Recent movie playlist

[TC]

Fubar and Fubar 2 - i hadn’t heard of these flicks before the first one was mentioned on the most recent season of Letterkenny, but they are on amazon prime so i checked out the first one. it’s a mockumentary about two Canadian doofuses, just beer-drinking long-haired losers, made on a shoestring budget. it manages to be way better than it should be on paper. it’s actually a good film. so i immediately watched the second one. obviously a much higher budget and quality (made 8 years later) with more broad ideas and locations beyond the neighborhood. it may actually be better than the first one in some ways. anyway, it’s sort of like beavis & butthead as adults, or maybe dumber Wayne and Garth, or somewhere in between, in a spinal tap format. they end up being quite enjoyable. i can see why they are classics in western canada.

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Chinatown - always a good watch. my wife hadn't seen it before, so showed her last night, and she said the same thing i did after i saw it the first time - "Why is it called Chinatown? It didn't really have anything to do with Chinatown, and Chinatown was barely mentioned." i didn't have a great answer, but it was good conversation. also, i noticed two different times - both right before jake was attacked - where you hear a fly buzzing around him but you never see it. thought that was interesting. and there is a lot more humor in it than i remembered. same way i feel about ninth gate. polanski has a style for sure.

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I never get tired of watching Chinatown. Who knew water management would make for a good film subject. Chinatown is called that because it's a symbol for being in over your head and the inability to do anything about things. Jake mentions this happened when he used to work Chinatown, and the film comes full circle to literally ending in Chinatown with a same situation. It's Chinatown - you can't do anything about it, that's just the way it is.

[TC]

yeah that's what i pointed out. he said the rules don't matter and everyone does as little as possible or something like that.

[darkness]

Cobra Kai - I finally started this so I can be one of the cool kids. I loved season 1. Just the right mix of a little nostalgia with a good new story and characters. Season 2 though, I'm half way through and man did this show get stupid. Half the people in this should be in jail. I hope it finds its way again.

[TC]

Cobra Kai - I finally started this so I can be one of the cool kids. I loved season 1. Just the right mix of a little nostalgia with a good new story and characters. Season 2 though, I'm half way through and man did this show get stupid. Half the people in this should be in jail. I hope it finds its way again.

yeah, like i said, there was a lot about s2 i didn't like, with the bar s1 set. it was still enjoyable but it was not nearly as good. i think s3 was a good mix. better than s2 anyway.

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The Flight Attendant - let me preface this by reminding anyone who doesn't know how much i fucking hate the big bang theory. it is insulting to me as a human, let alone "nerd", and its mere existence is antithetical to everything i am. that being said, this show starting cuoco looked good so i took a peek. halfway through the season now and the show is pretty great. she (her character) is the biggest train wreck of a human i've seen in a while in many ways. there are some questionable plot conveniences but it moves along briskly enough that you don't pay attention too long to them. plus, daario naharis (the second) is good. a few other familiar faces round out a good cast. so far, recommended. stay tuned as i wrap the season.

[TC]

The Flight Attendant - let me preface this by reminding anyone who doesn't know how much i fucking hate the big bang theory. it is insulting to me as a human, let alone "nerd", and its mere existence is antithetical to everything i am. that being said, this show starting cuoco looked good so i took a peek. halfway through the season now and the show is pretty great. she (her character) is the biggest train wreck of a human i've seen in a while in many ways. there are some questionable plot conveniences but it moves along briskly enough that you don't pay attention too long to them. plus, daario naharis (the second) is good. a few other familiar faces round out a good cast. so far, recommended. stay tuned as i wrap the season.

It took a couple side roads in episodes 6 & 7 i think, but the crazy wrap was worth it. The entire thing was driven by an over the top performance by cuoco. She was a tour de force of acting in this, showcasing the entire range of emotions and moods. Hope it gets an S2, given the set up. But, that could also be going down a hackneyed path. Guess we’ll see. It was enjoyable for sure.

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Close Encounters Of The Fifth Kind: Contact Has Begun - the tone of this is all over the place. here are my reactions, in four acts: Act 1 - hey, that's interesting/useful information. cool, this should be good. Act 2 - wait, what'd he just say? Act 3 - OMFG these people are talking to lens flares. Act 4 - buy our app and you too can control UFOs and/or alien visitors!

Possessor - Brandon Cronenberg's feature debut (i believe). picks up the mantle from his dad nicely. feels exactly like a cronenberg film. watched the uncut version. very obtuse, intentionally, for most of the film. never over-explains what's happening. some great gore/effects shots sprinkled throughout this high sci-fi film. never really clear when this is meant to take place - like i said, it's pretty obtuse on details - but don't think that really matters. i enjoyed it and am looking forward to watching again, maybe picking up some more details.

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Cobra Kai season 3: "Let's settle this the old fashion way...tournament." Um, no, they broke into your house, assaulted every one there, how about you call the fucking police and put these clearly dangerous people in jail. Season three frustrated me a little less than season 2, but seriously, WTF reality does this show take place in.

[_Marcus_]

Cobra Kai season 3: "Let's settle this the old fashion way...tournament." Um, no, they broke into your house, assaulted every one there, how about you call the fucking police and put these clearly dangerous people in jail. Season three frustrated me a little less than season 2, but seriously, WTF reality does this show take place in.

I thought it ended really well. If you watch this show you have already suspended all sorts of disbelief (all of these kids should be dead, for one). It came close to going off the rails a few times but ended up getting back on track in the end. Season 4 can turn out to be a real banger.

[TC]

yeah, like i said, i think S1 didn't really require any acceptance of anything ridiculous - it was just good, but after that it just turned into comic book land. and yes, especially s3. if you can get on board with that, it's still pretty fun, i loved it. i mean, it's ridiculous. part west side story, part breakin', part i don't know what.

[_Marcus_]

Right, agreed! I kinda love the over-the-top-edness of the whole thing but they came to close to losing me this season (Eagle Fang for instance). But then Elisabeth Shue entered the building, grounded it a bit and then it finished very strong.

[darkness]

I like the parts in Okinawa. And Elisabeth Shue was good. I feel like in S3 the best parts were the ones with the adults, Kreese aside. Though his flashbacks were pretty well done. It's the stuff with the kids that went completely off the rails and made me start to lose interest. Plus I keep waiting for one of the kids to get tired of being bullied by a bunch of karate geeks and just show up at school with an assault rifle like any normal red blooded American kid would do.

[TC]

yeah. i feel like the first season wasn't written for the kids, it was written for us - people that saw karate kid in theaters when it was released. then they must've done some online analysis and found teens watched it, so they really started focusing on the kids. i could do with less insane kids too. but the okinawa stuff didn't do much for me, other than finding it amusing they reference a sequel, wrapping up loose ends there. and shue, they didn't really "do" much with her. i know she served a function, just felt like they didn't do much with her. which, thinking about it, is fine by me. that could get into retread territory very quickly.

still dug it.

[_Marcus_]

yeah. i feel like the first season wasn't written for the kids, it was written for us - people that saw karate kid in theaters when it was released. then they must've done some online analysis and found teens watched it, so they really started focusing on the kids. i could do with less insane kids too. but the okinawa stuff didn't do much for me, other than finding it amusing they reference a sequel, wrapping up loose ends there. and shue, they didn't really "do" much with her. i know she served a function, just felt like they didn't do much with her. which, thinking about it, is fine by me. that could get into retread territory very quickly.

still dug it.

I thought Ally kind of acted like the audience in her episodes. She took a step back, laughed at everything and told us all to grow the hell up and leave nostalgia behind. That contrasted with the very nicely shot but completely absurd mass fight at the Laruso-place made the last episode weird and good.

[TC]

yeah. i thought the fight at school was ridiculous (it was) but that brawl at the house was totally nuts.

[TC]

For All Mankind - AppleTV+ drama pitched as an alternate-history series ("what if the russians landed on the moon first and the space race never stopped?"), it sort of is. i mean, it is, but the "vs the russians" angle is almost ever only talked about. mostly just could have been pitched as "what if the apollo missions never stopped?" anyway, well-cast and acted, mostly. starts off slow...very slow. first few episodes are incredibly slow. eventually picks up. wish it were less heavy on the drama and more on the space, but i didn't stop watching it. i enjoyed it. don't know if there will be an S2 or not.

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I thought it was pretty good, but agreed, it did start pretty slow. They seem to love to kill off major historical figures on the US side in this thing. Season 2 starts February 19.

[TC]

cool. yeah, and they made sure to present their opinions on every major social issue: race, sex, korea, vietnam, politics, gender gap, drugs, nazis... did i miss anything? i even think someone mentioned they hate cats, so pets is on the list too. i guess no one is transitioning yet, we'll see if they hit that in s2. i say this tongue in cheek, it wasn't really shoved in your face in a clear agenda-y way, given that all of those were hot topics of the time. still, some of that felt shoved into the story. like, if that one chick's husband (my namesake) hadn't been a vietnam vet, it wouldn't have changed one thing about the story. shrug. it felt very apple-y.