I had a lot of assignments to complete over the last few weeks, and as such I've fallen behind on my movie watching and my movie writing. While doing assignments, I didn't want to abandon movie watching completely, but as I was largely devoting brain power to my current and/or next assignment at all times, I found it difficult to engage with movies that I hadn't seen before if said movies required any amount of real thought. This became easier to deal with as my number of assignments grew smaller, but as you read this, if there's a movie on this list that makes you think "Why would you ever watch this?" my answer is that I needed to think less. This is also why my summaries are pretty short this week.
141. The Condemned (2007) - May 21st
This was so close to being my kind of trash; any movie that thinks it's a good idea to end on a Nickelback song gets at least one ironic point from me, but for some reason this movie about a battle royale with extreme convicts felt the need to go on far too long and even thought it could moralise at us for wanting to watch the movie. The initial entertainment from the pure schlock goes out the window as soon as the movie tries to have a point that spells itself out as "are we 'The Condemned'?" for wanting to be entertained by this fictional ultra-violence. It's such a strange and hypocritical thing to say when this comes from the WWE network, which literally exists to spout silly, fictional violence. I can understand if a movie wants to try to make a point about its mindless violence, other movies of this type do it consistently, but when you awkwardly juxtapose extreme violence and the glorification thereof with judgement for wanting to indulge in this sort of fiction, it gets awfully grating and even detracts from what was already entertaining. - 3.5/10
142. Fallen (1998) - May 23rd
This was a better concept than it was a story. The stuff surrounding the story is mostly fine; the cast is solid (Denzel never disappoints), the tone is consistently dour and a little sickening and the music fits. The only aspect that I found genuinely bad was the editing, which was about as subtle as a brick to the face while reinforcing a self-serious tone, which is a dissonant mix; however this isn't enough to ruin the rest of the film's stronger aspects. Unfortunately, the whole thing banks on a story being as good as its idea, and despite a few good turns here and there the whole thing runs out of steam until its final twist, at which point it either sells you overall or is at least memorable enough to be decent. It's a shame, too, because it starts so well, with a unique mystery surrounding a series of copycat murders that seem to have no connection aside from their similar M.O., and when a supernatural element is suggested it's not entirely nonsensical within the context of the film, but as it keeps heaping on more rules and stakes and loosely realised reasons for why its plot is happening, the whole thing begins to collapse on itself. The only reprieve is its twist, which is set-up enough that, if all other turns feel pointless, it at least got us to this point. - 6/10
143. Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018) - May 25th
This was the weakest of the new Star Wars movies, but it's still pretty good. Everything is soft and kind of pointless because the film can't have real stakes with most of its primary characters, and while Ehrenreich gives a great performance its suggests more of a character arc than what's given in the writing. My full review can be found here. - 6.5/10
144. Fifty Shades Freed (2018) - May 25th
I didn't think it could get worse after Fifty Shades Darker. I was wrong, and I wish I didn't hate myself to find out that I was wrong. This is trash, and if it's your kind of trash then I'm not going to judge you, but I am going to tell you that this is the least sexy sex movie I've ever seen, and that I recommend against anyone ever seeing it. This is essentially softcore porn that will turn you off ice cream, and it's so bad that there's a morbid entertainment that can be drawn from drinking heavily every time that something stupid happens on-screen because the two main characters are terrible people that are terrible to each other. This is, in a word, bad. - 2/10
145. Early Man (2018) - May 31st
I love Aardman's work. Every Wallace and Gromit, as well as Chicken Run, are absolutely animation classics and deserve to be watched over and over and cherished for eternity. Early Man isn't nearly as good, although it's still a decent movie with its own handful of comedic qualities reminiscent of Aardman's best. While its story may fall flat largely due to its generic nature and surprising lacking in comedy, and there may be strangely dissonant relations between character wants and needs and the conflict thereof, but its animation is flawless and carries with it more wonderfully light humour than anything in the dialogue. - 6.5/10
146. The Brothers Grimm (2005) - June 1st
This is a weird mish-mash of the Gothic and the goofy. Its style is so strange and yet I find it surprisingly compelling; the fact that the general's head torturer is a comedic side-character (played with such cheese by Peter Stormare) should be enough to get across the weird tonal dissonance that's so consistent across this film. I'm not sure that I like the mixture, but appreciate the film's commitment to maintaining the idea; in one moment Peter Stormare is pooped on by a bird for a cheap joke, and in the very next shot this joke shifts to a foreboding image of dozens of crows perched on an overhanging tree. Kids get eaten by spider horses and their faces wiped off by magic mud, but we still have time for a bit of slapstick or an off-colour joke. There's drama here to try and balance out the other two elements, but I don't find it nearly as compelling, largely because its oriented around characters who get too little development to be interesting; the brothers have some okay banter and Lena Headey has a good foundation, but their character stuff is used for easy melodrama rather than actual character development. The movie's also too long for its idea, with a couple of sequences (such as the interlude back with the general, which conveys information that was already or could have been otherwise conveyed in the general's initial scene) that are unnecessary. Still, the film gets by a lot on its stylistic and tonal mixture, making it hard to dislike the presentation mostly due to hard hard it tries to keep the balance between two contrasting tones; I suppose it is Terry Gilliam, after all. 6/10
147. Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior (2003) - June 1st
I'm out of energy at this point, which is a shame because I'd like to be able to say something comprehensive about this one. I love the fights, they walk a fine line between flashy style and gritty punishment that's become a standard of great martial arts movies. I find the themes interesting, slightly cheesy in presentation with the obvious stuff like "respect religion and tradition" and "don't be greedy" that's at least fitting for its context and only becomes overbearing at points, and doesn't prevent the movie from having a bit of edge to its heart of gold and a self-deprecating, goofy quality that makes the whole experience a little endearing despite the subject matter. Also, Jaa literally falling face first in to the plot submerged underwater might be the best-worst way I've seen of resolving a plot point ever. - 7/10
148. Leatherface (2017) - June 3rd
This is better than Texas Chainsaw 3D, but that's not saying much. It's still strange to see a film try to make Leatherface, the maniacal chainsaw-wielding cannibal, sympathetic, and while this does a much better job than its predecessor by giving his family a ritualistic, systemic approach to murder and cannibalism, it's still trying to turn a psycho killer in to a tragic figure, an idea so abhorrent that a better film than this is needed to make me feel anything for the character (maybe the filmmakers should watch a little of Fritz Lang's work. Seriously, have you seen 'M'? That has to be one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time and it actually succeeds in at least quelling the idea that mob mentality is the appropriate measure by which we should punish psychos, and that guy was killing kids; he's still a monster, but his pleas stop you from being a monster too and give you this disturbing insight in to such an insane mind. Interestingly enough, Leatherface seems a little like it takes from this idea, characterising the lawman as wrong despite his righteous anger over the murder of his daughter, making Leatherface's murderous nature a sickness cultivated by his environment, giving him the chance at least at an understanding, etc. Man, this side note is taking way longer than I expected it to, I'll stop now). There's flashes of a good idea here, certainly a better one than its predecessor, but the movie has no restraint in its application of ultra-violence and is unable to offer the character of Leatherface the reprieve he really needs for the movie to succeed in its idea, smashing everything together too quickly and refusing to let the story breathe for a moment to let the idea of understanding him have any weight. The biggest emotional turn around in the movie happens so quickly that there's no time to absorb it as anything more than a quick 'gotcha!' moment; the film doesn't show the dedication to its idea enough to really make it work. - 4/10
Re-watches
I didn't mean to watch three movies in a row that had Keith David in them, it just kind of worked out that way. I don't have the time to do these as well as I would like, so the responses to these will all be one sentence each.
35. The Thing (1982) - May 29th
John Carpenter is one of my favourite directors and this is one of his best films, combining a fantastic premise with excellently exercised paranoia and attention to detail and spine-tinglingly disgusting effects to make one of the greatest horror films of all time - 8.5/10
36. They Live (1988) - May 29th
Hardly his best to most but easily my personal favourite of Carpenters, this film uses his common 'so blatant it's satire' approach to make a comedically slanted commentary on America's disparate social structure that's more entertaining than it is comprehensive, and while for some that might not be enough, for me it hits the spot just right at the exact moment Rowdy Roddy Piper says "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum." - 8/10
37. The Nice Guys (2016) - May 30th
Shane Black is a great writer, especially of dialogue, and a good director, but he always seems to stretch his third act in to two parts that each have their own climax and give the pacing the of the film an uneven feel; this doesn't entirely detract from The Nice Guys strength in having some of the best verbal slap-fighting I've ever heard, but it does weaken my enjoyment of and care for the film as it approaches its second climax. - 7.5/10
38. Bridesmaids (2011) - June 2nd
This is just one of the funnier pure comedies from the last decade and I'm really glad my friend felt like watching it, because it was just as hilarious the second time around. - 7.5/10
Published June 4th, 2018
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