Rate the last film with your terrible opinions

I thank you for this gift sensei

I didn’t get on with GOtG3, something about the genocide/obliteration of a parallel earth with hybrid women, kids, men and all other life forms that had no emotional weight behind it just seemed really off.

Fight Club (netflix)

Hated it. I’m sure everyone will disagree with me but I almost didn’t make it to the end. I was never really into it at the time because it seemed like macho nonsense to me but a film podcast I quite like did an episode recently talking about all the stuff they like about it so I gave it another go and I remain not a fan.

Even before you get to the meat of it, it looks like a video for a b-tier nu-metal band. Its got an ugly late-90s/early-00s colour palette across the whole thing. And I get that’s partly a Fincher thing and partly the same issue the Matrix has because its so influential its own original touches appear cliche, but its very dated looking to 2020s eyes. The characters are all annoying try-hards too. There are actors in here who I like and know are good but I just don’t believe in these roles. Again this might be a parody/influence issue but everything everyone says is so tired and one dimensional.

Content-wise, I still think its overly edgelordy only now with the added layer of the awful libertarian internet reddit men who do things like paleo and gamergate having claimed it as their own. The podcast hosts were trying to talk up its left-wing anarchist anti-consumerism credentials but it just feels more like directionless teen nihilism to me, its Woodstock 99 stuff really. Whether by design or because Palahniuk is a total hack, its far closer to the message you mostly hear now those weird far-right individualist anarcho-primitivist types and Musk-stans who incorrectly think they’d survive more than a day with essential services turned off.

At my most generous I guess I could say maybe its a satire that fails by being so close to what its lampooning that it becomes that thing but I don’t think that’s the case. If you want something about rejecting societal expectations there are plenty of films from earlier in the 90s that do it with a far more genuine feeling and fun than this. They might not be as zeitgeisty or have the lasting influence but they’re probably healthier.

The Tyler performance has to strike a weird balance. In that, yes, he is a misogynistic douchebag piece of shit. But he also has to be cool and charismatic, because people wouldn't get pulled into his orbit otherwise.

And the coolness, unfortunately, worked for the audience too. So you get all these people seeing it and thinking that Tyler is meant to be the hero, instead of a toxic quasi-cult leader.

And Gremmi

I know where you're coming from, and after your post I did think on that for a bit. One common problem that superhero films have nowadays is they want to demonstrate amazing power but with the law of diminishing returns each scene of mass destruction means less and less.

What I would say is that the obliteration aspect has becoe something of a trope in the sci-fi/fantasy genre now. It's used more as a device to demonstrate how eeeeeeeevil the baddy is rather than our thoughts being with those who get destroyed. You could say the same exact thing about the destruction of Alderan in A New Hope and even more so in the destruction of I-don't-even-know-what-planets in The Force Awakens.

Maybe rather than being used as a device it should be the end result... Totally different film, but the allegory is used really well in the first act of Boxtrolls... and that's a film I wish more people would see.

Yep. Right at the end. To be fair it's a memorable ending.

I haven't seen it in a while so no idea how it holds up. I vaguely remember critics giving it a bit of a booting at the time as well, though. I think it was a bigger hit with audiences than in the papers (and glancing at the RT scores that seems about right).

In other news I loved Fight Club and the movie is better than the book, which I also loved.

Agreed and my review of run away dolls would also be the same.

She really is fucking awful. She was decent in Death Stranding, so presumably just being directed to be as annoying as humanly possible in this.

It really was painfully average.

My issue with Fight Club is that the execution is nowhere near as good as the ideas and themes it explores. I thought it a muddled and clumsy rather than twisty turny. It came out when "lad" culture was at its peak, so it's hardly surprising the satire went past some people. It was undoubtedly prescient tho, with the rise of the toxic masculinity incel Tate gurusphere and the like.

It's a film I've been meaning to go back to for a few years to see how it all held up because of that, but I really found it a bit just...not fun the first time round.

Dream Scenario - 8/10

Nic Cage does Nic Cage, as an average nobody uni lecturer, who starts popping up in dreams. Everybody's dreams. Equal amounts of cringe, funny and satire on modern zeitgeist stuffs. Quite enjoyable.

Zone of Interest - 10/10

Haunting. Disturbing. Beautiful in it's themes, and so many overlayed things to discuss.
Should be on any history curriculum from here on out.



Poor Things - 9/10

Really enjoyed this, the gradual wtf to begin, clearing into a solid tale, and both Blunt and Ruffalo are fantastic. Loved the design of the alt-world, and some of the lines will be popping up as quotables in years to come.

Killers of the Flower Moon - tbf/10

90mins in, and I'm struggling. Save part 2 for tommorrow, but it's too full of colour, flavour and scene setting for what is quite an obvious tale, and I'm just wishing it'd hurry up and make me care. The two Di's are fine, Caprio playing dumb, Nero playing bad, but I've seen these performances before. Overindulgent sums it up thus.

Like, Wolf of Wall Street was also 11 hours long, and nobody complained about that.

Road House (the new one)

Well, that was shit. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

I mean, the original Road House was kind of shit too, but in a funny kind of way. It had lines like

"I used to FUCK guys like you in prison"

and

"I see you found my trophy room, Dalton... the only thing that's missing is YOUR ASS"

This has a bit of humour, but mostly it takes itself too seriously. The story is bad, the characters are bad, the dialogue is bad, the acting is bad, the romance is bad. I've nfi what Conor McGregor is trying to do, but he is bad also.

And the fights are bad! Why are the fights bad? Nobody's throat gets ripped out! You had one job, director of Road House! One job!

Woof, what a stinker

3/10 (it gets a couple of points for Gyllenhaal being occasionally funny)