Adolph Zukor? That’s a name.

Well, that’s a good concept.

Heh heh. He said “knots per hour”. And wasn’t talking about acceleration.

Was this movie made by land lubbers!?

This is pretty amusing, but the sound quality is kinda bad? It’s hard to make out what they’re quipping…

Crowdsourcing to the rescue! I always forget to check for srts out on the interwebs. I should automate that…

It’s basically a number of loosely connected skits, I guess? But they’re very amusing skits.

And now it’s a cartoon!

Hybrid!

This is everything that is amiable, but they could have spent a bit more time on the er plot. (There’s a race between two cruise ships, you see.)

Now there’s Wagner! There’s something here for everybody.

I must have missed something in the plot. I don’t get why they’re all so rude to this one woman? She shatters mirrors when she looks in them, and they all hate getting kissed by her… is she supposed to be really ugly?

Wha…

Out of nowhere, there’s now this huge, huge (and bizarre) show thing.

I’ve seen many movies from around this time that are basically just a string of vaudeville bits — but this isn’t that. It’s much weirder.

The Big Broadcast of 1938. Mitchell Leisen. 1938. ⚃

Is that Papyrus!?

I’ve seen the original version of this (and it’s awesome). This is supposed to be totally horrible? Like everything Cage has been in since… 1991? It’s apparently so bad that it’s meme-worthy. Something about bees?

Oh wow. 3.7? This has to be awesome!!!

So I’m finally watching it.

Well, that opening wasn’t too bad?

Bee products!

… what? Was something edited out? They dared the cop to look in the canvas bad that’s dripping blood… and then it gave a spasm… and then the cop just walked away while they’re laughing?

What?

OK, I thought this movie was gonna be just ordinary… boring, but it’s instead really … inexplicable?

For some reason, the name of the director seems familiar to me, even if I have seen exactly zero of his movies. And they all seem really dreary. Hm… Perhaps I’m thinking of Bruce LaBruce? Or is it because I’m mixing up In the Company of Men with Company of Wolves by Neil Jordan (from the Angela Carter novel).

It might be the latter.

This is curiously bad! It’s not ha ha bad, or “I’m falling asleep now” bad, but just kinda in incomprehensively bad? I mean, because I can’t quite put my finger on what’s making it this bad? The scenes should, like, work? But they don’t?

Is it all down to the editing? Could this have worked if it just… had scarier music or something?

I mean, this should be a tense scene! But after she said that, he just looked nonplussed and walked away.

I think basically the script was written by somebody doing a lot of coke.

I can’t believe that this movie was made in 2006. It’s not that it’s … retro .. it’s just… out of time. And that should be a positive thing! But…

I mean, it’s a very 80s movie. Did LaBute try to get a Lynch vibe going? I mean, it failed if that’s what he attempted, but there’s certain scenes where I can see somebody could have been going “OK, this it totally be Lynch”. (Lynch as in Twin Peaks s1.)

Oh, there’s the bees.

I still don’t understand it. The story is still a good one, but the scenes somehow just go “eh?” instead of mounting into a miasma of horror, like it should do.

Very odd.

Still, I’ve seen worse movies.

The Wicker Man. Neil LaBute. 2006. ⚁

Some normie reviewer used the word “nihilism” when talking about this movie. I assume that they’ve never been on the internet — and that this is just gonna be 130 minutes of edge lord tiresomeness.

It certainly starts off that way… and with shockingly bad greenscreen work.

Are these people that’s gonna be shockingly killed off straight away? Since they’re unknowns, I assume so…

I’m kinda surprised at hos slow this is moving? I had assumed it was gonna be CUT CUT CUT BOO YA, but it’s moving at a very sedate pace…

Yup. Edge lord city.

Gunn’s got pretty bad taste in music, eh?

*sigh*

And now we’re getting rolled back to explain what we’ve already understood? To give everybody their origin stories or something? *double sigh*

Gotta get some daddy issues in here. But Idris Alba is always fun.

Even more daddy issues! In the same scene!

Man, you can tell what jokes they’re gonna do half a minute in advance…

It’s so political!

It’s not that this doesn’t have jokes that kinda land? It’s just that the pacing is so lethargic… but I guess the point is to let stoned people keep up and get their “dude! did you see that! *punches air*” out of the way before the next gag, which means that you have to have at least five minutes between anything resembling a joke?

I guess this could have been pretty entertaining if it had been cut down from 130 minutes to 80?

Just when you think it can’t get any more tedious, we get a flashback to Ratcatcher 2’s childhood.

It really is just daddy issues all the time.

I liked the flower fight scene. The fight choreography in general is pretty good for a super-hero movie?

And now they’re playing Pixies?

OK spoilers, so stop reading now:

Is this the reason that otherwise seemingly-reasonable people are giving this a high rating? This “shocking indictment” of US politics? Lemme pause to check…

…

“Subversive.” Check.

“Fast-paced”!? Did she watch it at 2x or something? Ludes much?

To sum up: There’s some good jokes in here, and there’s some other stuff that works. But it’s mostly just kinda boring?

I did like the denouement to the big boss fight, so I’m upping the die a bit.

The Suicide Squad. James Gunn. 2021. ⚂