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After Hours (1985)
The Wizard of Oz meets the Book of Job set in New York City.
There are some Martin Scorsese movies that get better with time, or become easier to appreciate once you're older, but some others are just how you remember them. The latter's the case for After Hours, which I really liked without quite loving a decade or so ago, and still really like without quite loving after seeing it at a cinema tonight. Couldn't resist seeing a film like this on the big screen though, because it's the kind of cult movie that probably barely ever gets screened. Still, there was a solid turnout for it tonight, which is always good to see.
I love how this builds, even if it means the first half-hour of After Hours is a little slow and also lighter on laughs. There was a clear attempt made at making each situation a little crazier, funnier, or more awkward than the last, which you definitely appreciate in the back half. Once it gets going, it never really loses that sense of momentum, and the anxious comedy really works during the film's best moments.
I feel like there's a lot to unpack here. It feels denser thematically (or maybe even philosophically) than I remember it being, and doesn't feel like chaos and randomness for the sake of it (but if you want to watch it just for that kind of experience, it does satisfy). It's mid-range Scorsese to me, in the end, but Scorsese's mid-tier stuff is still outstanding, and I think After Hours teeters on genuine greatness. It is definitely one of Scorsese's more under-appreciated films, and also one of his most distinct.
Omoide no Marnie (2014)
Quite good
I've been digging into some more Ghibli films not directed by Hayao Miyazaki lately, and it's been hard to talk about them, because I haven't got much out of them. People seem to like The Secret World of Arrietty and From Up On Poppy Hill, and those films didn't do much for me beyond looking pretty. I was worried about When Marnie Was There, because it was from the same director as the former, but I think it felt like a significant improvement.
I mostly enjoyed this one and found it to work emotionally (for the most) part as well as visually. It was still slow at times, but not to the point where it made me disengage entirely. It's not a top-tier Studio Ghibli release, but it's a good one that works more than it doesn't. It wasn't mind-blowing, but it was a pleasant film, and I was happy to spend some time in this world, more so than the worlds created by those other Ghibli films I've seen over the last day or two.
Karigurashi no Arietti (2010)
Beautiful but boring.
I saw a screenshot of a Pride and Prejudice review recently where someone gave the book a rating of 1/5 and said it was nothing but people going to each other's houses for the story's entire duration. I don't know to what extent they were joking (that novel's not my thing and I almost agree with the review, but that's another story), but I could almost describe The Secret World of Arrietty as not much beyond tiny people walking around areas designed for normal-sized people. This is especially so in the film's first half - it's glacially slow-paced. When things pick up comparatively speaking, with a bit of a plot, it doesn't fare much better in terms of being interesting.
The animation is pretty great, as one would expect from Studio Ghibli, but very little else appealed to me. It is a story based on a children's book, and it's supposed to appeal to kids, but my problem wasn't really the simplicity. It just felt slow, in a way that I can imagine being kind of boring for kids. If I'm underestimating some kids, I'm sorry, but I wouldn't blame others for being lulled into restless sleep by The Secret World of Arrietty. When it comes to other films, I'd be saddened by the idea of kids getting bored, but with this one, I'd understand in all honesty.
I'm surprised to see other people liking it so much. I just really didn't get the appeal for this one, beyond the animation. It looked very nice. It sounded okay, regarding music and sound design and all that jazz. But in every other respect, it bored the hell out of me.
For me, it was an uncharacteristically dull kind of fantasy story. There are plenty of fantastical Ghibli films that look amazing and feel engrossing to get lost in, but The Secret World of Arrietty made for an odd experience; the world was colorful, richly detailed, and, in some ways, inviting, but I just wanted out of it after a while.
Succession: Austerlitz (2018)
An aftermath, and something of a reset.
Which Side Are You On? Is the first game-changer episode of Succession narratively, meaning Austerlitz has to be a little quieter, seeing as the show needs to spend time on build-up in order to deliver something else surprising later on. But it functions very well as an episode about the aftermath of the last episode's events. You couldn't quite call it a breather episode, because it's still intense and squirm-inducing to some extent; just not as intense as the previous week's nail-biter of an episode.
Kendall and Shiv have the most important storylines here narratively, so far as future episodes are concerned, with the dynamic between Roman and Logan also being interesting (and more understated, at least for now). It's a rock solid episode, which is about the "worst" thing you can say about most Succession episodes from this point onwards.
Also, even though Gregg annoys me a little sometimes, I'll have to admit that his presence in this episode was actually missed!
Succession: Which Side Are You On? (2018)
And here we go.
I don't tend to rate TV episodes, but if I had to, this one would be close to a 10. I think some people are a little harsh when it comes to judging the first half of Succession's first season, but I also can't entirely disagree about the commonly held sentiment that Which Side Are You On? Is the episode when the show becomes genuinely great.
It is all about the final 10 to 15 minutes, but there are some great tension-building scenes leading up to that. It's executed so well, and says so much about Logan, Roman, and Shiv (given how offended she is at being left out of the plan). It also sets in motion Kendall's downward spiral, which I feel never really ends as the show goes along.
Brian Cox also gets to devour scenery in the final main sequence of the episode, and I feel like this is where Logan really comes in center-stage and dominates, continuing to do so for plenty of episodes to come (the way he makes the president wait for him right at the end, too - just perfect writing and acting).
Kimi to, nami ni noretara (2019)
Good ideas, imperfect execution, but it still mostly works overall.
The Masaaki Yuasa films I've seen before were a good deal more out-there and comedic than Ride Your Wave. After the first act, there are some fantastical elements introduced, but I feel like they happen a little too late in the film to discuss without running the risk of ruining things.
Basically, to try and stay vague, it's a fairly light and even sappy romance, and then things take a slightly stranger turn, but it never goes all out with the craziness like Mind Game and Night Is Short, Walk On Girl both did. I think I prefer those, even though Ride Your Wave has moments that hit harder emotionally and it feels more moving because it's quite grounded.
It looks great throughout. Again, without too many crazy moments, the visuals aren't as stylized as one might be used to with Masaaki Yuasa, but it's a good-looking movie and it still has a nice (downplayed) style, to some extent.
The final act is a bit weird. Things move away from the main character(s) a little, and then back again, and the side characters never fully fit into the story; not when they were sort of there in the background in the movie's first half, and not when they were kind of between foreground and background in the second half. I did also think Ride Your Wave was aggressively sappy for a while near the start, but the tone/vibe it has in the first half-hour or so does get changed up in interesting ways during the final hour.
It's not a seamless or perfectly executed anime movie, but it's a nice watch. Some moments work really well, there are a few bits that don't quite pay off, and then the rest of the film's fairly solid, if not quite amazing or anything. I think that overall, it's pretty good. Pretty, pretty, pretty good.
Patalliro: The Stardust Project (1983)
I'm lost, but I also had fun.
Gotta love how this is one of the most striking looking anime films of it's time and it's paired with super silly comedy that quite often literally gets lost in translation (there are many extra subtitles explaining plays on words, kind of explaining things but also reducing the capacity for those things to be funny. I think I would've preferred them being treated like non-sequiturs).
When it's not being silly, there's also some romantic melodrama in here. It's odd, messy, but always fun to watch, it only for how the entire thing looks and sounds. It's a good burst of retro anime, and I dug the style. I think that was enough.
White Hunter Black Heart (1990)
Very underrated
I am fond of Clint Eastwood's work, even when it's not the best (or even kind of bad). I'm close to seeing every movie he's ever starred in now, and have seen the majority of his directorial output. Once you work through the hits, it sometimes feels like diminishing returns digging deeper, because a good many lesser-known Eastwood films just don't really work. However, I was glad I kept digging, because White Hunter, Black Heart is surprisingly good, and feels quite distinctive, too.
Eastwood plays a director here, and someone who's very different from the typical Eastwood kind of character. I feel like film production playing a role gives things a personal and introspective edge, and as a character study, it largely works. Behind the camera, Eastwood's direction is typically solid but never really showy, though in front of the camera, I think he gives one of his most underrated lead performances.
The ending gave me a mild feeling of "that's it?", and aspects of the final scene were so on-the-nose it felt like self-parody (maybe it was? Given the characters are making a film, they talk about endings, and so maybe there's something to the strangeness/bluntness of this film's actual ending). I think it meanders and it's not a strong film narratively, but there are interesting ideas being explored, the central character is fascinating, it's technically sound, and Eastwood's performance is great. Two years later, he'd combine many of these positive attributes with a more emotional/gripping/overall stronger narrative in Unforgiven, but White Hunter, Black Heart is still quite good overall, and worth digging out for anyone who likes Eastwood but has never dug this one out before.
The Good Shepherd (2006)
Interesting but overlong.
Spy movies really aren't my thing. The slow ones I can respect when well-made, and the more explosive ones can be fun if they have good action set pieces, but I don't tend to go out of my way to watch spy-related films. But The Good Shepherd looked interesting because of the strength of the cast, and because it's one of two movies Robert De Niro's directed. He also has a supporting role here, and it's hilarious how almost every time he's on screen, he's sitting down. If a director wants a certain character to always be in a comfortable position, who can protest?
Comparing it to A Bronx Tale, it's also a bit funny how that one feels like it pulls a little from Goodfellas, and The Good Shepherd pulls a bit from another recent (at the time) Scorsese film: The Aviator. It's got the same kind of glossy look and color scheme, and it's not surprising to find out they both had the same cinematographer.
Look, rambling aside, The Good Shepherd is quite competent as a spy film, and it's interesting (if a little heavy-handed) how it uses a story that takes place between 1939 and the early 1960s to reflect all the U. S. conflict of the 2000s. Outside of acting, De Niro is politically outspoken, so I can see why this story would've appealed to him at this time.
The Good Shepherd is just too long though, being 167 minutes in length. It drags at times, but again, going back to the whole me and spy movie thing, I often feel like these sorts of movies drag. I guess the huge runtime here just compounds that. It's nicely presented, and the performances are generally good. I felt a bit mixed on Matt Damon in the lead role, but that might be more of a writing problem. He's a character whose journey should be interesting, and kind of is on paper, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired.
So, the film looks and feels good, it has thematic weight, and features a good cast, but it's also too long, narratively dull, and sometimes heavy-handed. It's interesting, and would be a recommendable oddity within De Niro's body of work if it had been 30 to 45 minutes shorter; that's really the biggest hurdle to enjoying The Good Shepherd, rather than merely having a decent amount of respect for it.
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)
A worthy follow-up/prequel
I was cautiously optimistic Furiosa would be great, with enthusiasm being dulled a little by seeing some reviews that came across as a little disappointed (still, no one saying it was outright bad at least). I think this tempered my expectations a little, and I went in expecting something slow and less spectacular than Fury Road, but honestly, I came away from Furiosa liking it almost as much as that previous film.
It isn't as relentless or white-knuckle, and it's not as pure of an action movie, but I honestly think the amount of action in both films is comparable. Furiosa felt non-stop at times, even a lot of the time... just not all the time, owing to the film trying to do something different this time around. Ultimately, this is a good thing.
The stopping and starting of action would be a flaw if the downtime, so to speak, was boring, but I really enjoyed most of the non-action scenes here too. This is the Mad Max movie that feels the most like an epic so far (a character even says the word here, near the end), and I think it earns its 2.5-hour runtime. A full-scale war plays out alongside the title character's story, almost feeling like two movies in one that also intersect at points. I could understand missing the purity and simplicity of Fury Road, but I liked the different things George Miller was trying to do here.
The action often feels like "more Fury Road," and that's honestly okay with me. There's an extended chase scene around the halfway mark that feels like an excuse for Miller to cram in some of the crazy stuff he couldn't fit into Fury Road, and it's super entertaining. The escalation of it all was wonderful.
It's ambitious and doesn't entirely stick the landing of every single thing it's going for, and I wonder whether some of the callbacks/call-forwards will feel clunkier as time goes on. Still, for now, that doesn't matter. I was engrossed in this for two and a half hours and I found it a joy to see Miller do his thing; here's a guy who's still able to execute a bold vision perfectly on screen, and put a massive budget to good use. This feels a lot more finely crafted than most blockbusters (best blockbuster of the year is still Dune 2, though), the cast's great, the action's fun, and the ambitious story was engaging.
I think it's a pretty significant success, and not too far off Fury Road quality-wise. That being said, I would like to revisit that 2015 film and then see Furiosa once more in cinemas, just to see if my thoughts will change in any way.
Nouvelle vague (1990)
Oh shut up
When I was younger, I used to feel jealousy towards people who clicked with stuff like this, but now I think I might pity them.
This film's Godard at his lamest and most frustrating. It's pretty much unwatchable. If I have to give him credit, I guess he could've made Nouvelle Vague longer. An 89-minute runtime might suggest some restraint, but it felt much longer.
Godard's a director whose well-known stuff I watched some time ago and kind of liked, but it only took a couple of deep cuts for me to get the sense his style was generally not for me. This is one I wanted to give a chance, because it's been years since I saw a Godard film and Alain Delon was in it, but I found it more insufferable than anything else by Godard I'd seen before.
Characters speak about nothing, every scene is tedious, everything feels meaningless, and if that's the point somehow I don't care and still don't like it. This just sucks.
Succession: I Went to Market (2018)
A strangely competent Kendall shines quietly in an episode that's the calm before the storm.
I Went to Market is maybe the best episode of Succession's first season's opening half, though I think the pilot episode is also very strong. Episodes 2 to 4 do a lot of stage-setting, and certain character dynamics don't feel fully formed, but things start to come together a little more here in episode 5.
This episode really sets up the dramatic sixth episode of the season, which then causes drama that leads to the season 1 finale, with events there having ramifications for the rest of the show. It's a joy to watch it all again, and witness the first domino, so to speak, falling in this episode, with Kendall's whole vote of no-confidence plan taking effect (the Tom and Gregg stuff is also very important for future episodes, from memory). Kendall shows very little stupidity in this episode, too, other than not being able to work the coffee machine. What comes next will likely prove surprising, even on a rewatch.
Succession: Sad Sack Wasp Trap (2018)
It only gets better from here.
With the benefit of hindsight, Sad Sack Wasp Trap is perhaps the last "hurdle" those who don't immediately love Succession will have to face on their inevitable journey to loving the show. It sees a public event bringing all the characters together, with numerous episodes following this one also following a similar formula... though doing so much better, it has to be said, with more humor and drama (though Connor's insane emotional highs and lows provide a good deal of comedy).
It's good that Logan's back in the picture fully, though I think the show picks up when he more or less returns to full power mentally. Otherwise, this fourth episode is solid, like those before it, but still not quite amazing like most of the episodes that follow.
Sono yo wa wasurenai (1962)
Not the most consistent of films, but some of it works very well.
Hiroshima Heartache is a bit scattershot in a way that I don't think was intended. It follows a journalist covering the anniversary of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, and his difficulties with interviewing people who survived the event. It feels like he drifts around a lot until he gets to know a young woman who was personally impacted by the bomb, carrying scars both emotional and physical from the event.
It's that relationship which makes for Hiroshima Heartache's most interesting and moving scenes, but it does feel like the love story is a bit rushed and also, I got the sense the whole movie should've focused on this relationship more; not just the final 30 to 40 minutes.
It adds up to a flawed and somewhat messy post-war drama, but because of the stuff that does work, I think it's still a decent film.
2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
Kinda slaps
2 Fast 2 Furious boldly asks the question "What if 2000's The Fast and the Furious was good?", and then confidently follows up on that by being The Fast and the Furious, but good.
I was not a fan of that original movie when I saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago, but this one delivered. It's made me surprised to find that it tends to get called one of the worst in the series. Honestly, if more of them are like this, I could see myself growing attached to the whole stupid franchise as a whole.
There are still glaring problems throughout, much of it's corny and overblown, and though the pacing's generally good, a few scenes feel a bit repetitive. Still, everyone seems to be taking this film a little less seriously, not to the point of self-parody, but I appreciated this movie going a little more over-the-top and being just generally crazier.
Also, Paul Walker is pretty good here, understanding the assignment and carrying the movie pretty well; also, I think he was better here than he was in the first movie. I didn't like Vin Diesel's performance in the first (he's a charisma vacuum, as far as I'm concerned), so I kind of enjoyed his absence here. I'm hoping that when he returns as a regular, he'll either fit in a little better to what's going on, or everything else will be wild enough that his presence will barely register. That's my Fast and Furious hot-take. So far, I don't like - or want - Diesel in these movies.
The action's more fun here and I think it feels a little less slow and dour compared to the first. There's energy and some big action sequences, and I had fun for the majority of the runtime. This is good fast-food cinema, as opposed to the first, which felt like a Big Mac that had mild but still inevitably detrimental amounts of rat poison sprinkled on top.
Onwards to Tokyo Drift next, I guess (that one I have actually seen before, but some years ago now).
Invincible (2001)
Could've been a contender.
This really could've been great, and I'm a bit disappointed it was merely decent. Werner Herzog's one of my favorite directors, Tim Roth is always great (he has a villainous role here), Udo Kier has a supporting role here (he's a match made in heaven for the Herzog style), and Hans Zimmer even co-composed the score for this film. For what it's worth, that poster also caught my eye, and recalls a memorable image from 1922's Dr. Mabuse the Gambler.
Furthermore, Invincible also has an interesting setting and premise, too, taking place in Berlin during the 1930s and following a Jewish strongman who becomes loved by some and hated by others - namely, the members of the Nazi Party.
There's so much potential here, both with what the movie focuses on and who was involved. And Invincible isn't bad; it's watchable, it's well-presented, and, shock horror, the good actors give good performances. But I couldn't shake the feeling that it wasn't as engrossing as it could be, and it felt a bit overlong and sagged in places pacing-wise, too.
Herzog's hit it out of the park more often than most filmmakers, so a slight misfire is forgivable. Even then, Invincible isn't a total misfire, because there's still a bit here to appreciate and get wrapped up in. Lesser Herzog is still good for the most part, I guess, but I really wanted to come away from this singing its praises as an unfairly overlooked film by the great German filmmaker (whose filmography I've now seen about half the titles from, and I feel like I've already worked my way through most of his bonafide classics... but time will tell if that's really the case or not).
The Bonfire of the Vanities (1990)
It might be over-hated, but that still doesn't mean it's good.
I'm not familiar with the source material, which might be why I don't find this to be quite the disaster some say it is... but it's still very much not good. I think it starts off okay, and it's kind of easy to see where it could go or how it maybe could work, but it keeps introducing new characters, plot threads, and ideas.
At a point, it all becomes overstuffed and unwieldy, and it's awkward how certain people are forgotten about for a while before stumbling back into the film, and you kind of forget they were even there in the first place. It's just too much in too little time, and some of the lead performances are quite bad.
I also really disliked the ending, and was mixed on the various De Palma-isms that appear throughout the film. Some of his choices worked, and some felt distracting and inappropriate for this kind of film.
I think Bonfire of the Vanities was fairly bad. I don't think it was disastrously bad, and history maybe supports that, given it didn't seem to kill too many careers outright. But it's certainly not good, and oftentimes feels like a waste of the talent involved.
La diagonale du fou (1984)
no.
Hey, I'm sure there's a way to make chess somewhat exciting in a movie, but this approach ain't it.
Dangerous Moves won an Oscar for best foreign film and has an impressive cast, but it was strangely kind of a bore to watch; even enough to feel like it was a bit of a challenge to finish. There's two people who are rivals and they play chess and there are good actors and they are kind of wasted. That's all there is and now I'm sleepy.
I guess there's a level of basic competency on offer in Dangerous Moves, but that's not enough to make it good, or even passable. It's more of a Dangerous Snooze, really.
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
One of Adam Sandler's very best performances.
If I were to rank Paul Thomas Anderson's movies, I think Punch-Drunk Love would be somewhere around the middle. I love his epics the most, and tend to gravitate towards those films of his that have lots of intersecting characters (Boogie Nights, Magnolia, Licorice Pizza kind of, and even Inherent Vice). Consequently, I think I like his more character-focused films less than most people (The Master, There Will Be Blood, and Phantom Thread... they're all good and fantastically acted, but they've never done as much for me).
Of his "focus on one character" type of movies - for lack of a better term - I think Punch-Drunk Love is my favorite. It has the sort of style and energy of Boogie Nights and Magnolia at points, but is perhaps a little less showy, and does seem to foreshadow where Anderson would go with 2007's There Will Be Blood and 2012's The Master; both also character studies, but certainly drearier, less flashy, and much slower ones.
It's also neat rewatching Punch-Drunk Love in a post-Uncut Gems world and realizing how similar they are. Adam Sandler was born to play anxious, funny, kinda disturbed, and very unlucky characters like this, and I remember this movie completely changing my perception of him as an actor when I first saw it. He's not often in great movies, but when he is, his performances are incredible. Philip Seymour Hoffman is also awesome in this, making every second of screen time count (he's probably only on screen for about five minutes in total).
I like the way it looks and feels, and it's uncomfortable, funny, and odd. I don't know if it all comes together well, and the ending leaves me feeling kind of bewildered, but it's a worthy watch for the tense humor, the great lead performance by Sandler, and the visuals throughout.
Lola rennt (1998)
Adrenaline
This was the first film shown at an odd - but also oddly fitting - double feature tonight: Run Lola Run followed by Punch-Drunk Love. I guess the most obvious connection is that both are very intense and kind of chaotic, and came out within a few years of each other. Both also contain a good deal of running and people talking on phones, though Run Lola Run has more of the former (obviously), and Punch-Drunk Love has more of the latter.
I think Run Lola Run mostly deserves its cult status. It's got a dynamite premise, following one woman desperately having to get a large amount of cash in only a short amount of time, with the same scenario playing out several times with dramatically different results. There are some odd creative choices along the way, like flash-forwards to demonstrate butterfly effect-type situations with background characters (it's not always clear why certain interactions affect their futures in certain ways), and Lola screaming and shattering glass.
I think she also turns into Jesus towards the end or something? The music gets all Peter Gabriel/Last Temptation of Christ-y, she performs a "miracle" at a casino, and then seems to heal someone with her touch alone. They're definitely going for something there, but it makes more sense than the flash-forwards with random people and the screaming, to be honest.
And I guess the film tips you off about it being offbeat and maybe philosophical early on, with a fairly strange opening scene that might contextualize much of the film, or could be there just to get it above 80 minutes in runtime. Anyway, weird bits aside, the central premise is well-executed here, the film's stylish, I loved the use of music, and it's never boring to watch. It's a very good film that, with some tweaking, maybe could've been a great one, but at the end of the day, it also feels a bit silly to complain that something is "merely" very good.
Tsuma wa kokuhaku suru (1961)
A fairly underrated courtroom drama.
It's interesting watching this while Anatomy of a Fall is still fairly fresh in my memory, because the premises are very similar, but both it and A Wife Confesses end up being very different in the end. A Wife Confesses is snappier and shorter, perhaps in a way that makes the courtroom stuff actually feel a little anticlimactic, by the time the final act comes around.
But at the same time, I don't think this courtroom drama is always interested in the courtroom stuff, and that's okay. Outside said courtroom, A Wife Confesses can feel a little melodramatic, but it's pretty tight at 90 minutes long, and the acting is good throughout. I think most of it holds up fairly well, and while it's not my favorite out of the Yasuzô Masumura-directed films I've seen so far, it's definitely not my least favorite either.
Akitsu onsen (1962)
A technically strong but eventually dreary romantic drama.
Yoshishige Yoshida's most celebrated movies tend to be his super dense and hard-to-approach ones, with Akitsu Hot Springs - for at least some of its runtime - making the case that Yoshida was genuinely just as well-suited to making more conventional films.
This starts off strong, and I'd say at least the first hour or so is very good, taking place after the Second World War and revolving around a dramatic romance/affair between two people, and the consequences that come about from it.
But it lost me a little during its second hour, kind of drifting around and repeating itself a bit too much... and not really in the sort of artistic way Yoshida did in full art-house mode; it just feels a bit like the people behind this got lost at a point, and sort of just shuffled along toward an ending of some sort.
It's half a good movie followed by half a pretty meandering movie. Perhaps a little disappointing as a whole, but I was on board with it for a while at least before I kind of felt worn out by the whole thing.
The L-Shaped Room (1962)
Good for its time.
The L-Shaped Room was a bit slow for my liking, but I respect the film in some ways. For its time, this is pretty open about certain things and emotionally honest in a way that's admirable. Very little of it feels melodramatic, and as far as capturing a kind of reality goes, it works. Of course, reality can be boring, but that's what it feels like the intent is, so it's hard to complain too much.
The other thing working in The L-Shaped Room's favor is Leslie Caron's central performance, which might be the best dramatic turn from her I've seen. I associate her more with comedies and musicals, so this film shows her range.
It's overlong and slow-going, but it has those positive things going for it and was surely bold for its time, so for that, it's got to be considered at least pretty good.
Tiptoes (2002)
what in tarnation
There's just something unsettling and off about how Tiptoes feels from front to back. I don't think it was supposed to feel like a fever dream, but it does, with everything feeling messy and just off.
The final half-hour is particularly strange, and I'm guessing is the section of the film that was most impacted by a 2.5-hour cut getting trimmed down to 90 minutes. There are so many fades to black that weren't really used earlier in the film, and some scenes feel like they're missing.
The ending is also amazingly abrupt, and will be the thing I remember about Tiptoes the most (besides Gary Oldman walking around on his knees; there's one glorious shot where you can see the parts of his legs he's not using for a split-second and it's hilarious).
If you're curious about a trainwreck of a movie, there are other bad movies that are technically more boring than Tiptoes. But it's still only partly recommendable, even for those seeking out trash. I imagine the director's cut would be like a 4/10 instead of a 1/10 or a 2/10; perhaps slightly more competent, but at what cost? 60 extra minutes that might well make it feel even more boring for long stretches.
What an oddity. Avoid or watch it, I don't know. I don't care.
Alien vs. Ninja (2010)
Stupid and sometimes fun.
I've never seen an Alien vs. Predator movie, but I can now say I've seen the (probably superior) Alien vs. Ninja.
This still isn't great, but for a movie called Alien vs. Ninja, it could've been much worse. The biggest criticism I have is that it felt a bit like it was trying to be a Ryûhei Kitamura film (what with the crazy blend of genres and goofy action scenes and all), but didn't have the same magic his stuff has. This is no Final Wars, Versus, or Azumi, even if some of its more gonzo moments suggests it kind of wants to scratch the same itch those films do.
The schlock in this film is sometimes charming though, making it better than anything the Asylum farts out. It's one-note as a movie, and all the action/alien scenes do start to feel repetitive, even with the runtime just being 80 minutes.
But it's the sort of movie that made for perfectly mindless weekend viewing, and I had a decent amount of fun with Alien vs. Ninja, flaws and all.