What Movie Did You Just Watch

[Dr. Insomniac]

In some ways though, I do see Breaking Bad still being the show of the era, give or take Game of Thrones as well.

Oh, definitely. I remember Vince Gilligan credited the shift in binge watching as the reason the show didn't get cancelled early on. Even though previous shows demanded marathon viewing over weekly watches, Breaking Bad aired around the time you could actually do that with Netflix instead of waiting for DVDs to pop out or manually collect old episodes on your DVR. It presented a fresher way of watching shows that most networks and even plenty of streaming services are still having trouble adapting to.

You could also argue Breaking Bad is just improving on what Sopranos did. Almost all the show's events revolve around Tony or people Tony's close to (which makes Chris his Jesse?). It's just that Walt has a really dynamic character arc that pushes him to extreme ends, while even though Tony's a very complex person, he doesn't change all that much between the first and last episode. Layers unpeel, but then they're put back on.

[Dr. Insomniac]

Dark Fate was the least painful of the post-T2 sequels. Like all of the Terminator sequels, it had the inevitable problem of unraveling T2's ending and going "Judgment Day wasn't stopped, but only delayed" and "Miles Dyson wasn't that special. The military was just going to find another computer genius to build a killer AI." If there weren't any Terminator movies between Dark Fate and T2, this would have sucked, but after Genisys, my expectations were so low that it's easier to swallow. And for what it's worth, at least this has Linda Hamilton over drug addict John Connor, Christian Bale sleeping through his lines John Connor, and Daenerys.

Spoiler

As for John getting killed in the first five minutes of the movie, yeah. I can understand why that's the sticking point for critics. Kind of like Alien 3 making everything Ripley did in Aliens all for naught. It's like the opposite problem T3 had when they killed Sarah off-screen, and we were just stuck with John and Claire Danes as the POV characters. I can forgive it more here because T3 needed Linda Hamilton more than Dark Fate needed Edward Furlong or whoever they could have gotten to play an older John. But the POV characters in Dark Fate were only marginally more likable though. Grace was fine, but Dani was just there and doesn't have any screen presence even though she's meant to be the new John.

[close]

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I don't have particularly good expectations for this movie, but I may check it out this weekend.

As for myself, I saw The Lighthouse this past weekend and an early screening of Doctor Sleep last night. I'll be seeing JoJo Rabbit in a couple of hours, so I'll update with my thoughts on all three films a bit later.

I really wanted to see Parasite, but the nearest theater to me that's playing it is roughly 3 hours away, and I just don't feel like putting up with a 6-hour roundtrip for one movie, as much as I want to see it. I will just have to wait for the video release on this one.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I don't have particularly good expectations for this movie, but I may check it out this weekend.

I think the later Terminator movies are a little more enjoyable if viewed as schlocky B-movies that inexplicably have $150 million budgets. They're still not good, but they're easier to swallow when comparing them less to the first two films and more to how slasher franchises will often have one or two genuinely good films but the rest are crap people only watch because Robert Englund or Kane Hodder. Or something similar to Jackie Chan's recent films, where not only has age restricted him from doing his famous stunts, he's far too willing to show up in awful movies instead of something a little classier, but he's still fun to watch regardless of quality. Just like how it's still pretty fun to watch Arnold fight CGI robots even if the reasoning for why grows stale.

[Avaitor]

I really want to see The Lighthouse and Parasite, and they're both in Orlando, but I just moved back in with my mom, and we rarely get those kinds of movies here. I may be going back in a few days to see King Diamond, so if I do, I'm hoping to  find time to catch one.

I've been really behind on movies lately, especially after MoviePass went down for good. That said, I was thinking of going to see either Zomebieland 2 or Joker this weekend, since we have a theater with $6 matinees near my neighborhood. I was hoping for It 2, but looks like I missed that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I think the later Terminator movies are a little more enjoyable if viewed as schlocky B-movies that inexplicably have $150 million budgets. They're still not good, but they're easier to swallow when comparing them less to the first two films and more to how slasher franchises will often have one or two genuinely good films but the rest are crap people only watch because Robert Englund or Kane Hodder. Or something similar to Jackie Chan's recent films, where not only has age restricted him from doing his famous stunts, he's far too willing to show up in awful movies instead of something a little classier, but he's still fun to watch regardless of quality. Just like how it's still pretty fun to watch Arnold fight CGI robots even if the reasoning for why grows stale.

To be honest, I haven't watched T3 or Salvation since they were in theaters, and I didn't even see the last one with Emilia Clarke, but the newest one seems to ignore those ones anyways. That said, I kind of remember enjoying T3 back when I was an easily wowed little kid and thought almost anything with action in it is cool. Not sure how I'd feel about it now, though, but it may he a guilty pleasure like some of the Halloween sequels are to me.

As for the movies that I saw this week:

The Lighthouse- While certainly not for everyone, much like Eggers previous film, The Witch, this really struck a cord with me. It's bat-shit insane with a mix of psychological horror and dark comedy. The cinematography is especially impressive given the old-school silent film-era aspect ratio of this movie. It makes everything feel that much more claustrophobic and isolated. Be warned, this movie gets fucking weird, and I can admit there's a shit ton of stuff I didn't even begin to understand or interpret toward the end. It's a movie that I'd need to watch multiple times to even make sense of, but unfortunately the only theater in my area that played it gave it a very limited release window, so it was only there the one weekend. While I wouldn't call it my favorite movie of the year (that's still Once Upon A Time In Hollywood for me), it's easily up there among the best just as an overall experience.

I'll update with my thoughts on Doctor Sleep and Jojo Rabbit tomorrow.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I really want to see The Lighthouse and Parasite, and they're both in Orlando, but I just moved back in with my mom, and we rarely get those kinds of movies here. I may be going back in a few days to see King Diamond, so if I do, I'm hoping to  find time to catch one.

Yeah, I know the feeling of being unable to see interesting films because they don't release anywhere near you. There are a bunch of films like that which I've had to miss in the past, and even for something like The Lighthouse I had to drive a full hour out of my way to see it.

[Avaitor]

Well, I'm going to try to catch The Lighthouse before my concert tomorrow. Sounds pretty doable to pull that off.

I saw Zomebieland: Double Tap today, btw. It's honestly kinda dumb and has some serious story beat issues, but I had a lot of fun. The cast is as strong as they were back in the original, and the new characters mostly blend well with the cast. And credit where credit is due, even when it feels like the movie drags as it rests, the camera and editing keep things engaging throughout. I don't think we need a third one, but it's not like we really needed this one either, and it turned out pretty well despite that.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I lucked out this weekend. I managed to find a theater within an hour of me playing Parasite! I'll be seeing that tomorrow night. And the Xscape the next town over will be playing The Irishman, which I'll be seeing on Saturday afternoon (I was originally going to watch Ford V. Ferrari that day).

Plus I'll be seeing Knives Out next weekend, and I'll probably push back FVF to that weekend as well.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So I actually did end up catching FVF just because I found a show time at night that worked out. And also, since I never updated on my thoughts on all the movies I saw a couple of weeks ago, here's my really brief thoughts on each:

Doctor Sleep- Mind of disappointing since I at least somewhat enjoyed the novel and expected more from Mike Flanagan as a director. It's not a bad movie by any stretch, but it's pretty underwhelming on the whole, at least IMO.

Jojo Rabbit- Pretty great. I don't think it's quite as good as Life us Beautuful or Inglorious Basterds as far as Nazi satire films go, but it's still pretty top notch and proves that Taika knows how to combine humor with genuinely heartfelt drama. This really has me looking forward to what he does with Thor: Love and Thunder. This would definitely make my top 10 movies of the year.

Parasite- Fucking masterclass. I was already expecting greatness from Bong Joon-Ho, but he really outdid himself here and still exceeded my already high expectations. This is easily my favorite movie of the year, by far, and I have a hard time seeing anything topping it.

The Irishman- Again, another easy top 10 of the year. It's the exact kind of movie that I expected from Scorcese, while still differentiating itself enough from Goodfellas to feel like it's own narrative. I don't think that it's nearly his best film, but it's easily my favorite film of his from this decade, which is still saying a lot.

Ford V Ferrari- Mangold is always a solid director, so the movie works more in good execution and good performances from it's leads than anything else. The script itself is the most standard, run-of-the-mill, Oscar-bait kind of biographical drama that you can imagine, which means that at best, it's a decent flick, but nothing that I'd ever really care to revisit beyond just one viewing. This is actually very similar to how I felt about Walk the Line, cementing Mangold as being at his best when he's directing a Western over a biography (being that 3:10 to Yuma and Logan are easily his best movies).

Overall, though, it was a good round of movies these past two weeks, with only one out of five that I didn't particularly like.

[Avaitor]

Oh nice, you seem to be catching a lot of movies. I've sadly been pretty behind, although I did get to do one recently- Kevin Smith brought his Jay and Silent Bob Reboot roadshow here, so I had to go and finally knock seeing him off of my bucket list.

I haven't been as big of a fan of Smith's movies in recent years, but his stuff was important to me back as a teenager. I don't think this movie is very good at all- when it isn't being barraged with lowbrow dick and weed jokes, along with occasional bits of racism, it considers in references to past View Askew works and Smith's personal life as jokes, even without the slightest hint of a punchline. Its attempt at "feels" also comes off as hollow, at some points insulting with the way Harley Quinn's character talks about how lonely it is to be fatherless.

That said, I had a lot of fun. Being in a big theater full of audience members laughing along to every gag and applauding every cameo, from expected crowdpleasers like Matt Damon, Brian O'Halloran, and Jen Smith, to more surprising appearances like Frankie Shaw (am I that out of the Askew loop, or did we just have a lot of SMILF fans at this showing?). The best scene is ironically enough the one Smith made at the last minute, the Chasing Amy reunion, which feels like the most authentically cathartic part of the film. I also will give Jason Mewes and Harley credit that they had generally strong performances, and make most of their material work. Even Smith does well with his few important scenes.

I mainly went to see him and Mewes do their Q&A/storytime, which is worth the price of admission alone. The movie was more of an extra to me, and I probably won't ever get to it again. I'll most likely be there opening day for Clerks 3 and Mallrats 2, though.

[Foggle]

Yeah, I'm behind too. I saw The Lighthouse last week and it was amazing, but that's all in the past month. I really gotta force myself to go see Parasite before it leaves theaters since I know it's gonna be incredible, but I hate going to movies alone and I'm so tired all the time from work and studying that I just want to sleep whenever I'm not busy.

If anyone is interested, I compiled a list of my favorite films of the decade on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/foggle/list/top-69-films-of-the-2010s/ It will almost certainly change a bunch over time (if I remember to update it), as there's still a lot of good stuff I haven't gotten around to yet. Also, don't pay too much attention to the numbered rankings, Emmy challenged me to make it a ranked list so she could hear me suffer so it's kind of haphazard. At least the top 10, probably the top 25, should be sorted pretty accurately though.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Awesome list! Definitely some on there that I still need to get around to myself. Killer Joe's inclusion reminds me that I haven't seen any of William Friedkin's modern films. Aside from his two biggest classics (The French Connection and The Exorcist), I finally got around to his much less popular 70's film, Sorcerer, which is incredibly underrated now that I've seen it. As I understand it, the movie had the severe misfortune of being released around the same time as Star Wars, and got completely buried by it at the box office.

Interesting to see Guardians 2 instead of the first movie, as most people tend to have the opposite preference. However, the sequel has grown on me a lot each time I watch it. As far as Marvel movies go, I'm curious to know if Logan would rank anywhere were you to extend the list to 100 or so.

I've been wanting to watch Why Don't You Play In Hell? for years now. Also been wanting to watch One Cut of the Dead. I really need to watch a lot more Asian cinema in general.

[Foggle]

Thank you! William Friedkin is great, another film I really like of his is Bug, which coincidentally is also from the same writer as Killer Joe. I still need to see Sorcerer, myself.

I love Guardians 2. The original is also fantastic but the sequel just really does something for me in a way few films do. I can totally understand why most people tend to prefer the first one but I think the second is my favorite MCU movie overall. I did actually have both Logan and Captain America on there originally, but I decided to diversify my list a little by only including single films from franchises (otherwise the first two John Wicks would also be on there, for instance), with Deadpool 2 being there for X-Men and Guardians 2 being there for the MCU. Once I see more movies from this decade I will probably expand it to a top 100 and include all of those.

Why Don't You Play In Hell? is great! A little slow but a lot of fun if you enjoy movies about making movies and oddball comedies. It, along with several others on my list, is from Sion Sono, who is probably my favorite writer/director at present. I'm so mad that I missed seeing One Cut of the Dead while Emmy was visiting last time. They were playing it at the Drafthouse but all the seats for every showing were sold out before I even found out it was on. I also need to watch more Asian cinema, particularly stuff from outside of Japan. South Korea probably has one of the best film industries in the whole world right now, and has for years.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I believe One Cut if the Dead is available to stream exclusively on Shudder. You could sign up for a 7-Day free trial to watch it and then cancel your subscription right away, but I don't know if it's already on the service or not, yet.

Keeping movies limited between franchises is a better way to add variety for sure, but I'd probably cheat by tying the first two Captain America movies and also including Infinity War on there. Don't think any other MCU movies would crack my top 50, though, despite being a fan. Maybe Thor: Ragnarok but I feel like it'd be ruled out in favor of Hunt for the Wilderpeople which is still my personal favorite film from Taika (though I still have yet to see Boy).

Also Grand Budapest is superb, though I would also probably include Isle of Dogs (my favorite movie of last year) were I to make my own list. That said, apparently I'm in the minority on loving that film.

By the way, I had actually added Hail, Caesar! to my watch list on HBO just this past weekend. I was already planning on getting to it this weekend.

Oh, and great to see The Nice Guys get some love on there!