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#1
Good Movies / Re: Recent theatrical viewings
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 01:28:17 PMMy biggest complaint was the kids are supposed to be in their 20s but a) have the romantic proclivities of teenagers (you hit on that too) and b) work retail, yet all own their own houses. And as you said, there are way too many employees there.
The director is only 26.I think the script was not a winner in terms of believability, but as you said there are some good monologues and very funny moments. I thought of giving it 3/5, but I must admit everyone in the packed house enjoyed it, which influenced me into assuming I was being something of a jaded cinephile curmudgeon. I also thought the lead female was very good. Not perfect, by any stretch, but entertaining with promising young talent. The 8.1 rating on IMDb is ludicrously high, and so are letterboxd reviews (my 3.5 rating made me look like a hater).
The director is only 26.I think the script was not a winner in terms of believability, but as you said there are some good monologues and very funny moments. I thought of giving it 3/5, but I must admit everyone in the packed house enjoyed it, which influenced me into assuming I was being something of a jaded cinephile curmudgeon. I also thought the lead female was very good. Not perfect, by any stretch, but entertaining with promising young talent. The 8.1 rating on IMDb is ludicrously high, and so are letterboxd reviews (my 3.5 rating made me look like a hater).
#2
Good Movies / Re: Recent theatrical viewings
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 01:15:52 PMI was going to post a positive reply to a previously reviewed new release but (with apologies) I'm in a bad mood today, so instead:
OBSESSION (2026):
Surprised to read the Rev's positive thoughts. Here's the few positive things I can say about this one:
* Two well-written (if brief) disjunctive/non-realist monologues by the female lead
* An effective/briefly moving moment where she wakes up in the middle of the night and begs the male lead to kill her
* Generally speaking, the female lead is highly committed, and I felt very bad both for her character and for the actress;
* The cinematographer and lighting crew sometimes do a cool job of leaving the female lead wholly unexposed, so that her features are invisible even in MCU. They pull this trick a lot, though, thus overdoing it - and often the entirety of certain shots are underlit/underexposed/muddy. (Okay, not a net positive then.)
Beyond that -
I have to say, I thought OBSESSION was, more often than not, AFTER LAST SEASON levels of idiotic and THE ROOM levels of both idiotic and offensive.
Hey, that's just me - but the producers got my twelve bucks and have made over a hundred fifty times the budget - so I think I have the right to list my every major grievance w/ this trash and I think the filmmakers can take it on the chin.
* TRIGGER WARNING for the first shot of the second scene of the movie - Dead Cat. To be fair, I should have just stopped watching there, but let's unpack further at the film's expense: the cat is dead because the cat a.) opened a bathroom mirror cabinet, b.) opened a prescription bottle, and c.) ate a plural/fatal quantity of unspecified/unshown prescription pills. That's three things that I absolutely guarantee a cat cannot and will not do. ONE of those three, POSSIBLY - all three, absolutely not, and most specifically, cats won't eat their own chalky white prescription medication, let alone those of their owners - they hate that $#!t, even if you crush those up and mix them w/ other food, and don't even get me started on the likelihood of a cat chewing up and swallowing one or more capsules full of medicine... so, w/d moron wanted to kill a cat in the first scene and couldn't even fabricate a plausible method of cat-death.
* Later, by the way (for the sake of animal lovers) I'll mention that the cat's corpse returns and is enshrined en memoriam in the guy's kitchen, then evidently days or weeks later the presumably rigor mortised and deteriorating cat-corpse is cooked and served to the guy in sandwich form, and he is unaware of this until it is revealed to him. Deeply gross, yes, but also - as someone who has been around (sadly) too many dead animals - profoundly unlikely.
* The four main characters are young (college-age) adults who work in a small, rundown, privately owned music store (run by Andy Richter!
) and are all scheduled to work together at the same time in spite of no customers ever appearing onscreen. 
When the female lead announces she intends to render her two weeks notice, it's because she feels trapped and wants to pursue her writing career. Jeez, couldn't Mr. Richter have just decided to lay off one or more of these unnecessary employees?!
* Finally (at large) - notwithstanding the poor doomed female lead - no character in this film appears or behaves realistically (let alone sympathetically or compellingly), leading me to believe the auteur is 18-22 years old and has little life experience and perhaps no serious or meaningful human relationships. This manifests in myriad issues onscreen: the best friend characters witness the female lead physically harming herself and having shrieking Zulawski-style meltdowns in one scene, then when they next reappear they will casually ask the male lead if there's anything wrong with the female lead or if she's "okay?"
; the male best friend climactically is prompted by the male lead to make a magic wish, the best friend wishes for a billion dollars, a billion dollars then rains upon the two men - and then in the very next scene the best friend bangs on the male lead's door, yelling about how "the spell works" and telling the male lead that he just wished for a billion dollars and the wish came true - which of course we just watched the male lead witness; and that male lead - well, he's onscreen for nearly the entire 105 minute film and never once behaves towards the female lead in a fashion that one would expect someone would behave towards someone else they loved or thought they loved, and the entire film is him watching her unravel/self-destruct catastrophically, while he just whimpers that she's scaring him and offers her no comfort whatsoever. Now granted, criticism of self-involved toxic masculinity may be implicit in some part in the film's construction, but I spent the entire running time reflecting on how much more grueling OBSESSION would be if we were watching a truly empathetic character tormented over making one mistake which resulted in the eternal torture of his loved one, and not being able to comfort her (instead of appearing seemingly incapable of trying). The male lead is a truly $#!t actor, which isn't compelling and just made me hate his guts. Contrast this with Sam Neill's performance in POSSESSION and consider how poorly OBSESSION does its job.
Also, FWIW, the male lead's best friend looks/dresses/acts like a frat boy from the late 90s and I couldn't imagine why he'd spend any time at all w/ the male lead - so maybe the writer/director is actually a 40something incel w/ no friends?
The business with the Willow One Wish and its customer support is inherently ludicrous - and I think it was played for laughs, but again, there was potential there.
This is a deeply, deeply stupid movie, and a mean one. (The female lead urinating and defecating on herself onscreen - why?) Patrons were leaving my screening consistently throughout at regular intervals. Many also stayed. I stayed - I regret it, but at least I can $#!t-kick this crap w/ authority.
The one good thing I'll say about OBSESSION is apparently more than twice as many humans have been willing to buy tickets to watch (or walk out of) this terrible movie about a hateful man and his infernally emotionally-dead partner than were willing to do the same for MELANIA.
OBSESSION (2026):
Surprised to read the Rev's positive thoughts. Here's the few positive things I can say about this one:
* Two well-written (if brief) disjunctive/non-realist monologues by the female lead
* An effective/briefly moving moment where she wakes up in the middle of the night and begs the male lead to kill her
* Generally speaking, the female lead is highly committed, and I felt very bad both for her character and for the actress;
* The cinematographer and lighting crew sometimes do a cool job of leaving the female lead wholly unexposed, so that her features are invisible even in MCU. They pull this trick a lot, though, thus overdoing it - and often the entirety of certain shots are underlit/underexposed/muddy. (Okay, not a net positive then.)
Beyond that -
I have to say, I thought OBSESSION was, more often than not, AFTER LAST SEASON levels of idiotic and THE ROOM levels of both idiotic and offensive.
Hey, that's just me - but the producers got my twelve bucks and have made over a hundred fifty times the budget - so I think I have the right to list my every major grievance w/ this trash and I think the filmmakers can take it on the chin.* TRIGGER WARNING for the first shot of the second scene of the movie - Dead Cat. To be fair, I should have just stopped watching there, but let's unpack further at the film's expense: the cat is dead because the cat a.) opened a bathroom mirror cabinet, b.) opened a prescription bottle, and c.) ate a plural/fatal quantity of unspecified/unshown prescription pills. That's three things that I absolutely guarantee a cat cannot and will not do. ONE of those three, POSSIBLY - all three, absolutely not, and most specifically, cats won't eat their own chalky white prescription medication, let alone those of their owners - they hate that $#!t, even if you crush those up and mix them w/ other food, and don't even get me started on the likelihood of a cat chewing up and swallowing one or more capsules full of medicine... so, w/d moron wanted to kill a cat in the first scene and couldn't even fabricate a plausible method of cat-death.
* Later, by the way (for the sake of animal lovers) I'll mention that the cat's corpse returns and is enshrined en memoriam in the guy's kitchen, then evidently days or weeks later the presumably rigor mortised and deteriorating cat-corpse is cooked and served to the guy in sandwich form, and he is unaware of this until it is revealed to him. Deeply gross, yes, but also - as someone who has been around (sadly) too many dead animals - profoundly unlikely.
* The four main characters are young (college-age) adults who work in a small, rundown, privately owned music store (run by Andy Richter!
) and are all scheduled to work together at the same time in spite of no customers ever appearing onscreen. When the female lead announces she intends to render her two weeks notice, it's because she feels trapped and wants to pursue her writing career. Jeez, couldn't Mr. Richter have just decided to lay off one or more of these unnecessary employees?!* Finally (at large) - notwithstanding the poor doomed female lead - no character in this film appears or behaves realistically (let alone sympathetically or compellingly), leading me to believe the auteur is 18-22 years old and has little life experience and perhaps no serious or meaningful human relationships. This manifests in myriad issues onscreen: the best friend characters witness the female lead physically harming herself and having shrieking Zulawski-style meltdowns in one scene, then when they next reappear they will casually ask the male lead if there's anything wrong with the female lead or if she's "okay?"
; the male best friend climactically is prompted by the male lead to make a magic wish, the best friend wishes for a billion dollars, a billion dollars then rains upon the two men - and then in the very next scene the best friend bangs on the male lead's door, yelling about how "the spell works" and telling the male lead that he just wished for a billion dollars and the wish came true - which of course we just watched the male lead witness; and that male lead - well, he's onscreen for nearly the entire 105 minute film and never once behaves towards the female lead in a fashion that one would expect someone would behave towards someone else they loved or thought they loved, and the entire film is him watching her unravel/self-destruct catastrophically, while he just whimpers that she's scaring him and offers her no comfort whatsoever. Now granted, criticism of self-involved toxic masculinity may be implicit in some part in the film's construction, but I spent the entire running time reflecting on how much more grueling OBSESSION would be if we were watching a truly empathetic character tormented over making one mistake which resulted in the eternal torture of his loved one, and not being able to comfort her (instead of appearing seemingly incapable of trying). The male lead is a truly $#!t actor, which isn't compelling and just made me hate his guts. Contrast this with Sam Neill's performance in POSSESSION and consider how poorly OBSESSION does its job.Also, FWIW, the male lead's best friend looks/dresses/acts like a frat boy from the late 90s and I couldn't imagine why he'd spend any time at all w/ the male lead - so maybe the writer/director is actually a 40something incel w/ no friends?
The business with the Willow One Wish and its customer support is inherently ludicrous - and I think it was played for laughs, but again, there was potential there.
This is a deeply, deeply stupid movie, and a mean one. (The female lead urinating and defecating on herself onscreen - why?) Patrons were leaving my screening consistently throughout at regular intervals. Many also stayed. I stayed - I regret it, but at least I can $#!t-kick this crap w/ authority.
The one good thing I'll say about OBSESSION is apparently more than twice as many humans have been willing to buy tickets to watch (or walk out of) this terrible movie about a hateful man and his infernally emotionally-dead partner than were willing to do the same for MELANIA.
#4
Television / Re: THE BOYS has finished its ...
Last post by Alex - Today at 12:16:24 PMI have the first issue with the Space Spinner still attached, but not issue 2 where Dredd appeared.
#6
Entertainment / Re: What Video Game are You Pl...
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 10:23:26 AMOh same here.
Lately I've briefly sampled a bunch of "open world"-type action/adventure/shooter things... SAINTS ROW 2-4 and the newest SAINTS ROW reboot, the original RED DEAD REDEMPTION, and the original DEAD RISING. All of these can be fun for about 30 minutes and then I can drop them, walk away, and not come back for weeks/months/ever w/o feeling too bad. The drawback for all is that none of them allow you to save anywhere so once I start a mission, I'd better be able to finish it in 20-30 minutes or...
Pluses of RDR - it still looks amazing for a 16-year old game (maybe I'm playing a newer version w/ updated graphics, I dunno) and there's some fair Old West flavor, though it has a lot of the jank of the FTA series.
Pluses of DEAD RISING - you can kill a lotta' zombies and (if you have Wand/WeMod) you can pause the in-game clock, making the game fun and playable rather than impossible. The cut-scenes are hilarious, featuring a moronic hero who looks and sounds like a 'roided-out David Cross with hair-plugs and a bad-ass black DHS agent buddy who sounds like he's voiced by Keith David but isn't.
Pluses of the SAINTS ROW series - Easier and less frustrating than GTA games, lots of cool crafted action set-pieces, tons of ludicrous humor, and you can customize your player character. I always play as a curvaceous punk redhead with a British accent.
Lately I've briefly sampled a bunch of "open world"-type action/adventure/shooter things... SAINTS ROW 2-4 and the newest SAINTS ROW reboot, the original RED DEAD REDEMPTION, and the original DEAD RISING. All of these can be fun for about 30 minutes and then I can drop them, walk away, and not come back for weeks/months/ever w/o feeling too bad. The drawback for all is that none of them allow you to save anywhere
so once I start a mission, I'd better be able to finish it in 20-30 minutes or... Pluses of RDR - it still looks amazing for a 16-year old game (maybe I'm playing a newer version w/ updated graphics, I dunno) and there's some fair Old West flavor, though it has a lot of the jank of the FTA series.
Pluses of DEAD RISING - you can kill a lotta' zombies and (if you have Wand/WeMod) you can pause the in-game clock, making the game fun and playable rather than impossible. The cut-scenes are hilarious, featuring a moronic hero who looks and sounds like a 'roided-out David Cross with hair-plugs and a bad-ass black DHS agent buddy who sounds like he's voiced by Keith David but isn't.
Pluses of the SAINTS ROW series - Easier and less frustrating than GTA games, lots of cool crafted action set-pieces, tons of ludicrous humor, and you can customize your player character. I always play as a curvaceous punk redhead with a British accent.
#7
Games / Re: Answer the question with a...
Last post by bob - Today at 09:34:28 AMThe Swarm
Where did the beer go?
Where did the beer go?
#9
Good Movies / Re: Recent theatrical viewings
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 09:32:07 AMOBSESSION: A socially awkward young man will go to any lengths to get his crush to love him. A classic monkey's paw story heading to an obvious destination, but the young cast and some black comedy makes it fun to watch it play out. Packed theater again on a Monday night. Feels weird to me. Overheard teenagers leaving say "that was a lot," meaning, I think, they grasped the emotional implication of the final scene. 3.5/5.
#10
Television / Re: THE BOYS has finished its ...
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 09:12:28 AMI gather a lot of those are worth the paper they're printed on - but if you have the first appearance of Judge Dredd you might be able to retire early?