Monday, July 4, 2022

Top Gun: Maverick, Lightyear, The Northman, Jurassic World Dominion and RRR

 As promised the last time, here are the movies I’ve seen on the big screen since the middle of February, when I saw Blacklight… which was worse than the typical random Liam Neeson doing action as an old man film.

I saw the 50th anniversary screening of The Godfather and while that’s been watched a decent amount of times by me before-including theatrically-it is always a joy to check it out on the big screen.

The Outfit: It’s a 1950’s tale involving gangsters and a tailor I wouldn’t have known about it if it wasn’t for the trailer I saw theatrically. It was a pretty good time-despite its flaws and how it should have really left out the final plot twist-as Mark Rylance was great as the lead.

RRR: It’s an Indian movie and while I’ve watched a few of those before-all of which were bonkers-this went to another level. It was a THREE hour extravaganza which probably got a wide release because it has some names familiar to “The West” (Ray Stevenson & Alison Doody) and thus that’s how it managed to break out into a cult hit (now on Netflix) when others before it hadn’t. Also, it DID present perhaps the most bombastic motion picture I’ve ever experienced as everything was over the top, including the plot and the numerous action scenes.

The Northman: I get why many were nonplussed by it and even I thought it was pretentious a little too often… even then it was an interesting Viking saga I enjoyed watching.

Top Gun: Maverick: Even if more than once I wish it wasn’t such a “modern Hollywood movie” that felt like it needed moments of misplaced/unfunny humor, at least this wasn’t pretentious and it was a lot of fun. Speaking of pretentious:

Everything Everywhere All at Once: Many people apparently love this and its apparent popularity among the mainstream is absolutely baffling to me. As unpopular as it is to say online, I hated this movie, all its pretentions, vulgar 13 year old boy humor (if you love buttplugs and other sex toys…), nonsense plot and trite comments about getting along with your family… honestly, I’ve heard multiple people say they think this is among the greatest movies of all time! It was a movie I waited a few months to see theatrically as there was a chance I would not like its absurdist Adult Swim humor… but how angry it made me was a genuine surprise. Perhaps more than any other film ever, I’ll never understand its popularity or how I am such an outlier compared to “the popular opinion” of it.

Jurassic World Dominion: On a lighter note, this movie was a dumb mess like the other two Jurassic World movies yet I did note loathe it like I did those so “lousy” is at least better than “aggravated.”

Lightyear: It pales in comparison to the first three Toy Story movies but at least is better than 4. Lightyear was a fine generic animated action film and that’s about it.

I’m not really sure what I’ll see theatrically the rest of the year but hopefully there will be some gems. I should be back in a week or so.

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