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Victim of The Night
This gave me a much needed laugh.
Happy to help.

(But seriously, that movie made me angry.)



I feel trepidation heading into Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Eternals. It didn't feel like Black Widow was a bad film in my estimation, but it was far too average for me to be wasting my time if there are many more Marvel films like it.
Black Widow should have been a more grounded spy story. They went way too big with it. She doesn't have any powers and yet she's jumping off buildings and doing freefall acrobatics. It should have been more like Winter Soldier in tone.

Shang Chi is the second best Marvel movie post-Endgame (No Way Home is the best). It has some of the best fight scenes in any comic book movie, a good villain, and a likable hero.

Eternals is a weird one, but I enjoyed it. It's creative and feels different from everything else.

The problem I've had with Marvel recently is that go too big and try to do too much. It feels like every movie now is an Avengers-style crossover event that focuses too much on world-building and not enough on the main characters.



I own the Three Colors box set, but I honestly don’t think I’ve seen Blue, which is very odd as it’s the first of the three movies. Will be curious to see if I’ve seen Red or White. Anyway, I enjoyed it. Always like Binoche.
Watched White now & definitely have never seen it. Ninety-two minutes, but seemed much longer.

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Kubo and the Two Strings 6/10 - It was ok but i thought it would be better


Elvis 8/10 - I didn't think i'd enjoy this as much as i did,. Austin Butler really impressed me, now i'm hoping the Best Actor Oscar is a 3 way tie


Puss in Boots: The Last Wish 7.5/10



"Tell Me. Do You Bleed? You Will."
I've never understood the love for it, man. I've probably seen it about 5 times and I fail to connect with it every time. This is also probably why I'm not a fan of Dee Wallace. I only put it on yesterday because I have that double feature bluray with The Fog. It's been a couple years since I've seen it so I wanted to see if being in a somewhat different place in my life would yield a different result, or allow me to connect to something in the film (other than Elisabeth Brooks' glorious bush). Sadly, I found nothing, except for an opportunity to come out about my dislike for the film.

I just end up thinking that it's a boring movie with subpar werewolf transformations and terrible acting/onscreen presence from Dee Wallace.

The most positive thing I can say about Dee Wallace is that I don't remember her bugging me in The Hills Have Eyes. She's probably a nice lady in real life, but I just don't need her in my movies. And the most positive thing I can say about The Howling is... Joe Dante made an awesome movie when he made The 'Burbs.



Victim of The Night
Black Widow should have been a more grounded spy story. They went way too big with it. She doesn't have any powers and yet she's jumping off buildings and doing freefall acrobatics. It should have been more like Winter Soldier in tone.

Shang Chi is the second best Marvel movie post-Endgame (No Way Home is the best). It has some of the best fight scenes in any comic book movie, a good villain, and a likable hero.

Eternals is a weird one, but I enjoyed it. It's creative and feels different from everything else.

The problem I've had with Marvel recently is that go too big and try to do too much. It feels like every movie now is an Avengers-style crossover event that focuses too much on world-building and not enough on the main characters.
My problem with Shang-Chi was just that
WARNING: "all the spoilers" spoilers below
the third act was an awful, CGI shitfest, including shaping the narrative into something that would allow them to have a big awful CGI shitfest ostensibly to make the audience cheer, was just painful to me. Two CGI dragons fighting while our hero rides a green mechanical bull in front of a dark, grainy-ass green-screened mess and our plucky sidekick goes from having never held a bow in her life to being the Hero Archer with the perfect, Smaug-defeating shot with a bunch of mumbo about fathers and magic and dimensions or something and then a stupid denouement where they recount their Heroic Tale in snarky-modern Marvel-approved dialogue over dim-sum or pizza or whatever, and all of that tacked on after we already had the Marvel-standard hero-fights-villain-with-exact-same-weapons/powers-as-them climax, that was just an atrocious third act.
Just one of Marvel's worst.



Victim of The Night
I've never understood the love for it, man. I've probably seen it about 5 times and I fail to connect with it every time. This is also probably why I'm not a fan of Dee Wallace. I only put it on yesterday because I have that double feature bluray with The Fog. It's been a couple years since I've seen it so I wanted to see if being in a somewhat different place in my life would yield a different result, or allow me to connect to something in the film (other than Elisabeth Brooks' glorious bush). Sadly, I found nothing, except for an opportunity to come out about my dislike for the film.

I just end up thinking that it's a boring movie with subpar werewolf transformations and terrible acting/onscreen presence from Dee Wallace.

The most positive thing I can say about Dee Wallace is that I don't remember her bugging me in The Hills Have Eyes. She's probably a nice lady in real life, but I just don't need her in my movies. And the most positive thing I can say about The Howling is... Joe Dante made an awesome movie when he made The 'Burbs.
I wouldn't say I have love for it, nor did I know anyone really did, but I do think it's a plucky, fun little werewolf movie that deserves to be watched for kicks.



My problem with Shang-Chi was just that
WARNING: "all the spoilers" spoilers below
the third act was an awful, CGI shitfest, including shaping the narrative into something that would allow them to have a big awful CGI shitfest ostensibly to make the audience cheer, was just painful to me. Two CGI dragons fighting while our hero rides a green mechanical bull in front of a dark, grainy-ass green-screened mess and our plucky sidekick goes from having never held a bow in her life to being the Hero Archer with the perfect, Smaug-defeating shot with a bunch of mumbo about fathers and magic and dimensions or something and then a stupid denouement where they recount their Heroic Tale in snarky-modern Marvel-approved dialogue over dim-sum or pizza or whatever, and all of that tacked on after we already had the Marvel-standard hero-fights-villain-with-exact-same-weapons/powers-as-them climax, that was just an atrocious third act.
Just one of Marvel's worst.

I would agree with that. The first half of the movie is way better than the second half. The climaxes in Marvel movies are sometimes way bigger and flashier than they need to be. It should've just been a cool martial arts duel between Simu Liu and Tony Leung, without all the dragons and stuff. That part actually reminded me a lot of the ending to Raya: The Last Dragon, another 2021 Disney movie starring Awkwafina.





Robocop, 2014

In a near-future robotic soldiers perform dangerous military operations to the delight of the American people. In order to get the public to accept robotic "peacekeepers" in the domestic space, the company producing the robots is told that they need a man inside the machine. When star police detective Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is taken out by a crew of corrupt cops, he is selected to pilot the robot hybrid program.

This movie is not good. This movie pretty bad. And sadly, it's the not-fun kind of bad.

There's nothing necessarily wrong with wanting to remake a classic film, but the desire to do so should come from some place of creative inspiration. The biggest innovation in this film seems to have been, "But what if the robocop was a different color?". This is nearly two hours of scant creativity and boatloads of wasted talent and potential. I'm not even the biggest fan of the original, but I kept asking myself, "Why does this exist?".

I added this to my watchlist when it came out years ago mainly because I was a fan of Kinnaman's work on the show The Killing. I think that he can be very effective, and he gets to show that off in, like, maybe two or three scenes? (I did appreciate Alex's initial breakdown when he realizes that he's been reduced to a head and a pair of lungs--a great gut punch of special effects and the performance). But he's only the tip of the iceberg of wasted acting chops.

I mean, where to even begin? Gary Oldman is able to bring some humanity to Dr. Norton, the man whose technology created the robocop and who is strongly conflicted about weaponizing his technology. Michael Keaton is appropriately smarmy as the filthy rich head of the company producing the robots. Jackie Earle Haley is totally hateable as a hostile military consultant working for the company. Everyone in the cast (which also includes Jennifer Ehle, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Abbie Cornish, Samuel L. Jackson, and Jay Baruchel) mostly shows up, but the writing simply isn't there and the performances never feel anything but workmanlike.

I can say that the effects, for the most part, are pretty good. But it's the proverbial lipstick on the pig, and while the shot of the "exposed" Alex's reduced body is squirm-inducing each time, the effects can by no means save this film. Nor are they featured creatively enough to really hold interest.

There's a major subplot involving weapons dealers and corrupt police officers and it would be hard to express just how little I was able to make myself care about these plot elements.

Finally, this is a movie that's trying to do something something parody, but utterly lacks the writing chops to pull it off. Instead it feels like a straight ahead action/sci-fi film that seems to think that it's saying something about a range of topics but doesn't seem to know what. And the over-written sequences of Jackson's impassioned news anchor spewing perpetual op-eds are outright painful.

It should have had the good sense to steal more from the original.






Robocop, 2014
Finally, this is a movie that's trying to do something something parody, but utterly lacks the writing chops to pull it off. Instead it feels like a straight ahead action/sci-fi film that seems to think that it's saying something about a range of topics but doesn't seem to know what. And the over-written sequences of Jackson's impassioned news anchor spewing perpetual op-eds are outright painful.

It should have had the good sense to steal more from the original.

I wish they had leaned more on the op-eds. It would have given the film a bit more of the satire look that the original wore so well.

I found Robocop rather perfunctory at the end of the day. On the one hand, it's a shame that a Robocop film shouldn't be this straight ahead action film but a film that tries to say something and succeeds. On the other hand, why remake Robocop in the first place? A) it was very successful financially and critically and B) outside of being extremely violent (maybe too much so), there's nothing that any reboot can try to fix.

I think this was one case where going for the PG-13 rating absolutely hurt it. There's no way it can compete with the Verhoeven violence of the original...going more family friendly kind of neutered that. And the film seems hesitant on diving into the satire of the world it's in. The result feels like a remake/reboot that's essentially neutered.

Why indeed?



I wish they had leaned more on the op-eds. It would have given the film a bit more of the satire look that the original wore so well.
Except that the op-eds were poorly written. I dreaded it every time one of them started. The problem is that we're not given any sense of the impact they are having on the citizens. The whole conversation in the film centers on public perception, and yet we only get that in this weird, roundabout way by seeing how politicians are feeling about it.



...

This is, for the most part, a very low-key film. But it builds and builds all while keeping you and the characters on the border between fear and awe. A lot is built from very simple moments, such as the eerie effect of a recorded sound on two car passengers. Where the film ends, and where the characters find themselves, is very moving.

I didn't vibe with it the first time, but on this second viewing, I feel like I get the hype.

Nice review. I really liked this film, and I'm astonished that director Patterson has not gotten funding for a full backed movie. His budget was a shoestring, and was remarkable.
There is one of the best filmed long takes I've seen-- all with homemade equipment.

Here's some commentary from a couple of years back:

The Vast of Night (2019)

Caught this delightful picture last night, which had been bought by Amazon and put up on its site yesterday (5/29/20). It's a sci-fi mystery by new director Andrew Patterson, starring Sierra McCormick and Jake Horowitz. Producer, director, writers, and some of the actors are freshman in the industry. The excellent cinematography is by veteran M.I. Litten-Menz.

Everything clicked on this picture. It's set in the 1950s, framed as a story on a Twilight Zone copy, Paradox Theater. Slow to build, it carefully sets the background, then gradually quickens the pace to intense thriller levels as the story unfolds. They've adroitly captured the intense but innocent feel of the 1950s sci-fi monster flicks, such as The Blob, and others. The production design was impressive on what must have been a low budget.

The acting is first rate, especially from Miss McCormick and the old pro Gail Cronauer; but it is the fresh and exciting cinematography by Litten-Menz that provides such captivating and engaging photography. The 90 minute film goes by quickly, although it leads to a somewhat anticlimactic finish.

You can be sure that director Andrew Patterson will be offered lots of work for much bigger money as the result of this first time feature. Will look forward to any future productions he helms.

Doc's rating: 8/10





Dogora, 1964

A strange space creature, Dogora, arrives at Earth where it begins extracting energy in the form of diamonds and coal. This leads to serious tensions among a gang who is trying to track down their missing diamonds. An inspector named Komai (Yôsuke Natsuki), a diamond broker named Jackson (Robert Dunham), and a beautiful gangster named Hamako (Akiko Wakabayashi) all hope to get to the bottom of the situation.

This monster movie spends an unbelievable, like, 86% of its runtime on the diamond heist subplot, an interesting choice that ultimately does not work to make the film more engaging.

When the gang was initially introduced, I assumed it was a cute little anecdote to frame the whole carbon-stealing thing. And then we spent more time on the diamonds. And then we spent more time on the diamonds. And then we spent more time on the diamonds. And then the movie was over.

There's something actually really funny about the idea of taking a potentially world-ending alien attack and telling that story almost exclusively through the point of view of a group of people squabbling over missing jewels. Even as it becomes clear that there are extra-terrestrial/otherworldly forces at work, the gangsters continue to try and angle and extort and threaten and outmaneuver one another. Dunham is fun as the slippery Jackson, and Waabayashi also has a neat bit of grit as she plots to maybe make off with the jewels herself.

The problem is that the maneuvering isn't as fun as you'd hope. I got a bit bored of the dynamic rather quickly, and nothing quite lives up to an audacious opening sequence where one of the gangsters is caught floating in the air as his diamonds are stolen from him.

And with so much time devoted to the diamond plot, the monster stuff gets short shrift. Sure, it's fun as they try to figure out what the creature is doing. And their ultimate discovery of Dagora's vulnerability is creative and leads to two pretty good large scale set-pieces. I really liked the space squid design, and I wanted more. More!

The film is at least a pretty brisk viewing. There's certainly enough here to make it worth a watch. But the promise of its premise never feels like it's fulfilled.




I forgot the opening line.
When you watch as many movies as you do, does it become difficult to rate them on a personal level, and do you ever take a break to recharge your movie nerves?
I don't think so - I never really get a sense that they're all blurring together, or that the amount of information coming in is making it harder to objectively judge each film by itself. However you mean it though, I'm really confident about rating movies on a personal level. I do try to strike something of a balance between how much I liked the movie, and how good it was in spite of my personal preferences. If I go a day with only watching one movie, that's a big break for me. Four movies a day would be my normal if I had a free schedule all the time. One a day sometimes can't be helped though - I watch as many movies as I possibly can, and the only thing that keeps getting in the way is life.

Black Widow should have been a more grounded spy story. They went way too big with it. She doesn't have any powers and yet she's jumping off buildings and doing freefall acrobatics. It should have been more like Winter Soldier in tone.

Shang Chi is the second best Marvel movie post-Endgame (No Way Home is the best). It has some of the best fight scenes in any comic book movie, a good villain, and a likable hero.

Eternals is a weird one, but I enjoyed it. It's creative and feels different from everything else.

The problem I've had with Marvel recently is that go too big and try to do too much. It feels like every movie now is an Avengers-style crossover event that focuses too much on world-building and not enough on the main characters.
I think I have similar feelings to you about Shang Chi and Eternals - short reviews to follow.
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Latest Review : Le Circle Rouge (1970)



I forgot the opening line.

By http://www.impawards.com/2021/shangc...ings_ver2.html, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=67440841

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - (2021)

I don't think @Wooley is going to like this short review. I came into Shang-Chi and etc not very enthused. For one thing, it's another origin story in a series of films which seem to be mostly origin stories. I know Marvel might be restocking the pantry, but I'm pretty much over them. Another thing is the fact that the whole martial arts sub-genre isn't a favourite of mine (I only rate Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 7/10, which sends some people into shock.) Plus Wooley told me it was about on par with Black Widow, which wasn't very exciting. But you know - expectations again - it helps when they're lowered. There were parts of Shang-Chi I really liked in the end. It's not a Marvel great or anything, but it has some of those special Marvel moments that make it the amazing series it is. First of all though - the screenplay is awful. The dialogue sounds like it was written with the aid of fortune cookies. "Remember your ancestors - your strength comes from them" - "Be like the wind, and as strong as an ox." - "Always follow the path your heart..." well, you get the kind of thing. Cheap and dumb inspirational quotes - dime store wisdom, and many cringe-worthy lines.

Where I depart from my esteemed fellow MoFo's opinions though are with the design of the creatures at the end of the film - I thought they tied into the whole Asian culture feel of the film, and looked magnificent. The soul sucker and the dragon almost had me gasping - and the action was pretty tight. I admit that there are a few face-palm worthy moments (the archery bit especially) but I enjoyed that part of the film the most. In fact, the action all 'round was pretty good, and the underlying story was serviceable enough. I did really dislike the return of Trevor Slattery and his awkward comic relief, but I did like all of the other exceptionally well designed fauna that exists in the other dimension. I thought the film had an excellent score as well. I thought Shang-Chi was a step in the right direction after the tepid Spider-Man - Far From Home and Black Widow. Not a great film - and one with many flaws, but as many great and good points as there are bad and awful ones.

I was a little more withering in my letterboxd write-up : "Some great action and effects, but a screenplay that feels like it's been written at the last minute on a 10-minute bus ride to the studio. Perhaps Marvel films are getting a little constrained by their own box-office weight, and it's a little too much too fast, but there are lines and narrative strands that become dumb just through repetition. It looks impressive, and is, but it's not good cinema - just average."

7/10


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Enternals - (2021)

And then came this...what a mess. Watching Eternals is like watching a film where someone gave a 3-year-old $1 billion to make a movie, and from there huge-budget chaos reigned. It looks like Marvel wanted Eternals to be the biggest blockbuster yet - it even strains to outdo Infinity War and Endgame, and it constantly has you questioning just how wise it is to just go for excess in the manner they have here. It's an impressive train-wreck of a movie - with a screenplay that feels like it's a very rough draft from an untalented screenwriter. (Four people are credited with writing this film.) Of course, it's once again introducing us to new Marvel superheroes - and unfortunately they're a bunch that are going to overshadow Captain Marvel, because they're basically all immortal Gods.

Okay - I will admit, for immortal Gods they do die and get hurt an awful lot, but their powers are so overwhelming that I just know I'm going to be missing the days when it looked like the odds were stacked against the heroes in these films. The story is of world-ending import, and makes absolutely no sense. I won't give anything away - because it's a spoiler-rich story - but there are so many holes in the plot it just has to sink. Of course, it's also history-altering. I didn't enjoy this, and I'll never be watching it again - a film on about the same level Thor : The Dark World was, competing for the title on my list of worst Marvel movies. It would be interesting to make my list seeing as it's the 26th.

4/10



I don't think so - I never really get a sense that they're all blurring together, or that the amount of information coming in is making it harder to objectively judge each film by itself. However you mean it though, I'm really confident about rating movies on a personal level. I do try to strike something of a balance between how much I liked the movie, and how good it was in spite of my personal preferences. If I go a day with only watching one movie, that's a big break for me. Four movies a day would be my normal if I had a free schedule all the time. One a day sometimes can't be helped though - I watch as many movies as I possibly can, and the only thing that keeps getting in the way is life.



I think I have similar feelings to you about Shang Chi and Eternals - short reviews to follow.
Thats great. I can settle on two a day now. When I was younger there was always a movie on most anywhere I was, family or friends, so at that time I probably saw 300+ movies a year. I find that if I am worn out mentally then watching a movie doesn't entertain me, but I like a marathon every and then. When I rate a movie I like to make sure there wasnt some unrelated interference that would change my opinion.
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I forgot the opening line.
Off-topic (sorry) - but I just wanted to try and rank all the Marvel films I've seen so far from best to worst :

Guardians of the Galaxy
Avengers : Endgame
Captain America : The Winter Soldier
Avengers : Infinity War
Thor : Ragnarok
The Avengers
Captain America : Civil War
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Iron Man
Captain Marvel
Black Panther
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Doctor Strange
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Iron Man 2
Ant-Man
Iron Man 3
Avengers : Age of Ultron
Spider-Man : Homecoming
Thor
Black Widow
The Incredible Hulk
Spider-Man : Far From Home
Captain America : The First Avenger
Eternals
Thor : The Dark World

That's a big list.