Too Doon

I was never going to jump on it, so it took me a while, but I finally got around to it.

Paul goes through a montage with the Frenem, picking up lots of abilities and becoming their hero. In the mean time, the space bad guys decide they should do something about him. And so we get a big slap fight at the end, and the only one who wins are the women.

Overly simplistic take? Sure, but I did find myself going "not a lot of happening here, and we have how many hours to go?" No doubt in this whole six hours, there's a decent adaptation to uncover. Not a 90 minute version (or however long the Sting version was), but we don't need six hours either.

The performances are fine. I hope you like Timothee Chalamet, 'cos he certainly is on screen a lot. There are various female actress, but a lot of them are more "hey, it's that actress" than them actually being a character that actually matters to the plot. Even Zendaya is often relegated to a sexy lamp role.

But the shots are all impressive. It is a very pretty movie, although it does involve a lot of sand. We hear that Villeneuve has a third movie in him that he wants and then... do we get a continuation of the movies as a series? A tv series? A reboot? Anything is possible.

Overall, I'm as excited for the next movie as I was for this one.

[END]

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TTTTT'Omen

They decided that now (now being around 2006) was the time to redo Damian's origin story!

I should just copy and paste the summary from the first post, because this is just the same movie again. Many scenes are repeated, almost verbatim, but with one small issue... it is worse. This movie doesn't bother introducing characters, they just appear. Need the nanny to kill herself, bam, suddenly we have a nanny and she kills herself. Need an old scholar? Just namedrop Bugenhagen without establishing him. Cut to the thing already in progress, and just whatever.

And I'm not sure at all why they bothered to remake this. Some scenes are very early 2000s with how they are shot, but there isn't anything new being said. The movie starts with saying "things like 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina mean we are in the end times," but otherwise this is just the same movie as what we had before, nothing new added.

Certainly lots of big names here. Liev Schreiber, Julia Stiles, Mia Farrow, Pete Postlewaite, and David Thewlis doing a good impression of David Warner.

Well, that's it. There are no more Omen movies to watch... aside from the one that just came out, but I'll likely wait for the VOD for that.

[END]

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Marvel-hibition

Since December, our (Wellington's) new exhibition space is Takina. I'm not sure if this is the first exhibition there, but the one since December is Marvel/MCU, with a potted history of the comics, some of the key characters, and props.

I finally went. Want to see photos?

They had a Mjolner out and about in Wellington, which a gull enjoyed.

The exhibition itself starts with a SMASH

There are a lot of props and costumes and... hey, I got one of those!

Anyway, check out the album for loads of pics!

[END]

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Kong Foo Ponda 4

Did we need a fourth movie? Did we need a second or third? Why should that stop anyone?

Po hears that there's a new villain in town, or rather another town, so heads there with a new companion. After undergoing various "hilarious" adventures along the way, they eventually get to the actual plot, and there is a character moment, then another character moment, and then a fight scene.

This feels like a waste of a movie. The movie is already over half over before the actual plot starts. And the villain is very one note. The big twist/mental challenge Po faces is solved in the most obvious way, and... apparently the producers are planning another two movies. Perhaps the Furious Five might actually turn up, but the VOs aren't interested in being in this one.

Jack Black is just having fun, so not surprised he continues to turn up for these. Awkwafina is here as a comedy schtick, so being the same character she is in every other movie. Viola Davis get a chance to flex, but the movie doesn't really do much with her. I will always take a Ke Huy Quan voice and... Mr Beast was in this? Sigh...

Has this made its money back yet? It was one of the cheapest, so no doubt there will be more to come.

[END]

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Sacrifice of Senua

With the sequel coming out, I decided now was the time to play the first game.

Senua visits Hel to get her love back... unfortunately, she has severe mental illness that led to others to cause her problems. And so she travels through Hel, defeating opponents and finding runes, with voices in her head giving extreme commentary, sometimes helpful, oft times not.

This was not a game I sped through. I can't say I entirely could put myself in Senua's position mentally, it definitely wasn't a light breeze of say, a walking simulator or a Call of Duty. Story-wise, this was certainly a journey.

However, I have a lot of gripes about the game mechanics. First it doesn't tell you any of the controls (they are in the options menu) so I missed the first recording entirely, thinking it was a save point (before remembering it autosaved). The fighting is a whole thing, with, again, not telling you the controls, and there were combos?? Also, the combat starts as "Automatic"... which is harder than Hard. I did get quite far on Auto (up to Fenrir), but just got too annoyed with the combat that I knocked it down to just get through the game (which was already taxing, see above). And the game swivels wildly between combat and puzzles (which mostly aren't hard, just annoying to traverse around as even running Senua doesn't move quickly).

This is an experience (is it art?), and a thinker, but the game side of things could be better.

[END]

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BEES-keeper

Jason Statham does good action, so let's enjoy!

A scamming group defrauds an elderly lady, and because of that her tenant decides to go on a killing spree, and her daughter chases him. As it happens, the tenant is a Beekeeper, a member of a secret organisation everyone knows about, and the daughter is a member of the FBI. The Beekeeper goes after the scamming group, and the daughter gets there after. Then the Beekeeper goes after the higher level group, and the daughter chases after him. Then the Beekeeper goes after the higher group, and the daughter chases after him...

Yeah, so, this movie is stunningly nothing. As you might be able to tell from the summary, it's basically the same scene repeated three times. Okay, yes, some good action beats in there, and lots of references to bees, but... still a lot not of nothing of any import happens.

One odd thing that occurred to me was that the Beekeeper is a highly trained person who can take out everyone else... it's odd in that, is that special training? For some reason the government has decided, or doesn't know about, that everyone in the military shouldn't have that training? That seems amazingly inefficient.

But hey, Jason Statham kicks a lot of ass, so there is that. Emmy Raver-Lampman is fine as the FBI agent, and her mother is a cameo by Phylicia Rashad. And not much more than a cameo is one Jemma Redgrave. Josh Hutcherson is playing a scumbag, which he seems fit for. And Jeremy Irons is in this, easily dominating all scenes he is in.

Fine if you want something simple, no thinking needed.

[END]

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TTTT'Omen

Damian dead? Not a problem, let's do the first movie again... but this time with a girl!

A couple, where the husband has political aspirations, adopt a child. The child grows up, with weird things around her, and eventually the mother comes to view her with suspicion (and jumps to the Book of Revelations rather quickly). After some random deaths that... actually are the child's fault, the mother finds herself pregnant, and wants the child to stay away from potentially harming the new baby. Eventually she finds the truth that (deep breath) the child, Delia, is the child of Damian, and is carrying the fetus of her twin brother inside her, which the doctor transplants to the mother, to give birth to the new antichrist, which isn't Delia but Alexander, and the mother tries to stop them, but hey this is the Omen movies... (it's a very busy 10 minutes at the end).

Delia is so more active over dealing with people than Damian ever was. With Damian, it felt like there was another force keeping an eye on him and killing others, whereas here Delia is very much the one killing people. And more power to her! This movie is basically a retake on the first (and a little of the second) movie, and this is so much better! I don't know if they learnt from the previous movies, or just had a better script writer, but this movie works on Delia as a devil child more than Damian ever had.

Faye Grant does good work as the mother, and Michael Learner owns the scenes he is in. Hey, that's Don S. Davis in around two minutes of screen time. Even Asia Vieira as Delia isn't a terrible child actor and plays her part well too!

This clearly set up the next part of the ongoing series, and there is no need to do anything silly like reboot the series (yes I know what the next movie is).

[END]

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Gojira Smooching Kongy

Another premier, so got in. This was a bit fuller than the previous one, but still not bursting.

I haven't seen the trailer, so no idea what is revealed. What we have here is that Kong find another layer to the Hollow Earth (...the planet has severe gravity problems...) and lo encounters a whole new villain to fight. In related plot, humans follow Kong and encounter something that I feel would have been set up differently in the previous movie had they known they were doing this. And Godzilla is hanging out.

Yeah, this is a Kong movie that guest stars other titans. The humans feel like "we have these actors who agreed to return for this movie, so we need a plot for them, as well as throwing in some other characters". We don't get the return of Millie Bobby Brown, but do get her sidekick the Conspiracy Wacko (who is less of a wacko in this). And Godzilla was also there...

The actors were fine, and not annoying unlike so often in the previous movies. (G-1 so much showed up how to do humans in a Godzilla movie.) There is a lot of time with Kong and Ko, and while the CGI worked, they simplified so much to make the basic story/emotions come across. [And, amusingly, a trailer for Kingdom of Planet of the Apes played before this!]

There's a few other comments I want to make, but for the sake of spoilers, I will resist.

It's fine, and better than previous entries, but I hope future movies aren't just "here's another generic villain" (although that does describe most movies).

[END]

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Arjille

I was looking forward to seeing this. Due to reasons, I missed it in the theatres, so had to wait for the VOD.

Elly is a writer... or is she? Is she a psychic that can predict the actions of spys? Or can she? Certainly one spy seems to think she has more capability than she thinks she does, so the Evil Spy Agency(tm) is now after her... or are they?

There are twists in this... and also a lot of unreliable narrator. Some of them I picked because... they were really obvious if you thought about things for a moment. Admittedly, in the cinema, I couldn't pause like I could here, to go "hang on, that doesn't make sense" or "that means that... that person is the thing." That's always the worst thing for stories with a "twist" in the plot, if you get time to think away from the story, you can jump to the obvious conclusions that are the right conclusions.

While we have big names in this, can I just start by saying I was disappointed in Dua Lipa's role. She has a lot of time in the trailer, but then only like five minutes of screen time. What was in the trailer was basically her entire role! And Henry Cavill wasn't much more. So we do rely on Bryce Dallas Howard and Sam Rockwell to carry us through... and yes there is Sam Rockwell dancing, so Matthew Vaughn didn't waste his appearance there.

And speaking of Vaughn, there are some classic Vaughn'ian bits, from colourful shot composition to, yes, colourful smoke. Does he get smoke by the volume or something? The most unconvincing parts are the CGI cat, as you can see in the trailer, which DO NOT WORK.

I was told I didn't need to see this on the big screen to get the experience and... sure, they were right. This is a fine movie, but not one to blow me away.

[END]

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Ain't Afreeze of No Ghost

Big new Ghostbusters movie and... only about a dozen or so people at the premier? Apparently no-one cares.

So there's this MacGuffan ball that contains an old and powerful ghost... but never mind! Phoebe is have teenager's problems (due to being a minor). And Paul Rudd wants to be a parental role. And... the other kid is facing off against a ghost and... the previous Ghostbusters are here. All over the movie. More than cameo, but I can't really say relevant to the movie. Indeed... I'd be hard pressed to say a lot is relevant to the movie. There is a lot of setup in this movie. In fact, this movie is mostly set up. The final act feels very low key...

It's like they wanted to do an emotional movie, but had too many characters to flick around, and also had to staple a ghost movie onto it. This movie is very slow, and the ghost side is more backdrop than anything of import we needed a movie for.

Mckenna Grace and Paul Rudd are front and center in this movie, not being daughter and dad. The old Ghostbusters are around, and clearly the movie cares about them, but they really are cluttering up the place. Oh, and James Acaster is in this. I was not expecting him... speaking of characters cluttering up the place...

There is a potentially good movie in this, but you'll need to edit away the rest of it.

[END]

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TTT'Omen

It's the last one! There is no more!! We have reached the Final Conflict!!!

Damian is in charge of a corporation that seems to be evil (so, a corporation yet), but it's time to return to his roots of being the American Ambassador to Great Britain, because it is the time of the second coming! And as anyone who knows, who knows their bible, this is the time where Damian kills the christ and takes command of the world... Oh wait.

First we have the return of the daggers, and seven priests who each take one to kill him... and their completely inane plans fail to work on all kinds of levels. But the stars have combined to say the new christ has come, so clearly the right step is to kill all new born males (sexist!). This seems to work well, with a potential problem of one of Damian's main adherents having a kid? But what is a little slaughter of the innocents if not a call back to the bible's passages.

Eventually we get the final confrontation of evil vs ... random people. Good here is about as actively taking a role as evil does. Again Damian barely does anything evil himself, just takes advantage of a lot of other people doing work for him, so why not christ doing the same?

The big thing here is Damian is... our own Sam Neill! Yes, of course, the American Devil raised in England has a New Zealand accent! It's only natural! Sam clearly devours several scenes, and his trademark smirk is the right note for several "yes, I am evil!" scenes. I'm sure the other main actors are also well known, but I don't know them.

There are few on screen deaths, and lots of implied ones around the babies. Again, no photographs are taken. Although I'm not sure if they could claim that no animals were harmed? Certainly the reverse is portrayed to happen.

While this movie claims to be a big conflict, it's more about Damian dealing with the coming of christ and not really a conflict there at all. As such, there is a whole lot of nothing happening. Watchable nothing, but really this isn't much of a final battle as the title would suggest.

So... no more movies then?

[END]

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tips hatM'dame Web

Okay, time to see the not MCU movie that people (by which I mean the actors involved) thought was MCU.

In the casual part of Peru everyone can get to, there are secret spiders that the obviously clearly bad guy grabs. Cut to Cassie hating children (so there's her arc!), who falls into the water and activates her powers, although badly. PEPSI She accidentally gets into the same train as three young woman who are clearly not in their twenties and the bad guy who some people can see if they are related to the plot. They run away and avoid fight scenes because they were only visions from Cassie, which is a cop out we were already tired of when Twilight did it. Cassie pops over the easy to access Peru to get thirty years of therapy in ten seconds of exposition, and then win using Nic Cages powers from Next. PEPSI COLA.

This movie was... boring. Like not even "bad in an enjoyable way". Just huge slabs of "I don't care, I have other things to do." I'm sure some people cared when they were making this movie, but then some thought they were in MCU and expected more. In many ways this movie is fine, but nothing amazing takes place, either in the script or in production.

But at least they made fun of Peter's parents dying...

[END]

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Poooor Things

Oscar likes this movie, so I suppose I can watch it.

As shown in the trailer, Bella is a baby in her mother's body... now I don't want to fact check the scientific accuracy of this movie which has random creatures fused together, but I don't think that works that way. Bella certainly seems to pick things up quickly (although we don't get a real sense of how much time passes) and goes out into the world... and manages to deal with it quite well. A lot of people don't seem concerned with how odd she is, and she gains a lot of experiences. This is a rather entertaining tale, with an extreme fantastical bent.

Emma Stone does the good job you've heard. She certainly puts a lot into her physical acting, but again I'm not entirely sure I believe her "baby in a body" status. Willem DeFoe isn't an immediately evil bastard. Remy Youssef has a nice quiet role, and Mark Ruffalo is also in this movie.

I'm sure people will get more out of this than I did, so I can only recommend going reading what they have to say.

[END]

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TT'Omen

Because there's a prequel coming, and for no other reason, sure, let's watch more Omens.

After a prologue to get rid of some characters from the first movie, we move on to Damian about to become a teenager. His new guardian father is in charge of a big plant with pesticides, and there's a subplot about doing something not illegal, but unethical, so they don't do it, and isn't that nice in those innocent times. (Of course, the person stopping that is killed, and the plan sort of goes ahead, although more deaths later probably put a stop in it? I wonder about deleted scenes.) Anyway, people get interested in Damian and then they die. Someone points out Revelation to him, so he comes to realise he's the devil's son, but apparently doesn't read until the end of the book and find out what happens to himself?

Again we have that deaths are happening around Damian without his seeming knowledge or control (aside from one near the end) so... this is really just the first movie again. "Damian must be defeated... oh no, I'm dead!" Although there is no gimmick with photographs, just a random raven turning up now and again.

Our lead older actor this time is William Holden, and there are a number of notable side roles for Sylvia Sidney, Allan Arbus, and oh, is that Lance Henriksen? It is! The closest we get to evil Englishman is Robert Foxworth, and you can tell he's evil because he has a perm haircut. There is a good death in an elevator, but again we get silly dummy death due to a truck that is just amusing.

Overall, I'm sure it did well, but this is just the first movie again with some small acceptance of Damian knowing who he is now, so... maybe next time he might actually do something?

[END]

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Planetaryquack

Oh lord, back on my bullshit. With this Asylum movie that is "what if there was a planet sized quake?" only not really and in a way in which it only matters to a handful of people they can show on screen.

An undersea nuclear bomb is accidentally dropped, setting off an earthquake that will slowly go around the ring of fire from Japan to eventually hitting the US 72 hours later, because of course only what impacts the US matters. Fortunately, against this is one geologist scientist, her assistant, and her smart brother. They fire some orbital lasers to heat up the plate to stop the incoming energy, but that doesn't work. So then they use four local oil rigs to release gas to relieve the pressure, but that doesn't work either as two of the rigs blow up. Fortunately, they can send a missile down one of the rigs to... explode and create a volcano that saves the day??

Geophysics doesn't get a look it, does it?

Also, the scientist's daughter is on a plane that crashes, and her husband is a military man that heads up search and rescue, and his one mission is to go find his daughter (who saves herself). So... they are also in this movie.

This is a mixture of scenes of "a handful of people in small room sets" plus "random stock footage of search and rescue teams" and, of course, "bad cgi". There are also more people just off screen, but they have lines, and it's just unfortunate that they aren't on camera when they talk.

This is Not Good, but as soon as I heard the premise "A tectonic shift deep below the Mariana Trench causes a series of ever escalating earthquakes. If a team of leading seismologists fails to stop the disaster, the events will break apart the Earth, resulting in billions of casualties." I had to check it out.

Ultimately, yes, it's as bad as you think.

[END]

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On the ocean waves

Aside from going places, I was on the boat. They try to make it interesting and there is plenty to eat, but they do try with events. I can't say I was that enthralled by them all, but did some trivia events. In the James Bond trivia... I kinda got more than double second place. And helped another team win at 80s music songs. So woo that!

I also ended up going to one of the fancy restaurants, Sabatini's, which is Italian. It was a five course meal that I enjoyed over two hours, so delicious, but very full. Fortunately, I had the drinks package, so fluid wasn't an issue, although I stayed with soft drink.

The boat wasn't that full, although the general age was retirees. People were even staying on for the next cruise the boat did, but you have to get off some time and get back to work (at least, I did). I am Platinum status, which gave me a few benefits, but nothing that amazing.

Getting to and from the boat was a thing, as I got hit with security screening going over, and if I had going with the time the shuttle suggested I would have missed the plane coming back. That could be more enjoyable.

One last thing, I spotted this while out and about.

The full photo album is available here.

[END]

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Yennifer's Bode

So another one was Megan Fox's... I have no idea when this occurred in regard to her other movies, but this was definitely one of them.

People from out of town are just straight up evil, it seems. When Jennifer becomes possessed it is up to her friend Needy (wow, that is a subtle name) to sort her out. Once Needy's own boyfriend gets involved in events, until then Needy is just keeping an eye on things but eventually becomes more active.

If I didn't know better, I would say this is a metaphor for childhood friends who go separate ways on becoming adults, and one might lead the other astray. But what do I know?

You know what's really impressive? This small high school library not only has an occult section, it has an occult section that has the very specific instance of evil happenings that happened to happen here!

Also weird, JK Simmons with hair. Didn't expect that.

This wasn't nearly as exploitative as I was worried about, and indeed the evil side of things was very much secondary to the friendship of Needy and Jennifer. It's largely a slow burn movie, but still moves along well. Quite a decent watch.

[END]

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Chronch

Went to a few places in Tasmania.. and of course I did want to check out the wildlife. Indeed, check out these cuties!

This is at the Tasmania Unzoo, which is basically a wildlife sanctuary where you can more interact with the animals, such as birds and kangaroos. But not the devils, they are fenced off. During the devil talk, the person had meat on a leg bone, and when you hear the chronch of devil biting through leg... that stays with you.

I also visited Hobart, walked around the town, and then in Devonport went to some locations, including riding the train.

This is a short 10 minute trip that goes down to a bay... and goes back. Also a maritime museum, and Home Hill.

And some general scenic viewing as we cross between towns.

Otherwise, seas days and other things I'll talk about shortly.

[END]

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T'Omen

While on cruise, I saw some movies, 'cos they were there and I didn't have humongous internet access. One such was a lesson that although you can be American to be born evil, you have be raised British to be really evil.

An American couple wants a child, their own dies in childbirth, so are just handed a spare one that was lying around. They move to England where they get an English Nanny, who is immediately evil, but less so than the next nanny, who comes after the first one kills herself. This is combined with a man who cannot take a clean photograph to lead the father to realise that his kid is devil spawn and so something must be done... or something will be done to him!

First point, the kid is (relatively) innocent in all this. Yes, there is a lot happening around him, but he isn't directly causing it himself, on a conscious level. The closest he comes is killing his mother (spoilers?) but that's more because of the evil nanny. The photographs and subsequent deaths are just his aura / his real dad looking out for him? I'm not saying that in the fiction of the movie Damian shouldn't die, but he isn't the direct agent of evil I gather he will be in later movies.

And, hey, Patrick Troughton! In fact, you could almost pretend this is the Second Doctor trying to warn the father against evil, although this is all religious which the Doctor isn't. Gregory Peck and David Warner also turn in good performances although David's death is... somewhat undercut by the state of effects at the time and that his head becomes a football that bounces around...

Will I watch the other movies? I'm not inclined to at the moment, but who knows what future cruises will bring?

[END]

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Cruisin'

Amongst the not a lot I did over the past month, I did go on a cruise. From Brisbane, I went down to Tasmania and back. But first... I had to get to Brisbane.

Somehow, I was wearing a sign that said "Give me every security check". It was just as well I wasn't in a hurry (although I was very tired) as it took ages for them to decide to look through my bag and check that I wasn't carrying (unproscribed) drugs and the like... although at least I wasn't in the queue behind me waiting for the one guy to be free. Note: it doesn't help when you think of one set of arrival card questions when they actually ask you something different.

Due to travel fun, it's always advised to get in at least a day early, so I did, then spent another hour or so the day of getting from one side of Myrtletown to the other. There is no public transport, but there are shuttles, which would prove to be useful later.

On the boat itself, I got a Premium Balcony room which, as far as I can tell, involves more balcony space than normal balcony room, so that was nice that I could stretch out.

I would be nearly two weeks in that room, so the space was nice. I wouldn't say I need a balcony room everytime, but the big window letting in outside light was wonderful.

Our first port of call was Sydney, but I couldn't be bothered getting off.. which was just as well. For whatever reason, instead of getting into a port, the ship used a water shuttle to transport people to and from, and due to the number of personal craft in the harbour, there was only one shuttle running and it took people over an hour to get on shore. Not fun.

The next port was Eden, and we docked, so I could get a nice walk in. And see some nice sights.

But I wasn't here for those ports, but for... Tasmania!

[END]

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Saltburned

The trailer looks like this was going to be a crazy romp, so I'm excited!

20 minutes in: This is just boring.

40 minutes in: Met the family, they are all terrible people.

60 minutes in: Everyone is just terrible people.

80 minutes in: Is this one of them black comedies I don't get?

100 minutes in: Is there a revelation to come? I hope there's a revelation to come.

190 minutes in: What a waste of a movie.

So yeah, I didn't enjoy it much. I do have trouble with black comedies, but I can intellectually realise they are black comedies, and I couldn't process this as that. This is just one terrible person infiltrating themselves into the lives of others and making everyone miserable. This is not a movie I wanted to watch after all.

In terms of doing the script, great acting from all people, nothing to be said about them. Just complaints about how bad I found the script.

Hope my next movie choice is better.

[END]

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Roping Cursing 3

Netflix continues its roll and we get a third movie.

Never mind the rope. There is only one rope in this, and it's barely cursing. The Thai Demon is back, with the Gate of Ghosts being open, and it's hanging out at a hotel in which people are slowly dying. In that people are dying, but it happens over the course of the movie, not that people are slowly losing life, which all of us are doing. The characters from the second movie are back to sort of deal with this, but it's really about yet another father/son pair who are ritual masters, although the son isn't that interested until this movie happens to him. Plot happens and the demon gets an upper hand, but hey, dancing will save the day.

I have no idea how many of these ideas are actual cultural practices, but I feel like Cthulhu should be stealing these ideas for modules.

It's very much a third movie in that it is more of the same. There is sort of a climax, but these movies are the sort that can go on and on, so even if it was defeated, there are more around (I'm not sure if the end scene is it still being around or something else).

If there's a fourth, I'll probably watch it, but I'm not looking for it.

[END]

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Rope Cursive 2

Netflix decided this was a series to sink their money into, and lo, we got the sequel.

Remember how the first was about someone who dies by rope being angry? Never mind any of that, it's a Thai demon now! And it uses ropes to kill people, so I guess it's at least related? And speaking of related, we get characters with plots that happen to overlap because they are related, where a young woman is near-psychic who helps some streamers, and entirely incidentally her uncle is killed by the Thai Demon because... because, that's why. And so the demon infects her family, her and her aunt, but don't worry there's a drunk Taoist Master who can help, who happens to have the same master as a character from the previous movie who is here with his stupid nephew! Hooray for returning characters?

This seems like a mélange of characters and plot because... it is. The threads are connected because the writer decided they would be. While we do get a rope ritual, this is really a different movie with a rope connection tied in to make it part of the series (yes, I see what I did there).

Not bad characters involved, but the dangling thread from the last movie isn't followed up on, and this has a whole new dangling thread to end on!

Let's see where the third movie ends up.

[END]

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Zong xie

Did you know that if someone dies under extreme rage or grief... they can make the rope they use be a cursed item.

This is actually a Taiwanese film which does have a certain air of familiarity, but the actual rope itself is rather incidental. Ten years after a girl was bullied to death (because of a ten year promise), all of a sudden a curse is unleashed that inflicts death on those that bullied her. One incidental was her friend she fell out with at the time, and so the movie is about their connection and problems between them, in a wrapping of an evil curse movie.

It's not a bad movie, there is some good building of tension, which I like in a movie. But yeah, the actual curse it rather incidental. The resolution promises that the events aren't over, but then we get a twist at the end that is comes out of nowhere, but is rather standard for these types of movies.

Let's see what the sequel holds...

[END]

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