Recent Viewings, Part 2

[FatFreddysCat]

"Money Shot: The Pornhub Story" (2023)
This Netflix original examines the rise of XXX content farm Pornhub, which has become one of the top 10 most-viewed web sites in the world thanks to its mix of "original productions" and home-brewed adult videos uploaded by its millions of users. It also discusses the parent company's secretive business practices and its sometimes less-than-stellar response time when dealing with content that may feature non-consensual or underage subjects. Lots of talking heads add up to a dull, fairly dry documentary.

[M.10rda]

MANHATTAN (1979):
First time viewing this. When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s (and all the way into the 00s), Woody Allen was one of those usual suspects that was constantly part of any serious conversation about cinema (w/ Chaplin, Hitchcock, Welles, Ford, Kurosawa, and maybe Scorsese or Coppola). The past decade or so I've felt aware of a certain erasure of Allen from the conversation, while most of those other names still appear w/ some sort of regularity. Is it just because Allen cranked out too many middling efforts at too consistent a pace? Or, uh - something else, perhaps? Agnostic as I feel about allegations of his personal affairs, I thought I'd catch up w/ an earlier Allen entry, two years following his perennially lauded ANNIE HALL, which I know many viewers rate as high or higher.

Here are some things I'll praise about MANHATTAN: the gorgeous and sometimes startling photography, in B+W, by Gordon Willis (one extreme perspective shot in a museum looks like an outtake from ERASERHEAD); the propulsive orchestral Gershwin score; some of the NYC locations; two fun cameos from Michael O'Donoghue (terrific) and Wallace Shawn (young and thin!); a very young and compelling Meryl Streep as Allen's spiteful ex-wife; and a very very young and very sympathetic Mariel Hemingway as Allen's... 17yo girlfriend. Yeah. Also, when Allen's character is reassured that his young son will be fine raised by two mothers, he replies with concern that "very few people survive one mother." That was clever.

Plot is simple: 42yo year old Isaac dates (and sleeps with) much younger Tracy, meets and dislikes the older and more cultured/cerebral Mary (Diane Keaton) but begins having an affair w/ her anyway, strings along and eventually dumps Tracy, then regrets it. Both Allen's character and Keaton's are aggressively irritating and unsympathetic here. You may insert your own glib remark as necessary - it's been decades since I've seen ANNIE HALL, but however irritating or unsympathetic they may have been in that film, Alvy and Annie had nothing on Isaac and Mary. It's probably not Keaton's fault, either - I think Allen jury-rigs the screenplay to make the audience feel animosity and contempt for Keaton and for Streep's character as well. My biggest issue, however, is that the film ultimately hinges on the audience sympathizing with and rooting for Isaac... who is no more self-absorbed, petty, and neurotic than any other Allen character... but in this case, he grooms an underage girl, sleeps with her, leads her on while cheating on her, dumps her, then begs her to put her education on hold to reconcile with him.

Am I getting conservative with age? If I'd seen MANHATTAN when I was 18, I might have been more inclined to sympathize with Isaac. From my current perspective as a guy older than Isaac, I remember pursuing toxic women who were no good for me while mistreating or neglecting perfectly decent ladies - but I regret that behavior, and if I was going to make a movie about it today, I would portray my character as a huge jerk. I think that's one responsibility of age: to impose some ethical perspective onto your art. I remember liking 90s films from Allen like HUSBANDS & WIVES and DECONSTRUCTING HARRY, and the Allen characters in those films are no better than Isaac or possibly worse. The difference is, Allen actually sends Harry to literal Hell for his crimes. MANHATTAN suffers from a lack of such hindsight. It's as emotionally immature as it is technically sophisticated. 

3/5 but I feel dirty even giving it a 3

[RCMerchant]

^I don't like Woody Allen movies. Sniveling, spineless, self-involved dick in every movie .

[M.10rda]

^ Then you'd dislike MANHATTAN most of all!

[Trevor]

I accidentally saw my landlord's butt crack the other day: dunno if that counts 

[FatFreddysCat]

"History of the World Part I" (1981)
Mel Brooks' parody of old-fashioned historical epics is a series of sketches that take viewers from the Dawn of Man to Biblical times, ancient Rome, the Middle Ages and ending with the French Revolution. Brooks plays several characters throughout the movie, alongside frequent collaborators like Madeline Kahn, Sid Caesar, Dom DeLuise, and Cloris Leachman. It's not quite top-drawer Mel, but there are a decent amount of laughs and some truly inspired bits (like the musical number about the Spanish Inquisition).
A new, belated sequel series is currently streaming on Hulu, but I haven't checked it out yet. I wonder if it includes "Hitler on Ice" and/or "Jews In Space," which were promised by the fake "Part II" trailer  at the end of this movie? :D

[RCMerchant]

MANHATTAN (1979):

My biggest issue, however, is that the film ultimately hinges on the audience sympathizing with and rooting for Isaac... who is no more self-absorbed, petty, and neurotic than any other Allen character... but in this case, he grooms an underage girl, sleeps with her,

Sounds like Allen in real life. Scumbag.

[FatFreddysCat]

"Tribute: A Rockumentary" (2001)
An low-budget doc on the unique phenomenon of tribute bands, the musicians who play in them, and the fans who love them. Among the participants are a KISS tribute band searching for a new "Gene," a Queen tribute struggling to find a new "Freddie" after theirs jumps ship to do stage musicals in Europe, a Judas Priest tribute singer who's jealous of then-current Priest singer Ripper Owens, and a Monkees tribute that disintegrates in mid-film due to in-fighting between members. Entertaining stuff that resembles a real-life "Spinal Tap" more than once.

"My Stupid Tribute Band" (2023)
More tribute-band fun, this time focusing on the Texas-based AC/DC tribute Back In Black, who've been playing the Thunder From Down Under all over the U.S. and Canada for more than 20 years. Their singer even got a chance to audition for the real thing when Brian Johnson had to leave the Rock Or Bust tour due to his hearing issues in 2016. The band members seem like a nice bunch of guys, though writer/director Mike Mroz, who also portrays "Angus" in the group, narrates the entire film in a weird, halting monotone that sounds like he's reading everything off of cue cards, which gets annoying after a while. It seems odd that a guy who's been onstage playing music in front of people for most of his life would come off so stiff and un-natural on camera. Your mileage may vary depending on your interest in AC/DC.

[indianasmith]

HALLOWEEN ENDS (2022) - OK, you have to know that I hated, hated, hated HALLOWEEN KILLS.
I hated it so much that when this sequel came out last fall, I refused to see it in the theaters.  But tonight it popped up on my Amazon Prime for free, so I decided to give it a spin.
Overall, this was a vast improvement on the second film in the trilogy and a very satisfying way to bring the saga of Michael Myers to an end.
A REAL end this time. Michael is GONE.
Really, this movie was so much better than the first two in the series.
It was a really enjoyable!  4.5/5

[Rev. Powell]

MST3K: KITTEN WITH A WHIP: Ann-Margaret stars as a sexy jailbait delinquent who blackmails a political candidate, then takes him hostage on a trip to Tijuana. Meanwhile, Crow goes on an unsuccessful mission in Deep 13, Mike equips the bots with 1970s bionic sound effects, and they make pinatas of the Mads. Of the MST3K episodes I hadn't seen yet, I'm guessing this will be one of the best: great riffing and an easy-to-follow, not as bad as usual movie--only the host segments are bland. 3.5/5.

[FatFreddysCat]

"All Things Must Pass" (2015)
Tom Hanks' son Colin directed this absorbing documentary on the rise and fall of the iconic Tower Records music store chain, which started out selling used jukebox singles in a California drug store in the early 1960s and became a global phenomenon. Unfortunately, a mixture of expansion into unfamiliar markets and the dawn of the digital music era proved to be a fatal combination for the chain, which went out of business in 2006. I was lucky enough to have a Tower Records store in my home town (Paramus, NJ) and I practically lived there for many years, so this doc is a pleasant trip down memory lane for me.
DAMN, I miss Tower Records.

[Trevor]

Our Rev's movie on Discord last night: not bad at all. 

[lester1/2jr]

I watch a couple of the Hammer House of Horror tv british tv thingies. the first one was good but Hammer's style is not really made for tv. They tried to compensate for the lack of gore and sex with plot and the results weren't too thrilling

[Trevor]

I watch a couple of the Hammer House of Horror tv british tv thingies. the first one was good but Hammer's style is really made for tv. They tried to compensate for the lack of gore and sex with plot and the results weren't too thrilling

That series was my first introduction to Hammer Films. One or two of those episodes were scary but for the most part, not really. 😊🐢

[Rev. Powell]

ZAPPER! (2023): Godlike beings direct "zappers" in a game to recover pieces of a puzzle in order to access a mystical skateboard. Explicitly and unapologetically indebted to LSD, this "trip" has amateur acting and bananas substituting for guns---but every frame has been painstakingly digitally colorized, animated or otherwise altered, and the visual effects make it watchable despite the microbudget. 2.5/5.