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Jennifer's Body (2009)
not good
I read an article about this movie that said it had been badly marketed by people who didn't get it but that it was a feminist horror classic. So I decided to check it out.
The movie starts well, with friends Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox (both quite good) taken on their rules of sidekick and cool girl. Then a night on the town goes bad, Megan Fox gets weird, and Amanda begins to think something very strange is going on , which it is.
Unfortunately, nothing except the acting is all that good. The dialogue isn't that sharp (I didn't think much of the writer's big film Juno, so maybe she's not for me), the plotting feels wonky, it's not scary even to a horror lightweight like me, and the end is unsatisfactory (although the final found-footage-style thing is kind of brilliant. Does it make legitimate feminist points? I guess. Does it have something to say aboutt female friendships? Maybe? But is it an actual good, entertaining, well-paced horror movie? No, it's not.
This is a dumb movie with a couple of good scenes in it.
Gong fu yu jia (2017)
Good fights and scenery make this awful movie watchable
Kung Fu Yoga starts very badly. First there's an uninspired animation sequence to start off the movie's exposition-heavy approach to world building. Then we enter the real world, which is populated by Jackie and some of the worst actors to ever appear in cinema.
Soon after, there's a scene that looks like it's filmed in a pup tent on a Hong Kong set. I almost stopped watching at that point.
But then everyone goes in a cave and there's some really good fighting. Even Jackie, who looked stiff and exhausted in SkipTrace a year or two earlier, looks spry in this one with the help of flashy editing. And the other martial artists do a good job at Jackie-style fight choreography.
Then there's yet more exposition - this movie is fascinated by its mythology, and keeps explaining it very badly even though it's not necessary to the story.
But while that section in the snowy wilderness looked terrible, the scenes in India actually look pretty good. And there's some more good fighting. And then there's a really dumb ending.
Much of this movie is absolutely incompetent, but if you want to see some fun Jackie Chan martial arts, it will give you that.
Big Game (2014)
dumb as it sounds, but kinda fun
When I heard there was a movie where a young boy helps the US president escape terrorists, I thought, well that sounds stupid. And I didn't watch it until after I'd seen writer-director Jalmari Helander action move Sisu, which was a blast.
The boy isn't what I pictured - I thought of some cute Fred Savage type, but this kid looks kind of tough, and in the movie he's in the forest alone trying to prove his manhood by hunting big game. Which president Samuel Jackson arrives in his forest after a plane crash, the boy finds himself trying to keep the both of them alive.
Yes, it's all dumb, but it keeps moving and solidly hits its formulaic marks. I'm kind of torn between giving it 6 stars or 7, because it's just so silly, but ultimately I really enjoyed myself.
So, if you can get past the premise, I'd recommend checking it out.
Sisu (2022)
So many fun ways to kill Nazis
At a time where fascism is having a bit of a resurgence, it's enjoyable to watch a guy massacring a series of very unsympathetic Nazis. That guy is Sisu, a loner prospector minding his own business who finds himself pursued by Nazis in the waning days of WWII.
Sisu isn't a hero. He's not trying to kill Nazis to help anyone. He's a retired supersoldier who just wants to be left alone. But since that's not an option, he finds himself using his considerable skills to kill Nazi soldiers in a variety of bloody, entertaining, sometimes comical ways.
There's not really much more to this movie than "tough guy murders Nazis." But then, what more do you need?
Sunny (2024)
entertaining sci-fi mystery
After her husband and son die in a plane crash, American-living-in-futuristic-Japan Suzie finds herself emotionally broken, confused by some information about her husband, and stuck with Sunny, an intrusive domestic robot with secrets of its own.
After that, there are twists and turns as Suzie tries to find out what really is going on, hindered by gangsters and her mother-in-law and helped by a friendly and possibly smitten bartender.
This quirky series is being compared by some to Severance, which I totally don't get based on the one episode I saw of that show. Sunny is less peculiar and artsy, and it would make more sense to compare it with The Flight Attendant but that would still be a bad comparison. I'm not really sure what to compare it to.
The always-excellent Rashida Jones leads an excellent cast, that includes Sunny's voice actor, an actress named Annie the Clumsy as the bartender, and especially You as a gangster who manages to speak in a whispery little-girl voice that still conveys terrifying power.
The ending does a good job of resolving a bunch of stuff while offering an intriguing glimpse of what will come next if there's a second season. Recommended.
Deadbeat (2014)
nope
I checked out this series because two of the creators had been heavily involved with the brilliant series Wilfred (US version). But while that show was very smart, this one seemed ... less so.
The first episode abruptly jumps into the premise, with a slacker medium tasked with shooing a ghost. The way he must do this is pretty ridiculous, and it continues to be ridiculous every step of the way.
Ridiculousness isn't inherently bad, if it's funny, but little of this was particularly funny. And lead Tyler Labine is good at playing annoying characters, which can be a strength in a sidekick role but a weakness when you have to carry a show.
I only watched one episode, but based on that I can't recommend this.
Terminator Genisys (2015)
Didn't seem that bad at first, but...
In this installment of the Terminator series, we once again have humans and robots traveling back in time to destroy/protect SKYNET.
But in the most interesting part of the premise, all the time travelers of the previous movies have had an effect on the past, and the movie begins with crisscrossing terminators and a different history.
This may or make sense, but it's fun, and I wish the movie had just kept crisscrossing and see where it led them, because once the movie moves into its own timeline, it loses itself in a muddle of unconvincing plot turns.
The movie also gets bogged down in trying to make sense of itself. Whereas the first 2 movies could move from moments of intensity to moments of quiet character building, this movie quietly treads water for much of the middle third, leaving me thoroughly bored and realizing that, in spite of my initial good impression, this movie was just what all the critics had said it was.
A bunch of action at the end is decent and occasionally verges on excitement, but the murky sense and underbaked characters kept me from having any real interest in how it turned out.
Arnie is good, as usual, and Emilia Clarke did a decent job of a part that requires her to do all the film's considerable exposition. Jason Clarke and Jai Courtney, on the other hand, are just sort of there. And the always reliable JK Simmons is wasted in a part that seems to serve no purpose except to have JK Simmons in the movie.
This movie's greatest achievement is beating Terminator Salvation for worst of series. Skip it.
Jue di tao wang (2016)
Geriatric Chan in formulaic fun
I get it. People like me want Jackie Chan martial arts films. And Jackie wants to satisfy his fans. And for his age, Chan is in good shape. But in the inexplicably titled Skiptrace it's pretty clear that he's slowed down, and everyone he fights is kicking a little slower to give him time to react. He still has the movies, he's still fun, but honestly, sometimes it's a little painful to watch him trying to do this stuff.
Like a lot of Chan's US films, this is a buddy picture, with Chan a cop and Johnny Knoxville as a breezy gambler who gets caught up with Chan's target. There's a lot of running around, fighting, bonding, double-crossing, and all that typical stuff.
Competently directed by Renny Harlin, the movie has a bunch of fun stuff in it, including some fight gags (I loved the Russian Doll bit) and a lovely, completely irrelevant sequence in Mongolia that includes a Jackie singing a song.
The movie makes less and less sense as it goes along, and everything is either predictable or too far out of left field.
It's not a great movie, but if you're looking for something to scratch that Jackie Chan itch, this is one of the better of the elderly-Chan movies.
Trigun: Badlands Rumble (2010)
Fun overall
This is a sort of add-on to the anime series, offering a standalone story for the sci-fi Western comedy action.
It starts great, with Vash playing the fool, saving lifes in the most idiotic way possible. It is bright and fun and just what I remember liking about the TV series.
But around the halfway point the series gives itself over to pure bullets & bombs action. So much of it that it gets rather dull after a while.
The movie also takes on the themes of Vash's pacifism and its potential costs, but it fails to really make its point, if it has one.
When the movie focuses on Vash, it's funny and fun. When it focuses on shoot-shoot-boom-boom, it's sort of fun. I wish there had been more of the first and less of the second, but if you're a fan of the series you should definitely watch this. Although if you haven't seen the series, start there.
Trigun Stampede (2023)
a pretty good anime series in the shadow of a better one
Trigun Stampede follows a genial guy with freakishly quick reflexes as he travels through a wasteland dealing with various weird antagonists. It's an engagingly told story with good but unexceptional CGI animation and weak character development.
That would be my basic review of the series if I had not seen the original Trigun. But if you've seen the first adaptation of the manga, then you can't help but spend your time considering the ways in which it was more effective than this version.
In the original Trigun anime, Vash is basically an inept, bumbling idiot in sci-fi Western setting. He's a silly, comical character. But then, when danger arises, he is suddenly supernaturally skilled. One of the first things that drew me into the series was, how does this make sense? Who is this guy? What's his story?
Trigun Stampede tosses the mystery. We start with who Vash is, so there's little mystery involved. Vash is also no longer a buffoon. In his introduction, he does make a comical mistake, but that's the only time it happens. Basically he's just a pleasant pacifist with incredible gun skills. And while this still takes place in a desert wasteland, the Western tropes have been mainly stripped out.
So, Trigun Stampede's Vash is less funny, less mysterious, and more tortured. But that is not inherently bad, even if it's not as fun. But by the time one reaches the end of the season, the problem becomes clear - the changes have created a Vash who is hard to care about. He's so innocuous that in spite of his tragic backstory and ongoing struggles, I found myself in the final battle not really caring much about how it would turn out.
The original animation's characters were broad but compelling. As the mystery of Vash was slowly revealed, one got a sense of how much pain there was behind the goofball mask. This made the show, at times, heartbreaking.
None of this makes Trigun Stampede a bad series. I would absolutely recommend it. But not as much as I would recommend watching the original, which is one of my all-time favorite anime series.
Kimitachi wa dô ikiru ka (2023)
One of Miyazaki's best movies, although also one of his most perplexing
Like Beethoven, Miyazaki seems to have been put on earth to prove creativity does not have to diminish with age. This film is every bit as magical and beautiful and imaginative as any film in his career. It's also the movie that leaves me the most puzzled by the end.
The film has a boy moving to a rural are with a mysterious structure. There's also a mysterious heron. Increasingly strange things happen, new worlds appear, and everything just gets crazier and crazier.
The movie was funny, sad, thoughtful, and beautiful, with amazing scenes - fire so hot the air melts - frogs going out of control - murderous birds.
And when it was over, I wasn't sure what I'd seen, or how the pieces fit together. There seemed to be some plot holes. It felt like the movie was full of symbolism that I didn't have the key to.
But I'm fine with that, because this movie hits me with the impact of Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. I don't need to fully understand it to fully love it.
Watch it.
The Tales of Hoffmann (1951)
good looking but uninteresting
I learned about this movie through the film Tetro, a visually stylish, generally dull film that included a brief clip from Hoffmann. That clip was the best thing in the movie, so I hunted it down. But alas, it was also a visually stylish, generally dull film.
This is an opera/ballet in which the titular character describes a series of nutty failed romances. The movie is well photographed, well sung, and well danced. But it's also fairly incoherent, and the choreography is rather conventional overall, although there are some good numbers.
I watched the first hour and then bailed. It's imaginative, but unengaging.
Tetro (2009)
dull
Tetro starts well, with gorgeous black and white photography that gives us a strange opening image and then a night scene with a bedraggled banner. And then. A door is opened by Miranda, played by Maribel Verdú with so much charm and likability that I was instantly entranced.
For about five minutes then, I really enjoyed this movie. Then Tetro showed up.
This movie is about Tetro, an obnoxious writer, and his callow brother. As these two interact, all my interest in the movie just drained away. Neither character seemed interesting - Tetro was a selfish jerk, his brother was just bland. Some other characters showed up, but they seemed no more interesting. I started fast forwarding, but even with a nutty theater scene, there was just something deadening about the movie.
This movie is reminiscent of Francis Ford Coppola's film Rumblefish, which was also a black and white movie with a too-cool-for-school guy character. I loved it at the time. But I don't know if I would love it now. Maybe the film's arty euro-film pretentions wouldn't have bothered me back then. Or maybe Rumblefish just did it better. I don't know.
All I know is I could not drag myself through this movie, and I would really like to see Maribel Verdú in something better.
Mars Express (2023)
brilliant world building, even if it doesn't entirely stick the landing
Mars Express does an amazing job of creating a convincing future. The movie is full of technology that seems like it is not only possible, but probable, and it introduces this technology in a way that is organic to the story - it's not just showing you cool technology to show it to you, but cleverly building it into the story.
That story is a noirish detective investigation in a world full of intelligent robots who are treated as less than human. So that part has got a nice Blade Runner Vibe.
The movie takes on some profound issues, which is a problem when it comes to the ending, because while it's not a *bad* ending, it's not that persuasive, and worse, feels like it drops all those issues and concepts and leads you to wonder, what exactly was the point of the movie? Were they really saying anything?
Even though the characters are thin and the ending is weak, overall this is an incredibly clever, imaginative sci-fi movie with excellent animation. Recommended.
Shin Gojira (2016)
inaction movie
The first half hour of Shin Godzilla takes place mainly in government offices and meeting rooms, where politicians fail to meet the moment.
One review here says this is a response to the Japanese government's paralysis after an earthquake, but that doesn't make it any more interesting to watch.
The movie picks up after that, with scrappy researchers desperately seeking an answer, and a fun performance by Satomi Ishihara as a brash American government liaison.
The film has some notable moments, such as Godzilla's attack on Tokyo and the carrying out of an assault on the beast. But this is still more about bureaucracy and government than about anything else. And Godzilla itself looks like a cheap kids toy - I was shocked by how bad it was.
I actually had never been interested in Godzilla movies, but after I saw the terrific Godzilla Minus One, I thought that perhaps I'd misjudged the series, and I chose Shin Godzilla based on a perusal of a reddit thread. This is a lot of people's favorite Godzilla movie.
Is there another Godzilla movie as good as Minus Zero? Honestly, after this, and the first movie, which I saw years ago, I'm inclined to think it was a one off. And this film has cured me of the desire to find more good Godzilla movies.
It's not terrible, once you get past the tedious first half hour, but I can't recommend it.
Xuan ya zhi shang (2021)
good spy flick
This slick but convoluted spy picture follows a group of Chinese spies on a secret mission. There are twists and turns, smart good guys and smart bad guys, some stylish cinematography, and an odd mix of realistic world building and unrealistic James Bond-style action.
Unfortunately, I found it increasingly difficult to follow the story. This was probably mainly because I have difficulty with faces (prosopagnosia) and everyone in this movie looks alike and dresses alike. There are all these men in suits and fedoras who seem to be in their 30s. And all these women in their 20s with ponytails who also wear fedoras. I would just get so confused by who the good guys and bad guys were. The only character I could always recognize was the main bad-guy boss, because he was older than anyone else. And I could usually recognize the pretty teenaged-or-just-past girl. Outside of that, I got more and more lost as more and more lookalike characters arrived and died.
Normally I have other ways to know who's who in a movie, like personality or clothing or voice. But no one in this movie has a distinct personality and they all sound and dress the same. It's as bad as those American sci-fi films where every astronaut is a square-jawed alpha male with a crewcut.
In spite of this, I enjoyed the movie. It's far from Yimou Zhang's best, but it's entertaining. But if you have face blindness be warned that this is going to be a particularly tough movie to make sense of.
Kite Man: Hell Yeah! (2024)
Odd premise made surprisingly enjoyable
I was excited when I heard there would be a spinoff of the brilliant series Harley Quinn, and utterly perplexed that it was the annoying minor character Kite Man. I mean, really?
The first episode was cute but unexceptional, as it sets up the basics - Kite Man and his girlfriend, Golden Glider, who has a freaky power she can't control, are stealing for sustenance when they find their favorite bar imperiled and it becomes a whole thing. It was reasonably funny and intriguing so I kept watching.
And I got more and more into it. Like Harley Quinn, Kite Man mixes a genuinely sweet love story with nutty characters and disturbingly graphic violence. And in spite of being only mildy interested at first, I soon reached the tipping point where I just binge-watched the whole thing.
While Kite Man still seems like an odd series star, he is backed by a wonderful ensemble that includes a very funny Bane (who would seem to have been a better option for a spin-off star) and Darkseid with his very silly greek chorus.
The story was good, but like Harley Quinn it's really the likabililty of its off-kilter villains that makes it so engaging. Here's hoping for a season 2.
Oni: Kamigami Yama no Onari (2022)
fun animation but strictly for kids
I'm not going to rate this one, since I don't want to skew the ratings for something where I'm not remotely the target audience. This is aimed very much at young children, of which I am not one.
I watched this because the animation in the trailer looked cool, and the animation really is very good. There's also a wonderfully imaginative collection of characters - the weirdest I saw in ten minutes I watched was a guy with a water dish for a head who passes out every time his water splashes out, at which point someone has to refill it for him. Seems like an evolutionary dead end, but it's certainly creative.
I like a lot of cartoons that are ostensibly for kids, like Infinity Train or Pixar movies. But those films have a certain sophistication, whereas Oni has got that cute, simplistic kids vibe. It doesn't mean that nothing interesting will happen, or that there won't be a good story. It just means that my adult brain almost immediately said, "nope, not gonna watch *this.*
But if you've got a kid and want to watch TV with them, you could certainly do worse.
Flirting with Disaster (1996)
weird and fun
I didn't watch this movie when it came out, in spite of an amazing cast that included Lily Tomlin and Tea Leoni, because I heard it wasn't very good. I don't know who I heard that from, but I can certainly see people not liking this disheveled bit of weirdness.
But when I finally saw it, almost 30 years later, on the urging of my girlfriend, I quite liked it.
At its simplest, this is the disastrous road trip of a an adopted guy in search of his biological parents. His wife comes along, as does a neurotic, incompetent adoption agency worker, and together they travel the country, causing chaos.
That sounds more straightforward than it is. The characters are very quirky. The road is very indirect. The movie has a shaggy, disheveled quality in which events rarely go in any sort of normal way and everything goes sideways much more than it goes straight.
The cast is excellent, including Mary Tyler Moore a sort of comedy version of her controlling mother from Ordinary People, Stiller as a sort of sympathetic jerk, and various odd people that include racist truckers and gay cops (or FBI, or whatever they were - I missed it).
My girlfriend said when she saw this movie in her twenties she thought it was hilarious, and while neither of us reacted that strongly to it this time, it was decidedly amusing and engaging.
Recommended.
Beaver Falls (2011)
mediocre throwback
This movie is inspired by every summer camp movie of the '80s. There are hot girls, they're schluby guys ready to prove themselves, there are macho jerks, there is an authoritarian guy running the whole thing. At least that's my first impression.
In the very beginning of the first episode I thought, well this might be pleasant. It had a reasonable low-key summer comedy vibe to it. But as the protagonist charges arrive in all their obnoxious glory I lost what little bit of interest hadn't previously been lost by a lot of the ridiculousness.
Well my main issue is this just isn't very funny, it's also pretty stupid. The whole setup makes no sense. How is it that all the jock guys get a cabin and all the schlub guys get a cabin? Is this an official policy? Maybe that's explain later but I can't see how it's ever going to make sense. Meanwhile, the idea that three rookies are put in charge of a cabin with no instructions and expected to come up with the whole activity for their charges seems utterly ridiculous. I've never worked in a summer camp so I can't say that's not exactly what happens, but I find it hard to believe that many summer camps would be that badly run. And it's not badly run in a funny way, it's just badly wrong.
A half hour or so in I had lost all interest in making it to the end of the first episode. Not recommended.
Almost Paradise (2020)
How much stupid can be squeezed into an hour?
The first episode of Almost Paradise begins well. Christian Kane is an ex-DEA agent with a heart condition ready to retire on a tropical island. Instead, he gets involved in a big police investigation.
So, so far so good. Not great, but light, mindless, comedy-action, right? Sure, the whole way he gets attached to the police is absurd. Sure, his "wisdom" is transparently nonsensical. But hey, popcorn TV, right?
But around the middle of the first episode, the show hits maximum stupidity. There's the "look at me breaking all the rules." There's "let's put the tough cop in a bikini for absolutely no reason. There's an absolutely ridiculous set up for the second half. And then there's this whole "very special moment" chunk of time that made me realize when I'd thought the show had gotten as stupid as it could, it was only just getting started.
The one episode I saw of Almost Paradise can rival any other episode of any other show for pure stupidity.
It's not that I can't turn off my brain for a really fun show, it's that this is at best mildly fun and so stupid that you can't just turn off your brain - you have to beat yourself into semi-consciousness.
Unless you just don't mind stupid at all - and judging by the comments here, a lot of people apparently don't - then avoid this thin.
Bad Monkey (2024)
This sort of thing has been done better
Bad Monkey falls into a subgenre I generally really enjoy - the breezy crime comedy with an irreverent hero. Psyche, The Finder or the first season of The Glades are good examples.
Bad Monkey aims for the same thing, but in the first episode it just is never funny enough, engaging enough, or clever enough to keep my interest.
Vince Vaughn is only adequate as the protagonist. The narrator is good, but the narration is odd, in that the show's writers keep apologizing for fairly standard storytelling approaches. The most interesting characters are several sexy women, but they seem to be peripheral, so you need to like the rather Vaughn and the blandly likeable L. Scott Caldwell.
The mystery is like a million other mysteries, but while a show like The Glades gives you a different mystery each week, it seems Bad Monkey is offering one generic mystery for the entire season.
Nothing about this is bad. Little about it is particularly good. I can't recommend it.
Genius (2017)
stories of interesting people
Overall, this bio series is well produced and acted. Some people have argued about what counts as a genius, but these are all people who changed the world, so I'm okay with their interpretation of the concept.
I've been watching these seasons out of order. I really liked the first episode of the first season but then I got distracted and never watched the rest, only tuning in again for season 3, which was overall a more effective portrayal of Aretha Franklin than the movie that came out a little later.
The MLK/Malcolm X season was also riveting and effecting, and Griffin Matthews's portrayal of Bayard Rustin was fantastic - he was better than the actor in the movie Rustin.
Picasso was well done but the time hoping didn't work. The movie ran on two tracks maybe 30 years apart, but there didn't seem to be any compelling reason in the narrative and it was just annoying. Also, Picasso, is loathsome. But still, very good acting and production.
One episode left of Picasso and then *finally* I'll finish up Einstein.
Inside Out 2 (2024)
clever, hilarious sequel, but I have a quibble
I loved Inside Out, and I love the sequel almost as much. This time around, the little girl is less little, a hockey wiz enjoying her best life until puberty hits her and she does what kids hitting puberty do - go psycho.
This involves the arrival of a number of new emotions which compete to power with the emotions from the first movie. Things get out of hand, there is a lot of arguing, one begins to wonder if it's true that people only have one positive emotion in the head competing against tons of negative ones (probably) and, like the first movie, you get two great, dual track stories, one of the girl, one of the emotions in her head.
But one thing bugs me - anxiety.
Anxiety in this film is very strategic, and I'm not sure that's what anxiety is. I feel they need two emotions, anxiety and ... cunning? Planning? (I know those aren't emotions, but there's got to be something that would work) that would work together to cause what happens in the movie. I just don't believe anxiety is that ... calculating.
At least not for me. But still, amazing movie.
Robot Dreams (2023)
A bittersweet love letter to NYC
This movie, written by a Spanish director, is one of the best portrayals I've ever seen of New York (he spent time there).
I mean, yes, this is a charming story about friendship and loss and it's funny and touching and imaginative and pleasant and incredibly original and blah blah blah, and if you weren't around in New York in the 80s you're not going to recognize how well it caught a million little details. But I was around, so I spent the whole movie thinking - "oh wow, it's that thing! I remember that thing!"
It's also a movie that really sticks with you, because it just really takes you on a *journey*.
Recommended even if you're not a New Yorker, but if you are and you haven't seen this yet, you absolutely have to.