Original Movies (not sequel, not reboot, not spin-off)
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Landscape with Invisible Hand (2023) directed by Cory Finley
Aliens, the Vuvv, have taken over Earth. The movie is about how the surviving humans live under their Vuvv overlord. Lots of commentaries about social hierarchy, economic inequity, the oppressors vs. the oppressed, the occupiers vs. the occupied, propaganda/whitewashing by the victor, etc. The aliens look weird, even a little bit gross, and "talks" even weirder, which is all good -- there is no lack of "cute" or "scary" or "mysterious" aliens in movies, but this movie managed to adhere to the book and thus make the Vuvv stand-out among other aliens in movies. This is not a brain-dead movie, if you are willing to think, it gives you things to think about. Recommended.
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Bottoms (2023) directed by Emma Seligman
Satirical teen comedy. A couple of misfits take advantage of rumors that they came out of "juvie" and start a "fight club" at school. Has your usual cast of high school misfits. And this being 2023 the cast are mostly female with an increased quotient of LGBTQ+ characters. Pretty violent/bloody by satirical teen comedy standard.
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Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) directed by Karan Johar
Punjabi romantic comedy. The two protagonists have very different education background and very different family customs. The movie then is mostly about the two protagonists and their families learning about the quirks of and finally accepting each other. Save the Indian/Punjabi cultural elements, this is a fairly formulaic movie. Doesn't mean it's not entertaining, though.
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Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose (2023) directed by Adam Sigal
British comedy, dark. An investigator is invited to investigate the claim that there is a talking mongoose in some country estate. Confusion and mysteries ensues. Not that there is any specific thing that is bad about this movie, just that the overall result is not all that remarkable.
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Jawan (2023) directed by Atlee
Hindi action movie. Story about a vigilante pulling off various "terrorist" plots to expose corrupt government officials and force the Indian government to do the right things. Got hi-tech gadgets, explosions, epic fights, etc. Like many recent Indian films, this one also has its nationalistic moments. Despite its protest against government corruption and against socio-economic inequity in India, it ultimately promotes pro-India nationalism. Overall a good production.
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Outlaw Johnny Black (2023) directed by Michael Jai White
Think of it as a Western, where the hero cowboy and most of the main characters are black. It has many trappings of the typical Western. But the subplot about the black pastor is an inspiring master stroke, something that elevates the film above being merely a Western that merely switched skin colors. Not all straight, not all comedy, not all satirical. This is a film with complexity. Recommended.
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@Axtremus said in Original Movies (not sequel, not reboot, not spin-off):
Rocky Aur Rani Kii Prem Kahaani (2023) directed by Karan Johar
Punjabi romantic comedy. The two protagonists have very different education background and very different family customs. The movie then is mostly about the two protagonists and their families learning about the quirks of and finally accepting each other. Save the Indian/Punjabi cultural elements, this is a fairly formulaic movie. Doesn't mean it's not entertaining, though.
Bollywood canned plot #1
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@Axtremus said in Original Movies (not sequel, not reboot, not spin-off):
Yes, I have watched all of the movies I write about in this thread.
I have said this before: in this thread I review only movies I have watched.
So far limited to movies I have watched in theaters.
I was curious, and lazy.
(my numbers might be slightly off).
In 2023 you left a total of 54 movie reviews. 27 of these films were released in 2022, and 27 in 2023.
You've been to the theater 54 times in 2023 (assuming you saw these movies in 2023. That's about once a week that you go to the movies - unless there are double features.
This year, you've left 19 reviews. I would guess some of those were viewed last year, however.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in Original Movies (not sequel, not reboot, not spin-off):
You've been to the theater 54 times in 2023 (assuming you saw these movies in 2023.
Not done yet with reviewing the movies I watched in 2023. More coming.
That's about once a week that you go to the movies - unless there are double features.
More frequent than that, actually, because here I review only "original movies," not counting sequels, reboots, remakes, spin-offs, etc. that I also watched.
This year, you've left 19 reviews. I would guess some of those were viewed last year, however.
Yes.
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Relax, I'm from the Future (2022) directed by Luke Higginson
Sci-fi, dark comedy. Story about a time traveler smuggling himself into the past to alter or ensure certain past events to enrich his future self. Not all that remarkable or expansive. The author/director think too small. The schemes and ambition of the protagonist are limited in scope and rather small minded. Not all that remarkable as a movie.
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Creation of the Gods 1: Kingdom of Storms (2023) directed by Wuershan
Chinese epic fantasy, based on the classic novel "Investiture of the Gods." Very good production. Good costumes, good cinematography, good special effects/computer graphics, good action. The original novel is itself very imaginative, and this movie takes advantage of that. Generally competent directing and acting. It's yet another movie that showcases the Chinese entertainment industry's prowess -- when they want to make an "epic" movie, they deliver an "epic" movie. (Compare to the "Adipurush" movie reviewed earlier.) The plot is vast and complex, with war, politics, wizardry, and complicated relationships between humans, gods, and demigods, etc. (The original novel is vast and complex.) And this is only the first of what is planned as a trilogy. If you ever feel like watching a good epic fantasy in a foreign language, this is as good as any.
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The Creator (2023) directed by Gareth Edwards
Sci-fi. Set in a future world where AI and humans are at war with each other. The androids look very much like humans, have attained sentience, and have even developed religion. But the humans are winning the war. So the androids are depicted as the oppressed. You get many scenes that looks like "Apocalypse Now" where the human military tears into the oppressed androids' villages and obliterating the androids. The story revolves mostly around a special ops soldier being tasked to track down and deliver the AI's latest weapon thought to have the capability to shutdown the human military's gigantic space laser and thus tilt the balance in favor of AI, but it turns out the "weapon" looks and act (mostly) like a human child, so emotion got involved. Anyway, not all that ground-breaking for the genre, but also not a bad movie. Mostly it makes me think of Apocalypse Now where the Vietnamese are AI/androids.
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Dumb Money (2023) directed by Craig Gillespie
Dramatization of the GameStop "meme stock" short squeeze saga. If you have read the news stories about GameStop's crazy stock price movements during the pandemic, you already know the plot and you already know the ending. Predictable as it is, it's still a captivating movie. It still makes you want to root for the "little guys" who put their faith in GameStop. There are little details here and there about the GameStop meme stock saga that I was previously aware off, like the Robinhood stock trading platform at one point enforced a restriction that only allowed their users to "sell" but not "buy" GameStock. Overall I would still say it's a good movie. Showing now-historical video footages of various key players' congressional testimonies at the end is a really nice touch, as it allows you to compare the real testimonies with the dramatized versions shown in the movie. Recommended.
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The Kill Room (2023) directed by Nicol Paone
Financially distressed art gallery owner got looped into laundering money for the mob/assassins. Why? Because there is no standard for what "art" should cost and the IRS would not bad an eyelash when pieces of "art" change hands for exorbitant amounts of money, according to the movie (clearly the movie is ribbing aspects of the art world). Within that context, an assassin is turned into an "artist" who creates art pieces that the gallery owner would "sell" at artificially high prices thus making the money "clean." Then it gets complicated as real art collectors start noticing the assassin's art, demanding for more and offering lots of money. The plot is contrived, but not more so than most movies in this genre, and it's still entertaining as a movie. Recommended.
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Strange Way of Life (2023) directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Short film about of a couple of gay cowboy/gun slingers. The actors tried their best, but ultimately not all that memorable, not very remarkable.
The Human Voice (2020) directed by Pedro Almodóvar
Short film (packaged with the above as a "double feature") about a woman falling into despair and ended up immolating herself. It's mostly a monolog. The actress tried, but again ultimately not all that memorable, not very remarkable.
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She Came to Me (2023) directed by Rebecca Miller
Romance/drama, with bits of comedy thrown in. An operetta composer is creatively blocked, then after having an affair with a tugboat captain, got the inspiration to compose a new work that made the tugboat captain's character a serial killer. Recommended on the account that it does break out of the usual rom-com formulae and gives the world something new and not easily predictable, there is good complexity to this movie. Recommended.
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Thank You for Coming (2023) directed by Karan Boolani
Hindi sex comedy -- not rom-com, the protagonist searches for sexual pleasure, not romance. The protagonist is a woman who have trouble achieving orgasm, but the morning after her engagement ceremony, she work up recalling having had orgasm the night before, but cannot remember who she slept with. Shenanigans and hilarity ensue as she search for "the one" who managed to got her to climax. There may be some empowerment for Hindi-speaking women given their likely cultural background but probably not that much for the Western audience. I might have missed some of the jokes for not being able to follow the dialogue in Hindi (had to rely on translated subtitle.)
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Dicks: The Musical (2023) directed by Larry Charles
A musical with lots of vulgarities, crass and outrageous jokes. I don't know how the director/producer did it, but they talked Nathan Lane into playing a scene where he performed premastication for two caged "monsters", a scene (like many others in this movie) that seems unnecessarily gross and stupid. You have to really want vulgarity to watch this movie/musical. And no, there is not a good "moral of the story" at the end. I am not necessarily against vulgarity in movies, but I have found nothing redeeming in this one.
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The Other Joey (2023) directed by Sara Zandieh
Rom-com, mistaken identity. Boy with amnesia mistaking another girl with the same name as his girlfriend for his girlfriend, and oh, that girl does not be believe in rom-com. Not bad, but also not great. Well acted, and can foot the bill just fine if you just want some light "comfort food" to pass 90 minutes.
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Inspector Sun (and the Curse of the Black Widow) (2023) directed by Julio Soto Gúrpide
Animation. An arachnid inspector investigates crime and foil evil plot on a seaplane. An OK animation, probably better than the straight-to-TV stuff, but not quite at the same level as the Disney/Pixar/DreamWorks stuff.
