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“I was cured, all right!”
Ninja 2, Undisputed 2 and Universal Soldier: Day of Reckoning were what hooked me. The latter remains my favorite work from him, my favorite DTV sequel and simply one of my favorite sci-fi action flicks ever.

I still don’t understand why he doesn’t have a career at least comparable to Jason Statham.
Even if I prefer Universal Soldier 3 myself, Day of Reckoning is very good and yes, don't get why his career isn't bigger. Honestly, he is the only actor doing action in Hollywood (excluding the old guard Stallone, Van Damme, etc) that, imo, deserves to be in the spotlight with Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves. Still don't understand why he isn't in the John Wick franchise already.



“I was cured, all right!”

Better action than the first one, still prefer the Ninja Gaiden style of the first plot, but this one wasn't bad. The last fight was a plus. Isaac Florentine, the director, is a name I keep my eyes on, not sure how I menaged to take this long to watch this film. Wished we had more Ninja Suit action though.



Jet Li's films from the early 2000s have their place in my heart. Even though they don't match their China releases, they're all stylish as hell and were of a time, the action wasn't just about Liam Neeson jumping a fence with 300 cuts and Matt Damon's terrible Shaky Cam experience — It's good to see that John Wick and all the great B-action vanguard are bringing back the goods.



Thursday Next's Avatar
I never could get the hang of Thursdays.
Chaos Walking (2021)

What a mess. I'm not sure this novel was filmable really. Pretty much every interesting idea from the book has been flattened into a standard run, shoot and jump adventure with a tacked on happy ending. There are characters who are never really explained, like the preacher, who just shows up to be evil every now and then. It's dreary and it's scrappy and it's not really worth watching, except for Mads Mikkelsen dressed up like he's in McCabe and Mrs Miller in space. Which sounds like much more of a fun movie than this one.




Bad Travelling (2022) (from Love Death and Robots anthology)

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Some entries in this anthology of animated short films are among the best animation available right now. This was so far my favorite short film of this series; it was directed by Fincher (I never guessed the director of Fight Club would direct an animated film before), and it rocks: it is a pretty traditional horror/thriller like Alien, and it works very well while the animation and the character designs are very good, much more detailed than your typical Pixar movie.



A Prairie Home Companion - (2006)

I watched this last night - Robert Altman's swansong. I have to say, it was much better than I thought it was going to be - a very warm and touching film which has it's share of funny moments. It was nice to see Kevin Kline in something, somewhat trying to play his part the way Bill Murray would. It's about a long-running radio show during it's last ever broadcast, as the cast and crew sadly go through the motions one last time. Quite fitting. Real-life host and creator of the show (which ran from 1974 up until recently) Garrison Keillor appears as himself. There are a host of stars in it, from Meryl Streep to John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Lily Tomlin and Virginia Madsen. It has a lot of charm and a laid back, easy-going atmosphere.

7/10
It’s been years since I saw this, but I do remember it being rather good. I need to re-watch.
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“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
It’d be worth it just to hear Garrison Keeler’s voice again. He was a part of so many great Saturdays. I can’t believe that movie is that old already.



It’d be worth it just to hear Garrison Keeler’s voice again. He was a part of so many great Saturdays. I can’t believe that movie is that old already.
Too bad Keillor had a pattern of inappropriate behavior towards women.



“Sugar is the most important thing in my life…”
He exists as a construct of my imagination, trying to peddle Powdered Biscuits.

If we negated all the art made by problematic people, we wouldn’t be left with much.



Even if I prefer Universal Soldier 3 myself, Day of Reckoning is very good and yes, don't get why his career isn't bigger. Honestly, he is the only actor doing action in Hollywood (excluding the old guard Stallone, Van Damme, etc) that, imo, deserves to be in the spotlight with Tom Cruise and Keanu Reeves. Still don't understand why he isn't in the John Wick franchise already.
I’ve got some great news: He is in John Wick- Chapter 4!



Messiah of Evil (1973) 5/10

A little slow, but it wasn't bad. It's like an Italian horror movie minus the gore and nudity.






Maciste in Hell, 1925

Country gentleman Maciste (Bartolomeo Pagano) is possessed of great physical strength and strength of character. When his sweet neighbor (Pauline Polaire) has a baby with a man (Domenico Serra) whose soul is being endangered by an agent of hell, Maciste gets in the middle of things and ends up being pulled down to hell by angry demons.

After watching Dante's Inferno, this one looked interesting, and despite some screenshots indicating it would be another fantastical experience, this one was a bit more silly.

I had not realized--and I'm not sure if this is common knowledge among film buffs or not--that Maciste is a character who appears in a lot of Italian films, beginning with Cabiria (a movie I'm about halfway through currently). From what I understand he's sort of akin to a Hercules type character, making his way through adventures using his magnificent strength.

While the tone here is a bit sillier, there are still some effective visuals. In particular I really loved a shot of a weird octopus creature hovering over the city. Like Dante's Inferno, the vision of hell is heavily inspired by Gustave Dore's illustrations.

Pagano does a good job of giving off good guy vibes, with a bit of a sense of humor. While in hell, Maciste is tricked into kissing one of Pluto's brides, which transforms him into a devil. When a jealous Pluto asks Maciste who kissed him, Maciste gestures at a nearby grubby demon and answers "Him!".

It does go to a bit of an absurd place at times, such as when Maciste literally leads a revolt against the devils, but somehow the film manages to wrap up in a feel good fashion. I thought that the film took a little bit to get going, but once it kicks into gear it's very entertaining.






Wait Until Dark, 1967

Susy (Audrey Hepburn) is a woman still coming to grips with having become recently blind. Unbeknownst to her, her husband Sam (Efrem Zimbalist Jr.) unintentionally brought home a doll filled with drugs. As the film begins, the ruthless Roat (Alan Arkin) has enlisted a conman named Mike (Richard Crenna) and an ex-police sergeant named Carlino (Jack Weston) to help him find and retrieve the doll. Isolating Susy in her apartment, with only a neighbor child named Gloria (Julie Herrod) for help, the men go to increasing lengths to get Susy to do what they want.

I haven't seen this film in ages, but after some bullying encouragement from Rock I decided to check it out again before it left the Criterion Channel.

It is still an effectively tense and thrilling film, and the sheer sense of danger helps push past some plot and character moments that don't totally make sense.

The film takes its sweet time establishing the characters of the three criminals. This ends up being time well spent, because once they start their con they are putting on a show for Susy while pursuing their real goal, with Roat even playing several different characters. The middle third of the film is all about them trying to simply overpower Susy with the classic scammers trick of generating a sense of emergency. In the last act it all starts to fall apart, and the cards finally get put on the table.

Hepburn is good in the lead role, imbuing Susy with a sense of humor that she clearly also uses to cope with her recent drastic shift in her life. But she is also very smart, and there are many moments where we watch Susy start to pick up on inconsistencies and gaps in the stories she's being told by the three conmen. Her Susy does seem a bit too adept and quick at times for someone who is grappling with the recent loss of sight. I mean, at one point she takes off a coat while walking down a flight of stairs, and I'm sorry, but I would never. Still you're enough on the side of the character that it's okay, and I suppose it's much preferable to making her extra helpless.

The three conmen have their own internal dramas. Krenna's Mike is "the nice one", a man who genuinely seems to like Susy and really want to resolve the whole thing without having to hurt her. Weston's Carlino, a man still clearly stinging from whatever caused his dismissal from the police force, has a harder exterior. But it's Arkin's Roat, a real dyed-in-the-wool psychopath that makes this film the memorable little horror-thriller it is. Roat's direct interactions with Susy in the final act are chilling. It's like watching a predator play with its prey just for fun. When Susy says that she was on to him, he responds, "Not all the way, Susy. Even now, not all the way."

I'd remembered hating the character of Gloria, but after some initial truly awful behavior, she proves to be a sassy and capable second banana.

But you know who IS the worst? Sam. Thank goodness he's out of the picture for most of the movie because gross. The actor is only 11 years older than Hepburn, but they visibly look further apart. And the apparent age gap makes his patronizing behavior towards her really hard to take. I suppose the most charitable reading of his character is that he wants his wife to be safe and independent, but this comes out in the most mean-spirited and condescending ways. Susy drops something and asks where it is, to which he responds, "You can find it." Dude. It would be one thing if Susy wasn't making an effort and he was trying to motivate her, but Susy is clearly trying very hard. When Susy tells him that Gloria has been endangering her by maliciously rearranging the furniture, he brushes this off like it's no big deal. The absolutely worst moment comes at the end of the film when
WARNING: spoilers below
instead of going to his wife who has been tormented, almost killed, and just generally terrorized for the last few hours, he makes her walk across their trashed and corpse-strewn apartment to him
. Sam--and Susy's simpering deference to him, "I'll be anything you want me to be!"--costs this film a half point, no joke.

I have some very sentimental feelings about this film, as I vividly remember my family watching this together when I was about 10 years old. I also remembered my parents' instructions that it's a movie to watch in as close to darkness as possible.

There are some cliched frustrations with the plot and characters, things like maybe you should lock the door or maybe you should call the police. But the pace of the film is good enough and the characters compelling enough that those frustrations mainly becomes background noise.




I love Wait Until Dark. Maybe the best jump scare ever? And yes Tak the part in your spoilers is obnoxious.



I love Wait Until Dark. Maybe the best jump scare ever? And yes Tak the part in your spoilers is obnoxious.
It had been long enough since I'd seen the film that I actually misremembered when it happened. For some reason I thought I remembered
WARNING: spoilers below
Roat lunging out at her from near the refrigerator, moving right to left in the frame, so when she was walking that way I was NOT PREPARED for him to lunge out left to right!



Chaos Walking (2021)

What a mess. I'm not sure this novel was filmable really. Pretty much every interesting idea from the book has been flattened into a standard run, shoot and jump adventure with a tacked on happy ending. There are characters who are never really explained, like the preacher, who just shows up to be evil every now and then. It's dreary and it's scrappy and it's not really worth watching, except for Mads Mikkelsen dressed up like he's in McCabe and Mrs Miller in space. Which sounds like much more of a fun movie than this one.

Having read the book, I had no interest in checking out the film unless it got really good reviews. I really struggle to imagine how to translate a story that relies so strongly on subjective point of view and the plot point of all the telepathy into something good on screen.

It's a shame, because it's a great book. I hope the middling film doesn't dissuade people from checking out the novel.





Wait Until Dark, 1967

...

I haven't seen this film in ages, but after some bullying encouragement from Rock I decided to check it out again before it left the Criterion Channel.

The system works!


But you know who IS the worst? Sam. Thank goodness he's out of the picture for most of the movie because gross. The actor is only 11 years older than Hepburn, but they visibly look further apart. And the apparent age gap makes his patronizing behavior towards her really hard to take. I suppose the most charitable reading of his character is that he wants his wife to be safe and independent, but this comes out in the most mean-spirited and condescending ways. Susy drops something and asks where it is, to which he responds, "You can find it." Dude. It would be one thing if Susy wasn't making an effort and he was trying to motivate her, but Susy is clearly trying very hard. When Susy tells him that Gloria has been endangering her by maliciously rearranging the furniture, he brushes this off like it's no big deal. The absolutely worst moment comes at the end of the film when
WARNING: spoilers below
instead of going to his wife who has been tormented, almost killed, and just generally terrorized for the last few hours, he makes her walk across their trashed and corpse-strewn apartment to him
. Sam--and Susy's simpering deference to him, "I'll be anything you want me to be!"--costs this film a half point, no joke.
lol yeah a lot of the reviews I read on Letterboxd called him out.


I can't hate him only because the actor who played him was also the voice of Alfred in Batman: The Animated Series, but he was definitely the weakest part of the movie. Luckily he's not present for the bulk of the proceedings.



I forgot the opening line.

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Billy Liar - (1963)

William Terrence Fisher (Tom Courtenay) is a very unusual fictional protagonist - chances are you'll find him insufferable. He's immature for his age, lies incessantly to make himself out to be more than he is, has two fiancés, steals from his employer, and is often lost in his own fantasy world. An encouraging word from a famous British comedian has him thinking he's off to London to become a scriptwriter - but something has to happen to wake this boy up. This black and white film is sumptuously and brilliantly shot, interestingly directed by John Schlesinger, who would later go to America to make Midnight Cowboy and well acted by all - but especially Courtenay. It features the beautiful and talented Julie Christie in one of her early roles and is based on 1959 novel of the same name by Keith Waterhouse. The fantasy sequences are great, but the whole film feels assured and very, very intelligent. I'm glad I crossed paths with it.

8/10


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The Painted Veil - (2006)

This is the first version of The Painted Veil I've seen, so it has the advantage of being fresh and new to me (although, it's kind of ironic I'm saying that because I've seen this version before and was watching it for the second time.) It really gains a lot of traction during it's second half, when the relationship between Walter (Edward Norton) and Kitty Fane (Naomi Watts) has much history behind it, and they only really start appreciating each other for the first time. Set mostly in China during a cholera epidemic, it's part love story, part historical epic, and has a lot of visual power behind it. It has really held up well for me, and I enjoyed watching it again.

7/10


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The Heat - (2013)

I'd seen parts of this before, and it looked really funny - and while the film definitely does have it's moments I thought it was a little too one-note to sustain it's running time for me. I became a little tired of the schtick after 45 minutes or so, and it doesn't have a story that can help to maintain interest. Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock are funny and make a great team, but the film industry doesn't make very compelling comedies for the most part.

5/10
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I can't hate him only because the actor who played him was also the voice of Alfred in Batman: The Animated Series, but he was definitely the weakest part of the movie. Luckily he's not present for the bulk of the proceedings.
Sorry, but you can hate him.

Every time Susy was like "Oh, Sam! SAM!" I was like "Girl, what's he going to do for you? Tell you to feel your way to a policeman on your own?"