{"id":13984,"date":"2025-01-05T12:07:55","date_gmt":"2025-01-05T17:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13984"},"modified":"2025-01-05T12:13:53","modified_gmt":"2025-01-05T17:13:53","slug":"weekly-movie-roundup-102","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13984","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Movie Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I watched 8 movies last week, straddling 2024 and 2025:<\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt6263850\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/1-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Deadpool &amp; Wolverine\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13976\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/1-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/1-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/1-768x1138.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/1-1037x1536.jpg 1037w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/1-1382x2048.jpg 1382w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/1-scaled.jpg 1728w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt10128846\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/2-212x300.jpg\" alt=\"Megalopolis\" width=\"212\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13977\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/2-212x300.jpg 212w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/2.jpg 550w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 212px) 100vw, 212px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt11057302\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/3-202x300.jpg\" alt=\"Madame Web\" width=\"202\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13978\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/3-202x300.jpg 202w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/3-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/3-768x1138.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/3-1036x1536.jpg 1036w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/3-1382x2048.jpg 1382w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/3.jpg 1400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 202px) 100vw, 202px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt15009428\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/4-190x300.jpg\" alt=\"Argylle\" width=\"190\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13979\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/4-190x300.jpg 190w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/4-647x1024.jpg 647w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/4-768x1216.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/4-970x1536.jpg 970w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/4-1294x2048.jpg 1294w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/4-scaled.jpg 1617w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 190px) 100vw, 190px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li>I very much like the first two <em>Deadpool<\/em> movies, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt6263850\/\">Deadpool &#038; Wolverine<\/a> is such a tedious bore, less a movie than a cynical, cash-grabbing avalanche of call-backs and desperate in-jokes. I am genuinely shocked that so many people found this entertaining.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>I&#8217;d be tempted to write <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt10128846\/\">Megalopolis<\/a> off as nothing but a bad movie, if it wasn&#8217;t such a passion project for its director. It&#8217;s misguided passion, to be sure\u2014full of half-baked, old-man-yelling-at-cloud ideas and bizarre performances\u2014but Coppola is absolutely <em>trying<\/em> to do something here, and that&#8217;s worth something, even if the end result is at times almost unwatchable.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt11057302\/\">Madame Web<\/a> is bad as advertised. I don\u2019t think there&#8217;s a <em>good<\/em> movie chopped up and hidden in all of the weird editing and ADR, but I do think there&#8217;s a completely different bad movie.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt15009428\/\">Argylle<\/a> is way too convoluted for its own good, and it doesn&#8217;t make up for that with much of anything clever or interesting.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt15314262\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/5-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Beekeeper\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13980\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/5-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/5-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/5-768x1138.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/5-1037x1536.jpg 1037w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/5-1383x2048.jpg 1383w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/5-scaled.jpg 1728w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt26757462\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/6-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Hellboy: The Crooked Man\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13981\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/6-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/6-692x1024.jpg 692w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/6-768x1137.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/6-1037x1536.jpg 1037w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/6.jpg 1383w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt18272208\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Here\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13982\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7-1024x1536.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7-1365x2048.jpg 1365w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/7-scaled.jpg 1707w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0081764\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/8-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Without Warning\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-13983\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/8-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/8-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/8-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/8.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt15314262\/\">The Beekeeper<\/a> is like if somebody fell asleep watching <em>John Wick<\/em>, half woke up during a <em>Prison Break<\/em> marathon, then later tried to relate the dreams they had about that. While quoting weird factoids about bees. When I mentioned on Bluesky that I was watching the movie, <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/cmdrsue.bsky.social\">Sue London<\/a> called it &#8220;both terrible and cathartic.&#8221; And yeah, there&#8217;s something to be said for Statham&#8217;s character going to war against some phone scammers\u2014the movie weirdly shares some DNA here with 2024&#8217;s much less pyrotechnic or apian <em>Thelma<\/em>\u2014but that doesn&#8217;t make it <em>good<\/em> movie.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt26757462\/\">Hellboy: The Crooked Man<\/a> is all just too much. Jack Kesy is better as the title character than David Harbour was in the 2019 attempt at a reboot, but honestly, Hellboy is the weakest link in this whole thing. The movie has a lot of creepy moments, but too many for any one to make a real impact, and it just keep throwing so much on the screen, none of which really sticks.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>I read and enjoyed Richard McGuire&#8217;s original graphic novel of <em<Here<\/a>, but until the end credits of Robert Zemeckis&#8217; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt18272208\/\">movie adaptation<\/a>, I actually didn&#8217;t realize that&#8217;s what was being adapted. It seems like an odd choice, and so <em>Here<\/em> feels less like a movie than a  experiment. It&#8217;s buoyed by a more than capable cast and simple, humanistic storytelling, but it&#8217;s also all kept at a remove by the formal stylistic restrictions. It&#8217;s the sort of experiment that might work better at a much shorter time, and as a museum piece.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0081764\/\">Without Warning<\/a> isn&#8217;t what I would call a <em>good<\/em> movie, much less a lost horror classic\u2014its small but documented influence on the later <em>Predator<\/em> movie notwithstanding\u2014but it was a lot of cheesy low-budget fun.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also re-watched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0115678\/\">Big Night<\/a>, which remains as delightful as it did when I first saw it almost thirty years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I watched 8 movies last week, straddling 2024 and 2025: I very much like the first two Deadpool movies, but Deadpool &#038; Wolverine is such a tedious bore, less a movie than a cynical, cash-grabbing avalanche of call-backs and desperate in-jokes. I am genuinely shocked that so many people found this entertaining. I&#8217;d be tempted &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=13984\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13984"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13984"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13986,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13984\/revisions\/13986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}