Have you seen Bernie? That was a lot better than Tropic Thunder.

I might have to check that out. Tropic Thunder is one of my best comedies in memory.

Bernie is as far from Tropic Thunder as humanly possible. Bernie is a quirky indie comedy based on a true story directed by Richard Linklater; Tropic Thunder is a titanic Blockbuster from Ben Stiller with the largest budget for a comedy at its time. Opposite ends of the spectrum.

Jumanji - not too bad. It's not the best movie I'll ever see but it was decent enough. I liked the characters. Some of the "drama" in it could've been cut, but overall it was an enjoyable flick.

The Commuter - very good! I like Liam Neeson as an action actor, despite him going on record saying that he was over action movies. This one was similar to his other big movies like Taken and Non-Stop, but I felt this one was developed more. If this is his last action movie, then he went out a winner.

Saw The Last Jedi over the weekend.

Kylo and Rey continue to be the obvious standouts in both character evolution and acting.

Jesus, parts of this were incredible in ways few movies are, the tension aboard Snoke's ship especially, but then we get lousy one-liners from Poe or Finn (that opening scene was fucking painful) or the same words repeated over and over. "Hope" this, "hope" that...hey, Rian, get a thesaurus.

Super nerd pickiness, but an A-Wing as support instead of an interceptor? No wonder they lost so many ships.

Solid enough movie but its pacing was wonky. Too many HUGE AND IMPORTANT scenes in the first half that would be better served with actual character development. Too much dialogue that was lazy and sounded like a Chuck Lorre sitcom.

6.5/10. Most of it misses but the hits are knockout worthy.

what do people think of the Tree of Life?

Do NOT watch The Open House on NF. If you have though, lets get to talking shit. What absolute lazy garbage. There literally was not one believable or interesting moment.

I looooved the Tree of Life but its been a very long time. It's got a lot going on but I always thought people were kind of over thinking it. Seemed like a non-linear story telling sorta deal of a fucking RAD story. Sort of pre-Inception/Interstellar vibes? Seriously though I was a baby when I watched it I need a review. I feel like I remember everyone I knew really hating it though.

Who thinks the Exorcist is the scariest movie of all time? I really think this film is terrifying. I mean what other film could possibly be more frightening than the Exorcist? I would consider that Evil Dead or Nosferatu to be in the running apparently.

The only horror movies that have successfully scared me or creeped me out severely are Pet Sematary, the climax of Silence of the Lambs, the first three Paranormal Activity films, Oculus, the 8mm film scenes of Sinister, and Perfect Blue.

The Exorcist is not among those titles. It's a great film, the atmosphere is incredibly well-done, but it's not scary.

Exorcist talk, round 6. FIGHT!!

The Exorcist is still the only movie to have ever made me feel actually creeped out/anxious/scared in any capacity while watching it, and I've seen a fucking lot of horror movies.

Ever seen Cannibal Holocaust? Granted I don't know if it's exactly "scary" but definitely fucking disturbing, anyone whose seen the movie knows why...maybe a bit (or a lot) hypocritical in it's overall message in the end, but still a pretty good movie.

I need to check out Perfect Blue, I recently watched (and loved) the masterpiece End of Evangelion so I need to get my fix of dark/disturbing horror anime .

Here is a interesting fact about the making of The Exorcist. Nine people died during the production of the film.

Darren Aronofsky is obsessed with the film. He bought the rights to Perfect Blue just to lift scenes from it for Requiem for a Dream, and he basically made a kinda-sorta-remake with Black Swan.

Speaking of this, apparently plenty of weird shit happened during the production of The Omen, too.

It's funny cause its true.

The Last Jedi wasn't very good, overall. A few thoughts!

Saw a few things this month (mostly been watching the new Twin Peaks though):

The Post - Really just kind of vanilla and bland. This had some good relevant social themes in it, and was well directed and acted - but I couldn't shake the feeling I had seen this all before. It seems like every single historic Oscar-bait epic uses the same kinds of cues and the same big speeches and the same climax where everyone wins and is happy, hugging, etc at the end. It feels formulaic and rote. I just wish this was more exciting as a film overall.

Bright - Dumb, with terrible dialogue that was about as subtle as a nuclear warhead detonating - if it was going for social/race commentary it failed at being intelligent, is all I can say. Everything else was just childish fantasy stuff. But I have to say in spite of how stupid everything was, it was kind of fun in a way anyway - just for the sheer bonkers premise and weird shit that ends up happening.

By far the best part of the film. That was original trilogy amazing.

Watched Three Billboards. The story is a rollercaster of emotions: funny, sad, rage inducing, tense and has characters that truly feel like human beings instead of... well, characters. This is the result of some really amazing acting and amazing writing.

In short, i'm really really impressed

Which makes for a fun story, but is ultimately meaningless. People like it because they get to work in "devil in the details" kind of story where "the movie about evil had evil happen."

The Conqueror arguably killed more people, but it's not about Satan in some capacity, so to general folks, the story isn't as good. Although I find "filming on a windswept nuclear bomb testing plane which eventually riddles the cast with cancer" to be a pretty fascinating story.

For Xmas, I got the Die Hard 5-movie Blu-Ray set and Terminator 4-movie anthology Blu-Ray set. Over the weekend, I continued watching them, and went through Live Free or Die Hard, Terminator 3, and Terminator Salvation.

I generally still enjoy Terminator 3, despite it's lack of originality for the franchise. It adds one more element to the saga in that major events of time cannot be changed, only delayed, and I think that works out for the story. Salvation is just so fucking unnecessary. I was going to go into details but meh, why. I refuse to watch Terminator Genysis.

One of my favourites of the year. Really great.

Just saw Molly's Game tonight. Crazy, crazy story. Well edited. Idris Elba is fantastic, he probably should have received a supporting actor nomination.

You should. Don't pay for it of course but check it out. In Genysis, Terminator becomes full-on comedy with Skynet as the Dr. Evil of the series. There's also lots of silly robot slapstick and dinobot transformers.

A Ghost Story was absurdly pretentious, self-indulgent, hipster party fodder, questionably paced and overly-ambiguous. But it was a tremendous film. By the end I was in tears and the ASMR was real. Strongly recommended for people who like movies about the timelessness and value of art.

Sounds like Terminator got the Godzilla treatment. Where there was once a relatively serious warning about nuclear war and humanity, there are now giant monsters slapping each other around regardless of plot or meaning.

I would like to see both of these, but I'm not going to the movie theater. I can wait.

I learned about an R-rated stop-motion movie yesterday, and we watched it last night. Called Anomalisa, it was written by Charlie Kaufman, who gave us Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was a charming, melancholy film in his vein. It followed a self-help styled author who has started seeing everyone in the world as the same person with the same voice, and his encounter with someone who's actually different. Tom Noonan voices everyone in the movie that isn't the two main characters.

It's one the best animated films I've ever seen. So original, and visually, it's so awesome.

Recently watched The Hitmans Bodyguard.
Was alright, few laughs and decent fight scenes. Reynolds being reynolds, Jackson being Jackson.
I give it 6/10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6wWKNij_1M

Next big horror movie to watch, probably - called Hereditary. I've heard it's bone-chilling scary.

Looks promising. Some guy compared it to Rosemary's Baby, and here's to hoping it's better...though that's not exactly a tall hurdle to jump.

Well Rosemary's Baby is a masterpiece, so I dunno. I hope it is great - certainly looks like a bizarre film and I've heard it's different from what people expect in terms of scares, more about real-life shit than anything supernatural.

Nah, Rosemary's Baby was dull--duller than any of the Amityville Horror movies, which only beat it out because things actually happen in those movies.

I don't agree at all but we've always had entirely different taste in everything anyway.

Absolutely nothing happens in Amityville 4: The One with the Haunted Lamp.

Cannot recall if I have mentioned it before but I re-watched a film yesterday that I found remarkable on first viewing, after seeing it again I could spot a few cases of uninformed writing but nothing that could change my rating of at least 9/10. It gets 5 just for having Jeffrey Combs, one of my favorite actors. He has found that thin line existing between completely hamming it up and terrifyingly menace. Combs can make the goofiest of all scenes/dialogue effective and epic.

Most know I prefer horror films that have plots at least etched in reality. If the premise can happen with out suspension of disbelief, I can accept certain bad reactions or decisions by characters. If horror is about fear then it is acceptable people would make decisions on intuition instead of reason as tension escalates. So it is no surprise why I enjoyed this particular film so much, every single moment of the story - and by extension all of the decisions characters make - is something that can be happening somewhere right now as you read this post.

The film is Would You Rather. The whole film is practically flawless but there is a fifteen minute scene - "Round Two" - beginning at exactly the 45 minute mark that I find is a realistic horror masterstroke. This scene is followed by one that show just how realistic the story is. Most stories where there is a chance for the antagonists plan to fail but doesn't eliminates most, if not all, realism. If the plan can be easily changed by chance then the villain cannot possibly be omnipresent, like a hack writer needs the villain to be. There is a great chance the mastermind's plan can be ended, which is tried. That six minute scene and the fifteen "Round Two" scene with a sjambok are definitive highlights. The subtle music, patient editing and great acting by Charlie Hofheimer who plays "Travis" as well as Combs makes this scene a difficult scene to watch.

While I found Enver Gjokaj who plays "Lucas" to have some uneven reactions during the first two rounds, he makes up for it during his turn in "Round Three", very expertly acted. The moment he opens the card until his turn is over requires quality acting in order to make believable.

Excellent movie and all should watch it.

I also dug "Would You Rather" - Combs is utterly awesome.

Adult World (2013)
Emma Roberts is a virgin poetry major who dreams of being published. She finds a book of poetry by John Cusack and decides to find him in the hopes of coming under his tutelage, but bills don't pay themselves. She takes a job as a clerk at an adult video store ran by Cloris Leachman and John Cullum, where she meets her new friends Evan Peters and crossdresser Armando Riesco.

Cusack steals the show by delivering one of his more sardonic performances, Emma Roberts channels her best Anna Kendrick, and Evan Peters...exists. Solid throwback to the random indies I'd watch late at night growing up. 6/10

The Babysitter (2017)
Judah Lewis is a nerdy 12 year old with overprotective parents (Leslie Bibb and Ken Marino), only one friend (Emily Alyn Lind), a neighborhood bully (Miles J. Harvey), and the coolest babysitter on the planet (Samara Weaving). At least, that's what he thinks until he stays up after his bedtime. That's when he catches the babysitter and her friends sacrificing the nerdy Doug Haley to Satan.

McG's direction is, for once, spot on here, and a great cast brings a solid script by Brian Duffield to life. This has been the best Netflix original movie I've seen yet. 7/10

Drifter (2016)
Aria Emory and Drew Harwood are brothers in a post-apocalyptic world hunting the man who killed their father. While tracking him down, they stumble into the shanty trailer park town of Demyl, where the locals are eager to have them over for dinner. Literally.

Very little happens but what does is memorable. Director Chris von Hoffman had only made shorts until this point and it shows, as some of the most captivating shots and brilliantly brutal scenes resonate despite the poor pacing and weak script. Like Adult World, a throwback to 90s indies in tone and pacing, but lacking a truly memorable ending or original moment. At times it feels like the best Rob Zombie movie never made and at other times just another self-satisfactory slice of pretentiousness. Similar to Bad Batch in both strength and weakness. 5.5/10

I was surprised how much I liked The Babysitter. The weirdest part is that Netflix had two original horror / comedies within a couple months of each other. Little Evil was from the director of the excellent Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil, and The Babysitter was directed by McG — and I ended up enjoying the McG movie more.