Netflix movie finds

So my sister said:

The Christmas Chronicles was a typical Christmas movie, what is not to like!

She thinks I am too critical of family movies maybe because I see so many movies. Because of my nephew, my sister and her significant other see substantially less movies than I do, in theater at least, so I thought I would pass this on. She doesn’t think I enjoy any not animated holiday movie in recent years. I am not sure if that’s true or not. I really like Love Actually but I guess that’s maybe 15 years old now.

Anyway just passing on a second opinion.

I’m burning through movies fast because most of my shows are on or will be shortly on their Holiday Breaks so I wathched Outlaw King

So this movies suffers from typical historical piece symptoms. The production and money seemed relatively high, so it looks good. There’s a few good actors in it, focusing on the lead of course and there are memorable moments but… no amount of Chris Pine skin and unnecessary for shock value violence changes that fact that this movie is interesting because the time period and the historical events are interesting… not because the movie did anything worthwhile or unique with that information. People are going to like it because it’s historical and isn’t flat out bad, but it just doesn’t stand on its own two feet otherwise… like I never connect with the characters, so I am only really horrified over what happens because I know most of it’s true, and this is one of those time periods where you wonder how humanity didn’t just up and destroy itself.

I watched Pad Man today. It’s an Indian movie about a guy who wants to make sanitary pads for his wife to use so that she won’t use a dirty cloth when she gets her period. Except the taboo is so strong for even talking about this subject that she’d rather die than shame herself talking about it, and giving him feedback. It was a movie in equal parts infuriating and hilarious. My wife and I both had a pretty rocking good time laughing over it. Recommended.

The movie felt way too rushed. They covered years of events so fast there’s no weight even though the story of Bruce was arguably more historically important than Willam Wallace’s.

BuyBust is almost great:

The premise is simple: a drug raid in a Manila slum goes wrong, and now the police team has to fight its way out in a situation that goes from bad to worse to survival horror. So basically, a filippino The Raid.

Unfortunately, director Erik Matti doesn’t have Gareth Evans (or Timo Tjahjanto’s for that matter) action chops, which is doubly a pity, because the story goes some very dark and cynical places re: Duterte’s drug war, and if the action had been more engaging, those turns would’ve landed all the harder.

Hey, has anyone seen Bird Box, the horror movie with Sandra Bullock? I’ve only seen the briefest of descriptions and it sounds kinda bonkers, just curious if it’s any good?

Stephen King liked it.

That’s how I felt about “How It Ends”, the Netflix movie that got really poor reviews, including here at Qt3. I think it ended up being my favorite movie of 2018.

It is not. It is risible. I mostly love Susanne Bier’s stuff – Night Manager is sublime – but she’s clearly out of her element here. It’s A Quiet Place for Dummies.

-Tom

Christmas Chronicles was pretty good. It was a little cheesy, of course, and I could have done without the jail house jazz session. But I was cutting onions by the end.

I put on the Halo movie, The Fall of Reach, to fall asleep to last night. This was a mistake. The only other time I had to turn something off while trying to fall asleep because it was so bad was that summer series Zoo. For all there many attempts to get Halo TV shows and movies made, the quality of this thing sure makes me question their commitment. It’s terrible CGI characters, usually superimposed over bad matte paintings playing out the most tortured, cliche background story you could imagine. Oh, and occasionally they’ll just do motion comic style montages. You get the sense this film was the product of 8 interns with no experience locked into a room filled with workstations until they delivered 70 minutes of Halo branded footage.

I have not watched any Halo movies, but that sounds like my experience watching the animated Dead Space and Mass Effect movies. It’s obvious nobody puts a moment’s thought into these things, they don’t even really line up all that well with the established lore and they certainly aren’t entertaining to watch.

Dumplin as boring and didn’t tread any new water. The acting was fine; that wasn’t the problem. And while there were sparks of attempts at something worthwhile, ultimately it tried to capitalize on emotions it assumes the audience already has but at no point did the movie actually try to earn.

Cool. I’ll probably watch it then.

Anyone see 2036 Origin Unknown AKA Starbuck feuds with her sister on FaceTime about an AI taking her job…
I fell asleep 20 minutes in and didn’t bother to re-watch it.

Ha ha, you’re going to watch Bird Box.

You saw all you needed to see. It’s basically a Katee Sackhoff stage play.

-Tom

I definitely plan to see Bird Box, since it has Sandra Bullock. I don’t know what it is about her, but I just find her so fun to watch even when I don’t like the movie itself. She’s like the movie version of comfort food for me. Sort of the female version of Tom Hanks.

Just watched Andhadhun, one of the top grossing Bollywood movies of 2018. Not a typical Bollywood movie though… it’s a black comedy/thriller. Don’t read anything about it, just watch it… highly recommended.

Curses, too late!!

Good choice. It’s sort of the opposite of A Quiet Place where every character’s motivation was telegraphed and you could drive a diesel truck through the plot holes. Bullock is very versatile here, and I appreciated her character’s attitude. This sounds weird but I make my living from post-apocalyptic stuff, and Bird Box was one of the better PA movies I’ve seen a few years.

I’m in the middle of watching Bird Box right now: my daughter is home from college and wanted to watch it with me (the parent who enjoys horror movies), but I had to work this morning and couldn’t stay up late enough to finish it. We’ll see the last half-hour this afternoon.

So far, so good. It’s a post-apocalyptic plague/zombie type of thing where you have a house full of strangers thrown together in a situation that they don’t fully grasp. They then have to figure out the rules of the setting along with the audience while navigating their interpersonal frictions. I like these types of stories - Night of the Living Dead, The Mist, etc.

The cast is pretty good too. Some young eye-candy and likeable minor characters who exist pretty much to die in interesting ways… plus Bullock and Malcovich, who are both solidly in their comfort zones.