Nope is the greatest movie of all time

Nope. "What if I told you that today you'll leave here different. I'm talking to you. Right here, you are going to witness an absolute spectacle."

Gist is siblings played by Daniel Kaluuya from Get Out and Keke Palmer (whom I didn’t recognize) run a family horse ranch when they discover something sinister in the skies. Meanwhile the owner of the theme park next door (played Steven Yeun who was Glen in The Walking Dead) tries to tame the otherworldly creature to turn a profit. Acting is incredible. Everyone mentioned is stellar. The guy who plays Angel is also great. The guy who plays the cinematographer, Michael Wincott, is a true heat check performance. Came out and put up 30 points and a quarter type of shit. Mostly think of him from the Jim Jarmusch movie Dead Man.

 
Listened to some interviews with Peele. He cites King Kong, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Signs, and The Wizard of Oz as influences on the film. He considers these films as examples of addiction to spectacle, which is one of two major themes in the film.

Lot of symbolism and parallel storytelling going on. I suspect Nope will be a pretty polarizing watch. I love a movie that you really have to think about.The weird thing people are talking about is this incident that happened to Yeun’s character when he was a sitcom actor in the 1990s. He’s on a show that has a monkey that goes apeshit and kills/maims actors on set. Monkey business if you will. Keep coming back to it. Yeun survives. Is about to fist bumped the monkey, which it’s been trained to do, but the police come in and kill it. My thought is the guy represents exploitation of nature/animals. Makes money off of the monkey incident and then tries to make money off of this creature. As they make clear you can’t tame an apex predator. Despite this clear message, this guy didn’t learn his lesson and dies because of it. 

Not only that but it puts lotta other people in danger because of his hubris. They come for a lasso show any forces an encounter with aliens on that. No one paid for that, bra. 

It is a really beautiful film, the creature is beautiful, the cinematography is beautiful, the landscape, the horses, lotta beauty. Fine with the ending but I’ve seen some complaints about it. I totally loved it.

The Stepfather is the greatest movie of all time

The Stepfather. Gist is a dude marries into a family, gets overbearing, and when his stepdaughter fails to live up to his expectations, he goes into a homicidal rage. Multiple times. His expectation you ask? Not dating until she’s 18. Though her boyfriend is a huge dick, and I wouldn’t want him making out with my step kid either, this is obviously extreme behavior.

Movie stars Terry O’Quinn, he’ll always be John Locke to me, as the stepfather. My man is really going for it here. Really hammering home the whole “we are a family, we have to stay together” schtick. 

There’s an unconventional detective guy that’s trying to track him down. Not really sure what this guy is like job is, but he takes it upon himself to take down John Locke. Played by Stephen Shellen, a poor man’s Nathan Fillion. He comes in every room hot. Some serious coked up energy.

Director Joseph Ruben had a pretty solid career but stopped making movies. Also did Dreamscape (a childhood favorite), Money Train, The Good Son, and Sleeping with the Enemy.

Pretty fun movie. The ending is something. Stabbing, shooting, punching, falling through ceilings. Chopping down bird houses. 

There is an extremely gratuitous nude scene from the 16-year-old high school stepdaughter girl like in the last 10 minutes of the movie which was shocking. Played by one Jill Schoelen. She apparently broke Brad Pitt’s heart before he was Brad Pitt. She thought she was too good for Brad Pitt. Gonna let that sink in. She has a pretty young lady though.

Last Night in Soho was the worst movie of all time

Last Night in Soho. Oh, wow. Where do I start? Movie has “How did this get made?” vibes. WAY too much going on. Jumping back and form between main chicks was an interesting choice. This is a real dud of an Edgar Wright film. 

Gist is this is a fish out of water, chick travels through time via her haunted room with some real what-is-going-on-shit movie.

Things I find offensive about this film. Don’t care for this main girl, at all, in this movie. There is an obligatory going to the cops and having them think she is on drugs or cray scene. The VVitch girl is misused. Lot of dancing around, party girl shit with a terrible accent. She has a tiny mouth vs giant mouth make out session with her boyfriend. I just found this distracting, but thought I’d mention. We are talking the biggest vs smallest mouth in the history of film shit. 

And finally, the twist was some terrible, M. Night, cheap-ass bullshit. Fuck this movie. I know coked up nonsense. And this, is coked up nonsense.

The Privilege was the okayest movie of all time

The Privilege. Directed by Felix Fuchssteiner and Katharina Schöde. From 2022. On Netflix.

Interesting German horror movie about multi-generational wealth and the shit that gets passed down when you make a shit ton of money off of oppressing others and being cool with demons. Thought they were going to touch on German guilt over the whole Nazi thing but they don’t.

Gist of the movie consists of a wealthy high school kid starts uncovering some weird conspiracy and everyone acts like is going crazy. Meanwhile he is getting crazy drugs for a past traumatic event. The wealthy parents and his twin sister are constantly gaslighting him. “You didn’t see what you think you did,” “your friend committed suicide in a most unlikely way,” “if it was a murder though, you probably did it,” so forth.

Something I found cool was this “drug” they are testing on kids, another thing they could’ve connected to the Nazi shit, ends up being a psilocybin-rich thread fungus. Ends up being an extinct mushroom that grows on dead human remains. Pretty cool. There’s also this cool hallucinogen expert lady that I dig. Has a gypsy Betty Buckley with Alia Shawkat vibe. My kind of lady.

Also love the séance scene. Parents leave so their son can bone the check he likes who came over to study biology, ugh. They practically beg him to have sex with her. Pretty weird. Then they come home super early unexpectedly in the middle of the ritual. Which freaks them out way more than their son raw dogging his little high school girlfriend or whatever.

Follow that up with another real WTF moment. One of those “what if this is the last night of our lives” threesomes between the main dude, his girlfriend, and his lesbian friend. Alright.

Lot of body horror and various homages. Scanners, The Stuff, The Others, Get Out, Hereditary.

Gets a little hard to follow. Little too ambitious. Would’ve been better dial back a little bit. It’s not bad but not great either. Plus the very and was super dumb. Set it up for a sequel that is completely unnecessary.

Meet Me in St. Louis is the greatest film of all time

Meet Me in St. Louis. A good easy watching musical. Judy Garland is such a talent in this film of innocent family merriment and stupid men. All these women could do better. Except for grandpa. He’s cool.

Garland sings the quintessential “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”, my favorite melancholy holiday song. She and Vincente Minnelli, the director, met during this movie. Led to the eventual birth of Liza.

At some point all my feminist friends’ talk rubbed off on me. The women in this movie are slaves. Dad is rich but instead of sending them a college, he is marrying them off and giving the husbands a dowry. Pretty messed up. 

On the other hand, the dad is supporting like 20 people and wants to move them to New York but they totally don’t want to do this. Also, no one respects him because he’s a dick.

The little girl that plays Tootie is fucking terrible. Her acting style can be described as exaggerated. There is a good story I found about her getting her bullshit best child actor or some shit Academy Award stolen. Someone found it in a thrift store many decades later and returned it to her. She is still around at 85. Her and June Lockhart, a Garland rival, are both still living. Lockhart is 97. Most memorably from Lost in Space.

The Player is the greatest film of all time

The Player. "Do places like this really exist?" "Only in the movies." Directed in Robert Altman and released in 1992. Stars Tim Robbins in an incredible role/performance. 

Gist of the movie is a Hollywood studio executive sort of spirals after he starts getting death threats from a writer whos script he rejected, which he takes much pride in and does many times a day. He thinks he's figured it out and ends up killing the guy and getting with his girlfriend. Ultimately, however, there is a "happy ending" for the executive, which is great for him, that prick. 

As you might have guessed, this is a very dark, black comedy/satire. It stars Italian film star Greta Scacchi as the love interest, Fred Ward from Tremors and Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, Whoopi Goldberg, Vincent D'Onofrio, "that guy" Peter Gallagher, Brion James from Blade Runner and 48 Hrs., and Cynthia Stevenson from Happiness (which I do not recommend), Dean Stockwell from Blue Velvet and Paris, Texas, and Richard E. Grant who was nominated for the 2018 Academy Award for Best Actor for the film Can You Ever Forgive Me? (he is great in this movie), among many others. It makes many film and meta references, and has 65 celebrities making cameo appearances.

Sum up with: Extremely dark. Super meta. Occasionally funny. Has a very messed up sex scene where a guy tells a gal he’s doing it with that he killed her ex to make it hotter. Oof. Best use of saying the name of the movie within the movie of all time though. 

Choose or Die is the greatest movie of all time

Choose or Die. "I don't see how a video game can kill someone. I mean Pac-Man doesn't go around eating people." Directed by Toby Meakins. Released in 2022 on Netflix. 

I really enjoyed this poorly reviewed flick. A lot of those controlling a player from a game from the 80s movies. Interesting premise. One of several old games coming to phone movies. How many Jumanji knock-offs can there be? Don’t know, assume we are about at the peak here, but I’m a total sucker for them.

Only people I recognize are Asa Butterfield from Sex Education, Iola Evans (the star of the movie) from The 100, and Eddie Marsan from The World's End (among other things). We also hear Robert Englund who lends his voice to the film as himself. 

Picture was so dark I could barely see it at times. Even with the picture all the way up on the darker scenes I could barely see anything.

There’s some real moments in this movie. There’s a scary-ass rat scene where the main girl controls her mom like in a video game. Eerie industrial music heightens the suspense. 

Sort of falls apart briefly when they put it in a “cheat code”. Hey, it’s still winning in my book. Some games, like Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, were impossible without a cheat code. But it completely rebounds during the “Boss Battle”. It’s a truly amazing scene. It’s seriously dope.

Ending sets up at sequel that I would totally watch.

Dark Knight Rises - Christopher Nolan - 2012

★★★-The Dark Knight Rises. I'm Gotham's reckoning. Here to end the borrowed time you all have been living on. Christopher Nolan directed movie from 2012. The third movie in his Dark Knight trilogy. His eighth film overall. Don’t buy the critical consensus. This is a solid flick, but not a great one. 

Gist is that Batman returns after nearly a decade after the events of the previous movie, The Dark Knight. This is after the Joker's reign made Batman a public enemy. Now, the League of Shadows has returned to create terror for the citizens of Gotham. Led by Bane, the group isolates the city from the outside world with the threat of detonating a nuclear bomb and killing 13 million people. Batman returns to save the city and take down the League for good. 

Christian Bale returns as Bruce Wayne/Batman. Also staring in the flick were Michael Caine as Alfred, Gary Oldman as Gordon, Anne Hathaway as Catwoman, Tom Hardy as Bane, Marion Cotillard as Miranda Tate, Joseph Gordon Levitt as John Blake, and Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox. 

Best two scenes of the movie are the opening one with the plane crash. Followed by the football scene which is great. Weird to follow up Batman and Bane chilling and talking with pure chaos. Love how they are cut off and Bane comes out and tells them all who is white before killing Pavel, the only one who can save them. “ We give it back to you, the people.” About the time they are freeing the “oppressed,” I’d start questioning this. 

Fight scenes are bad. Obvious misses and slow haymakers that land. Nolan hasn’t made a bad movie. Momento is his best though. 

There is a little bit of nonsense. Plot holes or whatever. Batman’s vertebrae protruding for example. Falling with a rope ran your waist with a bad back isn’t a winning strategy. Some free solo shit. 

Cast is stellar. Tom Hardy, of course, is insane. But just go with it. His voice is dumb, yeah, but I still love that dude. Even when he makes a lot of old man noises whilst dying. Peak Tom Hardy. At least at his most Tom Hardy. 

How is Joseph Gordon Levitt not a star? Anne Hathaway is straight fire. She is not a fighter though. Probably my third favorite Catwoman, but out of the seven I can think of off the top of my head, they are all pretty fire. Post peak Christian Bale. He is my favorite Bruce Wayne and Batman not in costume. Keaton is my favorite Batman. But Bale is more physical. He would probably be the best but the voice is terrible. “Tell me where the trigger is then you have my permission to die.“ Boo. Lot of hubris there. General rule for Batman in this universe is just stop talking. 

Notice the pop star chick from Ted Lasso is in this. Hangs out with Catwoman mostly. 

Gets a little weak when it gets sentimental. Dig the League of Shadows, but you can’t be the Unabomber and be taken seriously. All makes for a week last 20 minutes. Then DB Sweeney shows up. Also, Matthew Modine redeems himself and then dies off-screen. Um, OK. 

I’m fine with a happy ending. I guess I think it’s just sort of whatever. Explain it all with some auto pilot stuff which is easy to mess and sort of feel sandwiched in.