Rate the last movie that you saw for the first time.

[Destor]

9/10

[Lock Jaw]

Gotta save stuff for the sequel

[Destor]

Die My Love (2025) 3/10

Film explores Jennifer Lawrences character as she struggles with postpartum depression and it attempts to foster the same irritation that shes feeling in the audience using constant repetitive audio. So a baby crying underneath the scenes dialogue or a dog barking. For literally 40+ min there's no relief from constant noise.

This is the worst way imaginable to get the audience in the same space as your struggling protagonist. After 5 min i got the point. After 40 im ready to find something else to do.

Then there's the night scenes. The film has many and they shot EXTREMELY dark and blue. You can barely make out whats going on and its clearly not done for effect its just an awful color correction. These scenes are unwatchable.

Slap a vague, abrupt and non literal ending and you have a recipie for a dumpster fire.

On the up and up Lawrence and Pattinson are good here and its a shame the inept film making drowns them out.

[Big Vic]

Apparently youtuber "Alex Meyers" is in "hot water" for siding with the incel in "Obsession"

Never saw the movie to anyone who has, how bad is the "Bear" character?

[Destor]

Im waiting on home release for Obsession

[Destor]

1. Cover Girl (1944) 7/10

A pretty fine narrative. Girl in a small town club catches her big break and is pulled away by fame from her small life and her lover by the lure of all her dreams made true.

What makes this film particularly interesting if youre a fan of the era is this is a columbia picture and the male lead Gene Kelly was on loan from MGM.

Up until this point MGM hadnt figured out what to do with Kelly. Columbia let him cut loose and really show what he could do culminating in a really great dance number where Kelly dances with a phantom of himself.

After this film MGM knew what they had and his 11 year run as a staple of their stable would begin with Anchors Aweigh the next year making it a pretty significant moment in film history.

On its own merits its 1 big classic number away from being a really remarkable film but as is its perfectly solid with some good numbers and a good story. It has some fat that could be trimmed but thats par for the era.

2. The Fearless Hyena II (1983) 3/10

This was rough. Had to actually google wtf was going on. Apparently Chan had a contract dispute and quit fairly early in the production and would later sue to try and get this film shelved. He lost.

So the studio takes Jackies scenes and some unused stuff from the 1st film and then hires... not a look-a-like but more accurately a look-vaguely-similar-if-you-squint to finish the film.

Problem is you cant really replace Jackie Chan. What he does cant be physically done by just anyone. So they conceived a bunch of set pieces and rube goldberg devices to distract the audience but it doesnt work. Its just incredibly confusing. Especially when bouncing between a Jackie scene and. Jackie impersonator scene so frequently.

It does highlight the value Jackie Chan brings but as a film its the worst kung fu film ive seen this side of Bruce Lee's final, and also incomplete, Game of Death.

3. The Outsiders (1983) 5/10

Francis Ford Copela directs Matt Dillon, Ralph Machio, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emillio Estavez and Tom Cruise? Youd think this would be a soaring all time classic.

Well it isnt. I can see why. The theatrical cut is 90 min and theres just no interconnectivity between these characters. Theyre poorly established and their relationships even less so.

The film gives you a distinct impression theres 45 min of missing footage. This at its core would be better served as a hang out movie. With the characters just existing in this world and inside his class conflict until enciting incidents occur.

It moves way too fast and for a film that tugs on the nostalgia of the 50s there's not a single piece of licensed music to found and that really holds the picture back.

Acting-wise i think Swayze is the one who comes off the strongest. His role is small but theres a smoldering intensity from the way he moves to the way he doesnt. He really gets some mileage out of what he's given.

All in all i think it climaxes relatively well but i feel like there's entire arcs im getting the back end of and not the set up and thats straight to the credits.

Something tells me the novel covers whats missed here.

4. Malcom X (1992) 8/10

Whats immediately striking is Spike Lee isnt afriad to show Malcom X as the theif and hustler he was. The film spends well over an hour showing him as a common criminal with admittedly very nice suits. A lesser director, a more fearful director, would omit these warts.

Course it does try and paint his convictions as racist but in all fairness to the piece it is based on an autobiography and is from the perspective of Malcom so you cant really claim its the position of the film as much as its the position of the criminal himself. And there are no guilty men in prison. Just ask em.

Its very honest about Malcom's racism and his repentance is a significant plot point. It also doesnt hide the fact the Islam made him into the man that etched his way into history but the violence of the Islamic community took his life.

Honestly i expected a lot of propaganda and it was pretty light...until the 10 min. Film ends with a weird and out place in memorial that celebrates X and asks us to in turn to do the same because despite his rhetoric he himself post conversion never was linked to violence.

And that misses the point of the film. 1st act is pre-Islam. 2nd act is in Elijah Muhammad's coalition. 3rd act is attempt to spread Islam from the outside of that circle. At which point his life is lost to Islamic violence. Now you can have whatever opinion you want about the religion but thats objectively the narrative presented.

The rhetoric he espoused while in the fold was inherently violent. It overtly called for violence. And that same violent rhetoric was aimed straight at him and cost him his life.

Instead of trying to justify his life by his actions to excuse his words it should have acknowledged the source of his violent rhetoric and his overt racism was directly at the instruction of Elijah Muhammad and it was breaking away from that fold that freed him from both his racist ideals and inclination to violence. And that would have been the fearless telling.

There's a great documentary called I Am Not Your Negro. It pits Maclom X's philosophy against Kings and explores them both in earnest. Id highly reccomend it.

That said Spike Lee has a great vision and he constructs every scene thoughtfully. Denzel Washington is as good as he's ever been. It really is an excellently made film and very much worth a work even at its 3+ hour run time.

5. Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die (2026) 7/10

Had a real good time with this. Sam Rockwell is a ton of fun here. That might be the films biggest problem.

There's a story structure where we keep taking flashbacks that flesh out the side characters and it gives integral backstory and plot points that absolutely are necessary to the film.

But they loose Sam Rockwell and the energy he brings to the film. These flash backs play out like mini black mirror episodes and they arent bad per se but the entire time youre having to pause a much more fun and interesting movie for their sake.

I dont know if there's a solution to it or its just the nature of the writing but it makes for a very uneven watch and holds the film back.

But it doesnt ruin it. Its still a good time travel movie that deals with modern society on the brink of the birth of AI and has a lot to say about us and society. Some points i agree with and others im more resistant to but it delivers its social commentary with a very black humor that i really appreciate even at its most zany.

Some of the 3rd act ventures into the perposterous...but it always was perposterous so is there such a thing as too perposterous given the premise? Maybe but it gets a pass from me.