Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die: Powder does air-guitar

★★★★--I loved this movie, though it was far from perfect. The realest, darkest comedy you’re ever gonna see, yes. But it also has a giant man-eating cat with a giraffe neck made of other living cat heads and a body of a goat that pees glitter. Yeah, when it eats, the little cat heads on the neck sort of puke out glitter. Once you get there, you realize “oh yeah we’re in a Black Mirror episode.” An AI nightmare. 
 
The person I watched this with was physically angered by this development. He said he almost walked out at that point and ultimately wished he had. “It was like a movie about AI written by AI,” he groaned. Personally, saw that as part of a long critique on the dangers of AI and a subverting what has been a cliché my entire life by making it realistic. Because we’ve all seen our fair share of AI crap in the last couple of years, we recognize a “shitty prompt” when we see one. As Michael Peña’s character says, “[AI] is gonna get so much worse,” or something like that. And elsewhere, “You’ve normalized this... You just can’t see how bad it’s gotten.”
 
Speaking of, I hate that guy. The actor. Scientologist, ya know. He was especially irritating in this… But it does have three of the most beautiful women in the world, all of whom start out at this random diner. Though it is in Los Angeles. They are Haley Lu Richardson (she’s the Florence Pugh looking young woman in the second season of White Lotus), Zazie Beetz from the second Dead Pool movie, and Juno Temple (she plays the popstar Keeley Jones in Ted Lasso). Sam Rockwell and White Lotus Florence Pugh were both great. Rockwell is on fucking fire as the Man from the Future. And unhinged. 
 

When talking about AI, the future man says shit like “There's some shit that's about to come down that I can't prepare you for. It's going to try to give you everything you ever wanted, but in the end, it will all be a lie.” And “Somewhere inside of you, you know the way things are, the way we're heading, the way people are with each other. You know the world's going to shit.” This is indeed how things feel at present. We all know this. It was nice to hear this in a creative film. Basically saying AI is super bad, but we are already fucked. No putting that genie back in the bottle. It is inevitable. Which is interesting and true, but also kind of where the film falls apart. 
 
For example, at some point it becomes clear that future man is at that diner because there is someone there he knows, which is obvious pretty early in the movie but is shown as a big reveal. However, because he knows her in the future, he doesn’t pick her until this time, the 117^th time he has tried and failed in this missing, wanting to keep her safe. If he wanted to keep her away from harm, why doesn’t he go anywhere else? One of several things that don’t make any fucking sense and make this confusing as hell. 
 

As far as the characters and the, spoiler, failed mission, I think where they made the mistake (assuming they were in reality at any point in the movie, because maybe they weren’t) was when they put the USB in the box. Was glad it was not a happy ending, because society is beyond fucked and AI fucking things up even more is just around the corner. That’s how reality really works. Can’t have a happy ending AI movie. We’ve been warned about it all these years and now it’s here. And it fucking sucks. Who could’ve predicted this? That’s $1 million question and now we’re just sitting back waiting on it to ruin the world more than it is already fucked. 
 
A return to directing for Gore Verbinski, who is one of the most hit or miss directors of all time. He’s been in director jail for the last decade since A Cure for Wellness bombed hard in 2016. The hits include Mouse Hunt, The Ring, the first two Pirates of the Caribbean movies, The Weather Man, and Rango. The rest, all more or less unwatchable, were The Mexican (at one time a guilty pleasure), the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and the truly god awful The Lone Ranger with Johnny Depp as fucking Tonto and “100% a cannable” Armie Hammer as the Lone Ranger. Yeesh. Did result in one of the greatest Onion headlines of all time, “Ecstatic American Indians Praise The Lone Ranger: ‘Finally Our Story Is Being Told,’ Tribespeople Say.” 
 

Ye olde finding-the-omnipotent-bald-child routine

Overall, highly recommend. Beautifully done. Fantastic opening. Dialogue is great. Super entertaining. Lot of homages to genres films, especially The Terminator, 12 Monkeys, and The Matrix. Also, Groundhog Day, Her, and Edge of Tomorrow. But won’t be on my top 10 come the end of the year as there are complaints. 
 
It reminded me of one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen, Miracle Mile. I was super into Denise Crosby sexually as a small child and watched everything she was in. This one angered me at the time, a lot to do with the film’s bleak cynicism. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thought this. I remember the film implying a dream out and then being like, no this is real, which I found bullshitty. So obviously not something for the positive column. Though I appreciate Don’t Die’s absurdist cynicism. 
 
Powder doing air guitar is the lamest thing I’ve ever seen. Didn’t need to be two hours and 15 minutes long. But what do you trim? The film’s ending, and probably ours, is The Matrix where humanity thinks they’ve won. Sort of a bullshit ending. Was any of a real type of bullshit that I hate. Thought it was very good up until the last 10 minutes. Again, the beginning was absolutely amazing. The second act was pretty good. Third act was pretty good until it fell apart at the very end. Sort of leaves you disappointed at the end, but that’s OK. Funny but sad as fuck.

The Shining Girls - 2023

I loved this mind-fuck of a show. A complex, time traveling murder mystery. My kind of shit. 

Elizabeth Moss stars. She is incredible in everything. Too bad she's a Scientologist.

Overall gist is a woman played Moss is attacked. We meet her years later and see her literal constantly changing reality as she investigates a series of murders spanning decades that might be related to her own attack. She eventually convinces a veteran reporter played by Wagner Moura (Pablo Escobar in Narcos) and they try to stop this time-hopping serial killer. 

The killer, played by Jamie Bell (he was Bernie Taupin in Rocketman and Billy Elliot in Billy Elliot), is pretty terrifying as he can afford to be patient and has the ability to go back in time and correct his mistakes. Dude caused a lot of pain and suffering for a lot of peoples. You really want him to get put in this place. He looks exactly like this friend of mine, one Ronnie Vance. Good looking guy, but this show now makes me trust him less. I've got my eye on him in case he ever finds a magical house that lets him jump about the century to do unspeakable shit. 

I really fell in love with this at the end of episode four, “Attribution.” Previously, Moss's character experiences all this sudden shifts in her world. Her apartment changes, her hair, her job, she all the sudden has a husband, so forth. At the end of this installment, when her and the killer meet and get it on, as in fight for their lives, the place around them constantly changes. Moss get slammed into a wall that completely changes, then it becomes a mirror and they smash through it, then it becomes a bar that is a major piece to the puzzle. It's awesome and just gets better from there. 

Highly recommend this if you are into dark murder mysteries that way out of the ordinary. Definitely not like anything I've ever seen before. 

Tenet - Christopher Nolan - 2020

★★★★★-"I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship... I'll see you in the beginning, friend." I loved this movie. Christopher Nolan knocks it out of the park. This film is a misunderstood masterpiece. 

Checks a lot of boxes for me. Crazy time travel stuff. Billionaire shit. Male friendship. Insane action. A smoking hot femme fatale. Amazing cast. Chirstopher Nolan movie. Cool ass watches. Dope Travis Scott soundtrack. A title that is palindrome. I could have watched/restarted this immediately after finishing it. Dope AF. 

Rotten Tomato Consensus: A visually dazzling puzzle for film lovers to unlock, Tenet serves up all the cerebral spectacle audiences expect from a Christopher Nolan production.

Not going to go through much of the plot with this one. It's too out there to get into. Basic gist is that this is a time travel spy movie that is focused on stopping World War III. The word "tenet" also has a lot of significance. 

Directed by Christopher Nolan, I'll go see every one of his movies in the theater. It stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki (she plays Princess Di in The Crown and is crazy beautiful), Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, and Kenneth Branagh. MVP, for me, was Pattinson. I love that dude's work over the last few years. He sort of stole the show in this, although many of the performances are memorable. 

Also, seeing this was a sweet experience. This was the first movie I saw in the theater since Onward the first week of March of 2020. I was the only person in the entire cinema. Did not disappoint. However, right after this things blewing up again, coronavirus wise, and then the theater I went to only opened Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I don't foresee myself back in a theater until after I get my shot, which is hopefully soon. 

Overall, super challenging with a complex storyline—we are talking backwards moving space-time and temporal paradoxes—that requires multiple viewings. I've seen it four times and went from thinking it was great, to a masterpiece that cracks my top three Nolan films. 

Detention is the greatest movie of all time

I looooooved this fucking movie. Totally one of those kitchen sink type movies, there is a lot going on. The film has lots of meta, self-referential humor,
features a slasher based on a Saw esque movie within the movie called
Cinderhella, time travel, prom, Freaky Friday body swapping that makes the old noodle hurt to think about, a vegan protagonist, a guy with fly DNA, Canadians, and even aliens. It is fucking awesome.

The basic gist of the movie is a killer obsessed with the fictitious horror franchise Cinderhella dons the costume and kills a bunch of Grizzly Lake High School students. The group of suspects/potential victims include protagonist Riley Jones (Shanley Caswell, a pretty young lady who was in The Conjuring but not much else I've seen) who is sort of a suicidal outcast with a broken leg, her love interest/buddy from childhood Clapton Davis (Josh Hutcherson who was Peeta in the Hunger Games), his love interest and her one-time homey (whose mother has inhabited her body, sending her mind back to 1991--it's best not to think to hard about this) the cheerleader Ione, the "nerd" that's obsessed with Riley, Sander Sanderson (A.D. Johnson), and the jock with fly DNA that is obsessed with Ione, Billy Nolan (Parker Bagley), and numerous others including a Canadian. The principal, Dane Cook, gives all the usuals all-day detention in an effort to keep Cinderhella from murdering anyone at prom. 

Pros: Pacing. Pretty ladies. Meta as fuck. The survivor girl is a vegetarian. Casting. Soundtrack. This movie rocked.

Cons: Sometimes it is tell what the hell is happening. There may be too much going on here (at times).

The pacing of this movie is fucking insane. It's a movie for people with no attention span and it really jumps all over the place. It's like being on Adderall. We start out with a killing, segue to Mean Girls, get some more killing, suddenly get a dude with fly DNA, more killing, get the ludicrous solution to the killings (put them all in detention) when they start watching the Cinderhella movie where they see the movie is about a bunch of kids in detention are watching a lower budget movie of about a bunch of kids in detention watching a very
low budget movie of about a bunch of kids in detention watching a possible porn movie of about a bunch of kids in detention. 

It is here when we get my favorite line in the movie which sort of requires a bit of backstory. For a long time my female companion and I would seek out ridiculous Canadian horror. It is a sub-genre I encourage everyone to explore. Some of these movies are genuinely good movies with lower costs to make like Ginger Snaps, Ponypool, Trick 'r Treat, or The Witch (2015). Others decide to mix in elements of comedy, these being along the likes of Horns, Tucker & Dale vs. Evil, and Wolfcop. And then there are the ones that are just a train wreck that ends up sort of working, Rock 'n' Roll Nightmare and Zombie Nightmare both  come to mind here. Zombie Nightmare even had a Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode devoted to it where they address this sub-genre at one point saying that the movie had "Canada's stink all over it," which is something we often say and both said while watching this movie. So it really tickled us when one of the kids in detention, watching one of these low budget slasher flicks inside of flasher flick, and so on, asks, "what is this, Canadian?" It was the first time we had ever heard this addressed and could not stop laughing. 

Another hilarious moment and reference to Canada comes near the beginning of the movie from Gord, the Canadian, is easily my favorite character (but they are all pretty amazing). He is facing off again the main girl in debate class on vegetarianism. This fucking rant he goes on is fucking golden and complete nonsense and it comes at you in that style of debate where information is just thrown at you at insane, breakneck speed with "facts" that have no basis in reality. I don't usually include fucking dialogue (or monologue or whatever) in these things but this is fucking out there. It goes thus: "Yes, I'd like to start off by saying that this girl's argument is ridiculous! Vegetarians who eat fish are hypocrites! She thinks because fish may feel no pain they don't value their lives. Absurd! And notice how she expresses almost no sympathy for chickens. That's because Americans hate chickens. For example, KFC serves popcorn chicken to assure the customers that the chicken was blown to bits, yet the meatball sub at Subway isn't called 'popcorn cow.' Americans want chickens to die! Lame! Personally, I do feel sympathy for animals, which is why I choose to only eat baby animals. They have not lived as long, and they are not leaving as much behind. Baby clams, chicken wings, baby seals - no... big... loss! If we don't eat meat, we lose out place in the food chain. Eating animals gives us confidence as humans. Vegetarians like this girl, who is only wearing one shoe, have less confidence than everybody else."

More comedy than horror, we are treated to a mullet beats ponytail battle where two dudes fight in the style of Swayze and Seagal, time traveling and freaky Fridaying (for no reason), a dude with fly DNA (again, for no reason other than referencing another horror movie), the best possible answer to "do you want to do this the easy way or the hard way?" ("the easy way"), and an out there ending involving aliens and Canadians.  We get lots of meta-references like talking about how the murders at the beginning are like Scream, a cop says the goings on in the school really "nuked the fridge," and so forth. And when the vegetarian decides to eat meat again we get a dude that comes down in pieces on the grill, making the burger falls out of her mouth in disgust (noice). Movie is sweet and definitely worth your time. 

Update: My Dr. Carver Auteur Autopsy review...