Recent Viewings, Part 2

[Dr. Whom]

The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

This is a bit of an oddity. It is gothic murder mystery, set in grimdark version of 1830s West Point, with a young Edgar Allan Poe as a main character. This is very much another triumph of style over substance. Everything is highly contrived, the Dickensian characters, the formal 19th century dialogue, the plot with the obligatory twist that makes little sense, the setting.... If you like your movies grounded, this is not one for you. Also, not very much happens.

I quite liked it though. For one thing, I don't mind style over substance, provided it is stylish enough. For another the cast does a magnificent job, especially Christian Bale being intense and mysterious, and Harry Melling being suitably weird throughout.

Just one point of criticism, I fully get it that in the time of candles and oil lamps, interiors were a lot darker, but this is a movie and as a spectator I like to see what is going on, dammit!

[lester1/2jr]

fat freddy's cat - my friend had a Sea Hag pez dispenser. from Popeye


M.10rda - Night Of the Comet I mean the male lead just kind of shows up and the feds just kind of hang around they don't build the characters into anything substantial. They Live achieved a lot more with similar dark elements. Comet is unique as a teen movie but it's more cerebral and complex aspirations came up a bit short.

Having 99.9% of people die at the very begining made it very hard for any tension re the end of the world

Miracle Mile was a little more mature, yes the ending was bleak but it was realistic

[FatFreddysCat]

"Shotgun Wedding" (2023)
Jennifer Lopez and Josh Duhamel bring their feuding families together for a "destination wedding" at a Filipino island resort. When a crew of pirates crash the party and take their guests hostage, Jen and Josh have to figure out how to stop them. This breezy Amazon Prime original is a fun mash-up of the rom-com and action comedy genres. The South Seas scenery is lovely, J-Lo is ridiculously hot as usual, and the strong supporting cast includes comedy dependables like Cheech Marin and Jennifer Coolidge. Silly but enjoyable.

[Gabriel Knight]

DOGMA (1999)

An abortion clinic worker with a special heritage is called upon to save the existence of humanity from being negated by two renegade angels trying to exploit a loop-hole and reenter Heaven.

SPOILERS AHEAD

The premise caught my attention immediately, but something that confused me at first was that new characters were introduced all the time, with little explanation of who they were, until they decided to spend 10 minutes of exposition telling their personal life.
Linda Fiorentino is dull as a blank wall, but she's too hot for me to care. The rest of the cast is barely noticeable, with the exception of Alan Rickman, who perfectly knows how to make the transition from a serious to a funny scene.
And I think here lies my main issue with the movie: for a moment it tries to be a drama, and then it turns into the most cringe comedy you can possibly imagine. The theological discussions are superficial, and anyways they have been done to death by now. Other issues are barely addressed, like euthanasia and abortion. Half of the dialog are F bombs.

I felt as if the movie had the potential to be an amazing epic and religious story, with humorous touches, but they were too focused on trying to land the next joke about joints. Azrael is so useless that I wonder why is he even there. Discussions about Jesus' origins and God's gender are made with extreme banality, which leads me to the ending...

We are finally able to see God, played by Alanis Morissette, but she acts like she had some kind of mental problem. I understand that they were trying to show her with a sense of humour, but what does that has to be with trying to stand in her hands by a tree and falling? Does she has the mind of a 5 year old? Not to mention, that awful Karate Kid reference, ugh.
On the other hand, why Bethany resurrects, and then gets pregnant? Since when God intervene in the affairs of mortals like that? There's tragedies all the time, but this one in particular had to be resolved so they could deliver a happy ending.

Having said that, I thought it was a very entertaining movie, with good special effects; unfortunately, the music doesn't work sometimes, it sounds as if it's taken from a teen adventure movie. It gave me a few chuckles, although some scenes forced me to look elsewhere of how ridiculous they were, like the one where the Prophets are introduced, with is almost cartoonish. You can remove 20 minutes of the movie and it wouldn't change at all, it's unnecessary long.

Recommended if you don't have anything else to watch. 7/10

[M.10rda]

AN EVENING WITH BEVERLY LUFF LINN (2019):
Flat affect-afflicted housewife Lulu Danger (Audrey Plaza) happens upon the kind of moronic crime that we see most often in Coen Bros films and absconds with the proceeds to a gloomy hotel, where she plans to low-key stalk her former lover, a mysterious celebrity named Beverly Luff Linn (Craig Robinson). Finding her attempts largely foiled by Beverly's unctuous manservant/lifepartner (Matt Berry), Lulu consoles herself by relentlessly friendzoning a fledgling vigilante named Colin (Jemaine Clement). Meanwhile, her husband Shane (Emile Hirsch) plots revenge. Anyway I think that's what happens in this movie.

With hideously retro fashion & decor and visible gas prices hovering around the $3 mark, AN EVENING WITH BEVERLY LUFF LINN can only take place during the Carter administration or circa Today in the vicinity of David Lynch's funnybone. Most of the cast overemotes or underemotes outrageously; Hirsch seems to be recreating Bruce McCullough's menagerie of toxic menchildren from "The Kids In The Hall"; and Berry just delivers his standard shtick and thus seems right at home. Perhaps my favorite thing about the film is the large and utterly bizarre, instantly memorable supporting cast, none of whom (besides the aforementioned stars and cameo weirdo Maria Bamford) were at all familiar to me/all of whom I presumed were hand-picked out IRL from diners, homeless shelters, and cult reprogramming clinics by director Jim Hosking, very much as Lynch does with his bit roles. Nope - all of those actors have long IMDB pages full of bit parts in other movies where (presumably) they act less weird - so kudos to Hosking for doing a bang-up job casting and directing them for his purposes.

Robinson ends up delivering the film's best and most affecting performance, but only in the final twenty minutes, when he is provided actual dialogue in English, besides a small array of growls, grunts, and farts. Up until then, the treatment of his eponymous character comes off as off-putting and even a little racist. Denying his character (and Plaza's) any transparency or sympathy until the closing scenes is yet another perverse and oblique choice on Hosking's behalf.

AEWBLL is a tough sell! Madame 10.rda likes Plaza and probably loves Berry more than she loves me, but it took her two sittings and some ice cream to see this one through with me. Most of the running time is frittered away on biological humor and characters just hangin' out until, abruptly, the film transforms into a rather touching essay on the redemptive qualities of platonic love (w/ one outstanding dance sequence). Although the film has some tonal & thematic similarities to NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, most of the hep kids I know who like ND might struggle w/ this one. My best guess is that the target audience for AEWBLL is "Lynch megafans who wish ON THE AIR had run for 4-6 seasons". As far as I know, that's just me, and various web resources support this deduction: AEWBLL appears to have grossed between $5k and $25k theatrically - figures so absurdly low they truly belong in the film's own cinematic universe.

4/5 anyway, perversely

I've watched some other films lately that I haven't dug on too much, but my Chinese New Year's resolution is to only post about movies I've enjoyed. We'll see how long that sticks.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Tommy" (1975)
Ken Russell's film version of the Who's 1969 rock opera about a "deaf, dumb, and blind kid" who becomes a pinball wizard and eventually a messiah is still weird as hell all these years later. Essentially it's a feature-length music video with an all star cast that includes members of the Who, Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, Jack Nicholson, Elton John, Ann-Margret, and more. Worth sitting through for the rockin' soundtrack, and the scene where Ann-Margret freaks out and writhes around in a puddle of soap suds, beans, and chocolate.

[indianasmith]

NIGHT OF SOMETHING STRANGE (2016) - OK, this movie starts with a creepy morgue janitor molesting a freshly dead female corpse, and then turns into an STD-driven zombie apocalypse that constantly tries to outdo itself on the grossout scale.   It had some real possibilities but didn't quite rise to the occasion.  But, if you like over-the-top gore with sexual overtones, you might like it.  3.5/5

[M.10rda]

NIGHT OF SOMETHING STRANGE (2016) - OK, this movie starts with a creepy morgue janitor molesting a freshly dead female corpse, and then turns into an STD-driven zombie apocalypse that constantly tries to outdo itself on the grossout scale.   It had some real possibilities but didn't quite rise to the occasion.  But, if you like over-the-top gore with sexual overtones, you might like it.  3.5/5

Is this on a streaming platform?

[indianasmith]

NIGHT OF SOMETHING STRANGE (2016) - OK, this movie starts with a creepy morgue janitor molesting a freshly dead female corpse, and then turns into an STD-driven zombie apocalypse that constantly tries to outdo itself on the grossout scale.   It had some real possibilities but didn't quite rise to the occasion.  But, if you like over-the-top gore with sexual overtones, you might like it.  3.5/5

Is this on a streaming platform?

I think I found it on ROKU or TUBI.

[Rev. Powell]

CRIMINAL LOVERS (1999): A teenage couple commit horrible crimes and flee into the forest, where they are kidnapped and held hostage by a hermit. François Ozon's "Hansel and Gretel"-themed art-house drama/thriller generates only minor suspense, but a young Jérémie Renier is excellent as the easily-manipulated, sexually-conflicted male half of the killer couple. 3/5.

[indianasmith]

RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD 2 (1988)   I hadn't seen this one since shortly after it came out, so spotting it on Tubi this afternoon, I decided to give it a view.  The first ROTLD hit just about every B-movie box perfectly - it had very dark humor masking one of the most horrifying premises of any zombie movie ever, and the incredible hotness of Linnea Quigley's legendary tombstone dance thrown in for good measure.
This one was too heavy on the humor, lighter on the gore, ruined the "unkillable zombie" trope by finding a way to kill them, and had a very limited hotness factor.  In short, a sequel that fell WAY short of the original.  2.5/5

[lester1/2jr]

Headhunters (2011) - Pretty decent Norwegian thriller. If you like stuff like Hannibal check it out. Some grisly sort of stuff and darkish humor

A guy who looks like Rick from the Young Ones steals art to help support his fancy corporate lifestyle. A plot to steal an authentic Reubens is complicated by his wife having an affair and his burglary partner screwing stuff up. Unfortunately, I saw this two days ago and forgot some stuff, but it was a big deal in Norway when it came out and you can see a lot of effort went into it.

The fact that the guy is short and has a wife who is much taller is worked in to the plot, but it will still likely strike some people as odd and some Jerry Lewis esque physical comedy moments don't help this probably being "too European" for some and thus it's on tubi

4.25 /5 probably deserves higher. the outhouse scene is one for the books

[M.10rda]

NIGHT OF SOMETHING STRANGE (2016) -
I think I found it on ROKU or TUBI.

Much thanks! Been looking for it for years but don't visit those platforms much.

[FatFreddysCat]

"The Lost City" (2022)
A romance novelist (Sandra Bullock) is kidnapped by a millionaire (Daniel Radcliffe) and taken to South America to help find the real-life ancient treasure she's written about in her books. The muscle-bound male model (Channing Tatum) who's portrayed the hero on all of her book covers, and who (of course) has been secretly in love with her all these years, eventually comes riding to the rescue.
This romantic adventure comedy's resemblance to "Romancing The Stone" is most likely intentional. The cast is fine (Brad Pitt almost steals the movie with a bit part as a dim-bulb mercenary), there's a few legit laughs, and the action scenes are well staged. Obviously it's more of a "chick flick," but it's relatively painless viewing for dudes, too.

"Pennywise: The Story of IT" (2022)
A thorough, entertaining documentary that looks back on the making of 1990's ground-breaking TV mini series adaptation of Stephen King's "IT," packed with behind the scenes clips and commentary from cast and crew members (director Tommy Lee Wallace, Tim Reid, Tim "Pennywise" Curry, Seth Green, etc., etc.). A cool deep dive into a cult classic that made me want to re-visit the film.

[lester1/2jr]

Following (1998) - pretty cool movie by the guy who did Momento. It's a tale of crime and betrayal made more interesting by the fact that the scenes are presented out of order. Filmed in black and white it has a backstory like they filmed in on weekends every day for a year or for 30 dollars or something. If I watch it again I will do so a little more closely.

4.25 /5