I’m curious for some context here. Are you a Marvel movie lover, Marvel movie hater, or somewhere in between? Seen all of MCU, seen most, seen some, seen only when obligated?
I kinda thought most of the stuff after the original Avengers was going to suck (“Really, they’re going with fucking Ant Man?”), but I enjoyed it for what it was and saw basically everything even while thinking the bottom had to drop out on the super hero genre. But End Game delivered, and the post End Game stuff we’ve seen has been fun. Maybe Eternals will be when it finally crashes down?
I know nothing about eternals. The previews don’t give the best feeling.
Hoping for the best.
(I don’t know MCU from the comic books other than spider and the hulk back in the day, have watched almost all of the movies, like the ones focused more on 1+ primary heroes/villains vs the big group collectives).
That said they are mostly entertaining but forgettable popcorn movies to me.
I know less than you, as I haven’t even watched more than the few seconds of previews that play while I’m scrolling past. But I didn’t know much about Ant Man, and Paul Rudd was pretty good at it. I didn’t even think Thor would be all that compelling, but his evolution as a character through the MCU has been fun. But I was never a comic book guy, and so most of what I knew about the characters was when they had been in prior movies pre-MCU. So I guess what I’m saying is that from my point of view, some things that seemed like they’d be bad ended up delivering, but maybe there’s some extra insight from a MCU fan that I’m missing that indicates this one really will be the one that heralds the end of the franchise.
I’ve stumped for this before but if you’re a film fan in general then Jodorowsky’s Dune is one of my favorite documentaries of the past decade, and tis the season
-the acting was pretty bad almost across the board. Like Poe Dameron, who should never get to play any soldierly character again, what a juiceless nothing of a performance. Timmy Chamalamadingdong has range but his default sullen boyishness gets tiresome pretty quickly. The baron was a complete greasy waste. Josh Brolin was a clear downgrade from mullet Picard. I liked Jessica and Bautista well enough, but wtf at Stilgar.
-It failed to create any meaningful tension or intrigue either in how it handled the prophecy or how it tried (did it even try?) to depict the politics. I guess they thought it would make it more convoluted, but not having scenes with the emperor was narratively straight stupid. Is it just going to be Dune part 2, here’s your main antagonist now?
-Didn’t read the books, so if Paul doesn’t see his hand burning in the box then ok, but what the hell, why didn’t they show his hand burning? Scene makes no sense with just an extended closeup of his jizzinmypants face.
+I was pleasantly surprised that the fighting choreography and the shields looked pretty good (I was skeptical from the trailer)
+two things I really liked: the Sardaukar dude with the busted face talking before the invasion, and the worm. How do you make a giant ass worm cooler than/different from the original, but they did it, well done.
Generally glad that most fans and new viewers seem to like it, I’m happy about the sequel and look forward to seeing it, although I was personally disappointed with this one. I think this just about ends the debate though. Dune cannot be done as a movie, it must be 8-10 episodes minimum.
I’ve seen them all and more or less like them but more for the “execution quality” than the superhero genre. I had a feeling the eternals was going to be bloated fartbag when I heard about the casting of jolie and hayek and especially zhao and figured there was no way they would pull it off and the reviews are indicating I was right.
Watched Dune for a second time and I still think it’s great as a book reader but I kinda think he should have just gone the whole way and re-written some of the stilted lines from the book. I would bet a lot of the bad acting/lack of agency crtiques itt stem from where lines are delivered word for word without the internal dialog or extra exposition in the book. You can also contextualize some of the deterministic elements of the book a little better by turning internal monologues into external dialog as well.
Once you decide to deviate from the book in the first place it’s not like it’s really crucial that every line delivered is a direct quote. Like Paul could have easily said to Jessica, “I thought my hand burned off.”
I have finished my epic quest to watch all the essential slasher movies that I was too cowardly to watch as a kid, my rankings are as follows:
Texas Chainsaw Massacre
By far the most frightening and disturbing of these movies. Some of that is due to over-the-top gore, but also there is legitimately great cinematography here. I scoffed when I first heard that this was inducted into the Criterion Collection, but after watching this I have to agree.
Halloween
Not really all that scary, but this was a blast to watch and I’m hyped to see it again. Unlike so many of these slasher movies, Halloween takes a little bit of time to give us a reason to actually care about the teenage girl in danger, which a lot of these don’t do. Jamie Lee Curtis and Stavro Blomfield are always wonderful actors. Also great pacing and sound design.
Friday the 13th
If you imagine all the quintessential components that a teenage slasher flick ought to have, this checks off all the boxes. Horny teens, gore, grainy filmography. good times. If you need to explain to space aliens what a teenage slasher movie is, this is the film you’d send them.
Nightmare on Elm Street
By far the most interesting premise for a slasher movie; characters who don’t know if they’re in a dream world or not taps into a lot of primal anxiety and prefigures movies like The Matrix and Inception. There are some great practical effects that must have been extraordinary at the time. The hat and ugly sweater are so surreal and wild, I love it.
Scream
Didn’t care for it at all, honestly. Wanted to be both a slasher movie and a cozy murder mystery without doing justice to either. It has the essential above-it-all Gen-X energy that nobody really likes except other ironic aging Gen-Xers.
I worked in a video store around 1989ish and have thus seen just about every horror movie produced prior to that time. In general I found supernatural stuff to be scarier than slasher stuff. I remember The Amityville Horror (1979 version ldo) being pretty scary, and I have a soft spot in my heart for Poltergeist. Also, given that I was 16-17 in my video store days, it should come as no surprise that a pretty strict requirement for a horror film for me back then was boobs aplenty. So it is probably for that reason that I remember Slumber Party Massacre as one of my favorites.
I also liked the over-the-top ridiculous/funny genre. Re-Animator and Toxic Avenger come to mind. Oh, and Dead Alive (aka Braindead) is fucking amazing - directed by Peter Jackson! Rabid Sumatran rat-monkey ftw.
Dead Alive is incredible. I still randomly think of the line, “I kick ass for the LORD!” frequently.
And Poltergeist holds up really well. Showed it to my kids last year and was very pleased as to how good it still is. The first time we see things happen in the kitchen is fantastic.
My memories of Scream and Nightmare are much better than your review, which makes me wonder what I’d think of them on a rewatch. Problem is that it would only be appealing to one of my three kids.
This rings true to me, particularly the “horror films=boobs” notion. I also remember Slumber Party Massacre, but I have no idea what the plot was other than some dude with a big drill. The one movie that stands out in my memory is an early 80s horror parody called “Student Bodies”. My 10-12 year old self thought it was hilarious, but I’m confident that it’s not very good. Would love an updated review on it from people in this thread.
My wife doesn’t like horror movies because they give her nightmares (they’re doing their job!) so she almost never watches them. Most of the horror movies I’ve seen since we’ve been married have been while she isn’t in the house.
But, since it was Halloween, she wanted to watch one. I was willing to watch some that I had seen before, so I showed her The Cabin in the Woods. Did not disappoint - she very much enjoyed it. At a few points, she was commenting on dumb decisions the characters made and what not, and I was just thinking, “Just you wait.”