Legendsofanus

An interesting piece of TV film history, Gargoyles is perhaps the most intriguing monster film I have ever seen. That is not to say it's good, the amount of runtime that the film goes in slow-motion whenever one of the Gargoyles are on-screen is too much for me to ignore and caused more than a couple of yawns from me.

Still, what is here is credible. Gargoyles starts with the story of the devil being banished to Hell and promising that if not him, his children the gargoyles will rule the earth. That's a very interesting premise to start the film and certain the impression is carried on by the amount of real-life gargoyle statues and paintings we see in the start. The story then moves onto the Arizona Desert where it stays there for it's brief 72-minute runtime.

The film can be called a monster movie that is just for entertainment but I like the way it approaches it's monsters. It humanizes these....old enemies of mankind by showing the Gargoyles who are just coming to life from their eggs and are weak. The lead Gargoyle played by Bernie Casey is shown as a leader who cares about his race while being sure that asking for mercy from humans will not work. In that way, the movie creates an interesting dilemma: if they let the gargoyles live because they are so weak then they will eventually erase humanity but if they kill them then these intelligent beings will painfully die. I have seen movies where the filmmakers attempt to humanize their monstrous subjects but seeing a Gargoyle reading a book is a charming sight that one doesn't see often.

For that matter, the costume work is elaborate and expressive and it imparts information to the audience (or at-least it did to me) without saying anything to our faces.

The human cast acts well enough and there is an ensemble cast with characters having their own quirks and it all works well for me. One complaint I have is that Scott Glenn deserved a lot more to do in the script than just carrying cans of gasoline...I mean, the guy is an action hero. However awful The Challenge was, it made me damn sure of that.

So, to wrap it up....watch Gargoyles. It's very short and may or may not end in an unsatisfying fashion and the way it's shot is damn near awful on the eyes but it's got that Star Trek feeling with the way it deals with the question of what a monster is and I like it for that. A most surprising film

At it's best Superman is a movie capsuled by its time and place because of the dated flying visuals and the absurb amount of on-the-face American values that it shows off which make the film seem like too proud to be a product than anything else. Aside from that, it's a really great action movie which looks expensive and has a lot of great looking sequences, some of the scenes on Krypton and especially the formation of Solitude of Fortress still sent me in awe as did the whole third-act.

It's written by Mario Puzo and he is a very intentional writer, the movie starts with a court scene just like The Godfather book and Puzo writes Lex Luthor to be as much of an egomaniac as he can except dressing him as a clown which makes his character with a contribution by Gene Hackman's performance, entertaining to watch even if predictable to a fault. Superman & Lois's relationship made me slightly comfortable for no reason but I liked that the film decided to bring it onscreen in the way it did: it was weird but it had a taste of reality in it.

Superman 1978 feels very much like a superhero movie that we are familiar with today, so most of the plot points and developments are things we have been aware of for years but it still manages to be a really good experience if you can look past the awful flying effects haha

7/10 A thing I really like about it is how almost all of the third act is Superman saving this whole connected earthquake mess, moving from problem to problem. Just makes the film so much more engaging

I think it's amazing that something like it exists, it never really excels at what it's doing but it tries to balance so many different aspects and influences while keeping the centre of its story about this coming to understanding and ultimately accepting that change is good, an idea can linger around for years and ultimately believe it is the one that had this idea that it had and that it's easier to be a doll but it's so much more meaningful to be a human.

It feels fragile, the foundations of it but the movie keeps going without caring about any of that and ultimately just says what it wants and I like that it's committed.

It weirdly reminds me of Everything Everywhere All at Once, both have very similar protagonists, both excel at taking elements from years of film, books and tv to comment on being a person and both take a very wild turn to get to the core message. I do feel like EEAAO is just a better film mostly because the message is more coherent, it feels more emotional and tightly written but Barbie is a rare meta-commentary of the movie that it is, it's the first time a movie has reminded me of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Doki Doki Literature Club and I love it for that.

7.5/10 also Kate McKinnon was just awesome in this movie

When Sarah wishes her little brother to be taken away by the goblins, her wish is granted by the Goblin King played by David Bowie and now she must pass through the labyrinth and into the Castle Beyond the Goblin City to get her brother back before he gets turned into a goblin.

This was a fantastic movie, I think it's my fav fantasy musical of all time. It came out in 1986 but looks visually breathtaking even today, so many of the films set and characters that are mostly of the fantasy type took me by surprise at how amazing they look.

It's not just the visuals too, there is something to be said about the story and cinematography as well. The movie feels from every frame like a fantasy movie, even the starting scene where Sarah is raining to her home from the rain looks strange and fantastical because of the way it's shot as if she's running from a dark to her sanctuary, the houses in the distance looking like evil looming castles. The story works so well because it excels as a Bildungsroman and a grand adventure, managing to balance without either overshadowing the other because of the film's beautiful pacing that makes sure you are kept wondering and awe at what new strange creatures or locations may come next. It is ultimately a heartwarming and delightful feature.

David Bowie as the handsome, evil Goblin King is charming as hell while being menacing and evil as the plot requires him to be. This is matched perfectly and makes the movie work as a whole in my opinion with Jennifer Connelly's performance as Sarah. While her character at it's most basic is a girl that could have been played by anyone, she manages to find the imaginative spirit of her character who isn't scared of monsters and manages to find the goodness in everything while always always being the teenager and acting like one, she has really given a believable compassionate performance in this film.

All the side characters and companions that she meets are fantastical and otherworldly but they are all just so charming and it isn't long before you start caring for every single one of them.

Overall Labyrinth feels like a unique movie that comes once in every decade. 9.5/10

This work of Mel Gibson shows the highest degree of classical romance I have seen in a film, man fighting for freedom in a world where all you have to do is what you think is right. It's so pure, so beautiful and melodic while being a great medieval war epic that has tons of action and violence and the one scene of nudity for some reason haha!

I really enjoyed it and seeing this film against something that prides itself on being bombastic like the recent Gladiator movie which I have only seen the trailer of, plus the numerous generic action movies just yells to me that they don't make films like this anymore. By "this", I mean one that doesn't embrace it's ultraviolence or it's ridiculous plot but one that embraces it's grounds of romance and just siding with the good in a battle against evil. I would love to know what you guys think and that if i'm just mistake and haven't seen more films

Would love some recommendations as well that are like Braveheart

There are a lot of teenage-y elements to this film: overuse of sexual undertones, tension of the same kind, drugs and rebellion but even with all that, Palo Alto is just not as daring and crazy and - because I feel like it's the only word that carries my meaning - not exciting enough.

I don't know if it's meant as a subversion of a normally overused genre to make the movie a little more contemplative but it is. There are often poignant quieter moments that I first felt betrayed by but then though "oh, oh this belongs here". In that way, the movie is more closely a drama about teenagers living in a small community than anything else. It turns out to be a very good exploration of it's main subjects Teddy and April, boy and girl, set against the stereotypes and suffocating peer pressure of their society, on that note I really enjoyed both of their respective actors' performances as well. Emma Roberts even more so because she manages to betray a sense of innocence amidst the loose and "fun and naughty" teenage parties and she does so naturally as part of her character through her expressions, her body language. Despite James Franco being in the film, he doesn't do any of his crazy stuff and the most energized performance goes to Nat Wolfe as Fred, Teddy's friend. That dude is loud, mean and dumb as fuck.

It's nonexistent plot-wise and I don't hold that against it, a movie should be allowed any way it wants to flow to say what it wants to. I do think it could have been a little-bit tighter pacing wise.

Overall, 6/10. I can say I don't dislike the film, rather enjoyed my time with it and I think it has at-least something to say.

I loved this film, from calling Žižek a little fishy to entire scenes of the main character teaching something to her class or talking to someone about philosophy, to the subplot of the cat and just whatever Isabel Huppert was doing on screen as Nathalie was brilliant.

It's a lot different than anything I have seen before. A movie about change and actually questioning the notion of change itself, basically asking if circumstances were to change as dramatically as the seasons then would it still be enough to change who you are?

Isabel Huppert gave an amazing performance, something that you would have to see to believe, it's one of the very few times I have forgotten and then be astonished to realize that I'm looking at an actor. She has a determination on screen that is entertaining and totally surreal to watch at times because she makes her character Nathalie so real and the world around her so lived in.

4/5 stars, a very different sort of movie but one that is adamant on it's identity even to the point of stubbornness because it knows what it wants to do and also made intense by it's main actor's performance.

It is rare that a movie so delicately and intricately made just doesn't say anything about itself, like the end card explains it plainly to us, Perfect Days is a movie about fleeting moments, little touches of control and contact that we feel with the world and it's unbounding beauty whether it comes from human connections or nature.

Now I could talk about a lot of the things I have in mind, the way it uses lighting as a whole which reminded me of Kurosawa's works, the sound design that was borderline ASMR, the acting from the lead actor, the music and it's pop-flavoured soundtrack but I don't want to. I would rather tell you that all of those decisions and techniques and production design things ultimately culminate in a great, beautiful movie that speaks the souls of its characters by simply letting them be themselves.

8.5/10 thoroughly inconclusive about it's nature but as a passing moment, it does very well to make us acknowledge it's presence and it's effect. Lovely to behold

"A man who feels compelled to destroy the lives of others should be extinguished like a fire."

Fritz Lang's M is my second movie after his sci-fi epic Metropolis and is some ways it is his more refined of the two. While Metropolis was a grand setting and a grand movie that by its nature had some very extended set pieces that still look great but felt dragged, M is centered on a much much smaller affair and thus explores human psyche and thought on a smaller society and individual level.

At the centre of this film is the murder, it's one of those movies where the audience already knows the killer and while that does away a bit of the mystery and thriller that a well, murder- mystery thriller like any of the modern ones provide because you're not interested in who the killer is but will they catch him? It still carries that sense of ominous eeriness and that unsettling atmosphere that manages to make this almost century old film stand out. Particularly the way it explores ours attitude to crime and the scenes of moral panic in this film were among my favorites.

There is a great deal of direction and sound design involved in this, specially in the main actor's performance who plays the killer. The sound design that lets silence take over a scene because any musical note would take away the immersion of the scene and that clear sense of direction particularly in the later parts of the film.

What really amazes me the most about this film and which keeps coming back to me whenever I think about it is that despite coming out in 1931, this feels as good a thriller as if it had come out today. It does not feel like it has aged a day and is a great crime thriller.

Breakaway is the first episode of the sci-fi tv series Space: 1999 and stars Martin Landau as the commander of a base on the moon.

The year is 1999 and humanity is preparing to launch a manned spaceship and attempt to land on a planet moving close by called Meta. They will perform this launch through the base situated on the moon but lately there have been...a few issues. Men are dying, nine so far from something that looks like radiation. Commander John Koenig is sent to investigate and ensure that the launch to the planet Meta that is showing signs of life is carried out without issues but when he gets there things start getting out of control.

Thus begins an intense hour of sci-fi thriller/drama as the astronauts aboard the base Alpha attempt to figure out what is going on and man, I loved this episode. There are a lot of surprises and if you look past some head scratching astronomical stuff and just watch it with a clear head you will witness a ton of dazzling special effects and action and some intense moments with an air of mystery.

This show is a proper thriller in space or atleast it's first episode is and by the end, you will want to know what happens next because it establishes the purpose of the series, the immediate conflict and introduces a ton of characters that it can explore more freely in future episodes.

(AVAILABLE ON NETFLIX)

I had no idea Carol & the End of the World existed before I stumbled across it by accident on it's Netflix page. Basically the show is about a giant planet that's going to collide with Earth and kill everyone so...you know it seems at first a familiar place to start a show. We have seen so many post-apocalyptic shows by now and we like them but just watching Carol's pilot episode made it clear this one different and not just on a technical level.

This is not a post-apocalyptic show, this is more accurately IMO a drama about a middle-aged woman trying to find purpose set in the backdrop of a world that knows it's going to die. There is a warmth to the show despite of that however, because people know they're going to die but not tomorrow or in the coming few months, they have therefore grown to accept and the whole humanity has decided to pass these 7 months in peace. Everyone is free to do whatever they wish, there are no jobs or bills or anything holding you down. There are huge pieces of graffiti on the wall saying "Live, Laugh, Love" and yet...for our protagonist Carol, there is nothing else that feels right except the normalcy she has grown up with.

It is a very experimental and subversive show, when you finish an episode you have no idea what the next episode is going to be about or even how it will be structured. This nature of the show is a little hard to get into at first, to me it was always on the worse side of "Filler or actually trying to say something?" and while my views eventually softened towards the show by the end of it, I still believe some of the earlier episodes or even chunks of the whole series could have been paced better. This subversive nature is something I enjoy but because of how unusually quiet the show is it makes it feel like nothing is happening and you're just watching something....aimless and meaningless. Not a fan of it but thankfully it gets better when you start understanding what this show is trying to do which can take a different amount of episodes for everyone.

Another thing to get used to and the reason the show itself is very quiet at times is our protagonist Carol, she's a middle-aged very very typical person. She doesn't shout, react quickly and always speaks in a tone that is intentionally monotonous.

Aside from it's narrative and plot shenanigans, what I really adored about carol & the end of the world is the beautifully crafted visuals, the backgrounds of the show look like as if they came straight out of a comic book and they're so gorgeous and detailed. The animation has a lot of style and art to it as well, from how certain things are drawn to how the humans move and look like albeit it's a very modern style which is thankfully still very expressive of the characters and makes them feel human.

The soundtrack is one of the best ever and along with it's art style, it's the one thing that the show keeps consistently well realized throughout the series. Often switching between classic music or electronic soft beats and introducing a pop rock song once in a while makes this show's sound feel as if it's a part of it's world and it's character.

Conclusion: Carol & the End of the World is one of the most subversive animated shows you'll ever watch that treads a very fine line between "nothing is happening" and a beautiful, well written exploration of humanity and the depth of how we feel and cope with whatever situation we are and just the realness of it that it manages to capture so well.

8/10 Although it might be a very different experience for you, I highly enjoyed it and it's worth recommending. I think it will be great to re-watch as well

In this American remake of Akira Kurosawa's strange Rashomon we get Mexican outlaws and poor white trash tackling subjects of truth and justice. Now I think it is superbly directed for a film of it's kind even when it never reaches the disorienting madness of Rashomon.

The elements of the film as they were in the original have nearly been preserved, all of the plot points even the ones I thought they would chicken out on are present faithfully and I think that's great. When I saw The Magnificent Seven one of the things it did was change and mix some of the characters to make the runtime shorter but because Rashomon is already a short movie it makes the job of screenwriters and producers much easier.

The problem is....the things it does do that are similar to Rashomon don't really add to The Outrage's own identity but the things it leaves out makes me feel hollow like an essential part of the story. The temple with it's ominous atmosphere, the dappled lighting that was so disorienting like you're entering a whole different world, the woodcutter's journey in the woods....all of that felt lacking in spirit in The Outrage.

The movie is localized to the west as best as it can, the temple becomes the tavern/railway and such sort but for me it just didn't work as a great framing setting for the story. They even forgot about the rain before the final retelling!

I mentioned that it is superbly directed and in my opinion, the costumes, the fights and camerawork all look great. Acting wise it came off as a bit forced and silly to me but that is expected in remaking works of this manner.

5/10 It mostly is enjoyable even if just to see how much they changed from Rashomon but my viewing was based on me having watched that movie first and seeing if The Outrage does something cool with it's new setting. It tries to be a western but most of the time that cowboy/bandit talk just made me laugh