What was the last movie you've seen?

[REPO Man]

I liked it in theaters. And to be fair, it held up better to a second viewing than the Doom movie, though thankfully that had a Doom 3 demo.

[PretentiousHipster]

Slant Magazine released their favs of the year so I'm slowly catching up on those. I started with Benediction as I LOVE the director Terence Davies. His usual biopics that are done in a very fascinating way with a mix of his essay film stuff. It's about the war poet Siegfried Sassoon. However, the only war part of this is real WW1 with him reading his poetry on top. Most of it is about his few gay relationships which are basically them being catty towards each other. It was like watching a Whit Stillman film. The thing that made this fascinating, and his other film A Quiet Passion, is that the character covered in the biopic is more of a vessel of himself. The latter was about how he is a hermit, and this film was more about him being self-loathing of his homosexuality. A fantastic film.

[Stark]

Anyone see Bullet Train? I liked it.

[RCBH928]

Anyone see Bullet Train? I liked it.

Is this a remake? I kind of always like to watch the original but sometimes the original doesn't appeal to the current taste of the consumer so they make a remake for the modern day.

Also looking up this title I stumbled upon a movie with the same name from 1975 and I no longer have respect for Speed.

[REPO Man]

Rewatched The Muppets Christmas Carol while I was wrapping presents. Still charming.

[PretentiousHipster]

Some highlights from the past 2 weeks:

Doppelganger (1993) - A mess, but probably in the best way possible. Kind of like a completely trash version of Mulholland Drive, with a main focus on the erotic thriller aspect. Fun fact: Only "canon" list I can find that this was on was on Mr. Skin's Top 100 Nude Scenes of All Time. Just when you thought it can't get more ridiculous, it gets even more. Makes this film a blast to go through, regardless of its actual quality.

Lucky Girl (2001) - A Canadian Lifetime PSA style movie about teens. It's really awful, but you know those types of bookie/loan shark kind of films? Imagine that but with high school students. This is so detached from reality that it becomes a fascinating watch.

The Yards (2000) - James Gray is a legendary filmmaker to me, and this might be his best. It felt like a Scorsese film, but I find that with the stylistic touches that James does, especially with the use of shadows which reaches noir level, it made this film overshadow most of Scorsese's work. Joaquin Phoenix obviously does a fantastic job, but somehow even Mark Wahlberg did decently well. I think it's because his character was more subtle. Someone who starts out very meek and usually just stares at people melancholically, but it was effective.

The Banshees of Inisherin (2022) - In Bruges was huge for me as a teen, and I might have to see it again after seeing this. Colin Farrell really did a fantastic job doing what the young people call "being a Kevin" and that alone made this worth watching.

Tumbbad (2018) - A bollywood fairy tale. Very stylized cinematography, and VERY effective use of body horror. Since it's a fairy tale it's an obvious kind of morality tale, but thanks to those two aspects this was mindblowing.

Vibrations (1996) - This should be considered the next huge so bad it's good movie. James Hurley from Twin Peaks has a blonde mullet, and loses his hands. Another case of something super detached from reality in order to be inspiring. He basically finds himself again thanks to the power of techno. It's not even techno really either. It's more like something James Ferraro would make. Two of the many highlights include him at the beginning with his band playing loudly in the garage, and a cop coming for noise complaints, talking about how it's "punk music". The actual music is the type of stuff you'd hear in corporate training videos. Another highlight is that he ends up homeless, breaks into a factory, and sleeps in a box... only to wake at somehow the place turned into a permanent techno venue.

[REPO Man]

Dusted off a favorite of mine that STIL remains one of my favorite versions of the classic Dickens story, A Diva's Christmas Carol.

[REPO Man]

So it turns out that some time ago, VH1 put out a sequel called A New Diva's Christmas Carol. And yet it's billed as a sequel despite having nothing to do with the story of the 2000 made-for-TV movie aside from a modern spin on the Charles Dickens classic.

Here, a cold-hearted vocalist turned judge on a televised talent show (a la The Voice) is visited by three spirits, this time swapping out the old trope of Past, Present and Future and instead travelling as a trio.

Sappy and bog standard modernized retelling of A Christmas Carol but I still thoroughly enjoyed it. Definitely throwing it into my holiday rotation next year.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Tumbbad (2018) - A bollywood fairy tale. Very stylized cinematography, and VERY effective use of body horror. Since it's a fairy tale it's an obvious kind of morality tale, but thanks to those two aspects this was mindblowing.

Nice. Glad you liked it. Michi pointed me to that one, and I also really enjoyed it.

Also, Vibrations sounds awesome.

The next movie for, I think, should be Joy & Hope. It’s easily the best-worst Christmas movie I watched this year.

[REPO Man]

Today at Robin's place, with my uncle, mom, brother and sister-in-law we watched a couple of seasonal films.

First we watched Home Alone 2: Lost in New York and then Gremlins.