Oh, this is a cute little comedy about a high school reunion or something?

So it’s about a prissy gay dude and his old bully stuck in a car for nine hours? I guess hilarity will ensue.

It turns out that the high school bully was secretly bi?

It’s fun. It’s a very low budget movie, and it doesn’t have much of a plot, but it’s cute.

OK, now it’s just a bit boring. They totally forgot to write the movie — instead it’s just a series of random meetings that’s getting progressively more annoying.

Nice art.

This starts off as a pretty charming movie, but then it gets brutally — brutally — tedious.

The Thing About Harry. Peter Paige. 2020. ⚁

Oh, that’s why it’s called “the good house”… I’m so smart S M R T.

I’m not quite sure how I ended up with this movie — it’s probably just because it’s got Sigourney Weaver? It seems like a very undramatic drama — the kind of movie you don’t see much these days (except from streaming services). But this is apparently a real made-for-cinema movies, in 1.85:1 and all.

Oh, this is one of those movies where a character looks at the camera and talks to the audience… but it’s not a comedy! I think! Weaver is playing an alcoholic real estate agent?

Yes, lots of these shots.

What’s with the colour grading? Everything is really desaturated and dull… perhaps things are gonna pop once she gets all non-drinkey and stuff.

It looks so nice and warm on that beach…

Aww.

I’m quite enjoying this movie — it’s so down to earth… and I’m not able at all to guess the critical reception. I could see this both being totally panned (because it’s so old fashioned and sincere), and also being praised (because it’s Sigourney Weaver like duh).

Oh, people like it.

I mean, I know that this isn’t Mexico, but c’mon.

That’s more like it.

This isn’t my kind of movie at all, really, but it’s a very enjoyable movie to watch. It shouldn’t work, but it’s sensitively directed and has amazing actors. And there’s nothing annoying — no overbearing soundtrack or nothing.

I’m adding one ⚀ to what I was originally going to give this because it plays Down to Zero by Joan Armatrading over the end titles.

The Good House. Maya Forbes/Wallace Wolodarsky. 2021. ⚄

I’ve basically watched all the super-hero movies, but the last few have been so boring that I’m going to stop, I think. I’m giving this a chance, because I… forgot that the the first one was tedious.

(I should look up my blog before buying blu rays.)

You’d think that CGI smoke was a solved problem, but that’s what’s looking fakest in this sequence…

It’s pretty amusing, but… it looks like they’ve told the CGI people “make it look really big, but generic”. It’s all just a bit dull graphically.

It doesn’t exactly move too slowly on a scene by scene basis, either — most of the scenes are just fine. But we’re one hour in, and it feels like we should be further ahead in the storyline by now.

I was thinking — no movie should be longer than 90 minutes? Unless that movie is Noli me tangere or Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Most movies aren’t. I mean, the vast majority. This is 130 minutes, and there really isn’t any good reason for being that long, even if each scene is perfectly unannoying.

The first Shazam movie was well-received, and this one was panned:

So, of course, I think that this movie is better than the first one. The first one bored me silly, while this is more entertaining — probably mostly due to the presence of Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu.

I find the audience score amusing — better on the second than the first, while the first movie did 3x bigger box office, and the second movie didn’t earn back the budget. People voting on rottentomatoes are mostly brigaders and trolls, I guess?

The professional reviewers are more in tune with the audience than these trolls.

Nice dragon!

Heh heh.

We’re now at 95 minutes, and it really, really feels like this movie should be over already. We’ve had some nice fights and all… but there’s still half an hour to go?

[time passes]

Well, that was another big huge fight, and it was OK. But the entire movie just feels… not that necessary, perhaps? Perhaps audiences went “another one? do we need this?” and they answered “no”. Which is the correct answer.

But it’s really not that bad a movie. It’s way too long, but it’s amiable.

Shazam: Fury of the Gods. David F. Sandberg. 2023. ⚂