#iwatched — Public Fediverse posts

#Iwatched the 2019 crime drama mini series with the pompous title "I am the Night". Mainly for #IndiaEisley (daughter of #OliviaHussey), but #ChrisPine is also a fine actor and neither did disappoint. Eisley plays a white passing black girl in 1965 and her #sociolect is impressive. Pine's role is a #FilmNoir staple that he manages to fill with life. But the script lets them both down when it tries to inflate her personal tragedy to an epic mystery murder tale, in which she gets little to do.

RE: https://mastodonczech.cz/@donbahno/116897365497917118

#Iwatched the hilarious British dramedy "I swear" (2025) which tells the real life story of John Davidson growing up with #Tourette syndrome in the early 1980s, when few people know about the condition, up to today, carried by the excellent performance of #RobertAramayo. It balances situational humour with the hardships of his life very well, achieving a rare unsentimental humanity. Highly recommended.

#Iwatched Hardware (1990) which I had seen once about 35 years ago. Now I suspect its stylish dystopian imagery influences my idea of "cool" to this day. Re-watching it didn't ruin it for me. The climate apocalypse it is set in feels quite relevant. The obvious influences on this movie (Terminator, Max Headroom, Blade Runner) are as cobbled together as the deadly robot at its center, but it lives by its bleak atmosphere, its video clip aesthetic and not least by #StaceyTravis' acting.

#Iwatched #AlienRomulus (2024) and it was better than I'd thought. there was a trajectory to it however: the beginning with those teenage mine workers got my hopes way up, then the relentless action parade in the second half didn't quite pay off. less referential fan service, more character development would have been nice. but after the pompous slop that were Prometheus and Covenant, simply putting teens & aliens on a spacestation felt like a stroke of genius almost. in the end just good fun.

#Iwatched #SlingBlade (1996) with #BillyBobThornton. It's a good movie about a retarded man with a golden heart, but doesn't quite live up to its accolades. Thornton's performance while initially impressive stays rather one-note, hrm. It is an idealized, undemanding depiction of a man who sits like Buddha on a couch while violence erupts around him. He has no anxieties or obsessions. Actually he's more in control of himself than anyone else. A calm giant up to the foreseeable ending.

#Iwatched #BonjourTristesse (2024) which is more beautifully filmed than the 1958 film. And it has way better music. In fact I should get the soundtrack. Its actors are also more convincing as real people. And then the film completely fails to tell the story. To establish any reason or motive. It's just too much in love with languishing in that lazy summer-by-the-seaside atmosphere and enigmatic conversations that never go anywhere, to deal with storytelling. Very French but no cigar.

#Iwatched #BonjourTristesse (1958) and it was a mixed experience. #DavidNiven and #MylèneDemongeot are obviously seasoned actors but the main role is #JeanSeberg and she's tense and controlled, even when she's having fun. Not her fault, but still. The best part is how her close companionship with her father is portrayed. The book is an Electra fantasy for hedonists and watching Niven and Seberg recklessly pursue their pleasures is charming and hilarious. The moralistic ending is best ignored.

#Iwatched an extended 2:30 cut of #TheMartian (2015), a scifi robinsonade based on a book by Andy Weir (who is also the author of #ProjectHailMary). This film is only 11 years old, but it might as well be from another world. One in which the US still believed in itself. Its unflinching optimism only hindered by some niggling bureaucrats. Where a young guy with a can-do attitude and some sarcastic humour could macgyver any problem and he didn't even know the meaning of the word "male loneliness".

After the excellent #SafetyNotGuaranteed with #AubreyPlaza, this time #Iwatched her 2022 thriller #EmilyTheCriminal, which had me on the edge of my seat, due to how real it gets. Emily is being suffocated with student debt, low wage jobs and cynical employers. Then she gets a tip to work for a credit card fraud ring. It's not that she particularly wants to do crime. She's neither a villain nor a hero. But she wants to survive, in a system that is stacked against her.

#Iwatched The Mummy (1999) for the first time. As expected it was a fun classic adventure time. The film obviously owes a lot to the Indiana Jones series but more interestingly it is elevated by the performance of the charming and witty #RachelWeisz. I'll have to check out other projects of hers.

#Iwatched #TheApartment (1960) again. #BillyWilder had already sympathized with the role of women in #SomeLikeItHot. This classic looks at their bleak modern work situation. Like that of elevator girl #ShirleyMacLaine who falls for a company boss that cynically uses her for sex. #JackLemmon provides the apartment for such rendezvous. And he delivers his erratic brand of slapstick that barely allows to call this a comedy. In truth it is more of a grim social study that appeals for being a mensch.

#Iwatched #ACompleteUnknown (2024). As a biopic it's kind of a miss. It's not historically accurate by far, nor does it provide insights into Dylan's mind ("I'm Not There" did that). He arrives in NYC 1961 as an introverted asshole with genius song writing skills and leaves Newport Folk Festival the same way in 1965. His character development remains opaque. But you do get the chance to experience this time and the NYC folk scene and watch some phenomenal singing performances by the actors.

when I was new to the internet and hanging out on forums someone posted an image of what looked like a classifieds ad in a newspaper. you know the one about going back in time. today #Iwatched a film inspired by this famous ad. and even though I had heard it was good I didn't expect much. but it was good. like really good. that's all I'm allowed to say. I gotta go. #SafetyNotGuaranteed (2012)

#Iwatched Nobody (2021) — a brutal, fun action romp. The influence of #JohnWick creator Derek Kolstad is felt in the spectacularly choreographed action scenes. The story about a middle aged ex-CIA-killer, now sandwiched between a boring office job and a listless marriage, before rediscovering his masculinity with super violent vigilantism, one would like to discount as just silly. But the pent-up male frustration sits in the target audience and the film's veiled message is deeply conservative.

#Iwatched #AfterTheHunt (2025) with a phenomenal #JuliaRoberts as a Yale prof caught between her fave student accusing her friend & colleague of sexual assault. Both sides expect her blind support and thus the stage is set for the film's dissection of each generation's moral defects. Although it's mostly the older generation speaking here, we directly witness their lapses in integrity and clinging to power. There is no winner in this confrontation and very little learned but some great lines.

#Iwatched #HuntForTheWilderPeople (2016) with #SamNeill and some fat kid, who both played well. The story was entertaining enough, sometimes funny too, but not as often as it wanted to be. Mainly though the hunt has no real stakes in anything. It's an escapist fantasy on easy mode. I've seen kids movies deal with problems in a more mature way. Which made this comfortable watching but ultimately lightweight and forgettable.

#Iwatched
- #TradingPlaces (1983) good comedy fun with #DanAykroyd, #EddieMurphy. contains gratuitous boobs :awesome: and some dated gay jokes :lost:
- #StElmosFire (1985) the #bratpack movie and #Friends precursor suffers from shallow script, unlikable characters and sirupy score :fpalm:
- #TheGirlWithTheDragonTattoo (2011) upright journalist and magical hacker girl hunt down rich antisemitic ripper. too many characters and repulsive rape scenes included :drake_no:

#Iwatched Fresh Horses (1988) in which rich young #AndrewMcCarthy falls for an uneducated, possibly underage and sexually abused #MollyRingwald. The gritty story is conventionalized as film noir characters in a 1980s teen romance: Ringwald plays a terrific femme fatale, all pouty lips, longing eyes and unreliable hints of abuse, caught up with an uncertain McCarthy in a rescue fantasy, but little personal connection. Despite misogynist undertones the film manages a decent and realistic ending.

#Iwatched Brats (2024) a documentary by #AndrewMcCarthy in which he interviews other members of the #bratpack about the impact this label had on their careers and lives. It originally came from a scathing magazine article about these young actors, who didn't have much in common until then. This is all wholly uninteresting if you don't know who the bratpack was. But if you were young in the 80s, you probably want to see this.

#Iwatched the 2007 adaption of #StephenKing's #TheMist in which good actors have to take their last stand in a closed off supermarket against generic monsters on one side and generic survivors on the other, which turn a bit too quickly into hysterical bible-thumpers lusting for human sacrifice. As usual King didn't really have an ending for his story, so the film tacked on a new one, that neither fits the tone nor the message of the rest of the story. But it's a real downer. So there is that.

#Iwatched #DavidCronenberg's #EasternPromises (2007) in which #ViggoMortensen plays the driver for a violent Russian mob family in London. When an English nurse inquires about a diary she found on one of her patients, she gets dragged into their dealings. The film is appropriately heavy-hearted and ruthless for a Russian mob thriller, violent only in pecise dosage, and outstandingly well acted with a script that holds some unforeseen twists.

#Iwatched the heist thriller Thief. #MichaelMann's 1981 debut features many of his trademark neon night driving scenes. It's the story of ex-convict #JamesCaan trying to establish a normal life with waitress #TuesdayWeld, an adopted baby, a house in the suburbs, his buddy #JimBelushi and grandfather #WillieNelson. But he has to do one more job to finance this dream, with the help of a scheming mob boss. When this plan fails, he ends his dream and goes on a vengeful shooting spree.

#Iwatched the gothic horror film #CrimsonPeak (2015) by #GuillermoDelToro, inspired by his favourite classics from #TheInnocents to #TheExorcist. A high mark that this film misses by a long shot, because del Toro can leave nothing to the imagination. The script is chatty, the CGI ghosts parade in broad daylight, the aestheticized violence is gratuitous and even the dead victims have left clichéd recordings. A middling acting turn by #MiaWasikowska doesn't help. It's just a shame about the story.

#Iwatched Crocodile Dundee (1986) with the roomie, who had never seen it before. The story of an Australian backwoods joker visiting NYC holds up quite well, especially the situations in which he can apply his bush smarts in the concrete jungle of course. And the rather sudden finale where Kozlowski has to come clean to Hogan through messages relayed by waiting subway commuters still conjures up a romance that other films can only hope for. Now I'll have to watch the second one too.

#Iwatched the #RobbieWilliams bio-film #BetterMan (2024). I was never a fan of Williams or Take That, but I did like some of his solo material. And I thought that the cocksure coolness he displayed in music videos like The Road to Mandalay would translate well to film. Well, maybe with a story that isn't about himself, switching back and forth between self pity and aggrandising. It's just too much Robbie Williams and it turns out he and his problems aren't original or interesting.

#Iwatched The Bikeriders (2023) which tells of the origins of the Outlaws motorcycle club in the 1960s, from a bunch of guys doing dirt races on weekends to a sprawling violent club scene that slowly spirals out of the control of its president and his original friends. Largely told from the POV of one of their wifes, who tries to extricate her man from the club before he ends up dead. Based on the photo book by Danny Lyon, original photos below. Original interview tapes: https://bleakbeauty.com/picture-essays/the-bikeriders-original-audio-recordings/

since a recent post reminded me of it, #Iwatched #FromDuskTillDawn again today. and I think that knowing what to expect, I enjoyed it a lot more than in 1996. #GeorgeClooney is impossibly cool, #Tarantino is hilariously creepy and #JulietteLewis is the secret star of the film. I still think the role of her brother was completely unnecessary. anyway, I had a blast.

#Iwatched the 3rd season of #TheWhiteLotus and while it wasn't as boring as the 2nd season, it still had storylines that went nowhere, gaping plot holes, missing motivations and many script decisions that felt more random than surprising. It also kept up the tradition of killing the only likable characters while celebrating the most obnoxious people and rewarding their deplorable actions, leaving the viewer in a nihilist stupor about this end stage capitalist entertainment. Looks nice though.

#Iwatched #ThereWillBeBlood (2007) which traces the road to success of a misanthropic oil drilling man who is coincidentally but repeatedly validated in his suspicions about people and grows increasingly bad tempered about it. Extremely well acted by #DanielDayLewis, it still remains a bit unclear what kind of story the film wants to tell. Nevertheless it's satisfactory to watch as the weasely preacher boy (#PaulDano) gets his due. And boy, does he get it.

#Iwatched the 1st season of #Skins (2007) which starts out kinda like #FerrisBueller, with Tony (Nicholas Hoult) as the super-checker at the center of a tightly knit group of friends. Beginning with the second episode it takes a very different turn tho and portrays each of these friends in much depth. Meanwhile Tony increasingly turns out a manipulative wanker. GREAT WRITING. Near the end the series takes some massively dark turns out of tune with the rest of the series. Brillant but uneven.