Go Back   Freethought Forum > The Marketplace > Arts & Literature

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #926  
Old 12-19-2024, 10:50 PM
specious_reasons's Avatar
specious_reasons specious_reasons is offline
here to bore you with pictures
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: VDCCLXXI
Images: 8
Default Re: Seen any crappy movies?

It's been a while, and it's been a slow time for movies, especially bad ones. I did watch "The Batman" and "Furiosa" which I enjoyed, along with a rewatch of "Coco."

The Amityville Dollhouse (1996)

A newly formed family is moving in together, and that's not always easy. It doesn't help when your new home is being possessed by a cursed dollhouse.

I enjoyed this. It's rather silly in parts and not too scary, but it has some themes it would like to explore and does an OK job at it.

Tragic Ceremony (1972)

A group of young people run out of gas after a day of sailing, and stop by a secluded mansion for help. Unfortunately, this a bad night to stop there, as the titular ceremony is happening.

Campy and unpredictable, but not great. I have a feeling that the entire movie was built around the the ceremony and a scene where a lady walks down a windy staircase in a sheer nightgown.

Azrael (2024)

Samara Weaving running around the woods fighting an evil cult and... vampires or something? Oh, and none of them can speak.

Wishmaster 4: The Prophecy Fulfilled (2002)

This installment of Wishmaster finds him on the cusp of fulfilling three wishes for a dull main character, but he needs to get her to fall in love with him, a traditionally hard thing for a genie to do.

An inessential sequel to an OK horror franchise.

Black Cab (2024)

Nick Frost is a cab driver who kidnaps a couple. He has his reasons!

It's unclear if it's ghosts or just the visions of a psychotic cabbie. I didn't really worry too much about it, and I'm not interested enough to go back and watch more carefully.

Oddity (2024)

A husband and wife are fixing up a rural home. While she's spending the night there she gets a knock on her door. It's an unpleasant looking man who says he saw a man enter the house. He offers to help, and we cut away as she's reaching for the doorknob. The next scene is a year later, we learn the wife was murdered, the husband is getting remarried, and we meet the decedent's sister. The sister is a psychic and she runs a curiosity shop. She invites herself over to the house and sets up some cursed items to help her get revenge.

This was a good creepy horror story.

Tokyo Gore Police (2008)

Ruka is the top monster hunter of the privatized Tokyo Police force, and she's looking for the Key Man, a criminal rebel turning ordinary people in monsters by infecting them with a key shaped tumor.

Wild and, as the title implies, gory. Lots of social satire in this, some of which I didn't get, but it's a clear indictment of a fascist police state, even while reveling in the violence. It's a bit too long, and I was checked out by the big boss fight at the end.

Blink Twice (2024)

Two cocktail waitresses Frida (Naomi Ackie) and Jess (Alia Shawcat) get invited, along with a group of friends and hangers-on, to spend some time on tech billionaire Slater King's private island. All their whims are catered to, but Frida starts losing time and eventually Jess, and starts to think something is wrong on Billionaire Crime Island.

I liked this, it's glossy and fun until it turns dark and violent. It has as much social satire but less gore than Tokyo Gore Police.
__________________
ta-
DAVE!!!
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
BrotherMan (12-20-2024), Ensign Steve (01-21-2025), slimshady2357 (12-20-2024), Sock Puppet (12-20-2024)
  #927  
Old 01-01-2025, 09:34 PM
specious_reasons's Avatar
specious_reasons specious_reasons is offline
here to bore you with pictures
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: VDCCLXXI
Images: 8
Default Re: Seen any crappy movies?

I have movies that have been on my list for years, and I haven't gotten around to them, but then I watch The Hunt (2020).

A group of "liberal" elites kidnap a group of "deplorables" and hunt them for sport. Unfortunately, these elites are no match for Crystal (Betty Gilpin), the last MAGA standing.

This is a dumb as rocks action comedy that is intended as a satire critiquing how online culture has polarized and dehumanized our political opposites. It's better than it should be because of the talent on screen. The main characters are played by Betty Gilpin and Hillary Swank, with just big enough parts from people like Glenn Howerton ("It's Always Sunny...") to keep it funny.
__________________
ta-
DAVE!!!

Last edited by specious_reasons; 01-02-2025 at 04:49 PM.
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
BrotherMan (01-02-2025), Ensign Steve (01-21-2025)
  #928  
Old 01-02-2025, 05:21 PM
specious_reasons's Avatar
specious_reasons specious_reasons is offline
here to bore you with pictures
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: VDCCLXXI
Images: 8
Default Re: Seen any crappy movies?

Alien: Romulus (2024)

A group of young people stuck as laborers on a Weyland-Yutani Corporation "colony" decide to rob a derelict space station to get the resources they need to travel to a free planet. Unfortunately, the station is derelict because it was a science station experimenting on Xenomorphs. When things go wrong, aliens are released and our heros are in danger.

This is a mostly positive mixed bag for me. Cailee Spaeny and David Jonsson play Rain and Andy, introduced as brother and sister, but we discover this is found family. Andy is a Synthetic, recovered and reprogrammed by her father. They're the heart of the movie and this really works.

Then there are some terrible choices, like digitally recreating a character from past movies
. There is definitely fan service here, but most of it was done in a way which enhanced the plot, except for a really, really gratuitous use of "Get away from her, you bitch."
__________________
ta-
DAVE!!!
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
BrotherMan (01-02-2025), Ensign Steve (01-21-2025), JoeP (01-03-2025), slimshady2357 (01-02-2025), Sock Puppet (01-02-2025)
  #929  
Old 01-04-2025, 03:23 AM
specious_reasons's Avatar
specious_reasons specious_reasons is offline
here to bore you with pictures
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: VDCCLXXI
Images: 8
Default Re: Seen any crappy movies?

Last Straw (2024)

Nancy's day went bad from the start. She discovers she's pregnant, her car (her dead mother's car) breaks down, all this on her first day as manager in her father's diner. Finally, when four teens start harassing the diner she loses patience and lashes out at the other employees. The cook makes one too many snide remarks, so she fires him, and she's stuck doing the overnight shift by herself. Now that she's alone, it looks like the teens have come back to harass her again, and this time the threat seems more serious.

There were a few interesting parts, I liked the tense setup where we see the attackers in the diner window, and I thought it was interesting when the film switched to new viewpoints to see the action from outside the diner.

Overall, though, I had trouble enjoying it when no one seems to be the person to root for.
__________________
ta-
DAVE!!!
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
BrotherMan (01-04-2025), Ensign Steve (01-21-2025)
  #930  
Old 01-16-2025, 03:23 PM
Gonzo's Avatar
Gonzo Gonzo is offline
It's however you interpret the question...
 
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: On A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream
Gender: Bender
Posts: VMMMCDLXI
Blog Entries: 1
Default Re: Seen any crappy movies?

Blonde Death (1984)

crappy but in a good way
__________________
Buy the ticket, take the ride.

:thanked:
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
BrotherMan (01-16-2025), Ensign Steve (01-21-2025), specious_reasons (01-16-2025)
  #931  
Old 02-01-2025, 08:09 PM
specious_reasons's Avatar
specious_reasons specious_reasons is offline
here to bore you with pictures
 
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: VDCCLXXI
Images: 8
Default Re: Seen any crappy movies?

Red Rooms (2023)

KellyAnne is introduced waking up in the streets of Montreal so she can be first in line to attend a trial. The man on trial is accused of setting up "Red Rooms" — the streaming video version of a snuff film. We learn KellyAnne is an avante garde model but makes real money playing online poker on the "dark web." She is obsessed with the trial, so she starts using her familiarity with the seedier parts of the internet to stalk the family and learn more about killings. We will see just how far she'll go to be involved in the trial.

This movie is tough for me to evaluate. It's light on actual violence (we hear, but only see non-violent parts of the "red room" videos), but it's highly disturbing all the same. The movie intends KellyAnne to be unreadable, her poker face is consistent with just a few revelations. We never learn exactly why she's so obsessed with this trial. She literally does not respond when asked directly. She makes a horrifying spectacle at the trial which seems plausible but also seemed to me to be out of character, or maybe not. There does not seem to be a resolution for KellyAnne's character.

I think it's a well made movie, with good acting and visual storytelling, but I wonder what it's trying to say, or if it's daring us to make our own interpretation. So I liked this movie, but didn't enjoy it?

ETA:

This is probably the most realistic "computer hacking" on screen since "Mr. Robot." She literally checks "Have I been Pwned?" with a guessed email and gets a hit, then buys access to a pwned email database, sure enough, the mother's password is "C@mille!2007" - the name and birth year of the victim. With a password like that, would it be surprising to know she doesn't have MFA turned one?
__________________
ta-
DAVE!!!

Last edited by specious_reasons; 02-01-2025 at 08:21 PM.
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Ensign Steve (02-03-2025), viscousmemories (02-02-2025)
  #932  
Old 02-02-2025, 01:56 PM
viscousmemories's Avatar
viscousmemories viscousmemories is offline
Admin
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Ypsilanti, Mi
Gender: Male
Posts: XXXCMXXVIII
Blog Entries: 1
Images: 9
Default Re: Seen any crappy movies?

Quote:
Originally Posted by specious_reasons
I think it's a well made movie, with good acting and visual storytelling, but I wonder what it's trying to say, or if it's daring us to make our own interpretation.
Yeah, for a low-budget thriller I was impressed that the main characters' motivations were left ambiguous in the end. I found myself thinking about it a lot in the days after I watched it, wondering if she was a "good guy" or "bad guy", or if it even mattered in light of the positive outcomes of her actions.
Reply With Quote
Thanks, from:
Ensign Steve (02-03-2025)
Reply

  Freethought Forum > The Marketplace > Arts & Literature


Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)
 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

 

All times are GMT +1. The time now is 09:49 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.2
Copyright ©2000 - 2025, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Page generated in 0.21869 seconds with 16 queries