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It's hard to believe some of these movies happened this month. I tell you. It has been a long month.
But Halloween was delightful, thanks. So I guess we're ready to move on.
To November.
Where nothing bad can ever happen.....
.
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| HOME Public Domain Movies |
This movie appears on all sorts of lists, like best movies of the 1920s or best silents or what have you. And it is great. The story of a betrayed scientist and husband (same guy but different betrayers) and what happens when, in his new life as a clown, he finds himself capable of falling in love again—and up once again against his nemesis.
Lon Cheney's performance is terrific—both as a clown and as a man. The circus crowds are horror shows. The cute young couple aren't annoying. And the baddies really truly suck.
The editing in interesting but unobtrusive and the film's structure is tight (only 70 minutes!).
Plus: this is the first appearance of the MGM lion!
(This is NOT the similarly titled film that inspired Batman's Joker, but Lon Cheney finding his mad laugh pre-makeup feels like it may well have inspired Joaquin Phoenix's Joker.
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| ELSEWHERE Delta |
Kind of the perfect movie to watch on an airplane. There was so much white noise from the plane battling wind and gravity that the lack of dialogue was a real plus.
I'm impressed that the dialoguenessiness of so many modern animated short films was successfully expanded to feature length. And it is. In fact, it does it better than a lot of shorts. (Now that it's practically a rule for shorts, it's getting used even where it shouldn't be.)
That said, I didn't love as much as its acclaim led me to expect. I do think it's a fine expansion from the book and I like the setting (1980s New York). I do think it made a couple strategic errors (although I liked the Snowman sequence so much, I'll forgive it).
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| HOME Kanopy |
Great looking movie about West Africans crossing the Sahara and Mediterranean in hopes of reaching Europe. If more people in Senegal had an Atlantic subscription, they might not make this mistake. It is a brutal journey.
I don't really get the ending. Yes, our lead (who is great, by the way, and only 19 [playing a 16yrold]) gets to yell the title, but . . . did they make it? It feels like maybe they're about to be turned away. And we'll never know, because the film ends.
In the end, I think the moral of the story is listen to your mother. Mom knows best.
It's a good movie and a timely subject but I kinda doubt it has what it takes to be remembered ten years from now. But one can't really predict these things now can one?
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| HOME library dvd |
From the current dvd, you might think they've given up on the title Edge of Tomorrow. But they're still hedging their bets on the 4K disc. At least they're not pushing the in-some-foreign-countries All You Need Is Kill Which is dumb. Anyway, I have my favorite.
This is my third time watching it (1,2) and when I go back and read what I said, it seems like every time, in the immediate aftermath, I think it's good but not as good as expected. And yet, in my memory, I always remember it being a brilliant film, a perfect piece of entertainment.
So when I say this time I wasn't as impressed, that does not mean that's what I'll say ten months from now.
Anyway, it's a showcase for Tom Cruise the actor. His face and voice and movement all evolve from slimy milquetoast as the film begins to hero. And the final scene is an utter cheat but it works because of his true smile.
And the film's construction is excellent. When you give your hero immorality it ain't an easy thing to keep raising the stakes. And yet the film does so, over and over, by altering and growing the goals, and, finally, by removing his immortality.
Anyway, a few years from now I will watch it again and be slightly disappointed because I remember loving it inordinately. But that's okay. Because months will pass and I will love it inordinately all over again.
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| THEATER Cinemark Century Hilltop 16 |
To suggestions when watching this movie:
1) Be in the right mood.
2) Don't care that much about Beetlejuice.
My wife enjoyed herself fine but has many, many complaints about this movie as a sequel to one of her alltime favorites.
Me, now that it's been a couple hours, sure I can see all the flaws (flaws endemic to most sequels), but I still don't care. The actors were great, it was fun to look at, and I had a great time. Who cares about logical flaws or bloat? I had fun!
Which is great, because I am not someone who can usually enjoy a flawed sequel. But, then, I usually only watch sequels to movies I'm deeply attached to. So, as I said, not caring too much was part of my secret.
(Fun fact, unless I saw her terrible Alice in Wonderland in theaters [and I may have], this is the first Time Burton-directed movie I've seen in theaters. Which is wild.)
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| ELSEWHERE library dvd |
Really cool to look at. And, a bit after I expected it, suddenly quite moving.
I love how it deconstructed the common understanding of the story.
In the end, like most Guillermo del Toro's movies, much cooler than effective. But admirable all the same. Even with its flaws (and they exist; I mean, this is a movie with TWO [two!] plans whispered into ears to hide them from the audience).
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| ELSEWHERE library dvd |
A thing about movies like this:
(and what kind of movie is this? let's just say I expect a record-setting number of people left saying, "We'll THAT's a hundred minutes of my life I'm never getting back!)
You have to know when to quit. I thought this movie was ending NUMEROUS times before it finally did. Any of those endings would have been better soley because it was earlier. I know movies under an hour are hard to market but half as long would have been plenty.
Nothing happens. I was bored.
THAT SAID, it's an interesting movie. You know found footage films like Blair Witch and Paranormal Activity?, Well, they're like novels in the 1700s which were just fake diaries and fake letters because there needed to be a REASON for this text to exist. But the novel evolved and now we accept third-person narration and other basic facts of the novel. Skinamarink isn't really a proper found-footage movie. There's no claim that is what's happening. HOWEVER, it seems to be shot on rerererereused VHS tape and largely shot from angles a child would shoot at. Yet kids aren't filming this. And there are only a couple sequences where it seems to be in a child's p-o-v. No explanation for the non-"subjective" shooting. It just is what it is.
So in that sense, it's a big leap forward for the genre.
I just kind of hated it.
Give me the half-hour cut and I'm there. One hundred minutes is silly and indulgent. So no thanks.
I think this movie will be forgotten, but I suspect we'll be walking along the path it discovered for some time.
ps: I did appreciate that most of the jump scares were of things LEAVING the screen
pps: it was interesting how the vhs noise made things seem to be moving or possibly exist when possibly they were not and did not
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| ELSEWHERE Prime Video |
This is so good! Plus, it's like, three movies for the price of one, and only 108 minutes. What a deal!
Anyway, I get why all the reviews were so hesitent to say ANYTHING about it. Honestly, I already feel like I know too much (and that I knew too much coming in).
So I'm just going to recommend it as an excellent excellent excellent horror film and call it good.
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| HOME library dvd |
So my wife and I were supposed to go see this in theaters but INSTEAD she went with her FRIENDS and now a DECADE has passed and here we are. First time watching.
Anyway, the script has a lot of flaws and some of the Austeny stuff is wrong purely because it's wrong and not for any comedic reason. But all that said, there are moments of comic perfection that let me forgive the many flaws. Plus, one shot was so beautiful it just makes me mad Jerusha isn't directing more stuff.
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| HOME Prime Video |
While it's fun to watch bad movies, it's also awful. So having a string of dumb jokes as soundtrack is one of the finest inventions cable tv brought us.
Just me and the 17yrold and the 15yrold, yucking it up.
Egad.
What a TERRIBLE movie.
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