nope it's just not very good.

I liked it, it was pretty fun :)
Not a fan of the brutality and torture but Harley was cool.

————-

I watched Uncharted.
With Tom Holland and Marky Mark… Mark Wahlburg.

It wasn't bad for a movie based on a videogame. It's obviously influenced by Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones, with a bit of James Bond in there. Obviously not anywhere NEAR as good as Indiana Jones because that series embraces cultural tropes and an iconic pulp style while this movie is just a bit of a pansy modern take on all that stuff (as is the game I imagine), but its still a fun action romp.

I think Tom Holland would be great in a live action version of Team Fortress 2 as The Scout. That'd be a dream movie :)


I didn't understand why Sophia Ali had an Australia accent. It was a really good Australian accent too but There didn't seem to be any reason for it… unless she's directly based on a game character?

I've been watching the world's scariest youtube poop. As well as other analogue horror series, like the Tangi Virus and Gemini Entertainment.

The sudden temperature drop we experienced here (from 28°C to 12°C in a single day no less) put me in a very Halloween like mood. I've been sitting wrapped with a blanket and hot cocoa in hand hotly anticipating the spooky season, going on a general horror movie/game/book binge.

I find Creepypasta is a fascinating genre of horror media, and one that could never have existed outside the internet. No one would run a film made like the Mandela Catalogu in theaters.

I watched the British series "Benidorn“

It stared some notable people like Steve Pemberton (The League of Gentleman) and Johnny Vegas.
It follows several groups of British Tourists who're staying at an ”all inclusive“ resort at the Spanish beach town Benidorn. It's a cheap holiday and everything is included in their holiday package as long as they stay within the resort, so it mainly attracts a particular class of people… or at least people who are quite cheap with their finances for various reasons, but still want a holiday.

There's the ”Lancashire pub quiz champion“ and his elderly mother, this is their annual get away. There's a family with the dad off work on benefits, a pregnant 16 year old daughter, jealous suspicious wife, gullible young boy, and a horrible stinky mean grandmother, the grandmother paid for the holiday as a gesture to the one daughter who still tolerates her. A middle-class couple, the woman is dissatisfied and doesn't want to be on the trip, the man is fawning over her and clearly paid for the cheap trip in a mistaken and stupid attempt to rekindle things with her. There's a gay couple who're bemused at the goings on and who clearly think they're a bit ”better" than the rest of the group, but then why are they there? And finally a couple of fat, cheap old swingers who're long past their prime but still on the search for willing partners.

The setup is good and the actors have chops but overall it's not really a very notable series. The writing is pretty tame. It does the job, it's entertaining enough but doesn't go anywhere exciting.

Ozoneocean wrote:
I liked it, it was pretty fun :)
Not a fan of the brutality and torture but Harley was cool.

————-

I watched Uncharted.
With Tom Holland and Marky Mark… Mark Wahlburg.

It wasn't bad for a movie based on a videogame. It's obviously influenced by Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones, with a bit of James Bond in there. Obviously not anywhere NEAR as good as Indiana Jones because that series embraces cultural tropes and an iconic pulp style while this movie is just a bit of a pansy modern take on all that stuff (as is the game I imagine), but its still a fun action romp.

I think Tom Holland would be great in a live action version of Team Fortress 2 as The Scout. That'd be a dream movie :)


I didn't understand why Sophia Ali had an Australia accent. It was a really good Australian accent too but There didn't seem to be any reason for it… unless she's directly based on a game character?

I think she played the character voiced in the games by Claudia Black.

Genejoke wrote:
I think she played the character voiced in the games by Claudia Black.

Oh, cool! Well she does look like a younger, less bad-ass version of Claudia :)

Eek! The Cat - Purple cat goes through LOTS of slapstick in each situation. That one was alright in my opinion, but (heh heh) it wouldn't hold up in today's times.

“It never hurts to help!”

I love that show, one of my favorites from Nelvana. Just good old fashioned cartoon slapstick, no further brain cells needed. One of the best episodes is the one where Sharky turns into Marlon Brando… because you know, every kid's gonna understand an Apocalypse Now reference. Just evidence that the Animaniacs era of cartoons were sneakily targeted more to adults than kids.

I got 40 minutes into Thor: Love and Thunder before I clawed my eyes out. Actually feeling pretty good about getting that far. Might go back to it, might not ever think about it again.

Ghost Stories English dub. It's fantastic

I put Chernobyl on my watch list, but i'm actually too scared start watching… radiation poisoning is one of those things that terrifies me to my core. It's how some people can't stand seeing bad things done to eyes in movies, that's radiation to me.

I saw all of Cyberpunk: Edgerunners
It's a netflix anime series based on the “Cyberpunk” game.

It's good to have a cyberpunk anime after so long!!! It's in the ultra violent and sexy style that was so popular back in the 1990s and we haven't seen at all since. The only really big popular cyberpunk anime was Ghost in the Shell since then… Although there has been weak-sauce crap like Psychopass with it's ripp-off ideas from Appleseed, but I digress.



The story is basically like Scarface: a rise to power within a criminal gang, and the eventual fall at the end.
Kenn and his mum are super poor, living on the edge of the poverty line, but she sends him to an elite private school. How does she get the money?
She does in a tragic accident and Kenn has to fend for himself, he turns to organised crime because it's the only way he can see out of his awful situation. It pays off BIG for him.
I won't spoil the details.

It's ultra bight and colourful, very violent, and somewhat sexy. Very 1990s with a 2020 colourscheme.

I saw “Watcher”. Moira Monroe is very watchable, but it seems like he is only in movies where creepy people follow her. The movie commits the sin of making the dialog almost audible during an important climactic scene. It helps that I couldn't turn on the subtitles either.

Also watched Hulu “No Exit”, a AAA movie that Hulu was very proud to distribute. It started with a solid setup but showed its hand within 20 minutes. So no fun “there is a killer among us” plot he/she/they are right there. The rest of it was cringey, bloody, torture porn. Not my thing.

On the other hand…

Un Asunto Privado (Private Affair) was a very entertaining Pulp-style detective series. Part Nancy Drew and part Indiana Jones. The actors were speaking Spanish and I still found it very witty. Was very impressed with the Hollywood-level cliffhanger action sequences. The lead actress fights bad guys on the sides of moving trains, runs on heels over the rooftops of Galicia, falls out of planes, participates in car chases, and is in more than a few car wrecks. I am really hoping for another season.

British Bouncers: Boozed Brits Vs The Velvet Rope

It's a reality TV documentary from 2013 following various bouncers at some rough clubs around Britain, starting in the North and then heading down south to Wales for the last episode.

It's fascinating, almost like watching zoo creatures.
There are so many aspects to this show that make it mesmerising:

-Generally the bouncers get the job because they can't find any other work, they're reasonably rough types, they like the status, many are ex-military, they're usually big, ugly men, but the position makes them bizarrely attractive to women, or at least the women who go to the clubs…
They enjoy the power, but they also often hate it. They get to see people at their worst.

-The people who go to the clubs usually don't have much going on in their lives- like their parents and grandparents before them (and possibly further back as well), going to clubs is the highlight of the week for them. Going out and drinking till they fall over is their one shot at heaven.

-The personal mythology is amazing here! Everyone is a hero and a god at these clubs, beautiful, unstoppable, powerful, sexy…
I mean, the reality is that it's all rather sad and pathetic for everyone. The clubs are crappy, the people are daggy and soft with terrible hair and dress sense. The music is shiz, the dancing is awful to watch, they look like idiots when they stagger around drunk, the fights are embarrassing and sad. But then it's like that at most clubs in the world.

This is a very true to life look at the clubbing lifestyle in all its sad, silly glory. The accents are great too.

Kleo on Netflix (German, with subtitles)
It's more or less an espionage thriller and revenge narrative. The basic story/plot was well-written, but nothing special. (the revenge trope doesn't do much for me) What really grabbed me, though, was the fact that it took place in Berlin in 1990. That was a particularly interesting period in history to serve as a backdrop: The Berlin wall had just come down, the DDR(former East Germany) was about to dissolve, the Stasi (East German secret police) had already dissolved, the KGB was unraveling, and the CIA and the BND (West German spy service) were desperately trying to stay keep track of it all. At this time, private citizens of the DDR could also request access to their own Stasi dossiers, to see exactly who had been informing on them. So, the producers had lots of rich historical drama to pull a story from. All those real-world slapstick politics, and lead actress Jella Haase's considerable comedic talents, combined to create an amusing watch.

I saw the Australian made vampire movie “Blood vessel”.
The name is a little cringey but I think it's supposed to be.

A group of castaways (Allies) are stuck on a life raft at night after being torpedoed. The first shot shows it floating in the sea, looking like a platelet in a blood vessel XD
They spot a Nazi ship coming towards them and try and get its attention to no avail, but through ingenuity they manage to climb on-board.

The ship seems deserted apart from some dead sailors… Eventually they discover why (vampires).

It's not bad for a low budget film with a small cast.
It's done like an old movie from the 1940s in that there are a lot of static scenes like in a play… Like when they're stuck on the raft at sea- they all just talking calmly as if it's on a stage. To make it more realistic you'd put the raft on a rocking platform, add camera shake, spray down the actors, splash water, have ocean sounds etc. There's zero of that.
Even on the ship there's no rocking and now ship noises (thumps, steel echoes, engine thrum, buzzing lights, sea splash etc.), so it all seems like a stage play. Even the external scenes of the ship are obvious model shots.

I couldn't work out if that was intentional or not… I suspect it was mostly intentional but mainly because the makers lacked some experience with getting the look of things right. The only real annoying thing is the over reliance on coloured lighting -too much reds and blues and no fog or atmospheric perspective. All that would have been cheap to do and not hard…

The vamp aspect was pretty straight forward and well done, they could be harmed with guns and knives and stuff too which was good. The story was engaging enough. It's a vampire story though so you know exactly where it's doing.

I finished “Kevin can F himself”. This show had a clever premise. It takes shots at shows like Kevin Can Wait, Saved By the Bell, and Everybody Loves Raymond where the main protagonist is a dude who never faces any consequences. Except it follows the guy's wife and how she deals with him instead.

The characters continue to be engaging in the second season, but they are unwilling to allow any of them to become unlikable. Even Kevin himself, who we are supposed to hate. It is clear they ran out of ideas and were unwilling to pull the trigger on potential storylines that would have shaken things up.

It stops being a black comedy, pulls a 180, and lands a safe saccharine ending. Disappointing.

sleeping_gorilla wrote:
I finished “Kevin can F himself”. This show had a clever premise. It takes shots at shows like Kevin Can Wait, Saved By the Bell, and Everybody Loves Raymond where the main protagonist is a dude who never faces any consequences. Except it follows the guy's wife and how she deals with him instead.

The characters continue to be engaging in the second season, but they are unwilling to allow any of them to become unlikable. Even Kevin himself, who we are supposed to hate. It is clear they ran out of ideas and were unwilling to pull the trigger on potential storylines that would have shaken things up.

It stops being a black comedy, pulls a 180, and lands a safe saccharine ending. Disappointing.

That show was so intense! I loved the first season. I can understand it having a safe ending though and I'd be interested to see how it did it.

I am wading through Ghostbusters Afterlife and so far it's dull dull dull.
At about the 36 minute lark and aim actually prefering the one with the SNL women.

All I've seen so far are two cliche stupid kids, the only difference is they're genderswaped from the traditional setup, which is the norm nowadays anyway so nothing unique there. The younger one is the scene type autist and a girl and the older one is a teen interested in dating (the boy).

It's filmed well and has good dialogue and acting but it's boring so far, not fun like a ghost Busters movie.

I enjoyed “Werewolf by Night” an MCU Halloween special. It is a fun homage to the Universal Monsters bringing Jack Russell, Elsa Bloodstone, Man-Thing, and other MCU characters together in a Twilight Zone episode.

Also went to the movies and saw “Smile” and “Pearl”.

spoiler

“Smile” was a good jump-scare movie that did not insult the audience by trying to give it a complex explanation. The main character encounters a monster and is tormented by it for several days as she tries to learn more about it until it finally tightens its circle around her and she must confront it. We never learn too much about it, which makes it much more effective as a horror film.

Pearl is a prequel to the Hagsploitation movie ‘X’ which came out 6 months ago. This movie is a thriller/slasher that takes a long time to get to the action. When it does it is violent and cringey. Maybe the first time I have ever yelled at a character to “run!”

Mia Goth is fantastic in this, what I would call an oscar worthy performance. Pearl is an avid movie watcher and she takes on the persona of what she thinks women should act like, but reality is crashing down on her.

/spoiler

“Rings of Power” on Amazon prime.

It's best compared to a glacier. If you're really interested in such things its a fascinating world with many relationships. If you're not it's just a very slow moving block of ice.

Sitting outside the movie theatre after having watched “Barbarian” (Just in time before All Hallows' Eve). I would recommend it for any solo travelers preparing to stay in an AirBNB in the Midwest.

The film brought out my inner potty mouth and it was bloody frightening and hilarious.

I watched she hulk, it was a strange mix of fun and absolute tripe. The highlight was the reintroduction of Daredevil. They were clearly going for something a bit different and tried to be funny and clever. They achieved cringe worthy, almost insightful and mildly amusing but that season finale… brave, funny but would have been better as a silly spin off or a what if. With that the MCU has definitely jumped the shark.

Genejoke wrote:
I watched she hulk, it was a strange mix of fun and absolute tripe. The highlight was the reintroduction of Daredevil. They were clearly going for something a bit different and tried to be funny and clever. They achieved cringe worthy, almost insightful and mildly amusing but that season finale… brave, funny but would have been better as a silly spin off or a what if. With that the MCU has definitely jumped the shark.

I watched the first 2 episodes (or maybe just the first one?), It was funny but made all those same trite tropey missteps that something does when it tries to establish a female character in relation to a male one (the hulk)- i.e. showing that she's actually “better” at everything because of inherent femalemess…
You know, really cringey benign sexism where they try and be progressive but it just puts training wheels and a special bow on the character. Like a person trying not to be racist but actually being racist by saying black people have rhythm, have big penises, and are naturally good at sports.
It's called “benign racism” because their intentions are seemingly good

Because they're going down that route with She Hulk (defining the character based on her sex in relation to another character) you can tell that writing talent wasn't stellar and not good at writing women. It's just the next step up from a female character talking about her boobs and sensuality (for a male audience). They need more diverse writing staff.

Ozoneocean wrote:

Genejoke wrote:
I watched she hulk, it was a strange mix of fun and absolute tripe. The highlight was the reintroduction of Daredevil. They were clearly going for something a bit different and tried to be funny and clever. They achieved cringe worthy, almost insightful and mildly amusing but that season finale… brave, funny but would have been better as a silly spin off or a what if. With that the MCU has definitely jumped the shark.

I watched the first 2 episodes (or maybe just the first one?), It was funny but made all those same trite tropey missteps that something does when it tries to establish a female character in relation to a male one (the hulk)- i.e. showing that she's actually “better” at everything because of inherent femalemess…
You know, really cringey benign sexism where they try and be progressive but it just puts training wheels and a special bow on the character. Like a person trying not to be racist but actually being racist by saying black people have rhythm, have big penises, and are naturally good at sports.
It's called “benign racism” because their intentions are seemingly good

Because they're going down that route with She Hulk (defining the character based on her sex in relation to another character) you can tell that writing talent wasn't stellar and not good at writing women. It's just the next step up from a female character talking about her boobs and sensuality (for a male audience). They need more diverse writing staff.

It's definitely the writing that killed it for me, and what you mention is the least of it. They were definitely trying to go for wacky funny but making a point style of writing, which is fine and occasionally they nailed it, but often it just went too stupid for the sake of trying to be funny. The stuff with abomination was awful, proper character assassination. In the incredible hulk he was a dogged soldier with something to prove. in she hulk he's reformed into a haiku spouting self help guru that bears no resemblance to previous depictions despite being the same actor. The fourth wall breaking was okay at first, it seemed like a stylistic choice that didn't fit so well as with deadpool but wasn't really damaging to the narrative, but in the finale it breaks the narrative completely and makes everything the show did pointless. I'm sure they meant it as a deconstruction of the formulaic nature of the MCU but it undermined itself in the process. It would have been fine as a one off skit or a separate entity entirely but as part of a larger whole it doesn't work.

Naturally afterwards I watched werewolf by night, which was pretty good I suppose. I liked that it was black and white and clearly paring homage to classic monster movies.

The term I was looking for was “benevolent prejudice” XD
Something to watch out for.

————–

@Genejoke- Yes, you tread a very fine line when you're making fun of your own franchise. Deadpool worked well because it's as if it's in its own private dimension.

Mike Judges Beavis and Butt-Head.
I was pleasantly surprised. Feels like the same show even after 30 years.

Don't hug me I'm scared- new episodes. So cool to see this come back after so long and the longer form episodes are great.

lothar wrote:
Mike Judges Beavis and Butt-Head.
I was pleasantly surprised. Feels like the same show even after 30 years.

Don't hug me I'm scared- new episodes. So cool to see this come back after so long and the longer form episodes are great.

Wow! I didn't know there were new episodes! o_o
Funny, I've just been starting a rewatch of Judge's King of the Hill now it's on Disney Plus. It really holds up!
I's a great antidote to most of the other adult animations which are pretty callous, cruel and cynical- not all but many if them are.

I saw Blade the other day for the first time. After all these years I finally saw it!

It's the Wesley Snipes helmed superhero movie about a half vampire who hunts other vampires.

My impression of the film was that it was really high quality and stands up today. The CG effects are a little dated but then even modern Marvel ones aren't perfect (see the stupid rubber spiderman).
The worst pat of the film was Snipe's acting… He looks the part and has the right physicality but he plays it like a pantomime. He tries to sound tougher and gruffer than he is and it contrasts with the naturalism of the other actors performances.

All in all though it's a good example of a superhero action movie.

sleeping_gorilla wrote:

Pearl is a prequel to the Hagsploitation movie ‘X’

“Hagsploitation”? That's awesome, haha!

I just watched ‘X’ and liked it a lot! A fun slasher for those who enjoy such things - very strong film-making and acting. At a very high level for this kind of movie. Maybe not quite as deep as it think it is…I don't understand the critical acclaim. But as a slasher film with some depth to it, it was really good. Intense! Looking forward to seeing Pearl.

kawaiidaigakusei wrote:

Sitting outside the movie theatre after having watched “Barbarian” (Just in time before All Hallows' Eve). I would recommend it for any solo travelers preparing to stay in an AirBNB in the Midwest.

The film brought out my inner potty mouth and it was bloody frightening and hilarious.

The movie causing kawaii to swear profusely is a hilarious thought.

I enjoyed Barbarian thoroughly - it was very creepy in that great “imagine if this happened” kind of way. Scary, dread-inducing, and silly. A great time! There was a timeless feel to the movie's style that I appreciated. the two or three sudden turns/changes of scene kept me on my toes.

I guess the title referred to the primal behavior of the big villain…and maybe another character? Odd title; not sure if I got it. But I liked it. I felt compelled to shout at the screen, myself: What are you doing??? DON'T DO THAT!!! Are you crazy!?? – a sure sign of an effective horror flick.

Banes wrote:

“Hagsploitation”? That's awesome, haha!

Would you prefer PsychoBiddy? It is a legitimate genre of horror, the most famous example being What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?