It's A New Year and a New Movie/Show/Series/Whatever You Watched Rating Thread! Let the exclamation points abound!!!

[RodeoSchro]

SUCCESSION - EPISODE 1, PART TWO

While all this stick-and-ball sporting travesty is taking place, the whizroy Asshole Son gets a call about that big deal he'd been trying to close. I'll say this for the whizroy Asshole Son, he won't take "No" for an answer. Or give it as an answer either, especially if you'd offered him cocaine a few years back. Apparently.

After a couple of rebuffs from the young whizroy whose electronic media company this whizroy Asshole Son had been trying to buy, he finally makes a deal. He'd been offering $115 a share or so but ended up paying $140 a share, which turned out to be more than a $billion. I can do maths and that means the whizroy Asshole Son increased his original offer by about $217,000,000

You don't see the actual handshaking agreement here - all you see is these two whizroys in the boardroom, where the selling whizroy says, "Did you hear the news?"

"We got a deal!" says the whizroy Asshole Son. "You're going to be so glad you took my offer. Welcome to the company!"

The selling whizroy says, "Yes, we did make a deal but that's not the news. The news is that your dad had a brain hemorrhage".

How THAT guy got the news before the Chief Asshole's Son got it will forever remain a mystery.

So the whizroy Asshole Son departs for the hospital but not before the selling whizroy gives him one final bit of news which is, "Now that I'm in your company and your Chief Asshole daddy isn't around to protect you, I'm going to take you apart piece by piece". Ouch. But the whizroy Asshole Son pretty much deserved that, as he'd been a real asshole to the selling whizroy during their "negotiations".

All the Assholes meet at the hospital but the Chief Asshole's longtime attorney and closest friend isn't there on account of him being fired by the Chief Asshole at The Game, presumably because the attorney could not swing the bat like RodeoSchro can. Rather than contact me for hitting lessons, it looks like the attorney is mad enough to go after the Chief Asshole and all the other Assholes, and something tells me he knows where all the bodies are buried.

The other Asshole Kids had been smart enough to not sign the family trust agreement amendment without reading it first, so that's hanging in the air.

As you can see, this whole thing is so stupid that I'm left with only one real choice:

Keep watching it!

At least until I can't take the stupidity any more. But as we all know, I can take a LOT of stupidity in my filmed entertainment!

 

[Dancelot]

The Silence Of The Lambs (1991)

maybe this was rewatch number 6,379 but whenever I stumble over it when it's on TV, it is almost impossible to switch off or change the channel. like yesterday for example
what to say? just a perfect movie

9/10

 

[RodeoSchro]

GHOSTED
April 27, 2023

Ghosted. Toasted. Roasted. Coasted.

All these apply.

Man, this thing is terrible. You know what it is? Hopefully not, because hopefully you haven't watched it. But I have - I gladly take the bullets for you! - so I will tell you what this is.

It's a Hallmark movie that tries to be an action movie.

Seriously - the production values on this are straight out of the Hallmark studio. And so is most of the script. I can only assume that the delightful Ana de Armas took this role before she got nominated for an Academy Award and...HOLD THE PHONE. STOP THE PRESSES. HOLD MY BEER.

I love my job, even though none of y'all pay me for it. That's OK, I don't want your money. I mean it when I say I'd do the job for free, because I do. One reason why is the excuse I get to go down rabbit holes. And boyohboy is there an awesome rabbit hole here!

First - the role that de Armas plays was originally cast to none other than Scarlett Johansson. She isn't known for taking stupid movie parts; quite the opposite in fact. That means that somewhere down the line, some people applied a large coat of Stupid to the script and/or the directing process. My guess is that Johansson saw it coming and peaced out. (I love the term "peaced out". Peace, out!). de Armas, being from Cuba and then Spain may not have been as familiar as Johannson with the tepid Hallmark style of moviemaking that this became, just didn't know any better, and took the role. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

But the rabbit hole is around de Armas herself; specifically, her love life. And really, only around one part of it. But first know that she dated Ben Affleck for awhile and he's generally an OK guy. Even his exes say so. But he and de Armas didn't last, so who did she move on to?

The vice president of Tinder.

TINDER.

Look, I may be old and etc. but I do know what Tinder is. And she's dating one of the dudes that runs it?!? Can she possibly believe that he's...ummmm....wellll....how do I put this....clean?

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Let me say that again:

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Now that you know this, what else about the movie do you really need to know? As cute as de Armas is - and kudos to whoever did her lips - you won't be able to look at her without thinking EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Sorry, but you know I'm right.

Let me see if I can get past all the EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWs

and review this thing because there are things I'd planned to say - funny things! - before I found out about the EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

 

[RodeoSchro]

GHOSTED - PART TWO
I promise it will be free of any
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWs

When I sat down in the palatial office from which I create and dispense all this high-octane content, I'd planned to pan the movie, so let's keep part two to that.

"Ghosted" starts off with de Armas driving back from the Virginia countryside on some sort of outdoors-y adventure and she gets a call from a psychiatrist. It seems that one of de Armas' friends/co-workers recently died and it would only be normal for de Armas to have feelings about this.

She doesn't.

Meanwhile, some dude named Chris Evans is running his Hallmark-ready vegan produce shop, which while seeming to be in the blissful small town of Hallmark, USA, is actually right down the street from the Capitol of the United States of America. I thought he was the the Chris guy that played Captain America and I was right. But he had something else going for him, I guess, and that's that he looks a little like Ben Affleck. In fact, he wears the same jacket Affleck wore in five or six of his films. Coincidence?!?

de Armas shows up and wants to buy a plant, since in her line of work she cannot have any friends. Seriously - her only friend just got killed and as we find out later, de Armas killed her. I'm sure that just like Judge Smalls, she didn't want to kill her but felt she owed it to her. Sadly, "Caddyshack" this ain't".

Evans' mart neighbor had gone to her van to get high (Hallmark is getting edgy!) so Evans was in charge of the plant store. de Armas buys a plant that she can't possibly keep watered on account of her job that requires incessant travelling, so Evans stalks her and gives her a cactus. They don't need any water at all!

This transforms into a coffee date which transforms into an art gallery date which transforms into boinking.

Evans goes back to the family farm, which is AWESOME. Clearly it's located in the lush Virginia countryside not too far from Washington, D. C., so clearly it's worth $millions. And probably some more $millions. Naturally then, Evans drives a 1976 Chevy Blazer, so as not to give away the amount of richness this guy's family obviously has. There is no doubt that selling a few rutabagas at the Washington, D.C. Hippie Vegan Mart is not the main focus of this farm's business.

His straight-out-of-Hallmark-Central-Casting family gives him the business when he says he's met "the one". Dad says SEIZE THE DAY! Mom says I'VE ALWAYS WANTED ANOTHER WOMAN AROUND HERE! And the plucky younger sister says YOU'RE WAY TOO NEEDY AND YOU'RE GOING TO MESS THIS UP LIKE EVERY OTHER RELATIONSHIP YOU'VE HAD! If the plucky younger sister wasn't so obnoxious, I'd have rooted for her.

Evans had coincidentally left his inhaler in de Armas' purse and fortunately it had a tracker on it, so Evans fires up the tracking program and lo and behold - de Armas is in London. GO GET HER says dad. YEAH, GO GET HER say mom. YOU KNOW YOU'VE TEXTED HER 11 TIMES TODAY AND SHE HASN'T ANSWERED YOU, SO YOU'VE BEEN GHOSTED, RIGHT? LEAVE HER ALONE! says the plucky younger sister.

Evans goes with the two-to-one vote and heads to London.

From there, it just gets worse. Much, much worse. Evans shows up in a trap set for de Armas, as she is a well-known CIA killer and all the bad guys in the world want her dead. No one actually knows who she is, or even that she is a she, so being misogynists they've assigned the name of "The Tax Man" to her. This give various bad guys the chance to sing The Beatles' "Tax Man" badly throughout this poor excuse for a movie.

Thinking he's The Tax Man, some bad guys led by Adrian Brody - another top-notch actor who had to have been fooled/blackmailed into taking this part - kidnap Evans, take him to Pakistan, and are just about to start torturing him when the real Tax Man shows up and kills all the bad guys.

Although de Armas has saved Evans' life, we are now going to be subjected to one-and-a-half hours of "You're an assassin?!? You kill people!!!" which is responded to with "I can't BELIEVE you!" That's basically the "chemistry" between these two.

A lot of really, really, really stupid stuff happens and you won't believe a single second of it. It's so stupid that it's far beyond my Acceptable, Nay Desired Level Of Movie Stupidity and I'm simply not going to waste your time and mine breaking down all the stupidity contained therein.

You know how this ends. de Armas and Evans save the world, go back to the farm for some Hallmark-Family-Quality-Bonding, and then Evans and de Armas go on a "business trip" (he never tells his family that de Armas isn't really an art dealer) which includes an arms dealer gagged and tied up in the drunk of de Armas' Bentley. Laughs all around!

I hope that: (A) I've ruined "Ghosted" for you and prevented you from ever wasting two hours on it, but haven't (B) completely ruined de Armas, who is very cute but guilty of what seems like some shady personal boyfriend stuff.

Which means that "Ghosted" must be rated, and can only be rated, as:

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

(That was the last one, promise!)

 

[RodeoSchro]

GUNS OF EDEN
April 29, 2023

The other day I went to get a car inspected. The man at the inspection station - who was probably mid-50's, pretty overweight, dressed in grease-covered overalls, or in other words just your typical good old trustworthy mechanic - asked me if I was going to the local film festival.

"I didn't even know there WAS a local film festival. Tell me more!"

He said that not only was there a local film festival but that he was getting two awards that night at the big Local Film Festival Party. Say what?!? Yes - he submitted not one but TWO scripts and each was selected for an award.

Awesome!

The results aren't posted online yet so I can't give you more information (there were 11 different screenplay categories and I have no idea which one{s} he was in) but if I get the info, I'll add it to this post.

You know who didn't win an award?

Gregory Lamberson, the dude behind "Guns of Eden".

Apparently Lamberson is pretty good at horror movies; in fact, he's got one called "Johnny Gruesome" that I want to see based on its name alone. But it also has an 86% rating on Rotten Tomatoes so expect to see a "Johnny Gruesome" review soon, if I can remember to watch it.

Back to "Guns of Eden". What if I told you that there was a movie about some cops who have a tragic accident, grab a couple friends for a camping outing, and stumble upon some corrupt cops executing a drug dealer and stealing their dope/money, which causes the protagonists to have to shoot their way out of the woods?

You'd say "Awesome!" which is what I said. But then you'd realize that the characters are caricatures; the plot is poop; and the alliteration here is astounding. But let's focus on the poop, shall we? That's what we're famous for!

The corrupt cops are led by the corrupt sheriff, a guy named/called Preacher. He's actually the leader of a militia whose aim is basically to kill anyone who doesn't believe the same far-right junk they believe. Mainly, drug dealers - four of whom they creep up on at the drug dealer's hidden-in-the-woods meth lab. They kill three of the drug dealers and make the fourth dig his and his buddies' graves. This drug dealer, unlike everyone else in the movie, is a pretty good actor that can deliver his lines in a believable way.

And believably, he says, "I'm not digging my own grave. How about you let me leave and I tell you where all my money is?" This deal is rejected, resulting in a bullet or twelve to the head and body of said drug dealer.

However, two Buffalo, NY cops just happen to witness this, as they are on a camping trip designed to help female cop Megan get over her accidentally shooting another cop during a convenience store robbery they were both trying to stop. This naturally bums out Megan to the point of wanting to quit being a cop, but her partner gets her and two civilians to go camping and this is what they find.

The hunt is on, led by Preacher who is some dude that really HAS to get a vocal coach to help tamp down his Grade A Chicago accent. Every time he spoke, I expected a "Saturday Night Live" episode featuring a Superfans skit to pop up:


After Megan offs a few corrupt cops, Preacher sounds the air raid siren or, as Megan's partner describes it, "a call to arms". Who's called to arms?

About twenty of the reddest rednecking rednecks to ever redneck in northern New York. And they're broken up into groups, like in "The Warriors". We have The Toothless Gumbos; The Lesbians; The Family Whose Tree Does Not Fork; etc.

They fare about as well as you might expect, although they do successfully kill everyone but Megan.

Megan, however, has more success. She kills everyone except Preacher, who she's going to take back to "stand charges". But as she is walking him out at gunpoint, guess what she hears?

Another air raid siren.

The end!

I guess that was either to set up a sequel (please don't) or take the air out of some B-level blood-letting. Don't know, don't care.

"Guns of Eden" tries hard and I give it credit for trying hard in the best way - to be cleverly stupid, like "Alien Opponent". But it's just not clever enough. These people needed to laugh at themselves a little, which would have helped achieve the objective. But they took their ludicrousness far too seriously.

So for being too serious about being stupid, I can only give "Guns of Eden" 1.5 Eye-Poking-Out Key Chains out of 5 Eye-Poking-Out Key Chains. I am, however, going off to watch "Johnny Gruesome" while trying to figure out what my mechanic won his awards for!

 

[Dancelot]

OLD (2021)


Directed by M. Night Shyamalan so we thought, well this will certainly not be another “Sixth Sense” but still will make up for nice entertainment, like most of his movies, some better some not that great, still most worth a watch at least, if only to see the final twist..

This one however is the worst of the worst of the worst Shyamalan flicks I’ve seen so far. Don’t waste your time.

The story in short, people from a holiday resort get to a hidden beach on this island, where they find dead corpses and it turns out something happens with the aging of everyone, all the kids growing up at high speed and stuff, all can be seen in the trailer already. But the story stretches way too long, includes absurd actions by the protagonists, boring or irrelevant dialogue, and it just drags on an on and on and on…. So I shout out loudly hoping Shyamalan would hear me “Stop this, give us your mega-end-twist already”. But nope. There was no real twist. Just a background resolution/explanation which was just well…. which was just there, but neither expected nor unexpected, neither surprising nor engaging, just plain lazy. cause they had to close out somehow I guess… Boring and mostly illogical.

Spoiler: end twist revealed

biggest nonsense is the whole setup, the baddies invest millions and also kill random people for the greater good, for fast medical progress and finding cures for all possible diseases by speeding up the experimental phase…. First problem, a useful medical experiment has to include thousands of people if you want to learn anything from it, not just a handful of people or single individuals. Second problem, when you want learn about the efficiency and details on how a medicine worked, then it is essential to examine the bodies with autopsy and add all kind of testing… but not just take few fotos or videos from half a mile away?!?!? What are you supposed to learn from that for fuck sake? BOLLOCKS

This could probably be remodeled into a 30 minute episode of Twilight Zone or Amazing Stories, but for two hours this simply did not work.
Bad script, bad direction, bad ending, bad film.


2 out of 10

 

[RodeoSchro]

^ Worse than "The Village"?!? That's saying something!

 

[Dancelot]

^ Worse than "The Village"?!? That's saying something!

The Village I found kinda okay at least, better than Signs, but yeah the "Twist" was meeeeh... but the whole atmosphere the setup the coloring the cinematography and also the "monsters" during the first two thirds of the film that was fine for me on the first watch... oh and it had Bryce Dallas Howard in it

 

[Dancelot]

Daisy Jones & The Six (2023 on Amazon Prime)


Oh yeah, I liked that, and so did Mrs. Dancelot

Loosely inspired by the story of Fleetwood Mac this takes a few elements, bits and pieces from real life and actual persons and biographies, re-shuffles and rearranges them with new story lines to create a fully fictional band biography.
The band at the height of their career split, and here we get the road to that point starting from the early beginnings.

It builds up slowly, the final episode when everything comes together that was really the highlight for me and this gets all the stars, but it takes a while to get there. But I found myself caring for all of the people, very engaging, mostly in a sad way, but also…
and I was actually almost sad the fictional band broke up and didn't do more fictional albums... and what could have been... wtf? Loved it.

Unlike in a two hours movie, over 10 episodes they really can take their time to build the characters and arcs, layer by layer, nothing rushed, so we can get warm not only with the main characters but also with the other band members and the circle around the band. The main focus yet remains around Bill and Daisy, cat and dog who can’t get along at all, but immediately realize how well they blend on musical and artistic level. The chemistry when creating songs and music was pictured very convincing and believable.

The actors were mostly all great, but it was primarily a showcase for the main staff Riley Keough (eldest child of Lisa Marie Presley) Sam Claflin and the wonderful Camila Morrone

The Pistols series was a notch better and slightly more fun and entertaining, but mainly because that was real, and this is about a fictional band.
7.5 out of 10


oh, and their only - and fully fictional - album is even available on Spotify and even on glorious Vinyl.. I am actually tempted to....

 

[RodeoSchro]

MURDER MYSTERY 2
May 7, 2023

Good gosh, there was a Murder Mystery 1?!? Lord, help us all!

Can I go off on Adam Sandler? I can? Good!

WTF?!? How in the name of Sam Hill did this guy ever make it so big?

He was semi-funny on "Saturday Night Live", playing a collection of various idiots. Then he played a collection of various idiots in some semi-funny movies, like "Waterboy" and "Happy Madison". But what did he ever do to warrant a 2,410-movie deal with Netflix, and how did Netflix not know that 2,409 of them would suck?

(NOTE: I heard the one where he plays a jeweler didn't suck but there's no way in hell I'm ever going to watch it. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt because that's just the kind of Certified Movie Reviewer I am.)

I knew. I knew. Back in the late 90's, Hey, Adam Sandler, I bought your CD "They're All Going To Laugh At You". No. No, they won't. In fact, you were so unfunny and incredibly disgusting that some of us would eject your CD and throw it onto the highway, hoping it would be run over by a series of 18-wheelers, thereby reducing your collection of simply nasty-for-the-sake-of-being-nasty unfunny bits to dust.

At least, that's what I did.

But I gave Sandler another chance with "Click". Mistake. HUGE mistake. I hated that movie with a passion, and you should, too.

I successfully avoided any and all Adam Sandler productions until last night. I blame this on laziness. as my Favorite Mother-In-Law had requested a movie; I saw one with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston, and I thought "How bad can it be?"

IT CAN BE VERY BAD. AND IT IS. VERY BAD.

Look - I am The King Of Stupid. But being stupid in the right way takes a whole lot of brains.

Zombies got to this movie before it was released because it doesn't have any brains.

What would be the use in reviewing it? Is there anything you should know? Since you should never, ever watch this then no - there is nothing you should know. So I'm not going to tell you anything.

AVOID. 0 Elephants out of Oh, That Poor Elephant.

 

[Dancelot]

boahh honestly, I think I've never even seen an Adam Sandler movie

okay, he was in "Pixels", wasn't he? but that does not count as a proper movie really, does it?

 

[RodeoSchro]

GROWN UPS / GROWN UPS 2
May 13 - 14, 2023

"Grown Ups" is actually pretty good. Interesting characters, funny cast, mostly semi-believable. I'd seen it before but my Favorite Mother-In-Law wanted to watch a movie, it was the middle of the day, and this is what was on.

The next day, "Grown Ups 2" came on so I figured, "What the heck?"

Unfortunately, there was plenty of heck. And by "heck", I mean crap.

But I almost...almost...escaped all the crap. For some weird reason, the TV outside (it was a nice day) was broadcasting the Freeform channel in Spanish. We didn't have SAP on; no other channel was being broadcast in Spanish; I couldn't understand a word.

If I'd just left it like that, "Grown Ups 2" would have been much better. You see, actually understanding the dialogue and knowing what's happening is a major mistake when it comes to this movie.

However, I was too smart by half and we went inside to watch the movie in English. Again, big mistake.

"2" is simply trash. It was nothing more than a cash grab for every single person in it, including Stone Cold Steve Austin.

Think of a cliche and "2" has it. I'm not going to list all the cliches, just know that every single bad cliche that exists is in this movie. Even having a song written about her by Prince can't remove the stink Salma Hayek now has attached to her via being in this movie. In fact, Chris Rock has to give back all his Prince cred on account of: (a) being in this movie; and (b) dressing up like "Purple Rain" Prince for the worst 80's-themed party in the history of 80's-themed parties. It's so bad that I can't listen to the J. Geils Band any more (Adam Sandler hired them to play his horrible party. I hope you got enough cash to last you, Peter Wolf).

I'm going to be nice and give "Grown Ups" a 3 Farts out of 5 Farts rating (farts are a big thing in this franchise).

I'm going to be mean and give "2" a 0 Squashed Squirrel With Its Guts Splayed Out All Over The Road out of 5 Squashed Squirrels With Their Guts Splayed Out All Over The Road because "2" is not as attractive as a Squashed Squirrel With Its Guts Splayed Out All Over The Road.

 

[Dancelot]

The Handmaid’s Tale (Season 1)

We heard some good things about it, got recommendations, so me and Mrs. Dancelot checked this out, and we actually completed the ten episodes of season 1 within three days.

And indeed, this was great. This is set in a dystopian near future (or rather in present time in an alternate timeline?) where after a military coup a totalitarian regime has taken over the USA.

And the scenery and atmosphere are truly dense, frightening, grabbing, depressing, dark, twisted. The writing and also the actors (especially the lead character) are outstanding, many things don’t need to be said with words but just come together by the smallest of expressions, mimic or other details. The audience really gets trapped inside this setting. This is not your wild, flashy Disney type action packed rollercoaster ride like The Hunger Games or most other dystopian settings in movies or TV. This is another level. Based on a book from 1985 this still fully fits (or was brought) into a current context.

Lots of time jumping and flashbacks (we even get flashbacks within a flashback) are used to lay out the full story, the past, the background of events and characters, many bits and pieces slowly coming together to form a bigger picture, very well crafted. At frst this can be a bit confusing, but once you get used to it, it works great, it is their way of world building, and I’m all in.

Not sure about the final rating, but for now I’ll give this at least 8 out of 10.


Will watch Season 2 soon.

 

[Dancelot]

Update: The Handmaid’s Tale


Dammit, is that possible? Ofdancelot and me are now seven more episodes into Season 2 and I already have to upgrade my rating to a 9/10. This series is really something else!

The writing is just perfect. I can’t rave enough about this.

This continues directly after the cliffhanger of Season 1 and already the first few minutes build one of the most intense, brutal, frightening and shocking scenes ever shown on TV. The optics, but also the excellent sound editing, the use of music again (Kate Bush) this was so awesome I can hardly put it into words.

Spoiler: Spoilers for Season 2

The (staged) hanging scene is so brutally grabbing and really pulls you inside like you are there for yourself. Of course, as a TV audience I am well aware, that the main character (and her friends) will certainly not die just a few minutes into the new season.... But logical thinking from the outside perspective was completely forgotten at this point. I really felt standing on those gallows like being one of the maids myself, that this is the end, we will die, as a forgotten footnote to that terrorist regime, and nothing can be done about it anymore. Intense! Brutal!

(sidenote: I’m also gonna download more Kate Bush music after seeing/hearing this, just wonderful, she deserves major credit for that scene and also the person who selected the track)

This feeling of being inside the story and not just watching from the outside, is there basically all of the time, it is hard to single out fave scenes. But for example when Emily has to part ways on the airport with her wife and son cause of missing visa, so heartbreaking, and the actress just outstanding. Or when June hides in the empty Boston Globe building for a few weeks, and starts to collect photos and personal objects of the murdered staff to install a commemorate wall with candles on the place of the lynching. So unexpected, so sad, so beautiful.

In this series the simplest things can get to you so deeply, out of the blue, like the maids in the grocery store suddenly exchanging their real names.
The main character development and the relations between them is multi-layered and full of surprises. Like yesterday this took a wild unexpected turn at the end of Ep7 the in-season “ballpoint cliffhanger” if you want. I just have a basic idea in which direction this is heading but no clue about the details and surprises this will bring, but this little click certainly opens a new unexpected door for future developments. This ending scene was a masterclass in movie making, almost without words and no overloaded dialogue. The interaction between the two characters was once again outstanding, and they manage to levitate a simple click on the upper side of the ballpoint pen and the seconds before that lead to it, into this stellar TV moment. Most likely a pivotal scene to the story that lies ahead of us. Iconic. Breathtaking.

Wohooo!!!
I hope they can keep up the pace, but so far this is one of the best series I have enjoyed in a very long time.

 

[RodeoSchro]

THE ART OF THE STEAL
May 28, 2023

I know what you're thinking and no, this is not about the 2020 election. Nor is it about the move of the greatest collection of post-Impressionist art to Philadelphia from Merion, PA. By the way, this collection was valued at $25,000,000,000 - in 2009. Seriously - WTF? Did one person own a collection worth more than the entire GDP of a small country?

Yes, Dr. Albert C. Barnes did! The dude started buying art in 1912 and man, did he own EVERYTHING. But that's another story.

THIS story is about Kurt Russell and his band of merry crooks, who are out to steal some art of their own while trying to screw each other out of everything. Sort of, anyway.

Kurt plays the wonderfully-named Crunch Calhoun, who's just getting out of a Polish prison when we meet him. You see, Crunch was a get-away driver by trade but when a heist went bad, his buddy Matt Dillon ratted on him in return for not going to a Polish prison himself. Crunch understood the rationale, seeing as how he had no record but Dillon did and therefore, the sentence handed down to Crunch as a first-offender would be less than what Dillon would get.

Still PO'ed Crunch though.

So Crunch starts a new life as a motorcycle daredevil. Specifically, a motorcycle crasher. He's booked to jump over cars or through rings of fire but he's paid to crash. Which he does pretty much every time. Broken bones get kind of painful so he tells an old acquaintance that he's ready to "work" again.

This results in getting the band back together in order to steal the Guttenberg Bible or something like that but basically what we find out is that it was all a scam and everyone except Matt Dillon was in on it. So of course, the gang gets the money and Dillon finally gets sent to jail.

This is good, summer turn-your-brain-off fare and even though I just ruined it for you, you're going to forget that if you watch it because you'll be very happy to see Kurt Russell doing what he does best, which is cracking wise and being cool. And I can prove it -

POP QUIZ! Who gets screwed in this movie?

See - you don't remember even though I just told you.

So dial it up and pop open your favorite beverage, adult or otherwise, while I go learn some more about this $25,000,000,000 art collection.

"Art of the Steal" gets 3.5 Ryan Bingham Bourbons Neat out of 5 Ryan Bingham Bourbons neat. Did I mention I like to drink Bingham Bourbon neat?

 

[RodeoSchro]

BOOK CLUB: THE NEXT CHAPTER
May 30, 2023

You may remember this - I can't blame you if you don't, heck I barely did - but I invited a Guest Reviewer to give us her slant on "Book Club" way back in 2020 or something. I don't remember the year but I do remember the Guest Reviewer! Our friend Eunice Halberstam joined us and gave us this sterling review of "Book Club":

Oh hello there, my name is Eunice Halberstam and I’m an old friend of Mr. RodeoSchro although he never calls me “Eunice”, for some reason he calls me The Bad Conversationalist, which I think is not nice but Mr. RodeoSchro is generally a nice guy so I let him get away with it, even though he thinks I drink too much peach schnapps while never admitting how much of that fancy Pinot Noir he drinks, or for that matter the copious amounts of that horrid brown whiskey he and my husband Horace like to drink when they watch college football and continually scream something that sounds like “Hottie Potty” which makes absolutely no sense and that reminds me of a movie that Mr. RodeoSchro recently asked me to watch and then tell him what I thought so I said, “Sure!” and I watched a horrid movie called “Book Club”, which I could never have gotten through if not for the other members of the Koffee Klatch that I invited over to help me watch this, because I know that Mr. RodeoSchro’s idea of a good movie usually is not the same as my idea of a good movie and that meant having the girls come over and making sure we had enough peach schnapps on hand, because this movie is about S-E-X and S-E-X is not something refined ladies like us Koffee Klatchers talk about, unless of course we have a little too much peach schnapps, which I think we did, because all us Koffee Klatchers immediately left my house after the movie was over and went to our local Barnes and Noble and bought five copies of “50 Shades of Grey” and came back to my house, drank more peach schnapps, and read the entire book aloud to each other and I have to tell you, S-E-X is on every page of that book, and when you combine S-E-X and peach schnapps, well we learned in Home Ec that’s how babies get made so I just want to warn the hospitals in the Greater Tri-County Area that nine months from now there just might be a rash of babies getting born, if you know what I mean and I think you do.

Our husbands never knew what hit them.

In fact, that WAS from 2020 - April the 11th. Well, it's been three long years so I thought I'd ask Eunice - also known around the internet as The Bad Conversationalist - to reprise her role as a Guest Reviewer and she said yes! So without any further ado, here is Eunice Halberstam and her take on "Book Club: The Next Chapter"!

Well thank you Mr. RodeoSchro and even though I still don't have a clue what your stupid name means, I am grateful that you've given me the chance to review this delightful movie and in fact, my whole Koffee Klatch watched it with me so there's a chance some of them might try to chime in during this review but I don't like sharing the spotlight or the World Wide Web if you will because there's only so much Internets these dial-up modems can handle and I think I'm all the Internets anyone needs and if you don't believe me, ask my husband Horace, that is if you can find him because he's spending a lot of time these days down at the lodge, where he says it's just for the attendance credits but that doesn't explain why he comes home most nights smelling like cigars even though I know for a dead-solid fact he doesn't smoke because that Mr. RodeoSchro is sooooo pious about smoking isn't he, well anyway the girls and I poured cups of coffee and maybe added just a pinch or two or twelve of peach schnapps to the pot but after all it was The Day After Memorial Day which isn't a holiday of any kind unless you make it a holiday and I guess the girls and I did make it a holiday and peach schnapps makes every day a holiday so what day isn't a holiday, is what I say and also what the Koffee Klatch girls say now, so we fired up the Netflix account and watched a romp through Italy with four of the sweetest and dearest women you could ever ask for and it'd be great if I remembered any of their names but I don't except wasn't that Murphy Brown and yes, I think it was Murphy Brown and now Betty Lou is whispering to me that Mary Steenburgen was the lady with the great smiley eyes and Betty Lou is right, Mary Steenburgen was in it too and Betty Lou is also right that Mary Steenburgen has the most smiling-est eyes in the history of eyes, in fact I dare you to search the Internets and find a picture where Mary Steenburgen's eyes are not smiling, much less the rest of her face but really, don't waste your time and just trust me on this, Mary Steenburgen's eyes are always smiling and yours will be too if you are 70 years old and are a woman and are drunk on peach schnapps if you watch ummm, wait what was the name of this movie again, I thought I knew but now I'm not so sure.

That was some strong coffee.

 

[RodeoSchro]

FAST X
June 6, 2023

I'll let you know right up front: I'm going to spoil the hell out of this movie. And with maybe one exception, it won't matter a single bit as to whether you enjoy "Fast X" or not.

For the record, I did not.

Why?

It's too over-the-top and it's not a comic book movie. I'll explain.

See, in a comic book movie we all know it's not real. So if a guy can fly, or a monster can transform into a blender, or whatever the hell they do in those 2,379 Marvel movies, then we don't care. We know it's not supposed to reflect any kind of reality at all.

But "Fast X" isn't a comic book movie. It's a car movie. The whole premise of the franchise is cars. So, when you see people do things in cars that you know absolutely cannot actually be done, it's not entertaining.

It's frustrating.

Neither Vin Diesel nor anyone else can run their car up an embankment, bounce off a crane and cause it to spin 180 degrees and take out some bad guys, and then land the car back on the ground in a road-worthy condition.

Neither Vin Diesel nor anyone else can drop their car out of an airplane, get it to land on top of some other cars, bounce off them, and land on the ground in a road-worthy condition.

And etc. And etc. And etc.

You may recall that I gave "Furious 7" five stars out of five stars. The only possible way I could review it was to search for every synonym for "awesome" and incorporate each one in my review. Heck, my review was really nothing more than an exercise to see how many different ways I could describe the movie as awesome.

Even though there was a little no-that-can't-happen stuff in "Furious 7", most of it was within the bounds of believability. I mean, maybe you can jump a supercar from one skyscraper to another? It's possible!

None of the stuff in "Fast X" is possible. None of it. Not even Vin Diesel's kid cutting donuts in the Charger because obviously the kid's legs are too short to reach the gas pedal.

Let's dispense with any pretense of a plot review, because there really is no plot worthy of the word. This is simply a series of explosions and impossible stunts made to fill two and a half loooooong and loooouuuuuuud hours and then to get you to go see the next movie, because at the end - in the credits - we find out The Rock will be in it.

OK, that was the first of many spoilers. Other spoilers and pithy observations include:

* John Cena is Vin Diesel's brother. I don't think that's a spoiler but who knows? I didn't see "Fast and Furious 8" or "Fast and Furious 9" and I'm assuming Cena showed up in one of those

* John Cena dies

* Not before launching out of an airliner with Diesel's son, inside some ridiculous contraption that is a jet plane and, like some people I know, is fueled by alcohol

* Everyone else dies and by "everyone else" I mean Tyrese, Ludacris, Han, and the English girl

* Well, you think they died because Jason Momoa shot down their plane but actually the crash happens behind a mountain so we all know they somehow parachuted out to safety, or possibly dropped safely to the mountainous ground in their cars

* Speaking of Jason Momoa, WTF? It's like they said, "Hey Jason - for this part, we want you to play it as what a life-long Republican from the Midwest thinks a gay guy sounds, dresses and acts like" and Jason said, "Can do, and will do - over the top, sweethearts!!!!!" And then he blew kisses at everyone

* I cannot wait for the next season of "Reacher" because if Alan Ritchson is half as jacked in that as he is in this, all kinds of awesomeness will occur. But you and I know Ritchson will be more jacked in "Reacher"! How jacked is he in this movie? I'm not saying he makes Jason Momoa look small but he does make Momoa look smaller

* Also, Ritchson will be back in the next movie because it turns out he's really a bad guy and is in league with Momoa

* WTF is "the Agency" anyway? I guess it's not the CIA? But it is some quasi-governmental body? Who knows? All I know is that it's stupid, and I cannot believe that after all the Fast and Furious Family has done for America and the world, the president of the United States didn't immediately clear their names after they got blamed for trying to blow up the Vatican when everyone knew it was Jason Momoa

* So is Charlize Theron's character. Stupid, that is. Sorry, I added a couple sentences in the bullet point above. It originally ended with "All I know is that it's stupid" which was a great segue to how this bullet point started but then I went and screwed it up. Hey - one thing about "Fast X" is that it assumes you've watched all the other movies. I haven't. I do not know why everyone hates Charlize Theron, but everyone hates her

* Jason Statham will almost certainly be back in the next movie, unless they forgot he hauled ass out of there in his supercar, looking to avenge something or other. And honestly, if they forget Statham is out there on the rampage, I can understand it. They did him wrong IMHO. No worries - I just saw the trailer for the fourth Expendables movie, which is titled the hard-to-type-and-impossible-to-verbalize "Expend4bles" and it's all about Statham

* I got real tired of every time Diesel beat one of Momoa's escape moves, Momoa would cackle like a bird and say, "I've got one more trick for you!" and then that trick would be something totally unbelievable, such as two helicopters swooping in out of nowhere, shooting grappling hooks into the sides of Diesel's Charger, and then getting pinwheeled when Diesel hit one of his special buttons

* Speaking of which, apparently Diesel's Charger has a Speed Racer "Jomp Jomp" button because Diesel hit a button and jomp-jomped over the retaining wall of the Big Dam allowing him to submarine his special Charger but escape Momoa's final kill shot

I could probably go on for awhile because I did make a big mistake, and that was that I was totally sober when we entered the theater and for some inexplicable reason, I stayed that way all night. Therefore, I remember a lot more about this movie than I want to.

I will not make that mistake when "Expend4bles" hits the theaters! I will get blasted but as we all know, if I get blasted and see an awesome movie then I remember every single detail of the awesomeness. Or even make up some details if I have to.

"Fast X" is going to get a failing grade and that really bums me out. "Furious 7" was such perfection; it;s sad to see a franchise go from that to this in three movies. Oh well.

1.5 Stupid Brazilian Street Races That No One Will Ever Believe Is An Actual Thing out of 10 Stupid Brazilian Street Races That No One Will Ever Believe Is An Actual Thing, and I didn't even get to whoever that girl was in Brazil.

Oh, and I forgot! I am going to give "Fast X" an Addendum Point because the Nissan Girl is in it! And wait - what? She's won an Oscar? Yes, she has!

 

[Adorecream76]

Moonlight 2016

I finally watched this properly and must say it was just beautiful. It showed the effects of deprivation and a hyper masculine culture on a young gay/bi Black man. The acting is superb and the guy who plays the man in the Cafe is superb. The story amde me cry in parts. If you have not seen the movie, I am not giving the plot away - the shooting, the acting and the atmosphere are all very evocative.
It is Chirons' journey to realisation of who and what he is, that is so powerful and yet he never fully actualises it.
Emotional stuff and powerful, there is a good reason it won that grammy, despite the clusterfuck that happened at the ceremony.

10/10

 

[Dancelot]

Some quick reviews, three movies I watched on the airplane board program recently.



I Wanna Dance With Sombody (2022)

Whitney Houston Bipoic from last year, but that was rather disappointing. They put a lot of effort into recreating the optics, classic videos, cloths, hairstyles, concert performances, stage and everything, and that was well done, but character wise this had the heart and soul of a documentary. Just tell the story and that was it.

3.5/10



65 (2023)

Action movie with Adam Driver, but boy that was truly unnecessary.
Boring and predictable, nothing we haven’t seen 1000 times before and certainly better. No surprises or twists of any kind, no engaging characters, hardly any dialogue, basically just two people running away from dinosaurs. And no reason whatsoever to set this in the timeframe 65 million years ago just when an asteroid hits earth to kill of the lizards. Boring.
slight spoiler: Oh, and in the final showdown the little girl kills the giant dino… with a stick in the eye? Really???

1/10



The Fabelmans (2022)

Steven Spielbergs coming of age story, more or less autobiographical telling the story of his childhood, how he (rather Sammy) became interested in movies, camera work, directing, the story of his family sometimes happy sometimes sad, bullying at school, love interests and all that. I liked that!

I mean, out of my 100 favorite movies maybe Spielberg made approximately 110 (okay, I’m exaggerating) but he is the defining director of my lifetime, no questions. And while I may not have seen all of his movies, I have never seen a BAD one, most are great (yes, even 1941!), very great, or outstanding.

Now this was not your action blockbuster for the masses, but it had heart and soul, very personal but still entertaining. So many references, impossible to catch everything, but fun to see where some of his inspirations in his movies came from. 151 minutes but I didn’t feel it was that long, but maybe only because I saw it in two parts (on the first flight and the rest on my flight back) so I wanted it to continue after he finally got his foot into Hollywood. But that’s when it fades out.

Nice one!

7.5/10

 

[RodeoSchro]

PLANE
June 11, 2023

Plain.

There you go, brevity at its finest.

But now for one of my signature, hilarious word salads!

"Plane" is a straight-to-video/streaming movie from Gerard Butler, in which he's trying to become the next Liam Neeson by imitating Neeson's Scottish accent pretty darn well. And I'll be a little more honest - "Plane" is OK. It's not great but if you rent it for $5.99 like we did, you really won't feel bad about your decision.

Butler is a pilot running a little late for his next flight, which is Hong Kong to Tokyo. Then he's either flying the jet or hopping on another flight to get to Hawaii in time to celebrate New Year's Eve with his daughter. "There's nothing that can keep me from making it there on time!" he says which, as anyone who's ever watched any movie ever knows, he ain't gonna make the NYE party.

Complicating matters are: (1) weather, which according to Airline Weather Guy says should be gone by the time Butler's airliner gets to where it is and anyway, there are only 14 passengers on this flight so the company is losing money and therefore isn't going to lose any more by routing Butler the long way around the weather; and (2) a federal marshal that appears to be American shows up with a prisoner and says, "He's a bad man and we're joining you on the flight to Tokyo".

Butler is non-plussed about the whole affair.

Until, that is, that weather that was supposed to be gone isn't, and the jet takes on a direct lightning strike that completely blows out all electronics - things like radar, radio and altimeter. Making it worse, the federal marshal had dropped his very important cell phone and got unbuckled so he could crawl to it. Nope! Stay buckled! And if you don't then I, a female flight attendant, will unbuckle myself and come admonish you. Oops! We just hit incredible turbulence, got thrown around the plane, and now we're both dead!

Without any electronics and with two dead bodies now, Butler calculates that he has 10 minutes of air time before all the bad stuff conspires to remove his plane from the air. So he and the co-pilot scan for land but there is none until - wait! What's that? A deserted island? Nothing but trees?!? Except - hey! A road! Butler declares that he's putting down on the road and he very successfully does! Hooray!

However, take back that Hooray! because the particular island he's been forced to land on is occupied and controlled by terrorists. He doesn't know that but the airline does.

You see, after Butler's plane was lost to communications and didn't make it to Tokyo, the Airline Crisis Team brought in the Airline Crisis Head Honcho - none other than the spectacular Tony Goldwyn! We last saw Tony in "The Mechanic", where he played the ultra-rich leader of The Syndicate or The Agency or The Operation - one of those mean-sounding organizations - and Jason Statham ultimately killed him.

I was thinking about what a great character actor Goldwyn is and it reminded me of my dad's favorite character actor - Clu Gulager.

Have I talked about Clu Gulager before? Something tells me I have but it must have been so long ago that I can't be sure. Let me check previous reviews.

Holy moley! First of all - no. Didn't find any mentions of Clu Gulager. But dang - to begin with I searched through the document that contains almost all of the reviews I did on that other site. It covers reviews from about 2011 through 2019. It's 479 pages long! Then I searched through my 2020 reviews, Part 1. It's 132 pages long! I still need to dump all the rest of the 2021, 2022 and 2023 reviews from here onto a separate document but wow! I bet I'll have 700 or 800 or more pages of pure comedic brilliance.

That's a lot of comedic brilliance!

It's also a great place to end Part 1 or else I'll continue to bloviate on my formidable writing skills, which given the quantity of tripe I've banged out over the last 12 years, is irrefutable. (Stop it, dude!)