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In the Mood for Love (2000)
In the Mood for Love (2000)
2000 | Drama, Romance
(0 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"You feel from the first moments that this movie will make no mistakes. I remember those claustrophobic rented rooms and the host family always laughing and cooking and playing mah-jongg. Compositions are boxed in on the left and right, which ups the energy of each scene, igniting these characters because they’re given so little space. Wong Kar-wai designs this past world meticulously, then casts it with messy realness and makes it turn . . . Messy realness saves his two leads. Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Tony Leung Chiu-wai float on air. They are as gorgeously put together as any two humans out there, and here give a clinic on the power of performance restraint. Cinematographer Chris Doyle adores Cheung: captured by his slow motion, her beauty is written into the record books. This is a love story that crawls. Every breath taken by these two characters is counted. You’ve got to get into the masochistic pleasure of dying for something to happen that may not. What does happen? Torrential downpours soaking 1960s Hong Kong, Nat King Cole haunting the background of an incredible score, and a parade of the most gorgeous dresses ever zipped up the back of an actress."

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The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)
The Babysitter: Killer Queen (2020)
2020 | Comedy, Horror
I have a soft spot for The Babysitter. It's a little middle of the road and has some flaws but it's fun, it's gory, and just a good time.
The sequel, The Babysitter: Killer Queen, is pretty much more of the same, albeit with a few more issues that render it inferior to it's predecessor.

The main problem is the absence of Samara Weaving. Her screentime in this probably totals around the 5 minute mark.
Judah Lewis returns as Cole, and takes the lead this time around. He's a decent enough lead for sure, but the chemistry between him and Weaving is what made the first movie stand out.
Elsewhere, some hastily explained exposition explains the return of the other members of the cult that were all offed in the first one, and it's a little hit and miss. Robbie Amell is pretty entertaining once again, but the screenplay doubles down on constant jokes, to the point where a lot of them don't land, and it feels like each character is just trying to out-edge the others with their edginess, and relentless pop culture references.
Another issue I found was the increase in role for Cole's Dad, played by Ken Marino. I tend to like him in most things he's in but he's given too much screentime this time around, and it doesn't take long for his character to wear thin. Same goes for Chris Wylde's character.

Apart from all that though, it's still fun to a degree. There's plenty of gore on display - a mix of so so CGI and practical effects by the looks of it - and it's suitably over the top. It pushes this sequel into more schlocky territory than the first, which isn't necessarily a bad thing and the two likable protagonists (Judah Lewis and Jenna Ortega) ensure that it's still a watchable comedy horror, even if it does have a gaping Samara Weaving shaped hole.
  
Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)
Dora and the Lost City of Gold (2019)
2019 | Adventure, Family
A Fun Family Film For Everyone
Dora and the Lost City of Gold is a 2019 adventure comedy movie directed by James Bobin and producer Kristin Burr, with screenplay by Nicholas Stoller and Matthew Robinson from a story by Tom Wheeler and Nicholas Stoller. It is a loose based continuation and live-action adaptation of the kids show created by Chris Gifford, Valerie Walsh Valdes and Eric Weiner and produced by Paramount Players, Nickelodeon Movies, Walden Media, Media Rights Capital and Burnt Productions with distribution by Paramount Pictures. The film stars Isabela Moner, Eva Longoria, Michael Pena, Jeff Wahlberg and Eugenio Derbez.


Spending her days going on adventures with her cousin Diego (Jeff Wahlberg), her monkey friend Boots (Danny Trejo) and imaginary friends "Map" and "Backpack", Dora (Isabela Moner), daughter of explorers, Cole (Michael Pena) and Elena (Eva Longoria) lives deep in the Peruvian jungle. Diego leaves to be with his family in Los Angeles one day while Dora's family remains searching for Parapata, the lost Inca city of gold. 10 years later, Dora's parents decide to send her to live with her cousin Diego in LA when they decipher the location of Parapata. While on a class trip, Dora and others are lured and captured by mercenaries who fly them to Peru where they plan to force her to find her parents for them.


I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. I guess that happens when you really don't have any expectations at all. I thought this movie was pretty funny and also pretty good for expanding on what was originally a 30 minute kids show that was mostly educational. The girl playing Dora, Isabela Moner, did a great job in her role of Dora. She was optimistically upbeat the whole film even when things didn't go her way but still showed a fragile side to her at the same time that she did incredible feats. Eugenio Derbez was also incredibly funny and did an awesome job as well. The movie was everything you expect for a fun family film and at the same time had good lessons or values to take away from it at the same time. I give this movie a 6/10.
  
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Henry Rollins recommended Apocalypse Now (1979) in Movies (curated)

 
Apocalypse Now (1979)
Apocalypse Now (1979)
1979 | Action, Drama, War

"Another film is Apocalypse Now, which I’m sure every male moron you’ve ever interviewed has put in his top five. But the reason I put it in my top five is because Ian MacKaye, my best friend, and I went to go see it, first run, and we walked out not understanding what we had seen. But we walked home with, like, smoke coming out of our ears. And it’s one of those, where you’re young with no car, you get used to walking — like, “it’s only four miles each way.” And you’re so young and so stupid you just do it. Just getting snowed on. No problem. It was one of those massive walks back to our neighborhood and we just kinda walked home in shocked silence. We were, in a way, devastated, and neither one of us could tell you what that film was about. “Was it about the war?” “I guess.” So we went back to see it again later, and we were like 18 or 17. And maybe other 17-year-olds could’ve articulated it, but for Ian and I, we loved it but we were just kinda devastated by it. As I grew older, now I’m a twenty-something, and I’m watching once a year. And I start to understand it when I start to understand the Vietnam War differently. I’m starting to understand that conflict a little more as a young adult. Then I start reading into the characters more, and the more I see it, one day I feel like I’m Willard, Martin Sheen’s character. And one day I feel like I’m Kurtz, Brando’s character. And then I join Black Flag and our tours — our van was like PBR Street Gang. The highway was the Nung river. We would just go into these hairy situations. I’ll never forget one night, I’m in the back of our equipment truck with the backdoor kinda open, me and one of the roadies, and we’re looking at the lights of some harbor in Florida and I looked at him and said, “This sure enough is a bizarre sight in the middle of all this s—,” as Clean says when they’re going into that crazy kinda nightclub, DMZ area where Bill Graham comes out and does his amazing scene. And, Apocalypse Now lines from the film became patter between me and a Black Flag roadie, and then between members of the Rollins band, where we would speak in Apocalypse Now. When we’d go into a place where everything was screwed up I’d say, “Chris, did you find the monitor guy?” and he’d say, “No, there’s no f—ing CO here,” which is from Apocalypse Now, which means there’s nobody in charge; this place is a wreck. So, as I got older — I’m 55 now — that film is still relevant to me. And it still speaks to me on a lot of levels. Like when Kurtz says to Willard, “It’s impossible for words to describe what is necessary to those who do not know what horror means… you must make a friend of horror.” And I never really understood that line until I was involved in a murder [the murder of Joe Cole], where I was almost killed and my friend was killed. I became full of horror. And once you get that, you get it. And so I’ll never think of that line the same way again, because it so describes what happened to me. I can’t describe what that was like to you. I can describe it but it’s gonna fall short. Unless that’s happened to you, you don’t understand what I’m telling you. You’ll only understand it in a journalistic way. Oh, right, OK, something bad happened. You don’t know the half of it, ’cause I can’t articulate it to you, and you can’t read me. And it’s what happened to all these dudes. These Vietnam vets, Iraq and Afghanistan. They come home and no one can read them. Which is shown so beautifully in The Hurt Locker. When the guy goes home and he’s preparing the meal with his wife, like yeah, “This guy got blown up.” And she’s like “Uh-Huh, cut the carrots.” There’s a complete disconnect. And so what Apocalypse Now — I finally figured it out — it’s just about insanity, which is nothing but what war is. It’s just a bunch of people being completely insane. And it captures the insanity of human conflict perfectly. It could’ve been any war."

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