Prikosnoveniye

Why did I select this movie to watch? I have no idea, but I was fascinated by it!

A detective investigates a murder/suicide, and hears about how the mother's father would visit her to encourage her to kill herself... and he's been dead for twelve years now. What follows is him getting to know the sister, eventually marrying her, but they are all continually haunted by the presence of the father, insisting that this life is grim and everyone would be better in what comes next.

Is this an extremely Russian movie? I don't know, but it's bleak and bitter in many places, although the detective continues to say that life is beautiful and amazing, which conflicts with what the father wants. There are many odd shots (I'm not sure all are intentional) and we get fish-eye lens as we see through the ghost's eyes, but each shot is just something I couldn't stop watching.

This isn't a fun watch, but it was a compelling one.

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Phoneican Shem

Wes Anderson has a style, and has no interest in changing it.

Korda has been through several assassination attempts, and after the latest one wants to get his estranged daughter involved to take over the business. However, other businessmen move against him, and so he has to quickly move to meet with several of his contracts to get his scheme to come to fruition.

Which is basically an excuse for bringing in lots of different characters and set pieces, as is Wes's wont. Which is fine with me. This isn't going to be the highest rated of Wes' movies, but it is still very enjoyable. No doubt there are many themes I miss, but I got the main plot, and yes, there's even a coming to Christ subplot I could follow (like it was subtle... it wasn't, and wasn't trying to be).

Benicio Del Toro gets to run the entire movie, with Mia Threapleton and an amazingly non-annoying Michael Cera at his side. Lots of star powers in the other characters around, I won't list them, check out the credits yourself. And of course everything is precisely framed on screen, because this is Wes Anderson we are talking about.

Yep, good movie, but it will be "another Wes Anderson" rather than a peak one.

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FromtheworldofJohnWickBallerina

You better refer to it as the full title! My cinema does.

As a young child, Eve had a terrible experience where her dad was killed. Later on, she got into being a killer so she could be revenged. Oh, and John Wick was there.

This script started as a near parody female killer movie, then was adapted into a John Wick spin off. That would explain why I felt like the movie was something very different to the otherwise John Wick experience. They don't go full "she's a woman, so has to be a mother" but they don't not to do that. And apparently in the first cut of the movie it was terrible and there were reshoots to make it better... oof, this movie had problems. And this was Lance Reddick's second to last movie, so at least he was actually performing and this wasn't some creepy AI creation.

Ana de Armas gets a lot to do in this, where a lot means a lot of violence. She got beat up a lot, making me wonder if someone was really getting into that (the original script had a scene where the lead female assassin fought nude, so likely this is in keeping). Other actors come and go, with several moments of "hey, they are from the main line movies!"

And the action is.. actually, completely in line with the rest of the series. They know what they are doing.

It's fine as a movie by itself, but it didn't need to be tied in to wider universes.

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Demo-lation!

Play more demos, made more judgements!

Code: Loopbreaker - very annoying interface, obtuse puzzles, nope (in one puzzle, you selected with teh WASD keys, but confirmed with Left mouse... what?) Wishlist Cross!

Haunted House Renovator - I like house building games, but this just straight immediately turned me off. Wishlist Cross!

Botany Manor - this game is out, had a bad impression, played the demo... now have a good impression! Wishlist Tick!

3D Escape Room: Mystic Manor - reminded me of that puzzle game with the eye piece that sees things and null element. Wishlist Tick!

Secrets of Blackrock Manor - nice enough, will pick it up some time.  Wishlist Tick!

Dead Letter Dept - nope, a "horror" story that doesn't develop or go anywhere, don't care. Wishlist Cross!

Is This Seat Taken? - decent, but not sure I want a full game of it. Wishlist Cross!

The Button Effect - Exponentially annoying. Wishlist Cross!

Demos should be available, but may have been taken down. (Why???)

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PreDators of PreDator

New animated film? Sure I'll check it out.

Three different parts of earth history have a Predator going to it... and basically getting its arse handed to it. Seriously, you'd think they'd learn "do not go to Earth". Indeed, unless they are filing flight plans so other Predators know where they are going, those particular Predators just disappear, looking for a fight. Anyway, those get put down, but when a ship turns up to collect those that killed the Predators, not a problem! And so we end up with the three of them needing to deal with the Predators once and for all...

Basically, this is the same story over and over. The only difference is "what weapon is the Predator using?" and even then each of the Predators get defeated by people using that weapon against them. They really DO NOT LEARN anything ever! The ending is better than what I could have expected, but clearly setting up for more adventures (and that last scene could have otherwise been a post-credit scene for other franchises).

Decent vocal performances, and the animation was... largely fine, although the fire effects looked odd whenever they were used. [Apparently this movie was animated in Unreal Engine. Huh.]

There are lots of links to previous movies here, and if this is how the series continues, I'm not against it.

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17th Mickey

I need to stop watch black comedies...

Mickey needs to get away from Earth, so signs up with a not cult expedition to a new planet of purity, but didn't read the fine print when he ticked the "kill me" box. And so he gets to be the guinea pig for every bad thing around. Except the latest bad thing doesn't kill him, but they already produced a replacement, so wackiness ensues!

I'm gonna start with, I didn't really enjoy this. The black comedy aspect of it didn't hit home, so it just felt drawn out and not going anywhere. The creepy minister (political not religious, but...) is creepy, the creepy aliens aren't, and you can largely guess where the plot is going and wait for it to shake out.

Robert Pattinson is fine here, but frankly this felt like a role anyone could do so that Robert doesn't bring anything special to it. And that holds true for the rest of the cast. The effects are fine as well, and... this was over two hours? Don't need that.

Yes, I'm going to say that Moon did this better, which is unfortunate because that cast is 33% shit.

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Waiting for Sunrise

I've seen the video game... this is nothing like the video game...

With her sister gone missing, Clover and her friends go to Glore Valley to find her... and instead find death. More than once. Because when they die, they come back to life. To survive the night, they need to survive... until dawn!

While this has definite nods to the game, this is nothing like it. The game is all about Wendigos, this movie just has it as a minor monster. The game has the clown faced killer as a stalking menace, this movie has that as just one of many killers. The game has Peter Stomare as a over the top doctor... this movie does get that right.

We have Ella Rubin as the main girl, Odessa A'zlon I recognised from Ghosts, and Ji-young Yoo stood as the token Asian... but I could not tell you the difference between the two guys. The killers are decent enough, but aren't really on screen long enough to stand out as more than momentary jump scares.

The video game had a strong enough story, and plenty of characters. This pares down the number of characters... and the idea of a story. It's rather weak, because of that. Feel free to skip.

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