I’m confused; I don’t think I criticized believability. I just thought the movie was thin and minimally interesting to watch given the fairly compelling true story.
You’re right my bad. I somehow thought you had said believable not enjoyable. I need to read more slowly.
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During the war in Afghanistan, a local interpreter risks his own life to carry an injured sergeant across miles of gruelling terrain.
Stunning. Absolutely stunning.
(especially once I got past feeling like Jake Gyllenhaal was secretly in a sequel to Jarhead)
After all of the increasingly terrible movies that positioned Guy Ritchie as Britain’s answer to Michael Bay, Ritchie has emerged as a mature filmmaker. The Covenant is as relentlessly paced as it is relentlessly restrained.
We already knew Guy Ritchie could make a fast-paced fun film, like Bay’s Ambulance to Ritchie’s Lock Stock or Snitch, but it doesn’t take long to see how self indulgent and emotionally youthful their movies feel. Michael Bay, for example, says to STFU, he makes movies for teenage boys. Guy Ritchie does the same thing, just for teenage boys from London.
Something has shifted with Ritchie for this one. Let us forgive him for his prior cinema sins.
There’s a small transition in the middle that reminded me a lot of the middle of Terminator 2, when the group at first escapes the T-1k into the desert and the audience understands the story isnt going to follow an obvious roadmap.
I would skip the trailer. It really ruins some of the best story beats.
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Oh yeah, I forgot to mention Great Wall as another sci-fi movie I watched lately that I really liked. Was this a big movie in theaters? I don’t even remember it and I feel like I’d remember a Matt Damon movie. But I loved the world-building and all the different Chinese defense groups.
It made over $300 million globally, but it was also super expensive to make, so I don’t think it was considered a commercial success. Also, I vaguely remember some pre-release drama from folks who didn’t like that a story about ancient China had a white star.
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Matt Damon says Great Wall is one of the few of his movies his daughter likes to watch.
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Yeah I get that white saviorism is a thing. But who goes to see that movie outside of China if Matt Damon isn’t in it? The movie made it clear the Chinese were more advanced and better organized, and the white guys were barbarians in comparison.
So I dunno what the rules are. But it bums me out that we might not get inventive movies like that anymore because they can’t have a Western protagonist.
They should have used a Chinese actor to play the Irish guy.
Massacre at Central High is on Criterion, it’s just the thing if you’re up for a 70’s teenage slasher movie. All the nerds of Central High love it when a reclusive loner murders the school’s bullying jocks one-by-one Agent 47-style. But the plot takes a zany twist when the nerds themselves become the new bullies. It’s dark as shit, it confronts us with our worst impulses, I like it.
Watched The Deer Hunter last night. It had bden on my list for years but for some reason I never got to it. Incredible.
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I’m super excited for The Creator, but I feel like even if it’s good it won’t be commercially successful.
It will be nice to get Colbert back. I didn’t watch every night. But I miss it.
Feels like it has more of the machine behind it than any other movie released in the past couple of months, so I’m not necessarily as pessimistic about its prospects. Definitely looking forward to it too.
heh I just watched the second one (Halloween kills), and I’m not sure I will have much to discuss, I thought it was terrible in every aspect. Pretty big disappointment given that the 2018 one was very decent.
And I’m ok with fan service if at least it’s to call back to stuff we like (like remaking some of the original shots in the 2018 one) but here this was really stupid (I’m not sure I needed to see what Lonnie the bully or Jennie the little girl have grown up to, and the CGI Donald Pleasance was awful). It’s Halloween not Star Wars lol.
I’ll probably check out the 3rd one at some point but my expectations are way down (as for DGG’s upcoming Exorcist reboot…)
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I understand that Kills is supposed to be a spiritual successor to Halloween 2, but whoever’s idea it was to stick JLC in a hospital bed the entire movie needs to be shot into the sun
Yes exactly. I was kinda misleading. This is an amazing trilogy to discuss because of the WTF missteps the two sequels take. I read the book to confirm just how bad the ending was for Halloween Kills. Betrays the element that made the first legasequel feel so grounded.
Is “Halloween Ends” The Biggest Retcon In The Entire Franchise?
Halloween Kills delivered. I laughed. I gasped. I screamed as everything good and hopeful about this franchise once again got slaughtered by a descent into the same question that murdered the original attempt to conclude the series.
Why won’t Michael die…?
Magic.
But I also wrote about how the third one does a lot to bring it back to Good.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Transphobia, and Bad Takes on the ‘Halloween’ Franchise
After ending Halloween, Jamie Lee Curtis is taking on long-term PTSD, transphobia, and terrible opinions about her most beloved franchise
Affable teenager → Middle-aged-survivalist → Lovable grandma → Trans Mom Icon
At first, I was with The Filmcast (YouTube), particularly Jeff (and somewhat Dave), who say that Laurie Strode’s arc is disrupted by where she begins at the opening of Halloween Ends.
David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy has a clear message, particularly given that Halloween Ends does deliver an ending to Michael Myers (absent cult shenanigans by Paul Rudd). And no one summarized it better than its star after reading the final film’s script for the first time.
“I was very happy that Laurie Strode has been given some trauma therapy, grief counseling,” Jamie Lee Curtis said to The Hollywood Reporter (offsite). “That we honor the fact that in fact, people in these kinds of terrible situations do, now, get people coming and helping. Back in 1978, Laurie Strode got nothing. She went to school two days later. Now at least Laurie Strode is being given a little bit of support.”
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I recently watched Commando for the first time. I have no idea how to grade out a movie like that because I can’t fully tell just how self-aware it was. If I view it primarily as a comedy then it rates well, because I laughed many times and thought it was legitimately hilarious. Of course, it self-classifies as an action movie, and if I tried to take it seriously then it’s absurdly bad. But whatever, it was plenty of fun to watch.
I’ve spent decades being pretty snobby about action stuff, so there are missing pieces all over the place. There are still key pieces of the Arnold catalog like True Lies that I need to watch.
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True Lies is great. Off the top of my head, True Lies, Total Recall, Terminator (ldo), and Terminator 2 (ldo) are my favorite Arnold movies. Oh, and Kindergarten Cop, but that’s a lot different.
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I saw Kindergarten Cop, enjoyed it as a kid, am guessing I would not today (though “it’s not a tumor” in Arnold voice is still drilled into my head for ready use). I also saw other failed comedies by Arnold like Junior and Jingle All the Way.
Terminator and T2 I’ve also seen. The first is excellent, the second is really good, though I’m annoyed by this weirdly near-unanimous consensus that somehow the second is better, I guess because more explosions or something. Basic synopsis for the movie is “a kid ruins a robot,” but there was still a lot of good stuff in there.
Predator I watched a while back, and was also really enjoyable in the Commando mold. I should probably rewatch that at some point.
True Lies and Total Recall are key ones that I need to fill in.
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