Rock wrote:

I think Cate Blanchett’s icy cheekbones and immaculate bone structure would benefit from being seen on a moderately sized screen.

I don't know how big crumbs' TV is, but she looked perfectly fine on my 36X30 screen.  (Also, I'm poor.)

I'm sorry crumbs.  Rock won't let me.

I hereby decree that Crumbsroom can watch the movie through whatever sorcery JJ has at hand, but that he has to zoom in so that Cate Blanchett's cheekbones tower over him during his viewing

I think that's a fair compromise.
 

Monster Hunter
House on Bare Mountain

Jinnistan wrote:

Rock wrote:

I hereby decree that Crumbsroom can watch the movie through whatever sorcery JJ has at hand, but that he has to zoom in so that Cate Blanchett's cheekbones tower over him during his viewing

I think that's a fair compromise.
 

It might be too bold to post a Goog Drive link here, but I can email.  The only issue is whether crumbs still remembers how to open compressed files or not.

Lol to the words crumbsroom and remember being in the same sentence.

Rock wrote:

I don’t know what format the file is in, but WinRAR is available for a “free trial” that as far as I know never actually expires. I assume that would serve your purposes.

I walked crumbs through this about 8 years back, over some music files.  So it was probably like three computers ago?

Some middling Netflix Originals




I'm a sucker for low-budget sci-fi, especially with some neo-noir flavor, because you never know when you might just stumble onto a clever overlooked gem, like Dark City, Equilibrium or Predestination.  And it helps if you find a film by a one-time promising filmmaker, like writer/director Andrew Niccol, who made the impressive Gattaca and the, imo, better-than received Simone.  That was also a long time ago, but I figured, what the hay, I'll give this a good faith shot.  Turns out there's the more likely prospect that the low-budget sci-fi-noir in question turns out to be closer to something like the already forgotten Adjustment Bureau or Niccol's own In Time.

In an undetermined (but quaintly anachronistic) future, we have a society that has forgone privacy and enforced mandatory "transparency" (surveillance).  Everyone is equipped with a neurolink-esque capability that makes visual and metadata "records" of one's life and experiences.  Nothing new about any of that, but these kinds of sci-fi films are mostly interesting in questions about the implications of the nature and application of the technology.  This film raises a couple of those questions, but rather than try to answer them, tends to leave them open as glaring (at best) and sometimes ludicrous plotholes (I guess all non-neurolink security cameras have been dismantled?).  And the bigger problem with these pseudo-Dickian conceits is that we're now well past the point of the limits of Dick's imagination in terms of technology.  This script may have been successful in the 90s, but nowadays, you gotta be at least three steps behind Black Mirror to qualify.  And stylistically, the film is closer to 90s standards.  The FX isn't particularly impressive.  The noirish elements, including the stale pulpy dialogue, are out-dated (although I suppose there could be a future renaissance of in-door smoking).  And there are a few truly 'lol' worthy moments, like when Owen actually tries to shoot down a blazing fire with his gun ('A' for effort!).  Anyway, somewhat sexy, completely predictable - this is the motivational motto of Netflix's late-night programming staff.

5/10





Oh, it gets worse.  Director Joe Wright is another one with a once-upon-a-time reputation for doing some fine literary adaptations like Sense and Sensibility, Atonement and Anna Karenina who has, more recently, fallen into the "prestige hack" rut, making movies with all of the sizzle of Oscar gold but with none of the substance to justify it.  Here's a good example of his generic genre exercises, basically Hitchcock-cosplay and more insultingly even using old clips of Hitchcock films just so we understand the Rear Window appropriations very clearly.  A lot of unnecessary camera histrionics and non-stop Danny Elfman (and not that good old Elfman either), horrible performances (even Gary Oldman is embarrassing) and pretty much every cliche and trite twist their feeble wits could throw at the screen (sometimes literally).  Apparently based on a book, which I can't imagine being any better.

4/10





My apprehension was most high for this one.  The reviews were awful, its release got buried underneath the scandal of star Armie Hammer's predatory fetishes, and its director, Ben Wheatley, is someone I actually respect, making this a strong potential for truly painful disappointment.  Plus, it's a remake of a Hitchcock classic, so it's in a no-win situation if I even try to hold it up against those standards.

So it's hard to call this a "disappointment" per se, even though it doesn't succeed in the slightest.  Perversely, Wheatley chooses to cosplay Joe Wright instead, with his bright and empty period pieces, like a standard literary adaptation, and, except for a handful of moments, eschews the gothic horror at the heart of the novel that Hitchcock captured so well in his moody, atmospheric B&W.  The film spends too much time on our prologue, letting us know that it is going to emphasize the more romantic side of the story than the psychological thriller side, and it proves to be far more sentimental than Hitchcock, with his sardonic distance and humor, would have tolerated.  This film is far more Anglophilic than Hitch's class satire.  The overly lush photography is the opposite of Hitchcock's grey decadence.  I know I said that I would try to abate such comparisons, but how can I not?  It may be more complimentary to restrict the comparisons to the performances.  Clearly, this will not be flattering to Hammer, by no means an Olivier-caliber actor, but who does find a stride as a stiff fop, basically doing what looks like a Prince Harry imitation.  Kristen Scott Thomas is fine as Mrs. Danvers.  Lily James is a good actress with an unfortunate track record of accepting trash projects.  She comes close to Joan Fontaine on occasion, when the script isn't trying to rewrite her character.  But none of this is really good enough.  The film really should have had more than two scenes (the evocative opening and the ballroom scene) that actually looked like a film that Ben Wheatley would have shot in his previous films.

6/10
 

Graduation Day
Knock at the Cabin

Flesh Feast
Royal Warriors
Hot Summer in the City
The Nesting
The Last Horror Film
Sudden Death

So who's going to star in the new reboot for Werewolf of Washington?

Out of our current Washington crop of potential lycanthropes, I can see Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown in the Dean Stockwell role.






Perhaps as a nemesis, we could recruit Rand Paul.