The Resident Bitch's Movie Log

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2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
10th?!?! Yikes that's super low.

It's my obvious 1, but we have had this discussion before. Three others join it in my top 100.



10th of 10 really good films. I think it shows how good Pixar have been overall.
What's the top of the bottom?
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2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Well, I guess I forget everyone loves those Toy Story movies. I think I've only seen the first one and am not rushing to see the others.



What's the top of the bottom?
What my favourite of the weaker ones? The Good Dinosaur or A Bugs Life.

Raul, i think the first Toy Story is the weakest one you should try the others.



I will at some point, I'd be surprised if they topped my top 4 though.
What is your top 4? Mines is WALL-E, Monsters Inc, The Incredibles and Up. Those were the four that made my top 20 Animated Films in my thread.



2022 Mofo Fantasy Football Champ
Wall E, Up, Ratatouille and Finding Nemo.

The Incredible is pretty good, Inside Out was solid . Toy Story is ok. Monsters Inc is average. Brave was a tad below average.





Internet Famous (Michael J. Gallagher, 2016)
Imdb

Date Watched: 6/23/16
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: Shane Dawson
Rewatch: No


Yeah, yeah, I know. 99% of you probably have no ****ing clue who Shane Dawson is. And the other 1% is Funny Face who has received video links in her inbox, has listened to me fangirl about him for a few weeks now, and is being dragged to San Francisco with me next month for one of his book signings. Because I have no life and I have an addictive/obsessive personality and Dawson happens to be my latest obsession.

Anyhoo, this movie is a mockumentary about a bunch of YouTube stars who are competing for the chance to get their own television show. Shane Dawson is an actual YouTube star who has made countless videos, written two books, and directed a movie (Not Cool, which I reviewed previously). In Internet Famous, he plays an ultra-douchey parody version of himself. The real Shane Dawson is known, among other things, for doing parody music videos (often in drag) and also a lot of collaboration videos with other YouTubers. These collab videos more often than not end up being quite homoerotic. Dawson's scenes in this movie played heavily on these things (including a joke about "tickle fight" videos, which Dawson actually did with another male YouTuber a couple years ago) and plays on the tendency for the comments section of his videos to be full of fans "shipping" him with his collaborators. His performance in the film was very tongue in cheek and I liked it a lot.

Unfortunately I can't really say the same for the rest of the movie. I tend not to be a fan of comedy films in general so it had that going against it. Most of the film was just awkward AF and not in a way that was funny to me. Perhaps if I was more immersed in the whole YouTuber culture thing it might've resonated with me more, but I'm not and it didn't. There were other caricatures of other types of YouTube stars - a guy who makes cat videos, a guy who makes baby videos, a girl who makes videos in slutty costumes, and the star of a random viral video who did this super awkward dance. I don't know if any of the people playing those parts are actual YouTube stars (other than the Chocolate Rain guy who played himself as a celebrity guest "mentor" for the competition), but their performances and characters just didn't work for me.

This is a pretty low budget film made for kind of a niche audience, so I can't say that my expectations were particularly high, but I was still hoping for a little more. I didn't hate it, but obsession or not, I probably won't ever watch it again or any other movie Dawson is in for that matter. I think I'll stick with his videos and books from now on.




Shane Dawson movies sound almost as dreadful as PewDiePie movies.
I've can't manage to sit through a PewDiePie video. I shudder at the notion of a movie.





The Big Short (Adam McKay, 2015)
Imdb

Date Watched: 7/08/16
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: I was bored and my mom had it on DVD
Rewatch: No


This movie set out to take a rather boring and complicated topic and try to make it sexy and funny. Did it succeed? Not really. Not for me, anyway.

There's nothing really wrong with this movie. The performances were fine and it looks good, but it failed to engage me. I really didn't care for any of the characters and my lack of interest in them made following the film's events more of a struggle. I also found the narration, celebrity cameos, and constant breaking of the fourth wall to be pretty irritating. Definitely not my cup of tea.

-



I want to see that for the actors, but JayDee - and now you - have both given that bad reviews.





Mower Minions (*Director not listed on IMDb*, 2016)
Imdb

Date Watched: 7/10/16
Cinema or Home: Cinema (with Funny Face)
Reason For Watching: It played before The Secret Life of Pets
Rewatch: No


This was a fun little short. Nothing new here - more minions doing minion things - but I definitely prefer them in smaller doses like this rather than in their own feature.

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* * *



The Secret Life of Pets (Yarrow Cheney and Chris Renaud, 2016)
Imdb

Date Watched: 7/10/16
Cinema or Home: Cinema (with Funny Face)
Reason For Watching: It looked cute.
Rewatch: No


Possible Spoilers

As a life-long pet owner and someone who works with pets on a daily basis, this movie had immediate appeal for me. Unfortunately it is, of course, geared more towards dog lovers but there were plenty of cat in-jokes to keep me amused and not surprisingly Chloe the cat was my favorite character.

As is to be expected with an Illumination film, the animation in The Secret Life of Pets is nothing groundbreaking, but it is done well and I quite liked the character designs. The story ventures well into levels of ridiculousness - even featuring a scene where animals steal a transport truck and crash it into the ocean. And while I criticized Finding Dory for its use of a very similar scene, it really didn't bother me here. That may be hypocritical of me, but I expect more from the studio that brought us Up, Ratatouille, and Wall E than I do from the one that brought us Despicable Me (which I love) and The Lorax (which I hate).

Anyway, all in all I had a good time with this. It was a little light in terms of depth and heart but made up for it in chuckles and grins.

+



Mower Minions
Jesus . Yeah, i could see them working fine as a short as you said. Their film is probably my least favourite of this decade.

The film looks interesting.





Wild Strawberries (Smultronstället) (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Imdb

Date Watched: 07/24/16
Cinema or Home: Home
Reason For Watching: 50s List
Rewatch: No


As someone who connects with film more on an emotional level than a technical one, I really appreciated this tale of forgiveness and redemption. Although the imagery was at times haunting and unsettling, the strength of Wild Strawberries lies in the performances, particularly Victor Sjöström who plays the lead.

Many films I've seen from this era suffer from overly theatrical and unnatural performances. I find this type of acting both distracting and irritating, but here Sjöström's Isak Borg feels real and I had no trouble engaging with his transformation from coldness to warmth. For the most part, the supporting actors did quite well too and I particularly enjoyed Jullan Kindall as Agna, Borg's housekeeper, and the (stunningly beautiful) Ingrid Thulin as Marianne, Borg's daughter in law.

This was the eighth Bergman film I've seen, and while I wouldn't go so far as to call him a favorite, I do enjoy his work and I look forward to watching his other 1950s offerings.