Movies!

Alex Strangelove (2018)

RomCom/Drama

Watched on December 21, 2024

Watched this one while high at a friends house. I was told it was good... it was not.

The main character Alex Truelove (not Strangelove like the title says) is a Sheldon-Big-Bang-Theory type guy who somehow has a girlfriend who likes him enough to want to bang him... except he's nervous about having sex! Oh no!

So anyway, one day he goes to a party and smokes weed with some dude Elliot and falls in love with him. I will say that Elliot is the most likeable character in here. At one point he did a fun dance to the B-52s while wearing a Keith Haring shirt, which was very endearing and easily the highlight of the movie.

The rest of it goes exactly as expected: Alex gets all weird about his possible homosexuality, his girlfriend Claire gets all sad about it, they break up, Alex and Elliot get together happily ever after. Yay...

The dialogue is awful; sounds a 50 year old's idea of what teenagers talk like. “Do you listen to Panic! At the Disco while jerking off to pictures of vampires? No? Well then, you are not bisexual.” Good lord, man. I think another part of why I didn't like it is because Alex looks and sounds and kind of acts similarly to Ben Shapiro and it triggered some sort of automatic disgust response within me while watching.

When the movie ended I thought, "is that it? Is that the enitre story?" It was a basic-ass storyline done a million times over of a boring white guy who meets another slightly less boring white guy and realizes hes gay. There was nothing else to it. Nothing in it surprised me. I could easily name gayer movies that don't even have any gay characters in it.

In my opinion, it would have seen so much more interesting if the movie were from anyone else's perspective. Elliot is much more likeable and Claire is more sympathetic, and having this overdone story from another point of view than it normally is from would be at least a little novel, though I do suppose the "oh no my boyfriend's gay" thing is overdone as well. Whatever. I think what would have freshened it up the most is if Alex just wasn't there at all, haha.

Alex Strangelove is the movie equivalent of unseasoned boiled chicken. It wasn't even so bad its good, just plain bad, which is the worst kind of bad.

I could have spent my time on anything else and would have enjoyed it more. What a disappointment.

Dude Bro Party Massacre 3 (2015)

Horror Parody

Watched on October 19, 2024

I went into this one with extremely low expectations and they were exceeded beyond what I imagnined possible. It was hilarious, it's going in my list of the best (most fun) movies.

In the third installment of the Dude Bro Party Massacre franchise, the Delta Bi fraternity gets hunted down by the diabolical frat-killing Motherface again... but newcomer Brent is there to solve his twin brother Brock's murder and get revenge, so she's not going to have it easy.

Don't worry about not having seen Dude Bro Party Massacre 1 and 2, they don't exist. It's really clear that the inspiriation for this movie was some guy going, "Hey, what if we made a movie," and all his buddies going "That would be awesome!" Pretty low budget, but they did it well, and it added to the charm. I guess "campy" could be used to describe it, though I think too many movies get called campy when people just mean to call them bad. However, this one was not bad.

Its really fast paced, and even when occasionally the jokes didn't land, it didn't matter becsause the next one was already on it's way. It avoided making the usual bigoted jokes common of the genre, which is what made it watchable instead of shit.

I reccomend this movie to everyone who wants to party hardy. A good movie to watch with the bros.

Available to watch for free on Tubi.

Split (2016)

Horror Thriller

Watched on May 10, 2024

Did you know that being abused as a child gives you a hunger for weakling's flesh and the ability to climb walls like a squirrel? Well, according to M. Night Shyamalan it does.

The gist of it is that a guy with 24 personalities kidnaps three teenage girls and the girls try to escape. Why kidnap them? Hell, I don't know. I think that one of the personalities likes little girls or something. Don't worry, he doesn't do anything creepy them. Also, the 24th personality is called The Beast and (suprise!) wants to murder.

Don't watch Split. I only watched the beginning and the final action sequence, but that was more than enough for me. Half the time nothing really happened, just Kevin arguing with himself and the girls being scared. Apparently this is also what happened for the time I didn't watch.

The twist is that The Beast is Not Human, because Kevin has the ability to be whatever he believes he is. That means he's able to not be hurt by a close range shotgun by sheer force of will. Of course. I though the twist was going to be that he was gonna steal the girls' personalities to add to his collection, but I guess that was just not stupid enough for Shyamalan to be satisfied.

I watched this on Netflix, and if you want to watch this too for some reason, hurry, because Netflix is removing it from their site on May 31st. Good riddance.

The Hands Of Orlac (1924)

Silent Psychological Horror/Crime

Watched on March 25, 2024

Take a shot every time the intertiles say "hands" along with whenever someone falls over from shock and you'll be wasted by the end of this. I had high hopes that this movie would be a fun watch. I mean, it's about a pianist who loses his hands and is horrified when he gets new hands from a murderer! That should be a fun descent into madness, right?

The first 15 minutes and the titular Orlac hadn't even shown up yet. The next hour is about him being terrified of his new hands, possibly getting possesed by the killer Vasseur within them, waving around a knife occasionally, and his wife being sad that he won't touch her. Also the wife is getting blackmailed(?) by this mysterious dude who wants money but also tells her to "seduce his hands..."

The last 30 to 40 minutes pick up when Orlac's father is murdered... by the dead Vasseur?! There's around four different plot twists that contradict the previous within the last 15 minutes, which just leaves the viewer confused as to why the director thought that would be a good idea. It sucks all the suspense out of it and end the movie with a "happy" yet unsatisfying conclusion. To be honset I think Orlac should have died.

Not the worst movie I've ever seen, but definitely not the best. The switch from supernatural horror to crime drama at the end was very strange.

I found two versions of this film in English, both with different soundtracks added by their respective posters. This version has very loud and high energy organs, which gives it a thriller vibe, while this version has softer pianos and violins that make it more melancholy, but still bring the tension when it's needed. I started out watching the one with the organs, but switched to the piano one because the organs were just too much. Not every scene should have tense organs!

Eerie Tales (1919)

Silent Horror Anthology

Watched on March 20, 2024

I'll admit, I had watched other movies in between Plan 9 From Outer Space and Eerie Tales, I just didn't feel like writing about them.

Eerie Tales, also known as Nights of Terror as it says on the poster, is a collection of five 20 minute horror stories adapted from various sources. All of the lead roles in each story were played by the same three actors (listed on the poster), which I thought was kind of cool. Supposedly this is one of the first horror anthology films, also cool.

It was kind of more goofy than eerie, to be honest. Some of the stories chosen weren't very creepy in the first place, and the acting was really exaggerated, but I don't mind though, because watching the actors ham it up is really why I watch silent movies anyway. I love it when they pop their eyes out and drop that jaw to get the maximum "I'm so terrified" face. Love it.

It was kind of terrible, but I had fun watching, and that's what matters when watching any movie, isn't it?

I watched this on .Youtube This version doesn't have the original soundtrack, I don't think that has survived the passage of time, but the poster of the video Silents Pleeze added music, which I thought fit the vibe pretty well. This user has a shit ton of other silent movies on their profile as well.

Plan 9 From Outer Space (1957)

Awful SciFi

Watched on March 8, 2024

Plan 9 From Outer Space is known as the worst movie ever. It indeed does suck ass.

Everything about this film is awful from the plot to the sets to the acting to the special effects. All this suckage comes together to create what feels like forever but is only barely and hour and twenty minutes.

It was a lot of fun to watch, especially because there were other people there that were making fun of it the whole time.

I watched this on DVD, but it is also available on Wikipedia.

Sex in Chains (1928)

Silent Drama

Watched on February 29 & March 1 & 2 (02/29/24) - (03/02/24)

At the bottom of this poster on the left can be seen the label of "Gay-Themed Films of the German Silent Era." This collection from Kino Video is how I heard of this movie in the first place. This page on DVDTalk.com has a short description of the three movies in that collection. And, just to say depsite the name of this film, there is no actual sex in it.

However in my quest to watch this movie, I ran into a problem: There were no versions of it in English uploaded onto the internet that I could find! I really wanted to watch this, so I, at 8 PM on Thursday, decided that I would translate it into English myself despite not knowing German.

I got really into this project and spent three entire evenings on this. It's not like I had anything else to do. The fruits of my labor can be seen on YouTube at this link!

The gist of it is the protagonist Franz Sommer goes to prison for accidentally killing this man who was harrassing his wife Helene, and while in there the speration from each other leads to the destruction their marriage. The "Gay-Themed" part of it is that Franz has a thing with one of his cellmates.

I think my ability to accurately review Sex In Chains is gone due to the sheer amount of time I have spent on it. The idea of a guy being so horny for his wife that he goes gay is a bit insane, but I have a very high tolerance for stupid plotlines. It's 1928, the alternative is no gayness at all, and I'll admit, I'm desperate.

I do think that it is pretty enjoyable to watch, but don't take my word for it, check it out yourself!

Lift (2024)

Heist, Action

Watched on March 1, 2024

Utterly unremarkable. Doesn't hold together if you think about it for more than a second. They tried to make it the kind of movie that is stupid yet enjoyable except they forgot to make it enjoyable.

The plot was advertised on Netflix was "a master thief and his Interpol Agent ex-girlfriend who team up to steal 500 million dollars in gold bullion being transported on an A380 passenger flight," which has great potential for fun dumbassery that they squandered in its poor execution.

A third of the way in and they weren't even on the plane yet. It gets repeated that they need to steal the gold because "lives are at stake." I think it's because the bad guy who the gold belongs to is going to use it to do a terrorism?

There's a really dumb romance between Kevin Hart and the Interpol lady that teams up with them, and at the end she leaves her high-paying government job to be a art thief. Makes sense!

I watched this with my family on Netflix. Have it be known, I did not choose this.

Princess Mononoke (1997)

Animated Fantasy Adventure

Watched on February 23, 2024

As usual with Studio Ghibli, this was GORGEOUS. Beautiful natural landscapes is their specialty and luckily the primary setting of this really great film is vast prairies and and lush woods full of creatures.

It follows Ashitaka, the prince from a small obscure tribe who gets cursed by a demonized boar god and travels west to find a cure. In doing so, he comes across the iron manufactuing fortress Irontown, controlled by Lady Eboshi, who seeks to destroy the enviroment, and San (the titular Princess Mononke), a human girl living with wolves who wants to save it.

It took me so long to write this because it's a lot easier to complain than praise. It was really fun to watch, not just because of the amazing visuals but because of the story as well. I can't think of anything I would change about this film except for the voice actor for the old monk character, who with his radio announcer voice sounded really out of place.

I got this as a DVD form the library, but then it turned out the DVD was badly scratched so we watched this on Amazon Prime instead. We had some sort of "video points" which allowed for the movie rental to be free(?). Kind of disapointed that the DVD didn't work out, but whatever.

Spice World (1997)

Absurdist Comedy, Musical

(Re)watched on February 11th, 2024

It's the Spice Girls!!!! They have a big gig coming up soon, but that's not important, what's important is all the other random stuff they do beforehand, like rehearsing, partying, hanging out with their pregnant friend, and the occasional bus chase!!

Honestly, there isn't a plot so much as events that happen in a order, but that only enhances the experience. If you know what's going on at any point in time, you're doing it wrong. As my friend who watched it for the first time with me said, it's like a parody of itself. Random over-the-top shit will happen without much explanation and all you can do is buckle up and go along with it. I love this movie because of how stupid it is.

I watched this on Archive.org, but they have since taken the video down :( I have found a version of it on 123movies, but I haven't watched it to know how high quality it is.

Different From The Others (1919)

Silent, Educational, Tragedy

Watched on February 5th, 2024

This is the earliest ever film depicting homosexuality in a positive light. It follows musician Paul Körner (played by Conrad Veidt) as he is blackmailed for being gay. At the time, Germany had Paragraph 175 as it's sodomy law, and this was created in an attempt to educate people about gayness and plead to end Paragraph 175.

I feel like this can't really be judged from a movie standpoint, instead from a historical point of view. Yes, it's kind of dry and doesn't have much of a plot, but the circumstances in which it was made overrules that, in my opinion. Nineteen Nineteen! The 1800s were just a few years ago! Also, part of the film got burned by Nazis. The version that I watched on Archive.org has replaced that missing footage with title cards explaining what happens in the lost scenes, which is really the only way to go about it. I mean, what else could they do, refilm it? Nah. The missing footage is a bit blow to the movie, and I really wish that they had survived.

I liked watching this. The number of gay characters in silent films, which I adore, is zero. It's not often that you get to watch something like this.

He Who Gets Slapped (1924)

Silent Pychological Thriller/Drama

Watched on February 4th, 2024

It is really hard to take something called He Who Gets Slapped seriously. Despite the goofy-ass name, this was a pretty good movie! Lon Chaney plays as a frienzed scientist, Paul Beaumont, who gets his prized research and his girl stolen by his friend and patron Baron Regnard. The Baron presents Paul's work as his own, and slaps him when confronted. The board of the Academy of Sciences thinks this is hilarious and it absolutely destroys him. He decides to quit the scientific life and be a circus clown, where he performs an act under the name of HE Who Gets Slapped. HE does this for several years, until the Baron shows up to watch the circus one day.

The acting is really well done (in my opinion. I'm not the greatest at telling if acting is bad to be honest). There's a romance between two characters that gets a pretty big amount of screen time, and they are so sweet; you can really tell that they are in love. Lon Chaney is, as usual, amazing at what he does. Apparently there's movie called Laugh, Clown, Laugh where he plays as another tragic clown with an unrequited love. I don't think that one is based on a Russian play like this one is, though.

I was really tempted to rewatch The Man Who Laughs today because I had a dream about it, though the specifics of it escape me now. So, instead, I decided to watch this one, because I remebered the name from when I was looking at the Wikipedia pages of silent films last month. I've been watching all these silent films from the 20s because they are just so easy to find! A lot of them are on Wikipedia if they're in the public domain and in English! Just scroll a little bit on the page and the entire movie is right there!

By The Sun's Rays (1914)

Silent Western Short

Watched on February 4th, 2024

I'll admit, I don't like Westerns. The cowboys and horses and shit just don't do it for me. This is true with this film. I only watched it because I was looking at the Lon Chaney Wikipedia page, and it was only 11 minutes long, so I thought that it would be interesting even just to see how camera quality was in 1914. It's crazy how much the resolution goes up in just a few years, comparing it to The Golem forom 1920 and The Man Who Laughs from 1928 (damn, I love that movie).

I had trouble figuring out who the bandits and who the "good guys" were, because men on horses are pretty indistinguishable from one another, though this may be due to my lack of interest in the plot.

Watch the film here, if you so wish.

The Blues Brothers (1980)

Absurdist Comedy, Musical, Action

Watched on February 2nd, 2024

The Blues Brothers baby!!! Who can resist the sweet sounds of the blues? Certainly not Elwood and Jake, the petty criminal musicians looking to help out their old orphanage pay of it's massive amount of taxes. Now on a mission from God, they go around Chicago recruiting their old band members to play in a charity gig, all the while evading the cops who are on their trail.

If you haven't seen this, you're missing out. It's a classic for a reason. I went into this almost completely blind, only knowing that there were two brothers that wore suits and had a car chase. It is so much more than that, including rocket launchers and killer musical numbers. I know there isn't much suybstance to thuis review, but I just don't really know what to say, how to describe what can only be understood through watching it.

I watched this which my family, so I don't have a copy to link this time, though it shouldn't be too hard to find.

Legally Blonde (2001)

Comedy, Romance

(Re)watched on January 26th, 2024

The ultimate sorority girl Elle Woods gets dumped by her douchebag boyfriend because she's not "serious" enough to be with him, the future lawyer leaving for Harvard Law School. To prove that she's dead serious, she decides to follow him to Harvard and be the best lawyer she can be, though that's not easy when no one takes her and her ambitions seriously.

Legally Blonde is known as a classic for a reason. Elle is a total badass. Watching this is a ton of fun, though some may refuse see that due to wrongfully hating on chick flicks.

This time I have no pirating link to it because I got the cd for real cheap at an estate sale! I don't know the actual price due to just paying $12 for everything instead of pricing every item out seperately, which is great. A real deal steal.

The Man Who Laughs (1928)

Romantic Drama, Thriller, Silent*

Watched on January 7th, 2024

In late 17th century England, Gwynplaine, a man who at a young age was disfigured with permanant grin, works as a sideshow attraction alongside his blind love Dea and the compassionate old man who took the two of them in. He is deeply ashamed of his looks, and doesn't belive himself worthy of being loved by Dea due to that. His kind heart doesn't stop the crowds from mocking him. When it's discovered that he's actually the son to a long dead nobleman, he's sought out by the higher ups of royalty to claim his seat in House of Lords, and they go to horrible lengths to get him there.

Of the three movies I have watched this year, this one is my favorite by far. Gywnplaine is a very sympathetic protagonist, one of the few of this time (or any time) that aren't moviestar handsome. (In later remakes of this film that I haven't and won't watch, they chose to make him moviestar handsome. Sigh.) His romance with Dea is very sweet and convincing, and personally I got very invested in what would happen to the characters, as it gets pretty tense. The soundtrack is great. When there's a crowd or a bell ringing or such it can be heard, which I think is a really cool addition which adds to conveying a sense of chaos of a scene when chaos is the goal.

*Honestly I had trouble defining the genres for it. Calling it horror just seems rude and there's nothing really scary about it, though it does give the veiwer unease and sadness from worrying about the fate of Gwynplaine, though it just barely doesn't make the mark of being a full tragedy either. The director Paul Leni was invoved in the German Expressionist scene, but this movie is American, and can it really be qualified as Expressionist anyway? I'm not an expert on genres, and labeling a movie that seems to defy them is hard. Still, I think Romantic Drama and Thriller seem to fit the bill pretty well.

I am very pleased to say that the entire film is available directly on the Wikipedia page for the film, because this year it has entered the public domain. Let's go public domain!

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)

Silent Horror, Mystery, German Expressionism

Watched on January 6th, 2024

A man comes to town under the name of Dr. Caligari with a sideshow attraction: Cesare, a sleepwalker, a man who has been alseep for his entire life who can tell the future. After they arrive, a series of murders are committed! The set design is very unique with the majority of the backgrounds being painted onto sheets. Everything has warped and twisted proportions that make it feel almost dreamlike or nightmarish. There isn't a visually boring frame in the film, which makes for a fun watch.

Don't (!!) watch it on the channel Cult Cinema Classics on Youtube: The soundtrack is very disjointed to the point of decreasing viewing experience. Unfortunately, I have not found another video that has a better soundtrack as I have no desire to do that at this moment, having just watched it today (as of writing this). However just searching the title alone gets many other versions uploaded to Youtube aside from this one, so a higher quality one shouldn't be too hard to find.

The Meg 2: The Trench (2023)

Action, Horror Sci-fi

Watched on January 5th, 2024

The sequel to the Meg (2018) features Jason Statham kicking shark ass yet again, this time with three times the sharks plus a giant squid too, because no shark movie is complete without the sharks fighting a different creature as well as humans. His step-daughter Meiying has grown from a toddler to a young teenager, and easily is the highlight of the film with her likeable personality and desire to do crazy dangerous stuff to help people.

Everyone on Letterboxd hates this movie, but that's because they're watching it expecting something good, not registering that its Jason fucking Statham and sharks. This is in no way an avantgarde art film, but is it fun. The best way to watch this is with people who know how to have a good laugh, because there are a good many parts in this movie that are the highest quality of dumb.

Unfortunately this time I do not have a link to a site to watch it on because I watched this with family on Netflix (where it has recently been added), because they insist on spending money to watch TV legally. Boo.

The Golem: How He Came Into The World (1920)

Silent Horror, Fantasy, German Expressionism

Watched on December 31st, 2023

The third and only surviving film from Paul Wergener's Golem trilogy retells a Jewish legend of a rabbi creating a golem, bringing it from clay to life to protect the Jews of 16th century Prague from being expelled.

The design of the golem is really cool and pretty creepy if I'm being honest. The way that Wergener (yes, he direcetd AND played the golem) moves really comes across as a being who is not used to being able to move. The romance between the young woman and the palace messenger was sweet despite the messenger being a stuck up moron at the start.

Apparently there's a Simpsons episode parodying this? Not sure what that's about.

I watched The Golem on Iconauta's Youtube channel. This video has the title cards replaced with style-emulated title cards in English, so subtitles don't need to be turned on. It really is a nice bit of effort put into the editing of it that makes for a less annoying time attempting to read the tiny Youtube subtitles. Thanks Iconauta.

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York (1992)

Comedy, Family, Adventure

(Re)watched on December 29th, 2023

On Cristmas eve the McCallister family is headed to Florida for the holidays, but Kevin gets on the wrong plane without his family and flies to New York instead. Honestly I would rather be in Hell than in Florida, I can't really blame him for this one. The Wet Bandits (or as they are now called, the Sticky Bandits) are also in New York after having broken out of jail, and are planning to rob a toy store's collected donations for a children's hospital.

All in all, this movie was alright. I mean, it is a sequel, so alright is a pretty good thing for it to be. Highlight of the movie is the homeless lady who befriends Kevin that stands in the park all day and has an army of pigeons.

In my opinion, the kicking-bandit-ass sequence was a bit much this time, unlike in the previous movie. Seeing Kevin electrocute them and make a toilet explode is streching my suspension of disbelief that 1) the bandits wouldn't die, 2) that a ten year old would know how to rig such elaborate traps, and 3) that he wouldn't damage himself in the process for rigging said traps, which--have I mentioned?--are in his aunt and uncle's house in the middle of renovation. Also, Kevin's family leaving him behind AGAIN is a bit ridiculous.

I swear, I check for where my cat is more often than Kevin's mom checks for him. If I were her I would buy one of the toddler leash backpacks and have him strapped into that thing 24/7.

Watched this one on some random channel on someone elses TV. No ads though, so that's a plus.