Buttlegeist Buttlegeist

I rewatched the first movie. It's really good. Takes a little to get going, but once it does, it goes! However...

It's been many years. Lydia has a ghost show and a daughter, and is still seeing ghosts. Charles dies, and Delia, Lydia and Astrid are drawn back to the house which has the ghost with the most. Astrid meets a cute kid and.. the audience is about five steps ahead at this point, and the movie is already half over before it barely begins the main storyline.

It does have plenty of other storylines. Monica Bellucci is in this, doesn't matter. Willam Dafoe is in this, doesn't matter. Most of the actors in this don't matter! Catherine O'Hara is being her extra self/character. Winona Ryder is looking permanently bewildered all the time. Jenna Ortega gets most of the main plot, but her characterisation consists of reminding us her dad died. And Jeffrey Johns has rightly fucked off.

Michael Keaton is having fun, but he seems to be the only one. The movie cuts to him every now and then to remind you he is in the movie, but doesn't actually do anything until the final act of the movie. A lot of which is a musical number that is as unsubtle as the Weird Al song I kept thinking of.

Parts of this movie are quite fun. But also a lot of this movie just could have been cut without any harm.

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Oddily

Shudder horror movie? How unusual!

In a far away, overly large house, a woman is killed. Her sister finds out it isn't quite as people reported, and the wife's husband has himself a new woman, and there is more going on... and there's a large wooden man.

Shudder horror movies have a very consistent throughline: that of having potential, but not quite getting there. And apparently this particular movie is related to other short movies the director has done, so this isn't even stand-alone movies!

There is stuff going on, but.. the thing is, it is just stuff going on. Apparently the supernatural is a thing, but the appplication of the supernatural is very... disjointed. Just picking bits and pieces, without any real sense of consistency. There are ghosts, but... they don't mean anything? There are psychics, but... people accept them but don't care? There are golems, but nothing special about them either.

It's a mess of a story that is only fully graspable because there isn't much to it.

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The Jeneral

Classic Buster Keaton schtick!

It's the war, and Buster Keaton wants to sign up to please his paramour, but they don't want him! (For good reasons that they don't explain - so the movie can happen!) He is left driving trains, and when the other side get ahold of his precious engine, he goes after them, by himself, and to get his kidnapped girlfriend (although he doesn't realise it at the time). Then there is the tricky matter of getting back before something bad happens, to him, his side, and his train.

I'm a big cagey about the side because... he is working for the South! Although, to be honest, this easily could have flipped the uniforms and have exactly the same movie. [Although this is based on a true story, which makes it harder to pretend.]

That aside, we get some great gags and damn some of those bits would have needed incredibly precise timing. On a train, and no CGI trickery here! Buster does his bits, Marion Mack is the leading lady and gets her own bits (whether she wanted them or not), and there were others in the film.

This is in public domain now, so should be easy to find a copy, although try for a quality reprint. It's worth it!

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Bomberlands

Oh dear. I see why people are not excited...

Lillith is hired to rescue Tiny Tina, but then teams up with her to get to the Vault before the bad guys do. Because when you are trying to stop people unlocking something, what you definitely want to do is collect all the keys, and not dispose of them at all.

I haven't played the games, but I could tell some parts when the movie went "hey, remember this from the game? Huh? HUH!!!" because those were all the moments where the movie stopped pretending to do something relevent and pause to do something. Like whenever the psycho spoke, I feel that was all lines from the game, and didn't mean a thing.

And speaking of not meaning a thing, this plot is a complete mess. Voice over doesn't mean that the movie has problems, but voice over, with excessive exposition, and obvious ADR patching in scenes does mean they were trying to cover up something. No blame on the actors here, it was Covid times, what the hell, get the paycheck and run. Just hope no-one is relying on residuals here.

The best sign? That this went straight to VOD before even leaving the theatres... so if you haven't seen it yet, clearly wait for it to hit free streaming, 'cos I doubt it's that far away either.

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It's a Tarp!

New M. Night? Can you guess the twist? I couldn't...

The nicest dad in the world takes his daughter to a concert, but spots a high police presence. Due to being the likeable person ever, he finds out they are here hunting the Butcher... oops, that's him! And so we get a sort of cat and mouse game as he tries to escape. And then... you won't believe what happens.

'cos I want to spoil the big ending... wait, let's rot13 this. Gurer vf ab gjvfg! Abguvat bs abgr unccraf! Guvf vf gur zbfg trarevp zbivr raqvat rire! Guvf vf whfg frggvat hc n frdhry!

Okay, that out of my system, yep, Josh Harnett's character is the friendliest person you'll ever meet. He feels a little too lucky to get away with what he does, but it isn't entirely without cause. Ariel Donoghue is a young girl. And Saleka Shyamalan is indeed very believable as M. Night's niece (actual daughter). In fact, if this whole movie was written around giving Saleka a fake concert to sing at, I'll 100% believe that.

I'm not mad at this movie. I'm just disappointed.

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Short, and yet...

I like games I can just zen out to, your Powerwashers, your Viscera Cleanup Detail, so I picked up WereCleaner and decided to see if it was that kind of game.

You are a cleaner, yes, but you are also a werewolf, and if someone sees you, you kill them! ... and then have to clean up the bodies (continued employment!). The cleaning is basic, spray water, vacuum trash, and bag animals. But...

It's isometric. Just something about isometric controls just straight up annoys me. I just want to go up or left, not hold down up&left! And the screen is really close up. When a big mechanic is "avoid people" (No Kill is an extra challenge per level), you need to be able to see when people are close, but you can't. Just all of a sudden someone walks in on you, and you kill and have to deal with the body. I got things to do, I would avoid them, but it is more luck than design.

The levels are short, just go to a few places, and clean up, so you can race through it quite quickly. And given the number of stars is based on how quick you are, speed is important. But then we hit the last level. At least, I assume it is the last level. I gave it several tries, but failed constantly, to the point where I'm thinking if you succeed, it will be more luck than anything else.

So I gave it a go, clocked some cheevos more or less incidentally, and... uninstalled it without finishing. And short of this blog post, I plan no more thoughts on it. Well, maybe watch an LP to see the ending, but no interest in playing it myself.

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Legslong

This is one of them big horror movies, it seems, and amazingly isn't from A24.

Lee Harker is an agent with the FBI, and ends up joining the group looking for Longlegs, a supposed killer that has already claimed several families. She has rather an unusual connection with the case, and it seems like there is more connections with her past than she remembers.

I do wonder if the main reason this has some reknown is because it has Nicholas Cage attached to it. He's a producer, and is in it as the Longlegger himself, albeit in a fair bit of latex on his face, but it is clearly still him, and for people wanting a loud performance from him, he does give it. However, he's not the main focus, Maika Monroe has that job. She is... fine? Blair Underwood does a good agent too. I feel like I should know Alicia Witt from something, but not sure what.

This is a long walk of a movie [sigh, no doubt puns will occur] but it doesn't go anywhere.

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