What Movie Did You Just Watch

[Dr. Insomniac]

Late on the Furiosa train, but yeah, good movie. Fun to see Chris Hemsworth channel his inner Vernon Wells here.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I'll go on record saying that I don't think that any of the Sonic movies are good. Even giving them leeway for being children's films, they aren't particularly noteworthy like Paddington or The Adventures of Tintin. I'm also in the minority on finding Jim Carrey's performance to be more cringey than funny in these movies.

That said, while I flat-out dislike the first movie, I consider 2 and 3 to be guilty pleasures. Nostalgia for these characters has a lot to do with it, and I won't deny that hearing Live and Learn play in the theater momentarily brought my inner 12-year-old to the surface of my mind.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I haven't seen the Sonic movies outside of the puppet episode of the Knuckles spin-off show, but yeah, outside of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I've always hated Carrey. Found him annoying in In Living Color, Batman Forever, Ace Ventura, all of that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So...

Spoiler

Is it just me or did Marvel happen to have an Icredible Hulk sequel script lying around that they just mashed into a Captain America script so that they wouldn't have to pay Universal to make a Hulk movie? Because this kind of feels like it. Maybe that's why five different writers were listed for this movie.

Also, given how accurate The Leader's predictions are supposed to be, you'd think he would have predicted that Ross would screw him over.

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[Dr. Insomniac]

Spoiler

Probably won't watch the movie until it hits streaming or cable, but I read the leaks, and yeah. It does reek of "Unused Hulk script with the names changed". And sure, Sam doesn't have any noteworthy villains (I googled it, and the one result was White Wolf, but since that's Bucky in the movies, that's obviously not happening), but there are some unused Captain America villains left. Doctor Faustus. Serpent Society. Red Skull's daughter Sin. They probably would've been better off going with the latter, reinvent her as the leader of a bunch of hardcore HYDRA fanatics and ride on how blunt the political allegory was in FatWS but have a villain with the exact opposite ideology as Flag Smasher.

[close]

At the very least, Harrison Ford seemed to enjoy making it based off interviews. At least compared to how pissed he was when promoting TFA.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Watched an early screening of Queen of the Ring with a live Q&A from cast and crew this past Tuesday. Really liked it. Granted, I love the book and am familiar with the story of Mildred Burke to some extent (mostly from afore-mentioned book) since I'm a wrestling fan and find wrestling history fascinating.

The movie was actually filmed on location here in Louisville, where I currently live, which is why we got an early screening. It does Hollywood-ize some things to make it more black and white in terms of the story and people that the characters are based off of (ironic since it's an indie film), but it works on its own as a good and entertaining story, much like The Iron Claw.

Overall, I do recommend it when it gets a wider release or at least when it's out on streaming.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Watched the recent documentary about Casa Bonita, which was basically "What if Trey Parker made The Bear?" My favorite parts were when they cut to South Park Studios, and Anne Garefino's like "Guys, you're burning money. Just come back and make the new season already." while Trey's trying to direct puppeteers for the Casa Bonita puppet show.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Haven't seen Sinners yet, but Coogler wrote a letter thanking everybody who watched.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I meant to comment about it but have been busy lately. Really good vampire film, though. Definitely recommend it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Saw Thunderbolts, and it was decent. Putting aside that it wasn't actually an adaptation of Thunderbolts from the comics (not a spoiler if you've seen any marketing for this film), it's a fairly well-told story of a B-team of broken and dysfunctional people coming together.

On the one hand since none of these characters aside from "maybe" Bucky are what you would consider "hype" Marvel characters, it speaks more to the movie's strengths that it can he entertaining and engaging enough without having to rely on so many fan-favorites. In this case just like with Black Widow, Yelena and Red Guardian are the stand-outs here, IMO. On the other hand, this does have the benefit of following a much more sub-par Captain America movie to kind of bolster it's appeal. It's sort of liking eating a really good desert after a really bland meal. The contrast between the two may make the latter seem even better than it might if you just assessed it by itself. It also helps this perception that a majority of the post-Endgame Marvel content has been variations of mediocre to bad, with a few stand-outs.

That said, I don't want to take too much away from this movie. I still enjoyed myself quite a bit. It's not as good as something like Guardians 3, but I'd probably put it on par with Shang-Chi or even a little higher than that. Solidly entertaining and with an actual sense of pathos for it's characters and themes.

I will leave off on one other positive in that, despite being a different interpretation than from the comics, I did come away pretty pleased with the MCU's version of Sentry/The Void. The writers seemed to get the point of the character while expressing it in their own way.

[Dr. Insomniac]

So yeah, Sinners was pretty good. Glad Coogler's doing well with his blank check movie.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Really weird how there have been 3 Stitch spin-offs or reboots that heavily undermine the themes of the first movie and the show. They just really love Stitch, but they don't like families.

And why is Hannah Waddingham everywhere now? Didn't realize playing the shame nun on Game of Thrones would boost her career this much.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Saw Predator: Badlands. I thought it was OK. It had some really cool moments but I had overall issues with the story-telling. I felt much the same way about Prey and Killer of Killers. I find Tracthenberg's Predator films to be a tad overrated. I like them fine but I feel like they get over-praised since everything between them and the first movie were of fairly low quality (especially the Shane Black one).

That said, I will praise the soundtrack. It's legitimately the best original score that I've heard for a major Hollywood blockbuster since Dune.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Watched Project Hail Mary on Thursday. I love the book and I knew that the movie wouldn't be able to capture the brilliance of how well it ties science so seamlessly into the story while simplifying it in a way that makes it easy enough for anyone to follow. However, Lord and Miller clearly understand the particular strengths of film as a medium, and instead wisely doubled down on the heart and emotional weight of the story. As an adaptation it succeeds in that way. It's easily my favorite film of the year so far and probably one of the best Science Fiction movies I've seen in years (I'd put it about on par with Dune 2 myself). I definitely want to go back and watch it again.

After seeing this and considering the success of many of Lord and Miller's previous projects, it does make me all the more curious how their version of the Solo film would have turned out if they were allowed to make it.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Been late on a lot of movies but thanks to streaming, libraries, and ulterior ways to watch, I caught up on at least a few. Thunderbolts was okay, last Mission Impossible movie sure existed and did little else, Fast X is a movie where Vin Diesel uses helicopters as nunchucks, Hamnet was pretty good though it bored the shit out of people next to me to sleep, One Battle After Another was really fun, Chainsaw Man Reze Arc was fucking cool, Mickey 17 was a movie I expected more from, The Running Man has me deeply concerned whether or not Edgar Wright's creatively drained, Naked Gun was okay, Ballerina was okay, I'm Still Here was gripping, as well as There's Still Tomorrow and Sing Sing. Godzilla Minus One really hooked me, but I'm sorry to say that First Slam Dunk didn't. The Menu was my favorite out of all those "eat the rich" movies that came out a couple years ago like Glass Onion and Triangle of Sadness. I should really watch that Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie the Thing already. As well as Project Hail Mary. Hoping Nolan's Odyssey is much better than the trailers have it out to be, because that fight I saw looked like something out of Power Rangers.