2020 stuff

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Thu Mar 19, 2020 6:29 am

Goodfellas - It was good.

The Girl on the Third Floor - It was bad.

Parasite - (VAGUE SPOILERS) Not sure what to think about this one. It was certainly above average, I guess. Most definitely functionally well-made. But tonally and thematically it was a huge mess. The first hour was basically a cute heist movie, then it turned into a sort of tense comedy, then it randomly exploded into gratuitous Tarantinto-esque violence, then at the very end it very suddenly and jarringly switched into attempted poignancy and melancholy. Whatever thematic throughline it had was dissolved by the time the violence showed up. In fact I think the violence was ultimately only put there to distract us from the the fact that the movie's substance was dissipating.

There were certainly themes at first. The major one is class, and it had some mildly interesting things to say about it in the first two acts, and I guess it said them in a fairly creative way. The poverty-stricken family basically con their way into getting well-paid employment through way of demeaning menial service for a family of clueless and thoughtlessly arrogant rich people. They're incredibly ruthless and professional at it, which makes me wonder why they're so poverty-stricken when it seems like they do shit like this every day. The premise is implausible from the get-go. But the joke, I guess, is that the "prize" their con gives them is the opportunity to subserviently wait hand and foot on a family who routinely reflexively condescends to them and treats them as borderline non-humans. I guess this is commentary on how capitalism makes poor people scheme and fight each other to serve the upper class, since that's all we can do. They do fuck over other working people in their con. And the "twist" in the second act, if you can call it that, just adds one extra layer to this idea, it doesn't change it or deepen it.

There were some interesting subcurrents the film hinted at about how authoritarian and oppressive social structures, like those capitalism makes, makes the oppressed identify and empathize with their oppressors as a matter of necessity, and even sympathize with them (since identification naturally breeds sympathy if you have feelings), even as they legitimately hate them, in an almost sadomasochistic fashion. I also enjoyed how the poor family managed to effortlessly parachute into the rich family's lives simply by pretending they were tangentially connected to America. Even the rich villains in this movie have stations they aspire to, just as the poor ones have layers they look down on. The lack of solidarity among the working class was a fairly major idea, although the movie left it ambiguous as to whether to lay that squarely at capitalism's feet. So there were some interesting things here, but they were just hinted at.

As said, there wasn't a whole lot of psychological realism, especially concerning the poor family. In real life, hyper-competent con artists are typically wealthy, not wallowing in poverty. This could be excused if the characters were just ciphers for the movie's message, but there was no clear message for them to be ciphers for. There was no overarching thesis statement. Maybe I missed it. But this movie's big thing is ambiguity, like it's a big mystery who the "parasites" in this situation are, and therefore, I guess, the real world. In that case, let me help you out, Bong Joon-ho: it's the capitalists. The capitalists are the parasites. They're living off the labor of others. They're expropriating the value the laboring class makes. There is no ambiguity, sir, it is quite clear. One group makes, another takes. It's very simple. Glad I could clear that up for everyone.

I mean, I'm not saying it wasn't good. It was good. It kind of got steadily weaker as it went on. I did like the extended drinking scene in the middle. That was my favorite part.

The Lighthouse - so, this movie was basically a gross out comedy/slapstick farce. That's how I read it. This was so silly and dumb and hilariously melodramatic. None of the beats landed for me at all. Willem Defoe did a very good job, but he was playing a Popeye's character. I loved every single second of it. There were no less than three masturbation scenes in this movie, one of them intensely gross, like something out of American Pie (note: I only have a vague idea of what American Pie is). I never thought I would find someone mercilessly obliterating a bird so funny. I didn't care in the slightest bit about anything that was happening, because it was all stupid. Also, it tried to make mermaids scary??? Stop doing that. Goats and mermaids = not scary.

The Gift - This movie was kind of intelligent and good. I don't know if I like the ending or not. It wraps up everything very nicely... but at what cost? Anyway, it was worth watching, I recommend it. That's all.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 3:30 am

Marnie (1964) - yeah it was pretty good.

I don't know, what else do you want from me.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 4:17 am

Derived Absurdity wrote:Repulsion (1965) - It was well-made. As the kids say, there was a lot of psychology there. What a feminist, that Roman Polanski.

Shame (2011) - Steve McQueen's movie about a sex addict. You know, these mid-budget festival arthouse-type movies are often almost as formulaic and rote as your standard Hollywood blockbusters. A lot of glossy high production, a lot of technical craftsmanship, a lot of long pretty tracking shots depicting nothing of particular importance, a lot of the protagonist being all lonely and mopey and depressed, a lot of moody close-ups and long takes, a lot of melodrama, and above all, a lot of ambiguity. Oh, so much ambiguity. Everything here could mean anything. Everything is vague, everything is inchoate, the movie doesn't want to deliver or portray anything of substance, it just wants to give you a bunch of vaguely sketched outlines of characterization and emotion and scenes and let you fill all the missing parts in. Well, the movie gave me no inclination to do that, because it wasn't interesting in any way. It felt empty and pointless.

Repulsion's awesome. Very close with Chinatown as my favorite Polanski, and given that they're so different it's hard to compare. I always remember the commentary talking about when the producer saw the film he told Polanski something to the effect that he'd ordered a Corolla and was given a Corvette. The idea being that it was meant to be just a standard B-horror film made on a really limited budget.

I basically agree with you about Shame, and what you say about arthouse films is exactly true. All films (hell, all art) is influenced by certain traditions that have their "formulas." The question is always whether or not they do something interesting with those traditions and formulas. I've yet to see a McQueen film where I thought he did something interesting or compelling or provocative or evocative or whatever. I can often admire the craftsmanship but there's not much else there. BTW, if you're ever interested in exploring the origins of where the whole "long pretty... shots of nothing... protagonist being mopey and depressed... moody... ambiguity" stuff started, check out Rosselini's Journey to Italy, Antonioni's L'Avventura, and Fellini's La Dolce Vita. They're basically the beginnings of that European arthouse style of the 60s.

Derived Absurdity wrote:Goodfellas - It was good.

Understatement, but yeah. Of all the great films ever made, that has to be high on the list of the most purely entertaining. I still think Raging Bull is Scorsese's best, but as far as striking the best balance of entertainment and art, Goodfellas gets the nod.

Derived Absurdity wrote:Marnie (1964) - yeah it was pretty good.

I don't know, what else do you want from me.

The big controversy over that film is what to make of Mark's character, given that he both rapes Marnie but also (kinda) "cures" her. You might wanna read through the discussion Raxi and I had about it: http://forum.pittersplace.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2190

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 8:55 am

Ah man I can't believe I missed your last few posts here DA. We had really similar thoughts about Parasite and Lighthouse. I can respect the craftsmanship on both of those movies quite a bit (Particularly in Parasite where I think that first half is just a solid suspense film in its own right for the most part (I had the same question about the family's ability to hold a job though. If the movie is trying to make the point that capitalism isn't even a meritocracy then perhaps they could have shown that better in some fashion)), but the stuff in Lighthouse that was meant to be scary like the mermaid was just baffling in a bad way to me. Maybe the movie is meant to be read as a comedy, but it didn't really land for me that way.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Sun Mar 29, 2020 9:32 pm

Well yeah you two kind of exhausted everything I could think of to say about Marnie, which is why I didn't say anything besides it was good. Not sure what more there is to add.

I didn't love it or anything, but I think it showcased how to do ambiguity right. It was very interesting and it made you think about it quite a lot afterward (if you paid attention), as opposed to something like Shame where there was nothing there or Parasite where it was all just kind of a mess.

As for Lighthouse, I think the fact that we're even questioning if it's supposed to be read as funny is a bad sign. Typically if you make a horror movie and people wonder if it's supposed to be a comedy, that means it's really bad. Exceptions abound, but all successful horror-comedies I've seen were very clear about intending to be funny. Not so with whatever this was supposed to be.

Faustus5 · Post by **Faustus5** » Mon Mar 30, 2020 10:15 am

Derived Absurdity wrote: Exceptions abound, but all successful horror-comedies I've seen were very clear about intending to be funny. Not so with whatever this was supposed to be.

There is absolutely no question that parts of Lighthouse were meant as comedy and other parts were meant to be disturbing. That it plays by its own rules is in part why it will be looked at as a classic over time. Just wait and see.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Mar 30, 2020 2:59 pm

Did you think the mermaid was meant to be funny then?

Like I could understand thinking the fart scenes straight out of an Adam Sandler movie were meant to be funny, but the stuff that I'm and I think DA too are taking issue with are scenes that seemed like they were meant to be disturbing but don't elicit that effect at all. So really it seems like we're left with a movie that isn't funny OR scary really.

Faustus5 · Post by **Faustus5** » Mon Mar 30, 2020 4:43 pm

Raxivace wrote:Did you think the mermaid was meant to be funny then?

No, I think most folks would have found her a tad disturbing.

It's intentionally a kind of crazy film. Not for everyone, for sure, but I really think time is going to be very, very kind to it in terms of how it is regarded critically.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Thu Apr 02, 2020 4:06 pm

Clueless (1995) - I don't know, I thought it was funny.

The Gift (2015) - I liked it even better the second time. I thought it was well-done. Very thoughtfully made and whatnot, very compelling. Jason Bateman was good. There was an empty jump scare once, but what can you do. I still don't like the ending very much, but other than that, it was good. I recommend it again.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011) - I don't know, it was cute, I guess. It didn't really do anything Scream didn't do better fifteen years ago. It's not like anyone was still taking any of the tropes it deconstructed seriously at that point. Teen slasher movies are some of the easiest targets possible, they've been considered a joke for decades. Did you really need to make an entire movie just to take them down a peg? This movie set its ambitions very, very low and only just barely passed them anyway. It's also guilty of what it makes fun of. It makes fun of how teens in slasher movies are stock characters with no depth, yet it's not like the characters here are any better. What was particularly stupid about the genre deconstruction here was that it was based on this idea that horror is stuck in this tired formula rehashing worn-out tropes with no creativity, but it was absolutely packed with references to modern successful horror movies, like It and The Strangers, that disproved this. Also, what a strange ending. Was that supposed to be have been good? Wouldn't it have been better for Marty to simply not believe her, since they've been lying to him for the whole movie, instead of just selfishly deciding to kill everyone?

Whatever. The biggest sin of this movie, though, is that it wasn't funny. It was entertaining, but not smart or funny.

Post by **Gendo** » Thu Apr 02, 2020 6:44 pm

The fun part is when you realize years after having watched it that Clueless is an adaptation of Jane Austin's Emma.

Post by **Gendo** » Thu Apr 02, 2020 6:47 pm

Also, I don't think Cabin in the Woods was referencing the recent successful It; considering it came out 6 years earlier... If it was referencing It (do you just mean the killer clown seen briefly?) it would have been referencing the novel or the less-successful miniseries.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 1:27 am

Yes, I thought it was probably referencing the miniseries, which was pretty successful at the time.

The Social Network (2010) - It at least rivals Goodfellas as one of the most purely entertaining "Great Movies" ever made, although I'm not sure it's actually a great movie. It's not actually a "Facebook movie", despite its reputation, since it stops right when Facebook hit a million users, so it can't really say anything meaningful about it or how it influenced the world. It basically functions as a character study of Mark Zuckerberg, in a sense, although this movie's Zuckerberg is very, very different from the real Zuckerberg, so it's not even that. This Zuckerberg is just invented out of whole cloth, so he's just a vehicle for the movie to say something about the Angry (White) Nerd Type. He's an asshole, he's sexist, he's entitled, he's deeply fundamentally insecure, he's secretly lonely, and so on. Like they all are. That's about the extent of what this movie says about him. It's nothing wrong, but nothing perceptive, either.

A lot of this movie is carried exclusively by Jesse Eisenberg, who was fantastic in it. Nothing less than flawless in his performance whatsoever, and he deserves all the accolades he got. Although, again, his character was nothing like Zuckerberg at all. Eisenberg's Zuckerberg is roughly a million times cooler and more alpha and more funny and more interesting than the real one. He dominates every single room he goes in. He's only a "nerd" in the sense that girls in high school movies are "ugly" just because they wear glasses. And the movie doesn't question or interrogate his reputation as a wunderkind in any way, just lets his image as a super-genius pass unquestioned. Not saying that's wrong, I guess, it's just kind of silly that everyone thought this made the real Zuckerberg look bad. Somewhat amusingly, if they wanted a more realistic portrait of the guy, they should have gone with Michael Cera instead, who is far more Mark Zuckerberg-ish. Also amusingly, this guy was a much better Lex Luthor than whatever Eisenberg was trying to do in BvS.

But yeah this movie basically whitewashed Zuckerberg. It also whitewashes the Winklevoss twins, from what I know, and it definitely whitewashes Eduardo Saverin, who is portrayed with no real flaws whatsoever. It doesn't say anything meaningful about Silicon Valley culture, or about angry entitled nerds, and most certainly not about Facebook. What it is is extremely entertaining and well-made on a purely formal level with a fantastic performance at the core, and that's all.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Fri Apr 03, 2020 5:28 am

I basically agree with everything you said about The Social Network, though I didn't know jack about the RL Zuckerberg when I saw the film (still don't, really), so I just approached and appreciated it as pure fiction. That's one film I actually reviewed for Cinelogue back in the day. Here's what I wrote: https://fpscinema.wordpress.com/2011/02 ... l-network/

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Wed Apr 08, 2020 9:45 pm

That was a pretty good review.

The Evil Dead (1981) - yeah it was pretty good. I forgot how fucking boring the first forty minutes or whatever are, but it's good after that. I also forgot how fucking obnoxious all the monsters are. Like, they just did not shut the fuck up for a second.

That is all.

The Craft (1996) - I thought it was very entertaining. I liked it, to an extent. I did some research on it for about two minutes after watching it and it seems like a few people think it was a female empowerment movie. These people are dumb. Or maybe they just stopped watching halfway through. The resolution comes when Sarah the protagonist rejects the coven as bad, and they all get their just deserts. The girls who rejected societal norms and got back at their abusers and forged their own independence turned out to be the villains. Especially the main villain, Nancy, who was the most abused, the most dedicated to attaining power/agency, the most obvious about rejecting societal norms, and the most clearly lesbian-coded. She turned out to be a sociopath. The movie also of course ends with the whole female solidarity thing in tatters, so in what sense is this movie about female empowerment?

Of course most of this happens in the last fifteen minutes or so. The vast bulk of the movie is basically about what they're saying it's about. Maybe the director's sympathies lie with the vast bulk and he only tacked on a regressive ending to play it safe with mainstream audiences or executives or whatever.

I realize that the villains supposedly took their new powers "too far", which is why they were villains, but that's the other thing. It was made clear that whatever they did, they would get back threefold. Whatever they did. So they couldn't do anything without it coming back to them three times as bad. So they deserved everything they got because of karma? Sarah deserved to be almost assaulted? Nancy deserved to be locked up? Nancy wasn't allowed to fight back against her abuse at all? I don't like messages that say that it's somehow wrong to fight back against your abuser. It's not female empowerment, at the very least.

Minority Report (2002) - it was fun. I didn't like the desaturation and shaky cam, but that's just my opinion.

Post by **Gendo** » Wed Apr 08, 2020 11:08 pm

Love The Craft.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Thu Apr 16, 2020 2:55 am

Pan's Labyrinth (2006) - I consider this a perfect transcendent 10/10 movie. I can't really go into detail as to why I like it so much beyond all the obvious superficial reasons (beautiful, atmospheric, moving, thought-provoking, anti-fascist, and so on), I just know I do. I was worried that watching it again it wouldn't be as good as I remembered from when I was younger, but nope, it's just as good. It's better, actually. I'd say this is probably tied with Lost in Translation as my second-favorite movie ever (Mad Max: Fury Road is untouchable at first, of course).

Sky High (2005) - a corny high school movie, but with superheroes. It was silly, but fun. I watched it like a week and a half ago and I already forgot almost all of it. Predictably, it ended not with the evil fascist eugenic caste system of the high school being subverted and dismantled, but with everyone simply realizing they were mistaken as to who in it belonged where. All the "sidekicks" proved they were heroes in the end by helping save the school, even though all they basically did was help Will defeat the villain, so I would think that would just reinforce them being sidekicks. But yeah, the happy ending is that the sidekicks are heroes, not that the whole dichotomy is evil and stupid in the first place. Also the person coming closest to dissolving the system turns out to be the villain, also predictably. This movie is solid supporting evidence in my "all superhero stories are fascist" thesis.

Crash (2004) - I mean, I thought it was funny.

A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) - Well, this was not as good as I remembered it being. I think the first twenty-five minutes or so were really good, but then it went downhill and stayed there. The set design and visual atmosphere were just as good as I remember, and I think it's worth watching for those alone, because they're as striking and unique as any in any movie I've ever seen. But beyond that, the tone is generally far too light, the pacing is pretty plodding, almost all of the darker edges of the books have been sanded down, and the melancholy from the books was toned down considerably to be replaced by mawkishness. Emily Browning and Liam Aiken are bright spots, though their characters are generally emptier here than they were in the books, but Jim Carrey is just kind of a gaping black hole in the center of the movie. Count Olaf as a character is pretty much impossible to portray, so he had a difficult job, but still. It didn't work.

The plot changes were inexplicable and inexcusable. They didn't bother me much before, but they did this time. Why not end it with the third book, which is more exciting and climactic anyway, rather than shoving it in the middle? Why add the pointless train scene and cut out valuable time with Uncle Monty's storyline? Why, if you're going to end the movie on the play, cut out most of what made the play feel climactic in the first place? What the hell was Klaus burning the marriage certificate supposed to be about? Why was he the one climbing the tower? Why were the Baudelaires rarely given the opportunity to use their character-defining skills? Why did the movie just essentially flat-out reveal that Count Olaf killed their parents, which remained a mystery in the books to the very end? What was with all the spyglasses? And so on.

I'm kind of disappointed, is all. It was a lot better in my memories.

The Invisible Man (2020) - I don't know, I thought it was stupid.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Tue Apr 28, 2020 6:44 pm

The Florida Project (2017) - yeah, it's extremely good, still. One of my faves. I have no idea where they found someone like Brooklynn Prince but they got really, really lucky. It's very moving and empathic and angry and heart-breaking. Formally it's near-flawless. I think it has some mild pacing issues in the middle, though.

The Runaways (2010) - this was a thoroughly boring and mediocre biopic, which I was expected, and which I only watched because I didn't know it starred BOTH Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, at the same time, in the same movie. Also it was on Netflix. I don't know, I don't remember anything about it. Kristen Stewart wasn't very good.

Freaks (2018) - started off very good and harsh and surreal. I had no previous info on this so I didn't know what was happening for a full hour. It was pretty great. Then we started finally getting some answers and the movie settled down into being much more conventional and straightforward and dumber. I'd give it a 5.5/10 or something.

Chloe (2009) - it was stupid. Amanda Seyfried was hot in it, which is obviously why I watched. I guess it was supposed to be an erotically charged thriller or something. I saw the twist coming a mile away and none of the characters, especially the title one, had any depth. I don't know if erotic thrillers are actually made anymore besides this or if they're something we dropped in the 90s but they ought to be better than this.

Ruby Sparks (2012) - That was actually kind of good. I recommend it. It's about a lonely introverted novelist coasting off his success from ten years ago who writes about his ideal fantasy girlfriend in his typewriter one day only to have her suddenly pop into existence in real life. He then goes through the usual motions of not believing what's happening at first, but thankfully the movie skips by that pretty quickly and doesn't even bother to attempt to explain it, and then they become a couple and they're both extremely happy for a while, until she starts giving off signs of independence and things turn darker. This movie is literally just a deconstruction of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope and all it represents. It's a commentary on male insecurity and entitlement, controlling behavior, Nice Guys, and idealism/objectification. A fairly good one, I think. I think it was nice that it showed that even if your perfect fantasy girlfriend magically sprung to life, it still wouldn't last very long, because, being a person, she would inevitably fight back against the controlling and idealizing impulses that were responsible for her creation in the first place. Paul Dano's constant attempts to re-write her to fit his desires keep backfiring in realistic and meaningful ways. It showed that there was no authentic way out of the situation, since the Manic Pixie Dream Girl does not and will never exist. The whole trope is based off male entitlement and narcissism.

Zoe Kazan wrote this movie, and also starred in it as Ruby Sparks. It takes a lot of self-confidence to purposely cast yourself as the generic idealized fantasy representation of someone's romantic partner.

The Twilight Zone (season 2): I don't think this was as strong as the first season. Not as many good episodes, and like last time they were mostly clustered in the back. My favorites would be Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room, The Trouble With Templeton, Long Distance Call, Shadow Play, Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up, and The Obsolete Man. Those are the only ones I kind of want to re-watch.

Faustus5 · Post by **Faustus5** » Tue Apr 28, 2020 8:21 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:The Runaways (2010) - this was a thoroughly boring and mediocre biopic, which I was expected, and which I only watched because I didn't know it starred BOTH Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning, at the same time, in the same movie. Also it was on Netflix. I don't know, I don't remember anything about it. Kristen Stewart wasn't very good.

Completely disagree with you on literally every single point you made. After watching it on Netflix a couple years ago, I immediately rewatched parts of it and then went online to order the soundtrack for the movie, a best of Runaways CD compilation, and the Cherie Currie autobiography it was based on. And I had this reaction not really even knowing who the Runaways were or who was in the movie; I only bothered to watch it because I was extremely bored and remembered a character in a movie I liked (Juno from "Juno") mentioning the band was one of her favorites. I was really surprised by how much I got into this movie.

We definitely have very different tastes, but I knew that already.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Tue Apr 28, 2020 10:42 pm

I think I just don't like biopics much. Even the good ones don't interest me.

BruceSmith78 · Post by **BruceSmith78** » Wed Apr 29, 2020 3:41 am

I remember watching Ruby Sparks in the theater when it first came out and I went in thinking it would another typical rom-com. I was ultimately impressed and a little shocked by how dark it got. When he starts controlling her like a fucking puppet with his typewriter, that shit was disturbing, but brutally honest.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jun 22, 2020 7:33 am

Woah, it's been a few months.

The Twilight Zone (season 3): yeah it was all right. Most of the good episodes were near the beginning. Kind of repetitive and very moralizing. I liked Two, The Shelter, A Game of Pool, It's A Good Life, Five Characters in Search of an Exit, The Cavender is Coming, and The Coming of the Guard.

Vivarium - this sucked ass. It was excessively boring and stupid. Literally nothing here to recommend at all.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - Now, I saw this months ago, so I can't recall in detail why I specifically disliked it, but I do remember that I disliked it. Maybe I just thought it was stiff and empty and not very effective. I don't remember much else, but I am pretty sure I would have been agonizingly bored throughout if I hadn't enjoyed the book so much.

Back to the Future - yeah it was okay. Yes, this is the first time I've seen this. Pretty standard 80s cheese.

Avatar: The Last Airbender - the show. Yeah it's pretty good. Azula is my favorite character. It's on Netflix now. Watch it.

A Dangerous Method - I just realized that I haven't seen Keira Knightley in anything except the Pirates movies and the Star Wars sequels. So I saw this. I feel like it could have been better. It wasn't dull but it also wasn't interesting. Also seems to be historically inaccurate. Viggo Mortensen as Freud was pretty great. Knightley was also certainly acting very, very hard. Not sure it was very effective, but it was brave. Not a whole lot to say here.

Cuphead - the video game. Yeah, there's a video game here. Deal with it. I thought it was great. It was incredibly difficult, but it was always fun. I said "fuck this, this is too hard" and gave up for days several hundred times throughout, but I never blamed the game for being too hard, I blamed myself for not being good enough. No matter how hard it got I always saw a perfectly clear path to success, which kept my enjoyment up consistently and prevented me from getting too frustrated. I just needed to get better and stop fucking up all the time, that was all, and the game will reward me.

I feel like the latter bosses leveled off in difficulty. Most of Stage 2 was just as difficult or more difficult than a lot of Stage 3. The pirate, the sexy sea monster, the theater, the mouse, and the train were all much easier than the dragon or the clown. That fucking junkyard robot and that fucking bee were the two hardest ones, though, by far. I can't even believe those levels.

According to the game I'm only 98% through, though I finished every single world so I consider myself finished. It was very fun and satisfying and exhilarating, I recommend it.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Jun 22, 2020 5:09 pm

I love BTTF but those movies have been some of my favorites since I was a kid.

I liked Cuphead a lot but thought it got very hard at King Dice. Robot guy was tough too. It seems Gendo had a much easier time with it than I did.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jun 22, 2020 6:29 pm

Yeah, everyone loves BTTF. I thought it was okay.

King Dice took a long time for me. But so did most of the others. I still enjoyed it a lot, though. I think you said you hated it or something. For me it was just kind of long and repetitive, but that was it.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Mon Jun 22, 2020 6:55 pm

The biggest problem for me was the miniboss squad before King Dice himself. I just could not consistently manipulate the dice rolls to only get the easiest ones, so I basically had to learn how to do most of those fights without taking damage which was just a huge pain in the ass (And even then for some reason I could never learn the guy who makes you play the matching game while you're in the airplane), so I could have enough health to tank enough hits on King Dice himself since I suck at parrying and couldn't parry my way through his attack where he shoots the deck of cards across the screen.

I just think its too much altogether. What makes most Cuphead bosses good is that while they're hard the actual fights themselves only last 2-3 minutes at most, but everything about King Dice is just too long and drawn out IMO.

Post by **Gendo** » Mon Jun 22, 2020 10:50 pm

Pretty sure the dragon boss was the one I spent the longest on. The thing is when I get stuck on a hard video game level, I just keep trying forever until I get it usually; I can stick it out trying to do the same thing for several hours straight. Which I did for at least a couple of the levels.

DA I'm guessing your 98% instead of 100 is from not finding every coin which lets you buy every item in the shop.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jun 22, 2020 11:19 pm

I don't know what you mean by "manipulate the dice rolls", I just thought it was random. I thought the minibosses were mostly fun and creative, which saved the level for me. King Dice himself was extremely intense and nerve-wracking but somehow I finally managed it.

The dragon boss was pretty bad for a while, but I finally switched to using that lobbing bomb/grenade thing instead of the shooter (sorry, I don't know what they're called), and then got it after two tries.

I don't know where the rest of the coins are. I thought I got all the ones from the running levels.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Tue Jun 23, 2020 2:02 am

The dice isn't random- there's one of two patterns it follows and you're supposed to parry at the right time so you'll end up on the space on the board you actually want. People actually good at this game therefore only have to fight like three or four of the minibosses before King Dice, since they can pick the ones they find easiest and also the free spaces. If you happen to be Raxivace however, you have to fight 8 or 9 of them.

There are coins hidden on the world maps too. If you look up a coin guide or something for Cuphead they'll probably list the ones out you're missing.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Tue Jun 23, 2020 6:18 pm

Lol, I never even noticed the dice. Yeah, I always had to fight about seven or eight minibosses. It took me a while. That golden ballerina thing always screwed everything up.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Wed Jun 24, 2020 3:13 am

The ballerina wasn't too bad for me if I had the smoke dash thing equipped, since you could just dash through her then without taking damage and then immediately begin blasting her while she was still moving toward the opposite side of the screen.

Without the smoke dash thing though I had a much harder time with her. A lot of the minibosses were more manageable with smoke dash, really.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Wed Jun 24, 2020 4:25 pm

Yeah I forgot about the smoke dash thing because I'm dumb. I think I bought it early and just kind of forgot it existed.

I'm starting to think I played through this game on hard mode.

Post by **Gendo** » Wed Jun 24, 2020 9:47 pm

Yeah I'm pretty sure I used smoke dash in almost every battle.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Tue Jul 14, 2020 2:03 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:That was a pretty good review.

The Evil Dead (1981) - yeah it was pretty good. I forgot how fucking boring the first forty minutes or whatever are, but it's good after that. I also forgot how fucking obnoxious all the monsters are. Like, they just did not shut the fuck up for a second.

That is all.

The Craft (1996) - I thought it was very entertaining. I liked it, to an extent. I did some research on it for about two minutes after watching it and it seems like a few people think it was a female empowerment movie. These people are dumb. Or maybe they just stopped watching halfway through...

Minority Report (2002) - it was fun. I didn't like the desaturation and shaky cam, but that's just my opinion.

The Evil Dead is great, but it can't help but pale in comparison to The Evil Dead II, which simply does everything better than the first one did. I think the reason TEDII was so much better is that Raimi just leaned as far into the camp/cheese as he could and the end result was a film that was hilarious on top of being cinematically virtuosic.

The Craft was a favorite as a kid/teen, and the few times I've caught bits-and-pieces on TV it seems to hold up well. Your take was interesting though and I never really looked at it like that, but I was like 12 the first time I saw it, LOL. Though it seems to me another way of reading it is that abused people often seek power themselves and end up being the abusers with whatever power they do get, so Sarah is actually the one that manages to break out of that cycle.

Minority Report is just an excellent, solid, action/sci-fi film. It's not a masterpiece or anything, and I actually think it makes for an interesting compare/contrast with Spielberg's AI, which I DO think is a modern sci-fi masterpiece.

Derived Absurdity wrote:Pan's Labyrinth (2006) - I consider this a perfect transcendent 10/10 movie...

Crash (2004) - I mean, I thought it was funny.

Pan's Labyrinth is definitely a masterpiece. I probably watched it half-a-dozen times not long after it came out. I haven't seen it since, but I don't think I have any concerns about it not holding up. Del Toro is a phenomenal director and that's the film where all his powers were concentrated into a narrative/story that fully deserved it and benefited the most from it.

I hated Crash when I saw it, but that's been ages ago. I know Ebert had a pretty impassioned defense of it when he selected it as the best film of 2004 and other eminent critics picked it as the worst: https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/ ... orst-movie

Derived Absurdity wrote:
Back to the Future - yeah it was okay. Yes, this is the first time I've seen this. Pretty standard 80s cheese.

I don't know what's more unbelievable: that you haven't seen this film until now, or that you thought it was "just okay" and "standard 80s cheese."

BTTF is pretty much perfect for what it is, and what it is certainly wasn't "standard" in the 80s, or any time for that matter. I don't think there's ever been a better film involving time travel, period.

Faustus5 · Post by **Faustus5** » Tue Jul 14, 2020 9:36 pm

Eva Yojimbo wrote:I don't know what's more unbelievable: that you haven't seen this film until now, or that you thought it was "just okay" and "standard 80s cheese." BTTF is pretty much perfect for what it is, and what it is certainly wasn't "standard" in the 80s, or any time for that matter. I don't think there's ever been a better film involving time travel, period.

I had pretty much the same reaction to BTTF as he did. I have no idea why the film is so dearly loved by so many people. Same with Shawshank Redemption, which I couldn't even finish.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Wed Jul 15, 2020 1:42 am

I didn't dislike it or anything. I just thought it was okay. I don't know what the big deal with it is. I figure it's one of those "you had to be there" things.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Thu Jul 16, 2020 1:26 pm

Faustus5 wrote:
Eva Yojimbo wrote:I don't know what's more unbelievable: that you haven't seen this film until now, or that you thought it was "just okay" and "standard 80s cheese." BTTF is pretty much perfect for what it is, and what it is certainly wasn't "standard" in the 80s, or any time for that matter. I don't think there's ever been a better film involving time travel, period.
I had pretty much the same reaction to BTTF as he did. I have no idea why the film is so dearly loved by so many people. Same with Shawshank Redemption, which I couldn't even finish.

Derived Absurdity wrote:I didn't dislike it or anything. I just thought it was okay. I don't know what the big deal with it is. I figure it's one of those "you had to be there" things.

Y'all crazy. Maybe some of my appreciation is colored by loving it so much as a kid, but plenty of childhood favorites didn't really hold up for me as an adult while BTTF really does. It's about as pure fun as film gets and that exuberance is infectious. I don't think it gets much better than Marty going back in time and inventing rock n' roll by playing Johnny B. Goode at the prom of his future parents all while he's about to blink out of existence.

Faustus5 · Post by **Faustus5** » Thu Jul 16, 2020 1:55 pm

Eva Yojimbo wrote:Y'all crazy. Maybe some of my appreciation is colored by loving it so much as a kid, but plenty of childhood favorites didn't really hold up for me as an adult while BTTF really does.

I saw it as an adult, so that might be part of the reason. I recently went back to the first Indiana Jones film, which I adored in my teens, and it definitely did not hold up. Some sequences were as awesome as I remembered, but others seemed downright awful.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:32 pm

Faustus5 wrote:
Eva Yojimbo wrote:Y'all crazy. Maybe some of my appreciation is colored by loving it so much as a kid, but plenty of childhood favorites didn't really hold up for me as an adult while BTTF really does.
I saw it as an adult, so that might be part of the reason. I recently went back to the first Indiana Jones film, which I adored in my teens, and it definitely did not hold up. Some sequences were as awesome as I remembered, but others seemed downright awful.

My parents were very much adults when it came out and they loved it too, so...

I mentioned in Lyndon's thread I've always thought Indiana Jones was a bit overrated, though I wouldn't say it doesn't hold up at all. I know both are pretty high on TSDT's 1000 Films list. *checks* Raiders is 188 and BTTF is 306, and that list comes from filmmakers, critics, and academics, not fans. So I'd say they're pretty well-respected among adults in general. Just for fun, here's the critical blurbs for both on TSPDT:

"Back to the Future stands up on its own as a well-oiled, brilliantly-edited example of new-school, Spielberg-cultivated thrill-craft, one that endures even now that its visual effects and haw-haw references to Pepsi Free and reruns seem as dated as full-service gas stations apparently did in 1985. Its schematic organization of what Marty and Doc need to accomplish and its steadily mounting series of mishaps demonstrating how they can go wrong represent probably the most carefully-scripted blockbuster in Hollywood history, but the movie's real coup is in how it subtly mocks the political pretensions of the era—not the 1950s, but rather the 1980s." - Eric Henderson, Slant Magazine

"Released in 1981, Raiders Of The Lost Ark puts Ford in search of the Ark of the Covenant, racing against Nazis who would use it for their own purposes, and bulldozing through one action-packed episode after another. Much of the blame for the all-action-all-the-time approach of current summer blockbusters can be placed on Raiders, but if any of the copycats had Spielberg's command of storytelling and visual gags, it wouldn't matter. Raiders finds the right balance between reverence and wit, and the sight of Ford outrunning that giant boulder thrills as much on the 14th viewing as the first." - Keith Phipps, A.V. Club

Post by **Gendo** » Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:37 pm

Back to the Future is great; but Back to the Future 2 is better. Fight me.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Thu Jul 16, 2020 3:40 pm

One thing to mention about BTTF also is that all the incest humor was honestly fairly edgy for a mainstream film back in the day, to the point Zemeckis and Bob Gale actually had a lot of trouble getting any studio to produce the film for a long while.

That aspect seems fairly tame today of course but it was a dealbreaker for studio-heads at least back then.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Thu Jul 16, 2020 4:37 pm

I thought a lot of the incest humor was strange and off-putting. At least it was strange that I was expected to find it so funny, when a woman being so horny (and wow she was so horny) for her own son is always creepy and gross, even in an unknowing time travel context.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:It's about as pure fun as film gets and that exuberance is infectious.

I remember a few years when I was saying the same thing to you about Fury Road, and you were kind of saying the same things about it I am now. "Eh, it was pretty good, don't quite know what the big deal is though". Oh my how the turns have tabled!

Eva Yojimbo wrote:I don't think there's ever been a better film involving time travel, period.

I mean, I think the first two Terminators were pretty good.

Maybe my understated reaction is because I was basically coerced into watching it, and it turned out to be somewhat less than mind-blowingly amazing. I did finally get around to seeing the next two and I actually liked both of them better.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Thu Jul 16, 2020 10:01 pm

Uncut Gems - very, very good film. Did absolutely nothing for me whatsoever. I did not enjoy the experience of watching it, and I felt nothing at the end except glad that it was over. It was highly unpleasant and almost everything about it from the soundtrack to the filming to the characters was grating and nerve-wracking. However, I can appreciate that it was well-made on a formal level, and it at least wasn't super-boring like Good Time.

F Is For Family (season 4) - By a coincidence I had the same basic problem with this as I did with Uncut Gems, in that almost every single character was a loud, annoying, overbearing, aggressive, belligerent asshole. It was so consistent and repetitive that it actually made my heart start racing. The main character Frank has exactly one - and I do mean one - behavior mode: angry and unpleasant. He's not even good under the surface. He's a belligerent and emotionally abusive dickhead who sucks at being a husband and a father. Bill Burr made this show and voices this character; is this how he sees himself? This show can be funny and charming sometimes, but mostly it's just loud and angry. And there's no sense of plot or character progression after four seasons.

Back to the Future 2 - I liked it somewhat more than the first one. I don't know why; maybe the more cluttered and chaotic plot kept my attention more. Its depiction of life in 2015 was amusing. There were flying cars (obviously), hoverboards, no lawyers, video games where you don't use your hands, insta-pizzas, up-to-the-second weather reports, remote-controlled dog walkers, self-drying clothes, magical rejuvenation centers, and self-fitting shoes. It's hard to say how seriously the movie took these at actual attempts at prediction, but, yeah, the real future/present sucks. I guess we have Netflix.

Back to the Future 3 - It was nice. I liked the Doc's romance. I liked the Western aspect. It wrapped everything up nicely.

The Guest - still good. Don't like it as much the first time I watched it but I still do.

Session 9 - It was fine, I guess. Good on atmosphere and tension, not much else. It was a blatant The Shining ripoff and the ending was a letdown.

Scooby-Doo: Mystery Incorporated - I generally enjoyed it. This series has a reputation as being the crème de la crème of the Scooby Doo franchise, and a good show by itself. And it is. They updated all the characters and gave them actual personalities. They turned Fred into the best character by making him oblivious to social and romantic cues and giving him some weird autistic obsession with traps, which can be funny, as well as emotional pathos. They turned Daphne into basically a normal person instead of a ditz, they made Velma funnier and more cynical, and they turned Shaggy into basically a normal person who happens to eat a lot and slacks off a bunch. Scooby himself remains unchanged. However, even though they're all superior to their previous incarnations, they still, with the possible exception of Fred, are a long way from being good characters with actual depth and complexity and stuff. The show started off with them being romantically involved with each other, by far its worst decision, and which amounted to the girls pining pathetically after the guys and the guy repetitively not returning their affections for roughly half the series. It was so relentless and one-note it bordered on misogynistic.

It kind of winds that down after a while, though, and everything else about the show is good. The gang have an actual home base now, Crystal Cove, and the show provides an actual in-universe reason for why the adults are always so useless - the constant hauntings and mysteries are good tourist attractions and provide revenue for the town, and the gang's incessant attempts at solving them throws a wrench in that. Amazingly, the show actually provides an explanation for how a universe as relentlessly materialistic and non-supernatural as Scooby-Doo's can house a dog that talks and goes to school. There's a whole gigantic mythology/ur-mystery here that the show slowly builds up to in a serialized format which is more hardcore science fiction than fantasy, so the show can still have unbelievable and impossible things while still claiming it's remaining non-supernatural. This is a cheat, basically, but it was executed well.

Possibly the best things about the show are the atmosphere, the striking visual effects, the stark and lush art design, the imagery, the action sequences, and the cultural references. This show references everything from The Shining to Twin Peaks to Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Buffy the Vampire Slayer to X-Files to Terminator to H.P. Lovecraft to Signs to The People Under the Stairs to Batman to (I think) Avatar: The Last Airbender and several dozen other things that I forgot or didn't catch. It's pretty cool. The only two real complaints I have are the tonal inconsistency (for a show as ironic and meta as this one, I can't keep track of which parts of it I'm supposed to laugh at and recognize as dumb and which one I'm supposed to take super-seriously; the two dumbest aspects of it, arguably (the relationships and the meta-mystery), are the two it takes the most seriously) and the fact that it can be pretty boring sometimes if you're watching it primarily for the serialized overarching mystery and you realize you have to sit through dozens of disconnected and individually meaningless episodes before it all starts coming together.

BruceSmith78 · Post by **BruceSmith78** » Fri Jul 17, 2020 2:24 am

Nobody likes Back to the Future III.

I liked Back to the Future III.

Post by **Gendo** » Fri Jul 17, 2020 4:30 am

Derived Absurdity wrote:
Back to the Future 2 - I liked it somewhat more than the first one.

This guy gets it.

Post by **Gendo** » Fri Jul 17, 2020 4:31 am

BruceSmith78 wrote:Nobody likes Back to the Future III.

I liked Back to the Future III.

I thought I didn't until I rewatched it as an adult, and found that in fact, I did like it. Still the worst of the 3, but not bad.

Faustus5 · Post by **Faustus5** » Fri Jul 17, 2020 9:27 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:Uncut Gems - very, very good film. Did absolutely nothing for me whatsoever.

You are friggin' hilarious.

I have declined to ever watch it having predicted all the things you mention. No one needs stress these days.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Sat Jul 18, 2020 2:00 pm

Gendo wrote:Back to the Future is great; but Back to the Future 2 is better. Fight me.

I think all three films are about equal in overall quality but with different strengths and weaknesses. I think 1 is the most perfectly paced, written, and edited, but they don't do much with the 50s setting outside of the time-travel incest angle and Marty inventing rock and roll. 2's setting is the most interesting of the trilogy and they use it extremely well both in the story and just as a background setting. However, I barely even remember what 2's story is about... mostly Marty fighting with Biff after he steals an almanac or something? 3 is like an amalgam of 1's pacing and 2's setting but doesn't do either better than its predecessors, but it's setting is better than 1 and pacing/potting better than 2.

Eva Yojimbo · Post by **Eva Yojimbo** » Sat Jul 18, 2020 2:05 pm

Derived Absurdity wrote:I thought a lot of the incest humor was strange and off-putting. At least it was strange that I was expected to find it so funny, when a woman being so horny (and wow she was so horny) for her own son is always creepy and gross, even in an unknowing time travel context.

I think the idea is that it's funny because it's creepy and gross. One could just argue she's attracted to Marty because she sees something of George in him. Like, it's clear she also likes George but George is too shy to approach her and probably too dense to respond to any come-ons she tried with him.

Derived Absurdity wrote:
Eva Yojimbo wrote:It's about as pure fun as film gets and that exuberance is infectious.
I remember a few years when I was saying the same thing to you about Fury Road, and you were kind of saying the same things about it I am now. "Eh, it was pretty good, don't quite know what the big deal is though". Oh my how the turns have tabled!

My issue with Fury Road was only that it wasn't more than "pure exuberant fun" but that people were talking about it like it was some artistic masterpiece. I liked it just fine as a piece of pure action-entertainment. Though I do think BTTF is better as entertainment, if only because it actually has worthwhile characters, a sense of humor, and a gear other than 5th.

Derived Absurdity wrote:
Eva Yojimbo wrote:I don't think there's ever been a better film involving time travel, period.
I mean, I think the first two Terminators were pretty good.

Maybe my understated reaction is because I was basically coerced into watching it, and it turned out to be somewhat less than mind-blowingly amazing. I did finally get around to seeing the next two and I actually liked both of them better.

Yeah, it would be close for me between BTTF and Terminators, but they're so different it's nearly impossible to directly compare.

You might come back to it some time after having watched 2 and 3 and see if you don't like it better. All three work really well as one continuous story, actually.

BruceSmith78 · Post by **BruceSmith78** » Sat Jul 18, 2020 4:13 pm

I love the BTTF trilogy and the first two Terminators, but I think the best film I've seen involving time travel is 12 Monkeys.

Raxivace · Post by **Raxivace** » Sat Jul 18, 2020 4:18 pm

Eva Yojimbo wrote:
Gendo wrote:Back to the Future is great; but Back to the Future 2 is better. Fight me.
I think all three films are about equal in overall quality but with different strengths and weaknesses. I think 1 is the most perfectly paced, written, and edited, but they don't do much with the 50s setting outside of the time-travel incest angle and Marty inventing rock and roll. 2's setting is the most interesting of the trilogy and they use it extremely well both in the story and just as a background setting. However, I barely even remember what 2's story is about... mostly Marty fighting with Biff after he steals an almanac or something? 3 is like an amalgam of 1's pacing and 2's setting but doesn't do either better than its predecessors, but it's setting is better than 1 and pacing/potting better than 2.

Basically, Marty had been planning on taking a sports alamanc from 2015 with him back to the past, but Doc talks him out of it and makes him throw it away. Old Biff is lurking around while this happens, takes the alamanac for himself and steals the Delorean so he can give the almanac to his 1955 self, which of course leads to the hellscape version of 1985 that Marty and Doc end up in for a while where Biff is in power.

Basically the entire reason this story even exists is because Zemeckis and Gale felt that Marty getting the new car at the end of BTTF1 was too materialistic, and the story of BTTF2 was meant to address Marty's flaws with parallels to Biff and such (Psychoanalytic readings of the films even go as far as saying Biff is nothing more than Marty's repressed Id), where Biff basically seeks to do in BTTF2 what Marty inadvertendly does in BTTF1 where he makes a better life for himself through time travel instead of simply restoring the past (I.e. making George self-confident and rich and successful instead of a pushover dweeb, which is precisely the fate Biff gets at the end of BTTF1's ending and is actively trying to change now). You could argue that Marty being the first one wanting to use the almanac to get rich is therefore redundant since that "character flaw" of his already exists in BTTF1 but it at least makes it directly relevant to the plot of BTTF2.

So in a way BTTF2 is kind of a deconstruction of BTTF1 and Marty's character/ideology, though as much as I personally love BTTF3 (That movie was basically the first western film I ever saw) it doesn't add much to this idea with its focus on Doc instead.

Derived Absurdity · Post by **Derived Absurdity** » Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:24 pm

Eva Yojimbo wrote:My issue with Fury Road was only that it wasn't more than "pure exuberant fun" but that people were talking about it like it was some artistic masterpiece. I liked it just fine as a piece of pure action-entertainment. Though I do think BTTF is better as entertainment, if only because it actually has worthwhile characters, a sense of humor, and a gear other than 5th.

Uh, it is an artistic masterpiece, sir. And every minor character in Fury Road is more worthwhile than every character in the entire BTTF trilogy combined. Also, it has a blind guy who plays an electric guitar that throws flames, and I laughed when I saw it, so checkmark the sense of humor.

Eva Yojimbo wrote:You might come back to it some time after having watched 2 and 3 and see if you don't like it better. All three work really well as one continuous story, actually.

The movies connected with each other really well, I give them that. It felt like I was watching one long movie that kept staying good.

BruceSmith78 wrote:I love the BTTF trilogy and the first two Terminators, but I think the best film I've seen involving time travel is 12 Monkeys.

I liked 12 Monkeys. I think Groundhog Dog also counts as a time travel movie, and it used the concept the best out of any movie I know.