Sully sounds like another one of Eastwood's "America is great" movies, and I love Eastwood for his spag Westerns and all, but the guy is done. Eastwood is one of those guys that you kind of wish died early so you wouldn't have to be subjected to his recent offerings.

That said, I am sure no other pilot ever landed a plane in a river so this movie sounds amazing.

Saw the new Blair Witch last night. I'm a huge fan of the original film, I've seen it over 100 times and have been waiting impatiently to see this movie for years. My brother and I both loved it! The characters were interesting and realistic, the acting really strong, and the overall plot stayed true to the original film while expanding upon it with modern technology. Easily the best thing to come out of the found footage genre since the original film. There were a couple stupid scenes in the movie, namely a really pointless and tacked on gross out scene involving a maggot/worm creature, and a ridiculous and cheesy death scene involving a voodoo doll. There were also a TON of jumpscares, which ultimately felt unnecessary (but the way they were implemented was a bit more "clever" than other recent horror films). But overall I felt that it captured the essence and atmosphere of the original quite well, without shamelessly copying it. And everyone talking about the end is correct, it was truly fucking terrifying and extremely clever, if you ask me. I'd rate it an 8/10. My brother said 9/10.

I (re)watched The Guard last night. What a fantastic film. Brendan Gleeson is spectacular in this movie as a rather ornery Irish police officer in a small Irish town that is a location where some big-time drug smugglers are going to be bringing in their stuff. Don Cheadle is a FBI agent who is tracking the bad guys and the two of them have to work together to bring 'em down. It's extremely well written and acted. It's got excellent style yet also has this great subtlety to it. I highly recommend.

^Truth.

The Guard is bloody great. Also make sure you check out Calvary, which isn't quite as good but still vastly entertaining, and strikes a similar, typically Irish balance between rib-tickling hilarity and creeping, pervasive darkness.


Finally got around to watching Deadpool last night. Definitely worth it, although the final act came dangerously close to degenerating into yet another Marvel smash-em-up VFX overload. 8/10, would have been 10/10 if they'd toned down the ending a bit.

^I've heard from multiple reviewers (a few die hard fans of the original) that it's an entirely a retread of the original with next to no originality, the jumpscares were awful even by found footage standards, and it's cliche as hell stock standard found footage. Best found footage movie since the original? Yeah I'm gonna assume no. Unless we are comparing this to the VHS series or some non-scary sack.

I glimpsed on themoviespoiler and read the ending and . Ill watch it eventually, but not really something Id want to see in the theater, considering jump scares + annoying people ruin the movie.

I agree with Subrick almost entirely about the new Blair Witch. Mostly very mediocre, even boring, with a fantastic last act. Really didn't like how they

Sully sucked even more. Actually the most boring thing I've seen in theatres maybe ever. Utterly pointless movie, largely plotless, every character except Hanks is flat and one dimensional and even his performance is nothing impressive, there's infinite scenes that add nothing to the movie just urgh. I think it's time for Eastwood to retire.

Good quote from Cecil from GoodBadFlicks, paraphrasing but: "Blair Witch (2016) is essentially someone who saw the first and thought "boring", "where was The Witch?", "why didn't they show the witch?""


Last films I truly liked from Eastwood were the two wars films and before that Mystic River. Mostly scratch my head at his recent directed films, 'J. Edgar' was utterly boring and mediocre and I have no idea how he fucked that up. W by Oliver Stone was masterful in comparison. I don't think he should retire but he should stop directing politically motivated movies and focus on guttural crime/action movies akin to his Dirty Harry career.

Wow, what the fuck happened? Changeling and Gran Torino felt like Lifetime movies with big budgets and Hereafter was so boring I couldn't even finish it. How do you go from Unforgiven and Mystic River to fucking American Sniper?

Wait, hang on, I might've cracked it: Thanks, Obama

If this description is true, it isn't a retread of the original at all, because The Blair Witch Project had no jumpscares or gross monsters. It wasn't scary, or full of startles, but built tension masterfully. It sounds more like it's inspired more by the modern found footage genre than by BWP specifically. Sometimes studios, or producers, or whoever makes such decisions will re-use an old IP's name to make something unrelated. For example, the fake star trek movies were primarily inspired by the Star Wars prequels and the Transformers movies, but used the Star Trek name because someone else was already making those movies.

Definitely can third The Guard and second Calvary. Dark films with a black Irish comedy twist to them. Saw John Michael McDonagh's third film, War on Everything, on Friday. It's a very different one from The Guard and Calvary though being a black comedy about two corrupt cops in New Mexico. A fun enough romp, but doesn't really have that overall theme and atmosphere that his previous two films had so feels more lightweight. He was present at the showing and told the audience that his next film will be taking place in New Mexico as well, another one about a police investigation, but this time closer to the theme of his first two films.

Watched The Island (Ostrov)- a 2006 russian film just then. I'd liken it a lot to reading a tolstoy short story- I thought it was beautiful and brilliant, but nothing much happened and you'd have to be either a christian or very sympathetic to Eastern Orthodox religion to get the most of it. I really enjoyed it though and at some point I'll make my wife suffer through it. 4/5

So Space Jam was just on TV the other night, and I watched it for the first time in, like, 19 years. It's stupid as hell--of course it is--but it's also really memorable and entertaining despite its weird, jarring mid-90s madness. The opening credits sequence is pretty hilarious, as it makes you think you're watching a Michael Jordan biopic instead of the weird monstrosity that it actually is.

Also, it's incredibly amusing to see the kind of jokes you could slip into a kids' movie back then, especially when the psychiatrist asks the one basketball player if he's noticed any "lack of performance" outside the court.

Aren't they making a sequel? Maybe the producers heard about Barkley Shut up and Jam Gaiden and the resurgence of interest in Space Jam and its theme song, what with all the remixes on youtube.

It's not a retread at all, if you ask me. It has the same general idea (kids film a trip into the woods and then crazy shit happens) but otherwise didn't seem to borrow from the original at all. I wouldn't consider it cliche or stock-standard either, compared to shit like "The Gallows", "The Last Exorcism", "Quarantine", "Unfriended", "The Devil Inside", "Apollo 18", the VHS series, all Paranormal Activity films after the first one, Crowsnest, or 1,000 other worthless films. I mean, it may not be as good as the original, the first "[REC]" (which I had forgotten about when I made that post), and obviously "Cannibal Holocaust", but the comment that 'it's the best found footage since the original' was meant more in relation to how horrible and oversaturated the genre has become, than how great this one was. It's not a masterpiece, but it's a good fuckin' film, which should count for something.

The use of jumpscares was very disappointing, totally unnecessary, and arguably went against the entire point of the original film - easily the worst aspect of it, but it still didn't spoil the film for me because the rest was so good. It's mere speculation, but I actually kind of wonder if the 'jumpscares' were something pushed on the director after the fact, by the studio, as there were a couple little moments where the movie seemed to acknowledge how unnecessary they were (at one point the female lead screamed "Would you people stop doing that????"). I say that because the same thing happened to the last Blair Witch film, "The Book of Shadows". It was shot to be more clever, satirical, and in reference to how the public was viewing the original film after learning it wasn't actually real, but the studio made them reshoot it to add more violence and basically make it a "normal" horror movie (which explains why it flows so horribly in addition to being a fucking stupid movie).

Such an upbeat fun kids film and that's all it is really, looking at it in an adults perspective is pointless.

Just watched the DOOM movie. Sorry Nightguant, but it was pretty good. They ended up making the plot more resident evil than doom. I assume because they were uncomfortable with the hell and demons aspect of the game. But, it hit all the right Aliens notes, and had excellent sets and monster designs, and pretty good CG for 2005. Plus it has The Rock, the man with the world's most expressive face.

Some pros: has the bfg, has a FPS sequence where a bunch of zombies and monsters get wasted, three guys get killed by having their heads ripped off by a hand reaching in from off screen.

Some cons: we never actually see anyone get killed by the bfg, the last fight is a fist fight rather than a machine gun blood orgy, there's no ending shot of the earth being overrun by demons.

All in all, I give it a B. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Oh man I am jealous! I really want to see War On Everything, though thank you for setting my expectations perhaps a bit more realistically. I'll be very interested to hear more about his next film too... Thanks for the info.

@Chaossphere, while I thought The Guard was more accessible and fun/entertaining, I thought Calvary was overall "better" (whatever that means haha). I appreciated how it was more complex and how it dealt with the issues of the perceived waning relevance of church in our modern western culture, how Gleeson's character was shaped and motivated by his faith - yet also his human weaknesses, etc. Both fantastic films though. McDonagh's brother's movies are really great too: In Bruges and Seven Psychopaths.

Well, I've watched The Guard 2 or 3 times now and Calvary only once. I'll probably enjoy it more on second viewing since the first time I was overly distracted by trying to figure out which character had made the threat

Right on. I need to watch that one again as well. Unfortunately, I recognized the voice of the one who made the threat so it wasn't much of a surprise for me, but it didn't affect enjoying the movie too much. Dang, now I'm really wanting to rewatch Calvary!

Does anyone else not see what's so bad about Conan the Destroyer? It may not be the classic that the first movie is, but it's perfectly enjoyable nonetheless. The humor's corny and the violence is toned down, but it's got plenty of good things going for it. The fact that it's not so ponderously long as Conan the Barbarian also works in its favor.

Watched Star Trek Beyond last night. Walked out after the Sulu scene, i'm sure i didn't miss much.

I saw the new Blair Witch yesterday and hated it. I say this as a fan of the original, in fact, it may be my favorite horror film of all time.

The main problem was that the new film's writer and director didn't really understand what made the first film good. Of course, this is just my interpretation, but the original BWP works best as a character study of what happens when you take an initially cohesive group, albeit with different motivations and backgrounds, and throw them into a situation where so much is not only out of their control but beyond their ability to comprehend. Being the source of the most of the dramatic conflict, specifically how Heather, Mike, and Josh fall apart is the core of the story; it's not really about the Blair Witch, except for the final few scenes where we realize that little bits and pieces of mythology that've been woven into the story actually have a basis in reality. It's great misdirection, especially given that most of the conflict focuses on the filmmakers, and less on the forces threatening them, which range from benign-but-creepy (the stick dolls) to ambiguous-and-threatening (Josh's teeth in the pouch, the maybe-tree-fall-noises?).

The new film didn't capture any of that. At all. Spoilers below:



This doesn't really work because in the first film there's the ambiguity of who's actually behind all the shit that goes down in the woods-- one of them (maybe Mike) speculates that it might just be some Burkittsville yokels messing with them, and, I mean, that's a possibility. It could also be some Rustin Parr-esque serial killer (I always thought that's why he's talked about earlier in the movie). There's really nothing in the film to suggest the witch actually physically exists, and I think that's what gives the film power-- it's less about who specifically is terrorizing three filmmakers running around shouting in the woods, and more about how that base emotion tears apart their group.



Again, kills the ambiguity behind the entity/person/persons that's inflicting terror upon the group in the woods, and just in there to lead to cheap death scenes.



The inclusion of more modern tech was really distracting, and wholly pointless. Also, wayyyyyyy too many jump scares. Seriously. It's 2016.

Geez that was a long post.

^It could have benefited from being set in like '96-'97 but gotta have modern stuff y'all. Need all the tween boppers to identify to the main characters and go 'oh a DRONE', I know what that it.

Regarding Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping...

It was hilarious. Somehow managed to strike the perfect balance between ruthless satire of the pop music industry while still remaining light enough to keep from being overly cynical and mean to people who genuinely enjoy pop. Great one liners too:

"Ten seconds is an ETERNITY! That's a third of the way to Mars!"
"Now we've talked about this before, Connor. 30 Seconds to Mars is a band, not a fact."


Why the hell did this movie bomb?

I can tell you why it bombed. That's the wordiest, awfullest name for a movie since Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever.

Finally saw The Shallows...hmm. People said this was the best shark movie since Jaws, and while that might be true it's still not quite in that league. The faults in it just bugged me too much; the buildup bit at the beginning was just too damn sappy and typical, making Blake Lively into such blatant eye-candy (how many gratuitous ass shots do we need?) was unnecessary, the lack of interesting characters and interactions between them makes it automatically worse than Jaws, and finally and most importantly, the CGI was pretty bad in a lot of really key parts. God this movie would've been incredible with practical effects.

Still solid though for sure.

I like this theory. It helps explain why Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse made under $4 million domestic, when I thought it was pretty good. Better than Deathgasm IMO, although that didn't get a theatrical release.

I'm going to give another upvote to Popstar: Never Stop Stopping. Just watched it and it was a good comedy for sure, lots of fun and a pleasant surprise.

Man, the new Bad Santa 2 trailer looks fucking awful. I don't know why they bothered if that's representative of the film.

My assumption is it mostly glorifies pop music rather than truly parodies and trashes it, with actual cameos of the actual asshats that it's supposed to be mocking and the mocking is minimal so as to get them to participate thus ruining the whole intention, Jimmy Kimmel is known to do this often.

Haven't liked Andy Samberg beyond Hot Rod and Brooklyn Nine Nine.

Before Midnight - Another great Richard Linklater film and the last of this trilogy. Like the others, it is a remarkably minimalist film in terms of what happens - much of it is just people talking. But it's entertaining as hell, and through magnetic, layered writing, he creates unforgettable characters and situations that tell a story without the need for any other adornments. It's stripped down, evocative film making. I couldn't stop watching. This one is a departure from the formula of the first two in that the leads are now together and have kids. But it adds more drama by slowly revealing and unfurling the story of the intervening years and laying out the story slowly without being overtly exposition-y. It's powerful storytelling that works through dangling a carrot in front of you and enticing you to keep watching to learn more about these two characters he's developed over years and two other films. Both of them are very flawed, and the story shows how difficult it is to keep any relationship going for so long - people just clash and you have to make the best of it.

God, there's a shitload I could probably say if I watched this again. Great stuff.

Having watched it twice now, I have to disagree with that assumption. If anything, I think the movie more likely bombed because it was too harsh on its subject matter; many of the people who went to see it expected a fun celebration of pop culture but ended up getting something... else.

There was also very little advertising. This is anecdotal, but I mostly knew about the movie from people talking about it online, having seen maybe 1-2 trailers for it (and they didn't make it look very good). This is Andy Samberg post-Sandler movies and it's not like Hot Rod did great business (or was even watchable as a whole).

Saw Zootopia last night. I don't think I've enjoyed a Disney movie for being that clever with animal puns before. I kept waiting for the polar bears to talk with a Russian accent, and when that didn't happen I realized that was my sole negative criticism over it.

Meh, I'd rather just watch This is Spinal Tap for the 40th time.

I gave Ghostbusters 2016 a try, as Ive read a lot of people saying it was better than expected, but I ended up hating everything about it.

Watched Swiss Army Man last night. When it started, I thought it was a comedy, but by the end I was depressed as hell. Weird movie about suicide, the imagination, hiding things from others, loneliness, stalking and farting. Still can't decide if I would drink water out of another man's mouth though.

Circle (2015)
50 strangers wake up in a circular room, each standing in their own ring, surrounding a black glass sphere in the center with arrow markers on the floor pointing to each of them. One stranger dies and, within time, the survivors realize that they are voting on who the sphere kills next. As the numbers dwindle, topics such as age, nationality, parenthood, race, sexual orientation, and religious beliefs serve as criteria to vote on who lives and who dies, leading to each unwilling participant showing their true colors.

First, the good. The concept, on paper, seems bland and dated, something left over from the torture porn "renaissance" of the mid-00's, but the executing is incredible. The tension mounts and mounts with the film never really taking sides on any given issue, instead letting the characters play out. Some deaths come from nowhere, some are telegraphed well ahead of time, and the finale will catch you by surprise. This serves as a cynical parable for democracy in general, and how voting ultimately works: you can make your voice heard and it may even be for the greater good but somebody will suffer for it. There is no saving everybody and thus you vote on what benefits you the most.

Now, the bad. The ending falls flat. Horribly flat. Without drifting into spoiler territory, the mounting tension crests and then we're "treated" to an intentionally vague epilogue, as if directors Aaron Hann and Mario Miscione were trying to fit this film into a nice late 1990s motif. One question is answered (who placed them in the room), but others are raised (why does the survivor seem willing to return?) and others unanswered (why?).

Overall, there are plenty of worse ways to kill 87 minutes. The characters serve more as caricatures of voting demographics, with some having history together and others raising very real issues (race relations, religious views, are all lives truly equal in importance), and in this sense it works. The cast does a surprisingly great job, overall, of trumpeting different viewpoints, and the parameters of who casts their votes and why does a fine job, albeit in a hamfisted manner, of displaying the fallacies of our current "first past the post" voting system. It's just a damn shame the ending leaves such a bad taste in your mouth.
6/10

^Oh that movie haha, just another poor attempt at Cube only with terrible unbelievable dialogue and lame concept.

"Another lame attempt at Cube" implies that Cube is worth watching in the first place. Actually it is, if you want a lesson in horrendous dialogue and how to make the viewer despise every character on screen in less than 15 minutes. Total shit movie.