Movies and TV Shows

I started today off with Gymkata (1985) because I couldn't get the subtitles to work on my copy of Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, and the dubbed version doesn't translate the on-screen text.

Gymkata tells the story of Jonathan Cabot (Kurt Thomas), an Olympic gymnast who is recruited by the US government for a top secret mission to the secluded country of Parmistan (lol), where a dangerous game (basically just an obstacle course) is held and the winner entitled to a single wish. The government wants Cabot to exchange his wish for permission to install a Star Wars surveillance satellite over the country, because this movie is a true product of the mid 80s. The feds sweeten the deal by telling Cabot that his father was a secret spy who was sent in to attempt the Game himself.

This movie straight up does not have a first act. There is a brief prologue where we see Cabot's father attempt to win the Game, intercut with shots of the younger Cabot at the Olympics, and then Jonathan is thrust into a training montage that also lets him speedrun the romantic subplot of the movie (with his conveniently mute-by-choice love interest, so we can skip all the unnecessary dialogue). Then he's off to Parmistan and a series of very silly fight scenes where he gets to do gymnastics to people with the aid of conveniently placed parallel bars and pommel horses among the anachronistic 19th century streets of the city.

Princess Rubali (Tetchie Agbayani) and her father The Khan (Buck Kartalian) are fun most of the time, and they have good chemistry with one another. The Khan in particular comes off as a pretty good king, if a little naive. His villainous vizier Zamir (Richard Norton) is suitably musclebound and nefarious. Kurt Thomas was apparently a real Olympic athlete. He won a bunch of World Championship medals, but never medalled at the Olympics themselves. I know absolutely nothing about gymnastics, but I guess he seemed like he was good at it. It does not make for a convincing fighting style, however.

The plot of this movie is silly, but fine, and the stunts are well done (if silly as well a lot of the time) but the technical aspects of this film are seriously lacking. There is a tremendous reliance on slow-motion and scenes that refuse to end just to make it to a 90 minute runtime. You could edit this thing down to a lean 45 minute TV special and not really lose anything in the process. The music also frequently does not match the tone of the action on screen, and it sometimes feels like they just didn't have anything that fit, so they reused other parts of the score. In that same vein, the ADR made necessary by the slow-motion sequences is not done well, which wouldn't be a big problem if those scenes were not so incredibly long.

Overall I feel this is a 3/5. It could have been tightened up and been more watchable, but not without bringing it below feature length. There's just not much movie here.

| Title | Expend4bles | |

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| | Genre: | Action, Adventure | | MPAA Rating: | R | | Runtime | 01:43:00 | | Release Date (USA): | December 8, 2023 | | Director: | Scott Waugh | | Main Cast: | Jason Statham, Sylvester Stallone, 50 Cent, Megan Fox, Dolph Lundgren, Tony Jaa, Iko Uwais, Randy Couture, Andy García | | Summary: | Expendables. 4. C'mon. |

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| Title | A Haunting in Venice | |

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| | Genre: | Mystery, Thriller | | MPAA Rating: | PG-13 | | Runtime | 01:43:00 | | Release Date (USA): | Septmeber 15 2023 | | Director: | Kenneth Branagh | | Main Cast: | Kenneth Branagh, Kyle Allen, Camille Cottin, Jamie Dornan, Tina Fey, Jude Hill, Ali Khan, Emma Laird, Kelly Reilly, Riccardo Scamarcio, Michelle Yeoh | | Summary: | Agatha Christie's illustrious character, detective Hercule Poirot is retired and living in self-imposed exile in Venice, Italy when he reluctantly attends a séance at a decaying, haunted palazzo. When one of the guests is murdered, the detective is thrust into a sinister world of canals, alleys, shadows and secrets. |

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| Title | The Inventor | |

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| | Genre: | Animation, Family | | MPAA Rating: | PG | | Runtime | 01:32:00 | | Release Date (USA): | September 15, 2023 | | Director: | Jim Capobianco, Pierre-Luc Granjon | | Main Cast: | Stephen Fry, Marion Cotillard, Daisy Ridley, Matt Berry | | Summary: | Famous artist, engineer and inventor Leonardo da Vinci leaves Italy to join the French court where, with the help of the princess Marguerite de Nevarre, he can experiment freely. |

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Tonight I watched Scanners (1981) for the first time.

I love Michael Ironside so much. Starship Troopers is one of my all time favorite movies, and since then, every time I see him on screen it elevates a film for me. Seeing him here as a psychic renegade with the power to literally blow your mind was a real treat.

Stephen Lack was also great as the heroic Cameron Vale, and Patrick McGoohan gave a moody, melodramatic performance as Dr. Ruth.

Where Zardoz's Eternals are sedate and melancholy in their psychic emanations, the Scanners are alive with ecstasy and terror. The dissonant keening that accompanies the instances of 'scanning', alongside distorted voices and other audio artifacts, makes the process seem deeply unpleasant for every party involved, although we learn that this is not necessarily always the case. Nonetheless, the facial performances by Ironside and Lack are something to behold, and despite being objectively ridiculous, they completely work alongside that discordant soundtrack and dramatic framing.

If you haven't seen this movie, it's where that .gif of a dude in a suit's head exploding comes from. That moment comes shockingly early in the runtime, and is sadly the only total head explosion in the movie. There are tons of other cool psychic powers on display though, from telepathy and mind control to telekinesis and fire-starting. At one point Cameron reads the mind of a computer, which is pretty silly, but it sort of works alongside the techno-thriller narrative the move has going for it. The practical effects are varied and thoroughly entertaining, especially during the final psychic duel between Cameron and Ironside's Darryl Revok.

The explanation for how 'scanning' works is kind of like a quantum entanglement of two nervous systems, which is pretty cool. Dr. Ruth describes it as "the direct linking of two nervous systems separated by space." He also describes scanning in a bunch of deeply purple prose, like "a derangement of the synapses called telepathy" that really only works because he delivers the lines through a luxurious beard and mustache with the affect of a man who has been dipping into the company ketamine.

There are some decent action sequences, although I was oddly distracted by the sheer number of shotguns in this movie. Nearly every gun we see is a shotgun of some kind, and we see a lot of guns. It had to be a deliberate choice, and maybe I'm just missing some context that makes it make sense because I was not alive in 1981 when this came out, but it was conspicuous enough that I was thinking about that instead of what was happening on screen during at least a couple of scenes. During one car chase sequence, a panel van opens up gun ports along the side and issues forth a shotgun broadside like a 17th century pirate ship. It's weird.

Jennifer O'Neill plays Kim Obrist, and does a fine job. She spends most of the runtime being traumatized either by seeing her friends die or being forced to kill people with her mind, remarking at one point "Now I know what it feels like to die." She and her friends were a group of Scanners living outside the control of Dr. Ruth or Darryl Revok, until Cameron crashed into their lives and Revok sent in the shotgun squad.

The computer I mentioned earlier is a charmingly retro 80s mainframe computer, with terminal access. Very much before my time, but instantly familiar from playing the Fallout video games. The description of its magnetic tape reel-to-reel system as a "nervous system" by Dr. Ruth is a bit of a stretch, but the payoff of seeing Cameron do psychic battle with a computer is well worth the effort to suspend disbelief. The beginning of the scene brings to mind the real life 'Phone Phreakers' who could manipulate systems connected to the telephone network with audio recordings and even by whistling specific tones. Those guys basically had real technopathic powers, enabled by the weird way our communications infrastructure was set up. In any case, it's one of the best fight scenes between a man in a phone booth and computer in a building miles away ever put to film, for sure.

There is a kind of corporate espionage subplot that involves the production and distribution of a drug that suppresses Scanners' abilities (with some other effects that we discover later.) That angle creates some parallels to the real world Thalidomide scandal, as well as historical medical experimentation on the public, such as the Tuskeegee experiment, that give the plot some scope, and long-term implications.

The ending is simply fantastic, I won't ruin it by going into detail, but it's a lot of fun. Overall I feel this was a solid 4/5, with excellent practical effects, a moody and melodramatic atmosphere, and a surprisingly complex plot. Enjoyers of techno-thrillers, body horror, and beloved character actor Michael Ironside should definitely check this one out.

Just wondering what people who have watched Netflix's new One Piece series think.

They don't have the greatest track record with anime adaptions so I'm afraid to watch it. I thought Cowboy Bebop was alright. Although they kind of butchered Vicious and Julia, imo, the people who played Spike and Jet did well enough that it was able to sustain my interest for awhile but not long enough to finish it. Death Note was barely like the original at all. The only good thing I can say was Lakeith Stanfield's L portrayal and Willem Dafoe's Ryuk.

But this series seems to be trending, so maybe they've finally done it?

I've been watching a bunch of older movies, mostly Sci-Fi and Exploitation flicks, and reviewing them on SufficientVelocity and Letterboxd. I might as well post them here as well, so here's a link to my most recent review on SV.

My Letterboxd reviews can all be found here, but the versions on SV frequently have additional information added as it occurs to me.

Apple has become the latest entertainment company to suspend additional overall and first-look deals this month as the WGA strike is getting past the four-and-a-half-month mark.

As has been the case with the other recent suspensions at Disney, NBCUniversal, Warner Bros. TV and CBS Studios, impacted are non-writing producers who are not currently rendering services due to the ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. I hear the handful of pacts that are being suspended include those for Natalie Portman’s MountainA, the company she formed with producer Sophie Mas, and Adam McKay’s Hyperobject Industries. A rep for Apple declined comment.

A number of the streamer’s high-profile deals with non-writing producers are still ongoing as they are working on projects, including Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman’s Playtone, which is behind the upcoming Apple series Masters of the Air. Martin Scorsese, who signed a film and TV deal with the streamer in 2020, also has been busy finishing and promoting his upcoming Apple feature Killers of the Flower Moon.

Disney’s suspensions, enacted earlier this week, included deals with Gina Rodriguez and ThIs Is Us alums Justin Hartley, Milo Ventimiglia and Mandy Moore at 20th Television, Yara Shahidi and Marc Webb at ABC Signature as well as Hiro Murai, Billy Porter and Stacey Sher at FX Productions. The studios will provide salaries for the impacted assistants through the end of 2023 and development executives through the first week of October.

WBTV’s list of suspensions included marquee names such as Greg Berlanti, Bill Lawrence and Mindy Kaling. The NBCUniversal studios — both film and TV — suspended the pacts for Lorne Michaels’ Broadway Video and Dwayne Johnson’s Seven Bucks Prods, among others. CBS Studios put on pause deals with such companies as Phil McGraw’s Stage 29 and DeVon Franklin’s Franklin Entertainment. The studio also will continue to pay salaries to assistants associated with the suspended term deals through the end of 2023.

TV studios initiated the first wave of suspending overall and first-look deals –- primarily with writers — in early May, just days into the WGA strike. There have been more rolling suspensions over the past couple of months as more producers wrapped work on shows amid an industry production shutdown.

The new round comes as the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes are stretching into the fall. In the first piece of good news in weeks, the WGA and AMPTP said yesterday that they have agreed to meet next week.

Some people say that it is fun, witty, and action-packed, while others say that it is repetitive, unrealistic, and boring. What do you think? Do you recommend it or not?

https://variety.com/2023/tv/news/drew-barrymore-head-writer-show-strikes-1235723861/

Bill Maher announced that his Real Time would be back "sans writers or writing"

https://qz.com/stephen-king-blames-bill-maher-for-breaking-the-hollywo-1850837325

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/457507

"The feeling is definitely there. It's a new morning in America... fresh, vital. The old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders. We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really boils down to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no limits."

"Outside the limit of our sight, feeding off us, perched on top of us, from birth to death, are our owners! Our owners! They have us. They control us! They are our masters! Wake up! They're all about you! All around you!"

One of the best everyman's survival guide to dealing with alien infiltration. The Electroids love to use these kind of tactics.

They Live is a 1988 American science fiction action horror film written and directed by John Carpenter, based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson. Starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster, the film follows an unnamed drifter who discovers through special sunglasses that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to consume, breed, and conform to the status quo via subliminal messages in mass media.

Wikipedia

Children's characters are the enchanting companions who fill storybooks with magic. They inspire laughter, lessons, and boundless adventures, creating lasting memories in the hearts of the young and young at heart.

cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/13thFloor/t/403415

The Third Man is a 1949 British film noir directed by Carol Reed, written by Graham Greene and starring Joseph Cotten, Alida Valli, Orson Welles, and Trevor Howard. Set in postwar Vienna, the film centres on American Holly Martins (Cotten), who arrives in the city to accept a job with his friend Harry Lime (Welles), only to learn that Lime has died. Viewing his death as suspicious, Martins elects to stay in Vienna and investigate the matter.

The atmospheric use of black-and-white expressionist cinematography by Robert Krasker, with harsh lighting and largely subtle "Dutch angle" camera technique, is a major feature of The Third Man. Combined with the iconic theme music by zither player Anton Karas, seedy locations and acclaimed performances from the cast, the style evokes the atmosphere of an exhausted, cynical post-war Vienna at the start of the Cold War.

Greene wrote the novella of the same name as preparation for the screenplay. Karas's title composition "The Third Man Theme" topped the international music charts in 1950, bringing the previously unknown performer international fame; the theme would also inspire Nino Rota's principal melody in La Dolce Vita (1960).[citation needed] The Third Man is considered one of the greatest films of all time, celebrated for its acting, musical score and atmospheric cinematography.[5]

In 1999, the British Film Institute voted The Third Man the greatest British film of all time. In 2011, a poll of 150 actors, directors, writers, producers and critics for Time Out ranked it the second best British film ever.

Wikipedia

Spoilers below: