Just watched The Thing. Great movie.

I watched the documentary movie “John Candy: I Like Me” and very much enjoyed it.

I’m on a Terminator binge and working my may backwards from worst to best.

• Terminator Salvation
• Terminator Genisys

The only way is up after these two… Simply said both movies had no interesting/exciting characters or story. Some are downright awful.

Ip Man 2: great kung-fu flick with fantastic acting, as expected from Donnie Yen and Sammo Hung. Equally great action. I had already seen Ip Man 4, so it was interesting to see how the film differs in its depiction of racism. It was more subtle and insidious in 4, but the overt hatred in 2 was no less infuriating.

Chainsaw Man - the movie: Reze Arc 4.5/5: Man that’s a mouthful. Beautiful animation, I really appreciate how deliberate each shot was, and even when the animation is “still” it’s purposeful and has detailed changes so it doesn’t feel cheap. You also feel for Denji because even the people screwing him over can see how miserable and unfair his life has been. I’m not sure I’d go far enough to suggest this for non-anime fans but for anime fans it’s worth a watch, even if you don’t see the show

Sonic the Hedgehog 3/5: Sonic 1 walks so Sonic 2 can run, and Sonic 3 can go fast. They were obviously concerned with making their money back on this given the very on the nose product placement. I’m also a sucker for any speedster scene like the bar fight and obviously the apex version of that scene is Quicksilver in X-MEN apocalypse. It’s a good starting point to get us to the good stuff

Thunderball 3/5: I’m still slowly working through the Bond movies in release order. It’s funny how I saw this and immediately said “oh, that’s what Austin Powers was making fun of”. The SPECTRE stuff is cool and it actually is one of the more grounded Bond movies with a plot I think would work in the real 60s. They’re still slow by modern standards which is why I topped out at 3

The Rocky Horror Picture Show 4/5: I love this, I watch it annually. The music is fun, the story is campy, and it’s batshit crazy. I will say the last 30 minutes of the movie I don’t love the score as much and I don’t always feel compelled to finish it

I watched a set of Marcello Mastroianni movies. He’s been in over 100 flicks and a lot of them are pretty bad, so I tried to pick from the top rated ones I’d not yet seen.

• The Friend (2024): Many women talk about the dead guy and the live dog. It does a good job of handling conflicting feelings during a time of loss. Recommended.
• Joyland (جوائے لینڈ) (2022): Quiet film of a patriarchal family whose youngest son joins a burlesque show and falls for a strong-willed transgender woman, further complicating family relations, especially with his wife.
• Green Book (2018): A bouncer drives African-American classical pianist Dr. Donald Shirley through the South. Great acting from Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen. Forgive it for being “remarkably conventional and shallow in its treatment of racism” as it is based off real-life stories the driver told his son, who has a writing credit for the movie. Their NYC-Italian POV is valid, if shallow.
• The Big Gay Musical (2009): While working on an off-broadway show, the lives of two men mirror the characters they are playing. Skip it.
• A Petal (1996) (꽃잎): A fictionalized tale of how a girl reacted to the trauma of the 1980 Gwangju massacre. This film spurred the Korean public to demand the truth behind the incident, and their government eventually opened previously classified files on the massacre. I have issues with the film, but felt the need to watch.
• A Taxi Driver (택시운전사) 2017 : Lighter than the previous. Based on a real-life story, the film follows a taxi driver from Seoul who unintentionally becomes involved in the events of the Gwangju Uprising in 1980. It draws on the experiences of German journalist Jürgen Hinzpeter and his interactions with driver Kim Man-seob. All of Man-seob’s details are fictional because no one could find him until his son saw the movie and realized it was about his dad.
• Chamber of Horrors (1966): I guess it is Halloween season. Meh.
• Manichitrathazhu (1993) (മണിച്ചിത്രത്താഴ്): Hailing from a family that follows tradition and superstitions, Thampi objects to his nephew’s idea of moving into a haunted mansion. The warning ignored, things get spooky. Recommended.
• I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997): skip.
• Stalker (1979) (Сталкер): THIS IS STILL THE BEST MOVIE! Filled with despair.

Mastroianni movies:

• The Organizer (1963) (I compagni): Former teacher-turned-unionist (Mastroianni) tries to organize workers laboring with inhuman conditions at a textile factory. Tense and true. Highly Recommended.
• Big Deal on Madonna Street (1958) (I soliti ignoti): fun heist flick
• Ginger and Fred (1986): Old dance partners rejoin for TV special and comment on aging, societal change, the entertainment industry and more.
• Le Notti Bianche (1957) (White Nights): A middle-aged man meets a young woman who is waiting on for her lover’s return after a year apart. Will he sway her? Will the lover return? Highly Recommended.
• 8½ (1963) : Not my favorite Fellini, but others rate it highly.
• Divorce Italian Style (1961) (Divorzio all’italiana) : Comedy about a husband who falls for sexy niece, but since Catholics can’t divorce, the only option is murder.

Greyhound.

I recently did a rewatch of this movie and man it is great.

Chainsaw Man. It was meh.

Watched Chainsaw Man: Reze Arc early this week. Here’s my comment about it on the anime community:

Saw it in IMAX last night. It was great! Better than Infinity Castle, because it actually felt like a movie instead of a couple of episodes mashed together. Much better paced.

And no lengthy backstories! When the Angel Devil had a quick flashback, I was about to groan about having to interrupt an action scene with a backstory, but I’m glad they didn’t. In fact, having Makima and Kishibe just say a couple of lines about Angel’s and Reze’s histories was enough to give you their backgrounds, instead of doing a 30-minute flashback.

The music was amazing. The action scenes were not hard to follow even with so much happening.

My only minor gripe(?) is the change of art style. I get that the director wanted it to be faithful to the manga, and it should be, but I’ve grown to like the grounded and realistic animation of S1. Not a dealbreaker though. Also, why bother censoring when it’s an R-18 rated movie already? It just makes it look weird. Either show it or don’t at all.