Archive for 2022
115 posts from 14 January to 23 December 2022.
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One of the 127 ripoffs, this has an eloped couple. It came out the year before, so it’s technically in the clear, I guess. Rates pretty high on the cosmopolitrometer, I would say a 7.
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Like Escape from New York and Mad Max 2 had a baby, and that baby got shot in the eye, turning into a female cyborg Plisken, working undercover for the opposition government faction. So much exploding body parts…
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The Futurological Congress is very small book, so for this book adaptation they added 1 hour of meta-commentary on showbusiness and some kind of tugging at heartstrings, in case a bleak dystopia where the masses take soma to escape their crapsack worlds was not depressing enough.
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Takes the cake for one of the most convoluted plots in a film noir. Makes Memento seem like The Straight Story. I posit it’s literally impossible to follow on the first view.
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This is a remake of a Jerry Lewis film, he is credited as producer. Eddie Murphy playing a crazier version of itself is appealing, but there are way too many fart jokes, way way too many.
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A slasher with just a few characters. Clearly fiction when Internal Affairs do suspend cops for excessive use of force. Not pure copaganda, though.
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Pure unbridled Columbus hagiography. A failed attempt at mimicking the old sword and sandals epic. The Vangelis score is much greater than the film itself.
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Same vibe as Mom and Dad, with an extra crammed up social commentary. The Coens contribution must be spicing up the script with nice dialogue, but that’s it.
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Never understood what does the title refer to. I thought there might be a Citizen Kane-like “Rosebud” moment. Nope, just endless soliloquies and not much plot.
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The good kind of Oscar bait, not a bait and switch. The anti-nihilist screed we need for our trying times.
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More like Amphibiousman. He fights just as good on land. More hippopotamus, less sea lion.
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Body Horror Cronenberg is tight. LifeFormWare.
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Where Do I Begin? Life is Sweet, The Salmon Dance, Snow falls.
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Do not trust the pilgrims. Their plantation defies god’s teachings, we must go at it alone, in the wilderness. Nary ungodly thoughts must be had in our homestead.
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This seems like one of those roman-à-clef, based on an old spook’s memoirs.
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Under a microscope, we are all crazy, it’s not moral to surveil people willy-nilly. But only some murder and dismember their wives.
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This is an alleged adaptation of a Stephen King novel, but it was butchered beyond any recognition. Not even the main cast can salvage it.
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Violence begets violence, silence continues the suffering, vengeful catharsis only delays the problem. In this case, for the next generation.
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This is a low key caper, so low key it even ends in a cliffhanger. Nothing is resolved, but it’s the journey that counts. Worth it for all but Keanu, he’s not cut out for this.
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Hot damn, it’s a twofer: turns Charlie’s Angels into something other than braless woman running around, and proves you can do a modern feminist-ish big blockbuster without condescension nor Clinton-esque girlboss nonsense.
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Just like Salt, it’s incredible the amount of old scripts still floating around being just made acritically. This is neither Mission: Impossible, nor Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. It completely fails to choose a tone and stick to it.
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Good grief, one of the worst films brought about from one of the best settings. And a great cast to boot, doing mindless love triangles.
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The superior Basic Instinct parody, where the femme fatale puts on underwear instead. Raunchy, but tasteful. Worth it for the cast alone.
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I thought this was a Dead or Alive adaptation, all the fighters have dangerously large breasts. It’s scary. The fight scenes are not bad, with the right amount of slo-mo. A Z-list film, but very much watchable, a lady-only remake of Bloodsport.
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A mix of Saving Private Ryan and Full Metal Jacket, if they were both directed by Jackie Chan or John Woo. The action scenes are so over the top, it’s hard to take the rest seriously.
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Forbidden love in the 1700’s, remains mostly the same until about the 1960’s. You will be disappointed if you go in expecting Blue Is the Warmest Color.
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A nice name. The
-oidsuffix means in the shape of. Someone who sends millions to their death us not a full human. -
I could watch Kevin J. O’Connor is any situation. He turns any schlocky monster movie into a fun romp. The leads too, both cat burglar Trillian and no-nonsense blue collar small business owner Paddy O’Malley, but Joey is the glue that holds the film together.
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I personally prefer The Mummy, but this is also a very good revival of the old monster movies, minus Boris Karloff. A competent baby’s first gothic horror, a fantastic introduction to the Genre.
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Part of the holy trinity of classical anime: this, Akira and Cowboy Bebop. Innocence is also great.
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Produced by a Caesar Augustus, this has big shoes to fill, right of the bat on the initial credits. Not even Nic Cage can make this more than a snore fest. Why use this title for Predator with martial arts?
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This should include triggers warnings for extremely downer mood inducing, the synopsis calls this a comedy, for crying out loud. And I’m not even talking about the Welsh countryside.
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Yet another Chinese blockbuster like Mortal Engines. Based on a book, suure. Fun for the whole committee.
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This is almost a variety act: singing and dancing is the bulk of it, but there’s also some drama, theatricals, and even space for political points (either more towards philosophy, or straight up politicking).
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Calling Dick Tracy, calling Dick Tracy. I’m a beat cop and I can’t tie my shoes, help me Dick Tracy. What do I do, Dick Tracy? Help me, Dick Tracy.
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Duelling assassins working for a unknown messager on the internet. When yet another female criminal enters the fray, their allegiances twist and turn. But the bad guy is still the bad guy, victoria o muerte.
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OH GOD THE PUNS! Cold comfort knowing they are delivered by Arnie. Uma Thurman also has plenty of plant-based puns too, leaf her alone! The zoom into the BatButt is literally the first scene.
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A very funny romp through organised crime, feuds, and a cursed custom revolver, which is really all about a bickering couple.
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What do you mean, Philip Glass composed the soundtrack for a seminal slasher film? How did that happen, did Clive Barker just said Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass, Philip Glass in front of a mirror?
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What truth? You can’t handle the truth! This is just a military courtroom drama, but it’s still air-punching great to see injustice vanquished and the All-American Justice System (the JAG military types) restore honour to innocents.
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Yankees vs Lobsterbacks, with a climax around a nominal Battle of Bunker Hill. It’s never named, because it’s completely fictional, the whole thing is complete balderdash, filtered by Emmerichian lenses.
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A 2001 film about the CIA managing to kill a terrorist that bombed American embassies, killing hundreds? Must be fiction, Bin Laden was only killed ten years later, and Al-Zawahiri twenty one years after 9/11.
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Shit, for different reasons. This is a bog-standard modern sci-fi middle of the road affair. Instead of US Navy propaganda, it has product placement and Chinese money bankrolling the whole thing.
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Woo, Will Smith in the start of its Schwarzenegger-isation. It’s not MIB II-levels of “wooo”. Just like all Emmerich epics, this is bursting at the seams with shit happening, but at the same time it feels hollow.
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The nostalgia for kids stuff is a powerful drug. So powerful, it makes oblivious to how stupid this whole thing is. The Emoji Movie-levels of stupidity.
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A libtard look into the life of Cheney, with barely any mention of more explosive stuff, and only a small video of Hillary Rodham selling the Iraq War like the corporatist war criminal she is.
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Good grief, the sound mix is truly awful. You can’t hear the dialogue, if you try to raise the volume your ears will be split on the explosions. I can see why teenage me thought this was the best thing since sliced bread: teenage me was dumb.
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What the, what? Virgin scientist cyborg-clones herself thrice, in the Three Faces of Eve personas, but eventually finds true love herself, amidst a potential pandemic of barcode rashes and male impotence.
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How quaint. It appears that someone thought that the best part of Ocean’s Eleven was the horrendous British accents and the sex jokes, and therefore based the entirety of a major motion picture on those skits. Preposterous, I say, good chap.
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The victory of city slickers over bumpkins. Of cunning woman over strong man. Of the haves over the have nots. Film Noir has never been so anarchic and fun.
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The followup to Murder by Death, with Peter Falk playing the Marlowe private dick that gets all the girls in the end. Incredible, considering he is a broke guy without a steady job.
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Riot Girl is tight! Meek girl learning to face her oppressors is goddamn tight! Kangaroo-men are hopping mad!
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I thought there was No Such Agency when I was born, but between this and The Conversation, it was public as hell. 20 years later, after Snowden, this kind of skulking is of course outdated: now the front company is called Cloudflare, instead of Setec Astronomy.
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A focused version of the TV show. It’s only the greatest hits, but they are almost all there. The TV show takes its time between plot developments, it’s less jarring and has less mood swings.
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An alternative universe where some blonde property developer from Brooklyn rules with an iron fist, plastering his name and face everywhere, while privately harassing women. Only good working class folk can save us from this deranged maniac. Good thing this was absolute fiction, no way this happened decades later.
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This is very bad, in so many ways. Amateurish really, a low rent Deadpool (that’s saying something!). The casting is the worse, Blake Lively should be the action girl and Ryan Reynolds the love interest!
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A left-wing film in which workers unionise and achieve their goals, even when scabs cross the picket line. Squint! Squint at the grandeur.
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A touching family story, with extra murders. Nanny McPhee or Miss Marple or Mary Poppins as murderesses.
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A remake of a Pang brothers film, that’s something that you don’t see every day. Jessica Alba is a sight for sore eyes, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Rachel Ticotin still has that Total Recall vibe.
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Yet another PG-13 assassin murdering people, while boobs remain firmly in bras. It’s sort like Hitman (the game), making it look like an accident. Came for Michelle Yeoh, but it’s a cameo, no martial arts involving her. Jessica Alba is the love interest that does nothing but getting captured.
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So that’s where Clooney met Soderbergh. A match made in heaven really. Ving Rhames should have been on the Ocean films.
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Villeneuve’s second film. What the fuck was he smoking, so many questions.
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Emma Watson saying “Believe Us!” on TV, while being the villain, Evil incarnate. That’s ballsy. Troll level: Serge Gainsbourg.
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I’m pretty sure the creators of this dross were on dope. Just a whitewashed piece of Americana by Cameron Crowe, set in the worst possible place: high school. Just another Porky’s, but with rich folk.
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An industrial small scale version of Mad Max: Fury Road. Sure, there’s a plot in here somewhere, but it’s all about stuff blowing up.
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Not too shabby for the inventor of chase scenes.
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A standard spy thriller, Bourne-lite, with evil CIA traitors. It’s just crazy that the bad guy wants to release a weaponized virus so that America legalises “medical martial law”: contact tracing, quarantines, access to medical data.
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This is like a show reel of actors doing scenes. There’s barely a coherent plot, just a Scorsese expy having many woman throw themselves at him, and self destroying when they are rebuked. Ya’ know, New Hollywood, not like the olden days.
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A strange ride. Too many drivers spoil the trip. Just like that jet-powered Beetle, it’s style over substance. Bill Pope is completely wasted.
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A baby fathered by The Matrix, Shaolin Soccer, Moonlight, and In The Mood for Love. Usually, “stuck in a blender” is a metaphor, but this is a corker. A better multiverse than more Marvel crap.
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Epistolary look into the commissioned officer experience in the Portuguese Colonial War. A more mainstream affair, compared to Hotel Império.
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A very modern take on the revenge plot even though our “hero” murders uncountable people in the most gruesome ways, his raiders of the land of Rus burn up hundreds in a barn (Come and See, history rhymes), and not even his mother escapes his night blade. This is exactly what Beowulf wanted to be, but wasn’t.
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The missing biopic of a forgotten hero. Many civil wars were avoided by his charisma, calm and quietude.
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A wide ranging anthology of The Matrix-adjacent stuff.
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Ironically, this is a forgettable “sci-fi”-ish thriller about memories and murders. Linda Fiorentino is the scientist who does basically nothing.
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Footloose meets Hairspray. Came for Linda Fiorentino, but she’s only a bit part, as the speakeasy owner. The lead is literally a James Dean clone, a dead ringer.
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Again? The last one had funny moments, like laughing his ass off at Camero-bot 9000 being PM, and having MI6 brought to you by Toshiba, but this is just another low rent James Bond-like with repeated jokes. I’m all up for sticking one up Silicon Valley twats, but this is not it.
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Some Irishman called Fitzgerald, a failed businessman, goes big or goes home. The crazy part is that it works, he goes big.
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Nic Cage plays himself, playing himself. I’ve never meta joke I didn’t like.
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Maradonna, Miss Universe and Leonard Nimoy enter a Swiss hotel… This script has incredible jokes, followed by cruel and mean philosophical meanderings into the Universe. Just like life…
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Neurotic Park Avenue socialite meets the real world, tragedy ensues.
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A feature-length The Thick of It series, about war and walls (either Gaza or some local council). Has familiar faces on similar situations, but they get fucked in less time.
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Another serious-ish small-town-freaking-sucks film, but with jokes. Has David Brent as the working class patriarch (insert Gervais giggle). In a scale of The Town to Straw Dogs, this is about a 2 in the cosmopolitrometer.
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What’s this, I don’t even… That cold opening sets the tone, but it gets progressively weirder and weirder. Goes to very dark places, but never raises above voyeurism and gratuitous shock value.
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The Neil Marshall version, Neil Marshalled up to eleven. Gory as hell, in a fun way.
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Fucking Bruges. Interplay of bizarre humour and gruesome violence.
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A letdown compared to the first one. Box-ticking exercise, everybody is just going through the motions.
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Basic home drama set in the dust bowl ages (even though it seems like the 19th century). Visuals over plot, with top actors.
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The Dark Seven, a bit lighter due to contractual obligations. Worth it to go in without any marketing exposure. The Penguin is fucking rad, as are all other birds!
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That’s fucked up. Slow burner, preps you you 90 minutes of romcom, for a final segway into trademark Takeshi Miike madness. The ending is very much anti-climatic.
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Hot damn, ‘em rebs sure ain’t psychos. Male-only Straw Dogs.
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Oddly weird mix of banter, pious bullshit, and superhero origin story. Doesn’t work too well, it feels unfinished. I had to see it to believe it.
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You stupid child. Getting people killed, is that her idea of fun? And the final gut punch, oof.
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Pre-Snowden, pre-January 6 insurrection techno thriller. It’s a very competent cast with a silly script. Baby’s first Enemy of the State, Fun!
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White Noise…
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That’s no Sonnenfeld Men in Black. Strictly worse than the second one, with added Tencent cash and so much product placement.
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Fake Bostonians robbing banks and emotionally destroying a poor bank manager. Give it up, Ben, you ain’t no working class dude, let alone from the projects. Jimmy Renner is less fake than ye!
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Baited with a Jarhead type, and all I got was another Pentagon propaganda flick. Kristen was right, he’s no hero.
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A tasteful anti-“canned lion hunting” screed, brought to you by Rolex.
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As the name implies, these are the opposite of paradisaical greenery. Nice costumes, with a mere clothesline plot to show them off.
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Me-wow! Woman Empowerment meets Sexy Leather Outfits. A much better look at the fashion industry that The Devil Wears Prada.
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Be careful what you wish for. There’s always a bigger fish, the conman becomes the mark.
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A modern, post-Snowden, low budget Strange Days. The murder investigation framing device kinda defeats the point of the story.
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Kinda redundant, an horror film set in The Great War’s trenches. Even if it’s a big purgatory metaphor, and the entity testing the souls is a German POW.
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Let’s go Brandon! Just an Evil Supes.
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A writer going crazy, or is it? What’s in the box, what’s in the box? What’s in the box, is it the same thing as Se7en? ‘Cause I think it is…
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Too much mystery, not enough pay off. The first hour is good, but then it loses steam and sputters along until the end. Shame.
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Heil Teacher! The simplifier in chief. Group dynamics do most of the work, it only needs a small push.
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A samurai, and two cowboys meet in Arizona. Bushido koans are thrown around, but in the end the gun is mightier than the sword. What matters is that the quest is fulfilled, by the not so renegade protagonist.
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A story about Lady Di and the forgotten post-Charles pre-Dodi Diana fuckbuddy.
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An happy ending pulled out of their asses ruins an already bland family drama.
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WTF did I just watch?
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More like bore of yuck-tease. It’s a complete trainwreck.
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Stream of consciousness book? The narrator is perma-stoned, so it’s like glimpsing at a larger plot without long-term memory.