Kingdom of Heaven—bad script, miscast lead, multiple battle scenes ripped straight from LOTR, virtually no characterization or character development, stupid both-sidesism politics, and also generally complete ahistorical nonsense.
Yet there’s just something about it. The cinematography, design, costumes, supporting actors, and score are all great. Even though the film is basically fantasy, it at least attempts to portray a world that Hollywood rarely approaches. (Agora, kind of a similar movie, is actually probably much better.) Also the Christians are mostly bad or stupid, nearly all of them die violent pointless deaths, it could maybe be argued that the film is anti-colonial, and Saladin wins.
Elysium—white savior film imagines that one dude (with a handful of helpers) can defeat pretty much all space liberals and space fascists. It’s completely absurd. The characters are also one-dimensional. But other than that, it’s a film about “rich people bad” which is otherwise pretty well done and entertaining.
i'm :galaxy-brain: 'd big time so when i like a movie it's a good movie. i don't like bad movies.
Good Burger
UHF
Cannibal: the Musical
I enjoy stupid low-budget comedies
The director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven is sooooo much better than the theatrical release. It's a lot slower and has much more characterization. The theatrical cut is a mediocre LOTR cash in, the director's cut is an actual really good movie.
While not really a bad movie (it won something I think) Gattaca isn't really that great. The set design and themes and stuff do really make it though and its a really good watch.
I always thought Gattaca was cool. I haven't seen it in quite awhile but I would argue that it is an "objectively" good movie.
The end where
spoiler
Jude Law burns himself to death just so Ethan Hawke can go blasting off to Saturn while wearing a business suit with a heart defect that will probably kill him and jeopardize the mission
was so goddamn stupid and ableist
spoiler
I kinda got the impression that Jude Law's character was implied to be living for the mc's dream, and that him committing suicide would have happened sooner. Also I thought it was supposed to be that he didn't actually have a heart defect and people were discriminating against him because he had a high likelihood of it occurring. Regardless its still stupid ablest.
Name a dumb action movie and I probably love it. Underworld and resident evil are two of my favorites.
Try Shoot Em Up, it's hilarious.
"I hope you're not just a pussy... with a gun in your hand."
"Oh no, no, sir... I'm a tough guy... with pussy in my hand."
Oh shit I forgot about that one. I'll have to watch again.
Starship Troopers
first viewing - cool, boobs and killing bugs fuck yeah
after reading the book - wtf he butchered it, the troopers are not supposed to be this incompetent
after becoming radicalized - Verhoeven you are a genius!
Equilibrium is so fun, and I wrote a big long essay about it in media class in high school about how it could equally be claimed by communists & anti-communists for their purposes and in that sense therefore pays homage to texts like 1984 that it's inspired by.
spoiler
the long and short being that Prozium can be an analogue for the either the unnatural imposition of fascist values on society in order to shape it, or the alienation and oppression generated by capitalist production relations; conversely it could be seen as the denial and abolition of private property (which liberals tend to consider a 'right') or the imposition of socialist values by 'big government' ostensibly in the name of a greater good but at an unworthy cost.
There's also the whole aesthetic of the thing, where it's clear they modelled the power structure, uniforms, architecture, methods etc. after the Nazis, and the overall premise is that rebellion, resistance, and doing terror and sabotage against an unjust hierarchy or social order is good, actually, but it could still be intepreted both ways depending on the agenda you're trying to push.
It kinda whooshed my teacher so I ended up folding it into a wider paper on the depiction and prevalence of dystopia in post-apoc. movies, based on the material conditions of the societies that produce these texts, which ended up predicting the whole YA dystopia trend with films like Hunger Games, Maze Runner, Divergent etc. If I hadn't got full marks I probably would have thrown hands - you can't do historical materialist analysis of society and be wrong
You passed out cigarettes for a smoke-a-thon on Earth Day. You installed speed bumps on the handicapped ramps and, most recently, you dumped 100 pounds of... MEAT on a peaceful vegan protest!
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang was one of the first movies I pirated. It was a screener copy that would randomly go to black and white for a few minutes at a time. "Huh, this is kinda arty" I thought, not knowing any better. I did the same thing with the next pirated film, Eastern Promises, that I downloaded without the subtitles. "Huh, bold choice to have all these scenes just in Russian"
Anyways both movies still fucked, highly recommended
Conan the Barbarian, the 2011 remake with Momoa and Rachel Nichols and Rose McGowan.
This is usually the view of people that haven't actually seen them. The Universal horror movies from the 30s hold up quite well, they aren't campy or whatever people seem to think. I'm not the biggest fan of Friday the 13th but Halloween holds up just fine.
I don't think it was ever meant to be this incredibly scary movie. It kinda started off the revival of 'fun' horror movies in the eighties.
