At the Movies with Kane and BN

[Kane52630]

Onward

Decent for an animated film, but nothing super special by PIXAR standards. It pretty much takes The Flintstones concept, but changes it to all things D&D fantasy and combines it with a road trip comedy. The worldbuilding was impressive at the start, but it kinda regresses once it got to the end. I feel like Zootopia did a much better and thorough job exploring their world than this. The voice cast was solid and the CG was very impressive. The movie was kinda going through the typical family film motions that you expect in a road trip and it doesn't really get good until the end. Overall, it's just fine.
3/5

 

[Black Narcissus]

Maniac

I never saw the original, so I got no attachment to it, but have known of the almost cult following it has. I just can't take Elijah Wood seriously as a menacing dude, not even in Sin City. Here, he plays a loner serial killer obsessed with mannequins and pretty ladies. There are some women here that are no doubt taller and stronger than Wood, but they fall and fluster once Wood comes around. I appreciate the quick cuts to the sexy parts, but other than that, it was pretty forgettable. Drive and its soundtrack was an influence, which isn't bad, but one can't copy NWR style on this budget. ROB does great with the score tho.

Eh, I give it props for introducing me to the lovely french actress Nora Arnezeder.

5/10

 

[Kane52630]

 

[Kane52630]

The Way Back

A great comeback film for Ben Affleck. It's essentially part sports drama and part character drama that does go back and forth with ease. It tries to avoid a lot of the common sports tropes and have it more focused on Ben Affleck's character and his alcoholism. It's a great Ben Affleck performance and they do a great job showing all the little nuances and ticks with being a severe alcoholic. That being said, I do wish they gave more character development with the team and I wish it had a bit more to say or more spark in the film. Overall, it's a mostly solid film.
3.5/5

 

[Black Narcissus]

Long Day's Journey Into Night

Watched this for the first time about a week ago and I really don't want to see it again, at least not right away, but it stayed with me. Director Bi Gan created a haunting and moving flick, but it isn't easy on the viewer, which I can admire more than like. The plot, scenes, dialogue are distorted. A dream with in a dream, Tarkovski mixed with Lynch, but ever slow burning with a run time of 2hr and 20 minutes. This has a masterful hour long take for the last piece of the flick. Hell, the original theatrical version was in 3D to make the viewing experience feel more dream like, just like the journey of our pov character. You have actors playing other parts, just to confuse the viewer or to give you the feeling of the unreliable narrator, done so with a great eye for detail by the director, but sometimes it feels he is filling up time, we often just follow characters walking from one building to another for no reason, for no plot elements. We get about a 3-5 minute scene of a character eating an entire apple, Rooney Mara would be pleased! I hope this isn't the new thing in ''art flicks'' of characters just eating for a long period of time. Bi Gan freely goes from one scene to the next, creating beautiful images and challenging the viewer to enter into the world he is portraying, but I often felt the running time.

Our lead character chases after a woman that he can only vaguely remember. He remembers her in memories with each new place that he revisits physically and in his memories brings him closer to her, a woman who may or may not be the one he is hoping for. What's the point of this story? We get clues here or there, like a puzzle. He makes peace with a lot of stuff in the ''dream world'', but we still don't get a definitive answer, and going by the last shot of the movie, it might not matter anymore.

One of them great films that kinda don't have a rewatch value. I don't want to see again any time soon, but I'm glad that I did. This requires a lot of patience tho.

8.5/10

Take a look at this scene. So beautifully shot and menacing haunting.

 

[Kane52630]

Contagion

Rewatching this for the first time 9 years later and it unbelievably holds up. Soderbergh does what he does best. He did a fantastic job navigating through the multiple stories and locations and have it all woven together in a smooth and seamless way. Probably the biggest highlight for me rewatching this (besides how realistically they portrayed a pandemic) was the supersized cast they got in here. Overall, it's possibly my favorite Soderbergh film.
5/5

 

[Kane52630]

Cry Wilderness

A hidden gem of a great bad movie. It's insane with the multiple directions and tones that this movie goes though. It doesn't know if it wants to be a family friendly adventure film or a straight up horror flick. This has a bigfoot who can talk (and teleport?) and it's not even the biggest part of the movie. He just happens to be around and befriends a small child. There's a sh** ton of continuity and editing errors, production mishaps, and hilariously bad ADR (mostly by the dad who's all ADR). I will say though, there's some dead air in between the awful and hilarious moments that might get boring after a while. It doesn't quite reach the levels of something like Troll 2 or The Room...or even Tammy and the T-Rex. Overall, it's still worth seeing if you're into great bad flicks.

 

[Kane52630]

A ★★★ review of The Hunt (2020)
The Hunt

An interesting concept for a satire that pits white liberals against white conservatives in America and watching the whole thing burn down in a Purge like scenario. However, the movie doesn't really dig in anything of substance other than surface level... it's pretty lean in terms of plot. It definitely needed more time to flesh out the concept and the themes (even in a satire like this). What this movie did extremely well was getting Betty Gilpin, who takes over the movie as the lead badass. She's by far the best thing about the movie and you almost wish she was given more to do that dug in deeper. I also liked how Hilary Swank went extremely camp with her role. Overall, despite the controversy (however real or fake it was), the movie was mostly fine. Under a better director and script, this would have been something to talk about and discuss, but it chose to be fun and simple.
3/5

 

[Black Narcissus]

SWALLOW

A lonely housewife who develops the urge to ingest inedible objects and materials, while pregnant. This sometimes has moments of very dark comedy, which is played wonderfully by Haley Bennett. In one scene her husband calls her the ''C'' word and she with a dry delivery just answers ''ok''. They took the concept of a 40s-50s era housewife and placed her in modern day. She dresses up for dinner at home for her husband, she doesn't talk back, she does as her in laws say etc. Her only goal is to make her awful husband happy, till she starts swallowing thumbnails and eating dirt. Bennett looks like vintage italian actress Monica Vitti, it is kinda haunting to see, if one is familiar with said actress. Bennett is also really damn sexy here, she has curves that one can't hide with even loose type clothing, director knew where he was placing the camera in certain scenes. By the end of the flick she makes her choice, and I'm totally on board with it, just felt like it needed a bit more. I don't know what specifically, but this is a good flick, but the potential was there to be memorable, we just never got that moment, what ever it was. I will revisit this again at some point and maybe I could come up with a better explanation as to what that is.

8/10

 

[Black Narcissus]

As Above, So Below

Available to watch on Netflix!

Tomb Raider on a low budget via found footage/ horror. This was a lot of fun. I honestly don't even remember the character's names here, but I'll call our lead lady Lara. She and her group of friends set on a quest down below the streets of paris, in the catacombs. Honestly, this has more rewatch value than the latest Tomb Raider flick. It does go with many cliche found footage type flicks, but it is fun enough and the horror elements are done well enough to keep one intrigued all through out. There is even a bit of the national treasure movies in here.

The movie was actually filmed in the catacombs, not on a set. One gotta give them cred for that.

A solid 7.

I think @Kane52630 and @StarLord ya'll will like this one. At the very least have fun with it.

 

[MovieSlave]

I remember that one being pretty solid. Might have to give it a rewatch at some point.

 

[Kane52630]

As Above, So Below

Available to watch on Netflix!

Tomb Raider on a low budget via found footage/ horror. This was a lot of fun. I honestly don't even remember the character's names here, but I'll call our lead lady Lara. She and her group of friends set on a quest down below the streets of paris, in the catacombs. Honestly, this has more rewatch value than the latest Tomb Raider flick. It does go with many cliche found footage type flicks, but it is fun enough and the horror elements are done well enough to keep one intrigued all through out. There is even a bit of the national treasure movies in here.

The movie was actually filmed in the catacombs, not on a set. One gotta give them cred for that.

A solid 7.

I think @Kane52630 and @StarLord ya'll will like this one. At the very least have fun with it.

I saw it when it came out... It had a lot of potential and good moments throughout, but I wish it was better. And yeah, Perdita Weeks was totally Lara Croft. I think I gave it a 6 or 7/10.

 

[Kane52630]

A ★★★★½ review of The Platform (2019)
The Platform

A phenomenal high concept scifi thriller that takes a page from movies like Cube, Snowpericer, and the other netflix horror film, Circle and creates a really well thought out message about classism and greed. The director, Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia does a great job creating the structure of the film literally and figuratively. It's simple in plot, but it does take you though the process of how this underground jail operates. Ivan Massagué plays the lead and he delivers a great performance. Overall, I really dug it. It's exactly the kind of low budget, high concept films I always look for every year.
4.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

A ★½ review of Bloodshot (2020)
Bloodshot

The movie is trying to be dumb fun but with the fun part never really showed up. It's kinda similar to the Assassin's Creed movie, only Bloodshot wasn't taking itself so seriously. To me this this falls in line with a lot of the same ol typical action blockbusters that come and go and checks all the boxes it needs to check. Vin Diesel was being Vin Diesel and no matter how bizarre the plot got, he never changes. It's hilarious how they got Guy Pearce playing Aldrich Killian again. Eiza González was kinda decent even though the role wasn't much. Lamorne Morris & Siddharth Dhananjay were trying their best to save the movie with their humor, but the problem with that is they thought they were in a Deadpool movie. Overall, it's just an uneven generic mess of an action movie.
1.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

A ½ review of Homeward (2020)
Homeward

It's the Asylum rip off of Onward and it's exactly the kind of bad that some sorry housewife would mistakenly buy for their kid. I would say the animation was atrocious as hell (and it is), but knowing that there was only one guy working on it, it was kinda impressive. It got the bare story structure and characters of Onward, but they obviously change it enough to not get sued. If you ever want to know what Tom Green and Joey Lawrence is doing, you know now. I believe it's my first Asylum movie and it's quiet the endurance test even though it's not even 90 minutes long. Overall, it's terrible to state the obvious. It's really not a movie to acknowledge its existence, but it does and that's gotta count for something.
0.5/5

 

[Kane52630]

A ★★★★ review of Superman: Red Son (2020)
Superman: Red Son

I haven't read the comic in so long, but I thought this was pretty incredible. It's always refreshing when DC abandons their NU52 verse and their awful character designs to do these one shot/Elseworlds movies. Just like the comic, it's essentially a what if for Superman if he had landed on Russia instead of the US. They do a great job delving into politics, alt history, and Superman's ideologies just enough without making them sound hokey. It's also incredibly violent and not in a fun way, which I dug. And what they do with Batman and Wonder Woman was pretty damn good and the voice cast was solid. Overall, It's DC's best animated film in a while let alone a great Superman movie. It's totally worth checking out.
4/5

 

[Kane52630]

A ★★★★½ review of VFW (2019)
VFW

A great gory grindhouse film that is a throwback to the days of John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13 and George Romero's Dawn of the Dead. It's got an incredible atmospheric look and feel to it and the score is pure Carpenter's style. As always, Stephen Lang brings a 100% to the role... this time as the lead who's protecting a VFW post. Also, I thought Fred Williamson, David Patrick Kelly, and William Sadler were terrific in this. Joe Begos does a great job putting this together and checks all the boxes that a junkfood cinema junkie would love. Overall, it's so damn goo, it's the perfect midnight movie.
4.5/5

 

[Black Narcissus]

Vivarium

Man, this is a weird little flick. 'Under The Skin' by way of the perfect family next door type cliche. The writer/director is clearly saying things about the way we are wired to move in, raise a family, move to the perfect home in the safe neighborhood etc. Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg play a young couple looking for their new home, and possibly one day have kids, but they literally take a wrong turn over and over, the life number dialed up to 11. Poots is the mvp here of the two. She goes through every damn emotion possible, while Eisenberg is himself, but just a bit with less energy, if that makes any sense. We get some of the puzzle pieces for the story, I also at some point got a 'Dark City' vibe. The ending is unsatisfying, but this is still one of the best flicks I've seen so far. This was meant to be released on friday in the theaters, but this would've bombed anyway, it is just too out there for GA, they would've hated this. I'm hoping more folks will check it out now on vod.

8/10

 

[Black Narcissus]

Watched this because of Anya Taylor Joy. Eh, I'm not the demo for this kind of story. The real live locations are good to look at, the costume department would surely be in for an Oscar, if they ain't cancelled, but this ain't for me. The acting here is good, but ATJ is always good. I actually kinda hate that I paid for this. I can't really give it a rating, but also can't give it a negative as this was directed well, acting was good etc, but this just wasn't for me.

 

[moviedoors]

Vivarium

Man, this is a weird little flick. 'Under The Skin' by way of the perfect family next door type cliche. The writer/director is clearly saying things about the way we are wired to move in, raise a family, move to the perfect home in the safe neighborhood etc. Imogen Poots and Jesse Eisenberg play a young couple looking for their new home, and possibly one day have kids, but they literally take a wrong turn over and over, the life number dialed up to 11. Poots is the mvp here of the two. She goes through every damn emotion possible, while Eisenberg is himself, but just a bit with less energy, if that makes any sense. We get some of the puzzle pieces for the story, I also at some point got a 'Dark City' vibe. The ending is unsatisfying, but this is still one of the best flicks I've seen so far. This was meant to be released on friday in the theaters, but this would've bombed anyway, it is just too out there for GA, they would've hated this. I'm hoping more folks will check it out now on vod.

8/10

Yeah, general audiences would've loathed this movie, but this was so up my alley. I think it tells us just enough about what the **** is actually happening, but that's also missing the point. This is not a movie about neat resolutions. Even the social commentary aspect I think takes a back seat to the atmosphere, the tone, the mood. It wants you to have to stew in a world that is just wrong.

And holy ****, the play-pretend scene made my stomach drop.

 

[Black Narcissus]

Predestination

I've always had a thing for ANY time travel type flicks. This also reminded me of a Futurama episode in which Frye becomes his own grandpa. lol Ethan Hawke is always good, even when the lines and some plot points are just meh, he is always trying his best. Sara Snook reminded me of Emma Stone, but I guess the producers couldn't afford Stone, so they went with her. I don't mean that in a bad way. I think this needed a bit more money to make some of the scenes a bit more crisp, perhaps not the right way to describe what I mean, but it needed more. I admire that they went for it. I think this would've played better with the box office if released in the last two years or so.

A solid 7.

This also left me with the urge to rewatch GATTACA. I can see it being a great double feature together.

 

[Kane52630]

7 is wayyy too low my man.

 

[Black Narcissus]

7 is wayyy too low my man.

I stand by it on a first viewing. I have no doubt it will grow with each new viewing tho, but I'm good right now.

 

[Black Narcissus]

First Love

Takashi Miike just keeps making flicks without losing a step. This is True Romance by way of tokyo. Yakuza leaders with a heart of gold, a hooker paying off her father's debt, a young boxer who may or may not have long to live, the usual gangster betrayal. A lover looking to avenge her boyfriend's death, you know the usual. Miike always manages to add the right amount of humor while blood is being spilled. Hell, there is even a trippy animated sequence. A few cliches here or there, but I was never bored.

8/10

Also, you gotta give them japanese and korean industry folks credit. They make them pop stars and when that doesn't work anymore, they move them on to film and tv series and are damn good.

 

[Kane52630]

Dolittle

A gorilla kicks a tiger in the nuts and a dragon gets a colonoscopy. As awesome and crazy as that sounds, you gotta sit through 90+ minutes of a dull adventure film that tries to please everyone. I feel like they planned on rebooting Dolittle to be closer to the source material where it was a serious adventure film and somewhere they thought this must be like one of those bad Dreamworks movie. Between Robert Downey Jr, Antonio Banderas, the rushed CG animals, and the children... they all felt like they were in a completely different movie. Despite some good moments, the movie ever gelled together. Overall, it's a forgettable adventure film.
2/5