The Last Movie You Watched

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

You're thinking of the wrong MIB.  MIB 3 was part of the original trilogy with Wil Smith and Tommy Lee Jones. Hemsworth is in 'MIB:  International'.

Boru

Busted.  

lol.  If that's the worst mistake you make today, you're doing better than the rest of us.

Boru

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The worst mistake I ever made was marrying the hex-wife.

[veoli]

Captain America The First Avenger
7/10

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Captain America The First Avenger
7/10

Did you know that "Agent Carter"'s moob touch wasn't planned?

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project: The Son of the Pink Panther.

While I usually don't go too much into the director's past in the Deep Hurting Project, I think I kind of have to here: If there's two words one can use to describe Blake Edwards' career, it would be "Diminishing Returns." He peaked pretty bloody early as a director, and I'd say that his high point was 1964's A Shot in the Dark. He takes the less-than competent Inspector Clouseau provided by the earlier Pink Panther, and turns him into a comedic legend in his own right. Eventually, after the failure of Darling Lili, and a bunch of other unremarkable films, he ended up making three more Pink Panther films with Peter Sellers, before Sellers died in 1980. In addition to some good films like the masterpiece Victor/Victoria and the passable 10, he also made a pair of Pink Panther films consisting largely of unused footage of Peter Sellers and newly filmed linking material. Then, after a string of mediocre films, he decided to dip back into the Pink Panther one last time. It was the last film he ever did.

You know the opening sequences that they made for the series? The ones distinctive enough that they made hundreds of shorts based around the Pink Panther character? The one who's still used in advertisements for Owens insulation to this day? Well, here it is:



And it looks more technically magnificent than the old ones, especially with the mixed-medium, and Henry Mancini handing off the baton to the Panther is a poignant touch, especially since he would die shortly after the film's release, but the fact that the inspector looks more like Peter Sellers' natural look than Roberto Benigni aside, it's just not funny.

And once the movie proper starts, one problem becomes abundantly clear: I've only seen the first 15 minutes of the film, but all the performances are, at best, lackluster. The terrorists are like a third-rate version of the gang from A Fish Called Wanda, the Princess looks nothing like her father and fails to give us anything interesting to compensate for the fact that her role in the story could easily be filled by a bag of diamonds (indeed, in the original film, it WAS), Herbert Lom feels like he's slumming it (I can only assume that not having to deal with Clouseau for years allowed him to mellow out, but still), and, amazingly, Robert Benigni, playing Clouseau's bastard son, Jacques Gambrelli, wears out his welcome remarkably quickly. Hell, he sounds like he's playing Borat, except without the crazy shit that made Borat funny. Bear in mind, that accent is his natural Italian accent, and somehow, it sounds like Borat here. I know he can certainly be funny with the right material (read: movies directed by Jim Jarmusch), but it's safe to assume this is not the right material.

I know I've only watched the first 15 minutes of this 92 minute and 29 second film so far, but I strongly suspect that this may take the Megatron Award for Bad Comedy from Bio-Dome. And also, on the off chance that nothing in the rest of it inspires me to write a follow-up post, I'll just leave this little tidbit here: Claudia Cardinale (who appeared in the first film as Princess Dala) appears as Roberto Benigni's mother: Maria Gambrelli, Elke Sommers' character in A Shot in the Dark.





Edit: YES! Dreyfus' eye tic finally returns when Benigni says "leur." I'm not sure if accents work that way, but still.

[EgoDeath]

Satanic

Cheesy horror flick, but I love horror movies. Not a fan of the over-the-top cheesy horror movies; this one had the right amount of cheese

A bit of an anti-climactic ending, but worth the watch nonetheless, for a horror fan. I believe it was the director's debut film. Good watch.

6/10

[Rev. Rye]

More Deep Hurting Project stuff for Son of the Pink PAnther:

• Is Not-Wanda from the terrorist gang trying to rape the Princess? 
  
• Roberto Benigni's attempt at a French accent (especially his attempt at replicating Clouseau's tics) just comes across as forced, especially since she never even met with him after their affair. 
  
• As does Dreyfus' plan to kill him before he's even had the chance to fuck everything up. 
  
• Why the fuck is he a doctor now?
  
• Going into the harem of a middle Eastern leader disguised as a Hasidic Rabbi... this can only end so well even in the best of circumstances.
  
• And his quoting poetry just doesn't work.
  
• "That Felt Good." Such a non-indicative closing line for this film.
  

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project is Last Ounce of Courage, the very first film I ever added to the List (because I decided to start semi-regularly checking the Horrible Films page on TVTropes and somehow, it only just ended up on the list near the beginning of January.) 

What's weird is this film actually starts off fairly decent (by the admittedly ludicrously low standards of Christian Propaganda films), with an opening voiceover from St. Ronald Reagan, and a semi-passably acted sequence of Bob Revere talking about how his son sacrificed his life in Iraq/Afghanistan/wherever and showing his funeral and blah blah blah. I don't know why that bear guy from True Grit who is not LeBoeuf showed up at the funeral, but whatever. 






It's kinda "show don't tell"-y, but whatever, I suppose there's a few people who can relate to what Bob Revere (yes, that's his name; and his grandson, who urges on his actions in the film, is called Christian) is going through. That said, I don't know why the mayor for this small town is moonlighting as a pharmacologist who also patches up gunshot wounds for biker gangs. And I get the feeling that draping an American flag across his bike's seat has to violate some flag etiquette. But then, 13 1/2 minutes into the film, we get into the crux of the film: the War on Christmas. And how do they introduce this? Apparently, a cross with the words "Jesus Saves" on it has been removed from a local church because "someone got offended." 






I don't have to explain what's wrong with this picture, right? That people who worry about  the separation of church and state aren't going to object to a cross that's ATTACHED TO A CHURCH? When shit like this happens, it's because it's on public property on municipal grounds and the government explicitly favouring a religion is kind of in violation of the First Amendment (and as a result, especially since Engel v. Vitale, governments are supposed to be religion-neutral.) You know, Roy Moore's religious virtue-signalling Ten Commandments statue was/is still popular among Evangelicals, your target audience, and it still fits. Maybe do something like that so it looks less like a strawman. And, of course, since apparently the Bible itself has been banned from school (and not in the "teachers shouldn't use it as the basis for their curriculum" sense, but in the "we'll treat you keeping a Bible in your locker like possession of illegal drugs" sense) Except that it actually hasn't. And of course, they're getting their news from Bill O'Reilly. Of course.

And apparently, people don't celebrate Christmas anymore. At least not the religious way. I should point out that this has been part of a Christmas tradition for about half a century:






And, of course, there's a buttload of Christmas specials which are still regularly re-aired, many of which at the very least, mention the birth of Jesus as the reason for the Season. Christ, even the Pee-Wee's Playhouse christmas special did that. Sure, it didn't explain what the Christ Child had to do with anything or why we should celebrate its birthday, but at least they acknowledged it. You know, I'd highly recommend anyone with the slightest interest in this piece of shit watch the Cinema Snob review of this movie. He lives in Springfield, Illinois, two blocks away from the Illinois State Capitol. Halfway through it, he steps out of his house to show that it's (the State Capitol, I mean) festooned in Christmas lights.

At one point, Christian asks Bob why his son died in the war and what it was all for. I want so badly to be able to show that scene from Reds where Warren Beatty is asked to give a speech on what WW1 is all about, and, while everyone there expects him to give some patriotic drivel, he just stands up and says one word: "Profit." Then he sits down. Alas, not only have I already reached my three-video-per-post limit, but that scene's not on YouTube anyway.

Well, once again, I have to leave for dinner. Fortunately, I hope to return with more talk about the remaining 68 1/2 minutes of the film.

[brewer]

Tank Girl.

(just to watch Ice-T and Iggy Pop)

[The Valkyrie]

Haven’t watched them yet, or in years, but I’m going to watch the Star Trek movies.