Every film you've watched in 2021

[S-T]

Die Hard 3 - With the really obvious German accent, McClane should have figured out that this is connected to Nakatomi Plaza much earlier, hangover or no hangover.

[Donomark]

On 10/12/2021 at 5:14 AM, S-T said:

Die Hard 3 - With the really obvious German accent, McClane should have figured out that this is connected to Nakatomi Plaza much earlier, hangover or no hangover.

That was five years ago, and he was being run ragged well into the first act. I don't blame him.

The Re-Animator:

Jeffery Combs makes this movie. At the end of the day it's another variation of the zombie genre, but Comb's obsessive, amoral Dr. West is a terrific sci-fi horror character who alone drives this movie into classic status. It's got the vibe of a late 80s horror-porn anime like Legend of the Overfiend or Wicked City. Very cool.

Alien 3:

Watched this for anticipation of a commentary for Alien Resurrection. Thought it was well cast (Charles Dance, Paul McGann, my ex-uncle Charles Dutton) and perfectly decent for these kinds of movies, but ultimately uneventful. I agree with what Harry says in that the ending is kind of overwrought for what should be a very non-epic series that doesn't get too high on itself. That begins here when Ripely achieves legendary status with her ending.

Raya The Last Dragon:

Very solid Disney actioner in the vein of Mulan in how the action scenes are more prevalent than most Disney fare. Some of the side characters are a bit eye-rolly, but I think the movie justifies their presence by the end, with a moral that I found to be very touching and appreciable. The main protagonist and antagonist had a terrific rivalry that always kept me rapt with attention each time they were on-screen together. Awkwafina may sound like Michaela Dietz after smoking a pack of cigarettes, but she's a good voice actor whose character's personality was legitimately integral to the theme of the story. Whereas there's no reason for Mushu to be Eddie Murphy or the Genie to be Robin Williams, Awkwafina's Sizu was actually important to be Awkwafina, and that's cool. The animation was incredible as well. Not the best Disney film ever, I wish there were some slower scenes to resonate on the horrible events that happen, but the ending was terrific. However, even though I've personally not watched Avatar The Last Airbender, even I picked up similar vibes throughout. Maybe it had already been put in my head, but still, the comparisons are a million percent fair.

[Missy]

Child's Play (1988): A long-standing favorite of mine. I only wish they had held back on the reveal and leaned into the "maybe it really is Andy" angle.

Child's Play 2: A weird hodgepodge of directorial styles distract me, and most of the adults are absolute cartoon characters. Kyle is my queen. Huge crush on her as a kid.

Child's Play 3: We jump ahead eight years to find Andy in a military academy. At this point the franchise was running on fumes. They're trying something different, but it's bland.

Bride of Chucky: Here we go! A hilarious, dark bloodbath. Tiffany is such an awesome addition to the lore. The two human leads lack chemistry, however.

Seed of Chucky: A+ for the queer rights with Glen / Glenda, but this is dangerously close to the horror movie parodies of the era.

Curse of Chucky: A back-to-basics approach that all takes place in one night. We learn some Charles Lee Ray history, including the events leading into the first movie. Fiona Dourif (Nica) is amazing! With her being Brad Dourif's daughter, I initially thought they were going to reveal Nica was Charles' kid, but nope.

Cult of Chucky: This one messes with the magic way too much. Now there are four Chuckys, including Nica? How? Magic, sure. But it makes it too complicated. And how are there two Tiffanys, one human and one doll? It's a well-made movie, as is Curse, but it asks too many questions it's not prepared to answer.

Child's Play (2019): It takes a line from Child's Play 2 and makes it the thrust of the movie. Instead of a serial killer possessing a doll with magic, a disgruntled employee turns off a Buddi doll's safety features, which lead it to kill? This Andy is much more proactive, but I'm not sure I buy him taking matters into his own hands. Especially with the skinned face.

[Dread]

Old/House of the Black Death/Blood on Satan's Claw: reviews forthcoming

• Features: 113
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[Donomark]

9 hours ago, The Master said:

 

Child's Play (2019): Instead of a serial killer possessing a doll with magic, a disgruntled employee turns off a Buddi doll's safety features, which lead it to kill? 

You're shittin' me.

 

 

[Missy]

Yup.

https://youtu.be/-tvBNkbv0lM?t=112

[slothian]

16 hours ago, The Master said:

Especially with the skinned face.

That reminds me, I've just transferred you an episode!

[S-T]

Injustice: Very good. Not sure how faithful it is to the comics as I haven't read them.

But the ending was abrupt and I am not sure I buy the radical shift in characterization.

[Dread]

The Thing: still an absolute classic. Perfect.

Prince of Darkness: probably Caprenter's smartest, most interesting film. True cosmic horror. I don't think there's a better example of cosmic horror in film.

Alien: covered this on the Lobby Boys Podcast.

The Guilty: didn't know what to expect going in. But great Gyllenhaal performance. It gets a little tired at times being the whole one setting thing, but it works in the end.

The Dark and the Wicked: Pretty damned good. Well-acted. Creepy enough.

• Features: 118
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[Professor]

The Eternals - I enjoyed it.  It is a slower paced movie, to be sure, which I think has been a driving force on reviews.  My only complaint is that it suffered a little from "X-Men (2000)" syndrome.  That is to say, having to introduce a ten person team all at once is hard and could be overwhelming.  A few hours later and I can't quite remember a few names.

 

[Dread]

The Acid King/V/H/S/94/Army of Thieves/Grizzly: reviews forthcoming

• Features: 122
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• Documentaries: 17
• Rewatches: 2

[S-T]

The Forever Purge: I didn't like it.

[Dread]

Prophecy/Guimoon: The Lightless Door: reviews forthcoming

• Features: 124
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[Delete]

I saw Ghostbusters Afterlife and weirdly the worst part is when the Ghostbusters showed up. I liked the movie a lot.

[Donomark]

Gotta play catch up with some of these.

A Few Good Men: I saw this about three months back after watching Steve Jobs, which I loved. This affected me far less. I'm not a Tom Cruise hater but I didn't care for his cocky lead character. I didn't like how Demi Moore played THE typical 90s drama movie lead, who's smart and competent expect when she needs to be sidelined for the male hero. Jack Nicholson was ridiculous in this though. I usually enjoy his antics, but he's totally unbelievable as anything other than a teeth-gnashing bad guy from the moment you see him. The whole thing felt way too histrionic for me.

Chloe: Starring Julianne Moore and Amanda Seyfried

A woman believes her husband is cheating on her, so she hires an escort to suss that out by baiting him. This is one of those movies where the sordid premise has the idea that it's enough to hold viewer's engagement, but the script calls for Moore to do the same "I just got through crying" look on her face in every scene. Liam Neeson is good in the role as the husband, and this was the movie he was filming when his wife tragically died. The ending suffers from homophobic violence for the sake of an ending, it feels contrived. It's kind of an intriguing movie throughout but once you're done you realize it never took you anywhere.

DUNE (2021):

So I thoroughly enjoyed this. Much of the criticism comes from the monotone characters, the serious mood and the sci-fi world building done at the expense of much else that might grab audiences. I was prepared for all of that. If you saw this movie and it bounced off of you, that's completely fair. I totally get how this is not everyone's cup of tea. However I arrived that this thing ready to watch an "epic", based off of a very old book. And I really really liked it. The cast is the most bullet-proof I've seen in a long time. Everyone's just on, especially Oscar Isaac and Rebecca Ferguson. Is it perfect, no, but this really isn't a movie that I think the contention with some reviewers holds much water for me. There's a need to take this movie down I've seen that feel un-earnest and uncreative, where the movie is another in a consistent line of greats for Denis Villenuve.

Call Me By Your Name:

I watched this after seeing Dune as I hadn't been familiar with Timothee Chamalet before. I went in not knowing how Italian the story was. This was a long movie. I think it's well over an hour a twenty minutes before there's forward movement in the central relationship. The directing really did not hold my interest, and I was resenting how dull they were playing everything out. I will say the ending haunted me, mainly the final shot, and I was left with a disquieting feeling. Chamalet's a great actor, but the movie itself for the most part was long and boring.

No Time To Die:

I gotta say, this is the first Bond film I've ever seen where I walked away unhappy and kind of mad.

It has nothing to do with the ending, which did piss my dad off. The ending I kind of imagined for a while going into it.

It's that it's WAY, WAY, WAAAYYY too fucking long.

This might have played differently if I watched it in April 2020 when it was originally set to come out, in theaters (I saw this on YouTube for $20). As it was, it felt like a long film with zero deleted scenes cut out. It's not boring, and it's not complicated at all. It just takes it's time with everything. I was really enjoying the first act, but by the end I just wanted the damn thing to end. 

Craig plays the role very differently in this film than in any of his other entries. He's a far chummier, nicer, even jokier Bond. He's got a couple quips that are straight out of Moore's playbook. I don't mind a less grim Bond, but it was kind of jarring after him being so consistent for fifteen years. It's also a little weird from a character standpoint where I figured he'd be even more disillusioned with what's happened to him. It reminded me of Affleck in the Snyder Cut, who played Batman so overly chummy and nice that it was bizarre.

But after the film ended I realized something about Craig's era. He's the Bond actor who's very much the Anti-Bond.

In every film he's either quitting MI6 or a rogue agent on the run or something.

Casino Royale - he quits in the third act

Quantum of Solace - He's hunted by M for going rogue

Skyfall - He's presumed dead and lives a retired life for an undetermined amount of time, until he doesn't.

Spectre - He retires at the very end again

And in this, he's not 007 until the very end which is more out of pity by the actual 007.

I get that they wanted to keeps Craig's Bond consistent and do different things, but I really would've liked at least one film where he just shows up at M's office and takes an assignment to kill some bad guy across the world. The fact that they repeatedly disregarded that formula to the point where it was regularly not doing that for over a decade and a half bothers me in retrospect. It's a shame because I love Craig in the role, but now I look at his tenure differently, with a less rosy lens.

[Dread]

Black Widow: while much of this was competent, it feels really too little too late. As such, it's impossible to give a shit about Natasha when literally any other character is onscreen. They did Taskmaster dirty. This probably has the worst CGI in an MCU film to date, but it still lands somewhere in the middle of them as far as quality is concerned.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings: holy shit, this was fantastic in almost every way. It might be my favourite MCU film. Simu Liu was awesome. Tony Leung. Come on! That guy's been rad for thirty years. He's probably the best villain in the MCU. Kingsley is redeemed here. Michelle Yeoh was a little wasted and boy do I ABSOLUTELY not care for Awkwafina. I can do without ever seeing her on screen again. Razofist has been a character in a major blockbuster. That's a thing that happened. Great fun.

Guns of Eden: i was able to sneak peek this one, with the picture lock version. Thanks to having this friend and other friends who are filmmakers, I've been gifted opportunities to view unfinished picture lock films before. This means the movie is done being shot and edited, but still may need visual or audio FX. I think this was the first action movie version I've seen though, and the lack of gunshots took a little getting used to. It also made the few gunshots in the film very shocking, haha! Still, great movie with an incredible lead actress who is definitely star material.

• Features: 127
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[S-T]

OK, I finally read the comics.

On 10/29/2021 at 2:56 PM, S-T said:

Injustice: Very good. Not sure how faithful it is to the comics as I haven't read them.

But the ending was abrupt and I am not sure I buy the radical shift in characterization.

Definitely not close to the comics, as Superman is much farther gone in the comics. A good movie, though definitely not a faithful adaptation of the comics.

With that said, I prefer the movie to the comics, as the movie is closer to the mainline interpretation of Superman than the comics are. In the movie there is still some of Clark Kent left, while the comic series pretty drastically alters the Superman character to make him a wild-eyed paranoid tyrant. 

I still think the abrupt ending and shift in Superman's characterization is a little difficult to believe, and the movie would have been better had they set that up more effectively.

[Dread]

Critters/Critters 2/Critters3/Critters4/Critters Attack!/Werewolves Within/ Candyman (2021): reviews forthcoming

Light of My Life: a halfway decent post-apocalyptic film. Casey Affleck is the father of a girl who is one of the only females left alive after a pandemic kills them all (Y the Last Man but the opposite). It's pretty ok. Without the little girl who plays the daughter, it would suck. She's amazing.

Free Guy: on one hand, this is basically They Live for the Fortnite/GTA generation. ON the other, it isn't good. It's perfectly serviceable.

• Features: 136
• Shorts: 2
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• Rewatches: 2

[Donomark]

Pawn Sacrifice (2013): Starring Tobey Maguire

Story of Bobby Fischer's chess match against Boris Spassky in 1972 (Spassky played terrifically by Liev Scriber). Kinda sought this out more because of the meme rather than any No Way Home excitement, and it's the last thing I remember Tobey Maguire being in, as I listened to him promote it in an interview on the Nerdist at the time. It didn't have any promotion, but apparently critics liked it. It's a very watchable film, and Tobey is quite good as an obviously neurotypical, egocentric Bobby Fischer. I was unaware of this guy's personality being so insufferable, and he's one of the most unlikable movie protags I've seen in quite a while. He's just plain unpleasant to watch, and the movie knows that, but the most tries to have him be intriguing enough that you're not totally turned off. That doesn't quote work, so it's the supporting characters and Schriber's Spassky that keeps your emotional engagement. I also didn't really get the sense that this match was all that big a deal. I know it was the Cold War and everything, but it was hard for me to both understand the stakes of the match and the statement that Bobby Fischer started this huge chess craze and was at one point called the most famous man in America/The World. Like, is that true? 1972 wasn't that long ago, I figured pop culture osmosis would've properly informed me of that before now. 

IDK if I want to call this movie a noble failure, because I think it portrays Fischer as best and accurate as it can, but the world at large has a lot of telling and not showing, which is tough. There's a scene with Fischer waking up on the beach, seeing Spassky swimming and thinking he's being spied on, which spurs him on to re-entire the tournament scene. We then cut to a montage where he's already annihilated a bunch of opponents and has got his global reputation back, better than ever. That does a lot of heavy lifting for the story which resulted in me going, "Huh, really?" But I couldn't say how better to do that, and much of this hasn't been brought to the masses in terms of general information. Also the actual chess playing wasn't greatly presented in a way that the audience could follow. By the last act there's a lot of "What is he doing?" and silent reaction shots that, again, are meant to carry meaning to the audience rather than the game itself. But, again, I do not know how to best present Chess matches on film and make them suspenseful without holding the audiences hand. I liked the movie, despite its struggles, but it's struggles are very apparent. 

[Dread]

Deathcember: review forthcoming

• Features: 137
• Shorts: 2
• Documentaries: 17
• Rewatches: 2

[S-T]

Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe Origins - So did the people who wrote the script for this movie actually watch the last G.I. Joe movie? Because the origin for Snake Eyes here completely contradicts every single thing that was established about the origin of that character and Storm Shadow in the previous movie.

If if this was a reboot I would not have as much of a problem with it. I can accept that there can be multiple interpretations of a character. As a prequel, though, this makes NO sense.

[Dread]

Victims/Animales Humanos: reviews forthcoming

The Unforgivable: a Netflix movie with Sandra Bullock. IN a lot of ways it's similar to the Jake Gyllenhaal one. Just a star-produced vehicle. Not uncommon. This was solid. There were elements of it that bothered me, but overall a great little flick.

Val: some really great behind the scenes footage from his biggest films. The stuff with him now is really hard to watch.

• Features: 140
• Shorts: 2
• Documentaries: 18
• Rewatches: 2

[Davedevil]

Spider-Man: No Way Home - It doesn't nail everything (some people do better with the Marvel humor than others) but I was very satisfied with it. Really loved the action scenes, and they get across some genuine emotion here, more than the previous films even attempted.

Spoiler

I'm still a little hazy on what the villains are actually doing in the later part of the movie, but the performances were on point. Molina and Dafoe are great at sympathetic and menacing. Dafoe especially, he gets to do that post-comic resurrection Osborn who has history and just wants to ruin Peter's life. 

Maguire and Garfield get a good amount of material, for how relatively late they come into the plot. Maguire isn't my Spider-Man, but I enjoyed his writing. His and Octavius' reunion was one of the most moving parts of the MCU, and it has nothing to do with the MCU.

Garfield, on the other hand, is my Spider-Man and they captured the awkward, emotional, sincerity of his take.

I wish they followed the two Spider-Men more, before and after the plot but it's Holland Spidey's story, and they did a great job with that. I've had a hard time seeing him exactly as Spider-Man, but where his story leaves off with this one is right where I want him to be.

 

[Donomark]

Spider-Man: No Way Home(less): I want to see this at least one more time before elaborating, but ATM this is in the conversation for the best Spider-Man movie ever made. It's easily the best of the Holland trilogy, and my favorite MCU film.

Mo'Better Blues: One of the Spike Lee films I missed back when I saw a glut of them in college. Denzel Washington stars as a career trumpet player, blalancing multiple women and his career along with a number of Lee alums. Bill Nunn, Giancarlo Esposito, Joie Lee, Samuel L Jackson, John Tuturro, Wesley Snipes and more all immediately check this as a quintessential 90's Spike Lee flick. Like Jungle Fever, it's a bit meandering and there's not much of an actual solid plot. But that's alright, the cinematic aesthetic is really fun to watch, especially as a former jazz trumpet player myself. The music is also above-peer. Although it has to be pointed out that Spike Lee really doesn't give a crap about infidelity in the least, does he? It's always treated as a cheap gag, and rarely as a dramatic issue. Must've also been awkward filming sex scenes with Denzel boning his sister several times.

[Dread]

A Christmas Horror Story: review forthcoming

Prisoners of the Ghostland: It won't really be a review, but you'll hear my thoughts in the next DM episode.

Death to 2021: this, like it's predecessor, was a pointed satire in faux documentary style from the Black Mirror guy. It's smart and funny and features return characters that I adored the first time. The absurdity fit all is a little depressing, honestly. 

Pig/The Green Knight: well, you'll hear about them in the best of 2021 episode of DM if that tells you anything.

One more movie to watch this year. But it's the oldest kid's choice. 

• Features: 145
• Shorts: 2
• Documentaries: 18
• Rewatches: 2