Cipheron on 5/6/2023 at 03:37
I was watching Sandy Petersen's youtube channel and he mentioned "Mr Vampire", the 1985 Hong Kong horror/comedy/action film. Sandy Petersen is the guy who designed the Call of Cthulu roleplaying game, and worked on Doom/Quake as well as some other games.
His story was he got the movie and watched it with his four sons. His wife however said no way she's watching a film called "Mr Vampire" and she went upstairs to do some stuff around the house. Well, the film soon had all of them rolling on the floor laughing, and after half an hour she came downstairs and said "I've got to see this, rewind it back to the start".
Anyway, i decided *I* should watch the movie too. It turns out, I've seen the movie before, but not sure if I saw ALL of the movie. I definitely at least caught the end of this film on TV on SBS Australia (a publicly funded foreign language channel that often runs cult films late at night).
It was pretty funny but I'm not sure I was rolling around laughing as much as Sandy's family. I think group watching this kind of film is a special thing.
ajay on 5/6/2023 at 12:31
So, I've been watching "Carnival Row" on Amazon. The serial gives a feeling of huge clash of classes mixes with magic that resembles the one I got from Thief 2 and Thief 2014. Moreover, its fantasy aesthetics is something between the City, Dunwall from Dishonored and all the weird fiction novels od China Mieville.
Tocky on 6/6/2023 at 14:02
Quote Posted by Sulphur
It's hilarious that Lucas's version of Orientalism expands to Darkest India, given a lot of Indians harbour an almost naked antipathy towards the Chinese - I'd say it's karma of a sort, but that'd be a bit like having my snake and eating it too. Those links are a good traceback of the legend, thank you.
It goes back quite a bit farther to 40's Hollywood. Lucas purposely draws much of his overblown depictions of foreign lands from those dipicted in Tarzan and Jungle Jim and other films with sometimes hilarious depictions of India and the orient. Recall the old snake charmer rope from a basket bit? But those also were taken from depictions in pulps that preceded them such as Weird Tales of the 20's and 30's. The cult scenes are cut almost directly from those and if Margret Brundage had anything to do with them there was a lurid cover with naked women tied to a sacrificial altar.
Carnival Row was an excellent watch. It's an inevitable dread building knowing exactly what's going to happen and it does. As one taken by Razzle back in the day I could not feel too much sympathy for the main character.
I watched an interesting horror recently called "The Thing Inside Us". I swear it couldn't have cost more than five thousand and been shot on a one house location for more than two weeks. I came away thinking I could have done that with a group of friends in a week. But it works. Low budget, low production, low quality actors, but a script that knew what it was working with and did the best it could with what it had. It managed to stretch out the feeling of unknown horror for way longer than it should have been able and when it began the denouement I knew that in the hands of someone with enough skill and money it could have been quite a good film. As it was it was very watchable.
Cipheron on 7/6/2023 at 06:26
Oh the pain.
I just watched "Fateful Findings" 2013 because a movie reaction/review channel I like on Youtube was doing it, and i like to have at least seen the films before I check out their take.
Goddamn, this was definitely a Patreon pick and not a poll winner. Whoever made them watch this was a sadistic fucking bastard. Forcing someone to watch this movie is pure unadulterated EVIL.
"Fateful Findings" is like thinking "The Room" was the floor for bad movies, but then discovering there's actually 17 sub-basement levels below it. It makes "The Room" look well acted, coherent and action-packed.
It makes Troll 2, Manos hand of Fate, etc. look like Citizen Cane next to this ... thing. I had to watch much of the movie on 2x speed, sometimes 3x speed to cope with sitting through it. It's that sort of level, just pure existential "oh god this is still going" sort of pain. The acting was so bad that at times I wasn't sure if they were meant to be aliens pretending to be humans instead of real humans.
Written, starring and directed by one person; watching the credits just to see how often his name appears was actually more action-packed, interesting and less painful than the "scenes" in this "movie".
---
Previously i said ChatGPT can't write a movie script. I now wholeheartedly take that back. People who really want to make a movie like this should totally just leave the script to AI.
henke on 7/6/2023 at 07:19
Hahaha, Neil Breen! Never seen any of his movies but they make constant appearances on bad movie podcasts/shows. What's the YT show you were watching?
Cipheron on 7/6/2023 at 10:49
Quote Posted by henke
Hahaha, Neil Breen! Never seen any of his movies but they make constant appearances on bad movie podcasts/shows. What's the YT show you were watching?
Just Summ Reactions. A good place to start is always the "Airplane" reaction. Seems to be a pretty popular one for reaction channels. The other day they also did Flash Gordon.
Movie reaction channels are definitely a notch above ones that react to other youtube videos, which is just dumb. What I like about the movie ones is that it's like a condensed way to revisit some film I've already seen.
YMMV with those channels though, because they're highly dependent on whether you like the people on them.
However if the reviewers are dumb fucks then I really can't stand to watch any more of their videos. For example I saw one channel which did a Starship Troopers one, and they got NONE of the subtext at all and were cheering on the troopers. They *almost* twigged that something wasn't right once or twice, but even Doogie Howser turning up in full Gestapo regalia wasn't enough to cotton them onto the subtext. Yeah, I couldn't watch any of their videos after that.
Like, they were so dumb that in the bug-stomping scene they said "they must be bad bugs who got through to Earth".
Harvester on 7/6/2023 at 11:55
I'm experiencing superhero movie fatigue, and I'm surely not going to watch the many Marvel shows, there are way too many of them so I'm watching none of them. But last night I went to see Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 in the theater and that was ace, I had a lot of fun with it! Funny, dramatic, some dark moments, I thought it was great! Don't have time to write much about it, I'm at work, but I'll say that if you liked the first two GotG movies, you'll probably enjoy this one too. It also helps that it's largely separate from the greater MCU, so you can enjoy it even if you're not up-to-date on all the other Marvel movies and shows. And the High Evolutionary is a great villain, played by a good actor.
Black Panther: Wakanda Forever was alright, not great but at least entertaining to watch and the tribute to Chadwick Boseman was touching. I haven't seen Antman & The Wasp: Quantumania, but my friend who went to see GotG with me yesterday really liked GotG as well but didn't like Quantumania.
Cipheron on 7/6/2023 at 22:11
the only thing I've bothered with from the MCU run of movies is Deadpool. The only things I saw from the DCEU are the two Wonder Woman movies. Oops, almost forgot Joker.
I'm pretty picky with superhero stuff.
I'll probably go back and start watching Batman movies, but I literally haven't seen a batman movie since the "Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Nah Batman!" movies. Not counting Joker, which of course isn't really about Batman.
mxleader on 8/6/2023 at 05:05
I went and saw the new Guardians of the Galaxy movie and was very disappointed. I really wanted to enjoy it more than I did. I really loved the previous two movies in the series though.
The other thing I watched is The Detectorists. I remember hearing the theme song when I was listening to some other Johnny Flynn music and looked up the show. I didn't even watch a preview and decided that it wasn't my type of show. A couple of years later (About a month ago) I kind of ran out of things to watch from all my lists. I love British television and so I gave it a chance. After watching the first episode I wasn't totally sold but it was just good enough for me to watch one more. Then I fell in love with the show. I binge watched the rest and even the specials. I don't know if I would have liked it as much though if I hadn't watched tons of Time Team series beforehand though. I probably wouldn't have picked up on the British obsession with history and the metal detecting hobby. But now I think that that series is one of the best ones ever made. At times I found myself throwing my hands up in the air in frustration at their just missing finding some great treasure as if it was a reality TV show. If you haven't watched you definitely should.
Cipheron on 8/6/2023 at 11:55
I just watched Drunken Master 1978, one of Jackie Chan's early starring roles. I was going to go through his whole filmography to pick some more to watch (there are just too many to watch all of them), but then i decided to try ChatGPT. It took a couple of goes to get the prompt right, I had to tell it to pick 3 movies from each of 5 time periods, but also to specify exactly which time periods they were, but the result was a good use-case:
Quote:
Here's a list of must-see Jackie Chan movies divided into five time periods, along with three movies per period:
70s to early 80s:
"Drunken Master" (1978): This iconic martial arts film showcases Jackie Chan's unique blend of action and comedy.
"Snake in the Eagle's Shadow" (1978): Another classic martial arts film that helped establish Jackie Chan as a rising star.
"The Young Master" (1980): Jackie Chan stars as a martial arts student who gets caught up in a series of adventures.
Mid-80s:
"Police Story" (1985): Considered one of Jackie Chan's best films, this action-packed movie features thrilling stunts and impressive fight sequences.
"Armour of God" (1986): Jackie Chan plays a musician turned treasure hunter in this action-comedy film.
"Project A" (1983): Jackie Chan stars as a coast guard officer battling pirates in this entertaining martial arts film.
Late 80s/Early 90s:
"Drunken Master II" (1994): The sequel to the original "Drunken Master" showcases Jackie Chan's incredible martial arts skills and innovative fight choreography.
"Police Story 2" (1988): This sequel to "Police Story" continues the thrilling adventures of Jackie Chan's character, Inspector Chan Ka-Kui.
"Rumble in the Bronx" (1995): This action-comedy film introduced Jackie Chan to Western audiences and features breathtaking stunts.
Mid-90s to 2000s:
"Rush Hour" (1998): Jackie Chan teams up with Chris Tucker in this successful buddy cop film that combines action and comedy.
"Shanghai Noon" (2000): Jackie Chan stars alongside Owen Wilson in this Western-inspired action-comedy.
"Legend of the Drunken Master" (1994): Jackie Chan reprises his role as Wong Fei-hung in this martial arts film known for its impressive fight scenes.
2005-2015:
"New Police Story" (2004): Jackie Chan returns to his iconic role as Inspector Chan Ka-Kui in this darker and more dramatic installment of the "Police Story" series.
"The Karate Kid" (2010): Although not a martial arts film starring Jackie Chan, he plays a significant role as a martial arts teacher in this popular remake.
"Little Big Soldier" (2010): Jackie Chan portrays a soldier who captures an enemy general in this historical action-comedy.
2015 - Present:
"Skiptrace" (2016): Jackie Chan teams up with Johnny Knoxville in this action-comedy film about a detective tracking down a crime boss.
"The Foreigner" (2017): Jackie Chan plays a grieving father seeking revenge in this action thriller.
"Vanguard" (2020): Jackie Chan stars as the leader of a covert security company protecting a businessman targeted by terrorists.
However, after all that I'm still probably gonna first grab a bunch of his movies from around 1978-1980 that aren't listed here ;)