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[Travis Bickle]

Watched The Passion of Joan of Arc. There's not a lot I can say about the film that hasn't already been said by someone else over the course of almost a couple years, other than that it's refreshing to see a depiction of St. Joan of Arc where she isn't some sort of quasi-magical lady knight (see numerous fantasy works) or a mouth-piece for the author's grievances (see The Second Coming of Joan of Arc, among others). Watch it, or just wait one more year and I'm pretty sure it'll enter the public domain.

[IronyOwl]

Also got a lot more meta than I would have liked.

Blegh. That's probably the final nail in the coffin for me.

The trailer looked... pretty weird. Half ditzy adventure with a zonked out bear, half ridiculous horror movie. Wasn't sure what they were going for, not hard to believe they didn't either.

[Lord Shonus]

Also got a lot more meta than I would have liked.

Blegh. That's probably the final nail in the coffin for me.

My big annoyance was that the movie kept doing silly nonsense, only to have a character in the scene mention how bizarre it was. The easiest example to describe:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

There's a sequence where there's a cop on top of a gazebo with a duffel bag of coke in a standoff with drug dealers that want to retrieve the lost coke. Accompanying the drug dealers is the local punk who found the coke in the woods and hid it in the gazebo. Drug dealer goes to shoot the cop, cop shoots the gun out of his hand, severing the index and ring fingers.

This is decent enough farce, stupid enough to fit with the general idea of the movie. Spoiled when the punk pipes up with "how did he shoot those two fingers off without hitting the middle one?"

For the rest of my criticism, they had a perfectly good A/B plot going with the crazed bear running around killing people (usually anybody that happened to be near her precious cocaine) as the A plot, and a group of drug dealers furious that their coke was missing (and afraid that their Columbian contacts where going to go berserk over the lost shipment). Then they added a bunch more unneeded and largely indepenent elements that don't really mesh

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The national park is currently terrorized by a group of incredibly lame punks
The incompetent park ranger is currently mooning like crazy over one of the wildlife experts
There's a last second betrayal of the cop by his younger protege that adds nothing
There's a whole bit where a couple of early-teenagers find the coke, get attacked by the bear, and the girl's mom is looking for her

None of this is fully integrated into either the A or B plot. It is just some random stuff that's happening.

[NRDL]

I've always enjoyed comedy the most when nobody in the scenario realizes that its funny or absurd. Leslie Nielsen was the master of this, RIP.

Hajime no Ippo, for all its goofiness, really builds up the opponent boxers as sympathetic characters (a few excluded), which shows the bittersweetness of victory better than the Rocky franchise managed. I've felt that too, because you often end up fighting people you train with, if you're in a small boxing circle.

True enough, and I've always felt that the Rocky franchise as a whole is more about overcoming great odds than it ever was about boxing.

Each successive movie was one more impossible mountain to climb, that gets climbed by the skin of one's teeth and with triumphant music blaring. Rocky 5 chose not do this formula which made it a mess, and Rocky 6 made it about Rocky overcoming his own demons, not just the exhibition fight against Antonio Tarver.

Creed 1 and 2 are very good, well executed, Rocky movies with a genuinely good legacy character. Creed 3, for all of its re-skinning of

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Rocky 1, 3 and 5

still decided to go the route of

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

being a personal feud, rather than Adonis Creed needing to defeat some great impossible opponent. The movie didn't even lean too far into Adonis overcoming his own violent past, partly because Jonathan Majors is such a presence that the story could not have JUST been about Adonis.

I'd love a live action boxing tv show, really capture the Ippo spirit but with a more gritty, modern take on pro boxing. With all the sympathetic opponent backstories of course.

[Travis Bickle]

I watched Breakfast of Champions starring Bruce Willis. I'll admit that I have not read the novel the movie is based on, which I'm told is poorly represented in the film. That said, although I'd be hesitant to call the film a masterpiece, I have a hard time seeing why the film was so derided by critics that it has not seen a proper American home video release in over two decades (as far as I can tell, anyway). To be honest, I was partly attracted to the film in that, even in 2023, it takes a modicum of effort to track down a copy of the film, legally or otherwise (I bought a European DVD, for the record). Were the film critics in 1999 all such hardcore Kurt Vonnegut fans that they wouldn't tolerate deviation from the source material? Was the film's visual style (in certain scenes more reminiscent of Youtube video than a mainstream film) off-putting to them? I'm not sure and I don't care enough to track down and wade through every contemporary review to find out. All I will say is that if you manage to track down a copy of the film it will probably not be as bad as you have heard and that you have most probably seen at least one, if not several, worse movies than Breakfast of Champions.

[NRDL]

Watched John Wick 4. Spoilerific write up ahead

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Genuinely as good as the first one imo, for exactly the opposite reasons. I loved the first because of its simplicity. Extremely dangerous man is wronged, takes bloody revenge.

This movie is much more complicated, but executes it way better than 2 or 3. Part of it I feel like is because there's actual room between 3 and the start of this fourth movie. It actually feels like the start of a new trilogy, other than John potentially dying at the end.

Rest in peace to Lance Reddick, his character's impact lies over the whole movie pretty much, because of his character death. The overarching theme of "my actions mean consequences for more than just me, it's led to the deaths of friends" is super strong, and such a nice way to end John's story, if it is actually that.

There's no winning the war against the High Table by yourself, but revenge can still be taken against individuals, especially if it means saving friends and allies


The action as usual is phenomenal. Scott Adkins the actor stuntman plays a wonderful role in the middle of the movie, with awesome fight choreography. Lots of great camera work, and there's just enough variety to keep the kills from getting boring, while somehow upping the ante as the movie goes along.

The supporting cast is really the standout. Bill Skaarsgard is the best douchebag villain of the series, and Donnie Yen is phenomenal as this movie's mirror to John Wick. Hiroyuki Sanada is delightful in the first part of the movie, and Ian McShane is a treat throughout. Mr. Nobody was an interesting character and good performance, as another foil to John. But one who's much younger.

Keanu's line delivery is as odd and stilted as ever, especially when delivering weird one liners that I feel like could have been replaced with solemn silences or more physical acting ( which Keanu is still great at ). The more quiet moments where Keanu gets to act with just his face and posture, or deliver good dramatic lines are great.

Overall, a solid 9/10

[TamerVirus]

Overall, a solid 9/10

....YEAH

[Jopax]

So, Dungeons&Dragons anyone?

Surprisingly good bit of entertainment. After the mainstream superhero movie turned to sludge for the most part and there's so much baggage to every movie that it sucks the fun right out here's a fun little fantasy romp that doesn't overreach nor overstay its welcome but instead offers you a simple promise of a fun time and delivers on it for the most part.

It's not a perfect movie and not a terribly deep one, but it doesn't need to be, it's got decent characters with clear motivations, some twists and turns and pretty well directed action, maybe a bit heavy on the D&D references at times but hey, it's set in the D&D universe so it's kinda bound to happen.

Someone somewhere online likened it to an adaptation of a pretty fun campaign and it really does feel like that, some of the stuff is brushed off and there's a bit of teleportation going on with the amount of different locations making an appearance but overall it's a damn fun movie that keeps you smiling for most of it. It kinda helps that the cast is pretty good and works well together.

Overall a thumbs up from me, wonder if they'll do more stuff like this, and how long before it gets old.

[nenjin]

My company is hosting a movie night next at a theater where that's the feature film. I keep hearing positive things, which is weird to associate with a D&D movie. Somewhat disappointed it's not reputed to be a laughing stock like previous movies. But encouraged that maybe I'll get to watch a fantasy movie that doesn't make me cringe?

[Telgin]

I saw the new Mario movie today, and someone who played the games since a kid, I really enjoyed it.  8/10 and would recommend to anyone who likes Mario.

You almost can't spoil the movie, so there isn't much to say about the plot.  I'll just comment by saying that I feel like it suffers from the same thing the last dozen movies I've seen did, where it felt rushed and like the writers were tripping over themselves to get to the next scene constantly.  Go, go, go.  It probably could have used 5-10 more minutes, with the characters taking an extra few seconds to talk at certain points instead of just jumping into things.

To my surprise, Chris Pratt's voice didn't bother me much.  After the first few minutes, I didn't even notice it.  He sounded better in the movie than the trailers, so maybe they rerecorded some lines, or maybe I just grew numb to it.  Or maybe I just hated DK and Cranky's voices more and they distracted me.

Still, really enjoyed it.  Had a few genuine laughs watching it too, which surprised me.

[scriver]

Does he do da e-funny voice-a

[Telgin]

There is a scene in the movie where he does, but it's effectively just a lampshaded moment and he doesn't do it again.

Charles Martinet voices a few characters in the movie though, including one who wahoos and everything like the original Mario.

[Travis Bickle]

My problem with the Mario movie was that for as stuffed with references and in-jokes as it was, never did Luigi once say: "That's Mama Luigi to you, Mario."

[nenjin]

Just got back from the D&D movie.

Legitimately enjoyed pretty much all of it. I won't rave and say I loved it, but it's the best representation and execution of D&D I think I've seen. Really managed to keep the tone in the right place, at the right time. Serious, action-y, funny, spooky, heartfelt....the timing on the tone was well done. Most of the humor landed. It did a few Marvel-style quips and those mostly were dead on impact, but the actual comedic elements were good and got some legit chuckles from everyone.

My favorite part was:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

The Lawful Good Paladin. He's so fucking earnest and serious and never once breaks character, but it doesn't become overbearing. Imagine someone so utterly convinced of benevolence and justice that it infuses everything they do. It's both charismatic and insufferable at the same time. Funny in its seriousness. Really enjoyed that.

Pacing in the early part felt pretty rushed. They go a lot of places and do a lot of things in a "short" amount of time and I feel like the sold the Underdark short. But I get it. This didn't want to be a 4 hour movie. At $150million budget, it's not cheap but it's far from a luxurious amount of money to shoot tons of stuff too. As a D&D movie you can tell someone cared more than their predecessors about how to portray it. A lot of D&D references are done with subtlety. I wasn't much of a Forgotten Realms fan so while I know the names and the setting, I don't know much else. But it worked for me. I enjoyed seeing

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my favorite D&D Monster, the Displacer Beast

featured. But no, I did not clap.

Overall I think it's worth a rent. You won't feel insulted or embarrassed as a roleplayer watching this. A lot of the plot movements and solutions felt like the kind of thing you'd cook up at table with your friends. So I'd say....8/10? Which for a D&D movie, is great!

[Lord Shonus]

I saw it in Cinemark XD, and I think you're selling it a little short. Easily the best film I've seen in theaters in a long time.