What did you watch this week FFF? (03/17-03/23)

Madeline's Madeline, 2018 - 8/10
Leave No Trace, 2018 -7/10
Leaving Neverland, 2019 - 7/10
Ben is Back, 2018 - 6/10
The Cloverhitch Killer, 2018 - 5/10
Serenity, 2019 - 5/10
Upgrade, 2018 - 7/10
I See You, 2019 - 6/10

The Dirt (Netflix). It was dark and depressing. It made me appreciate Bohemian Rhapsody all the more. 😊

Us. It was just ok.

I got drawn into Bondi Rescue and watched I don't know how many seasons - quite a few. My Netflix has only two seasons (7 and 8, if I recall correctly), so I went to YouTube to see it from the first series. My takeaway is that there are a lot of stupid people who hit that beach: can't swim, and apparently can't read, either, as there are warning signs right there. Hence, they get themselves in life-threatening situations and the lifeguards must act. Still, I found it very interesting to see what kinds of things they deal with on a daily basis. All in all, it was a nice reminder of warmer days to come! 🏖️ 7/10.

Georgy Girl - 1966, DVD - The DVD cover claims it's a light-hearted comedy, but I don't know where that came from - I didn't find it funny other than a couple of moments. I liked Lynn Redgrave's performance, and Charlotte Rampling did well playing the b*tch. Alan Bates is appropriately annoying as Jos, with James Mason as the creepy older man. Interesting, but not quite what I expected. 6.5/10

I watched other things, but sheesh, this is all I can remember at the moment.

i've watched love death & robots up to the end of ep 9. i definitely think the witness is the standout episode so far - stunning animation that reminded me of bill sienkiwiecz at his trippiest at times. the rest of the episodes have not been up to that standard, but they have all gone down easily enough & i'll finish watching it this week probably.

my week:

blow out (1981) 5 de palma's greatest film, travolta at his most sympathetic.

there was a time when i would definitely have scoffed at someone who said this was better than blowup. i've come around, & now think that blow up is the better film & one of the best of the last 50 years imo.

blood rage (1987) 3.5 about thirty minutes in, i realized i'd seen this before. i was happy to sit through the entire thing again. it's very silly, but it has some passable gore & some attractive women & some atrocious acting & ridiculous plotting. i had fun. i might even make this an annual tradition.

iron man 2 (2010) 2.5 i haven't seen im 2 since the year it was released, i believe, & only had the vaguest memory of it. seeing it had popped up on netflix, i decided to give it a fair go tonight. for the first 40 minutes or so, i was having what i can only describe as an undeniably good time & found myself wondering exactly why people hate this thing so much.

and then it fell off a bit of a cliff, i guess. the balloon deflated, tension evaporated, story lost momentum, all that stuff. robert downey jr is still fun, and sam rockwell works his usual magic in a far too small role.

i'd say it's better than captain marvel - at least it has some personality, unlike that cinematic block of wood - but it is indeed pretty dull stuff.

the thing from another world (1951) 3.5 has all the limitations you'd expect from a low budget 50s sci-fi adventure, but this is a solidly entertaining, fairly tight story. it's no day the earth stood still, but absolutely worth a watch.

tuff turf (1985) 3 deeply deeply 80s.

bad points: too long, & robert downey jr is underutilized & disappears for long stretches.

redeeming qualities: kim richards is very fetching, & james spader's hair looks fantastic.

chilling visions (2013) 3 pretty average horror anthology. not memorable, but i found it entertaining in the way i find most horror anthologies entertaining. all the segments are short & reasonably well made & to the point, except perhaps for the last one, which does drag a bit & ends the film on a bit of an underwhelming note.

paprika (2006) 3.5 didn't find this to be a trippy delight on the same level as perfect blue, but it's still a dizzying, mind-bending good time.

robocop (1987) 4 if you say they don't make them like this anymore, i'll be the last person to disagree. brutally violent, genuinely funny at times. the satire might be a bit too on the nose, but i can live with it, and it runs rings around anything the hollywood mill is producing these days. modern action films are so often generic & sanitized. not all of them, but many. this has bite & it's not afraid to be ugly.

i haven't seen spetters or 4th man yet, but i'm laying my marker down on this being verhoeven's finest hour.

total recall (1990) 4 last night i declared robocop verhoeven's finest hour, but criminy, this film really does chug along very effectively as well. it lacks the satirical edge of robocop & starship troopers, but this is a very tight, lean & violent film. a few practical effects don't hold up that well, but some of the early cgi still looks pretty sharp to me.

apollo 11 (2019) 5 straightforward doc that walks you through the apollo 11 journey from lift-off to return strictly using beautifully restored footage. there were no modern talking head interviews, no voice-overs, and only a smattering of contemporaneous news commentary. what it did have is an emotional kick that i did not see coming. made me cry a few times if i'm being honest. fantastic score, too, though that contained my only quibble in that there were a few moments where it verged on being slightly overbearing, where it stepped on the moment. see it on the biggest screen with the best sound system.

hail, caesar! (2016) 4 for the first little spell, i felt like i was settling on thinking this was a pleasant but minor & very cluttered mess, but by the end i'd come around to being completely won over, & i think i might fight anyone who declares it lesser coens.

forbidden world (1982) 3 pretty entertaining roger corman production. doesn't dawdle, has some fun gore & a very cute girl that is nude reasonably often. that's all i ask for.

head-on (2004) 4 self-destructive, nihilistic man & woman have a sham marriage so she can live a free wheeling hedonistic life with no interference from her strict parents. they make for a pretty good movie couple. if more relationship dramas were like this, i could watch them without wanting to vomit in disgust. i may now be slightly infatuated with sibel kekilli.

First time:
Hereditary (2018): 8/10
The horror is mostly very subtle and sometimes you may not notice things right away which are the type of horror films that scare me. Though it is a slow burn film and I feel the ending could've been laid out better.

Ralph Breaks the Internet (2018): 8/10
Loved the first one and this is a great follow up, just slightly not as good. It was fun to see the Internet in the way the movie presents it and will probably make me less aggravated when pop ups occur.

Us (2019): 7/10
Most of my rating is for the acting, concept, and score of the film. It was fantastic right up until the ending which makes it fall apart due to the leaps in logic it asks the audience to take.

Rewatch:
Avengers Infinity War (2018): 10/10
This movie holds a special place in me for a couple of reasons that would take too long to explain here. What else can I say other than it's the culmination of something a lot of us waited a decade for? I don't think there's a dull part in the movie and there's so much that happens that I didn't expect. The writers and directors did such a great job (as well as the actors) with handling these characters that the villain is actually rather sympathetic. It's a fantastic emotional rollercoaster. Can't wait for Endgame!