What movies did you see last week? (7/27-8/2)

The 13th - 8.5 / 10

Frank & Robot - 7 / 10

Earth Girls Are Easy - 7 / 10

The Monuments Men - 3.5 / 10

Flawless - 4 / 10

Coma - 7.5 / 10

All Dogs Go To Heaven - 7 / 10

Cold Pursuit - 6.5 / 10

Capricorn One - 7.5 / 10

Batteries Not Included - 6 / 10

Forbidden Planet - 9 / 10

Cat People (1942) - 8 / 10

Salvador - 8.5 / 10

All of you nerds with your 30 films seen per week are coming right up, I can feel it.


Somewhere in Time - One of the best stuff I've seen in a long time.  I don't think it's anything too virtuoso, but it's effective and a good melancholic romance ala Punch-Drunk Love and the lowkey type films (not saying the films are similar tho, just... lowkey is the similarity).  Jane Seymour is my main reason for seeing it, she was splendid.  Even Christopher Reeve is quite good and a dashing lad.  This makes me wanna rewatch Superman again, which I will.  We'll see if retrospectively it was the right move to cast him.  8

The Contender - An engaging and taut political drama that isn't actually a wash like those tend to be.  Allen and Oldman killed it.  7.5

Shattered Glass - Sarsgaard and Sevigny aside, pretty passable and w/e film 6

Memories of Murder - I enjoyed it, it's good fun.  I just don't think it's the bees knees like some would have it.  Not seeing how Zodiac is a rip-off of it, if anything it's an update.  Problem is Zodiac could get tedious, but Memories of Murder is entertaining throughout.  But I'm not seeing where the rip-off is at.  Memories of Murder feels like a pretty straightforward murder story by a genre director to me.   Zodiac is probably the actual police procedure film.  That being said, it's good stuff and makes you want a sequel or a "back to Memories of Murder" film or something like that.  8

The Dead Zone (original) - Good stuff.  Went well above my expectations.  I'm far from a Cronenberg guy.  I liked approximately 3 films from him (The Fly, The Dead Zone, eXistenZ), but this one felt like a pure 70s/80s horror all the way.   I prefer it to The Shining.  Really good neo-Exorcist atmosphere.  Walken and the Sheen angle were both terrific.  8

Body Heat - This is the ideal pulp galore I like.  It kicks Double Indemnity's pedestrian overrated ass.  Fuck Double Indemnity.  Kathleen Turner omg  , should be sent to femme fatale hall of fame.  She's so much more fun to watch than Barbara Stanwyck.  I like the whole guessing game in the end, which felt... Hitchcockian. 7.5

Reds - Really liked it.  But the first intermission was better than the 2nd.  Keaton elevated greatly upon this rewatch.  Nicholson a scene-stealer, and the final year of his original streak (1969-1981).   Beatty was Beatty, but still... there's a reason George Clooney had such a persistent career.   Both Beatty and his equivalent Clooney were very good at playing themselves 7.5

Do you own this or how were you able to watch? I can’t find any streaming options and don’t want to blind buy for $25, which is the cheapest I can find it online.

Library is a good call which I often overlook. I do have a card. Just went to the website and doesn’t look like they have it unfortunately.

If need be, you can get an inter-library loan. Usually costs you a few dollars (like, five or so) and they can take awhile to come in. And sometimes you have to keep checking in case someone just didn't bother processing your request (I had this happen with The Passion of Joan of Arc a few months ago... I ought to try ordering it again).

The Grinch - Total mediocrity. Also way less humor-reliant than I expected from an Illumination animated film. Just your average Christmas fairytale movie.

Set It Up - An okay romcom which I just wanted to be a bit funnier.

Fool’s Gold - Now this was pointless. You'd think that a treasure hunt adventure movie would be entertaining but this movie only decides to finally get to some fun stuff in the last 30 minutes. The rest of it is just about uninteresting characters hanging around not doing anything remarkable. And Kevin Hart plays a villain who doesn't even joke around. Why on earth was this even made?

The Wedding Singer - While there're numerous flat scenes in it, overall I enjoyed it. Sandler and Barrymore are wonderful together, and there's a charm to the movie that makes it all work. The singing scenes are also very good - Sandler's got a cool voice and the two big ones ("Somebody Kill Me Please" and "I Wanna Grow Old With You") are just terrific and really do the trick.

Spies in Disguise - Silly but kind of fun. Some really creative sound design though - a bit of a shame that the MPSE folks just voted for "Toy Story 4" on autopilot for Best Sound Editing in an Animated Film when this one was right there.

The Perfection - I love how this movie clearly thinks that it's sooOoOOooOo weird and OMGWTF while in fact it's just a bunch of silly nonsense. I guess somebody who's never seen a Korean movie before will probably find it to be out-there? 'Cause the rest of us will likely see it for the pale imitation that it is. Even the sex scene is so PG-13 lame. Not that I need it to be porn or something - it's just an example of how limited and timid this movie actually is while it wants to pretend that it isn't.

Artemis Fowl - Holy shit, what a disaster. Patrick Doyle is the only one working overtime here, and Lara McDonnell was pretty good as Holly Short who's the real main hero of this awful movie. The rest of it is just embarrassing. Particuarly the titular character who's not only played by a charisma vaccum of a kid actor but is just overall a useless character without any personality or presence. He doesn't do shit throughout the movie and yet we're supposed to believe he's this awesome superkid. Bitch just sits around in his house the whole time while other people do everything for him. Branagh, what the hell?

The Vow - Sappy stuff but Tatum and McAdams are a decent pairing. Watching Tatum pour his goofy heart out and struggling as hard as he can to rebuild his relationship is sort of sweet. Even if he's a pretty wooden actor. His wooden quality is actually quite enjoyable, just like with Keanu Reeves. Which is why comedy is the best genre for them.

The Hitman’s Bodyguard - Apparently this was first conceived as a straight action film and was later rewritten as a comedy. Well, I approve that decision. It's not a special film but I did find it goofily entertaining. The chemistry between Reynolds and Jackson as comedic partners was surprisingly strong. Jackson was particularly enjoyable here.

Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story - I wish I could watch the theatrical version because I only managed to find the extended one which has like a half-hour of extra material and which did feel baggy...but that still didn't stop me from enjoying the movie. A funny spoof of the cliched music biopics which makes stuff like "Bohemian Rhapsody" even more ridiculous. John C. Reilly delivers big time.

I quote the Elvis scene at least once a day. "LOOK OUT MAHN!"