{"id":14265,"date":"2025-07-06T11:39:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-06T15:39:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=14265"},"modified":"2025-07-06T11:39:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T15:39:15","slug":"weekly-movie-roundup-127","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=14265","title":{"rendered":"Weekly Movie Roundup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I watched 6 movies last week:<\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0308208\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-14259\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/1.jpg 450w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0054665\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2-242x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Fabulous Baron Munchausen\" width=\"242\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-14260\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2-242x300.jpg 242w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2-824x1024.jpg 824w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2-768x954.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2-1236x1536.jpg 1236w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/2.jpg 1288w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 242px) 100vw, 242px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1545106\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3-214x300.jpg\" alt=\"Vamps\" width=\"214\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-14261\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3-214x300.jpg 214w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3-732x1024.jpg 732w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3-768x1074.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/3.jpg 915w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 214px) 100vw, 214px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0308208\/\">Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever<\/a> has a reputation as one of the worst movies ever made. Insofar as the movie earns anything, it earns that reputation. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rogerebert.com\/reviews\/ballistic-ecks-vs-sever-2002\">Roger Ebert<\/a> was too kind when he called this incoherent, sleepwalking tedium &#8220;an ungainly mess, submerged in mayhem, occasionally surfacing for cliches.&#8221;<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>Even if I didn&#8217;t know Terry Gilliam had ever seen <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0054665\/\">The Fabulous Baron Munchausen<\/a>, I probably could have guessed it. The movie\u2014which, for the record, he said &#8220;captured the real spirit of the character&#8221;\u2014is like the most Gilliamesque thing he never made. It&#8217;s delightfully silly and visually inventive in so many unexpected ways.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1545106\/\">Vamps<\/a> is not without its cornball charm, but that&#8217;s thanks to the cast, not to any of the movie&#8217;s tired jokes or cheesy effects or shambling plot. The cast fully commits to the bit\u2014no vampire pun intended, although that&#8217;s about the quality of the humor on display here. It&#8217;s not enough to save the movie, but there is an amiable, if somewhat halfhearted, charm to the whole thing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0076107\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/5-197x300.jpg\" alt=\"The Great Bank Hoax\" width=\"197\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-14263\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/5-197x300.jpg 197w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/5-672x1024.jpg 672w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/5-768x1170.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/5.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 197px) 100vw, 197px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt17489650\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/4-203x300.jpg\" alt=\"Ash\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-14262\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/4-203x300.jpg 203w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/4-691x1024.jpg 691w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/4-768x1138.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/4-1037x1536.jpg 1037w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/4-1382x2048.jpg 1382w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/4-scaled.jpg 1728w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><\/td>\n<td><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0027652\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/6-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Fury\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-14264\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/6-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/6-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/6-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/6.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\/tt0076107\/\">The Great Bank Hoax<\/a> is exceptionally dull. There&#8217;s a decent enough idea for a comedy of errors in the basic setup, but the movie is all errors, no comedy, and there are a lot of good actors stranded in bad performances. A real waste of everyone&#8217;s time, my own included.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>There&#8217;s nothing particularly original in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt17489650\/\">Ash<\/a>&#8216;s story\u2014it would probably be a spoiler just to say what sci-fi horror movies it&#8217;s most indebted to, if not ripping off\u2014but it&#8217;s handled with no small amount of visual style.<\/li>\n<ul><\/ul>\n<li>Fritz Lang&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0027652\/\">Fury<\/a> isn&#8217;t necessarily subtle in what it says about mob violence, but it&#8217;s well acted and very well shot.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I also rewatched <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0105813\/\">White Sands<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0079714\/\">Phantasm<\/a>, although a week apart from one another, not as a double-feature. <em>White Sands<\/em> I had watched sometime in the early 2000s, when I was on something of a Mickey Rourke kick, but I remembered almost nothing about it. It&#8217;s pretty good, if a little overly complicated and not entirely satisfying, but also very much the kind of movie I could see myself completely forgetting about again for another twenty or thirty years. Meanwhile, I&#8217;d seen <em>Phantasm<\/em> a little more recently, though still almost twenty years ago at this point, and I remembered really disliking it then. I still think it&#8217;s a very bad movie in a lot of the things that matter, like story and acting and effects, but as a weird low-budget meditation on grief and nightmares\u2014almost a surreal art piece? There&#8217;s something almost compelling there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I watched 6 movies last week: Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever has a reputation as one of the worst movies ever made. Insofar as the movie earns anything, it earns that reputation. Roger Ebert was too kind when he called this incoherent, sleepwalking tedium &#8220;an ungainly mess, submerged in mayhem, occasionally surfacing for cliches.&#8221; Even if &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/?p=14265\">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-14265","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\/14265"}],"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=14265"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14265\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14266,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14265\/revisions\/14266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unreality.net\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}