Yep, worthy successor to the first one.

Just for a brief, non DHP-related post here, recently, I watched Into the Spider-Verse and The Straight Story back-to-back. It really opens your eyes to the sheer range cinema has to offer, from a hilarious, action-packed superhero blockbuster, to a very simple (and borderline plotless) movie about a true story of a man traveling 240 miles to see his gravely ill brother on a tractor/ride-on lawn mower (because he's half-blind and needs a walker [though he uses two canes out of pride], which means they took away his driver's license; and, while Straight really was hald-blind, as far as I can tell the leg paralysis was written into the film because Richard Farnsworth, the actor who plays Alvin, ACTUALLY HAD CANCER THAT HAD SPREAD TO HIS BONES AND ACTUALLY CRIPPLED HIM IRL.) Two films, very great in almost polar opposite ways.








The virtues of the former should be pretty obvious, but for the latter, it might bear repeating: Dude took several weeks out of his life driving a lawn mower to see his dying brother. And there was a non-negligible chance that one or both of them would be dead (one from the stroke, one to the myriad of health complaints he has that forces him to use a mower and not a car that can easily make the journey in about five hours) before they made it. And he does, and we appreciate how difficult the journey really was. What more do you need?

Marriage Story (2019)

What did I take from this film? That men suck ass, and so do many women too, but not Scarlett Johanson who is flawless and awesome in every way. How very noble and honest of her to accept the role and pour her efforts into it after learning so much from her two real life failed marriages. 

What really vexed me is that even the very best of us men, so excellent that we might be deemed worthy to marry one of the most beautiful, wealthy and legendary women in the world would still, despite achieving this zenith of success, turn out to be a total fucking idiot arsehole weakling loser.

Scarlett Johanson now resides in the category of "pretty face" only now, by my mind, whereas previously I had her placed firmly in the "thoroughly aces" category. Ghost in the Shell will never be the same again. 

 

One of the latest movies I saw was "The King" (2019) and it was great. Probably the best movie of 2019.

This week in the Deep Hurting Project: The 2005 remake of The Fog. Full disclosure: if I have seen the original, it has been years. 

• The misty opening credits wear out their welcome rather quickly.
  
• It's weird, but one of the opening scenes is of a woman bickering about historical accuracy in a statue. Why do I get the feeling that this is what fans of the original thought  after watching the movie?
  
• Looking at clips of the original, particularly with Adrienne Barbeau's character, it sounds like Selma Blair is trying to match Adrienne Barbeau's seductiveness and failing spectacularly, due at least in part to the writers not knowing what tone they're going for.
  
• Tom Welling plays Our Hero. I have no idea why he was cast in this, except maybe that he looks good and was currently playing Superman on Smallville, because here, he's a complete non-entity. The more I look at it, this seems to be the norm for the casting in this film. Honestly, even if I wasn't a foot fetishist, I swear I'd be far more into watching whatever went wrong when Selma Blair tried to paint her toenails about 14 minutes in.
  
• Testicle telepathy?
  
• No, just because you own a proper radio station doesn't mean you're exempt from the FCC's rules, even if they are bullshit.
  
• A jump scare involving a hobo talking about the difference between flotsam and jetsam? Really?
  
• And when the fog finally comes in, it looks like it came out of a PS2 cutscene. And it's not even scary.
  
• Most interesting characters: Elizabeth's giant hat (which she doffs 27 minutes in), and the drunken priest yammering on about murderers (except when he doesn't, which is all his scenes after his first one.)
  
• Is it weird that the long, lingering sex scene in the shower reminds me of The Room? And it's totally gratuitous and pretty short, but it's still the best thing about this movie because it has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. 
  
• Damn. Selma Blair's supposed to be old enough to have a kid that old? I know actors are vain and do their damnedest to stall the aging process, but her looking as young as she was, I thought she was just some college girl. Then again, she was 32 years old when this film was shot, so having an 11-year-old kid does at least make sense. Still points to this being poorly cast. 
  
• What's the point of having an eye scream when it looks as clean as that? 
  
• "Don't go to the beach, do you hear me?" "Yes, I hear you. I think I'll go to the beach." This is supposed to be a serious horror movie, and yet I'm being reminded of Shed.MOV?
  
• Also, what was the point of having the drunken priest come out raving about murderers when he's perfectly sober when we next see him?
  
• I don't quite get how the Fog is supposed to work. Does it set people on fire in the original and propel them to the wall in the original? Or send zombies into sink drains that can burn people alive with the mere power of touch? If I had actually watched the original, I'd probably be doing more comparison.
  
• And the fog turns into the spooky face on the DVD cover? Why do I get the feeling that this wasn't in the original?
  
• God-DAMN, getting impaled repeatedly by huge shards of glass seems so clean. No blood, no gaping exit wounds, just a long slo-mo shot, and then you fall to the floor and die.
  

The Rise of Skywalker - 5/10

What a bunch of convoluted nonsense. Made even less sense both plot-wise and continuity-wise than the former film. Glad it's over.

(January 16, 2020 at 1:13 pm)Sal Wrote: The Rise of Skywalker - 5/10

What a bunch of convoluted nonsense. Made even less sense both plot-wise and continuity-wise than the former film. Glad it's over.

I saw it as fixing the misdirections in the former film.

(January 16, 2020 at 1:16 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote:

(January 16, 2020 at 1:13 pm)Sal Wrote: The Rise of Skywalker - 5/10

What a bunch of convoluted nonsense. Made even less sense both plot-wise and continuity-wise than the former film. Glad it's over.

I saw it as fixing the misdirections in the former film.

Like putting a band-aid on a broken bone.

(January 16, 2020 at 1:17 pm)Sal Wrote:

(January 16, 2020 at 1:16 pm)Gawdzilla Sama Wrote: I saw it as fixing the misdirections in the former film.

Like putting a band-aid on a broken bone.

I don't take comic book movies too seriously.

(January 16, 2020 at 1:13 pm)Sal Wrote: The Rise of Skywalker - 5/10

What a bunch of convoluted nonsense. Made even less sense both plot-wise and continuity-wise than the former film. Glad it's over.

I thought it was just a half baked whistlestop tour of locations from earlier in series.
And WTF happened to Endor? From forested moon with Ewoks to a wet Tuesday in Cornwall...