quite a bit but this did not need to be two and a half hours.  A good editor could have killed 45 minutes of this thing. I guess that's just going to be a standard in the post-MCU world.  You could have cut out an entire sequence (and its featured actress) and not missed much of anything.  Asia Kate Dillon is a magnetic presence and adds a lot to the film by doing very little.  The first fight scene alone is better than all of John Wick 2 combined, relying more on creative choreography than video game corridor shooting.  Eventually the movie loses its way and goes back to that and the contrast is staggering.  Every punch and kick has 5 times the impact of a shotgun blast in the same film but it seems to be significantly more interested in the latter. 

My main takeaway is that Keanu Reeves is content to make John Wick movies for the rest of his life, and he deserves to be happy, so there's that at least.

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Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: I went in with decent expectations, having not read the main crossovers and only a few issues of the animated versions. LOVED IT. This is a stunningly entertaining movie with a witty script and a true realization of how these characters would interact if they really did have a team-up adventure.

What helped my viewing was me going in not knowing how violent the movie is. You seeing the Nickelodeon logo at the beginning, so you think it's a kids movie. And for the most part, it's *not* not a kid's movie. But it's also a PG-13 movie hiding to surprise you. There's blood, tons of murder and light swearing. Much more at home tonally with the DC DTVs than anything they might show on Nick. That went a long way for me, as there was little holding back on the stakes. 

But most everyone's voices were great. Troy Baker has been doing Batman (and the Joker) for years now, so it was cool seeing him featured in something that wasn't strictly kids fare. Rachel Bloom is perfect as Batgirl. Part of it is that Babs is written flawlessly, with the Burnside version very much at the forefront of the interpretation, and works well with the Turtles. Damian is the only one that's less than perfect, mostly because the voice is much more nebbish than Stuart Allan, who's going on his sixth performance with the upcoming Hush film. The four Turtles were all solid, with Mikey being really funny. Shredder was badass, and his two fights with Batman will light up fanboys hearts from the jump. I can't say enough great things about this film. It's funny, the action is great, everyone is in character, and it's overall a blast. 9/10, highly recommended. 

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Zodiac: Starring Jake Gyllenhall, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. Directed by David Fincher.

Having known nothing about the Zodiac killer, I'm glad the movie I was introduced to him on is purportedly the most accurate in terms of events. Gyllenhall was great as always, and it was cool seeing Ruffalo as a more comparatively grizzled character compared to his character in "Spotlight". The film was sufficiently creepy, but tbh I don't know how I felt about long, protracted sequences of actual murders that really happened. It feels exploitative, as opposed to instances like the woman and her baby who got away. 

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Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: It's a lot better than I was expecting. It's got some real funny moments. I especially liked the gag with Poison Ivy. There are two things that bugged me about it though. I hated Robin's voice. It just irritated me for some reason. The second is something I had to work to get past in other DC shows and they brought it to a new level here. How are we supposed to pronounce Ra's Al Ghul? I don't really care which way we decide on but can we just pick one please? It is pronounced differently in this movie depending on who says it. Robin says RAISH while everyone else says ROZ. 

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The Perfection: I'm not sure how I completely feel about this movie. It wasn't bad. It had some interesting body horror and some interesting twists but there are moments it felt like they threw everything at the wall to see what sticks.

Legally Blonde: Reese Witherspoon is phenomenal. A less charismatic star could have tanked the film but as is, this is great.

Zombieland: Everyone is pretty cool in the film. It's a fun horror comedy.

Films: 68
MST3K/Rifftrax Assisted: 2

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Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: This was a lot of fun, especially Mickey geeking out over everything. Though I do have to ask: who is this for? The comedy is for kids between the ages of five and ten, but the violence is PG-13. A hard PG-13. There are severed limbs and heads, seriously broken bones, and lethal shots to the head. If I were a parent, I would be very iffy about showing this to a child under 10 -- even a mature one.

That said, the only real negative for me was the Arkham bit; it went on too long. Otherwise it was a rather enjoyable 90 minutes.

Oh! Sit through the credits for some cool comic book covers and sequel bait.

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Aladdin (1992):

My favorite of the Disney Renaissance era of films. Barring the generally reckless depiction of Middle Eastern culture, it's aged wonderfully. The character acting and animation holds up as incredibly expressive and realistic. Abu is hilarious, and Frank Welker does a great job with him speaking almost English. The romance between Aladdin and Jasmine is, to my mind, Disney's truest romance. You like both characters, are rooting for them, and they match each other perfectly. There's a bit of animation near the end of the "Whole New World" sequence where Aladdin, in his Prince Ali disguise, reflexively shoulder-passes an apple to Jasmine as he did before when she first met him. The animation of the look of shock, realization, pure joy and finally sneaky understanding - all in about one second - damn near made her my favorite character. Jafar is also one of the most fun villains. He's fairly comedic, but not as intentionally farcical as Hades would be later on. He's threatening because he's simply a dick who is full of grounded ambition. He and Iago are a great double-act, and even though Jafar kicks him around a bit, in this film you get the sense that they are genuinely friends who continually scheme together. And, of course, Robin Williams' Genie is an insurmountable presence. You have to slow the film down and take his ad-libs one at a time to get all of what he's saying, but it's always hilarious. 

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8 hours ago, Donomark said:

Aladdin (1992):

My favorite of the Disney Renaissance era of films. Barring the generally reckless depiction of Middle Eastern culture, it's aged wonderfully. The character acting and animation holds up as incredibly expressive and realistic. Abu is hilarious, and Frank Welker does a great job with him speaking almost English. The romance between Aladdin and Jasmine is, to my mind, Disney's truest romance. You like both characters, are rooting for them, and they match each other perfectly. There's a bit of animation near the end of the "Whole New World" sequence where Aladdin, in his Prince Ali disguise, reflexively shoulder-passes an apple to Jasmine as he did before when she first met him. The animation of the look of shock, realization, pure joy and finally sneaky understanding - all in about one second - damn near made her my favorite character. Jafar is also one of the most fun villains. He's fairly comedic, but not as intentionally farcical as Hades would be later on. He's threatening because he's simply a dick who is full of grounded ambition. He and Iago are a great double-act, and even though Jafar kicks him around a bit, in this film you get the sense that they are genuinely friends who continually scheme together. And, of course, Robin Williams' Genie is an insurmountable presence. You have to slow the film down and take his ad-libs one at a time to get all of what he's saying, but it's always hilarious. 

Yeah, what he said.

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21 minutes ago, teenalphabro said:

Tetsuo: The Iron Man: I don't know if it's good, but it's certainly fascinating as a sort of 'fuck you, this is obtuse' film. 

Films Watched: 26

Watched that for a college class on Affect Theory. It was definitely something...

In the same class, we watched Eraserhead, Human Centipede, The Thing, and we read from Chuck Palahniuk. It was a very...interesting class. :lol:

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The Devil's Advocate: Starring Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino

A 2.5 hour movie essentially watching as a super-long Twilight Zone episode, the movie about a Florida lawyer who is hired by the head of a NY firm to work cases defending the indefensible plays really obvious with its themes of hell and damnation, until it doesn't, then it gets back to it at the very end. All the trailers and promotions give up the ending, that Pacino is Satan, so it's an interesting watch in that you don't know to what extent the story tries to be upfront with the ultimate moral or if it means to be more cagey about it. There's a stronger, way more subtle film lying somewhere beneath. That being said, Pacino and 90s Keanu both make this almost shlocky film immensely entertaining. It's Twight Zone with some violence and sleaze, where we get not one but two Law and Order SVU alumns gratuitously topless. Charlize Theron gives the best performance and Keanu's ruined wife, and it's distracting how young she is in this. 

Again, there's definitely a stronger, more disciplined film in here, but what we have to work with is, despite its length, hilarious fun. 

Aladdin (2019): It doesn't hold a seat anywhere near the table of the original, and that's due to the mediocrity of most of the singers (none of them are bad but it deadens the impact of the terrific songs) and the super-fast pace. No one has time to take in the awe of the magic throughout the film. Whether it's the Cave of Wonders or the Magic Carpet or even the Genie, things happen way too quickly for anything to leave an impression. But I might've been in a good mood because at no point was I hating what I was watching. Mena Massoud and Naomi Scott (who is unrecognizable here from 2017's underrated Power Rangers) are perfectly cast physically as Aladdin and Jasmine, but their romance is sped up like all things and isn't the driving force for Aladdin's actions like as it was before. Will Smith actively plays the Genie as his own Fresh Prince/Hitch hybrid, and it works for him. He's a bit pricklier than William's Genie, whereas the original was everyone's friend, this one has far less patience for Aladdin's bumbling. They do become friends by the end, so it's not a wrong dynamic, just a different one. Jafar is the worst re-imagined character, with zero heft or sense of menace. They give him interesting motivations, but he's entirely humorless.

There's not too much I can say in the positives, but it's not an awful watch either. Kids will like it. 

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