Rendel (2017):

Supposedly Finland's first full-length superhero film (although there are some indie guys from the Trash Video collective who might disagree with that statement), Rendel is a troubled product hobbled by the besetting sin of Finnish genre movies - slamming together multiple theoretically interesting elevator pitches and creating a mess that's less than the sum of its parts; see also The Twin, which is like four different horror films mushed together. But then again, if you had access to one of Europe's biggest empty industrial spaces, wouldn't you want to use it for some action filmmaking? I guess what the script is going for is Batman by way of Blue Ruin, but the end result is more like sub-everything The Crow, and it doesn't even completely keep its edgy tone. If you're gonna go for the R rating, it might as well be a hard R because this is some remarkably PG-13 dark avenging.

The premier Finnish superhero outing is still Jalmari Helander's Ukkonen, a 20-minute short film from 2001, which goes through the same origin story beats as Rendel but with a playful glee instead grimderpness. It even does the whole unraveling personality thing a lot better, and the film has aged magnificently because these days we're at the point where 20 minutes feels like the exact correct runtime for a superhero origin film. For those interested, there’s a potato quality version on Youtube.

Spider-Man Across the Multiverse (2023)

For now, this was the film I watched for the last time.

Napoleon Dynamite:

Man, they weren't kidding when they said this is the most realistic time travel movie.

Holy moly, Killers of the Flower Moon, what a hell of a devastating picture.

Mongol (2007):

So apparently Genghis Khan's warfighting genius boils down to not some horse archery meta but him using his elite warriors as unabashed suicide units. Then again, the film makes it markedly clear that the Mongolian god Tengri is very real and favors Temüjin with concrete miracles, so it all just works. For such a mythically-minded piece of work, it is way too subdued outside of the battle scenes. Temüjin is just a wholesome wife guy who has to kill half of all Mongolia because being a wholesome wife guy is a hard mode life style on the Eurasian steppe of the 13th century. He also has an unusual (and self-serving) flip-flop character arc about whether traditionalism is good or not. This was supposed to be the first entry in an entire Genghis Khan trilogy, but that went nowhere outside of this origin story.

The Killer (2023)

This movie by David Fincher with a script penned by the writer of Se7en, Andrew Kevin Walker, is an adaption of a French graphic novel and recently released on Netflix. I definitely think the character could have been a bit more developed and nuanced rather than a boring stone-cold killer out for vengeance but the narration, philosophical musings, and meticulous attitude does make an interesting character study on a calculating perfectionist with no regard for empathy.

I think part of the idea though was that his life was pretty hollow and somewhat meaningless despite/because of his profession (Perhaps this is meant as indictment of modern society in general).

I enjoyed The Killer overall and while it's not close to highs of Zodiac or Social Network for me I thought it was a nice comeback for Fincher after what a huge piece of shit Mank was.

haha true. The Killer is more in the spirit of what he does best. Mank was a passion project but not entirely interesting. Looking forward to his future Netflix projects.

Mr. Tines wrote:Suzume

Did you get Evangelion, more specifically 2.22 vibes from this film like I did?

I just recently watched this movie myself and thoroughly enjoyed it. Ranking it better than Weathering with you and almost as good as Your name.

::KL7:: wrote:

Mr. Tines#940569 wrote:Suzume

Did you get Evangelion, more specifically 2.22 vibes from this film like I did?

Having skipped the middle parts of the Rebuilds, I'm obviously not in a position to make that specific comparison; but, no, I didn't characterise it to myself as being Suzume striving to avert an Evangelion-style Next Impact or anything like that, if that's what you mean. My immediate associations were to things like Toji no Miko, or, to a lesser extent, the [MC] wa Yuusha de aru setting; the cat being more aradama than Vertex, but the other-world operating more like forestization than the aradama Netherworld did.

What's happening with the world? I did 3 movies in as many days.

First, The Boy and the Heron which was showing at the local arthouse cinema; and then, because I did the free month of Prime for Christmas shopping, did a bit there before I cancel.

Next, Matrix Resurrections, having watched the first two (great, weak respectively) back when and the third one (felt like it was being made to kill the franchise off) while using up Karen's year of Prime. Terribly, cynically, self-aware. I only hope that the line about "only doing it, because Warner Brothers wanted a fourth entry in the trilogy" is an explanation about why the movie was actually made. At least I didn't spend any money watching it rather than doing anything else.

Last Shin Kamen Rider, knowing nothing about the original beyond what the title says, and only having seen a number of clips from various toku series over the years. It was fun, if a bit languid at times (or maybe that's me with an attention span that's been shot). There are definitely plenty of places where Anno left his fingerprints, including the not!Instrumentality sub-plot.

And who knows, there may be another movie in the next week or so - having seen the trailer, and been intrigued, with it opening on Friday, I may well catch Poor Things, depending what times the showings are.

Mr. Tines wrote:I may well catch Poor Things, depending what times the showings are.

Well, I did go to see it, and there was enough of the intriguing steampunk Bride of Frankenstein that the lower certified trailer had hinted at to have almost countered being buried under way too much tedious "furious jumping" and needless profanity.

None of the other trailed films sparked any interest, so I wonder how long it will be before I do another movie.

Alabama's Ghost (1973):

They say it's low budget cinema, but the scene in which the dirtbiking vampires charge down a sand dune to attack the Altamont festival is genuinely impressive kino.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe (2008):

Conceptually, this is a nostalgia bait sequel I can get behind: sure, it does the "our heroes are now old and dour and unwilling to get involved" thing, but it also bravely goes smaller and ditches HUGE swathes of the series' baggage, including its whole ufo mythology angle and the later new age wankstery. Instead, it turns into a feature film what feels like a monster-of-the-week episode screenplay that was left unfilmed in the nineties because it was too gross for TV. There are scenes in the third act that feel like they could be from a demented lesser giallo. It also leans on the sleaze by being kinda unabashedly offensive towards various different groups, like the film is trying to intentionally become a new "problematic fave", and as a result it is never really as good as the classic MOTW episodes because the sincerity is missing. There's apparently a sizable quotient of fans who think I Want to Believe is actually just a mildly stealthy self-parody/shitpost film because of a couple of absolute howler moments in an otherwise super bleak and fucked-up story, but I wouldn't go as far: the classic series also featured comedy, and not just in episodes written by Darin Morgan.

How crazy is the plot reveal? Well...

The Holdovers (2023)

Perhaps one of the few feel-good Christmas movies that deserves some actual praise for delivering sentimental impact without being corny. The story revolves around an irascible teacher at a boarding school who has to look after students who have to live at school during the Christmas holidays. His responsibility becomes more difficult when most of the students are picked up later in the holiday, leaving him with just one student, Angus, a rebellious and gifted student, along with the school cook, who is also dealing with her own problems after her son died during the Vietnamese war.

Unavoidably, comparisons can be made with Dead poets society, except the teacher is disliked intensely by the student and only warms up to him later once he sees more into his character and they share their personal experiences of being misunderstood. I personally felt the teacher was rather sympathetic from the beginning and rather than simply evolving into a different person at the end, the teacher was allowed to present his pleasant qualities and share his knowledge of life when given the opportunity of caring for someone.

Gave The Sky Crawlers a watch after stumbling over it; I'd call it best described as one of the movies of all time.
I'm not even sure how to describe it other than it feeling like a highly political piece made in a timeline that operates on completely different rules to our own.

Gonna go watch The Princess and the Pilot, see if that scratches the plane itch better

EDIT: Turns out Sky Crawlers was an adaptation and only like a quarter of the story. That explains several things.
The Princess and the Pilot then was very cute, good movie

Maestro (2023)

I really think this movie should be acknowledged as just focusing on Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre as I think many people go into it with the expectation that it would be about his musical career. It evocatively depicts how their relationship develops, as it flicks between past present, musical elements, serious drama about how his wife views him and his affairs with one great scene of him actually conducting an orchestra. It is really similar to Oppenheimer in its use of black-and-white as well as characterization of an adulterous husband but perhaps lacks the adrenaline and 'crescendo' of an atomic bomb finally being developed. I thought it was emotionally charged and leaned heavily on the leads brilliant performances, and I think it does a great job of presenting the conflict in Leonard as he tries to juggles his homosexuality, being world-famous and being a family man, as well as Felicia trying to be supportive but also being blindsided by her husband's dominating reputation and constant affairs.

A small problem of the film is that everyone is forever smoking, almost as though Leonard needs to practice his conducting skills by waving a cigarette in his hand.

dzzthink wrote:A small problem of the film is that everyone is smoking,

Meaning they didn't airbrush out that part of how the world used to be. I am reminded at this point of a German mystery/thriller from c1950 I saw at the local arthouse some time in the past couple of decades - in one "everyone talking around a table" scene, you could hardly see the actors for their smoke.

One personal reason why I love cinema: when an action film ends with a "do as I say, not as I do" coda.

Last movie I watched? The series finale to a certain 1995 mecha anime.

El Squibbonator wrote:Last movie I watched? The series finale to a certain 1995 mecha anime.

Idk man I don't think Gundam Wing Endless Waltz is very good.