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Alita: Battle Angel ............ A-

Much better than Captain Marvel was, that's for sure. In fact, the only thing I'm walking away from complaining about is Robert Rodriguez's consistancy of not having a good eye for CGI, though it's much better here than his previous work (Sin City excluded because that was highly stylized so it actually fit). I wonder how amazing it would've looked had James Cameron directed instead like he intended. Oh, and too little Jeff Fahey. His cameo was a delightful surprise, but I hoped I'd see his character more.

Terminator: Dark Fate

If you love T2, then you're probably gonna hate this film after the opening scene. It's pretty much a retread of everything you've seen before from various parts and elements in previous installments. It's better than Genisys that's for sure. Nonetheless, Dark Fate still is watchable and has some decent action scenes, the story line kind of get's convoluted along the way that makes you question why certain things happened. I mean, it's an okay watch, but the disservice the film does at the beginning kind of makes everything not that important. Linda Hamilton did a good job. Still nothing I would say you needed to rush out and see. It literally does nothing but run around in circles for the entire 2 hour run time and leaves you unfulfilled and questioning why they decided to go with this script idea.

Is there any saving that franchise? I wouldn't say it's ruined, but they've done an amazing job of ensuring nobody really gives a fuck.

the franchise is too narrow, and too top heavy out of the gate. no one is going to top terminator or t2, and there really isn't much you can do to change up the story from film to film. so it's just gonna be comparing each sequel to far better films.

Salvation wasn't a great movie by any means but I think it had the right idea in doing something a little different.

Monster wrote:Salvation wasn't a great movie by any means but I think it had the right idea in doing something a little different.

Yeah, half the movie is actually pretty great too. But definitely appreciated that it went into a different direction.

No franchise should have been left alone more than Terminator. It was over after T2 and there's nothing wrong with that.

That's how my outlook is on the Taken franchise. I've only seen the first and know it's a great watch. I don't want to watch 2 and 3 because I've heard both are terrible and didn't need to be made at all.

Let's not get too heavy on the hindsight here. After T2 that shit was definitely continuing, and the natural progression to hot chick terminator worked for me, and yet they jackknifed right off the fucking road...

Rewatched both Pledge Night (1990) and House of 1000 Corpses (2003). Pledge Night an average 7/10, House of 1000 Corpses 8.5/10.

Fuck me, Freaks is a damn good film. It was not what I was expecting, but man, that was good shit.

Knives Out kicked ass. I thought I would like it, but it was better than I thought. Wasn't expecting it to be so detailed and well-written. I admire the neutrality in politics, but I'd rather they not shoe-horn it in there. This movie was awesome.

Knives Out - very well executed and a fun twist on a typical murder mystery since we saw what happened pretty early on. Sadly from moment one of her story I predicted just about all of it. But was great to see it unfold. Very good performances too which I think helped.

Jumanji 2

Good solid fun once again. I love the Rock and Kevin Hart as a comedy duo. Lot of fun to be had. Did enjoy seeing Danny De Vito as well. Plus Karen Gillen is gorgeous. Win all round.

Arthur Christmas ......... C+

Never saw it before, but since it started as I turned the TV on and I'm wracking up 25 christmas movies (1/day) till christmas, it fit the bill. The story is fine, some of the humor's good but many of it went too far with groan-worthys lapstick, and I really hated the CG animation quality. It was ugly to look at.

Elf ............. B

Also happened to be on, but I've seen it once before. Enjoyable for a Will Farrell leading role movie. Zooey is adorable in it, and I actually prefer her as a blonde.

Holiday In the Wild ..... C+

Finished catching up my slacking off christmas movies with this new Netflix one. I chose it at random because I was tired of flipping through and it had a short runtime. It was surprisingly better than expected, even though it was totally a sugar schmaltzy movie. Rob Lowe and Kristin Davis are pretty decent, though both have done better work, but at least they seemed comfortable. African animal footage was nice, though the occasional shots of the cg baby elephant stuck out almost as bad as "young" Robert Deniro

Marriage Story .......... A+

Adam Driver has my vote for Best Actor this year with this, holy shit. Intense drama about a divorce, and unlike Kramer Vs Kramer where the mom/wife is clearly the bad guy, the only bad one I see is ScarJo's lawyer, played by a vicious Laura Dern (Oscar nom worthy herself, too). Scarlett Johanson is excellent as well (but competition wise, Lupita Nyong'o's performance in Us is the one to beat as far as I'm concerned). It felt classic and raw. Wonderful movie.

Black Christmas (2019)

I have no issues with agendas or pushing views in a movie. It's been done numerous times before, but when you take a classic like Black Christmas and decide to remake it and add feminism issues and woman power activists tones then you pretty much shit on something that didn't need to be tainted in the first place. This film didn't need to be Men are the prime animals in the world, women should know their place and stand behind those powerful men. This film didn't need to be titled Black Christmas. I know it's for marketing, but fucking hell. This didn't need to be in theaters either, take the Christmas setting out, call it Sorority Night, Midnight Sorority or Sorority Nightmare and the film would've been different enough on it's on without the Black Christmas title being involved and then sell it at Wal-Mart for $9.96. On top of it all, it's still a boring and lame movie even with everything being given away in the trailer. Just stay away, it's not worth the time or effort.

there's a lot of people saying marriage story is overacted. i don't get it. it feels messy and raw to me. how are a couple caught up in a divorce, and pitted against each other, supposed to act?

Ugh. *takes 2019 Black Christmas off list

zombie wrote:there's a lot of people saying marriage story is overacted. i don't get it. it feels messy and raw to me. how are a couple caught up in a divorce, and pitted against each other, supposed to act?

I haven't seen anybody complaining that, but I imagine they're a bunch of morons.

once upon a time in hollywood. the movie was fun to look at. leonardo dicaprio and brad pitt had fun characters. but i feel like margot robbie was wasted. it felt like they wanted a robbie/dicaprio reunion and so tacked on the sharon tate stuff as more of an afterthought... oh well.