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The success of this movie is that it has you engaged like it’s a 90’s thriller but aside from picking the pope, it’s the lowest stakes.  Like one of the antagonists main flaw is he’s a little racist. No killers. No catholic priests who do that main thing Catholic priests are known for. It’s just like “oh my, Cardinal so & so lied!” And somehow it worked.

I liked it! Ffc had been taking big swings ever since his wine turned a profit and this seems to be the first time your average film goer took notice. when the Strokes first hit and people were like “they just ripped off American girl by Tom Perry” and the Strokes were like “yeah so, it’s a good song”. Ffc is doing that but with Shakespeare, and while you have to enjoy the flaws with fascinations I found this a really fun thing to look at for 2 hours (I say this aware that it’s 2:15 long). To say it’s very self indulgent is an understatement but also I viewed it as trash. I like garbage. Especially one of a kind garbage.

This review may contain spoilers.

There is few elements of this that makes it a complete miss for me. Broad strokes, it has no idea what it wants to be. I’d say more RomCom than I thought it’d be buuuut it really wants to be an action movie aaaaaand is trying to be wacky and self aware. I have no problems with it doing all of those but it doesn’t do any one of those for it to have a real identity. 

The romcom didn’t work for me because they start out in love. The divide between the characters is so artificial you never feel like they won’t end up together… so rom com doesn’t really work.

As an action movie it doesn’t work because the stuff they go all in on are for the movie within the movie, then the real stunts end up having too much cg to feel like a big spectacle. Plus our way into the action doesn’t really work because the first fight scene is between gosling and a character that is just another actor from the movie and the next one is on a drug sequence. I don’t mind both those concepts but I kind of need our hero to be thrown into real danger for either to work.

As far as comedy, the self referential wink and nod stuff can s my d. It feels like a lack of a joke.

The silver lining of the whole thing though, Gossling is funny. He’s basically doing his nice guys character but it works.

I’d say narratively the problem with this movie is you feel like you’re on the outside of every character. That being said it’s some fun fluff with a great cast that’s on criterion now

This what I imagine a Fortnite movie would be like.

Update: this movie actually has a kind amazing villain performance that gets underutilized and feels out of place

The stakes are a little weird
They tell you why people are doing things… but not really. Why are they chasing tornados??? Uhhhh… for scans… so they can profit…. Ummm YouTube viewers… to help people.
It’s just one of those movies where you have to accept the characters are doing the things they are doing because it’s a movie.
I also thought it was funny they had Maura Tierney  make a cameo, reprising her roll from the first movie. What’s that? It wasn’t Maura Tierny in the first movie? I specifically it was the star of a 90’s sitcom and she starred in News Radio.

All that said, it’s a movie. And I mean that in a good way. It’s loud it’s big, it’s aggressively American. It’s twisters.

Paul Schrader makes movies about people’s disconnect and isolation from society driving them mad like James Cameron makes movies about water. This is another addition to that sub genre and it’s up there with the best of them. Great performances across the board. Maybe one of my favorite Nick Nolte performances not for that iconic rage he delivers but for this “kicked dog” side of the character really drives the whole thing.

This is a weird complaint but I wish it started like a scene or two earlier than it did. Not the flashback stuff but present day. We never really got to know the main character so that kind of kept us from empathizing with her which kind of kept us on the outside of the ride. I really like Blair Underwood though.

It’s a fun Texas chainsaw twist on the Farmers daughter trope, interesting commentary on sexual empowerment buuuuut imho it comes off a little too silly to be scary. I think a big part of this is the decision to have Mia goth in old lady makeup plays the old Pearl. I wish it was a really old woman. Old people are scary. I hope to be scary one day.

This is one of those ones where I like it much better upon second watch. Maybe even third, I forget how many times I’ve seen this. If you haven’t seen it check it out. It totally delivers on this  mystery/femme fatale level but I think where this movie succeeds is that it’s almost a mystery what the movie is actually about. Spoilers ahead:  so at first the movie totally appears to be this who done it mystery and as I said it delivers on that. You get a list of colorful suspects, break through moments false leads, a killer right under our nose. It’s fun. It moves buuut maybe it’s too easy, which sets us up for this great twist finale where the answer isn’t what we thought it was. But TWIST the movie keeps going… one night think finche doesn’t know how to end a movie but I don’t think that’s it. He’s a very international director to say the least he’s doing this on purpose. Then the movie shifts to this process movie, almost a quick heist thing, you see Ilsbeth get thorough and it’s fun to watch. So fun Finchers last movie “the killer” is just that. Than it goes one step further, you see a Ilsbeth having successfully stolen a fortune, help stop a serial killer, and turn someone who sexually assaulted her into a scared little boy, dog something that she is not prepared to do… buy the guy she likes a gift. She’s falling in love for the first time and she doesn’t know what to do. So now empowered by all this she does it and shows up to give it to him just to discover him back with the woman he was having an affair with. She throws the gift and the note which you have to assume is the ission of her feelings in the trash and rides off. So big twist!!! This isn’t a mystery, this is a tragic romance! Keep in mind too Daniel Craig’s character isn’t making a choice here. He thinks Ilsbeth left. He didn’t know what she had done/had been doing for him. Who knows, if she stepped out of the shadows he could have chosen her and she’d finally get what she wanted. It’s Casablanca it’s Romeo and Juliet it’s a tale of two people rejected by the world who find each other just to in the end not work out. It’s the bleakest romance out there. But the movie works.

I made this movie with my friends!

This was way more of a tennis movie than a threesome movie and I was presently surprised by that. It’s also one of those movies where there’s 3 characters and almost no one else gets a line. It’s very focused and easy to look at (in more ways than one😉). I love it when story telling has a captivating quality to it, and for me, this had that.

After I saw it I found out it was supposed to be kind of an anthology cartoon thing and that made so much sense because it’s major flaw is it doesn’t have momentum from movement to movement.

This was a ride. One of my favorite parts of this movie is that the bad guys apartment looks almost exactly like the bad guys apartment in Madame Web.

This movie has that same quality that the room or troll 2 have where there are moments that make you doubt the people who are making the movie know how humans interact with each other.  I had a blast watching but this is kind of a meta so bad it’s good movie where you really have to be thinking about “ someone thought this was a good idea” through out to fully alleviate it.

Problematic, unhinged but you can’t deny it’s a one off a kind wild ride.

Really liked the cast and surreal moments of it all but the third act is set up for tension and does not really deliver on that. I still was along for the ride just there could have been more there.

I didn’t fall asleep. Even though I feel like the biggest miss was some of the camera effects, dumb action is back.

I Really liked it, didn’t love it.  It brought the world to life which is a huge feat, but I thought it made decisions that took away from the tensions of things and felt like I was left a little shortchanged with certain elements.  Sci fi channel mini series is still the king of Dune.

This is a movie. Just close your eyes and say the word “movie” and this is what starts playing on the mind’s screen.  You could call it “so bad it’s good” but then I think you’d be selling it short. It’s just bad in all the right ways and good in all the right ways. Like Bad: the concept of a shadow government agency known as “the beekeepers” is so dumb and contrived, but then good-the movie fully commits to it and talks about bees and beekeeping way more than you would think is possible. Basically the movie rides that line of being bad but fun throughout till it ends and you just want to smoke a cigarette with it in bed. The sad thing is, is this… will there be a beekeeper 2… I bet. Will it be good? I doubt it, I would put money that it would be a little too self aware and just like that, the appeal is gone

This movie is weird. I was all like “what kind of sicko would come up with this?”

This movie has a rad vibe. Kaufman’s movies are slightly psychedelic and this is definitely not the exception.

This was pretty fun but honestly it was a bit over hyped. Especially since it was a part 1 of 2 and ended like a tv show and not a movie. Give us something big at the end, you know?

Classic Tony Scot. It’s not a great movie, it’s an overwhelmingly good movie. So when I give it 4 stars that’s a subjective 4 stars not an objective 4 stars.

Really enjoyed it but it’s not without its flaws. The whole Los Alamos movement was pretty great but a lot of the dialogue really felt like it was from a guy who made 3 Batman movies. It’s probably my favorite Nolan but not my favorite movie about a troubled genius who used science to defeat the Nazi’s while fighting government bureaucracy (Imitation Game).

More like the good movie.

It was fun.

Slow start. Goes on a little long at the the end but still really liked it. It’s a great death of the western story.

This movie is insane, not psycho but insane. A good watch with friends but outside of that it’s worse than my mom at telling a story. First off it’s about a college situation where the most coveted position is to be a professor’s TA. On top of that it has an old William Shatner positioned as some sort of sexy older man who students are bragging about having affairs with. On top of that there’s really only two characters in the movie at a time. Like as soon as someone is introduced they get killed and as an audience member your like “now what”. Something like that works in the cerebral “under the skin” but this is way more conventional, just poorly made. Oh yeah, and it’s also clearly a movie (possibly titled “all American girl”) that was only an American psycho movie as an after thought.

I hadn’t seen this since it first came out and was for the most part disappointed in it. To be fair, I watched a cam recorded boot leg on a friends 18” TV. I’ve always been hesitant to come back to it, probably because it’s bro-ey, Halloween costume inspired fan base. I was very pleasantly surprised. This movie that’s thought of as a slasher carried on the back of up and coming former child star Christian Bale turned out to be more of a surreal journey into societies worst.

This is such a mid movie but that almost works in its favor. Almost immediately the movie kind of shrugs at you and says “well, it’s not like this is GOOD.” And it kind of just follows through on that but with a freedom to not be working so hard to get you. In a time when we have movies like end game where thirty movies lead in to the story telling it’s refreshing to see one that while it does incorporate other movies (89 Batman, man of steel) this feels incredibly self contained.

This review may contain spoilers.

Felt like watching someone play an Indians jones video game. Not that it missed the mark, just didn’t have the same spark for me. Maybe what I want is not an Indiana Jones movie but instead a Time Machine , which is ironic because this movie has a Time Machine.

I want to give it 3 stars because it’s not the best story ever but when it’s good it’s so uniquely good and memorable I have to give it four.
Footnote: I don’t think I’ve watched it in ten years but I still think about it from time to time

It’s fine.

Smarter than stupid, dumber than good.

This is a really cool 90’s Latin gang movie, that is as much a 3 friends torn apart by crime story as it is a prison gang movie. It’s melodramatic but also just one of those movies where if someone likes this movie they LOVE this movie.

First time I saw this I was disappointed watched it recently (probably 15 years later) and loved it. The thing is it’s more of a con artist movie than it is a sports movie. Just great.

Truly one of the oddest experiences I've had watching a movie. I give this 5 stars and still think it's insanely boring. Sometimes that's ok.

Awesome cast. Cool movie.

This has an amazing cast with a rad style.

So fucking cool. Loved the performances and the perspective of the story.

Not a great movie but a good watch

It was really fun but fell apart in the third act. It recovered a little bit.

I don't care what you think, I loved it.

This was so good. I had a blast. It does a really refreshing thing which is it focuses more on getting people to react at extreme situations rather than judging and embarrassing them. There were multiple times where i was like "that person is awesome". It also has a good touch of Nirvanna The Band The Show where you are watching people react to cinematic moments happen in front of them. And sometimes there's a prank that comes along with those moments, sometimes there isn't. It only gets half a star off for not being Citizen Kane.

It was like boring se7en. Probably should of been called thr3e.

Make sure prometheus is fresh in your head when you see this, they feel like one idea.

I don't know about you but when i saw alien and aliens i wasn't in need of more philosophical/religious debates. I watched the chaos edit which was cool. I think the best way to watch prometheus and covenant is to watch them, realize they are mediocre then watch them again. Michael Fassbinder is cool.

I haven't finished it yet but it's weird to have Jeff Bridges, who is so charismatic and fun, then have him play a robotic alien. I'll finish it one day.

Two third of this movie is trust falls and leadership lessons then in the last half hour the plot happens. It's still fun though.

1. The Silence of the Lambs
2. Unforgiven
3. Jurassic Park
4. Dazed and Confused
5. Jackie Brown
6. Point Break
7. The Thin Red Line
8. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
9. GoodFellas
10. A Few Good Men

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I did 12 because it looks better on grid view.

1. Children of Men
2. A Serious Man
3. No Country for Old Men
4. You Can Count on Me
5. City of God
6. There Will Be Blood
7. A History of Violence
8. Training Day
9. WALL·E
10. Hustle & Flow

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I did 12 because it looks better on grid view.

1. Paddington 2
2. Nightcrawler
3. The Imitation Game
4. 12 Years a Slave
5. Good Time
6. The Master
7. Moneyball
8. Warrior
9. Sicario
10. MacGruber

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.