The Last Movie You Watched

[Fake Messiah]

‘Once Upon A Time In America’ (1984)

I resisted watching this for a long time, chiefly because 3 hours and 49 minutes struck me as hard to sit through. But, it’s often touted as one of the all time great gangster films, so I thought I’d see what I’d been missing.

Made it to about 45 minutes. What a dreary, uninteresting mess.

Boru

Yeah, that pretty much sums up my opinion of that movie.

---

I was recently watching movies by Samuel Fuller. His early movie "Steel Helmet" is great, a masterpiece. War movie that was very anti-Hollywood in its portrayal of war and very dramatic which was an anomaly back in those days when it was made. And if you watch it you will see that Spielberg and Lucas were fans of it.

Then I watched his successor movies "Fixed Bayonets" and "Park Row" which were more formulaic and thus not that good.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Huritng Project, Surf School.  I know nothing about this except that Tubi's apparently going to drop it soon, and that Harland Williams apparently keeps it off his resume. 

• This reads like someone was challenged to write the dumbest movie about surfing possible.
  
• Also, apparently, one of the bullies looks like he's either a proto-Logan Paul or the larval form of the Wonderbread guy who even Shadman wants nothing to do with.
  
• "I dreamed about monkeys last night." And then, it became a nightmare because I  ended up becoming Patient Zero of a whole new STD.
  
• You know, maybe you should check if you didn't rope so much on those Hustlers that they can't be opened, before you lend them out.
  
• Yes, we get it, "Surf School."
  
• "Brothers don't surf?" A random Surf Ninjas reference? Or is it just a random bastardization of "Charlie Don't Surf?"
  
• You know, I find it highly unlikely that the Japanese girl doesn't actally speak English. That was actually a plot point from Better Off Dead.
  
• Aw, man, they actually went past Teddy Roosevelt in American History class?
  
• Yes, we get it, the unusually tan Russian dude and his blonde life have an extremely healthy sex life.
  
• What is this movie's obsession with sex with monkeys?
  
• Just wait a few years, gang, you'll be  dreaming that the Republicans would put a president in office with all the integrity of Nixon.
  
• Why doe this guy have a bottle opener as an earring.
  
• He hasn't been surfing in 30 years, but he's still paying to advertise a surf school?
  
• Come on, man, what about her feet? We're more into seeing her feet, Harlan.
  
• Milk from a virgin cow? So, this cow had an immaculate conception?
  
• Why are the logistics of their living arrangements so convoluted?
  
• And, of course, the Swedish girls are open with their tits. Hell, American girls act terrified when they figure out guys are thinking of their feet that way.
  
• Goddammit, I just watched the "Mr. King" episode of Inside No. 9 and am so not in the mood for using superglue torture as comedy.
  
• Random reference to sheep farming and even more random Braveheart reference that was made just before one could mention Mel Gibson without thinking of his random anti-semitism.
  
• I swear that announcer who looks like he's Caelan Conrad's Latino cousin is just saying random shit.
  
• Goth girl is hiding some Baywatch hair under a wig. Why the fuck not. 
  
• So, she took a random vow of silence? 
  
• I'll be damned, the nerdy kid is fucking the Swedish girls for once.
  
• Somehow, I speak better Japanese than Harlan, since I got that she was mentioning Japan at some point (from Nihonjin) and he didn't. Not bad for someone who gave up on trying to figure out the logic in that language when he found out that "Chihiro" can be shortened to "Sen."
  
• Is that kiss supposed to be consensual or not?
  
• Was that kid established to have needed Ritalin? 
  
• And you know what'd probably be a more consise tranlation of "Thanks, Brah" into Hawaiian? Besides "Mahalo," I mean? This.
  
  
  
• You know, this movie was so shit, I didn't even know who was supposed to be the protagonist.
  

Next week, I'm thinking Marmaduke on Netflix.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project, Netflix' Marmaduke. All I know about it is that it's about a giant Great Dane, and instead of solving mysteries, it just pulls its  owner on a leash. It was one of those comic strips that wasn't in my local paper, so I didn't have any familiarity with it. 

• A Chinese character is being painted in the studio logo... fuck, this is going to be one of those "an obscure American IP gets revived by a foreign company for random reasons" movies, isn't it?
  
• The humans look like rejected designs for The Lorax, and Marmaduke looks like a refugee from Food Fight.
  
• So, I think that's supposed to be a T-Bone steak. Has anyone ever been to an outdoor barbecue where they just randomly cook T-bones?
  
• Why does Marmaduke's room look like  Andy's room from Toy Story?
  
• Man, that dog has to weigh a fuckton for its jumping into the pool to have that sort of impact. Especially with the ground floor of his home flooded.
  
• Good fucking God, that guy's legs are as thin as a strand of spaghetti.
  
• And why is Not-Entertainment Tonight challenging this retired dog trainer to train Marmaduke?
  
• Why is this a musical now? And why is that dog trainer supposed to be a bad guy?
  
• How many people would get it if I compared the scene where the kid was riding Marmaduke like a horse to the time Liam Gallagher got drunk and rode a dog?
  
• The fact that they have Marmaduke speaking with his lips actually moving makes me wonder if people can actually understand him.
  
• You know, even as someone who owned a dog for 18 years, I'm having a lot of fun watching that dog getting beaten down.
  
• The kick that wasn't there? Did Titmouse claim copyright on "The Phantom Limb"?
  
• So, I take it that they just had those doggie deathtaps already installed in the park? Also, somehow, I don't get the impression that Crufts is going to adopt that panini press, the mechanical doors, and jumping through a ring of fire as part of their obstacle course. And, yes, I actually checked Cruft's Agility Championship final for 2020.
  
• That shampoo has "guaranteed hair loss?"
  
• Why the fuck is J.K. Simmons playing that Afghan Hound? And why do I get the feeling that his attempts at sabotaging Marmaduke should be going like this?
  
  
  
• No, Marmaduke, your legs didn't shrink. They just finally figured out there's no way in hell legs that skinny can support your weight.
  
• And he just suddenly got back to his normal size, and then he's back to bloated.
  
• Did we really need a bullet time shot lasting more than a minute with everybody at the dog show reacting to Marmaduke's fart?
  
• And the bill for the trainer's expenses randomly turns into a Star Wars opening crawl. Why the fuck not?
  
• And way to wreck the last surviving wonder of the ancient world by running on it, Marmaduke.
  
• What the fuck is that Asian dog even doing to J.K. Simmons?
  
• Do show dogs get disqualified if a trainer gets injured? 
  
• Yes, this dog is seductive. Who the fuck wrote this script, Kero the Wolf?
  
• ... Can I ask why they put obvious Tabla into this music that's supposed to be stereotypically Chinese?
  
• So, that's how J.K. Simmons keeps winning those dog shows? He's Hypno-Toad? 
  
• So, J.K. Simmons wins with his Hypno-Toad powers. So why do I have 15 minutes of the movie left? Of course, he has to expose his cheating. And apparently, the Asian dog wins.
  
• And way to go, you incapacitated Zeus and paralysed the cameraman.
  
• Please tell me they're not doing this... please tell me that they think they're going to get away with killing off Marmaduke... please let me think that the tear that landed on Marmaduke isn't going to somehow revive him. 
  
• Well, at least the old hand-drawn Marmaduke outro looks better than the CGI Marmaduke.
  
• And, fuck it, here's a better rapping dog to close this out. 
  
  
  Next week, I'm thinking maybe breaking out the VPN so I can take on the 1998 Avengers on Netflix Japan.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project, I'm firing my VPN back up and trying to watch the 1998 film version of The Avengers. No, it's not based on the Marvel comics superhero team, but the 1960s British spy series. I'm not familiar with the latter franchise, but I do know that this movie doesn't hold a  candle to the original.

• Of all the variations of the "hero shows how badass he is by having people try and fail to beat him up" trope I've seen, I suspect that having it be part of a checkup by a spy org may be the most realistic version I've seen in the Project.
  
• This has to be a bizarrely inefficient way of reminding someone to check their phone: having someone hand-deliver a note to someone else saying so.
  
• I've never watched an episode of the original series, but is it just a more normal spy series whose gimmick is that everything's a bunch of English stereotypes? From stiff upper lips so stiff that you barely even emote when it looks like someone's impersonating you while committing crimes (or even saying more than "it's a bit much" during a massive storm that's keeping you in a phone booth), or a car whose engine brews tea. 
  
• Also, someone's impersonating Emma Peel and committing crimes; I hope they don't drop this thread.
  
• Huh. They make a good deal of Emma Peel's boots and they don't even show them. Then again, I've got 3436 shots of her feet on Wikifeet, with many coming from much better movies.
  
• Flowers that shouldn't exist? Wait until Anonymous comes out and creates an IRL Tudor Rose.
  And, yes, I actually emailed an expert on roses a few years ago to confirm that there wasn't a
• Are you shitting me? Sean Connery's heading a giant conference in a room where everyone else is wearing a Technicolour teddy bear costume. And he apparently kills two of them with a blow dart that somehow managed t go past their costumes straight into their blood streams.
  
• Somehow, I get the feeling that when Steed is giving his psych assessment of Peel, he doesn't actually know what he's even taking about.
  
• Man, the original prototypes of the ADIs from Hated in the Nation were a lot more grotesque and more prone to exploding than the final versions. But, hey, at least you could get rid of them with a car chase.
  
• So, fun fact, apparently, the cut of the movie we have was radically changed from the original. Apparently, they cut 26 minutes from the original cut after a disastrous test screening, which was apparently held in Phoenix for an audience that was mostly working-class and Spanish-speaking. And while I'd prefer to not make stereotypes about an entire culture, somehow, I doubt that a bunch of working stiffs who spoke English as a second language if that is the sort of audience one would expect for something so aggressively British as this. Then again, Morrissey is apparently huge in Latino communities, so maybe that's what they were thinking. Apparently, Jeremiah Chechik has offered to recut the film free of charge, but Warners no longer cares enough to bother. 
  
• Why is Emma Peel in an M.C. Escher hallway?  
  
• Huh, those boots are coming into play. But what little we see of her feet, she's apparently wearing a red body stocking that ensures that we see nothing of her feet. 
  
• Why the fuck is there an invisible man, why are they keeping him in a room in a basement, and why is he being voiced by the original John Steed?
  
• So, Sean Connery can control the weather now? Why the fuck not? 
  
• You know, I'm not sure if the longer could would have been any better, but I'm almost certain that it'd be a lot easier to follow.
  

Next week, I'm provisionally choosing The Source, the last Asylum movie left in the Project, but, then again, things are likely to change in October.

[Silver]

Was thinking of maybe checking out this movie in the morning after work.

Lou

A storm rages. A young girl is kidnapped. Her mother teams up with the mysterious woman next door to pursue the kidnapper, a journey that tests their limits and exposes shocking secrets from their pasts.

[Silver]

Continuing with Lou while the game downloads.

Allison Janney is pretty badass in this film.

[Silver]

Do Revenge

Drea and Eleanor agree to go after one another's bullies.

[Silver]

I Used to be Famous

Follows Vince, a desperate former popstar who dreams of making a comeback. An impromptu jam session with autistic young drummer Stevie sparks an unexpected friendship between the two misunderstood musicians.

[Silver]

I Came By

Follows a young graffiti artist who discovers a shocking secret that would put him and the ones closest to him in danger.

[Silver]

Eternals

The saga of the Eternals, a race of immortal beings who lived on Earth and shaped its history and civilizations.