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What did you watch on this Christmas week? (22/12-28/12)


I hope you had a joyful week. Mine was very merry with the fam, the friends, the booze and the mary. I played hockey on ice, did some virtual golf, ate all sorts of good food and... I watched a bunch of movies!!! Check it out:

The Beach Bum (2019 Blu-ray): I get what they went for but it was done many times before and better too. This movie was beautiful but soulless. (A bit like my ex.) Even Surfer, Dude is a good example of a movie with more spirit. I loved the cinematography and there are just enough high points for me to enjoy the overall product but bottom line is, I’m slightly disappointed. My rating: 6/10

Love the Coopers (2015 TV): The critics were right and most of the audience agreed: a solid cast failed to save this stinker. It tries to be profound, dramatic and deep but we wanted light fun and a good laugh. Nope. 4/10

Home alone (1990 DVD): One of my favorite movies ever as a child. Strangers thought I was Macaulay Culkin so much I looked like him. I was 5 years old when this came out and this week I watched it with my 5 years old. It was a snowy afternoon, the wife and baby and little brother gone to Christmas shopping, we had popcorn, chips, candies and chocolate…it was magical. 8.5/10

Richie Rich (1994 TV) : Most movies I loved when I was a kid I still love as an adult but this one was not as great as it was. It was okay. A bit long, but okay. Sometimes it took itself a bit too seriously, as if they thought they were suddenly shooting the new Batman. With a touch of nostalgia, my rating: 5.5/10

The funhouse massacre (2015 Roku): I watched this late on the 25th and it was a random pick and a cool surprise. I needed something simple and simple it was. Low budget too but fairly entertaining. This movie is a little bit of everything. By this I mean it’s a little bit funny, scary, gory and fun. The actors are a little bit good, the story, script, directing and editing was a little bit good too. 6/10

A bad moms Christmas (2017 TV): The first hour had plenty of fun moments and the cast was good but then the cheesy-drama-overload was a bit much for me and too many characters felt like poor caricatures. Also, I think Gallagher was way under used, it was sad to see him just make the stupid face in the background of 90% his scenes. Otherwise, the love story between the stripper and the beautician was actually cool and overall, the film made me and my wife interested in watching the first one, especially since It has better reviews. My rating: 5.5/10

Chasse-Galerie: La légende (2016 TV): I had no expectations about this one and had never heard of it before but it was effective, convincing and powerful stuff. The first thing it does well is to display the hardship of the lumberjacks’ lives in the cold of Quebec’s winter. (There are many false clichés about us Canadians but yes, I am a descendant of lumberjacks as most of us Quebecers are.)The second thing it does best is creating characters, situations and dialogues that make the whole thing a true and resonant experience. Impressive work all around. I don’t know what they saw to call it a horror movie though. I suggest you watch at least the first minute of the trailer so you can get a feel of this fabulous film: https://www.imdb.com/video/vi54376985?playlistId=tt4896898&ref_=tt_ov_vi
My rating: 8/1 0

Mixed Nuts (1994 TV): A fun Christmas flick but I lost focus in a few spots and ended up wondering what was going on a little bit but still, an entertaining watch. 6/10

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I did a Christmas movie marathon on Christmas Eve day.

Home Alone 8/10
A Charlie Brown Christmas 8.5/10
It's a Wonderful Life 8.5/10
A Season for Miracles 7/10
Holiday Inn 8/10
The Santa Clause 7/10
While You Were Sleeping 7/10
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles 7.5/10
White Christmas 7.5/10
One Special Night 6.5/10
Love Actually 7/10
The Christmas Chronicles 6/10

I originally planned to continue my Christmas movie marathon on Christmas Day, but decided I'd had enough of Christmas movies by then, so I halted my venture.

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Sure sounds fun!

It’s a wonderful life: 9/10
The Santa Claus: 7/10

Never saw PTaA entirely

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i really liked beach bum, thought it was silly stoner fun.

my week:
black christmas (2019) 1.5 i cannot believe this film is not satire.

it cannot be real.

if you fed a bot a year of intersectional twitter, it would give you this script.

astonishing.

i've actually enjoyed a bit of sophia takal's work as an actor & director of green, but this is unforgivably poor.

girlhood (2014) 3.5 young french girl ditches her family and school to take up with her new free-spirited friends. undeniably nice to look at all the way through, helped out by a very pleasant score.

i feel like my enjoyment is hampered by having sat through just a few too many ethereally pretty, atmospheric films. i just watched waves yesterday, for example. a little of that can go a long way.

and even though every moment of this film was spent with this girl, i can't help but feel that we don't quite really get to know here, know why she's doing the things she does.

lots of good qualities, but ultimately i feel like this is a bit like a cinematic sandcastle, something that washes away as quickly as it comes.

doom room (2013) 3 a woman wakes up in a room with no memory of how she got there. i found this to be oddly kinda good. grading on a curve, because it looks like this is a shoestring production, & some of the makeup & acting is a bit wobbly. but i thought the sets looked pretty neat, & i thought the film was pretty imaginative & well thought out.

i imagine pro-bdsm types might find it a bit annoying that this deals in the trope that anyone who plays in that scene is a monster who will rape & kill you.

the running man (1987) 3 lesser arnold. the action is just ok, muddled at times. richard dawson & jesse ventura are both fun, but underutilized.

still very enjoyable, but it definitely could have been better.

crisis hotline (2019) 3 counselor tries to talk down a gay man determined to commit murder/suicide. fairly well done low-key thriller. doesn't do the most brilliant job of juggling its two story-lines, and the acting is very community theatre feeling (especially the lead), but it's interesting & tense all the way through.

marriage story (2019) 2.5 that rant sj makes to her lawyer around the 25m mark is one of the most revolting pieces of garbage i've ever heard. am i supposed to do anything other than despise this rotten woman after hearing this?

there's lots of things i don't understand. this is one of them. i don't get this. why is everyone ululating over this? it's 135 minutes of people talking about their feelings. the man gets humiliated & has his life upended, the woman faces no consequences.

adam driver can carry a tune. i didn't know that. otherwise i hated this.

better watch out (2016) 3.5 annoying kid is a murderous monster. i wish it was just a little more brutal & avoided the attempts at emotion it made here & there, but it's a very good time & has become a bit of a seasonal favourite of mine.

a touch of sin (2013) 3.5 chinese anthology about 4 acts of violence. starts very strongly, and all the segments contain exciting moments, some of them enjoyably brutal, but each story got progressively less interesting to me, and the last one was flat out dull imo. all of them could have used a bit of trimming. absolutely worth a look, but not on the same level as this years ash is purest white from the same director.

the wailing (2016) 4.5 mysterious illness hits a korean town when a stranger arrives. the only benefit of having a feeble memory is being able to re-watch films and have no idea what is going to happen.

that said, i did remember the shamanistic ritual/exorcism being quite a trip, and my memory was accurate.

i'm not quite convinced i understood all that was crammed into this film, but i certainly loved going along for the ride. i'm all for tighter running times, but i'm willing to allow this one its 156 minutes of indulgence.

klaus (2019) 4 postman & toymaker try to cool a town feud. really nice, lovely animation, & very sweet. made me get a little misty-eyed a few times if i'm going to be perfectly honest. only sore spot: a sappy, disney-ish song that pops up at one point.

night of the demons (2009) 3 delightfully skanky women are tormented by evil spirits. this is the kind of thing where you're supposed to be ashamed of enjoying it i suppose. damn society's shame, i say. this is pretty fun, moves along nicely, has attractive women in revealing clothing. yay.

demon seed (1977) 3 robot falls in love with and torments julie christie. this isn't 1/10th as fun as saturn 3, my personal favourite horny robot sci-fi, but it's pretty enjoyable. if nothing else, i approve of our morally corrupt ai's taste in women.

did julie christie have a massive cocaine debt in the 70s? i'm at a loss for why she would be found slumming in something like this.

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atlantics (2019) 4 senegalese film that starts like the sort of class war drama that you've seen before and may or may not want to see again. but it takes a very interesting turn into something a bit odder and more ethereal, and if you are able to take the plunge with it, you'll likely find it to be very intriguing and very rewarding. will definitely be in the mix for my favourite films of this year.

furie (2019) 3.5 vietnamese action film about a mother tracking down her kidnapped daughter. i have a block when it comes to movies where women beat up men who could clearly thrash them without breaking a sweat. i know that there are tons of movies where slight men beat guys twice their size, and i usually have no problem watching those, but i cannot accept the premise when it's women.

but i also can't penalize this film too harshly, because it is extremely well made & the action scenes are fun and exciting and not hampered by shaking cameras or super quick editing. the story is just along for the ride (it's the vietnamese taken, basically), but it never dawdles. if action is your thing, this will give you a good time.

bloody murder 2: closing camp (2003) 2 if you took a shot every time they said the killer's name in this movie, you'd be dead of alcohol poisoning in the first 1/2 hr. pretty undistinguished friday the 13th clone. unimaginative kills, bland gore. foxy girls.

hell girl (2019) 0.5 there's good no budget horror. this is one of the bad ones.

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What a way to finish the year my man! What a way!!

The running man: Arny running from a plane in a hawaïen shirt was the high point. I love Arny’s flicks but this is one of the lesser ones: 6/10

Better watch out: a fun surprise! 7.5/10

Marriage story: took me about 45 minutes to care but then I was invested in the dialogue. 7/10

The wailing: 8.5/10

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"if you fed a bot a year of intersectional twitter, it would give you this script."

😄

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Die Hard
Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown
The Irishman

I think I watched a couple other movies, but I forgot as I spent most of the week drunk off my ass.

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Nice. How would you rate them if you were to rate them?

I got em at:

Die hard: 8/10
The Irishman: 8/10

Both excellent movies in their very own way

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