The Last Movie You Watched

[Silver]

Where the Crawdads Sing  Netflix

I need to watch this but I really, really enjoyed the book and hope not to be disappointed in the movie version.

Didn't realize it was based on a book, but I liked the movie well enough. And at least you already know the ending.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project: Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B. I know Aaliyah was R. Kelly's child bride and I know this movie was on Lifetime. Let's just go with this shit: 

• (00:10): This is just a problem with the YouTube upload, but for some reason, it starts at 00:10. For whatever reason, I can only view the first ten seconds on my laptop, but not my iPad.
  
• (01:18): You think you could set something up? First scene, she's on TV singing Rodgers and Hart, the next scene, she's gotten over her loss, and a family friend's announcing he's signed R. Kelly to his record label.
  
• (03:20) Most of what I know about Aaliyah is in relation to R. Kelly's bullshit, but somehow, I get the feeling this is clearly just going through Cliff Notes of her life story. Granted, that's probably inevitable in biopics, but every scene is just this happens, then this happens.
  
• (6:34) Are these backup dancers doing the pee-pee dance? Also, the costumes are strange. Aaliyah looks like she's wearing a palette-swapped version of my letterman jacket from high school (one that doesn't seem to correspond to anything Aaliyah wore in real life), and the backup-dancers seem to be wearing hoodies with similar designs, but torn to reveal their midriffs.
  
• (10:22) I don't know if this is her Uncle Barry or R.  Kelly, but if this is R. Kelly, it's like every word out of his mouth is a metaphor for grooming.
  
• (11:05) Thank Christ, it was just Uncle Barry.
  
• (11:48) There was no way for Aaliyah to be this huge a fan of R. Kelly before she met him. You know how I know this? Because the debut single from his first album name-dropped her.
  
• (19:35) R. Kelly's Mom was his dad?  
  
• (21:15) Okay, looking it up, apparently Aaliyah's family refused to allow any of the songs she wrote to be used in the movie. So, if Alexandra Schipp sang any songs Aaliyah actually sang, it's just the covers. None of her big hits will be represented. Also, I want to know how they could get away with even making this movie with them in it if they disapproved of this movie so much.
  
• (23:50) I was not expecting for R. Kelly to not go for a kiss after this build-up.
  
• (26:00) And we've almost got R. Kelly kissing this 14-year-old girl. And to think that, five years after this was made, Lifetime would release Surviving R. Kelly and finally put the last nail in his career's coffin. And it's not like they had the excuse of not knowing. Especially after his big trial over the piss tape.
  
• (27:00) And Rashad disapproves of the 27-year-old R. Kelly romancing the 14-year-old Aaliyah, but doesn't mention that she's probably just left puberty at this point. Gee, I wonder why people thought this movie was romanticising the relationship between the two.
  
• (35:22) Reader, he married her. And to think that they're actually playing Aaliyah's parents like they were the bad guy in this situation. And they didn't even have all the information they had about her relationship with R. Kelly yet. Like how Kelly got his tour manager to help her lie about her age after she told him she was pregnant.
  
• (40:01) You know, you'd think they'd mention how much of a red flag Aaliyah's song "Age Ain't Nothin' But a Number" should have been.
  
• (43:33) It's not his vocal cords on the record, but it's his songs on Aaliyah's singing, except for maybe that one song that was originally an Isley Brothers song.
  
• (48:54) Nice to know that they have to explain who Timbaland and Missy Elliot are.
  
• (63:28) So, she's basically acting as Don Bluth's equivalent to Peabo Bryant.
  
• (67:50) This movie seems to have gotten a lot less interesting with R. Kelly out of the picture.
  
• (68:14) So, she's a cash cow as a singer. That doesn't mean it's going to translate to success as a film actress. Madonna's  one of the most successful singers of all time, and I can count the number of movies she was any good in on one hand (and Evita's probably the only good movie she starred in). And there's over a dozen to choose from.
  
• (70:21) One of your favourite books is being adapted into a movie? Consider yourself lucky. Of my four favourite novels, one is legally forbidden from being adapted into a film,  One is too philosophically dense to properly fit into a film, one was adapted into a film twice, but, subject matter aside, its true genius is in an unreliable narrator that's functionally impossible to portray on film with even Kubrick Himself failing, One is by an author so obscure that even many of my lit professors didn't know he existed until I told them about him, and Alas, the last one hasn't even attracted enough attention to be released outside of Lulu. At least that leaves Grendel.
  
• It's kind of disappointing that they focused more on her potential role in the Matrix sequels than her actual role in Queen of the Damned.
  
• (83:30) They're really hyping the video for "Rock the Boat" and how he's going to miss her in the Bahamas. I wonder if this means it's going to play a role  in her eventual death...
  
• (86:27) So, this is really reminding me of the ending to American Sniper. It ends with Chris leaving to go on a hunting trip with a friend. I can remember watching it in the theaters and hearing someone in the audience yell "What?" in shock. Clint has the taste to not show him getting shot by a friend, but the footage of the funeral and that Ennio Morricone music turns it into a stately tribute to a complicated man. This movie seems to be going for the same thing, but it just cuts to some stock R&B music and dulls any impact this movie could have had.
  

Next Week, Lawnmower MAn 2: Beyond Cyberspace. And between now and next Sunday, I'll have to find a copy of the original.

[arewethereyet]

I need to watch this but I really, really enjoyed the book and hope not to be disappointed in the movie version.

Didn't realize it was based on a book, but I liked the movie well enough. And at least you already know the ending.

The biggest reason I chose it is because of the setting.  The coastal and barrier islands of NC are where I hail from.  They did take some liberties with geography, but that's what piqued my interest.

[Mister Agenda]

Caught the second Black Panther movie yesterday. Felt like a nice tribute to Chadwick Boseman. Good to see Lupita Nyong'o back in the franchise and to see the addition of Dominque Thorne as Black Panther. They changed Atlantis to Talokan, but kept Namor's ankle-wings and managed to make them look kind of cool. They changed his origin from the comics pretty profoundly but it works well for the movie. Kind of a tear-jerker, overall.

[Fake Messiah]

I kind of watched Top Gun Maverick, or at least the first hour. I mean, I have never watched anything like this. Every 5 minutes either we or the characters discover what a badass Tom Cruise is. Just when they thought he was this super badass, they discover he is even more badass.

So, I wish that there was more conflict between the characters. Like maybe Maverick has become trans (woman) since the last movie but they are forced to call him back to teach and fly because he is the only one who can do the dangerous mission. Now, this would be a real movie with conflicts. But they are just not badass enough to do it.

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project, Lawnmower Man 2: Beyond Cyberspace

• (0:30) So, before watching this  movie, I watched the original. It's okay, but the CGI hasn't aged all that well. This movie is even worse.
  
  
• (2:53) Way to cover for the fact that nobody from the original movie made it into this movie.
  
• (9:09) So, in addition to hardly getting anyone from the original film, they made it a glorified kid's movie... yes, a sequel to a movie (loosely) based on a Stephen King story being turned into a kid's movie/
  
• (12:30) Man, that echo's getting annoying.
  
• (13:46) So, why do we care about Jobe dying? If we're going by the original film's continuity (which it isn't), he ends up becoming a villain, and if we're not, we barely even knew who he is at this point. Hell, he doesn't even act like his old mentally handicapped self, if the kid knew him from his days as the literal lawnmower man.
  
• (14:21) Crap, this is one of those "if you die in the game, you die for real" movies, isn't it? The sad thing is, I can't even say it's unrealistic anymore, now that the guy who invented Oculus Rift [ur=https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/11/09/oculus-founder-claims-he-made-a-vr-headset-that-actually-kills-you-if-you-die-in-a-game]actually invented a version that does exactly that[/url].
  
• (25:48) And yet, he wasn't acting like the simpleton you loved, and you still seemed to trust him.
  
• (27:18) So we now have Jobe acting like Jim Carrey cracking incest jokes? 
  
• (35:30) Well, someone voted for Bob Dole in that year's election.
  
• (39:55) So, they just randomly made up a high-ranking person in the government who has the exact same surname as someone who was already a well-known government figure active at the time? I thought only Norman Boutin did that!
  
• (46:04) Yes, I know that something impossible has just happened. And we're just going to leave it at that.
  
• (62:40) There's no trans-matrix? Impossible, the whole franchise is an allegory for being trans!
  
• (64:20) Eyephones. That totally doesn't sound like something that's going to be totally ubiquitous in a bit over a decade.
  
• (68:24) The mentally handicapped computer man who went on a rampage and tried to bring about a new transhuman age is totally someone you can trust with your life.
  
• (80:59) So, Jobe's offering the people a refuge from a Hellscape he himself is responsible for. Sounds like typical Republican shit to me.
  
• (84:00) I don't know, Jobe, but given all the red and green with no blue, it looks like someone's discovered two-strip Technicolor. 
  

Next week, I'm thinking Dia of the Dead. Figure I may as well take on a November holiday before I go take on Deck the Halls, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure, and the last two Home Alone movies for December.

[Angrboda]

The Golden Child.




Ernest Saves Christmas.

[Gwaithmir]

[LinuxGal]

[Rev. Rye]

This week in the Deep Hurting Project, Dia of the Dead, a ripoff of Coco and I think The Book of Life.

• Well, at least they're demonstrating a deeper knowledge of Mexican food than usual, but seemingly limiting their knowledge of Mexican culture to food.
  
• God-Damn, is this what Strong Bad has reduced himself to?
  
• So, Mom killed herself, Grandpa let her, and if their eight-year-old luchador son sleeps hard enough, they'll meet in the afterlife for a concert?
  
• You know, I've never watched The Book of Life, but I have watched Coco a couple times, and I can't help but notice that it had a very imaginative setting. This time, it just looks like a normal Mexican town that just happens to have crappily-animated skeleton people.
  
• So, Mom's still alive, but she's in the afterlife for some reason?
  
• Is this just going to be a bunch of scenes of two people delivering exposition? The first nine minutes, it was the boy and his grandpa giving a very muddled explanation of what's going on, then it's the long-running queen talking to a bat about past compeditions, and then it's Mom and a mummy?
  
• Huh. There's radio stations with connections to the Great Beyond. Since when did Art Bell become a Mexican?
  
• I remember the Aaliyah movie just assuming that because she was a great singer, she'd be a great actress, and now we have people who think being a luchadora translates into a great singer.
  
• So, by being there,  Grandpa and Sonny Boy are breaking rules?
  
• Is it just me or do the skull heads all look like they came from Duane Dibley?
  
• So,  I know that in Anime, the Osaka has enough cultural similarities with the American South that when they're dubbed into English, Osakan characters are dubbed with a Southern Accent. What part of Mexico would be that equivalent?
  
• So, it starts with five separate scenes of two people talking (with no overlap) before it starts. Why is this reminding me of Glengarry Glen Ross?
  
• What do you want to bet that the claim that being a luchador gives you special powers doesn't come up in the movie? Or that, because it's done by the same people who brought the world Zoo Wars and Finding Jesus, it's still nothing?
  
• So, there's a great big clock where she lives? For all you know, she could be from London.
  
• Wanna bet that the talk about how this concert will be for nothing will be foreshadowing.
  
• That's not Momo!
  
• Why are they shocked by the fact that a dead person is performing in the land of the dead?
  
• They're really skirting Disney's copyright with that "When You Walk ON the Edge of The Cemetery"
  
• Why do Mom's completion of Fredo's songs sound like they're from different songs?
  
• Incredibly, it looks like this movie understands the term "Groomer" better than most of the American political right.
  
• There was a fucking manual for crossover into the Great Beyond?
  
• So, their presence in the audience could make Mom overpowered, but they're going for having the Gods of the Dead turn her into their puppet?
  
• Is there a reason a native Spanish speaker doesn't know the word "Amor"?
  
• Is this what Laurie Anderson's take on "Habanera" would sound like?
  
• How is there a contest with no contestants?
  
• So, is there a reason they didn't actually announce that Mom won?
  
• So, she won the contest, but she just decided to retire? So, it's nothing?