Last movie watched...

[PsychoGoatee]

Cool movie talk! I love Highlander and Memento and whatnot. On El Royale, I say everything needs more Jon Hamm. Very charismatic dude.

Beastie Boys Story is my latest watch, so good! Live on stage music doc, very very cool. I Am Thor and Story of Anvil are also good watches. And anything with Lemmy, such as Decline of Western Civilization 2.

[The Legendary Shark]

...anything with Lemmy, such as Decline of Western Civilization 2.

BBC 4's going right downhill.

[pictsy]

Bill & Ted Face the Music

I wasn't expecting much from this film and it met my expectations.  As a completely unnecessary follow up to a couple of goofy comedy films from about 30 years ago I can't say it's good.  I wasn't really thinking it would be good.  I watch the original films and I see some joy in Keanu Reeves performance and in this film he is just the same old sad Keanu we've just become accustomed to.  Why is he such a sad man?  Am I the only one that sees the constant sadness in his eyes?

In terms of following up what came before, it is a disaster.  Bogus Journey actually wrapped the story up and I was certainly happy with it.  I don't know why they went for the "these two are losers" angle as that's antithesis to Bill & Ted.  They act stupid and appear clueless, mostly have their hearts in the right place and prove their detractors wrong.  It's also funny that they are saviors of humanity.  So it's a bad sequel.  I was expecting it to be a bad sequel.  The continuity on Face the Music with the other films is terrible.

The production and thought in the narrative is very lacking.  Compare the extremely imaginative interpretation of hell that appears in Bogus Journey to Face the Musics bland representation.  It's a loose rehash of Excellent Adventure coupled with a goofy version of a time paradox.  OK, fine, but there wasn't really any kind of adventure.

I wanted to like the kids, but they didn't really shine in the film.  I think that comes from splitting the movie between them and Keanu and Winter.

The biggest crime is no Station.  Oh, they say Station, but Station isn't in this film.  Pfft.  (and no Good Robot Bill and Ted)

So.  Unsurprisingly I am not fond of the pointless sequel to a couple of films I enjoyed as a kid and still enjoy as an adult without irony or nostalgia.  Nevertheless, I did like some things.  The robot was kinda funny.  The counseling scenes were good.  There were some jokes I chuckled at and as a mediocre comedy film it's inoffensive and watchable.  I liked the idea of retconning the kids as being daughters and having them play a big part in the film, even if I found it to be a bit weak in execution.

This felt more like a reunion film than a sequel.  More of a fanservicey thing rather than a well thought out follow through.  A film that asks the question "remember Bill & Ted?  What if they were old now and had to live in our world?"  On those terms, it being crap is fine.  I have no malice towards this film, despite it's utter redundancy.

My final thought is I am really disappointed that they couldn't recapture the fun and joy of the Bill & Ted films.  There is a bouncy, youthful glee to those films.  I wasn't expecting it to be there, but if it was I would have appreciated the film a whole lot more than I do.

[Funt Solo]

6 Underground - a two hour and eight minute, exposition-heavy intro-scene to (presumably) some other movie. By the end of the Baby Driver knock-off opening scene, you'll have lost the desire to continue - possibly with life itself. Perhaps playing well to a demographic consisting of sado-psychopathic military cadets, it's taken Ryan Reynolds out of the cool box and into the smugassbord of the Bay pantheon.

Also, the cars use the same kakka-kakka-kakka sound effect that's apparently required of all Michael Bay movies whenever anything made of metal does something, but that nobody alive has ever heard because it was made up in a computer. And there's fucking parkour in it, as well.

Summary: expensive-looking tosh.

[shaolin_monkey]

Bill & Ted Face the Music
  I watch the original films and I see some joy in Keanu Reeves performance and in this film he is just the same old sad Keanu we've just become accustomed to.  Why is he such a sad man?  Am I the only one that sees the constant sadness in his eyes?

He has had a brutal life.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/keanu-reeves-tragic-story/

[pictsy]

Bill & Ted Face the Music
  I watch the original films and I see some joy in Keanu Reeves performance and in this film he is just the same old sad Keanu we've just become accustomed to.  Why is he such a sad man?  Am I the only one that sees the constant sadness in his eyes?

He has had a brutal life.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/keanu-reeves-tragic-story/

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sees the constant sadness in his eyes.

[Rately]

Will continue the Predator 2 love. Just a great movie, with so many great character actors, and some lovely, shlocky Horror / action moments.

That shoot-out at the start puts a lot of modern movies to shame.

Was this one of the first movies to hint at a franchise crossover?

Coincidentally, I watched Aliens the other evening, and it is still as fantastic as the first time I watched. Lovely ratcheting tension, the design of the Alien Queen, Lance Henriksen with one of the greatest moments of synthetic body horror in a movie when he "meets" the Alien Queen!

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Gave up on Ava after twenty minutes last night. I've never seen it, but I had seen it before - if you see what I mean.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Will continue the Predator 2 love.

Was this one of the first movies to hint at a franchise crossover?

I think it was. Or was the alien skull just an in-joke?

[Rately]

Will continue the Predator 2 love.

Was this one of the first movies to hint at a franchise crossover?

I think it was. Or was the alien skull just an in-joke?

Such a great moment.

[radiator]

I Love You, Philip Morris

Sorely underrated (and underseen) Jim Carrey/Ewan McGregor movie which came out around ten years ago (but I think had sat on a shelf for a couple of years before that).

Dark and twisted but also somehow weirdly heartwarming and laugh out loud funny. Also based on a bizarre true story, and zips by in a little over 90 minutes.

Definitely not suitable for family viewing tho...!

[pictsy]

Speaking of Jim Carrey

Sonic the Hedgehog

and he was the worst thing in it.  Usually I can tolerate him and he is in a film that might be in my top ten, but I didn't like him in this at all.  Didn't sell the character for me.

I'm glad they sorted out that crappy Sonic model.

It was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be.  Very mediocre with a bog-standard plot and jokes that will go out of date in a couple of years.... those that aren't already horrifyingly out of date.

I am disappointed they didn't make more game references, but I wasn't expecting them to acknowledge the games anyway.  I mean it's Sonic.  That franchise is all kinds of a mess.

I don't really have any complaints.  It's exactly what you should expect from a live action Sonic film.  Why the hell was this made in the first place?

[Funt Solo]

Whilst Back to the Future proved that you don't need a protagonist to arc if you have a solid resolution (and characters you care about), there's something missing from the mil-pron-tastic ghostly goings on of Spectral.

The plot is that there are ghosts that can kill your all-American grunts by wooshing through them, and they're invulnerable (being ghostly, and all). Solution: make a magic gun that can kill them.

The moral of the story: you can kill anything with good old American know-how! The protagonist is good at observing the problem and then figuring out how to kill it - but that's true at the start and the end. So, effectively, nothing happens.

Best thing about the movie: the ghosts go "wooooo!" as they murder people.

[pictsy]

Best thing about the movie: the ghosts go "wooooo!" as they murder people.

Sounds worth it

An American Werewolf in London

Finally watched it and I think it's a good movie.  Did I need to see it sooner in my life?  No.  I get why I've had it recommended to me so many times.  It is a good movie.  It just wasn't a revelation.  Out of the last four movies I've watched, it is easily the best.  I really liked the undead aspect and it was effective in its minimal use of horror.  That's one ticked off the list.  What should I watch for the first time next?  Close Encounters of the Third Kind?  The Great Escape? Casablanca?  Citizen Kane?  I don't know why I'm asking because it will most likely be A Nightmare on Elm Street.

[The Legendary Shark]

Casablanca.