Another Christmas, and another several nights spent watching
movies with my brother. He not only has Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime, but
also torrent sites that Mr. Tibbs and I are afraid to use. Yep, as much as we
love movies and free things we’re total pussies. We’re old enough to remember
Napster, and when people started getting in trouble for illegal downloads. This
year he stayed for 5 days so you know we watched a lot of stuff. Much of it was
pretty good, and not all of it was movies, but there really wasn’t anything I
wanted to spend 1,000 words on individually. Okay maybe the new Star Wars, but that's old ground to cover at this point. So if you liked 13 Movie Reviews in 5 Sentences Each you'll love this. Or you'll hate it. Up to you really.
Red Dwarf – Season 12
If you’ve never seen it, you don’t want to start at the end
(unless you’re starting at the episode titled The End). This is supposed to be
the final season. It’s sad if it is, but it was a great send off to a show that
has kept me entertained for 30 years. It’s funnier than season 11, and some old
characters return too. If you’re a fan it’s worth buying to watch it all wrap
up.
The Doctor Who Christmas Special
Sorry Peter Capaldi, but I didn’t like you well enough to
get choked up at your departure episode. Nowhere near the feeling I had for
Tennant or even Smith when I come to look back. I won’t miss your sonic
sunglasses, but I have missed David Bradley as the first Doctor. Since we won’t
get any more John Hurt as the Doctor let’s keep doing that as long as we have
Bradley around. I keep expecting Arya Stark to sneak up and kill him though.
Baby Driver
Is it me or is it weird to hear Kevin Spacey calling a young
man “baby” for 2 hours now? It probably wasn’t creepy until recently. I liked
it, but I didn’t love it like everyone else seems to have. I couldn’t really
connect with the main character. If I have to look at a guy for that long
then I want to feel something for him.
Mother!
This was the most confusing movie I saw all year. We only
watched to the end because we thought there would be some kind of payoff. There
wasn’t. It was just what felt like hours of my life spent wondering what the fuck
was going on, and ending with anger at what the fuck I just saw. Don’t waste
your time or money.
What Happened to Monday
Very strange, unique concept, but very enjoyable. Noomi
Rapace does a great job of portraying seven different characters with very
distinct personalities. I love future dystopias, and one with Willem Dafoe is
even more disturbing. Glenn Close is kind of starting to look like a man. If
you can look past that you’ll likely enjoy it.
Bright
I don’t understand why people hate this so much. It was like
a gritty real-life World of Warcraft, and I enjoyed that about it. I do wonder how much they had to pay
Will Smith to say “fuck” that many times – I
bet it was a lot. The opening credits tell you what you need to know
about the world it takes place in (hint: not subtlety veiled commentary on racism). If you make it past that you’re probably
good to go.
Happy!
I tried, but this was a little too gritty and raw for me. At least
this one earns it’s exclamation point (unlike Mother!). This is the least
whimsical thing I can imagine that involves an animated talking unicorn. I
suppose I should have expected something like this from the guy who made the
Crank movies. There are aspects of it that were cool, but I don’t see myself
getting very far into this show.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets
It was kind of pretty to look at sometimes, but I fell
asleep before the halfway point. When I woke up I didn’t know what was going
on. I also found that I didn’t care. There was some kind of error on the copy
we watched that made it skip all over the place, and play scenes out of order (always a risk with Redbox).
We didn’t notice until the end.
IT
We were in a light and drinking mood when we watched this,
and I don’t think that’s quite the right mindset for a movie of this nature. It
just didn’t capture my attention the way it might have on a different night.
The new Skarsgard is terrifying, and if I didn’t hate clowns before I would
have afterwards. That kid from Stranger Things is gonna find himself typecast
as “the nerdy looking kid who’s in weird shit” if he’s not careful. Definitely
scarier and bloodier than the 90’s mini-series, but I still miss Tim Curry.
The Last Jedi
Why are so many of my friends so mad about it? It needed to
be an hour shorter (cutting out about 90% of Finn and Rose’s story would have been a good start), but
it wasn’t bad at all. I think I’ve determined that my good versus evil fights
to the death and huge epic battles tolerance is about 2 per movie – it had at least 3 of
each. There were so many times that I thought we were at the final fight but
weren’t that I gave up, and only knew that it was really over when the credits
rolled. Benicio del Toro’s affectations are getting annoying, Super Leia was ridiculous, but I still liked it.
So yeah, not as much stuff as the last time I did this. It
was still a lot though, and many I enjoyed better than last time too. Quality
over quantity this year. And I apologize to my many nerdy friends for how long
it took me to see The Last Jedi. It was probably for the best though. It had
problems, but not nearly as many as I expected for how angry Schweck was when
he was first talking to me about it. At least Dave might be pleased at how much
stuff I didn’t hate. See, I don’t hate everything. I just hate a lot of things, and tend to be vocal about them. As in, don't get me started on how stupid the next Jurassic Park movie looks. I'm totally gonna see Rampage though. I'll just be waiting for Redbox on that one. I'm not that crazy.
Beth got her start writing for a site called Movie Criticism for the Retarded (which has been reborn as dorkdroppings.com. Check it out sometime), but was pulled out of an early retirement to write for Needless Things. When she isn't writing she plays video games and watches bad horror movies while eagerly awaiting the zombie apocalypse. She may try to save her husband and/or their cats, but luckily hasn't had to make those tough decisions yet. Follow beth0rama on Instagram or on Twitter @NeedlessBeth where she doesn't post often enough to be annoying, but updates way more than Google+
Beth got her start writing for a site called Movie Criticism for the Retarded (which has been reborn as dorkdroppings.com. Check it out sometime), but was pulled out of an early retirement to write for Needless Things. When she isn't writing she plays video games and watches bad horror movies while eagerly awaiting the zombie apocalypse. She may try to save her husband and/or their cats, but luckily hasn't had to make those tough decisions yet. Follow beth0rama on Instagram or on Twitter @NeedlessBeth where she doesn't post often enough to be annoying, but updates way more than Google+
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