2023 - ???? (And Now Suddenly You Are Middle Aged)
The pandemic stole my youth. Give it back!!!!!!
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- DirectorCarlos Caridad-MonteroStarsDiana Peñalver DenisJosette VidalFabiola AracePerla is obsessed with having a beauty queen in the family and she is willing to do whatever it takes to make her dream come true.I had a feeling that I wouldn't be a huge fan of this movie from the moment I heard the first few licks of the soundtrack. It felt very expected and needlessly cutesy, as if it were right out of the indie film playbook. And, while I didn't hate it or anything that came next, it all just felt like it was lacking in depth.
The premise was certainly interesting and I can very much see how this was a satirical critique of the obsession over a particular type of beauty in Venezuela. There were plenty of moments that gave me a tickle - I was particularly tickled by the sex-induced symphony of car alarms and the biting 'hot legs' ad that came after the climactic amputation at the end - but the lack of consistent character development and depth ultimately let me down. Why, for instance, did the devout girl suddenly decide to boink the guy at the auto shop? And what was the point of poor Salvador, other than to serve as a punchline at the end? Satire is fun and all but I don't like things to be so willy-nilly. After all, "willy-nilly" starts with "will". There should be some will in that willy!
Now to go to bed and dream of willies.
Watched: June 30, 2023 - StarsKarl LagerfeldFrank BruniMatthew HaagA series that documents behind the scenes of some of the largest events in the world.
- StarsDrew PinskyEbony JacksonJoshua RendonGet an intimate look into the lives of teenagers as they navigate adolescence while facing unplanned pregnancies and go from high school students to parents-to-be.
- DirectorDavid SladeStarsJosh HartnettMelissa GeorgeDanny HustonAfter an Alaskan town is plunged into darkness for a month, it is attacked by a bloodthirsty gang of vampires.Watched: January 14, 2023
- DirectorMark ChristopherStarsRyan PhillippeSalma HayekNeve CampbellThe famous 1970s New York City nightclub seen and told through the eyes of a young employee.Sometimes the best way to end the week is with utter fluff and, boy howdy, did 54 hit the spot. I expect that the director's version is far superior to the "Harvey Scissorhands" version that I watched but I still found much to enjoy about the version that was released in theaters. Ryan Phillippe and Heather Matarazzo are somehow siblings! Salma Hayek and Breckin Meyer are somehow a couple! Neve Campbell, despite being so heavily featured in promotional materials that I even remember seeing her in ads for this film back in the 90s, is barely in the movie at all! And, of course, there's an incognito Mike Meyers that totally looks like a troll. A fun time was had by all and I very much enjoyed watching this while eating Lucky Charms topless in the living room.
Watched: June 23, 2023 - DirectorW.D. RichterStarsPeter WellerJohn LithgowEllen BarkinAdventurer, brain surgeon, rock musician Buckaroo Banzai and his crime-fighting team, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, must stop evil alien invaders from the eighth dimension who are planning to conquer Earth.Watched: November 25, 2023
- DirectorLucio FulciStarsJared MartinLara LambertiUlli ReinthalerThe spirit of a comatose teenage girl possesses the body of a newcomer to her girls boarding school to enact bloody revenge against the elitist, lingerie-clad coeds responsible for her condition.All I wanted was a movie to be between The Adventure of Buckaroo Banzai and After Hours but, thankfully, I got so much more than expected. Bullies getting their comeuppance. Very 1980s aerobics classes. And, the pièce de résistance, snails on nipples. There's nothing more that I could ever want or ask for on a Tuesday evening. Thank you, Aenigma, for everything that you've given me.
Watched: February 27, 2024 - DirectorMartin ScorseseStarsGriffin DunneRosanna ArquetteVerna BloomAn ordinary word processor has the worst night of his life after he agrees to visit a girl in Soho he met that evening at a coffee shop.Watched: November 26, 2023
- DirectorJoey SolowayStarsKathryn HahnLink RuizCesar GarciaRachel tries to spice up her marriage with a trip to a strip club. She befriends McKenna, who gave her a lapdance. McKenna moves in with Rachel's family and becomes a nanny for the son.I really did not think I was going to like this movie. It's all just so improbable! What rational person would ever start tailing a stripper to fill some inexplicable void in their life? How would they ever end up inviting them to stay in their home after only a few meetings? Why would you ever trust this barely-above-a-stranger with your child? How could this ever happen!?
I normally roll my eyes at the upper middle class ennui yet I found myself enthralled by all of the deeply entrenched dishonesty at the heart of Afternoon Delight. There are so many lies that we tell ourselves just to be able to survive in this world. We lie to our spouses, we lie to our friends, and we even lie to the therapists that we pay hundred of dollars to see in order to feel like we're keeping some sort of semblance of a healthy life together. Reality is often too sickening and disturbing to admit.
I am somewhat ashamed to see a bit of myself in Rachel. I knowingly tell many lies about how I view others and the world, to the point where many people I know might be disgusted if they knew what was really underneath. But, until I have to strength to be my unabashedly honest self, I will keep on lying for now. I need to do what I can to survive.
Watched: May 1, 2023 (Day 10 of Ankle Recovery) - DirectorFredric HobbsStarsChristopher BrooksPeggy BrowneE. Kerrigan PrescottNightclub janitor discovers a secret room, finds old magician's belongings, tries on the costumes and becomes "Alabama, King of the Cosmos."This movie began with the following voiceover narration:
"Whilst storm clouds gathered over Europe in the years before the war, Hitler's most brilliant and renowned young scientist, Dr. Kirsten Caligula, vanished suddenly from her laboratory in Berlin.
World press received unconfirmed reports that Dr. Caligula - an expert in robot technology - had been dispatched to Calcutta, India, on a top secret mission for the Fuhrer himself.
Her orders: to interview the world-famed magician and spiritualist Carter the Great at his Mountain retreat near Calcutta. There to study his most recent discovery a rare super-substance known as Raw-Zeta.
It was rumored amongst scientists of the time that Carter's substance resembled a highly potent form of hashish known as Cartoon-Khaki. Other authoritative sources in the Far East reported that Raw-Zeta, when refined electronically, could result in the formation of Deadly-Zeta.
Carter - in ghost form - was introduced into a human body by Chinese acupuncture techniques. In his last public statement, Carter warned that any mortal wired to Deadly-Zeta could be used as a broadcasting catalyst to enslave all humans with the sound of his voice, thus becoming an unwitting tool for the most diabolical forces of evil known to man.
Soon afterward, Carter vanished forever whilst visiting his sister in San Francisco, perhaps a victim of his own prophecy.
Seven years later, when Carter was pronounced legally, dead his admirers held a spirit funeral over an empty black coffin."
Shortly thereafter, Carter the Great the Ghost said the following:
"You will die alone...with ME".
I don't understand any of what I just watched. I don't understand how any of this came into existence. I'm better for watching it though, and that's all that matters.
Watched: September 25, 2023 - DirectorIan CoughlanStarsJoanne SamuelLou BrownBunney BrookeA young girl is subjected to a reign of terror so that her soul can be transferred to the body of an old crone.Watched: February 24, 2024
- DirectorChristopher GuestStarsChris FarleyMatthew PerryBokeem WoodbineTwo bumbling explorers hope to beat Lewis & Clarke to the Pacific Ocean as they race across America's western frontier in the early 1800's.Rewatched: June 13, 2023
- DirectorMilos FormanStarsF. Murray AbrahamTom HulceElizabeth BerridgeThe life, success and troubles of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, as told by Antonio Salieri, the contemporaneous composer who was deeply jealous of Mozart's talent and claimed to have murdered him.Just about one of the only good things about this COVID experience is that it allowed me to watch the 3-hour director's cut of Amadeus before it expired from Amazon Prime. Now if only I hadn't become convinced that I would die like Mozart during my fever dreams...
Watched: September 27, 2023 - DirectorShari Springer BermanRobert PulciniStarsPaul GiamattiShari Springer BermanHarvey PekarAn original mix of fiction and reality illuminates the life of comic book hero everyman Harvey Pekar."I've had enough bad experiences and growth to last me plenty. Right now, I'd be glad to trade some growth for happiness."
Rewatched: January 10, 2023 - DirectorStuart RosenbergStarsJames BrolinMargot KidderRod SteigerNewlyweds and their three children move into a large house where a mass murder was committed. They start to experience strange, inexplicable manifestations which have strong effects on everyone living in or visiting the house.Watched: March 26, 2023
- CreatorMitch SchauerKeith KaczorekStarsRichard Steven HorvitzNick BakayRick LoganBrothers Daggett and Norbert Beaver have left home to gain independence by living on their own. Their goal is to live a wild bachelor lifestyle but, as might be expected from young brothers, they get into some weird situations.
- DirectorBryan SingerStarsIan McKellenBrad RenfroJoshua JacksonA boy blackmails his neighbor after suspecting him to be a Nazi war criminal."Body Count: three (two humans and one bird)." This throwaway bit of trivia perfectly encapsulates my reaction to this movie. It was all just so silly! The score was reminiscent of an oddly maudlin Tim Burton Disney flick! There were so many time jumps! And the notion that the mean old Nazi made Brad Renfro get good grades was just laughable. But, who cares! I was entertained.
Watched: May 3, 2023 (Day 12 of Ankle Recovery) - DirectorJames GlickenhausStarsBob ByrdMonica TidwellMark BuntzmanA scientist who works for a secret government agency that studies zodiac signs finds himself against a dangerous Indian cult lead by a powerful enigmatic man.I have no idea what the flip I just watched but I do know one thing: I didn't like it. While the first five minutes of the movie began with much giddy anticipation of what was to come, it failed to live up to the intrigue that it established at the outset and quickly devolved into a jumbled mess. It's such a shame - the notion of some sort of conspiratorial agency that searches for individuals with high "zodiacal" potential certainly could have been a smart exploration of political corruption a la Dark Farces - yet this just felt like too many ideas packed in with really crummy execution.
It probably doesn't help that the version on Tubi appears to be a good twenty minutes shorter than the length listed here on IMDB. My only hope is that the original edit at least contains some semblance of a thread that ties everything together or, really, even just some less chaotic editing would have at least kept this movie out of my mental garbage can. But now we'll never know why the Zodiacal boob gave his sex-starved wife a fake birthday, or how the evil dude was able to make people do evil things with his mind, or why the heck they let Mr. Evil out of prison in the first place. Oh well! I'll just pretend this never happened.
Watched: July 21, 2023 - StarsTyson FuryParis FuryVenezuela FuryThe heavyweight champion as he exits the ring and tries to embrace retirement with his family including his wife Paris, father John, and his six children.Finished: November 11, 2023
- DirectorJennifer KentStarsEssie DavisNoah WisemanDaniel HenshallA single mother and her child fall into a deep well of paranoia when an eerie children's book titled "Mister Babadook" manifests in their home.Watched: April 20, 2024
- DirectorRolf de HeerStarsNicholas HopeClaire BenitoRalph CotterillBubby has spent thirty years trapped in the same small room, tricked by his mother. One day, he manages to escape and, deranged and naive in equal measures, his adventure into a modern and nihilistic life begins.This was certainly very disturbing. In fact, I found that some moments were so hard to watch that I had to distract myself by picking up some odds and ends in the Pink Room. It's just no fun to watch cruelty against cats, especially knowing now that one of the cats was apparently euthanized and its corpse continued to be used during the filming process. I just can't imagine any kind of scenario were it's cool to kill a cat.
But, animal cruelty aside, this really was a fascinating piece of work. It was exceptionally bleak in the beginning but, at the movie went on, it was hard not be moved by Bubby's immense depth of compassion despite all of the many ways in which society failed him. There were some moments that were genuinely thought-provoking and even touching. Yet, still, kitty murder. I'll have to cuddle Igby extra hard tonight.
Watched: September 2, 2023 - DirectorWoody AllenStarsWoody AllenLouise LasserCarlos MontalbánWhen a bumbling New Yorker is dumped by his activist girlfriend, he travels to a tiny Latin American nation and becomes involved in its latest rebellion.My experience of watching this movie very much resembled how an alien or robot might study a work of art to better understand the human race. There were many moments where it was clear that a joke was happening and that I should be laughing; however, all I could muster up were occasional snorts and smirks. This just didn't tickle my funny bone. Instead, I was an Alien Robotress that viewed this with detached indifference and thought to myself 'Ah, this is what the humans call comedy'. Indeed, Robotress, indeed.
Watched: January 1, 2023 - DirectorZach CreggerStarsGeorgina CampbellBill SkarsgårdJustin LongA woman staying at an Airbnb discovers that the house she has rented is not what it seems.Watched: August 1, 2023
- CreatorNatasha AllegriStarsAllyn RachelKent OsborneAlexander James RodriguezBee, an unemployed woman, is living a normal life until a grumpy companion named PuppyCat arrives. Follow Bee and and PuppyCat as they travel between reality and "Fishbowl Space."
- DirectorDenis CôtéAlong the rhythm of the seasons, beasts and humans regard each other. 'Bestiary' unfolds like a picture book about mutual observation. A contemplation of a stable imbalance, and of loose, tranquil and indefinable elements."Experimental" is often synonymous with "booooooooooring" and, not surprisingly, Bestiaire lives up to the reputation. I'm sure that the filmmakers were very deliberate and intentional with the abstractly poetic piece of art they made but, when push comes to shove, there just wasn't a whole lot here to keep me engaged. For instance, I didn't pause when I went to the bathroom and I think all I missed out on were clanging noises. I also managed to finish the last third of a graphic novel I started reading two nights ago. Ultimately one can only derive so much meaning of static shots of zebra hooves.
My experience of "watching" this very much reminded me of all the horrendous experimental movies I had to watch in college and the insufferable, 50-minute seminar discussions where we had to justify the artistic merit of whatever garbage we had to endure. Thank goodness that my days of higher education are behind me and I no longer have to pretend to find depth in nothingness.
But, for what it's worth, this did give me an idea for my next band name: Ostriches At Odd Angles. OAOA will soon take over the world. Take that, Dogs Die in Hot Cars!
Watched: July 24, 2023