Last Movie You Watched Part II, Electric Bugaloo

[Deathstroke]

I watched The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard last night.

I was reasonably entertained by this movie because of the amount of funny lines in the movie and the incredibly high body count.

But let's be honest, the barely-if-at-all-there plot makes the first movie's plot look like high literature. Essentially, the movie is a race to see who of the three leads, Ryan Reynolds, Samuel L. Jackson and Salma Hayek, will get to say "****" or "************" the most in the movie. (I have no idea who topped that contest because MAN did a lot of dialogue contain at least one of those words.)

But there was some great action sequences and Ryan Reynolds has become perfect as the put upon everyman. He and Samuel L. Jackson have amazing chemistry when they play off each other. Jackson's bug-eyed reaction to learning who Ryan's dad was in the movie was hilarious. And Salma Hayek is outrageously funny with dialogue that is 90 percent curse words in both English and Spanish.

The best line of the movie comes from Reynolds: "She'd make a terrible mother. I wouldn't leave a Chucky doll in her care."

So what happens in the movie? Does it matter? The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard is not art cinema and since the filmmakers didn't really care about the plot, I didn't either. This is a highly entertaining incredibly profane, viciously funny popcorn movie that requires little thought. But it still manages to be a riot of bodies, bullets and one-liners. I gave it 7 out of 10 on IMDB for sheer entertainment value.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Dead poet society- instant classic.

Minari- good film but started to drag.

The Green Knight- interesting but bewildering.

[Starter Set]

I am mother (2019) and Passengers. (2016)

Meh, both of them bored me. I am mother started well though.

[ed2962]

The Outlaw Josey Wales. Someone gives a speech about the Trail of Tears in this film. Clearly the SJWs went back in time and forced Clint to put this scene in! Dammit! They've gone too far!

More seriously, it was fine for what it was. Although I had a problem with the logistics ( and logic) of some of the gun fights.

[Largo161]

Respect. The film didn’t exactly…sock-it-to-me-sock-it-to-me. (Heh) But it wasn’t awful either. A lot of it was ham-fisted, on the nose and underdeveloped. The recreations of Aretha’s great songs kept my toes tapping though. For a 2 and 1/2 hour movie it went by quickly. I can see some moments/dialogue definitely becoming camp classics.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

Deceptive trailer, useless title, bland and boring "protagonist", an invention we barely see at work, shoddy cgi, useless plot threads....

If you ever thought this would be the "too bad it's good variety", I wished for that but was sorely disappointed.


I won't bother covering the final scene as a spoiler;

Arnold: "I came to see a dragon"
Jackie: "Look, a dragon shaped cloud"

[Mormel]

Watched a documentary titled 'Glory Days', made by Dutch film maker Ben van Lieshout, about the Kola peninsula, the part of Russia just east of Scandinavia. It offers a portrait of a once promising and thriving area where pioneering mining work was being done pre-perestrojka. Cities and towns such as Murmansk, Kirovsk, Teriberka, Apatity, and Nikel are each briefly highlighted, to make a diverse story of these towns and their inhabitants, such as ex-scientists involved in the Kola Superdeep Borehole, fishermen trying to evade fishing bans, young people moving away to larger cities because they see no future in Kola, young soldiers stationed at the military bases and the Northern Fleet, and people in general having to live amid the delapidated ruins of once grand train stations and old Soviet housing blocks, many towns having quickly turned into near-ghost towns. The film mostly let the images do the talking, although it's interspersed with brief narration from residents providing context and background. For the most part, it presents a stunning portrait of an area of Russia neglected by the government, where the people are trying to get by regardless. My sole complaint would be that the documentary doesn't end on a conclusion or a summary. It ends with the final segment, then the credits roll. It's a minor issue, and I do think this was well worth the watch.

[Deathstroke]

I saw Those Who Wish Me Dead last night.

It looked interesting when I saw the trailer but unfortunately, the full movie does not hold up to that first impression.

Angelina Jolie plays a traumatized smoke jumper in the forests of Montana. Assigned to a lonely out of the way spotting post, she's soon plunged into a life and death struggle when she stumbles across a young boy on the run from assassins out to kill him for what he might possibly know.

What does he know? Well, thanks to that being pretty much a a McGuffin for this movie, we don't really find out. But a lot of people are knocked off in the early part of the movie over it.
Making her job harder, the assassins set the forest on fire meaning Jolie and the boy have to dodge bullets in one direction and an out of control blaze from the other direction.

This had the potential to be an interesting movie but that potential was squandered by taking the first 40 minutes of the movie before Jolie and the boy even meet up, and then categorically refusing to provide any resolution to most of the loose ends of the story. What little resolution you do get still makes you feel like the filmmakers were just giving the middle finger to any viewer who plunked down their money expecting a finished story/script.

I gave what I saw on the screen a 5 out of 10 on IMDB because most of what I saw was moderately enjoyable. But I wouldn't bother to watch this one ever again. And if I factored in the near total lack of caring to finish the story properly, I'd end up giving the movie a 1 out of 10 at best. Oh, and the story that appears in the original book source material sounds far more interesting than what they settled for with this movie's script.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

Monster Hunters (2020):

Yes, the second half of that title is plural, to stand out from being identified as the Paul W. S. Anderson movie from the same year by mistake I guess. It's like if they took Predator and removed Arnie and fun character interactions, mixed it with Men in Black without the alien technology used to fight monstrous aliens. Let's just say it's an Asylum movie (I mean it, it's from that studio) without the so bad it's funny ingredients some people seem to find in their movies.

The only funny thing is the slow motion shot of an old man running in the forest, why slow mo? No reason whatsoever.



Monster Hunter (2020):

Singular, and this identifies it as the Paul W. S. Anderson movie. I actually had more fun with this than I thought I would, I think it's one of the better Paul W. S. Anderson movies because it has enough fun moments and nice character interactions to make it enjoyable to sit through. Some of the shots and effects are quite akin to those of Mortal Kombat (1995).. which is not a good thing, but in some ways it is quite a positive aspect considering the director.

Also.. it ends with a sequel bait battle akin to how The Amazing Spider-Man 2 ends.

[CliffHanger2]

The Green Knight. A meandering, non-epic with lots of talking and weird stuff. Seriously did we need a shot of this guy's nutmeg? smh...

[GozertheGozarian]

Rifftrax Live: Hobgoblins.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

The Tomorrow War:

I wasn't bored, it grabbed my attention, has the right ideas and a solid execution, but my heart wasn't into it.

[Mormel]

Saw the movie 'Sweat' in the theatre, a Polish film by Swedish director Magnus von Horn. It's about a young woman who's a fitness guru on social media, then one day posts a vlog in which she admits to having feelings of loneliness sometimes, and this video going viral and people blowing it out of proportion somewhat.. leading among other things to her attracting a stalker.

Immediately after viewing I had mixed feelings on this, but once more reading a couple positive online reviews help me see another perspective and certain merits it has. I did like the visual presentation in general.. especially in the exercising scenes, where the camera is right on top of the frantic movements of main character Sylwia, and then in other scenes of her training where the focus is entirely on her face. It's quite striking. I think most of the acting performances are pretty solid. For me personally, there were a couple scenes that felt like they had no resolution in the end, because the featured supporting characters in them made no appearance aside from those singular scenes. The resolution of the stalker plotline was probably the strongest, but to me it also makes it a very back-loaded movie in terms of pivotal scenes where there's important events. But like I said above, reading reviews has given me a different appreciation. Definitely not a wasted ticket.

I also think I had something of a Baader Meinhof phenomenon this week, where I was going through old newspapers of 1974 and came across the reports that Japanese soldier Onoda was finally brought home to Japan after having lived on the Philippines for 30 years believing that the second World War had not yet ended. I thought to myself "That might make a pretty good movie". And sure enough today one of the trailers was for a movie about Onoda.

[ed2962]

Ginger Snaps ( 2000). I heard about this movie a long time ago, but never got around to watching it until now. Werewolf movie that's also sort of a female coming of age story. The actors are engaging, the dialogue is smart without being to self aware, and they were able to get alot out of a limited budget. My biggest complaint is the uselessness of the dad character. He could have been removed from the movie and it would have affected nothing. Overwise...Three Stars

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Heat (1995)- it's still a great film.