4v291o

Armande Assante is the only good thing about this - as usual, his performance is outstanding, and is able to rise above the apparent baaad directing and badly written dialogue tedious predictable clusterfuck that everyone else's rendition of all the nonsense

the woman is especially bad, but they all have this super-forced underlying air of 'OHMYGOD THIS PERSON IS BEHAVING THIS WAY *gaspgasp*!' - it hurts, Nolte especially since he's the focal point, and Hutton is as dry-bland as ever

3.9/10

ballsy, cute, not a.) as heartfelt or sentimental as I think may have serviced it, nor b.) as thoughtful/thought-provoking, but that might be part of the point (a bit of cold detatchment so as to a= not 1.) emotionally manipulate the viewer or 2.) be accused of such and then have the ideas dismissed - and b= not 1.) over-inundate the viewer with overcomplications around/about the issue(s) and not 2.) come off as having any sort of pretension-superiority know-better-than-the-viewer lecturing about it) - and so instead works to simply present the basic ideas with the forthright legitamacy to it, and not much more, simply to get the ideas brought to the table in an accessible way, and, for that it, works, and still remains ballsy, cute

6.0/10

note:

this was a blind 'no idea what it is except 1984 crime-comedy' pick, with

my parents

who are 73-74 years old, and very much appreciated the movie, found it funnier and better than I did (I'd say they thoroughly enjoyed it, and very much appreciated it's doing what it did, is stuff they've talked about, etc. [as far as what to do under all sorts of varying circumstances])

hadn't watched a movie with them in like 9 months

the first act is a bit rough to get through, and it is long, with it's tongue-in-cheek farcical-making and establishing of 'the industry', but after about an hour it starts to get into itself and has some enjoyable moments until drawing out the conclusions

5.7/10

an artistic vision, realized

original, potent, satisfying

social commentary, genre-meta-reflectiveness

round and real, where the almost farcical histrionics speak to a deeper truth about human personalities, and it works

6.3/10

there's not much here except Candy being charismatic going from setpiece to setpiece, some are amusing, some are dum, nothing is funny

5.7/10

mostly a series of senseless set pieces for Woody to be goofy in

it makes a pretense at some social commentary but all that does is come off mocking as if it knows it could but finds the idea too difficult so instead devalues the idea of such

5.5/10

boring stupid crap

"happens to see him continually" not 'hunted'

Benecio Del Toro's acting is terrible - I think he's so focused on his non-accent that he can't focus on acting? ooooof

Tommy Lee Jones' undeniable charisma penetrates through the rest of it, I suppose making it less difficult to watch, but the writing is so bad I just sit there thinking "I wonder what he's thinking while doing this?"

3.6/10

A lot is packed into this hour+ erotic-exploitation-drama, and it all works well.

editing and cinematography are very good - there a number of longer takes that go uninterupted with both good staging+blocking and gives a deeper feeling of being a voyeur of the scenario (which isn't a kink of mine or anything, but is still an effective element of the eroticism and intention by the director for effect)

good acting by all, and it runs through a whole bunch of emotions very effectively (from light-hearted playfulness to serious trauma-facing things)

and as one who is not easily turned on, the eroticism here was good+

6.3/10

it's short, and works for what it does, but it could have developed the characters a bit more and made a good story about someone who feels like they've reached a dead-end in life because of lack of 'choices' because obligated marriage-tradition or somesuch, but, instead, is mostly gimmicky with no real commentary on anything

5.9/10

6.2/10

"Hand of Death"

decently written slasher with decent gore effects, music, okay acting

focuses on the killer as it should, with very solid background and kill-motivations, and does a decent job of laying down potentially-meaningful elements, but, falls short of utilizing the themes and elements in a meaningful way - it knew it was getting at something but didn't know how to get it

'something something father-son cursed legacy, something something macbeth, something something delaying a fall into insanity caught between his perceptions and understandings, eventually driven mad by the world around him'

6.1/10

This review may contain spoilers.

cool fucking concept, but

rather thin, shallow, sophomoric(semi-juvenile, in treatment of adult subject matter), very much coming from a place of anger-bigotry toward men/ with a view of men as despicable, but it's not overbearing with it either

and falls short in many ways in that it is all orchestrated to service the sequence with Brad (it's the end sequence and then there's a kind of epilogue sequence after)

it could have very well gotten back around to Brad without being orchestrated for that specific scene, but even in doing so, is still a bit fun-amusing

Well-paced with a good build up to the inevitable happenings (if you're going into the movie not knowing what it is about, kudos to you, go for it!), but then super-fast paced for the rest of it.

would have been a lot better if it was taken on more maturely and developed into a full script intead of this quick to the point thing

5.7/10

- I almost never write 'reviews' from a personal experience-perspective, this one differs...

I loved this when it came out, it's the sort of thing I would write myself, I probably watched it 6 times within the first decade that it had come out, but hadn't since. I've a long time wondered how it would hold up on a rewatch, but I *know* it so well had not been interested at all to do so, and so have waited until a compelling came to me to, in the meanwhile continuing to wonder about specific elements and how they would do once I eventually got around to a rewatch so many years later, with a bit of a recognition of a grown understanding of 'guns' and stuff around that.

and so have done so now, and...

This movie has excellent direction of a poorly written screenplay that comes from a place of fear&ignorance around gun-usage, rather than information intelligence and experiential exposure understanding. It's clear now, and a severe problem for multiple reasons. First and foremost, it perpetuates the fear-ignorance dynamic around guns. Second, it misrepresents, misapplies, and result-orients behavior and so conflicts become contrived with the specific intention of manipulating the viewer with 'tension' in an amateurish way rather than doing anything realistic and allowing the elements to build tension in realistic conflict. Third, it stereotypes people around those first two into simplistic non-realistic based characters to serve the purpose of merely 'writing a neat scenario where electricity goes out for an extended period and people are pushed to extremes' without doing such in a grounded way. Fourth, it all becomes completely undermined by how it resolves. A fairtale of the fearful ignorant playing to an audience of the same.

Never point a gun at someone unless you are prepared to use it on them. You don't draw/point guns at people 'when scared' or 'to threaten to get them to listen' - conflict arising around gun-possession is a very different thing than what most movies depict 'for drama', and this one also fails and falls into that category and while it is something that can often be 'whatever, I suppose I will accept that' for movies, here it is unacceptable and does NOT work because it is the foundation of the movie.

It's 'suddenly a gun and shots fire yikes yikes yikes!' or the underlying potential of the fear of such, rather than anything of depth or close to reality, no matter the severity of the situation.

what this is depicting is not a 'trigger effect' but a 'fear&ignorance' effect

and with that, the whole movie is problematic and exponentially increases its problems as the movie accumulates conflicts

This past winter, I was attacked by a drunk person on 'my private property' outside my home (he was parked on the property drunk and being a nuissance, I told him to leave, he lept out of his truck and charged/attacked me), I kept backing up from him, he kept coming into my space/face pushing at me going 'you wanna fight you wanna fight?' - backed away from him continually for ~20' while I de-escalated and tried to get him to leave (yelling at him to leave, he was on private property, over and over, etc.), I did not want to fight. He slipped on the ice, and, in the time it took him to stand up, I beared a firearm. He started charging me again, and, I did not even remotely draw it or point it at him/in his direction, I merely brought it forward (nose pointed sideways to the ground) and now he could see it was in my possession. He was super melo-dramatic about it, and went something like 'oh, what? you're going to pull a gun on me?!' and I was something like "I'm not pulling a gun on you, I have a gun in order to protect myself if I feel my life is in danger." He was mid-charge and paused, and in those moments of him pausing, I had to quickly consider what to do if he resumed his charge. I switched the safety off. I mentally prepared to shoot him if he charged. He went back to his truck.

I'm shaking just typing this.

I am glad I was armed (I chose to strap it on my back before I went out to see what the deal was- it was mostly dark but there was skylight/his truck lights), but it was very traumatic.

Every person has a right to not have their self be violated by another person, to be able to say 'NO' to such, to protect their life. That is what gun-possession is about for the vast majority of people, not for violating others and asserting a violent will upon another, but to be able to say NO to such.

this movie fails at all sense of any of that and demonizes, glorifies, and mystifies, gun possession in a bad way

5.9/10

"huddled together in the dark"

painful lack of agency from the 'protagonist' and it gets tiresome fast how much of a gutless pushover he is

GUY, YOUR FAMILY IS BEING ATTACKED, GET SOME BALLS

those are major issues, but otherwise, it's a very well-done movie with a lot going for it

Donald Pleasance, Martin Landau, Jack Palance, all giving standout performances (Jack Palance has little screen time), and

Carol Levy playing the babysitter deserves a special shout-out!

good music

5.9/10

bad editing and incorporation of the melodramatic elements with the rest of the narrative elements, feels odd/amateurish in a way, and the melodramatic elements feel very disconnected from the rest of it, like it's an intentional "oh let's show his home life stuff so we know he's got stress!" and it comes off very forced

it can't seem to keep its focus on what it is about, and that it is about something we can't even connect to, is bad directing decisions

5.8/10

this has an interesting story idea that it does very little with, it comes off as a filming of the story idea, it's very sparse and truncated, third act is abrupt, ending feels tacked on - the whole thing feels rushed and sloppy

hotel should have been called King George

5.6/10

utterly pointless exploitation rape+kill fantasy intentionally trying to be shocking for shock-value sake

boring

4.5/10

Badham once again doing the work of the control-messaging

FULL of psychological manipulation! playing both sides of ideas to contribute to mass confusion ist the fear-mongering+/normalization

it's like: 'wee, fun! potential nuclear obliteration!'

the music is baaad

has an excellently paced first hour but then draaags through the second and final act

bunches of plotholes and contrivances

6.1/10

bit thin and shallow and seems to intend to perpetuate fear-of-flying due to 'terrorists' and explicitly has a disgusting moment where he goes something like 'the only country in the world that hasn't had an airline hijacked by a terrorist: Israel, they don't let them on the planes"

israeli/zyonists are evil scum terrorists, it's just endorsed by the authoritarian infrastructure of control/society-civilization

anyway

too fast-paced, not enough development, but overall a quick action flick that mostly works

6.0/10

horrible construction, vacant vapid writing, zero resolution

Connery saying 'bloody' sounds forced every time, and he says it a lot

I understand what this film wants to do - it fails horribly, those who believe otherwise are creating fantasies in their heads about what they saw, not viewing the film objectively, or have an extreme simplistic and limited understanding of psychology (which is most people, like the writer.) The issue with that is that the writing pretends at depth while having NONE, and people see the pretending and because they lack awareness/understanding, are fooled.

3.9/10

note:

I don't intend to be insulting, just pointing out that when writing characters, it is important to have an actual understanding of human behavior - this is one of the key elements of good writing! - and the lack of understanding is normalized in a society of narcissism/extreme lack of awareness (and people are products of society), which perpetuates through culture, which movies are a large part of.

I have an extensive understanding of psychology, with a focus on human behavior, and have long been a student of the human condition, which is largely about:

trauma, the effects of society on thehuman spirit (society is domestication)

it's not enough to spend 2 hours saying 'some cops have trauma issues that affects their job, their life and it leads to problems' without actually being able to convey that idea in a narrative form that is realistic

and the realism here very much matters, and being able to understand and connect with the character

The way this is structured doesn't build any understanding of his frustration finally exploding into a violent act, etc. - and we aren't 'with it' when it happens sooo we are even MORE disconnected from it, and then it's like 'fill in the blanks why this happened' and is completely thin and lacks any empathic connection.

We should be 'with' the character emotionally, carried through his emotional journey, feeel him through his goings-through, not just intellectually understand it as a concept. That we are not, that it is done like it is, indicates not an interest in understanding any of it on a deeper level, just using/exploiting the fact that it happens, for what purpose?

this skips an establishing 1st-2nd act and jumps right in to a mid 2nd act and then dribbles scattered backstory through the overly long and a bit repetitive hour of back-forth-back-forth around the same things (stagnant action, where it's a lot of filler gunfighting - yes in a movie called GUNMEN - even if well done, it becomes a bit tiresome and serviceless)

makes for being quite disconnected from the motivations and actions, which makes an action movie boring spectacle observation rather than empathized obstacle overcoming

it has a good tone of light-action with some comedic elements and cartoon badguys (Denis Leary doesn't quite fit but it's serviceable - maybe the only role I've seen him in where I didn't like how he was for it), and Christopher Lambert and Mario Van Peebles have excellent chemistry together (they're in Highlander III together the following year, which is watchable for Peebles' performance alone)

watch if you want some semi-serious semi-light 90s action

5.8/10

extended version

boooring issions/revealings of a 'hidden' divide & conquer agenda

it's like Strange Days but dumbed-down so the dummies are easier to reach to be manipulated in the direction desired, with a few other points of propaganda shoved in to cover the bases and to be more comprehensive in the issions and a bunch of other subversive (or are they blatant?) ideas and messages: marxist-socialist wokeness and nationalistic militaristic authoritarianism ing hands to herd+rally divide&conquer the moron masses that believe in their respective structures of control

with lots of the post-2000 film-making trends garbage

4.4/10

maybe 2-3 of the scenes seemed like they were rehearsals that got kept in for some reason, but the effect is mostly negligble as they were serviceable

a well-done look into the cultural appropriation of the gypsies into society with the focus on a person and his family - it's a life-drama with family elements

6.3/10

this is a mix of 3-4 different horror subgenres that doesn't at all work

intriguing start and plenty of it is 'okay, fine', but it doesn't come of anything and ultimately is just a bunch of whatever nonsense thrown together

4.9/10

this is one of the worst biopics I've ever seen, or police-crime, or whatever, horrible painful 'story-telling' - extreme overwriting

1.5hrs of the same 5 minutes over and over and over, as we wait for a guy to get shot in the face

it hurts my head it's so bad and I don't want to put time/energy into detailing why, maybe another time

2.8/10

has some well-done aspects to it but none of it serves anything as this is mostly fantasy fulfilment with the pretense of doing something with its one good idea, but it doesn't

repititious and drawn out in its scenes, and a few things are far-fetched if not outright contrived to a point where it is very disconnecting (like, why didn't she grab the bloody shirt?)

5.8/10

standard operational bullshit - for those curious

not a comedy but I chuckled a couple times, mostly a hollywood-studio drama going for a flavor (Blake Edwards written&directed), needs a plot

this was entertaining by means of having kept my attention by being not predictable and different, but, overall, it wasn't very interesting or engaging

the performances were pretty good, things were fine, not sure what the point of Loretta Swit was, or the guy on the beach with his dog

would have been hilarious if the guy pissed in the coffin

5.6/10

the cinematography is bad, detrimental

the editing is quite poor, the score is a snore

the plot is barely there and low-stakes, and with how it all is, it could have done and been sooo much more, baffling

Snipes seems bored, the female lead can't act, Gary Busey can't save it (he's the only enjoyable thing about this)

4.4/10

watch instead:

Terminal Velocity (skydiving action movie with 'crime stuff' going on)

the stakes and motivations in this are some of the most ridiculous 'huh?' and 'who cares?' I've experienced

which aren't even revealed until maybe halfway through, and in the manner that it is done, deflates basically everything that was built in the first half and makes the 'huh?' 'whocares?' also turn into 'wait, what? why?' for all entailed

5.5/10

not noir, just crime-drama

decent story and the individual locations-settings are well chosen but terribly utilized/implemented, because there is a whooole lot of stupid that doesn't work

mostly bad writing and directing choices that sometimes rises to the level of poor, and when it starts off it's not too bad so there is leeway for things but, the bad piles and piles and piles - a whole lot of 'that was a bad way to do that' and 'it would have made sense if ____' over and over

don't misunderstand - I can love silly schlocky to the level of zany ridiculous - or a mix of whatever, but it has to be done well, here it is baaad

3.9/10

also, reptiles would be VENOMOUS, not poisonous

unfamiliar with the book, this is a mostly innocuous glance at high school life of a culture of a time and place in society - plays mostly like a high-school sex comedy of the era, but with a more innocent tone, even if still horny and full of terrible stereotypes, it's not a boob-fest and its on-surface valuing of 'get laid' is definitely called into question and not 'what it's about'

thin and a bit slow for what it does

5.8/10

absolute mess start to finish, no idea what it's doing or why

takes over an hour before it even starts to do anything and then it still doesn't manage to muster anything of substance

a slog, felt like it was well over 2 hours long

what is with the neon emergency entrance sign?
Patrick's motivations are contradictory nonsense/non-existent

and on and on and on with problems that got worse and worse

3.9/10

the writing is often bad, lots of contrived scene-situations, rehashed from what has been done many times before

part of the movie is there to service an agenda of 'legalize suicide' , but then fumbles around a bunch of other ideas to perpetuate as well (tropes and stereotypes abound, not at all intelligently utilized/knowingly implemented)

"Are you afraid of dying?"
"I'm more afraid of living."
"I have to tell you, what you're doing is very brave."

??? that writing seems to be intentional contradiction to confuse audiences, and given the rest of it/what is going, it's doubly bad!

I don't know if anything here works except Joe Mantegna's limited and brief moments of 'clarity' where it seems like he's the only one who knows he's in a joke of a movie and observing everyone else not realize it/take it so seriously - maybe because he's been in two dozen other movies of similar happenings previously that were written more competently and he's baffled at the inexperience /lack of awareness around him (probably not but maybe.)

this is like a grab-bag of ideas that don't work together in any ways, spending an hour to do what should be the 1st into 2nd acts and then once it gets going rushes and ends it, further confirming that the writer

had an idea to put their own spin on all the familiar alread-seen-before stuff and from there lack of experience, wrote what the could - this very much comes off like a first draft of a novice writer - where are the editors?!

Christopher Reeve is performing well - I wonder if there is some commentary/ission here about his life

5.0/10

terrible 'story-telling'

might have worked as a 15 minute student film

this is a tediously drawn-out scenario with an extreme amount of padding and reptitive re-establishing of information, pretending to 'grow an investigation angle' for the audience to figure out what happened in truth, but, doesn't actually provide doing that

it's another example of writers/directors lacking awareness to what they're writing because they're so focused on other elements or singular ideas they think are clever or make everything else irrelevant to its exceptionality

3.7/10

much better title: "Hello, Hollywood!"

intelligent satire of hollywood, with a good number meaningful observational-criticisms, the most fundamental of which being that

hollywood exploits people like trained circus animals, livestock to the slaughter for the consumeristic materialistic system (a facet of societal-function to domesticate people with narcissism and fear)

has some excellent meta-commentary moments while simultaneously functioning as a genre-sampling (the war and car segments excellently done, working as scenes within themselves and as part of the larger story of 'working in hollywood' - the slasher scene is also excellently done but I couldn't get into the FEELING of being scared for the actress even though I knew she was going to be actually killed, but I suppose that is okay if the directors didn't want to actually scare the audience), better than many examples of the samples themselves

charming star in Candy, and Dick Miller shines

6.3/10

they had an idea, with no idea how to write or execute it, and they didn't care

terrible writing, complete lack of awareness to anything

done for shock value and perhaps some sort of perverse fantasy-fulfilment on part of the writers-director, a bunch of nonsense

bad acting too, which makes sense with such assinine material

3.2/10

Denis Leary is the best part of this, perhaps the only good part

it's not funny, not a whodunnit at all, quite standard formula of this sort of thing with a bunch of rapper cameos and hiphop music, which was fun and neat but didn't do anything, Bernie Mac annoying as ever thankfully barely in it

a bunch of throw-away scenes and irrelevances and thin-story

5.7/10

started out okay but about 1/4 of the way started to become questionable in what it was doing, then definitely made less sense, then became repetitive, then annoying, tedious, tiresome, stupid

holes and contrivances and nonsense

with no likable characters (love a well-written conniving evil femme fatale or whatnot - these women are mostly annoying assholes, petty and nihilistic, but it's not even that, it's the overall crap writing)

the title is nonsense

there's nothing 'twisty' about it, jump-around contrivances and conveniences don't make twists (and even what it does is predictable)

3.4/10

lots of cool ideas and story bits, but

has many issues, due to bad-poor writing-directing choices

the tone-switching doesn't work, the lack of agency for the protagonist doesn't work, the antagonists are annoying in multiple ways, the pacing is bad

4.8/10

watch instead:

letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/film/timestalkers/ (time-travel western - more serious-toned, an actual good+ movie)

there's excellent story potential in here about a man afraid to allow himself to get close to people, or touch them/be touched at all, finding himself falling in love and working through his healing in order to be with her (that's the bad-behavior /her saying it's not okay/him working through it), but Zalman didn't know how to tell it and goes about it all in a round-about way that is a bit odd

the movie is odd with odd vibes - why is this happening? what are we doing? what is happening? why are we doing this? goes being doing a poor job of selling character motivations, and yet it mostly works

it's like they had the opportunity to shoot during festival and built a shoddy story around the locations

Carre Otis looks amazing

5.7/10

fails to deliver on its multiple themes, comes off rather flat, focuses on the wrong things and spends too much time diddling around, interesting at times, but also boring at times and,

not the Ali Baby and the Forty Thieves story well-told at all

5.4/10

good+ acting, but otherwise very uneven, lots of incongruence with what it was 'doing' (when capturing both fun and serious times in life it's important to have the use/utilization of such grounded in an understanding, here, it comes off as a bit tone-deaf, a 'having fun to be fun/hey isn't this cool stuff' sort of thing rather than slice-of-life-ing it)

which goes along with its uneven pacing and semi-forced melodramatic that, while in story form are totally fine, are executed a bit unbelievably (both in behaviors and reactions to behaviors, not at all 'established' well enough in the characters)

6.1/10

lazy crazy & clumsy whimsy

this needed another few es of refinement, could have been something potent and meaningful and classic here, but instead got caught up in/distracted by its own 'flavor' and instead of doing something intelligent with it, did the pseudo-intelligent thing where it pretends at stuff (authoritarian structures, even could easily have made it be about the UN specifically, etc.)

spends way too much time (like an hour) 'playing games' rather than solidly establishing much of anything (nothing about it is solid), very poor development all-around, then rushes through its nearly non-existent 2nd and 3rd acts with again no real doing-of-anything with anything and resting on its

oddball-ness

5.4/10

watch instead:

letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/film/forbidden-love-game/ - for a much better movie about semi-willing kidnap victims forced to 'play games' in isolated locations with authoritarian figures

letterboxd.sitesdebloques.org/film/parents/ - if you like the odd-dark-quirky-family tone but want something with a bit more darkness and meaning to it

almost not a movie, but a showcase for stunt-drivers

mostly lots of footage of arena-car stunts (the same handful, over and over and over), and some demolition derby (could have gone for more of that, filmed better, can't even see what is going on/was just a mess with no actual sense of what it is like to watch one/get a feel for the drivers or anything) - and fails at making any of that much of anything other than a showcase

boring, repetitive, a waste

3.5/10

this starts off decent with a compelling setup: two complete opposite cons competing

with the potential for a raising of the stakes and relationship dynamic that allows us to get to know them and go through a back-forth of protagonist-antagonist swapping, involving another character, learning lessons, etc., but it doesn't do any of that

it instead goes into what becomes a series of gags and tedious one-ups-manships that grates on and serve nothing but to annoy, while undermining the actual interesting character that is the semi-benevolent Jamieson by devolving him into an unsavory

5.6/10

a whole bunch of nonsense

there are maybe 2 funny moments ?

what is this doing? maybe exists because Merv needed to publicly it to being a killer

3.5/10

starts out very strong and creates a nice tension early, but by 1/3 of the way through, has already started to deflate in its established dynamic and quickly turns into a continual 'wait, what about XYZ? wait, that doesn't make sense, wait, why not 123?' fest

It's not as bad as the remake as far as storytelling and bad-incompetent writing goes, but it still has a lot of it, on top of terrible pacing and

in deeper reflection, this is seriously problematic, I wonder if it is in the source material or a product of adaptation for audience-control/mental manipulation, either knowingly or not

a sort of normalization of powerless vicitimization, and much more that I don't have the energy-focus to type

4.8/10

Buddy Hackett is the best part about this

but there are problems all over the place, mainly that it is shallow and contradictory and

perpetuates a 'technology-machinery as entity' mentality/valuing of personified technology/AI

5.5/10

- the scripting-execution of the story here is awful
- there's no chemistry between the two (Lange has more with her greek husband actor than with Nicholson)
- the characters don't at all feel real, nor likeable
- a whole bunch of 'plot movements' that don't make sense/don't work
- 2/3 of the way through it finally decides to move, and feels forced in doing so

all part of the script-execution issues

4.5/10

this is an art-film 'drama' NOT a horror

the beginning was very interesting with the guy seeming to come to his wits' end, but then, it turned out to just be an excuse to drug-escapism

and then it was ~2hrs of the same two ideas:

- heroin is greatstuff if you only do a little bit sometimes

- self-indulgent filmmaking sucks the soul (kind of a wendigo/narcissism idea in there - which I'm all about but it did not much with it)

connecting the two in a kind of 'addiction is destructive' obviousness that it fails to do anything with, like a big duh 'sitting around doing heroin all day every day as you time doing fuckall as you wait between visits to your dealer is not a healthy way to live' - nor is it an interesting movie

4.3/10

gives a strong sense that

Jonathan Caouette who made
Tarnation watched and was influenced by this

or it'd pair with that, though this is much less serious

a fun romp through and through, movies that if someone says "I just want to come away having had a good time" these are recommended

• Up in Smoke
• Used Cars
• Romancing the Stone
• Ghostbusters
• Transylvania 6-5000
• Clue
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off
• Flight of the Navigator
• Evil Dead II
• Spaceballs

...plus 17 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

movies that make the brain go in a swirly *wooooow* - at least at points - hard to order this one

1. Lost Highway
2. Vanilla Sky
3. Pink Floyd: The Wall
4. Solaris
5. Jacob's Ladder
6. Altered States
7. The Thirteenth Floor
8. eXistenZ
9. Total Recall
10. Brazil

...plus 9 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

in order of how good/not her performances, not quality-goodness of the movie, live-action only

some need a rewatch - and some I have seen I don't have listed because of 'needed' rewatch in order to include

good bunch of notes on these

1. G.I. Jane

   a truly great performance

2. ion of Mind

   could this be #1 ? needs a rewatch

3. Ghost
4. The Seventh Sign

   channeling Theresa Russell levels of commitment to the intensity of monologue-delivery

5. The Joneses

   captures it perhaps perfectly and perhaps a reprise of Nothing but Trouble but here the rest of the script and directing are very good and it knows what it's doing

6. Disclosure

   this works extremely well for me, better with every watch too, and I've seen it 5+ times?

7. Mortal Thoughts
8. Indecent Proposal

   she is definitely thinking of Robert Redford during her love scenes with Woody, but then is still actually able to pull-off the truly-loving wife

9. A Few Good Men

   for some reason Demi feels off in a handful of scenes in this even though the writing is solid and the surrounding cast doing excellent, she feels, uncomfortable? still manages a bunch of good scenes and doesn't detracat from the movie, I just wonder what was going on with her here that she didn't flesh out a more nuanced personality for the character- could have been a director problem, could have been a few other things, hmmm...

10. The Juror

    what I recall feeling was her first phoned-in but still effective performance and I went 'hmmm, she finally just took a paycheck, why? oh well it's okay enough'

    Baldwin is all-in chewing the scenery at every moment, watch it for him be glad to see Demi in her hayday

...plus 4 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

starring roles, ranked by how good the movie is, not his performance, don't care about post-2000 stuff

never saw Batman & Robin, don't care, never saw Junior, don't care

1. Conan the Barbarian
2. Predator
3. The Running Man
4. Total Recall
5. The Terminator
6. Last Action Hero
7. Twins
8. True Lies
9. Terminator 2: Judgment Day
10. Kindergarten Cop

...plus 7 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

snow-covered movies - movies in which snow is a character or meaningful element

• The White Reindeer
• Nikki, Wild Dog of the North
• A King Without Distraction
• Abashiri Prison
• Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors
• The Revolutionary
• The Snow Woman
• The Snow Maiden
• Ice Station Zebra
• The Great Silence

...plus 35 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

it's nearly impossible for me to be scared watching a movie, and has been this way since I was very young

These movies genuinely scare me, or at least did when I saw them, no telling what will happen on the next watch.

Things like The Shining, Alien, and Event Horizon have sustained the tension and fear through maybe 10 watches or more?

1. The Shining
2. The Entity
3. Alien
4. Event Horizon
5. Jacob's Ladder
6. Ravenous
7. Deranged
8. Lost Highway
9. The Thing
10. Lord of Illusions

...plus 5 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

the BEST caliber action movies

cross-over genres - split into sections, by year:

ACTION
sci-fi action
horror action
crime action
comedy action
anime/tion action

no silent, martial arts, fantasy, western, or adventure included except anime

no James Bond, Star Wars

WORK IN PROGRESS

suggestions welcome

• Deathcheaters
• Beverly Hills Cop
• Lethal Weapon
• Die Hard
• Lethal Weapon 2
• Tango & Cash
• Die Hard 2
• Under Siege
• Best of the Best 2
• Men of War

...plus 37 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

movies that, at least in parts, evoke the heaviest crying, even when I know it's coming - others to go on this list after I watch them enough times to confirm

1. The Elephant Man
2. Magnolia
3. Dersu Uzala
4. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
5. The Fisher King
6. Wings of Desire
7. Vanilla Sky
8. Paths of Glory
9. Leaving Las Vegas
10. Old Yeller

...plus 11 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

7.0/10+ movies that have less than 20,000 views on letterboxd but are 'common' enough with enough 'mass appeal' that they SHOULD HAVE MANY MORE!

1. Quest for Fire

   if you are a film-lover - WATCH THIS!

   unique achievement in filmmaking and a masterpiece

2. The Emerald Forest

   we need to return to caring for the earth instead of exploiting it

3. Slaughterhouse-Five

   another literary FILM-lover persons's movie - watch it if you appreciate good cinema!

4. Lone Star

   top-notch crime drama with themes about family

5. Runaway Train

   powerhouse performances

6. Star 80

   dark, intense

7. Best of the Best

   the best of the best: US sports drama and martial arts movie, plus a great dad-son movie

8. Best of the Best 2

   the original is a drama

   this is pure action! one of the great action movies

   and Eric Roberts being a great dad

9. The Way of the Gun

   if you like those popular action-crime movies like

   Out of Sight, HEAT, The Usual Suspects

   then you very likely should like this, however

   this is a BIT more 'heady' and has slightly less mass-appeal quality than those previously mentioned, it might be 'too much' going on/dialogue heavy for some viewers preferences

10. The Mosquito Coast

    a perfect movie

    one of Harrison Ford's best movies and performances

...plus 35 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

A specific type of thriller 'took off' in their proliferation starting in the early 90's - sure, there is a small segment of predecessor movies that they are rooted in - from previous decades, in film-noir to 60's french and italian thrillers to movies that could go in this list like Fatal Attraction and Jagged Edge, if they'd come a few years later - but they became a market in the 90's to the point where they are a dime a dozen in their prevalence, which makes there many 'diamonds in the rough' as well, and it can be hard, for people in retrospect, to know what to try or what they are missing. I will also include some movies from the year 2000, as these were conceived of/+began production in the 90's and with a 90's mentality.

This list does NOT include: action thrillers (The Way of the Gun), military thrillers (The Hunt for Red October), or sci-fi thrillers (Pitch Black) !

Some of these are very-well known and obvious, some of them are obscure once-shown TV movies or unheard of straight-to-video B-productions that are actually very good->excellent that if you can get your 'hands' on a copy, you should! - work in progress

- feel free to leave suggestions and in the comments -

• Backdraft
• Dead Again
• The Hand That Rocks the Cradle
• Basic Instinct
• Falling Down
• Sliver
• Boxing Helena
• Kalifornia
• Judgment Night
• Disclosure

...plus 38 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

in the order I saw them

I won't 'go to the movies' ever again, decided that years ago

1. Back to the Future
2. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
3. Crocodile Dundee II
4. The Great Outdoors
5. Who Framed Roger Rabbit
6. The Land Before Time
7. Twins
8. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
9. Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
10. Tremors

...plus 113 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

1. A Clockwork Orange
2. Eyes Wide Shut
3. 2001: A Space Odyssey
4. Paths of Glory
5. Barry Lyndon
6. Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
7. Spartacus
8. Full Metal Jacket
9. The Killing
10. The Shining

...plus 2 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

horror movies that don't get enough mention, appreciation, watches, etc.

something like 6.3/10+ rating and less than 15k views

• The Gorgon
• The Ballad of Tam Lin
• Leptirica
• Satan's Blood
• Magic
• Witchboard
• Dead of Winter
• Deranged
• Lady in White
• Sukkubus

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

I have no idea how many times I've seen these.

There are other movies I've watched SOOO many times, but even this list sures those (things like Legend, Labyrinth, Grease 2, Lethal Weapon 2, Top Gun, Transylvania 6-5000, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves I've seen dozens of times, but still not as many as the movies on this list.)

I could be brainfart-forgetting something.

• Star Wars
• The Empire Strikes Back
• Return of the Jedi
• Romancing the Stone
• Beverly Hills Cop
• Clue
• Ferris Bueller's Day Off
• The Princess Bride
• Willow

• The Most Dangerous Game
• A Game of Death
• Bloodlust!
• The 10th Victim
• The Suckers
• The Woman Hunt
• The Perverse Countess
• Open Season
• Death Hunt
• Southern Comfort

...plus 10 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.

#1-7 are the only ones worthwhile - and they're damn good!
#8 is meh - wayyy overrated with many problems but not bad
#9-11 are poor-pretty bad
#12-18 are very bad decreasing to terribly unbearably bad

1. Elvis
2. The Thing
3. Escape from L.A.
4. They Live
5. Village of the Damned
6. In the Mouth of Madness
7. Escape from New York
8. Big Trouble in Little China
9. Assault on Precinct 13
10. Starman

...plus 8 more. View the full list on Letterboxd.