Last Movie Watched

The Muppets Christmas Carol today. Michael Cane never phones it in. I read that he played that part as serious as if he were on stage with human actors. What a great movie. And over the course of the last week: Christmas Vacation, Batman Returns, Elf, Gremlins, and Home Alone. Also the Christmas with the Joker episode from Batman TAS. I did not get to Die Hard but maybe tomorrow. LOTR coming within the next week.

Merry Christmas.
 
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Some of my mom's favorite Christmas watches are It's A Wonderful Life, The Night Before, and Scrooged, so needless to say, we watched all of them this week. Got a few more days here and I plan on watching Batman Returns and Curse of the Black Pearl, which have become Christmastime watches for me.

Me and the fam have started going to the movies for Christmas over the last 10 or so years. This year's watch was, unfortunately, Anaconda. Was it the worst movie I've ever seen? No. Had a few little silly bits. But it felt like it was either made up as they went along or they just had a bunch of leftover scenes from some other movie that they could string together to make another. My mom loved it, though; I know my family has oft-questionable taste, but sometimes I do wonder if we're really related. 😅

Watched Happy Death Day later, though, and it helped wash the bad taste out of my mouth. Had never seen it, but heard it was fun, and managed to avoid spoilers. I really dug it!
 
I don't typically do Christmas movies as a rule, but the one I have started to make part of my rotation, and will be doing again today probably, is Tokyo Godfathers, which is just brilliant on a number of levels. If you haven't seen it, be wary that you watch later translations as earlier ones are not sensitive to one of the main characters who is trans. That's not the movie's problem, it's entirely the translation, the movie has a deep warm center to it.

Done by the same director who did Perfect Blue (though this is about as far from PB as you could reasonably get tone wise), as well as Millennium Actress and Paprika. Dude only did 4 films before he checked out, but all of them are bangers.
 
Finally got around to watching Deadpool v Wolverine because I couldn't figure out what else to watch on the treadmill. It's funny, STYLE-wise it's everything I dislike about modern pop culture (the relentless callbacks, the use of of irreverent smugness to mask sincerity, the meta-text being the main story instead of subtextual) but from a craft standpoint it's an incredibly strong script that knows exactly what it's doing and who its audience is, and does NOT try to be for everyone.

So what I'm saying is I know a very good movie when I see one even if I still cannot stand Ryan Reynolds and his schtick. Also the stunt team for the fight in the car deserve a raise.
 
I've said since it came out that DvW is exactly the movie that you expect that movie to be. It does what it is TRYING to do extremely well, and most of the complaints about it seem predicated on it being a different movie than it is.
 
Damien said:
I've said since it came out that DvW is exactly the movie that you expect that movie to be. It does what it is TRYING to do extremely well, and most of the complaints about it seem predicated on it being a different movie than it is.
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Yep! Honestly the reason I avoided it so long was I knew they had a strong enough creative crew that it would be exactly what they wanted it to be, and it's not my type of humor. But they definitely hit a home run for what they wanted the film to be.
 
I'm pretty easy to please in that regard. I think D&W (I keep typing it as DvW, like it's versus, but it's AND...) did a pretty good job marketing itself, as well. Like, I knew what it was going in. I think if I had expected something closer to 'Logan' in tone, even if they changed nothing about the film, I would have come away pretty disappointed. But the marketing really managed expectations and shone a big light on the 'this is going to be stupid' sign.
 
DPvW is easier to type than DP&W, anyway.

I think my one critique of the marketing was that Reynolds himself spoiled like, 75% of the surprise guests himself on Twitter on opening weekend. But I also think society has swerved to the point where people do not like discovery or surprise anymore - they want to know the dog lives or the girlfriend dies or the wizard rises from the grave before they get to the theater. (Even I, who am sick to death of nostalgia and callbacks, would've been like HOLY SHIT when Blade showed up if Reynolds hadn't posted the fucking clip himself Friday morning the movie came out.)
 
I don't really do social media, so I didn't even know he did that. But also to your point.... yeah.. I think we've moved into a point in society where you either REALLY, VISCERALLY hate anything even remotely similar to a spoiler, or you literally do not even care if someone reads the entire film script to you in the car on the way to the theater.

Also, TV and movies have both developed a bad habit of treating their products like you should be watching it the SECOND it's available and if you aren't then it's your fault for having any surprises ruined. If you were a real fan, you'd be there camped out on the sidewalk on opening night. Production companies are still chasing that Star Wars: Episode 1 attention.
 
Damien said:
I don't really do social media, so I didn't even know he did that. But also to your point.... yeah.. I think we've moved into a point in society where you either REALLY, VISCERALLY hate anything even remotely similar to a spoiler, or you literally do not even care if someone reads the entire film script to you in the car on the way to the theater.

Also, TV and movies have both developed a bad habit of treating their products like you should be watching it the SECOND it's available and if you aren't then it's your fault for having any surprises ruined. If you were a real fan, you'd be there camped out on the sidewalk on opening night. Production companies are still chasing that Star Wars: Episode 1 attention.
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I also think we've gone way too far in everything requiring surprises or whatever or selling you on the next film or sesaon in lieu of just making a good one. Studios are also chasing that Iron Man end credits Avengers tease reaction. I'll never forget the time the overenthusiastic guy who runs a local theater chided us for not being more excited about Captain Marvel showing up in the end credits of Captain Marvel. And I'm like, "Look, I'm just watching this because my girlfriend wanted to see it. It is not a surprise to me that Captain Marvel would meet the Avengers. Historically, she is an Avenger." Like, if your only trick is fashioning everything into a surprise, you're not making films, you're doing a magic act. Breaker Morant was no less powerful to me for going in knowing how it would end.
 
'You're not making films, you're doing a magic act' is a great response to the 'Big Surprise' culture we've developed in films and TV. I understand where it comes from, of course. The opposite of surprising is predictable. And if everything about your thing is predictable then it's probably not very good and no one is going to spend their time watching it. But when the surprises themselves become predictable... I mean. The Avengers thing was legitimately shocking in a lot of ways. Like no way.. they're gonna do it? They're gonna do some kind of shared movie universe for REAL? It had never been done.
But now it's not a surprise. It's the expectation. Your end credits scene that, actually, there's ANOTHER big bad guy to fight? Yeah, I know. I understand how comic books work.
 
I'm at the point where if I don't want something spoiled, I watch it right away (I was watching Daredevil and Alien: Earth within an hour of them being released) but also why I fucking LOVE the services that release an episode at a time, which I know is abhorrent to some folks. I don't have eight hours to binge a show. It's going to take me a week or two. But Fallout releasing an episode a week? I love you for doing this, Prime.

But it was a weird lack of restraint from Reynolds. Like if Rian Johnson posted the whodunnit for his Benoit Blanc joint on opening weekend and was like "CRAZY TWIST, RIGHT?" The audience will spoil enough for you without doing it yourself.
 
For whatever reason, perhaps the folks i follow or my online habits, its rare for me to actually encounter what I'd consider a true spoiler in the wild. I do think for a lot of people (not anybody here) that "spoiler" has become used to mean literally anything that happens or appears in a movie, and that's been rather annoying, but I think it's largely just an excuse for some terminally online folks to be shrill on demand. Some folks love wagging a finger.

On the topic of surprises in film, it's been a while since I was genuinely surprised by something a film did in a "holy shit" kind of way. Maybe the reveal of Jean Jacket's nature in Nope? Usually my thought is that novelty and surprise are overrated values. But I sort of have to think that or I'd never watch anything. The new Benoit Blanc film, while I couldn't have told you all the exact twists and turns, I knew who our drawing room villain would be from about 5 minutes in just because Rian was doing a classical structure and I know how that structure hides information (oh hey, this flashback is definitely bullshit, wonder what that means). I still had a ball with how we ended up there.

A lot of times with genre films in particular I'm going in for an experience not unlike going to my favorite restaurant. "I'll have the usual". Like, did anything in John Wick genuinely surprise me? Nope. And I didn't expect it to. I went to see tropes I like executed by experts and I got exactly that.
 
I don't get -mad- about weekly release schedules, but I don't like them either. The thing is, I am a guy in my 40s. 'Weekly release schedule' is how I've watched television for almost the entirety of my life. I'm used to it. And I understand the value it can have in terms of 'watercooler talk' (making a show culturally relevant) and a show staying relevant for longer. But it's still not how I'd like to experience TV shows if I had the option.

I can't speak for anyone else, but I actually can't always drop what I'm doing to sit down and watch a new show. At least not in a way where I'm going to enjoy watching it (I didn't want to watch Alien: Earth while writing quotes and doing financials, for instance). Likewise, my free time can be somewhat random. I love the idea that if a show is out I like, and I happen to get the time, I can watch five episodes of it. Especially when the alternative is I can watch one episode but then I don't have the time/ability to watch another episode for 4 weeks.
A good example for me is how my busy season goes: If you drop an entire show on April 2nd, there's a good chance I can finish all 10 1-hour episodes by April 15th. If you drop 10 episodes every week starting on April 2nd, there's a good chance I might not finish that show until a month after it's over. Hell, there's a good chance I'll forget about the show, or won't finish it until mid-Summer. It just depends.


docsilence said:
But it was a weird lack of restraint from Reynolds. Like if Rian Johnson posted the whodunnit for his Benoit Blanc joint on opening weekend and was like "CRAZY TWIST, RIGHT?" The audience will spoil enough for you without doing it yourself.
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I think it speaks to the intent in the surprise. For Rian, the entire point is the big reveal, the surprise, the twist. That is WHY you are there, ultimately. For a Marvel movie like DP, it's fan service already. You don't care if there even are any surprises, because you're there to see the SPECTACLE of it. In that regard, it's not really a spoiler to say 'Gambit is here.' That's just another reason to go watch it because you want the fan service. You don't care about being surprised by what the fan service is. In fact, it may make you more likely to want to see it if you know.


JakeEkiss said:
A lot of times with genre films in particular I'm going in for an experience not unlike going to my favorite restaurant. "I'll have the usual". Like, did anything in John Wick genuinely surprise me? Nope. And I didn't expect it to. I went to see tropes I like executed by experts and I got exactly that.
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There can still be surprises on some level, though. I think it's fair to differentiate a major plot twist surprise or a sudden multiverse unveiling with another franchise surprise from the 'I didn't expect the fight scene to look like that' or 'I didn't expect John to get his ass kicked so badly by that guy' kind of surprise. If you can see every moment coming, I don't think a movie (or book, or show) will be satisfying. You want something there you didn't know was going to happen, even if that thing isn't massively relevant to the final product (like John cutting his finger off... didn't see that coming but also it didn't REALLY matter either).
 
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