MINI-REVIEWS OF MOVIES I WATCHED IN 2020 [PART 4]

Parts 1, 2, and 3.

Seven Psychopaths (2012)

This is a great movie with an all-star cast, I’m really amazed that aside one friend telling me about it I had never remotely heard of it before. It’s a hilarious satire of film writing and directing yet also manages to do it in such a smart way that it’s not just funny but genuinely entertaining and engrossing as a film itself beyond just the parodical aspects albeit being entirely meta every step of the way. Walken was fantastic in this but so was everyone else. I loved it from the very first moments to the very end, really fantastic and fun as hell. It also did the whole “you killed my dog so now I’m on a murder spree” thing before John Wick.

Inception (2010)

I’ve known all the memes, all the jokes, the music – but I never actually watched Inception until now. It was great pretty much the entire time, even ELLEN Page is good in it somehow, let alone the rest of the cast you’d expect to be good to begin with like Dicaprio (incredible in this) and the Big Guy himself – Tom Hardy. Sadly, I don’t really know what to say though aside it was a great movie and also that the ‘debate’ about the ending makes no sense to me; the ending is pretty fucking clear cut and doesn’t have any mystery to it, so how there is any sort of confusion or argument on if he’s in reality or a dream I just don’t get because the movie literally holds your hand and tells you the answer. But yeah, this was an incredible movie and deserved all the attention it held for so long by movie fans.

Mad Max (1979)

This was another of those movies I went back to from ages ago that was just a big disappointment. Every scene is a meandering waste of 5 minutes when it’d justify, at most, a 30 second scene in any better film. EVERYTHING is padding. About 20 minutes of the actual runtime are relevant, important, or something happening. I don’t need movies to be non-stop action obviously, but this is just NOTHING. This might work as an origin story prequel if they made it later (and made it better) but this is just a really boring movie and “Mad” Max doesn’t even exist until the final 7 and a half minutes. I hope the second film is at least a little better now that it’s about Mad Max and not…people driving under the speed limit with the film very clearly and poorly edited to be sped up while nothing went on ever. Sorry, this one just sucks. And sorry Mel, but I actually thought Max’s partner was a way more interesting and cool character.

The Firm (1993)

A fantastic 90s thriller with a bunch of very familiar faces pulling off great characters in a story that is pretty much the definition of what a thriller should be. Constantly feeling tense and paranoid, never knowing what characters are going to do, great scenes that take full advantage of knowing how the audience will be feeling, really just the full package for a thriller. As a hilarious side note; if you look this up on Letterboxd almost all the reviews by WOMEN are like half star to one star reviews just saying it’s shit or “like a made for TV movie”, meanwhile every male review is 4 or 5 stars. Women truly just don’t understand cinema.

Virtuosity (1995)

Mediocre (basically bad though) 90s action flick with Russel Crowe and that one black guy. It’s fine if you look at it as exactly that and nothing more, and the horrible ADR they did for like 100% of Crowe’s lines is at least entertaining because of how badly done it was.

Psych: The Movie (2017)

This past year I marathoned through all of the Psych TV series, which I had never touched prior, and it was loads of fun all the way through. The movie is more of that and so it was a lot of good fun.

Psych 2 : Lassie Come Home (2020)

Big disappointment, especially considering I was feeling positive towards it thanks to (aside liking the show and the prior movie) how this one was basically fully dedicated to Lassiter and the actor who in real life had a very severe stroke. Instead of writing him out, the movie entirely treats him as the main story element and uses his stroke (in the narrative, him being shot a bunch and in recovery) as part of it too. I thought that was a really sweet thing from actors you could tell really bonded while filming the show. However, the movie barely has him and overall is lacking all the comedy that the entire tv series and prior film were made for. That’s kind of the biggest problem – this tries to be a “serious’ movie for a show that had maybe 2 total serious episodes and both were lower quality than all the rest for it, and the movie suffers for it too. The writing just doesn’t work when every line isn’t a joke or a quip or some reference to a 90s thing, and the actors – while great in their roles in Psych – simply can’t pull off being serious. This was ultimately a very boring movie.

Ghost Rider (2007)

Cage in a movie where he gets to be very Cage. I unironically enjoyed this one, it’s not some great movie or anything but it IS loads of fun and that’s really the thing I want most out of any film Cage is in.

Starship Troopers 2 : Hero of the Federation (2004)

ABSOLUTELY ABYSMAL SHIT. This COMPLETELY lacks ANY understanding of what made Starship Troopers a cult classic and such a great movie. This is all set in one shitty ugly building surrounded by shitty ugly desert with a camera that is shitty and smeary and looks ugly constantly and every actor is some nobody fucking loser who can’t act doing nobody fucking loser bullshit the whole time with nobody fucking loser writing by nobody fucking loser writers presented by a nobody fucking loser director in a way only a nobody fucking loser could manage. This film made me angry, it MAKES me angry to think about it, it is COMPLETE shit. It’s the most boring, uninteresting, lifeless, just fucking waste of every second thing I’ve ever seen. Not in a funny way, not in an entertaining way, no, it is just FUCKING BORING and UGLY. Even the official poster art is just fucking terrible, they couldn’t even be assed to get the “actors” to put a helmet on for a fucking photo and had to photoshop them on.

Burn The Witch (2020)

From the creator of Bleach comes a short OVA trilogy which makes up one full movie that really should have been a series instead. This has all the potential of EARLY Bleach, when it was actually really pretty good, and it does a pretty great job with all that potential for the short time it can. If this ever gets a series I’ll probably watch it – though once it goes on for 800 episodes and ends up in the soul society I’ll drop it and hate it, but either way, this little OVA/movie was actually very enjoyable.

One more part to come!