Yep, this will be another two-parter; the second will be posted sometime in the upcoming week, perhaps as soon as tomorrow. Here, what's been viewed theatrically will be discussed, along with yet another unpopular opinion I have: my befuddlement over why people like Black Mirror.
One night I saw two films in a row. First was Ash, a low-budget sci-fi effort which still looked rather good for its budget. The director was The Flying Lotus, a synth musician who had only done avant-garde films that I never even bothered with. Thankfully, Ash was rather traditional aside from some nightmare imagery. The story isn't the most complex yet the movie was still interesting and the sort of thing I was happy to support. The most famous names in the cast were Eiza Gonzalez as the lead, Aaron Paul, and Iko Uwais of The Raid movies fame.
The Alto Knights was sadly a boring, flat version of a gangster movie where for some reason, Robert De Niro played both the lead protagonist and the lead antagonist; yes, two different characters played by Bobby, for reasons that seemed to only be “it's a gimmick.” There were nice period songs from the 40's and 50's but otherwise, no surprise that not many other people went & saw the movie theatrically.
Princess Mononoke is a famous anime movie from Studio Ghibli in Japan that I saw on the big screen years ago. This time the viewing experience was on an IMAX screen. The movie is still excellent. Just a few days ago, I viewed The Amateur. The main reason was to compare it to the original. Yes, there was an original The Amateur movie, from 1981 that even film fans didn't know about. Turns out, the two share only a few things in common. The original (it and the remake are both fine, for different reasons) stars John Savage of The Deer Hunter fame; the most famous face in the cast was Christopher Plummer. The movie has a slow 70's style, which was fine with me.
The remake of course has a more modern pace and is slick; while not a must-see, at least most of the modern movie tropes that turn me off from modern movies are thankfully not present. It's a decent effort which is not a must-see yet isn't terrible either. What IS terrible: I now am subscribed to Netflix again, at least for the next few weeks. I viewed The Electric State, which was even worse than I imagined. Now there is an atrocious modern movie usually avoided by me.
Aside from their special interactive episode Bandersnatch-which was fun mainly due to its interactivity, I had never seen an episode of Black Mirror. All I knew was that it was a harsh take on the horrors of technology. Some negative reviews from presumed reliable sources were why I never gave it a shot despite how beloved it is by millions out there... but finally that changed. I chose White Christmas, mainly due to its high ratings. Well, perhaps that was a mistake as it was another special and an anthology of three different stories plus a wraparound.
Except from the first segment, I hated it! The tone and the stories as a whole were just not enjoyable whatsoever and in fact was agony to get through. If that represents the series as a whole, thank goodness I never bothered to begin with. Perhaps one day a traditional episode will be tried; however, I was so turned off by last night's experience, that won't be happening anytime soon.
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