cmac
New Member
Posts: 16
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Post by cmac on Dec 15, 2017 8:50:28 GMT -5
epicgordan- is this movie the same one as Lady Bird: Seeks But Doesn't Find Her Johnson?
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Post by William Smith on Dec 17, 2017 20:36:21 GMT -5
Gordo: I admire your stamina.
You couldn't pay me to see Lady Bird.
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Post by epicgordan on Dec 20, 2017 13:06:36 GMT -5
I saw Star Wars: The Last Jedi recently. I'll just sum it up in one word: BORING!
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Post by epicgordan on Dec 21, 2017 3:55:54 GMT -5
Great! We're getting Darkest Hour near here. I'm gonna go see it. Should be a good one.
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cmac
New Member
Posts: 16
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Post by cmac on Dec 27, 2017 22:49:20 GMT -5
I watched Woman Times Seven by Vittorio De Sica last night & spent most of the evening trying to figure out what the point of making that movie was. It had the common flaw of most Italian cinema, that being, a pace so slow that you've already figured out what will be on screen long before it ever appears.
The movie was a great waste of some nice actresses like Rossano Brazzi, Anita Ekberg, Adrienne Corri, Elsa Martinelli & others. Remember the John Wayne movie Hatari? That was Elsa & a wonderful job she did in that. I'm giving Woman Times Seven a 2 out of 5 star rating. I can't really justify a 1 or a 3 so, you know. A bit of a stinker & waste of a very good cast in my book.
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Post by epicgordan on Dec 29, 2017 14:40:43 GMT -5
2017 is probably the absolute worst year in film history. This year, I have not seen a single film I could easily classify as a Great Film. A couple came close, but I'll get to them when I get to them. I actually thought about posting full reviews of recent films like Coco, Darkest Hour, The Disaster Artist, or Star Wars: The Last Jedi among others, but decided to just wait until now when I start posting a top ten list.
I'm gonna start with the top ten films of the year list. Why? Because it is worth mentioning just how futile it was trying to come up with an objectively best movies of the year list with the slop we're giving out. The vast majority of the films I have seen were either lackluster or left no impression on me. Yes, I have seen films like Lost City of Z, An American Assassin, and The Hitman's Bodyguards among others (in total, I have seen 37 films this year), but I've either completely forgotten all about some of these films, or they simply nudged and thought they were alright. I a small number of films to consider for my top ten list, but for some reason or another, I decided to leave them out. Most of them are simply because I forgotten I've even seen them, and they have left little to no impact on me. So for now, here's my honorable mentions in alphabetical order:
Atomic Blonde: Good action sequences--including a spectacularly brutal climatic action setpiece that was all done in one take; and let's be honest, Charlize Theron? Wolf. Unfortunately, getting to watch Theron go all-natural a few times alone does not really make up for the fact that the film is very, very predictable. So I left it off my list.
Captain Underpants: I probably never would have seen this film if not for the fact that I needed to buy a new pair of shoes, and that the only other alternatives were Transformers 5, Cars 3, and The Mummy 2017. You could never convince me to see a film like this otherwise. Luckily, it is probably one of the shockingly funnier animated movies I've seen in a long time, let alone from DreamWorks, and in spite the title is largely devoid of juvenile toilet humor, as the film takes more value on wordplay and general silliness. It doesn't have much value as far as merit, but with a message about appreciating comedy and having fun (to an extent), it's perfectly serviceable, if not an enjoyable little romp for your kids to see.
The Foreigner: For those of you who would like to see an actor give an emotionally gripping performance without wailing melodramatically like a method actor, Jackie Chan does just this. Though the film focuses mostly on Pierce Brosnan as a politician and former member of the IRA trying to deal with the titular foreigner after the latter's daughter was killed in a bombing from the new IRA and he wants to take matters into his own hands. It's pretty slow and without much action set pieces or much of a body count until the end when the bad guys pretty much all get killed off. But all things considered, I thought it was worth the trip to the theaters to see, even though it is perhaps Jackie Chan's most dramatic performance to date.
Logan: I liked the Deadpool 2 teaser to start off this movie, but the start of the film seemed hellbent on shoving an R-rating down our throats instead of building it up over the course of time through its sheer brutality. Logan and Charles Xavier start spewing out a string of profanities the second they are introduced even though it's completely out of character for them to do. Still, it's a pretty solid swan-song for Hugh Jackman and Sir Patrick Stewart's involvement with the X-Men franchise.
Logan Lucky: Honestly, I was probably expecting this film to remain on my top ten list, but overtime, it just merely became an afterthought. It is well acted and directed from all involved, and it was a bit of a fun heist to watch. The ending doesn't exactly pop but rather confused me, which is perhaps why I largely forgotten about this film. Then again, while looking up a complete list of films from this year, I somehow missed this one not once but twice.
The Lost City of Z: Yet another film I was expecting to make my top ten list by year's end only for me to forget about it. It is rather haunting to say the least, especially at the end, but me forgetting that I've even seen this film was the main reason it is an honorable mention.
Murder on the Orient Express: The beginning of this film is witty and with hijinks. The ending is brutally somber and depressing. These two sides feel like completely different movies, though I understand the intent. It clearly makes this film a rather polarizing one. Still, I think it has a shot at withstanding the test of time. It just isn't gonna compare to the 1974 version.
The Shape of Water: I actually contemplated putting this film on either the best or worst list--since it holds a lot of things in common with both lists--but I ultimately kept it on the honorable mention. There was a film I saw just a few days prior that was so bad that I couldn't articulate whether this film deserved a spot on a top ten best or worst movies list. Ultimately, I made it an honorable mentions because some of the good stuff resonated a lot stronger with me than the bad stuff. Then again, because this one movie was abysmal, I doubt the bad stuff in this film would linger. Well, except for one of the cats getting eaten and the owner getting over it almost immediately. As a cat person, that straight up bugs me.
Now, I get to tackle my top ten movies of the year list. Yes, I have not seen Molly's Game yet--maybe I'll give it a try next week--but I feel compelled to give you a top ten list right here, right now!
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Post by epicgordan on Dec 29, 2017 16:16:32 GMT -5
10. Only the Brave
I pretty much let my guard down when I came to see it, because to my initial horror, it was a Sony production. Even worse, Columbia Pictures. So I pretty much violated my own boycott because I forgot to check and see which studio had made this film. Be as it may though, I suppose I should be grateful that this is the rare Sony Production that isn't a deliberate steaming pile of shit. The film builds up this group of firefighters and their characters--specifically Josh Brolin, Taylor Kitch, and Miles Teller. I have two gripes with this film. First off, Andie McDowell is in this movie, and she doesn't have a single line of dialogue in the entire film. Now that's a criminal waste of a perfectly fine Andie McDowell. Second, EVERYBODY FREAKING DIES AT THE END! Except for Miles Teller's character, of course. Well, that and Jeff Bridges and the actresses of the movie. Yeah, the ending reeks of sentimentality as well as a sense that the film is trying to inflict us with Survivor's Remorse. Now that is just plain cruel. The fact that the film sort of broke me was what allowed it to stand out as a top ten candidate on this list. At least for now--who knows if Molly's Game is any good.
9. Lady Bird
I did an entire review on this film already because I tried (perhaps in vain) to sell this movie. I suppose I perfectly understand since the subject matter and characters of Lady Bird--unlike the subject matter and characters of Only the Brave--is something I generally cannot stand, and that's dysfunctional family melodrama meets millennial snowflake mentality. I suppose the main reason why I made an exception here--and I probably never would have given this film a chance if not for the overwhelmingly universal praises from critics that initially gave it a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes for the longest time--was because it was told from a brutally honest introspective point-of-view from an older Christine who is looking back at her foolish youth full of hedonism and rebellion. I suppose we all have our moments where we give pause and contemplate our own past foolishness. Hopefully, anyways. I for one am a bit cynical in this regards, and chances are, most people are never going to grow up or wake up and realize what it is that they are doing. Lady Bird is just one exception.
8. Coco
Watching this movie, I was pretty much having flashes to 2014's Book of Life, realizing that this film wasn't very good. I was gonna skip this movie altogether because I am frankly sick and tired of all the Frozen merchandising (even The Lion King eventually moved on). But on the very first day they pulled the Olaf short from cinemas because I clearly am not alone in my resentment towards this franchise, I decided to see the movie, almost as if to reward them for doing us all a favor. It's not really the best Pixar film ever (gets saccharine in parts, like pretty much all things Pixar), but it's definitely one of the more solid entries, specifically in the world building side of things, which is the main reason I considered this a good film. Sure, it has its holes, but they are relatively minor and the Land of the Dead holds a very solid foundation--unlike a couple other movies that made my list of worst of the year, and a couple others that probably would had I made the smart choice in boycotting them. It's definitely going to win Best Animated Feature, and frankly, given the horrendous lineup of cartoons this year, even by animation standards, it might as well be an automatic for Coco anyways.
7. Get Out
A race film that's not only actually pretty good, but doesn't fall apart at the seams because of the politicizing!? Holy, shit! Okay, the reason for this is because even if you remove the race angle from the film, the film can still stand on its own. It is an effectively taut, Hitchcockian thriller about a man in an interracial relationship meeting his girlfriend's family, who are all uncomfortably obsessed over him simply because he's black. Like, praising him and holding him up on an alter because he's black and nothing else. So it's the rare examination of what I like to call "positive racism," or positive discrimination based on the color of another person's skin in contrast with your own. I sort of hate the comic relief in this film, but that's besides the point (name one character in all of fiction whose sole character trait being comic relief wasn't annoying). And while the medical procedure is obviously bullshit in real life, it still doesn't take away from the life-or-death vibe that it entails. The fact that it would not work at all in real life is second nature to the immediate threat it presents. All that from one of the creative minds behind Keye & Peele making his directorial debut.
6. Wonder Woman
Similar to Lady Bird, this film's overwhelmingly positive reviews were what got me curious to see this movie. No, in spite the fact that all the other DCEU films are all crap, I have yet to effectively boycott their films. This film was the first film not to have Zack Snyder's fingerprints anywhere on it, and in spite having entered and wrapped up production well ahead of schedule, it still manages to stand on its own as a solid film. It is the most gorgeous-looking film in the DCEU film, and it is the first (and presumably last) film in this franchise that actually features a strong cast of characters with strong convictions and some somber themes about war. I do think they should have saved Aries for a Wonder Woman sequel because I do think the climatic battle with him stands to contradict everything else this film was building up to, and that was the futility of human nature in the face of war and strife. So, no, this film is not perfect. But hey? It's more than a passing grade in my book, and is one of the better superhero films of this year by far.
5. John Wick: Chapter 2
This was definitely the first film of the year that really impressed me. Films like Get Out and Wonder Woman actually had to grow on me more and more before I decided that they were worth adding to my list of the Best Films of 2017. John Wick 2 is one of the rare films to have hit me right away and never let up all year long. These movies reward the keen viewer the more you watch them and study their world building. They're practically works of low fantasy in a way, in spite the lack of any semblance of supernatural elements anywhere in the films, the worlds themselves feel otherworldly and dream-like. The action sequences feel grounded in reality while simultaneously existing in another plain of existence. These films are living proof that the action genre can indeed be a work of art onto itself. The reason why this film doesn't rank higher is because I haven't seen it since it first came out in theaters. Maybe it will rank a tad higher, but that's only maybe.
4. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
Finally, a sequel in the Marvel Cinematic Universe that felt like it could be on par with, if not superior to its original! It probably helps that up until Avengers: Infinity War, these Guardians have remained almost entirely cut off from the rest of the MCU, thus allowing James Gunn to make the best movies he can. I don't recall disliking a single member of the cast--not a big fan of a couple of bits here and there that felt emotionally manipulative, or a tad immature, but I digress. The film does have some dramatic and thematic heft to it that pretty much puts this film on a much, much higher plain than the vast majority of films in the MCU, while still retaining the look and tone of an MCU film. Something Thor: Ragnarok sort of screwed up on.
3. The Disaster Artist
Okay, so right around the time of Thanksgiving, I decided to make my account portrait of Tommy Wiseau from The Room. You can blame the marketing campaign for The Disaster Artist for turning me into a fanboy of this so-bad-it's-good messterpiece that is The Room. The Disaster Artist is based on a book that was based on the behind-the-scenes production of this movie, but more importantly, about the complicated friendship between Greg Cescerro--the actor who played Mark--and the enigmatic Tommy Wiseau, whose life story prior to meeting Greg is almost completely shrouded in mystery. All we know was that he got in a car accident when he was younger, nearly died, and needed plastic surgery to repair his permanently disfigured face (which is why he looks the way he does now, as well as back then). Otherwise, where he originated from, where his money came from, and many other things are a mystery to all of us (it's speculated that he may have been Polish, though unless he decides to run for President as a Republican, we may never know). It is a pretty serious film, but it also knows to have fun as well, and even have a good laugh. Watching these actors reinacting scenes from The Room back-to-back with the real footage alone is worth the price of admission. I think it goes without saying that James Franco will get nominated for Best Actor in a Leading role for his performance as Tommy Wiseau. But there is one other performance more deserving of that award....
2. Darkest Hour
Those who are quite fond of Winston Churchill will definitely want to check this movie and performed by Gary Oldman--who's pretty much the frontrunner to win Best Actor this year. Honestly, if he does win, it will probably be the only segment of the Oscar ceremony that I will watch this year. The subway scene was kind of bullshit since that obviously never happened, but I digress. The point being, Oldman gives a powerhouse figures in one of the great heroes of western civilization, and one of the great men of our time. Charismatic, yet brash. Intelligent and stubborn, yet with clear chinks in the armor. It's definitely the most Oscarish film of the year (outside of excessively politicized junk like The Post or Call Me By Your Name, but I digress), and quite honestly is rather deserving. And all that from a director that previously made Pan.
1. Baby Driver
Okay, I circumvented my Sony boycott to see this movie using a birthday pass I had, and exchanged it for a free movie ticket. With that said, right alongside John Wick 2, we get to see in full motion the art form that goes into the editing and scripting of an action film. The only downside is that the CGI in this movie is pretty bad, and everything else is just nitpicking. Edgar Wright is a master of his own craft, as films like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, and The World's End would all testify. And honestly, while it may not be as funny as Hot Fuzz, as stylized as Scott Pilgrim, or as thematically rich as The World's End, I think Baby Driver may very well be his master work. It may reek of Kevin Spacey, but he still gives a solid performance; his behavior outside his craft shouldn't detract from the fact that he can be a very talented actor with the right script (he's still a degenerate). And for those of you who hate Jamie Foxx, you're gonna hate him here, and you're gonna cheer big time when he gets his just desserts. I think what ultimately propelled this film to hold off even films like Darkest Hour or The Disaster Artist though is how people are already studying and analyzing this film. It's almost as if it's already hit the mainstream as a cinematic masterpiece worthy of studying and dissecting. And it is through this lens that I realize and appreciate not just how much work was put into this film, but that it becomes increasingly more rewarding the more you watch it.
Now, to tackle my worst movies of the year. All I have to say is....man, did I just see a bad movie recently.
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Post by epicgordan on Dec 30, 2017 2:53:07 GMT -5
Now for the worst movies of the year list. Truth be told, there are probably only 12 candidates for worst films of the year that I have seen. Oh, I know there are more; I'm just not gonna watch them. You cannot pay me enough money to watch films like The Emoji Movie, Dark Tower, Beauty and the Beast, or Fifty Shades Darker among many others.
However, of the dozen films eligible for the worst of the year list, two of them are merely films I do not like. So I guess here's my dishonorable mentions:
Dunkirk: It was once on the worst of list. It was missing that human element to put the entire film into proper context, and I once mentioned perhaps giving Winston Churchill a POV. And even though these two films were made by different filmmakers and different studios, I do think Darkest Hours sort of saved Dunkirk from being considered a "worst movie" candidate as it did provide that humanist context for us to appreciate the film. Still, on it's own, Dunkirk is kind of weak.
Thor: Ragnarok: I just recently saw another film that was a steaming pile of shit, so I removed this film from the list. It's not like it was awful or anything; there was just some things in the film that simply did not work, and if anything, actually kind of made me groan. Regardless, it doesn't really fall into the category of worst as much as least enjoyable films. Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri: Admittedly, this isn't an awful film; it's well written, acted, and directed. It's thematically sound and it has its upsides. I just don't like it. I like my films to have some sort of payoff instead of the sudden cut off. Maybe someday, I'll reconsider my thoughts on this film. But because I don't really have any objective reasons why I don't like this film, I figured it would be inappropriate to add on my worst movies list.
And finally, to close out the dishonorable mentions, here are every single shitty movie that I am so glad I've completely skipped over:
And many, many, many, many, many more films I'm sure that I haven't seen. But these are the ones that stood out and that people actually know about. So maybe sometime later on this weekend, I'll take on the top ten worst films of 2017. And no, none of these films above are gonna be on it. Why? Because I haven't seen a single solitary one of these films.
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Post by epicgordan on Jan 5, 2018 18:10:38 GMT -5
I originally was working on the full list of the ten worst movie of 2017, but my laptop decided to be a dick to me and auto-delete everything I wrote. So I sat on it for a whole week. Sorry about that. Here are the ten worst movies of 2017 that I have seen (so no, none of the films you see in the previous comment are gonna be making an appearance here):
10. Pokémon the Movie: I Choose You
Honestly, I am actually quite fond of the Pokemon franchise. I am more of a fan of the video games, but the anime has occassionally been a guilty pleasure of mine. I honestly was looking forward to this movie and actually kind of enjoyed the film. In many ways, it encompasses what it was about the show that people liked while also encompassing one area of the Pokemon franchise that usually takes a back seat to competing for the very best and defeating evil team leaders. Pokemon is probably the second greatest marketing phenomenon this world has ever seen right behind Star Wars, and the overall mythos is rich with possibilities. At least with this movie, they did not disappoint.
Instead, this film ended up making my list of worst movies of the year because a couple of scenes in this movie basically render much of it an unintentionally hilarious movie. Think of it as a so-bad-it's-good type situation like The Room or Troll 2 among others, except nowhere near as big an incompetent train wreck as these movies. One character tells us of a horrifically scarring backstory about how a Luxray protecting him from the cold as a child ended up freezing to death only for it to not come up in any way, shape, matter or form again. It's just like that mother's breast cancer reveal in The Room. Shockingly depressing for no reason and with no purpose, and it never factors into the plot or character arcs again.
But perhaps the biggest thing that got the recent Pokemon movie onto the worst movies of the year list--aside from the fact that the movies that made the dishonorable mention are either films I merely dislike for subjective reasons or films that are...well, deeply flawed to say the least--was the ending. After Marshadow decides to kill Ash because the rival character decides to steal the rainbow feather given to the former (even though Marshadow was merely trying to set things right again), Ash and Pikachu are beaten within an inch of their lives, and Pikachu straight up talks to him. I'd pull up clips from the movie, but needless to say, even without any prior knowledge of the Pokemon franchise, watching the movie alone would let you know that this movie pretty much jumps the shark big time.
There are other discrepencies too, like how Marshadow comes from a completely different generation of Pokemon games from Ho-oh and have no tie-ins to speak of in the video game myths or legends, but those details are not going to be important to the general audience and are fairly nitpicky at best (especially since Marshadow's role in the Pokemon universe is still largely a mystery). Team Rocket is in this movie for no other reason than to be there as well, and the overall voice acting, even after 10+ years of voicing these characters, are still horrendously bad.
But all things considered, I did enjoy this movie, and of all the movies on here, this had the best shot at being genuinely good, if not great. It's just some of the tear-jerker scenes in this movie are so nonsensical that it makes the scenes unintentionally hilarious. Otherwise, the film is quite harmless. But I needed a tenth film to make my top ten, and the closest thing to so-bad-it's-good that we have gotten all year long pretty much deserves a spot on the top ten worst movies list over mostly mediocre and inconsistent movies. Which is why it is number 10.
9. Ghost in the Shell The live action remake may be a disgrace to the original anime, but it's not the reason why it is on the list. Even the original 1995 anime was overrated crap. At least the live-action movie tried to improve the movie by changing the main threat away from the original artificial intelligence known as the Puppet Master to a fellow android who happens to have a romantic history with the main girl.
Okay, so we go from scientifically retarded cliche that needs to die to cliches that are witless-yet-trendy among YA audiences. And instead of a sentient computer program whose goals it is to experience sex and death like all other human beings, we have an evil corporate bad guy with his own personal military, because of course he has one and of course he's evil. Where the film ultimately falls apart though is where they decide to yoke iconic scenes from the original anime with violence, and without any of the proper context from the original show. As a result, these scenes ultimately stand out for no real reason that would be practical to the show.
Otherwise, it's a generically bad-yet forgettable movie that pretty much falls for all the same trappings when it comes to Cyberpunk, mostly because the original did as well. The only difference is the replacement of sentient AI with an evil corporate bad guy.
The only reason why I even watched it was that on the days leading up to its release, the film actually looked like it might receive decent reviews. But then after I got home from watching it, I looked up and realized that over half the critics that saw the movie didn't like it. This stands in stark contrast to another movie that came out that same weekend--that started off looking like it might receive universally scathing reviews only to balance out to overall mixed feelings, and ultimately finished with a better review score on Rotten Tomatoes than Ghost in the Shell. So in essence, I just wasted my time.
8. CHiPs
Just to set the stage here, no, I will not be providing any trailer footage or an image of the poster here representing this film. It does not deserve any such attention whatsoever.
Now contrary to what a bunch of people on the internet are doing, no, CHiPs is not going to rate anywhere in the Top 5 worst movies of the year list. Even though perhaps on face value, there are probably only three or four movies that are objectively as bad if not worse than CHiPs.
And the reason it is rated this low is simple: It's an R-rated comedy.
And it's that big a deal because over the last ten years or so, nearly EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY ONE OF THESE FILMS feels exactly the same! They have gotten so overdone, so dull, so boring, that anything shocking, disgusting, or disturbing has suddenly become lifeless and pathetic.
And I know why these people keep making this kind of filth; it is all for the notoriety. They want to be hated and despised by people because they are made by people who could not possibly give a shit about writing a good script with meaning, wit, or humor. They just want to piss off as many Christian, Conservative, Right-Winger groups as possible in order to hoist themselves even higher on a moral pedestal as a symbol of free speech or some shit.
Meanwhile, what are they producing? Nothing but filth that is best ignored altogether. It's gotten so tedious in fact that in spite hating so many of these R-rated comedies that I have seen in 2015, not a single, solitary one of these films ever stood out enough to crack my worst movies of the year list. Home--a Dreamworks animated movie--was the only comedy in 2015 that pissed me off so thoroughly that I added it on my list of worst movies of the year. And last I checked, it was either number's 3 or 4.
So in a sense, CHiPs is nothing short of a poster boy representative of all the R-rated comedies I knew better than to skip over. They're all gonna feature films with dick shots and dick jokes; and now I am seeing a trend that involves a ton of anal jokes in the foreseeable future. I heard that Bad Moms Christmas had a scene where they chug alcohol through a tube into their anus's, and I saw a Red Band trailor for a John Cena comedy where he does the same thing.
I understand if you are a fan of the show, but without any awareness of what the original show was about myself, what else is there to talk about? You honestly think this film can possibly compare to That's My Boy--a film that encompasses every single solitary thing wrong with the film industry into one? Or films like Super Bad, The Hangover, or Bridesmaids, that actually gave rise to the popularity of all these other films, all for disastrous results? Or Hangover 2, which is so fucked up on so many visceral levels that everybody with any sense would have walked out on the tranny scene. And Horrible Bosses 2? Loud, obnoxious, and annoying to the core.
What does CHiPs have that these other R-rated films do not have? What do any of these other R-rated comedies have that is so bad that they deserve to stand out over all the others? Baywatch, Rough Night, Bad Moms Christmas, the list is nearly never-ending. This ever-growing cesspool of films are so numerous now that they are utterly incapable of shocking or offending me, anymore. They're just tired and boring now.
There is no group of films so universally worthless and devoid of value as the R-rated comedy. And if anything, CHiPs is at least better than all the films I already mentioned by virtue of at least some semblance of establishing character, growth, and even a plot. None of that sticks though when everybody acts like immature manchildren half the time while the other half they act like multi-dimensional characters. Only teens and pre-teens act like this. Only teens and pre-teens that are too immature to know any better would talk this way.
And really, who would want to be associated with these characters, anyways? Even though the vast majority of these characters are supposed to be of average-intelligence, they often say and do the dumbest things all for the sake of forcing a laugh. Instead of, you know, coming up with clever jokes or incorporating things like editing, plot, or dialogue.
It says a lot when the funniest movie of the year was Captain Underpants. Well, okay, second funniest movie behind The Disaster Artist, but Captain Underpants was intended to be a comedy. The point being, even the kids movies have more maturity and wit than these movies; and even those that are godawful at least warrant our attention. Films like CHiPs, on the other hand, demand our attention and demand our condemnation. They get off on us hating their movies.
What they ultimately get is a resounding NOTHING! They do not deserve to be acknowledged as anything. The only thing they deserve is to be ignored completely. You see a trailer for one of these movies like Cockblockers or Game Night, you say, NO! You best pretend these movies do not even exist. Just because you're rated R does not mean you are an adult film. You are childish, juvenile, and witless. You are devoid of creativity, and you only care about notoriety. You deserve nothing.
To quote Howard Roarke from The Fountainhead, "I don't think of you."
*********************
To be continued.
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Post by epicgordan on Jan 5, 2018 18:49:24 GMT -5
7. Valerian and the City of A Thousand Planets
Rule of thumb: If you ever come across a film adaptation of a "groundbreaking" source material, just assume it's gonna be bad. They've all been, especially on the comic book scene.
Case in point: What can only be described as a shittier version of James Cameron's Avatar. No, you did not read that wrong. It basically ascribes to the same philosophies and themes as Avatar, but with one simple difference: Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets has little to no investment in these philosophies or themes at all; even though they are so upfront about it at the very beginning of the film, it never becomes important to the characters or the audience again until the very end of the film.
Because of this, the plot has no focus, and the attempts at world building completely distracts from what should be the film's primary focus. And even then, the characters and the world are so boring that it basically becomes a tedious slog that actually makes the eventual themes and characters ripped straight out of Avatar feel forced in and second nature. It is so bad that it fails even to cash in on the success of Avatar.
Speaking of which, the main reason why Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets appears to be so bloody derivitive was because the source material for this film was a graphic novel that inspired countless other big epic science fiction stories that followed came afterwards from Star Wars to Avatar and even an unreleased script for a movie called Argo--which was later used to help rescue a number of hostages during the Iran Hostage Crisis. And that's just a small number of films that was inspired by the Valerian comics.
And thus is the reason why this movie is so bloody tedious, boring, and uninspired. It wouldn't shock me if this film does eventually become a cult following, but when even Avatar looks good by comparison, you know your movie's trash.
6. Kingsman: The Golden Circle
I've reviewed this movie already, and I'm gonna double down here. Similar to Valerian, Kingsman: The Golden Circle is held down by a bunch of narrative dead weight. Except unlike Valerian's dead weight weighing down on its own political messages, it is the political messages bogging down the plot of the story.
This movie has a lot in common with a film that actually ranks number 1 on my list of worst movies of the year list, and one of the chief commonalities is to rank politics and cool-looking set pieces above and beyond everything else, even to the expense of credibility or pacing. It's nowhere near as agregious as the worst movie of the year, but it is far worse in the tone problem. I honestly hated the Elton John scenes in this movie as they were so ridiculous that his mere appearance seemed to take me out of the movie altogether.
But if there's a silver lining, it's that I at least liked some of the characters and interactions. It's just a shame the whole movie is a complete downgrade from the original in every single conceivable way possible. At least it felt like there was some culmination and development, and it wasn't made with utmost contempt for its audience. But it's pretty clear that Matthew Vaughn simply doesn't sequel well.
5. Boss Baby
Here's a bit of trivia; when I first was conceptualizing this list, Boss Baby was ranked number 7. I decided to rank this movie higher because I realized the basic premise of the movie, while promising and with full potential for some good jokes, had a life shelf of about 7 minutes or so. Meaning this was better off as a cartoon show or an animated short rather than its own feature.
But even that is selling it a bit short. The moral and philosophical ramifications are so deeply disturbing in this film that it's next to impossible to even recommend this movie to kids. And the film is so pretentious that the ending has shown that it is utterly convinced that what it was making was a cinematic masterpiece on par with, say, 2001: A Space Odyssey. I'm not even kidding. It has a transcending moment that would have been big and bold if not for the horrific subtext that suggests that the main kid in the movie may have wanted to murder his baby brother, or that said baby brother may have died in labor at some point in time.
Seriously, there are YouTube videos that pretty much tackle this film in great detail at just how royally fucked up the themes and ideas of Boss Baby really are. Even in a year where The Emoji Movie is a thing, both films are proof positive that there are such a thing as bad ideas. And Boss Baby is so full of bad ideas it might as well be set in Washington D.C. At least the movie doesn't have any political messages though. In spite Alec Baldwin voicing the titular character.
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To be continued.
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Post by epicgordan on Jan 8, 2018 17:00:01 GMT -5
4. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword
If were ranking my list of the ten worst movies of the year based solely on the blanket quality of the film, King Arthur: Legend of the Sword would have been number 1 on this list--maybe number 2. However, I do no loathe this film in any way, shape, matter, or form; it's just a colossal mess.
Guy Ritchie is probably the most hit-or-miss director in the entire Western Hemisphere. He can make some quality films, but they're mostly all original screenplays. I'm not counting Swept Away here since that was a vanity project for his wife. Glorious nepitism in work here. This is more in the same vein as his Sherlock Holmes films; however, at least those movies were somewhat entertaining, AND were coherent enough to follow. Aside from the acting--specifically from Jude Law as the villain--literally nothing in this movie works!
The characterization is nonexistent; the dialogue is insignificant to the point of being lifeless; the editing, while a stylistic choice, is jarring and incoherent; the musical score, while it synchronizes with the editing fine, does not fit this kind of movie at all; and the fight choreography and cinematography COMPLETELY SUCKS! I cannot even begin to describe just how bad it is, much less what they did; it's like the filmmakers decided to have the camera spin around the action, and zoom in and out of different items of focus, while moving up and down in such a jerkish sort of way that you'd be begging for the ever dreaded shaky-cam! Yes, the cinematography is so bad that it actually makes shaky-cam look good by comparison!
Did I forget to mention that this is perhaps the most fuck-ugly movie I have seen in all of 2017? Want to know what is a great color palette for a potential high fantasy cinematic universe you are trying to upstart? Dark, danky gray! I know London isn't known for it's sunny weather, but where on Earth does it EVER look this depressingly gloomy!
There's no sense of where, what, or who anything in this movie is! It reeks of an attempt to start up a cinematic universe, and yet I have no fucking idea what is going on because even scenes that are clearly supposed to be important--and in spite embracing both the show and tell simultaneously, thanks a lot shit editing--ultimately feel insigificant. Regardless of one's familiarity with Arthurian legend, just what the hell does anything here have to do with the Arthurian legends? Even as somebody who isn't exactly a scholar in the Arthurian legends, it feels like they're simply making shit up on the fly. Maybe it's because I have never heard of anything Arthur-related that was structured in such a similar fashion.
3. The Glass Castle
On face value, The Glass Castle isn't anywhere near as bad as King Arthur: Legend of the Sword. However, since I ended up catching that movie on television while working on something else on the side, I never really had any investment in said film--other than to occassionally riff into it because it was actually that bad in that kind of way.
The Glass Castle was the type of bad film that I knew was going to be bad. I only went and saw it on the big screen when it first came out because I wanted to make an example out of it in concerns to why a life rooted in Communism would be a lifetime of perpetual misery. And in that sort of sense, it is educational. It is based on a memoir that mostly took the life story and the complex relationship the author had with her family--her brother and sisters, her mother, grand parents, and especially her father. Her parents are unemployed Communists who are "at one with nature," or some such shit, who simply refuse to use their talents to try and earn a proper and stable living because "then they'd be part of the system." In spite the fact that "being part of the system" would have helped increase their children's standards of living and would be much more convenient for them long-term than being enslaved in perpetual poverty. Their lifestyles are clearly abusive towards their children--her father specifically is an alcoholic, but even her mother, who is a deluted air-head hippie blonde, doesn't get away scott free; she pretty much opens up the movie preferring to finish painting this picture than feed her starving kids because "they would be art that would last forever," and thus having her daughter cook the hot dogs themselves. Unfortunately, she is wearing a dress that catches fire, and her parents decide to break her out of the hospital to avoid paying the bills! As such, she has grown up so horribly disfigured right above the waste that the only upshot that it brought was that after getting pawned off by her father to a drunken stranger to essentially get abused and raped, the drunk ends up horribly disgusted by what he sees and lets her go.
Now, speaking of which, while the scenes set in the past are straight out of the book and if one took out the "present day scenes" (they're technically set in the late 80's, early 90's, so let's just call them the Brie Larson scenes from now on), are pretty accurate to the "unbiased POV" concerning a deeply complex relationship with the rest of her family, much less her own father (whose death actually was what inspired her to write said memoirs in the first place), the Brie Larson scenes were added into the film all together, and were largely made up.
And it is those Brie Larson scenes that made me really hate this movie! Because it is through these scenes where the film becomes so disgustingly manipulative, and so disgustingly sentimental. Other than her father dying, none of it actually happened, much less recorded in the actual book. The filmmakers decided to film these scenes in order to defend her parents' choice of lifestyle, justifying how right he was. Remember when I told you that if not for the third-degree burns she suffered as a bye-product of parental neglect at the beginning of the film? Again, if not for those burn marks scarring her lower half of her body, she would have been raped by a drunken stranger her father pawned her off to because he was so bitter and angry when he found out she planned to save up money to run away and try to start a fruitful life AWAY from him!
And yet the film has the gall to justify and defend her father's atrocious actions, only really acknowledging and trying to redeem his faults once or twice in the movie, because he was a Communist and hated the system. Never mind that his daughter decided to pursue a career in a leftist, Communist populated job market in journalism; I'd encourage even that lifestyle over a life of constant poverty and misery all self-inflicted by the most severe of character flaws. I honestly wanted her and her siblings to escape this wretched life under the roof of a man and wife who are unwilling (or, perhaps in the case of her alcoholic father, incapable) of changing their ways just to bring about happiness to their own kids! And yet they are shamed out of their much improved lifestyle and pretty much sabotage their own futures and careers just because her parents are all right all along!?
Honestly, I have not seen a film so disgustingly manipulative on an emotional level since Patch Adams! Say what you want about A.I.'s toxic sentimentality, but at least it was a complete work of fiction. You take a single piece of advice from the film to heart, and you'll either wind up dead of exposure, or in a pit of misery that I cannot even fathom, much less recommend to anybody! The original memoirs, if nothing else, were about the author trying to articulate why she may very well love her parents in spite all the horrible things they put her through, and was particularly contemplative about her father since he was the one that died from alcohol poisoning. This movie is about guilt tripping you into living a life of comfort and preaching to us about living one with nature, even if it means living a life of misery and poverty!
Did I forget to mention the film is made by and stars a bunch of multi-millionaires? Who would never even live this kind of life willingly? Fucking hypocrites!
2. Mother!
Now while my number 3 film isn't notorious or anything--critics, especially with help from social media nowadays, know how to spot sentimentality and are far less forgiving of a film for emotional manipulation unless said manipulation ultimately leads nowhere (see Room as an example, another Brie Larson film)--Mother! and my number 1 worst film of the year are among the most polarizing of all movies in 2017. Critics lean more towards positive, while audiences lean more towards negative! And it is such a colorful example towards the massive divide between critics and audiences that are becoming ever increasingly noticeable. Once upon a time, this divide is mostly concerning films audiences love and yet critics never really warmed up to because most critics at least actually know better--you know, your Hook's, Home Alone's, or Billy Madison's among others.
And while this divide still exists today, it's now being outclassed by something else entirely--the critics constantly praising and defending films audience members really hate! Films like Ferdinand, Ghostbusters 2016, or my top two worst films of 2017, starting with Darren Aronofsky's recent film. I once labeled it as a film so bad that if I were to see every single, solitary movie in all of 2017--even films like The Emoji Movie or Fifty Shade Darker--that Mother! would still be my worst movie of 2017. Well, 2017 has come and gone, and the only thing I was wrong about was the very last part. And even then, only slightly.
For one thing, the acting across the board was pretty good. And the film actually managed to keep my attention all the way until the end. Let's just say, the shit that really pushed me over the edge for me and this movie was when Jennifer Lawrence's titular "Mother," has her baby taken from her by Javier Bardem's..."Him" (apparently, he plays a Powerpuff Girls villain, which given said character's role from the show, probably isn't too far off, here); he then gives the baby to this violent cult full of intruders who refuse to listen to Mother and leave after they've pretty much looted and destroyed her house and made it into some post-apocalyptic cult or something, and then they butchered the baby and start cannibalizing on it because they're Satanists for something.
Yeah, this film is an exploitive snuff film that is so bloody pretentious that it thinks it's inspired heavily from Judeo-Christian texts. Even though it is made by the same guy that directed Noah a couple years ago, and clearly has no understanding of ANY of the Biblical texts, in spite his bloody fascination. So, "Mother" is supposed to be Mother Nature or Earth or something. Him is supposed to be this hodgepodge of God and Satan. And the baby is supposed to be Jesus, whose butchering and canibalizing is supposed to symbolic (because apparently, all he knows about the Lord's Supper is the same literal translations that Catholics use concerning the unleavened bread and the fruit of the vine). The most obvious symbolism that I caught on though was that Ed Harris and Michelle Pfeiffer were supposed to be Adam and Eve, while their sons are even more obviously meant to be Caine and Abel--right on down to the murder. And I supposed this house in the middle of the glenn is supposed to be the universe of the film, right?
This film in many ways represents the worst aspects of Lars von Trier's films. The only difference being is that at least the acting is somewhat lively, the film is not as overlong, it keeps our interests and never gets boring; and there aren't any rape scenes. However, baby butchering is pretty much where I cross the line unless you're a video game called "Who's Your Daddy." And even then, at least that game is about keeping the baby from killing itself. This movie constantly felt like a snuff film from beginning to end.
Now, what could possibly be the worst film of 2017? Well, notice how there's a particularly huge film that I left out of my top 10 best movies of 2017? Particularly one released during the Holidays? Well, that's because it was THAT bad by comparison! So bad in fact that I decided to end my boycott on Sony Pictures. Seriously, what happened in this film makes all of Sony's previous crimes feel like mere parking tickets by comparison.
What could it be? Well, I'll give you a hint: Fuck it!
To be concluded!
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Post by epicgordan on Jan 12, 2018 15:33:27 GMT -5
My absolute worst movie of 2017. Steel yourselves, guys; this is a long one. And it's gonna hurt. Really, really badly!
1. Star Wars: The Last Jedi
I am not kidding, here! The newest Star Wars movie is horrendously, shockingly bad. The film is so infamous, so notorious that there are countless articles and videos from mostly third parties ripping The Last Jedi and basically taking apart every, single, solitary flaws. So much so that the film pretty much rips into every single solitary political trick in the film. How newcomers Admiral Haldo and Rose are nothing more than feminists inserts that are otherwise above reproach, and how they join Rey as Mary Sue's.
So for the sake of analyzing the movie, I will merely judge the film at face value and on it's own. Even if you enjoy The Force Awakens (I loved it when it first came out), I will be judging The Last Jedi as its own movie, rather than a follow-up to The Force Awakens. And I highly recommend that you do too. Trust me; The Last Jedi fucks up EVERY SINGLE SOLITARY FAUCET of the Star Wars franchise, including all the build-up and set up that was established in The Force Awakens.
For example, did you know The Force Awakens was supposed to end with Luke Skywalker levitating all 7 of these rocks at the Jedi temple, a feat that was only ever completed by two other Jedi before him (including a Master Yoda in his youth). J. J. Abrams included some of the suplimentary material concerning the Star Wars Legends because he was that big a fan of the franchise, and he wanted to demonstrate Luke's power since we last saw him. However, he was forced to cut it out after realizing that Last Jedi director Rian Johnson decided that Luke would cut himself off from the force. More on that later.
So, how am I going to tackle my review of The Last Jedi, ripping to shreds nearly every single faucet of the film? Well, I'm gonna go straight to the source and devote my efforts entirely on the script. Because elements like the acting, effects, music, and lighting among others things are, as expected, first rate. Even though I feel that the visual moments really fall short given the way the film is written. The scene where Rey stumbles upon a mirror room looking for answers and instead finds herself in an endless abyss of copies of herself echoing into the darkness would perhaps be a huge visual metaphor that could have enhanced the entire production into something special had the writing not been so horrendously bad.
I'm gonna split my reviews into three segments: One for each of the primary narratives in Po, Fynn, and Rey. Yes, apparently, Rey, the main protagonist of the current trilogy, has the least consequential, and yet the meatiest of the three stories, but that's mostly due to the fact that Po and Fynn's stories are a complete waste of time.
So, what is the movie about? It's about the remains of the Resistance (since the established Republic was recently wiped out in The Force Awakens thanks to Star Killer Base) trying to escape the First Order before they are utterly wiped out. That is it! The film pretty much begins with the most pointless text scroll ever. Maybe it's due to the mistake of setting the film immediately after the events of The Force Awakens (the purpose behind the text scrolls were to help fill in the important details that we the audience are supposed to know right away), but there's nothing in the text scroll that couldn't have been filled in simply through natural plot progression.
Now, we begin with Po's story. Even though Rei is the main character, Po is pretty much the central focus of this story.
Po's Story:
Po pretty much begins by pretending to have communications issues with that pasty white guy who is third in charge of the First Order; even though said pasty white guy is hell bent on wiping out the Resistence, he gets played by a dumb comic moment that feels way out of place in Disney's ultra dark Star Wars trilogy. Then while the first action set piece is okay, immeditately we begin to have some serious problems. This whole scene is meant to display Po as a hot-headed dumbass for letting loose their whole squadron of bombers to destroy an enemy dreadnought. They look like guns that were designed by the bad guys because...the filmmakers thought they'd look cool even though I honestly thought at first that they were enemy ships.
And therein lies our first big problem; adding shit that is impractical and makes absolutely no sense just because it looks cool. Bombers in outer space! Never mind that the Resistance bomber ships looked like guns that the First Order probably would be piloting, but not even in a fantasy universe set entirely inside the head of Michael Bay would this work on ANY level. Four things wrong:
1. A bomber needs to drop bombs in order to cause as much destruction as possible.
2. The bombers open up the hatch in order to drop said bombs.
3. These bombers can easily be completely destroyed just by destroying one of them nearby (via domino chain).
Care to guess why these three crucial details do not work? IT'S BECAUSE THEY'RE IN OUTER SPACE! And they establish later on that outer space in the Far, Far Away Galaxy is still identical to our outer space--inhospitable, a colossal vacuum, no gravity, and no breathable air. Speaking of which, Leia breaks the fabric of reality after she gets sucked into the vacuum of space and somehow Force Pulls herself back on the ship, opening a door without an anti-pressure seal or air lock. And yet not only does she survive, but she doesn't get anybody else killed in the process.
Why? Because it looked cool, and because the Force is Female. No, really; look it up. It's quite disgusting and pathetic their endless parade of excuses happen to be. Even if you suddenly wanted to make General Leia powerful in the use of the Force, the fact of the matter is, space is space, and if the explosion didn't vaporize her instantly, the vacuum sucking the air out of her lungs should have killed her instantly.
Speaking of which, given that Carrie Fisher is no longer with us, why was Leia even allowed to survive anyways?
Anyways, this is when Admiral Haldo comes into the picture. And Admiral Haldo is pretty much the perfect visual representation of a feminist character; dyed hair, pretentiously fashionable clothing, always right and knows what's best, awesome backstory (even though what is shown runs counterproductive to what we're told), and does absolutely nothing to quell concerns from her own crew. Admiral Haldo is an awfully constructed character in every sense of the word.
Now, my own instincts throughout the film were that Admiral Haldo might actually be a traitor secretly aligned with the First Order. The reason for this is because the First Order found a way to track the Resistance through outer Space, and Haldo's tactics involved not fighting back but rather running away; abandoning ship once their resources are fully depleted; and not doing anything to quell any concerns or answer any questions concerning a deeply concerned-for-their-survival Po, thus allowing Po to mutiny.
I mean, even in-universe, they established that tracking ships in outer space was thought impossible, so based on the build up, it would make perfect sense to suspect somebody--even somebody like Haldo--of trying to sabotage the Resistance and help the First Order wipe them out. So when Po decides to mutiny against Admiral Haldo and her followers under suspicion (which he is completely justified in being suspicious, btw) and try to turn the tide of battle against the First Order, General Leia wakes up from her not-quite-dead-yet coma and uses her Force power to blow the door down.
It's almost like General Leia is constantly trying to kill everyone on their ship. Speaking of which, it turned out that General Leia was on Admiral Haldo's side, who happens to be completely in the right the whole time! Po was simply too hot-headed to realize what Admiral Haldo was REALLY doing, even though Haldo made no effort whatsoever to try and explain what her plan was to Po. And maybe if she did, not only would it actually make her seem like a competent officer, but it would cut out 90 whole fucking minutes of this 150+ minute movie!
You thought Kingsman: The Golden Circle was filled to the brim with dead weight!? The choices made in this film just to subvert audience expectations and to replace possible narrative twists--even if people can see them coming--with something infinitely more anti-climatic as a substitute.
Other than crashing the Rebel's dreadnought ship into the enemy Destroyer at hyper speed (which, I'll admit, actually was really cool to witness), all Admiral Haldo has done throughout the entire movie is demonstrate herself as one of the most incompetent of military officers in the history of fiction. All of her actions either present herself as a coward or as a traitor. And now, she's simply an idiot.
Po may have done some stupid shit to begin the movie, but that's mostly based on a combination of trying to make him a straw man to contrast him with the female characters in the story and how "intelligent" and "insightful" that they are, as well as to show off concepts that "sound cool" when in reality they are impossible and brain dead even in the most basic levels of science, physics, and common sense.
Po's story is such a disaster in fact that it pretty much renders a whole other plot completely useless--Finn's.
Finn's story
Finn's story does in many parts overlap with Po's, as his story begins in the midst of the First Order's pursuit when Finn wakes up from his coma. Because Po was suspecting Admiral Haldo of being a traitor because...you know...she wasn't willing to divulger her plan to Po in order to avoid a mutiny and whatnot, Po decides to send Finn and newcomer Rose to a planet that I'm gonna spell Canto Bite. If the spelling is inaccurate, then Canto Bite me! I don't care. The film doesn't deserve the respect of a proper spell check.
Anyways, Finn and newcomer Rose are sent to Canto Bite to look for this Master Codebreaker to help them break into the First Order's Mega Star Destroyer and destroy their tracking systems so that the Resistance can get away. See? Po actually did something that actually sounds pretty smart. But the reason that Finn and Rose are to go to Canto Bite is because, well, that female Yoda-like character from The Force Awakens had her hands tied at the moment, and they could not afford to wait around longer.
And I'm not going to go into the nitty gritty details as to what happens in Finn's story, even though that's the closest thing we have to an overflowing narrative where things actually seemed like happening. All you need to know is that even the films biggest die-hard defenders all seem to hate the Canto Bite scenes and complain that they go on for too long. Maybe the reason why Canto Bite sucks is because Finn's story is already rendered completely pointless by Po's story. And it's made even worse when they ultimately fail to accomplish their goals anyways.
Before Finn and Rose could confront the Master Codebreaker, they get arrested for parking their ship on the beach. Canto Bite is pretty much a casino planet with a luxury beach and is the least Star Wars-ish planet we have seen yet. And thus, so far, any semblance of world building concerning Canto Bite and it's greater role in the plot. Seriously, just explain that Supreme Leader Snoke acquired his wealth and power on Canto Bite in order to rebuild the remnants of the Empire into the First Order, and suddenly, we have a payoff as to why Canto Bite is a plot relevant world to visit and pretty much cause as much destruction and mayhem.
Instead, we just have Rose preaching to us about how money and greed and corporations are evil, that they have child labor, and that they treat animals in a cruel fashion, even though we would end up getting a closer look at such dark, seedy unberbellies up close and personal later on in the movie, without a word being preached to us anyways.
Speaking of which, Rose is an even worse character than Admiral Haldo. Why? Well, at least Haldo was willing to become a martyr for the Resistance, and actually crashed their mother ship into a Star Destroyer at hyper speed. All Rose does is preach, virtue signal, and standing on top of a moral pedestal. She may actually have a backstory that is hinted at in the beginning of the film, but she otherwise does nothing of significance to move the plot along. She is THAT useless!
I did not mention Benicia del Toro as DJ (totally a name I think of when I think Star Wars--at least Rose was just a generic first name). He's basically Lando from the original trilogy, only with Lando's charisma replaced with a stammer, and without any shred of likeability in it. Oh, wait! He returned Rose's medallion to her after requesting it as payment. Basically, he's just weird and does whatever the fuck he wants with no rhyme or reason to it. And that somehow translates to a mysterious and complex character and not just somebody who is completely shallow.
And no, DJ is not the Master Codebreaker that they were looking for; DJ was just a jail bird that Finn and Rose were both completely right in not trusting, and simply employed his services because they had no choice in the matter. Their ship was destroyed, and they were being chased down by security officers who were simply doing their jobs and trying to maintain peace on Canto Bite while Finn and Rose were causing mayhem with these horse-like things. And it was only because BB-28 was mistaken for a slot machine for some reason that he had the money to pay DJ to give them a lift and to infiltrate Snoke's ship.
All you really need to know about BB-28 is that he amassed quite the high kill count in this movie.
And now we get to Finn's character. Finn is pretty much the only character in the entire movie that doesn't do anything stupid. Unless he was the guy that parked the ship on the beach, though to be fair, I don't know if that was simply him being stupid, or the fact that the world building here has literally no effort gone into it. Everything is in the service of the paper-thin plot, common sense, narrative tension, or unanswered questions be damned.
The problems arise is that Finn is the one character with the least to do out of the main leads. Because in the charge to shoehorn in as many feminist icons, the black character who was the former storm trooper really gets the shaft big time when it comes to character development. Which is a shame because Finn is the only character that actually feels like he had a complete story arc in this film. The only downside is that they never really acknowledge the complexities of a character who was a former Stormtrooper that was conditioned solely to kill and do so without any remorse. He somehow breaks out of his conditioning and betrays the First Order.
And yet the only purpose to his character it seems is for him to provide inside information. If I have to take a guess, given how frequently he was shown using the Lightsaber in the marketing materials for The Force Awakens, I suspect that Finn at one point was supposed to be the main hero of this new trilogy, and it would explain away that because Finn was force sensitive (just not all that powerful in it) that he was eventually able to break out of his conditioning and defect from the First Order. This in turn could explain why Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens has a much larger connection to Finn in the first film than to Rey. More on her later, but I think Rey was added into the plot much later on by Kathleen Kennedy's assistance, and J.J. Abrams had no other choice but to oblige and rewrite the script around her.
Because here, Finn's story arc is largely resolved in a hurry, and his past associations as a Storm Trooper is barely given much more than a passing nod. Because Finn was the only character so far in this trilogy who actually had the most potential to be highly complex and multi-dimensional, it's pretty clear that even in the name of political correctness, they didn't have the balls, or...the female equivalent given the overtly feminist leans of this film especially...to actually get down and dirty and instead pretty much make him the comic relief...even though he seldom does anything comedic in this film. He's actually quite serious and mature this time around.
But the biggest fuck you to Finn's character arc all comes at the end. That gold plated Stormtrooper that was hyped to be Finn's personal antagonist? Well, she gets only about two minutes of screen time, and then Finn defeats her, and then she dies in an inferno caused by Admiral Haldo's actions (suspension if disbelief at this point is already an impossibility because of the beginning of the film where space physics were shown to be completely ignored except when they can show off something "cool").
And then you see Finn's culmination as a character; in the face of a giant cannon that could potentially wipe out the Resistance in one fell swoop, the Resistance has no other alternative but the Zerg Rush formation, as several pilots hover the ships over that mineral planet and trying to home in on the cannon to destroy it. Most of these ships were destroyed, and the few that survived were force to pull back. Rose and Po both beg Finn to turn back because the cannon was about to fire. But Finn refused to listen and turned off his headset. At that point in time, he no longer refused to run away as a coward, and was about ready to give his life to ram his ship into the heart of the cannon, even as he and the ship were in the progress of being vaporized.
And then Rose rams her ship into Finn's to get him out of the way of the cannon's fire, and then she preaches about how much love trumps hate while immediately behind her, you can see the cannon presumably killing thousands of resistance fighters, and that Rose's actions probably could have killed Finn anyways. So what Rose did was inanely stupid, and selfish. Never mind the fact that it was love that led to the Jedi council to be wiped out. Well, that and Jar Jar Binks, but I digress. Rose passes out though, so perhaps there is hope that J.J. Abrams decides to kill her off inbetween movies. We know he'll have to kill Leia off, so that's definitely an option he can exorcise.
And now we get to Rey's story! Our main character, and specifically describing why is it that Rey's story, in spite being the meatiest in terms of lore, is also the least significant--I'll answer the last one right away; it's because while Rey is the main character, her story is the only story that doesn't involve being chased across the galaxy by the First Order while falsifying suspense and tension. So there's that.
Rey's story
As I said earlier, this film is set immediately after the events of The Force Awakens. I know this because Rey's introductory scene picks up immediately where the last film ended, with Rey handing Luke back his lightsaber. When this happens:
That, right there is perhaps the biggest summarization of the entire film: It is a giant FUCK YOU to the audience, and more specifically, the fans that are actually invested in the original trilogy, and even the recent movies up until this point. It's really only there to subvert expectations to get a cheap laugh. But things go downhill really fast here.
For example, Rey follows Luke to a cliff side with a long pole. Luke uses that long poll to jump from one side of the cliff to a literal cliff wall on the other side, just standing against the sides of the cliff wall over some jagged rocks in the raging waters below. Is he using the force here? Actually, no. Remember, Luke had cut himself off from the force, so now he's pretty much doing all of this all on his own. He then uses the pole to spear a fish.
So...you needlessly pull off a needlessly dangerous stunt without using the Force mind you...just to spear a fish. He even drinks green milk from a race of anthropomorphic slimy, reptilian creatures whose natures we never even learn about. I don't know about you, but not a single thing about what I just typed sounds even remotely tasty (in fact, it's pretty much common sense that green milk is not only disgusting as fuck, but could probably kill you if consumed). And Luke Skywalker is absolutely nothing like his previous films (so much so that Mark Hamill has been tearing these new films to shreds constantly ever since they came out, ripping Kathleen Kennedy and especially Rian Johnson a new one...at least J.J. Abrams made a tactical decision that Hamill simply found disagreeable and wasn't blatantly out-of-character).
And so, we start to pile up a ton of narrative inconsistencies from the previous film. For example, in The Force Awakens, Luke left behind clues for the Resistance to find him in case he was ever needed again. In The Last Jedi, he reveals that he never wanted to be found, and that he came to this island to die. In fact, there are a ton of other plot holes that makes absolutely no sense. Snoke told the pasty white guy to come to him right away, and instead decided to disobey orders to attack the Resistance. And he also said for Kylo Ren to complete his training. In The Last Jedi, Snoke simply belittle Kylo Ren to the point that the latter smashes his helmet to pieces in a fit of petulant rage.
I said it once in relationship to The Force Awakens, and I'll say it again: Kylo Ren sucks! He's an emo twat with daddy issues who throws temper tantrums when things don't go his way. To be fair though, I probably would not blame him for one second for turning to the Dark Side after Luke attempted to kill him in his sleep. That, btw, was what ultimately pushed Ben Solo over the edge and made him into Kylo Ren.
And yes, you read that correctly. Luke attempted to kill his nephew--the son of his sister and best friend--Ben Solo in his sleep because he sensed darkness in his heart. And that was what turned Ben Solo to the dark side and made him out to be Kylo Ren.
Who was Snoke, and where did he come from? Never answered. Kylo Ren simply slashes Snoke in half, and Kylo Ren and Rey have an action set piece with Snoke's guards, the closest thing to a light saber battle we get in this movie, and is one of only two action set pieces that was actually pretty cool to watch. But Kylo Ren still isn't interested in returning to the Light, and Kylo Ren decides to take the helm of the First Order--I honestly do not see this ending well for them at all.
Seriously, if Episode IX doesn't feature the ramifications of Snoke's murder at the hands of Kylo Ren and Kylo Ren's lack of maturity leading to their downfall, then this will be a complete waste of time. Of course not! The First Order's core weakness is going to be the dreaded love triangle! In fact, we have two of them: Rey, Finn, and Kylo Ren; and Finn, Rey, and Rose.
I'm calling it right here and now. Unless J.J. Abrams really hates this concept as much as I do, then Episode IX is going to end with Rey and Kylo Ren getting hitched, leaving Finn with Rose.
Rey may be a complete Mary Sue, but at least she isn't constantly being placed on top of a moral pedestal. She's just bland and overpowered, and an exceptionally unfulfilling backstory. Apparently, Rey's parents were junkies that dumped her off on Jakku. That was it. Apparently, Rian Johnson's earlier film treatment was supposed to have more to it than that--apparently, she was supposed to be the reincarnation of Anakin Skywalker, who has taken the form of a giant sea monster that you actually do see in the background but never comes into play in the final product. Rey was supposed to be taught three lessons concerning the Force from Luke, but is only shown two of them; the third lesson was supposed to concern Rey slaying the sea monster in an underwater battle, which has come to represent Rey's darkness.
And when she successfully slays the sea monster, Anakin Skywalker was supposed to materialize informing Rey that not only is she, much like Anakin Skywalker the Chosen One, but that she is meant to restore balance to the Force (remember that the Knights of Ren are all supposed to be former pupils to Luke Skywalker, and other than Kylo, none of them are featured or even mentioned in The Last Jedi). The Force made her especially powerful in the Force without much training because of the lack of balance in the Force. However, because she is so powerful that she is warned that she will be especially easy to sway over to the Dark Side.
All of that would actually make the film quite compelling, even if it does sound a little fanfictiony in parts. The downside? All of that was cut from the final product. Because apparently, 90 minutes dedicated to Admiral Haldo rendering 90 minutes of screen time a complete waste of time, and Rose virtue signaling constantly while doing nothing else to further the plot along other than keeping Finn from sacrificing himself to save the Resistance is much more valuable a use of time, energy, and resources than trying to acknowledge that the prequels exist or bringing back Hayden Christenson (and yes, they did bring him back to reprise his role as Anakin Skywalker, only to cut his scenes out of the final product).
But the main reason why Rey's story is completely inconsequential in spite being the meatiest? Because until the final ten minutes of the movie, Rey's story literally has no overlap with Finn's or Po's. Even when Rey is on Snoke's ship confronting him and Kylo Ren, she never crosses paths or interacts with Finn, Rose or BB-8 in any way, even while they're fighting off First Order troops and attempting to get away after their positions were compromised by DJ. Or while Admiral Haldo was crashing her ship into Snoke's ship at hyper speed. Not even R2-D2 or Chewbacca have any interactions with Finn's party; in fact, when Rey turns herself in, we never really do find out what the hell happened to them, nor do we ever figure out how Rey got away.
Speaking of which, let's cover the original trilogy characters. C3PO's gold arm is back...for...some...reason. And he does nothing, and says nothing of importance. He's just kind of...there. Same goes for Chewbacca and R2-D2. The film completely forgets about the latter two when Rey turns herself in to try to reenact the ending to Return of the Jedi. Leia gets not-killed-off, but once she comes back, she does literally nothing of any real importance. She does have a heart-to-heart with Luke right before he heads out to confront the First Order all on his own, but I had to take a piss during that scene, and when I came back, I realized that, spoiler alert: Nothing of importance have happened.
And finally, we get to Luke Skywalker. Good ole' Luke Skywalker! A character whose portrayal was so controversial that even Mark Hamill--who, other than George Lucas himself, probably has a far greater understanding of the Star Wars mythos than any man alive--is constantly ripping these movies to shreds over, specifically The Last Jedi. So after redeeming his father, who was pretty damn evil and ruthless in the original trilogy, mind you, Luke decided to murder his angsty emo kid nephew in spite knowing full well he was a basket of insecurities. And after that, he basically decided to leave the Far, Far Away Galaxy alone to its own devices, not really giving a shit that Han Solo is now dead.
He does get outmatched by Rey, but given the fact that Luke had cut himself off from the force and no longer exactly looked...well...in mint condition to put it lightly, I'd say he was at a pretty big disadvantage anyways. He also tried to burn down the library containing all the surviving Jedi text, but then Yoda's Force Ghost decided to summon a bolt of lightning and....
WHY DIDN'T YODA OR OBI-WAN DO THIS BEFORE!? Seriously, the moment you give an awesome array of godlike powers to dead people, you pretty much kill any semblance of suspense or purpose, particularly since it then makes it clear that death isn't even all that big a deal anymore. This is one of the many reasons why I cannot stand the Dragonball franchise; death? Minor inconvenience. At least now we can't die again!
So, Yoda decides to destroy the Jedi text on Luke's behalf justifying the "Let the past die," toxicity that I absolutely hate so much. Even though the REAL reason Yoda did this was because in a rare air of subtlety, Rey had already stolen all the Jedi text after Luke made it clear he had no intention of helping anybody, and Yoda wanted Luke to die in peace without ever finding out what happened.
Did I say die? I'm sorry, I mean live in peace. No, wait! Because Luke astro projected himself all across the galaxy to have a heart-to-heart talk with Leia, and then confronting the entire First Order all on his own. Now it looked like Luke will finally demonstrate just how awesomely powerful he is, but no. Luke is using the blue light saber that was destroyed earlier by Rey and Kylo Ren's force pull on the same weapon ripping it apart instead of the green one he presumably already had. However, Kylo Ren does not realize that he was having the First Order waste away all their ammunition and that Luke's projection was just a decoy while Rey saved Po, Finn, and the surviving Resistance fighters aboard the Millenium Falcon. Meaning they are pretty much just a nonexistent force at this point in time, since I highly doubt the Millennium Falcon can house thousands of people, even with a huge swarm of Borgs multiplying on the ship like rabbits.
Those borgs I mention? They're the cute aliens we've seen in the promotional material.
Anyways, Luke dies from projecting himself in surprisingly better shape than before, all the way across the galaxy. Meaning Luke Skywalker never actually got to do anything truly badass in the sequel trilogy, and instead had Rian Johnson cheat the narrative and the audience.
And that's what the film is in a nutshell: A cheat!
Final Thoughts
I apologize for the incredibly long-winded review. But Star Wars: The Last Jedi is so bad that dissecting this film and tearing it apart is the equivalent of falling down a bottomless pit. I'd use the rabbit hole analogy, but that would imply that there'd be anything exciting or enticing to look at. What this movie is is nihilistic despair masked as a dark, gritty and original take on the Star Wars mythos. They change things around haphazardly, disregard information that was set up in previous films, including blatant plot and character points from The Force Awakens, mind you, and the world building is so atrocious that they have space ship dropping bombs on dreadnought ships in outer space.
I have to stress to try to find much redeeming value in anything in this film. It is bad in ways that every R-rated comedy made in the last decade wishes it were bad. It is so offensive, and holds it target audience in such contempt, and it displays such profound ignorance and arrogance of what their predecessors were even attempting to do, that The Last Jedi may very well mark the beginning of the end of a once great franchise.
All of this to sum up: This film is cannot be described. There are probably no more than 3 or 4 films that can compare to how bad Star Wars: The Last Jedi is. On it's own, it still sucks and is next to irredeemable. As a part of a much, larger whole, I loathe this movie! As a writer in fantasy, and as a self-taught student of world building, there isn't a single ounce of my very being that can possibly recommend this movie.
I know a lot of you guys hate spoilers, but this is for your own good. And I know that a lot of you guys hate these sorts of long-winded reviews, but The Last Jedi is perhaps on par with films like Breaking the Waves or That's My Boy for worst movie I have ever seen in my life. The reason why it is not as bad as those two movies is because at least there was a way that The Last Jedi could have been good in an alternate reality. That's My Boy and Breaking the Waves could never be made into good movies under any circumstances, and are so devoid of a moral compass that even if they were honest about themselves, they still wouldn't be any good.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is a disaster on the scale of films like Fant4stic and The Last Airbender movies. It is THAT BAD!
It says a lot when audiences, upon watching it, have all but abandoned the film and decided to go recommend Jumanji of all movies!
0 out of 10, and that's me being generous. One of the absolute worst movies I have ever had to sit through.
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Post by cavaradossi on Jan 13, 2018 10:13:15 GMT -5
epicgordon
I haven't seen The Last Jedi yet (I'm waiting for the Blu-ray) but I couldn't resist reading your review even though I'm one of those people who hates spoilers. Several of my friends have seen the film and they are sharply divided in their reactions. Some enjoyed it while others had a reaction similar to yours. Now my question is: just what do you think Disney and Abrams were trying to do in this film? Disney could hardly want to destroy the SW franchise, especially after paying so much for it, and Abrams has made some very effective, not to mention financially successful, movies in recent years. I'm not questioning your opinions about the film, but am curious if you have any ideas on what the intentions were here. Surely this can't have been deliberate.
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Post by epicgordan on Jan 13, 2018 12:10:59 GMT -5
Cavaradossi: J.J. Abrams' finger prints weren't on The Last Jedi. This was Rian Johnson's film, and J.J. Abrams won't have any help from the people at top at fixing the disaster made by Johnson.
And of course, this was deliberate. Maybe not with deliberate intent, but the intentions all this time was to corrupt Star Wars. These people are so short-sighted that they fail to realize that people will eventually tune them off. And while nobody knew what they were getting into early on when they saw The Last Jedi, they figured out quickly. So of course, The Last Jedi is going to be a big hit. But I guarantee you that audiences will eventually be on their guard when Episode IX comes out, or Rian Johnson's own Star Wars trilogy--I'm calling Episode's X-XII--are announced.
But again, do not judge Force Awakens--or any other Star Wars film--based on the failings of The Last Jedi. The Last Jedi is already a most radioactive film anyways, and it is lethal.
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Post by cavaradossi on Jan 14, 2018 2:54:59 GMT -5
epicgordon
Thanks for the correction re Abrams; I can't imagine how I made that mistake.
Forgive me, but I must ask again. What do you mean by saying the makers of this film intended to corrupt Star Wars? What possible gain could they think they would make in destroying their prize franchise? If intentional, that would be the most insane, not to mention monumentally stupid, decision any film company ever made in movie history, one not likely to ever be surpassed.
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