Aeronautic Primates and Other Delights

My Two Weeks in Movies: July 25 - August 7

2021-08-09T02:31:18Z

Oops. Let's not do that again.

I had a miserable week last week when I was off my ADHD meds for five days due to an ever-cascading series of f**kups, mostly not mine. I ended up taking two non-consecutive days off of work, which I'm sure didn't look weird at all.

I've been playing a lot of LEGO DC Super Villains which is cute as most LEGO games are.

This week I'm in Des Moines to see family, so there may not be any movies to post about.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Godzilla 2000 (1999)

Fear Street: 1994 (2021)
The Suicide Squad (2021)
Annette (2021)
Aquaman (2018)

sol_se and I are back on our Godzilla bullsh**t, working through the Millennium series. Godzilla 2000 is a perfectly serviceable entry with no great highs or lows.

I really liked Fear Street: 1994 and look forward to completing the trilogy eventually.

The Suicide Squad is a ton of fun. I'm really glad that Warner is committed to doing hybrid releases through the end of the year, because it's nice to watch these new movies at home sometimes. Margot Robbie is a delight as Harley Quinn as usual. King Shark is deadly and adorable. Be warned, this movie earns its R rating.

Annette. Where to start with Annette. I just felt like Sparks (the musicians who wrote the story and the music) were just screwing with me the whole time. It's a musical where everyone just states what they are feeling and doing in the most banal terms possible. There's some other strangeness that I won't spoil, but yeah. I was never bored, but I think I'm angry at the movie? I hope there's some artistic conceit I'm missing and the movie is secretly brilliant.

Aquaman is stupid fun and there's not much more to say about it.

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My Week in Movies: July 18 - 24

2021-07-26T21:25:34Z

Vacation! sol_se and I took a little mini-vacation to Santa Monica for her birthday. We got a fancy-schmancy hotel room with a balcony overlooking the ocean. We spent like 90% of our time in that hotel room because it's still a scary world out there, but we did make it to the pier and the ocean proper.

Otherwise, I've been playing a lot of Dragon Age: Inquisition. I'm not sure why. I'm not getting the same thing I get out of, say, a full Mass Effect run and it's taking a lot longer. At this point, I'm just used to it. I'm not going for any sort of completionist run. I am romancing Solas which is weird and I hate it but I've also never done it.

I only saw one movie:

The Proposal (2009)

The hotel just had basic cable (plus HBO and Showtime). This was playing on Lifetime. Cute, although I felt that at no point did the Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds character actually fall in love, so the ending didn't work for me.

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My Week in Movies: June 6 - 12

2021-06-17T04:38:56Z

Sorry, running late on this. I just completely forgot this was a thing this week until I went to open Dreamwidth and I went, "Oh yeah, wasn't I supposed to do something with this."

Once again, I spent most of my time playing Mass Effect. Right now I'm playing a male Shepard named Shepard Shepard who is romancing Jack and will probably romance Kaidan in ME3. I'm playing the games as completely as I can in this run (I skipped two missions in ME1, one because it was annoying and one because I just forgot).

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Rifftrax: The Last Shark
In the Heights (2021)
Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

The Last Shark was a delightful Rifftrax.

I saw In the Heights in the motherloving theater. With Junior Mints and Dr. Pepper! I was masked when not eating/drinking and the theater had social distancing in place. I was honestly lucky to get a seat because it was a very last minute decision to go. Lin-Manuel Miranda certainly has a style and it serves him well. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Didn't even notice it was over two hours long. I did miss the post-credits scene, so I need to go back into HBO Max and look into that.

On a whim I bought the Universal Monsters complete Blu-ray collection with 30 different monster movies. sol_se and I watched Ghost of Frankenstein because it was the only film in the Frankenstein series she hadn't seen yet. Not a great film, but it does have some good moments.

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My Week in Movies: May 30 - June 5

2021-06-06T22:59:19Z

Still living that Mass Effect lifestyle. Eventually I have to get sick of it, right? Right?

We also finished Steven Universe Future and I didn't cry, but I came damn close. Man, the whole Steven Universe thing is just so good, but Future is really dark and hard to watch in places.

Apparently Critical Role ended its second campaign last week. I feel a bit left out, but that's my own fault for dropping out of the fandom. I'm still in wonderment at how easily I used to be able to just sit and watch four hours of RPG play in a single go. I don't think I'm capable of that anymore.

The Conjuring (2013)
The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)
Rifftrax: Dragon Wars: D-War

I'd never seen The Conjuring (although I did see The Conjuring 2), so sol_se and I pulled it up on HBO Max and watched it in anticipation of the third movie. It's pretty good, but I think The Conjuring 2 is probably better.

As for the third Conjuring movie, they really opened things up a lot, which I think was ultimately to the film's detriment. It's fine, but it's the least of the three films thus far.

Dragon Wars: D-War is a love letter to downtown Los Angeles in a lot of ways, if your love letters end in explosions. It has some incomprehensible mythology and roles for some currently well-known actors before they really hit it big.

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My Week in Movies: May 16 - 22

2021-05-23T20:44:10Z

Most of this week has been taken up by playing Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2. I burned through both games in about nine days and I'm now on Mass Effect 3. I really expected these games to last me longer, so I'll probably end up doing a Renegade playthrough next (still Fem!Shep because of course).

I went out and about for fun for the first time since the pandemic started (yay for vaccination). I just went to the comic book shop. They didn't have what I wanted, but they did have the first art book for the Mighty Nein Critical Role campaign. I don't watch Critical Role anymore, but I have very fond memories of the time I did, so I picked it up.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Godzilla vs. Destroyah (1995)
Steven Universe: The Movie (2019)

sol_se and I finished up the Heisei/Versus Godzilla series with a very meh entry. The series started pretty strong and went downhill about midway through. At least this one doesn't feel like it was edited by an amateur.

I am proud to say I only nearly cried during Steven Universe: The Movie. Man, Steven's mom was an asshole.

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My Week in Movies: May 9 - 15

2021-05-16T20:59:13Z

Started the week out of it after my second vaccination jab. Had to take Sunday off of work.

I spent most of the week playing through Disco Elysium a second time. This time I went in on physical attributes. It's unlocking a lot of weird monologue asides, but not a lot functional. It is also locking me out of a lot of options I took for granted in my charisma/intelligence playthrough.

Then Friday came and it was all Mass Effect all the time baby! Which was somewhat dampened by a depression wave that hit hard Saturday. I'm playing female Paragon Infiltrator, romancing Liara (but you bet your sweet butt that I'm dropping her like a hot potato for Garrus in ME2).

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Ginger Snaps (2000)
The Raven (1935)
Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla (1994)

sol_se hadn't seen Ginger Snaps, so I was into it. Still a great werewolf film with a lot of fun layers. The faux suicide aspect is... a lot, though.

We tried to watch The Strange Case of Dr. Rx (1942) but there was such a horrifically racist depiction of one character's servant that we just noped out. We switched over to the other classic horror movie Peacock had on offer: The Raven, featuring Bela Lugosi at his most unhinged. Poor Karloff is wasted, though.

Godzilla vs. Spacegodzilla is one of the most inept kaiju films I've ever seen. Bad editing, bad writing, a clear angle at toy sales. It underutilizes both Mothra and BabyGodzilla, which is a crime in my book.

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My Week in Movies: April 25 - May 1

2021-05-02T21:53:48Z

I'm mostly out of Project Runway. I still have seasons 17 and 18 to rewatch, because I only half-saw them while sol_se was watching them. Her viewings of those seasons is what swept me into everything. I've been able to watch Season 1-8, 14-16, as well as All Stars 1 and 5-7. It's been a great coping mechanism during the pandemic, even if I spent way too much acquiring the out-of-print DVDs. I wish whatever issue is preventing them from selling pre-17 seasons on Amazon is resolved. I would like to give them so much money.

Movies I've seen before are italics

Rifftrax: Uninvited
Rifftrax: Super Mario Bros.
Godzilla and Mothra: Battle for Earth (1992)
Crimson Peak (2015)
Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

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My Week in Movies: April 18 - 24

2021-04-25T21:07:52Z

On Wednesday, sol_se and I celebrated the third anniversary of our first date. I took the day off and we ate Cheesecake Factory and watched movies and Project Runway All Stars.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

One Dark Night (1983)
Speed Racer (2008)
Rifftrax: The Amazing Mr. X
Rifftrax: Radical Jack
Rifftrax: To Catch a Yeti
Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah (1991)

One Dark Night is weird. It's about a dead psychic messing about in a mausoleum terrorizing high school girls who are there as part of an initiation. It sets up a particular twist ending pretty clearly and then just... doesn't do it. Apparently the distributors cut the original ending? I didn't love it.

We watch Speed Racer every year because it's the first movie we ever watched together. It was nice to actually watch it on the anniversary this year, as last year we were delayed by the pandemic and the move.

I typically wake up earlier than sol_se so I watch Rifftrax and catch up on Twitter. Sometimes it's more Twitter than Rifftrax, as when I slogged through The Amazing Mr. X. Sometimes I'm practically stapled to the Rifftrax though, as with Radical Jack. Overall, the Rifftrax Friends subscription is paying for itself.

We're still working through the Heisei/Versus era of Godzilla in order. Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah is one of my favorites, as it really decides to work in all the goofy stuff and isn't shy about it.

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My Week in Movies: April 11 - 17

2021-04-18T21:48:18Z

More Project Runway! I'm slowly but surely running out and Amazon won't sell me Seasons 9-13, probably because of ownership weirdness. I've been able to acquire seasons 14-16 and a couple seasons of All Stars through means, but I'd rather give someone money for this stuff.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Rifftrax: Silent Rage
Godzilla (1984)
Raw Force (1982)
Rifftrax: Ice Breaker
Godzilla vs. Biollante (1989)

Now that sol_se has seen the Showa series of Godzilla movies, it's time to work through Heisei! This series has a very strong continuity, so we're working through in order, instead of piecemeal like we did with Showa.

Raw Force is a very bad film. I saw it once in one of those budget 20-movie packs of movies with questionable copyright status. At the time it was in 4:3 and clearly dubbed off from a second generation VHS copy. I'd long desired to see it widescreen and restored because if you're going to watch a bad movie, watch it properly. Somebody put it out on Blu-ray. I own that now, for better or worse.

I have to say Ice Breaker is one of the funniest Rifftraxs I've seen in recent memory.

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My Week in Movies: April 4 - 10

2021-04-12T20:18:27Z

More Project Runway! I also finished Ted Lasso. What a good show.

Been having a run of meh-to-bad days. I need to get vaccinated so I can get out of the house again.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Rifftrax: Death Promise
Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

With Terror of Mechagodzilla, I've officially taken sol_se on the full tour of the Showa-era Godzilla movies. I might like to do the Heisei series next, but I don't own most of it anymore, so it would be somewhat difficult.

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My Week in Movies: March 7 - March 13

2021-03-16T17:37:46Z

Running a little late this week, but I'm on vacation! I need this, as I've been getting pretty burned out at work. I've been holding my whole team up and it's exhausting.

Still running through Project Runway seasons with sol_se. We're on Season 4, which I'm badly spoiled for, but that doesn't preclude enjoying the fashions and the drama.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Shin Godzilla (2016)
I Vitelloni (1953)
Sadako vs. Kayako (2016)
Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972)

Shin Godzilla is weird. It's the first Toho Godzilla movie since the original that's not in some way a sequel to the original. It starts fresh: there's a weird monster and we don't know what it is. The movie largely follows the bureaucracy of dealing with giant monster attacks, which is a lot more interesting than it sounds. It does involve a lot of meetings being interrupted in order to have different meetings.

I Vitelloni is part of a cycle of Fellini movies, from what I can tell, following not-good people doing not-good things and we're supposed to feel for them because they are not-good. This is alongside La Strada and Il Bidone. I don't get it at all. Fellini seems to course correct with Nights of Cabiria and La Dolce Vita (the latter of which is in next week's list).

Sadako vs. Kayako is the epic Ringu vs. Ju-on fight that apparently people have been calling for. It's a very silly movie, but I enjoyed it a lot.

Godzilla vs. Gigan's only real saving grace is that Godzilla talks in speech bubbles (he's dubbed in the English cut, but we get the Japanese version in the Criterion box set). Godzilla's suit is visibly falling apart at this point.

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My Week in Movies: February 28 - March 6

2021-03-07T21:52:08Z

The fact that I don't have a Godzilla icon is tragic, but I'd have to cut something like 39 other icons in order to upload a new one, owing to the fact that I still have old icons from when I had a paid account.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Rifftrax: Gammera the Invincible
Variety Lights (1950)
Rifftrax: Bermuda Triangle
Lucky (2020)
Color Out of Space (2019)
The White Sheik (1952)
Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)
Satanic Panic (2019)

Two things happened in the last week that are probably going to alter the content of the movie lists for at least a little bit. First, I bought Criterion's Essential Fellini box set on sale. It's fourteen of Fellini's greatest films. I'll be watching all of them in order, except I'm skipping La Strada because f**k that movie. Second, sol_se subscribed to Shudder, the horror-dedicated streaming service. We already have something like 40-50 movies in our shared queue.

Variety Lights says it's co-directed by Fellini, but the other director basically just put his name on it to give him a leg up in the film industry. Still, it's Fellini's script and it follows some of Fellini's particular interests. It also features Fellini's wife in a major role. I liked it, but it was tricky to get through because the protagonist was kind of a terrible person.

Bermuda Triangle was awful. Just awful. The Rifftrax team worked really hard to make it work, but they were stretched a bit thin during the interminable scuba diving scene.

Lucky has an interesting concept. Every night, a man comes and tries to kill the same woman. If he's killed, he simply disappears to reappear the following night. sol_se and I were ready to dig into the mystery, but eventually the film came out waving a big flag that said "ALLEGORY FOR VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN". Overall disappointing.

Color Out of Space is very good. It's also disturbing as hell. Nicolas Cage goes full Cage, so your mileage may vary.

The White Sheik is Fellini's first full directorial effort and I was not expecting much. It's just not a film that really comes up when you talk about Fellini, so I figured it was probably him still working out the kinks. It is, to some extent, but it's also a very easy watch. There's very little that really wows, but the story is solid and keeps you interested.

We're still slowly working through the Godzilla box set from my birthday. We're firmly in the weeds now. At least Godzilla vs. Hedorah isn't as bad as Son of Godzilla.

Satanic Panic probably should have been a better movie. It's fine. It does what it wants to do and it does it in less than 90 minutes. I'm not sure what choices they could've made to improve the film, but I do feel like there were missed opportunities.

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My Week in Movies: February 21 - 27

2021-02-28T23:05:27Z

I've been obsessed with Project Runway lately. I've been buying old seasons used and at a premium price. Currently I'm just missing 4, 6, and 7, but those all seem to be the ones that go the highest. I wish other seasons and All-Stars were available digitally somewhere. Please, please digital video providers, let me give you money. I want to give you money.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Rifftrax: Deadly Instincts
Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966)
Rifftrax: Battlefield Earth
Son of Godzilla (1967)

We're working through the Godzilla box set. I'd seen and liked Ebirah, Horror of the Deep before (also known as Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster). Son of Godzilla is the rare Godzilla film that I haven't seen. I probably didn't see it for a very good reason: it's not that good. It's kind of meandering and both the human and monster plots are kind of boring.

Battlefield Earth is so bad. I don't know how sol_se and I could have survived it without Rifftrax. Nobody made good choices.

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My Week in Movies: February 14 - 21

2021-02-22T03:45:42Z

It was my birthday on Monday! It's also been my first birthday in a long time that didn't coincide with TGIF/F. sol_se made it all magical with a present of Rifftrax and chocolate sheet cake!

Movies I've seen before are in italics

My Bloody Valentine (1981)
The Seventh Seal (1957)
Rifftrax: Attack of the Super Monsters
Wet Hot American Summer (2001)
Rifftrax Live: Summer Shorts Beach Party
20 Million Miles to Earth (1957)
Godzilla Raids Again (1955)
Rifftrax: Wonder Women

Yes, we watched My Bloody Valentine on Valentine's Day. It is not good, but for the genre, it's not bad either.

I leveraged my birthday to make sol_se watch Ingmar Bergman. It occurred to me halfway through that a better introduction probably would have been Wild Strawberries, but alas. Still such a good film and unexpectedly funny in places.

Attack of the Super Monsters is... amazing. It's live action monsters-in-suits, but animated people. It seems like it should be the other way around or all animated. It's very bad and very well riffed.

I love Wet Hot American Summer and I may very well rewatch the prequel series now. I still haven't seen the sequel series all the way through.

20 Million Miles to Earth is one of the original Harryhausen classics and it stands up. It's no great shakes in terms of plot or anything, but if you want stop-motion monster action, this will hit the spot.

Mom sent me a gift card for my birthday and I used it to buy Criterion's Godzilla collection, which is all Godzilla movies 1954 - 1975 in a beautiful art book. In some ways, it's a downgrade from my existing Godzilla box set, because it doesn't have many special features except on the original, but it's gorgeous and complete and I love it. We watched Godzilla Raids Again which is... fine. It doesn't really get why the original is special and the climax is super-tedious.

Wonder Women has nothing to do with Diana Prince. It's a weird action-women-sci-fi thing, filmed with absolutely no regard for human or animal life.

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My Week in Movies: February 7 - 13

2021-02-14T23:43:50Z

Spent a lot of time this week watching Dimension 20: Escape from Bloodkeep on Dropout.tv (sol_se has a subscription). It's very funny RPG shenanigans.

I also watched Making the Cut because apparently I like fashion competition shows now?

Here is the list of movies watched:

The Tall Target (1951)
Where Danger Lives (1950)

The Tall Target is a highly fictionalized tale of the attempt on Abraham Lincoln's life in the days leading up to inauguration. I had some trouble watching, entirely based on the fact that the hero resigns his police commission before attempting to go save the day, giving him no authority and making his "work" difficult to watch.

Where Danger Lives is a neat film-noir featuring Robert Mitchum doing what he does best: getting lead astray by a dangerous woman.

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My Week in Movies: January 31 - February 6

2021-02-08T00:35:46Z

I spent a lot of the week watching Project Runway with sol_se. Genuinely annoyed that seasons earlier than 17 are not available to stream anywhere.

I had a very bad week otherwise. I've hit a pandemic crash after managing so well for ten months. I thought I had this s**t in the bag and I absolutely did not.

I'm No Angel (1934)

The second of two pre-Breen-enforcement-of-the-Code films that Mae West made, this one was entirely written by the saucy star. She does a lot of her winking, sexy antics. It's fun, but the week was weird enough that I had to watch it in three installments, a half-hour at a time.

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My Week in Movies: January 10 - 16

2021-01-19T02:17:43Z

Movies in italics I've seen before.

Rifftrax: Star Wars Holiday Special
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
Dog Day Afternoon (1975)
Rifftrax Live: Samurai Cop
Rifftrax: Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny
Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965)

I watched a lot of Rifftrax this week. I still don't rate them as being at the same level as MST3K, but they do find some seriously demented stuff sometimes (let me tell you all about Fun in Balloonland).

I knew Dog Day Afternoon by reputation, but nobody told me it would be so funny. The whole thing is laced with a sort of desperate humor that really works. Also, it has a young Lance Henriksen (who still looks like he's in his 40s).

Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet was my first movie night in several months. Don't worry, it was all done socially distanced. We all got onto Discord while I streamed the movie over Twitch. The pre-roll unfortunately glitched out, but the movie itself was smooth. There were some hiccups because everybody was slightly out-of-sync, but overall it worked out well. I'm looking forward to doing it again.

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My Week in Movies: December 27 - January 2 (2021!)

2021-01-04T00:21:59Z

Hello friends! It's a Happy New Year! I spent a lot of time watching TV this last week. sol_se and I finished Batman (1966) Season 1, Skin Wars Season 2, and Lovecraft Country. We're also in the midst of Steven Universe.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Blazing Saddles (1974)
MST3K: Mr. B's Lost Shorts
Death to 2020 (2020)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)

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My Week in Movies: December 20 - 26

2020-12-27T22:20:42Z

Working through some Christmas-y movies with sol_se for the most part.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
What We Left Behind: Looking Back at Star Trek Deep Space 9 (2019)
MST3K: Santa Claus Conquers the Martians
A Muppet Christmas Carol (1992)
Bell Book and Candle (1958)
The Howling (1981)
WW84 (2020)

I cried like a baby at the end of IaWL once again. Never fails.

The DS9 doc was weird, but ultimately enjoyable. I thought it was a little odd that it was put together by the show runner, though.

I stand by my assertion that A Muppet Christmas Carol is a top-tier Dickens adaptation and Michael Caine is one of the best Scrooges.

Bell Book and Candle starts on Christmas Eve, so it counts. It's that other film about Jimmy Stewart's obsessive love for Kim Novak.

sol_se bought me The Howling on Blu-ray for Christmas (as well as the special edition of Curse of Frankenstein) because she loves me and wants me to be happy. Still a great movie. Very formative for teenage me.

I think I liked WW84? They spent more time on the emotional beats for Maxwell Lord than they did for Diana, which is an odd choice. There's nothing to approach the battlefield scene in the first one. I think this is probably one that's going to get worse in my mind as time goes on, but for the 2.5 hours it was playing, it kept my attention.

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My Week in Movies: December 6 - December 12

2020-12-13T22:43:12Z

We have a tree! It's very pretty.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

MST3K: The Magic Voyage of Sinbad
MST3K: Viking Women vs. the Sea Serpent
MST3K: Samson vs. the Vampire Women
Jingle Jangle (2020)
White Christmas (1954)
Die Hard (1988)
Rifftrax Christmas Shorts-travaganza

My schedule after work has been a little cramped, so I've been taking to watching one half of an MST3K episode at night and then the rest in the morning while sol_se is at work.

We're working our way through a list of Christmas and Christmas-related movies. Jingle Jangle is marvelous. It's energetic and fun and made me tear up a couple of times.

White Christmas is a staple for me, but watching it with someone else made me see all of the flaws. Also, Bing Crosby was a reprehensible human being.

Yes, Die Hard is a Christmas movie, fight me. Actually, don't. However you feel about it is valid.

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My Week in Movies: November 29 - December 5

2020-12-07T01:56:22Z

It's December, apparently!

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Little Shop of Horrors (1960)
Our Man Flint (1966)
Holiday (1938)
Much Ado About Nothing (2012)
Scanners (1981)
Whip It (2009)

sol_se hadn't seen the original Little Shop of Horrors, so we watched it. It's a difficult film to judge, because it is so tossed off, but it's fun.

I gave in and bought an HBO Max subscription and Our Man Flint was the first thing I gravitated to. It's a spy spoof starring James Coburn as a secret agent who has all of the answers all of the time.

Holiday, another delightful Katharine Hepburn/Cary Grant team-up, was on Criterion Channel, so I had to show sol_se.

I'm pretty spoiled by the Branagh version, so I found Whedon's Much Ado About Nothing middling. Some of the actors just could not get their heads around their dialogue.

HEADSPLOSION

In honor of Elliot Page, we watched a film in his earlier oeuvre. It was fine. Both sol_se and I felt it could have been more tightly edited. Elliot was quite good, though.

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My Week in Movies: November 22 - 28

2020-11-29T22:54:51Z

It was Turkey week!

Movies I've seen before are in italics

The Black Cat (1934)
Addams Family Values (1993)
MST3K: Carnival Magic
Village of the Damned (1960)
MST3K: Night of the Blood Beast
Jason X (2002)
Freddy vs. Jason (2003)
The Final Girls (2015)

Thursday for Thanksgiving, sol_se and I alternated between the MST3K Turkey Day marathon and movies.

We finally finished the Friday the 13th series, on a relative high note. Jason X is as fun and stupid as I remember it being and Freddy vs. Jason is probably one of the better films in the series (although admittedly, it's really a Nightmare on Elm Street film featuring Jason).

To cap that off, we watched The Final Girls. If you'd told me that morning that I would be crying to a woman doing a striptease to Bette Davis Eyes, I would've told you that you were clearly mistaken. Oh more fool me.

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My Week in Movies: November 15 - 21

2020-11-23T03:10:32Z

Very few movies this week. I finally picked up Assassin's Creed: Valhalla again and it's going okay.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood (1988)
Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan (1989)
Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday (1993)

So yes, sol_se and I are still slowly making our way through Friday the 13th, which remains Not Good, but we are completionists. I think. We may or may not continue onto Jason X and Freddy vs. Jason.

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My Week in Movies: November 8 - 14

2020-11-16T18:53:45Z

Still adjusting to the new daily schedule, but I think I have it worked out.

I bought Assassin's Creed: Valhalla against my better judgment and was immediately punished for it. The game doesn't work properly. I have some sort of bug that only affects me where the stealth button just doesn't work 97% of the time. In a stealth game, that's a big problem. So now I'm just waiting for a patch that fixes an issue that I haven't seen anyone else report. Yes, I checked if it was the controller and it's not. So I'm back to replaying Odyssey.

Had a tooth extracted Thursday. Whee.

Movies I've seen before are in italics

Blood and Roses (1960)
Der Zinker (1963)
The Puzzle of the Red Orchid (1962)
The Inn on the River (1962)
The Door with 7 Locks (1962)
Bay of Blood (1971)
Friday the 13th (1980)
Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
Friday the 13th Part III (1982)
Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter (1984)
Friday the 13th: A New Beginning (1985)

Since I now have a region-free DVD player, I've been working through my Region 2 DVDs, which include Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses (striking imagery, but kind of plodding) and a box set of West German crime films based on the works of Edgar Wallace.

In preparation for Friday the 13th, I showed sol_se Bay of Blood, a precursor to the American slasher genre. Good bloody fun.

On Saturday the 14th, we watched the first five Friday the 13th movies. They are not good, but they scratch a certain itch.

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This Week in Movies: November 1 - 7

2020-11-09T03:35:58Z

This week was interesting for a number of reasons beyond the election and Destiel. sol_se started a new job that is... not aligned with my job time-wise. She's also set-up in the living room on video, so I have to stay out, which is interesting because we only have the living room and the bedroom (and the kitchen and bathroom, but these are not really hangout spots). So I'm basically waking up three hours earlier and then fucking around without access to video games for 4-5 hours. On Fridays, when she works and I don't, it's 8 hours (9 less her lunch). Luckily, I had an old TV lying around that I wasn't using. Combining sol_se's Fire Stick and a new, very sketchy DVD player (the box doesn't say DVD anywhere), I have myself a little entertainment center in the bedroom. I'll be watching a lot more movies solo now, I think.

Movie I've seen before are in italics.

L'assassin habite au 21 (1942)
Piranha (1978)
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)
Death Becomes Her (1992)
Alucarda (1975)

L'assassin is an early Henri-Georges Clouzot (Diabolique) film. It's a lighthearted romp about finding a serial killer! I found it very amusing.

The new DVD player is Region-free, which I tested out with my Region 2 Piranha disc. Great fish-ploitation from Joe Dante.

Sol_se expressed some interest in revenge-horror, so we watched the Phibes duology. They are both very strange films and Vincent Price is clearly having a ball.

We recently gained access to HBO (not HBO Max) and Death Becomes Her was on. I could have sworn I'd seen it before, but as it turns out, I had not. It's a lot of fun.

Alucarda is a film very dear to me, so I showed it to sol_se. I think this might have been a mistake. Watching it with her, I could only see all the things that were wrong with it. She didn't really care for it, either. Oh well.

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