I haven’t watched through the entity of the room
I didn’t end up watching this because it looked woke. You’ve validated my concerns
If you have free time give it a go. The woke stuff are not what disapoints. I cant say more in order not to spoil. Good movie, but disapointing.
Aside from the chess, it’s just not a very good story imo. Girl’s a chess prodigy with no real struggle other than herself. The chess is a backdrop to her addictive personality which she casually discards with no real struggle to become world champ…She’s a Mary Sue and unlikeable - you ain’t missin’ much
Actual chess prodigies were the Polgar sisters. But years of calm, focused hard work (and homeschooling) does not make for compelling viewing.
Also, the series glosses over the un-woke fact that there is a large gender disparity in chess - Judit Polgar was the only woman who could hold her own against to male players and was the only female player to crack the Top 10 and had virtually no competition among female players, apart from her sister.
1 Like
She was a barbiturate addict in real life, a byproduct of having been force fed them throughout her time at foster care. That’s not necessarily her fault.
Barbiturates are incredibly difficult to quit, like benzodiazepines you’ll hear horror stories of people having to slowly taper off by taking a razor blade and slowly shaving crumbs off each pill to ward off horrific withdrawl symptoms.
Barbiturate withdrawl can also be lethal. Alcohol, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, GHB and other psychoactive drugs that act on GABA (not many) are the few for which withdrawals can actually kill you.
The fact she managed to be a top tier chess player with a barbiturate addiction is quite impressive given the seriously deleterious effect benzodiazepines/barbiturates have on cognition.
I too really like his movies. They are something different. I think I have seen most of them now, but haven’t seen the new one. Probably will though. He also seems to have a group of actors he sticks with, and that group is a good one. I think I place The Life Aquatic as my third favorite of his movies. The Grand Budapest Hotel being my favorite, then probably the Isle of Dogs (but it might be a tie with The Life Aquatic). I didn’t really like the one were the brothers are on a train all that much. I did like the one with the disturbed kids that run away (can’t remember the names of these movies ATM), that one is probably 4th place. Bottle Rocket was okay, worth watching, but not great IMO.
1 Like
Hmm… if you want to watch something involving Chinese chess which is actually a satire on modern day consumerism in Taiwan by shifting back and forth between 2 chess prodigies in different times in history with one story taking place in Communist China during the Cultural Revolution while using the game as a plot device, I’d recommend this:
FTR I never liked playing either kind of chess and I think I had already forgotten most of the rules for the Chinese version when I watched the movie so you wouldn’t need to know much about the game to enjoy it. It’s not a great movie but still a pretty compelling watch.
The Royal Tenenbaums is number 1 on my list. The Grand Budapest Hotel is probably number 2. Wes has a very rare gift for storytelling that enables him to shift so seamlessly in, AND dictate the tone regardless of the subject matter being shown on screen.
1 Like
The dude who’s recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations were used in the Hannibal Lector movies was a benzo addict too. He composed a Fugue just because he could and shit like these, from what I’ve been told by people with infinitely more knowledge about this shit than me, have more to do with “math” than “music”:
Some of the lyrics are pretty funny.
I do like that one. I kinda forgot about it though. That is probably tied with the life aquatic for me. I agree though, Wes has a gift for film. He and Tarantino are kinda unique Imo.
1 Like
God, I love this movie. I was laughing my ass off, and my wife just did not understand why I found the movie good.
But then she loved Isle of Dogs, which I do also. I was like, “You do realize it’s the same director, right?”
1 Like
It is my dog Tito’s favorite movie. He gets to watch it on the 4th of July every year to distract from the fireworks.
1 Like
As far as Wes Anderson goes, Fantastic Mr. Fox is a pretty solid movie if you’ve got kids. I still enjoy it quite a bit myself.
1 Like
That is one I haven’t seen. I’ll check it out though as I am a fan of his work.
Just an observation I have had, and I am wondering if others are the same way, or if I just am getting early dementia. I remember movies I saw 20 years ago better than ones I have seen 2 years ago. It seems movies I saw during my childhood I have a pretty good memory of what happened, the title of the movie, etc. Now I see a movie and I like it, but like 2 years later, I don’t remember the details as well.
Couple of things come to my mind to explain this.
More distracted now. Maybe I am on my phone a bit while watching.
Maybe those movies I remember really well were seen a few times. Maybe I just can’t recall the movies I saw only once, and only sorta liked?
IDK, maybe it’s an okay thing. I can enjoy a movie again after waiting just a couple of years.
I watched Demonic (2000). It’s not too bad as a movie. The only problem is that it’s supposed to be a horror movie and they forgot to include one small thing.
The HORROR.
But, alright, I accept it trying to depict a new, potentially compelling concept but the execution didn’t make any fucking sense. If you want to watch it, I’d suggest you don’t read anything about the plot from anywhere because that was the only way I was able to sit through the whole movie.
I blurred my opinions so you can read them if you’re interested and you have no intention to watch it since I’m going to have to spoil the entire movie in the following rant:
The Church is now trying out some kind of medical technology where possessed people are put into comas, which they claim is “locked in syndrome” and describe the actual syndrome in detail but it’s nothing anywhere near it.
Basically, the person in a coma exists in a world his/her mind has created and others can hook up with them with scientific shit and enter this "world’ to interact with said person. The scientists and doctors whom are also priests or priests pretending to be scientists and doctors can watch all this take place on a screen like some RPG game and it’s not even from either party’s POV so there must be fucking cameras everywhere in this “world”.
However, the demon that has possessed them may go after people close to them and one chick get’s “chosen”, which results in the demon setting up some elaborate scheme to lure her to some place so actual shit other than the constant exposition along with the occasional JUMP SCARE! can happen.
And at the end, there’s still nothing that makes any fucking sense and the priests are some of the dumbest fucks ever depicted in a horror movie. Ok, you place a possessed person in a coma but you still have to exorcise the demon.
OF COURSE THE FUCKING DEMON IS GOING TO GO POSSESS SOMEONE ELSE UNLESS YOU MANAGE TO PUT IT IN A COMATOSE STATE AS WELL.
HOLY FUCK.
What did they expect? The demon to sit around twiddling thumbs in a fucking vessel that can’t fucking move? They establish that it can obviously go around scaring people and setting up elaborate schemes that don’t make any fucking sense which is why people close to the possessed person are contacted in the first place. What the fuck was the point of putting the possessed person in a coma in the first place?
FUCK.
And get this. They have fucking people in fucking SWAT gear trying to do it but they all get killed offscreen. And I have no idea whether they’re trying to exorcise the demon or kill it because some fucking dagger from probably The Evil Dead is given to them by one of the priests in SWAT gear while he’s dying. If it’s the latter, why the fuck didn’t they do it WHILE THE FUCKING POSSESSED PERSON WAS LYING MOTIONLESS ON A FUCKING HOSPITAL BED???
If exorcism was the objective, why the fuck did they contact everyone close to the possessed person since it’s accepted in these movies that the demon just fucks off when it’s been exorcised.
If it was a backup plan, which, in the movie, enables the demon to easily transfer itself to anyone else if you don’t manage to kill it after stabbing the possessed person, the possessed person still died shortly after the demon left her body and with all their scientific shit that enables someone to enter the fucking mind of another person which is some fucking really high level shit, they couldn’t even figure out where to stab the possessed person to ensure the fucking demon dies?
4.5/10 just because the premise had potential and the movie wasn’t boring.
Go watch malignant, that’s an entertaining horror film
Not particularly good, but entertaining.
Don’t get me wrong… The premise is really, really silly… But there’s something charming about it
It is quite gruesome, contains three or four scenes of extremely graphic violence that come out of nowhere as the majority of the film is (somewhat) tame… And them BAM, someone has their face stabbed in or their eyes gouged out… but for the most part in oddly styalized, matrix type action sequences.
I missed the start of the film, perhaps it starts out with gore as to set the tone of the film.
I’ll note, while the graphic content is very brief; it’s a bad one in terms of mainstream cinema. I only went to go see it because it was released in cinemas with an R18+ restriction, and such films aren’t usually released in public here as they’re subject to heavy restrictions regarding who can/can’t enter the theatre.
I know you @dt79 can handle it, but not everyone has a strong stomach.
The premise is absolutely absurd, but in a way that’ll make you laugh and think “who comes up with this nonesense”.
1 Like
“Ip Man Plays Ping Pong”
Posting this here because of the IMBA editing skills lol.
Looks like they finally found a legit reason to use Wing Chun. I can’t remember what the other guy was doing in the movie but it looks like Bagua Fist to me in the video.
EDIT:
Context for people who’ve never watched an Ip Man movie:
This isn’t like that ad with Bruce Lee playing ping pong. That was done with a Bruce Lee lookalike and CGI.
This was the REAL final fight scene from Ip Man 3. There was no ping pong in the movie. That would be so absurd as Ip Man fighting with Mike Tyson and ending up in a draw. Wait, no, the latter was what really happened in the movie.
The editor of this video somehow managed to edit the scene in a way that it looks like they’re actually playing the game while adding in CGI for the ping pong bat and ball.
I’m like that too. I can’t remember shit about recent movies.
Also, movies nowadays kind of suck, for the most part.
I watched all the Saw films, I only remember the first one.
The last Indiana Jones one? Have no idea what happened anymore. Aliens or some shit?
I watched Red Notice last night with my son. It was just The Rock being The Rock, Ryan Reynolds being Deadpool with no powers, and Gal Gadot being really really hot.
Why should I remember that crap for more than a week?
4 Likes