I Just Watched (Films)

[Animalmother]

Ah, I like a bit of the Lost Boys, but of course you have to approach it from the angle of it being incredibly cheesy and often (unintentionally?) funny. Considering one of the first things you see is a near-naked, sweating bodybuilder absolutely beasting a saxophone I have to think it was done tongue firmly in-cheek

I believe that Joel Schumacher was very gay and this was his own little nod to it. More power to him

[Solitaire]

I was sitting around thinking about it, and I wanted to expand on my thoughts about Lost Boys. America is a big country. We have so many different cultures here - every state seems to have its own, somehow. I was in the Florida Panhandle as a teen, which is as far from Miami culture as one can get and still be in the state. My town of Pensacola is considered part of the Deep South and all that entails: hot, humid summers, beautiful Southern Belles, openly racist and bigoted, opposed to anything that even smells of environmentalism or any other hippy-ass nonsense.

Lost Boys, if the vampires are removed, is a time capsule of West Coast cool from the era, in fact it's practically a documentary. Everyone's doing what they want. The middle school kids sit around reading comic books, and their big brothers are the fucking bomb: growing their hair out, bonfires on the beach at midnight, racing motorcycles through fog-shrouded California hills, tromping around the boardwalk, wearing cool clothes... This is the Cali lifestyle that's revered by so many. It lives on today, right now, in the streets and beaches of CA, from San Diego up through the hundreds of miles to San Francisco. And this lifestyle, that's made fun of by the rednecks of places such as Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and upper Florida, is exactly what I longed for when I watched Lost Boys.

Also, it strikes me that the vampirism is an interesting allegory for the drug culture. Replace being vampires with being drug addicts and dealers. It all still works - the violence, the chaos, the obsessions, the relationships even work. Little brother trying to get Michael to see what's happening, but he's too obsessed with Star, with saving her, that he gets pulled too far into the lifestyle himself. Michael's mother dating an older man that turns out to be the local kingpin. Take him down, all the others fall with him. Kind of a fun thought experiment.

[Wrathbone]

Moonfall

Vaguely entertaining, spectacularly dumb. Roland Emmerich's latest disaster movie isn't a patch on the charismatic silliness of Independence Day, instead relying entirely on Samwell Tarly for any sort of comic relief while everyone else grimly faffs around for two hours trying to actively provide the worst acting they can muster with a woeful script. You know the thing about 1000 chimps on 1000 typewriters for 1000 years eventually writing Hamlet? This is more like 10 chimps scrapping over a single typewriter for an afternoon. The basic concept of the film (ludicrous as it is) and the idea of the moon holding some big secrets isn't the problem - it's the writing and the execution.

I balk at the idea of this being considered sci-fi, because it violently rejects simple scientific principles on a frequent basis. My favourite of these is when people are getting pulled into the air due to the moon being too close, but the gravitational effect ends when they rush into a building for shelter.

4/10

[Achtung Englander]

Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened (Netflix)

Always fun to see rich kids experience self induced hardships

7/10

[Lenny Solidus]

Predator/Prey

Back to Basics. When you reboot any franchise it will obviously always serve you best to understand what made the original classic so good, while yes giving the audience something different and remaining respectful to it all in one. Predator/Prey reminds us of everything a Predator movie should be, not to say it is in any way perfect because it's far from it and all the talk I've seen of how it is the best in the series, better than the original even - not for me it isn't. Both lead cast in Amber Midthunder and the surprisingly good first timer Dakota Beavers bring a lot to the movie, she has some incredibly emotive eyes - Alita meets Aubrey Plaza. And I genuinely think this did the movie a favour as much of her scenes revolved around a direct visual reaction rather than an audible one, which really helped with tipping the tensions and her performance higher.

The new Predator design although at first jarring and odd looking really grows on you, it's far more downplayed in design and there's an element of advanced yet primitive compared to everything we've known. This particular Predator had that skinny but built look of someone such as Dr Disrespect it was also wonderfully feral and amazingly skilled with it, any chance to do a cool flip on an axe before it embeds itself in a french trappers face gets my vote. And how about that Bear scene eh? Whoa. This was clearly a full on proving ground, there were many times these set shots would be used that had me thinking - I bet there are numerous cloaked Predator higher ups watching proceedings, observing the Hunt - much like how Western's always portrayed Native American tribes sat high on a hill, looking down on the warring Cowboys below.

Naru herself is quickly shown to be highly adaptive, confident of her own destiny to one day become a great warrior, sure she may do a bit too much gory tree killing (those poor trees) but the realisation that she does for all her lack of experience and training mishaps in fact fully encapsulates a leader and a survivor. She's somewhat abnormally quick of learning and you quickly back her to succeed in proving her own place among her Tribe who largely ignore her - especially during critical events such as the super importantly placed swamp scene.

Visually I would say the movie is a bit of a mixed bag, though there were times I was fully drawn in as many of the gorgeous wide panning scenes combined itself with a surprisingly stirring emotional score. There's been a lot of criticism about the films cgi, that was not really my focus but I never thought it ever looked particularly woeful. One scene in particular, that birds eye view of the Predator chasing Naru through a field looked especially amazing. Such Tribes have young men and women that develop an instinct to survive in the harsh wilderness, unlike every other movie in the series these are not Mercs or City Slicker types which makes everything so much more interesting. Big cats bears and such are obviously a common foe and while The Predator is much more a threat the same tactics and ways they are accustomed to using so regularly naturally come into play.

Predator/Prey might not be as character rich as the original the script not all that memorable nor quotable and Naru's arc for many will feel as if she 'magically' went from a mildly competent but work in progress Pocahontas to a full on Black Widow in the bat of an eye - well, all the necessary beats of how she arrives there come the finale are present and actually do work. You witnessed it all happen, just like her bow snapping mid-fight and how she struggles to quickly repair it - never unprepared and always ready to overcome. The movie thankfully doesn't rush things, it understands without pause or exception what a Predator's hunt is all about, the memorable yet simple ant - mouse - snake scene and likewise the rabbit and wolf one for which we witness an early trophy being taken. It's the true understanding of a hunter species and why they do what it is they do given full visual form, the food chain at work. At times it feels like a clash of two very much still evolving warriors, two younglings out to prove themselves to two very different types of peers.

Anyway, it's not really about what was committed to in this movie that excites me the most though thankfully it represents a full 360 away from all that ridiculous looking fucking Shane Black infested 'Predator Suits' and everything is a stereotype or a running joke bullshit. What the closing credits alludes to excites me far more, even though this was not as some will tell you the best Predator movie there has been the undeniable stamp it now seems to be making both with the studio and the fans alike, Predator is finally back on course. Worthy though not yet quite exemplary, at the very least a positive course correction has begun.

If it releases, we can review it.

7.5/10

Addition - Director Dan Trachtenberg openly said the inspiration for the Predators new shield was, yep you guessed it from playing God of War 2018.

[Wrathbone]

The Green Knight

For the most part I very much enjoyed this. Visually it's exceptional, with striking cinematography, beautiful lighting and some iconic use of costumes (such as the crowns). The Green Knight himself is wonderfully designed. The pacing is spot on, never lingering too long, nor too eager to rush away from slower moments. Where it falters a bit for me is the ending.

I was aware of the tale of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight before watching it, but I didn't know the details of the story. Afterwards I read a synopsis of the original poem and there are some major differences, but I think the film made some good adaptive choices and I like where they almost, almost went with it. My problem with the ending is that it pretends it's interpretive when actually it's just a cop out. An interpretive ending presents something to you and allows you to decide what it means. The Green Knight stops right at the point of resolution and then leaves you to decide what the denouement should be. That's not an ending, it's just a cessation of the story.

Spoiler

The original story (though I haven't read it in full) appears to end with the Green Knight letting Gawain off with a slight nick to the neck, despite his cowardice, and everyone back home has a good laugh about it and they insist its not a big deal, which seems a weird creative choice to me by our modern standards, which admittedly are quite different from traditional chivalric romance.

I like that the film shows Gawain eventually finding his courage and giving up the sash right at the end, which from the Green Knight's response was clearly the test all along. In that sense I suppose the core of the story was resolved to some extent, but I wish it had gone just that little bit further and shown that the sash wasn't actually magic at all - it was just a bit of cloth intended to test Gawain. If he'd kept it on then he would have died, but by taking it off the Green Knight in full Christmas spirit allows him to leave with his honour intact, having proved himself worthy of knighthood.

Instead we get that final line from the Green Knight which implies he's going to lop his head off anyway. I guess he could be joking, but what would be the point in saying it if he didn't intend to do it? Is he just going to nick his neck like in the poem? Why though, if he's already told Gawain he passed the test? That final line unnecessarily muddies the waters and spoils what could have been a near perfect ending.

7/10

[Snowy]

Predator/Prey
If it releases, we can review it.

7.5/10

Not gonna try to top that, except to say that I loved it. I knew nothing going into the film, so the setting was a surprise. Actually not gonna say anything more, as I don't want to risk a spoiler, if you like the original go watch it.

[Mantis]

I quite enjoyed it too. Didn't really do anything original for the most part, felt more like a reboot of the original movie in a way. But it handled the material well enough and delivered on the cool alien gadgets and gruesome deaths. Definitely better than most of the recent entries in the franchise.

Doesn't hold a candle to the original of course but then I don't think anything will simply because the Predator is a known entity now so the tension and mystique of the original movie can't really be recreated.

[ManBearSquid]

I thought it was fine. Some nice music, vista shots, and cool action sequences. I thought the premise was actually pretty cool too, along with the new predator.

What really irked me was the dodgy cgi animals that kept featuring in the first act. Also, I did nearly turn it off after a certain line was used again for no other reason than cringey fan service.

But aye, not the worst of the movies.

[Animalmother]

Day Shift
Vampire hunting with Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg. Good fun over all with some pretty inventive vampire killing and stunts. Great use of (I assume) drones during a car chase scene. LA is very sun drenched and there's 90's gangsta rap aplenty. The story is a bit on the weak side but that doesn't really get in the way of the fun everyone is obviously having. I also never realized that Snoop Dogg was so tall, he towers over everyone else. Good clean violent entertainment.

[Raid]

Prey

I prefer this to the original Predator. Let's just get that out of the way.

I've mentioned on here a few times that I'm not a massive fan of the Predator franchise. I like the Yautja as a piece of character design, but the films just never grabbed me. They rely on the mystery of the Predator itself; it's nothing but a discernible silhouette and some advanced weapons for the majority of its films, and so we're left with the human protagonist to carry the film for 60%+ of the runtime, and they've never had good protagonists. I've seen the original Predator probably four or five times, and I *still* had to look up what Arnie's character was called. I know characterisation was never the focus of 80s action films; Arnold Schwarzenegger was always playing Arnold Schwarzenegger - the man that can fire two-handed machineguns with just a single hand. But Naru is just a better protagonist than...{checks notes}... Dutch. She's not necessarily a great protagonist on her own merits; she's the young woman with a bow trying to prove all of the men wrong, hardly original, but she's at least a little sympathetic. Not remotely believable (she really would threaten most trained ninja), but fun.

But it's the setting that I find really compelling. Perhaps this wouldn't work without knowing the Yautja's capabilities from other films, but it's so much more interesting a scenario than commandoes in a jungle shooting the bad men who were probably all carrying AK-47s.

It's not exactly Oscar material, but I really enjoyed it.

[Sly Boots]

Day Shift
Vampire hunting with Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg. Good fun over all with some pretty inventive vampire killing and stunts. Great use of (I assume) drones during a car chase scene. LA is very sun drenched and there's 90's gangsta rap aplenty. The story is a bit on the weak side but that doesn't really get in the way of the fun everyone is obviously having. I also never realized that Snoop Dogg was so tall, he towers over everyone else. Good clean violent entertainment.

Sounds fun, I'll give that a try.

And Prey also. I have a hard time believing I'll prefer it to the original which I think is great, but happy to accept it's at least the second best film in the franchise (low bar tbf )

[Mantis]

Hey don't knock Predator 2. Gary Busey and Danny Glover wreaking havoc in LA is comedy gold.

[Sly Boots]

Day Shift
Vampire hunting with Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg. Good fun over all with some pretty inventive vampire killing and stunts. Great use of (I assume) drones during a car chase scene. LA is very sun drenched and there's 90's gangsta rap aplenty. The story is a bit on the weak side but that doesn't really get in the way of the fun everyone is obviously having. I also never realized that Snoop Dogg was so tall, he towers over everyone else. Good clean violent entertainment.

Dave Franco is hilarious in this. Is he now the best Franco?

[Snowy]

Hey don't knock Predator 2. Gary Busey and Danny Glover wreaking havoc in LA is comedy gold.

Agree, and the level of sweat in the film is also hilarious, every actor looks to have been blasted with a hose seconds before filming started.

Day Shift
Vampire hunting with Jamie Foxx and Snoop Dogg. Good fun over all with some pretty inventive vampire killing and stunts. Great use of (I assume) drones during a car chase scene. LA is very sun drenched and there's 90's gangsta rap aplenty. The story is a bit on the weak side but that doesn't really get in the way of the fun everyone is obviously having. I also never realized that Snoop Dogg was so tall, he towers over everyone else. Good clean violent entertainment.

Dave Franco is hilarious in this. Is he now the best Franco?

Watched this the other night, lots of fun.