Re: What Did You Watch? 2024-12-26 (Thursday)

On 12/27/2024 10:40 AM, Ian J. Ball wrote:

Yesterday was a deliberately lazy Boxing Day. But I did manage to get another movie locked away by Netflix watched!! along with some other flicks:
 Thanksgiving (Netflix) - A 2023 Eli Roth special!!
    I'll admit, this is not what I was expecting: I was expecting a horror flick set circa 1621 with vengeful natives taking their gory revenge on some Pilgrims! (As Arthur pointed out, was this very idea a fake/spoof movie trailer in some other movie?!...)

It's from "Grindhouse."
They managed to fit in a lot of the scenes from the fake trailer in the real movie:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ0wCABFHcU
Hey, don't some of those actors look familiar?

    Instead, this film begins with a Thanksgiving sale opening that turns into a riot/stampede with some gory death and injuries! (including of a headliner!), at a store owned by "Suits'" Rick Hoffman (and his new trophy wife, "Mutant X's" Karen Cliche!!), and crashed by some teens led by Hoffman's daughter (Nell Verlaque, previously best known for a Lifetime flick).
    Sidenote: With all the Canucks in the cast, this was clearly filmed in Can-a-der.
    We pick up a year later, and - no surprises here! - someone is plotting revenge! sweet REVENGE! against everyone involved in the store riot/massacre, especially the HS teen group centered around Verlaque and her bestie (Addison Rae), in bloody and gory fashion!!
    This was OK (I liked Nell Verlaque), but I was disappointed when they didn't pull a "Scream" and go with a two-killer solution, which I thought they were clearly hinting at. (More likely explanation: They had more than one "double" playing the killer, and they were different heights/builds!!)
    They may be making a sequel to this, which seems extraneous, esp. after they killed off the cute Russian-Ametican teen played by Jenna Warren (from "Deadly Dance Mom"!! - and she's obviously a dancer! - I'm not sure if I ever saw "Deadly Dance Mom" on Lifetime: it may never have been released on TV in the U.S....).
 football - In an extraneous TNF game, the Seawhawks played the Bears, which the Seahawks won/the Bears lost, 6-3, in uninspired fashion when the Bears threw a final second interception on their last second attempt to try to tie the game by setting up a field goal.
 Please Don't Destroy: The Treasure of Foggy Mountain (Prime) - Originally a 2023 Peacock original, it has apparently been released by Peacock as it's now on Prime.
    A silly, but generally fun, flick from the 3 SNL writers/performers - this seems like some kind of "love letter" to flicks like "The Goonies".
    Conan O'Brien co-stars in this as the asshole father of one of the "Please Don't Destroy" guys.
 

I started watching this when it was first released.  But I don't think I made it more than a few minutes in before turning it off and forgetting it existed.

The Big Lebowski (Peacock) - Cult-classic 1998 Coen brothers flick starring Jeff Bridges and John Goodman.
    Yeah, I still had never seen this, so we decided to pull the trigger and have me finally watch it.
    I found this to be pretty typical Coen brothers "indie cred" film- making, though this one is elevated by good performances nearly throughout, esp. from Bridges and Goodman.
 

I'm pretty sure I saw this in the theater when it first came out, then I became the only person on planet Earth who didn't like it.  I've never bothered to revisit it, but if I ever did, I'd pair it with Kingpin.

What did you watch?
 

More movie pairings suggested by someone in this group.  And I've also really been looking forward to watching:
Barbarella (4K disc) - 1968 sci-fi movie based on a French comic and produced by Dino De Laurentiis.  Yes, I know I just watched it last year, but I got a brand new 4K upgrade that includes a new Dolby Atmos soundtrack and a new audio commentary.  I was torn between listening to the new Dolby Atmos track or the audio commentary but settled on the Atmos track.  I did notice the surround sound, wasn't really surround, but it did have a full sound coming out of the front speakers, which is better than the mono sound from the old blu-ray.  There's a remake starring Sydney Sweeney in the works, so I'll just have to sit through it again with the commentary before the remake.   And thanks to the subtitles, I now know that for all these years I've been saying there's a kind of taco shell about you, when the line is actually  "There's a kind of cockleshell about you."  Someone in this group also suggested I watch Danger: Diabolik.  I didn't forget, but it wasn't available for free on any of the usual streaming channels.
Flash Gordon (4K disc) - 1980 sci-fi movie based on a comic and produced by Dino De Laurentiis.  Flash! A-ah! saves everyone one of us from Ming the Merciless.  This movie continues to hold up great and is a sight to behold in 4K.
The Fifth Element (4K disc) The 1997 sci-fi movie directed by Luc Besson.  I just don't like this movie.  Now I'll sit through it, because it sort of looks nice (when it's not looking ugly) and it has Bruce Willis making stuff go boom.  But it was mostly background noise while I did a bit straightening up.
Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (4K disc) 2017 sci-fi movie based on a French comic, directed by Luc Besson.  Dane DeHaan is miscast, I mean stars as Valerian who along with his partner are futuristic space agents who are out to save the galaxy, or in this case some blue aliens straight out of Avatar.  The movie is sort of a big budget Flash Gordon movie with lots of aliens and special effects.  It bombed at the box office, but I like it.
Lucy (4K disc) 2014 sci-fi movie written and directed by Luc Besson. The movie stars Scarlett Johansson as a woman who is forced by gangsters to act as a mule for a new designer drug.  The drug is accidentally released inside her body allowing to her access 100% of her brain which results in her having superpowers.  This movie is so full of dumb you wouldn't believe it.  Early in the movie when the drugs first enter her bloodstream, Scarlett suddenly stars to defy gravity and uncontrollably float.  I'm thinking to myself how exactly does the chemical makeup of this drug entering her bloodstream cause her body to defy the laws of gravity?!?  But whatever.
It's like someone went to a lecture where they heard someone say people don't use 100% of their brain, but didn't understand anything in the lecture.  That person then tried to explain it to a screenwriter but got all the details wrong.  That screen writer then made a movie that some kid watched, and the kid didn't understand anything in the movie but heard something about people not using 100% of their brain and thought it was true.  Luc Besson was that kid and then made this movie based on that understanding. I'm not saying that's what actually happened, but it feels like it!  That being said, this movie looks absolutely stunning in 4K.  Plus, you know, Scarlett Johansson.  So yeah, I'll watch it.  I don't care how stupid it is.
Creature Commandos (HBOMax) "The Iron Pot" - We get Frankenstein's monster's backstory while in the present the Suicide Squad, I mean Creature Commandos continue on their mission to murder the princess while Flag and Frankenstein's monster try to stop them.  The first half of the episode was boring.  But things picked up significantly for the second half when all the ultraviolence started.
Silo (AppleTV+) - "The Dive" - We got some actual answers in this episode!  I'm still in shock over it.