jetpack_monkey: (Default)
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)

[personal profile] 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.
jetpack_monkey: (Cary Grant - Crazy Moment)
Spent a lot of time watching Avatar: The Last Airbender and playing Witcher 3. However, [personal profile] sol_se and I made Friday a sort of date day and we watched a bunch of stuff.

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Hamilton (2020)
Gremlins (1984)
Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)


Hamilton made me cry a lot. I cried once and then I'm like, okay, they got me. Then the end happened and I was bawling. It's so good you guys. I'm literally rewatching it right now.

Sol_se hadn't seen Gremlins since she was a kid, so we did that. Then we rented the sequel on Amazon. Both movies are a lot of fun, although the second one is something of a cartoon fever dream. In a good way!

jetpack_monkey: (Grouch Marx - Amused)
Fewer movies again this week, as I was finishing up Uncharted: Lost Legacy and starting my (probably ultimately failed) run on Control (it's a very hard game).

Movies I've seen before are in italics.

Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963)
The Black Sleep (1956) w/[personal profile] sol_se 
Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary (2019)

I had the dentist song from Little Shop stuck in my head, so I went and rewatched the movie. For some reason, I got really emotional whenever Ellen Greene sang. Something something power of nostalgia? No idea. Still a great movie and those Audrey II effects are ridiculously good.

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is a drama director's idea of the ultimate comedy movie. What makes it the ultimate comedy movie? Well, it's three hours long and squeezes in cameos from nearly every living major comedian. And for the most part, they are just that, cameos. One moment has a trio of firemen run up and they're the Three Stooges. They don't do anything but stand there. That's the whole joke, that they showed up. Overall, it's not very good, but it does have its moments.

The Black Sleep is momentous. It may be the last Saturday night virtual movie date that [personal profile] sol_se and I ever do. Her Internet is getting cut off next week. Why is it getting cut off? Because she won't need it soon. She has a plane to catch on May 27th to fly to Los Angeles to live! Permanently! With me! OMGYAY! (also the movie itself is fine, mostly notably for the abundance of classic horror actors like Basil Rathbone, John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., and Bela Lugosi, although the last two don't have any lines).

The Galaxy Quest documentary was impressive, largely because they managed to gather everybody still alive (we miss you Alan). I had no idea there were Galaxy Quest cosplayers. I mean, it makes sense, I just never thought of it before. I also had no idea the film was supposed to be PG-13 until the studio said, "Nope, this one goes out to the kids!" Which honestly worked out for the best. As David Mamet said, it's one of those few perfect movies.
jetpack_monkey: (Sisko - Like a Boss)
Another light week for me. I've just not been in a super movie mood lately and those movies I do watch are frequently done with many pauses to check Twitter. I also spent some time finishing my second run through The Outer Worlds (good game, recommended).

Movies in italics I'd seen before.

The Killing (1956)
Jezebel (1938)
That's Entertainment (1974)
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933)
Top Secret (1984)
The Apple (1980) w/[personal profile] sol_se 

As a Kubrick fan, it comes as no surprise to me that I really liked The Killing. Sterling Hayden can do hard-bitten like nobody's business.

I actually watched most of Jezebel two weeks ago, but Criterion Channel glitched out and I couldn't watch the last ten minutes until this past Monday. I had real trouble getting through it generally, though, seeing as it takes place in antebellum New Orleans and is uncritical about slavery. 

I mostly watched That's Entertainment as background noise? It is fun to see all those different highlights of various musicals from MGM's history. Did you know that "Puttin' on the Ritz" is performed by Clark Gable in Idiot's Delight?

I was struggling through Terms of Endearment, so I switched over to Gold Diggers of 1933, because it is a known quantity with Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler, and Ginger Rogers. Great Busby Berkeley numbers!

A planned game day fell through for Reasons, so [personal profile] airawyn and I ended up watching Top Secret instead. Great fun!

The Apple. What to say about The Apple. It is one of those bad films that is bad in its own unique and utterly fascinating way. It's a rock musical with some bizarre numbers and some Biblical overtones.

jetpack_monkey: (Default)
I didn't watch a lot this week, movie-wise.

Movies in italics are ones I've watched before.

Return to Oz (1985)
Easter Parade (1948)
Ironfinger (1965)
Fun & Fancy Free (1947)
I, Frankenstein (2014) w/[personal profile] sol_se 

I could have sworn that I had seen Return to Oz previously, but I had no memory of the movie past a certain point, so I think the Mombi sequences may have scared me off as a youth. I don't blame smaller me for that at all. As I said on Twitter, Walter Murch has a lot to answer for. What an absolutely delightful nightmare of a film. I cried at the end, too.

I may have watched Easter Parade almost entirely for Jules Munshin's small role as a waiter.

Ironfinger is a weird Japanese spy-crime-comedy thing. I suspect that it works a lot better if you speak Japanese. I was mostly interested in it because it's directed by occasional Godzilla helmer Jun Fukuda and stars the two male leads of the original Gojira. This ended up having no impact on the film itself.

Fun & Fancy Free is mostly notable for the use of Edgar Bergen (with Charlie McCarthy and Mortimer Snerd) as a narrator in the Mickey and the Beanstalk tale. I also wanted to see the Disney trio of Mickey, Donald, and Goofy in action. It's a pleasant enough film, but largely forgettable.

For date night, sol_se and I watched I, Frankenstein, which is a regrettable film. It is completely devoid of humor, joy, romance, or interesting characters. What a slog.

I also watched The Mandalorian, a handful of Addams Family episodes, and finished Gravity Falls Season 2.
jetpack_monkey: (Black Sunday - The Eyes That Paralyze)
This week's horror theme was Whatever the Hell I Want. After that, Criterion Channel has a special collection of MGM Musicals, so expect me to work through that in the coming week.

Films I've seen before are in italics.

The Howling (1981)
Hellraiser (1987)
Night of the Living Dead (1968)
Carnival of Souls (1962)
Evil Dead II (1987)
Island of Lost Souls (1932)
Halloween (1978)
Tales from the Crypt (1972)
Cabin in the Sky (1943)
The Gate (1987) with [personal profile] sol_se 

Most of these films are either comfort food or films I haven't seen in ages that I wanted to revisit. I almost always rewatch Halloween on Halloween. Call it cheesy, but it is legitimately one of my favorite films of all time and it really does hold up to multiple viewings.

Cabin in the Sky is an all-black musical from MGM. As a time capsule, it's interesting. It's clearly made by white people and leans into a number of stereotypes, but apparently the NAACP signed off on it? 

All I can say for The Gate is that you shouldn't dig in the demon hole. Nothing good comes of it.

We're skipping next week because I'll be in Phoenix introducing sol_se to the family. So in two weeks, expect a mega-sized version.
jetpack_monkey: (Default)
Vid Title: Dancin' with Myself
Length: 2:43
Song: Billy Idol - Dancin' with Myself
Fandom: Gene Kelly
Warnings: None that I know
Notes: Current structure is entirely owing to [personal profile] echan and her uncanny ability to construct vid narratives in her head. Premiered at Club Vivid 2010.

Summary: If he had the chance, he'd ask the world to dance. Which he kinda did.


Download 36.4MB MP4 (right/ctrl-click, Save as...)
jetpack_monkey: (Dr. Horrible - Smilin')
I had this dream last night that an African-American (unseen) ascended to the Presidency and this wheeler-dealer woman in Washington (think Lola from Damn Yankees in a pants suit) decided to get in good with the new President's teenage daughter to manipulate policy by proxy. She sang this absolutely dum-dee-dummable song (it was too fast-paced for humming) about how she had exactly six friends, never more, and that the First Daughter was so very lucky to be one of them because that meant somebody else had to be dropped, so don't waste this opportunity, because "this is how the world works" (I'm pretty sure that was either the title of the song or the line that rhymed with the title of the song). Stick with me, etc, etc.

It was awesome. And I couldn't help thinking while I watched this that it was such a great, classic Hollywood tune and that I absolutely had to remember it when I woke up.

Some other things happened. A less memorable introspection number by the First Daughter. Wheeler-Dealer set up a meeting with the Queen of England. They ate dinner on one of those inside balconies you see at some of the bigger hotels. While First Daughter fumbled her protocol (all part of Wheeler-Dealer's plan), Wheeler-Dealer jumped to the next balcony, where she met with a disgraced Senator (the "friend" who was dropped in the first song to make room for the First Daughter), who told her that he saw through her plan and that he'd stop her. He was clearly in love with her, but he was stopping her because he was also still basically a good person and couldn't stand seeing someone else get used.

Then there was some business about 1940s-style hardtop cars on country gravel roads.

When I woke up, it was in another dream. I tried explaining the previous dream to someone, but I said that I couldn't remember. And whatever you believe in dreams becomes true and I honestly can't remember either of the songs or even their tunes. And it makes me really sad.
jetpack_monkey: (D'Argo - Entertained?)
Let's face it -- the combination of musical and horror was what brought me to Buffy. It's what intrigued me about Sweeney Todd.

So I really shouldn't be surprised that I'm so excited by Repo! The Genetic Opera! (Trailer #1, brand new Trailer #2).

(oddly enough, Buffy, Sweeney, and Repo! all feature Anthony Stewart Head)
jetpack_monkey: (Default)
Gene Kelly does not obey the laws of physics. The laws of physics cower in the face of Gene Kelly.

From It's Always Fair Weather (it really gets started about halfway in):
jetpack_monkey: (Rob Gordon - Every Day I Write the Book)
High Fidelity: The Musical. This could conceivably work -- but the songs are all typical and with unfortunate lyrics. They fail to capture the actual spirit of music geekery that embodies High Fidelity.

Huh. Oh well. *shrugs*

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