What did you beaver buzzers watch this week? (07/28-08/03)

What did you say about my beaver?

Oppenheimer 9/10
Godzilla 5/10
Possum 5/10
The Big Steal 6/10

I watched:

A Fairy Tale After All 2022 6/10 This has some flaws, but also some charm. I liked the puppets and the singing was nice. The costumes were pretty good. The biggest issue for me was that the lead actress felt miscast. She was clearly too old for the role and they should have cast someone younger. The story is alright, even though it is fairly formulaic and derivative. I did like the use of black and white and animation in some scenes. This is a bit of a mess, but I have seen worse. There are enough enjoyable elements here (especially the puppets) to overlook the flaws. Worth a look.

Up in the Air 1940 6/10 This was alright. Acting was fine, story was decent, not enough singing.

Pumpkin Spiced Musical 2022 8/10 A fun musical comedy about a struggling ad agency that comes up with the idea to market a pumpkin spice scented bra. This was laugh out loud funny. I enjoyed the performances and the songs. Recommended if you like musical comedies, pumpkin spice, and bras.

Drama Drama 2019 6/10 This is longer than it needs to be, but there are some good moments. I liked a few of the songs and the performances are effective.

Reet, Petite, and Gone 1947 6/10 As expected, the music is good but the writing and acting are weak.

Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library 2017 6/10 This wasn't bad. The story is okay and the acting is fine for what it is. The cast is fun and likeable and there are some amusing moments.

Falling for the Competition 2024 5/10 I didn't find the lead actress very likeable. The lead guy was slightly better, but his performance was still kind of flat. The two kids were the best actors and most likeable characters in this. The story wasn't that interesting.

The Fall Guy 2024 6/10 Gosling and Blunt are fine, but the film is mediocre. The story doesn't completely work and it isn't as funny as it needed to be. Also, this is too long.

continued...

Oh, I really liked Eden Lake but I had similar complaints. Like if a drunken bunch of teen assholes invaded my area of the pond I’d pack up and drive a few miles away with my wife and tent. No drama required, in a half hour we’ll have a totally new campground. I’m usually not one to cut and run but under the circumstances an orderly retreat would have been best.

Overall a very good movie, until I saw this I had no idea that they have white hillbilly trash people in the UK!
Americans, we are so silly, most of us think of England as the land of cute little hobbits lol!

Hello!

Of yours
Godzilla 6.5/10
Eden Lake 6/10

My week:

Twelve Monkeys (1995) 8/10
I do not know how to rate this film. I love it, and I also dislike it. A common feeling I have with Terry Gilliam films. I think the performances are great (one of Willis's best) , and it's a twisty, turny story that doesn't get too overwhelming. I do find it a little too long. La Jetée gave us the story in 28 minutes and it was just as impactful if not more. It's also a very visually ugly movie. Even in the 1990s there really isn't much, other than sunlight, and natural air, that would make it enticing for Cole to want to stay there. Despite my complaints, I still really enjoyed it, and think it's a pretty great film.

The Belko Experiment (2016) 6.5/10
This movie has been done so many times, in so many different ways, but I will say that the cast does make this one enjoyable at least. I've seen this a few times now, so that should say something about watchablitiy, but there is nothing really remarkable about it, or anything that really stands out.

A Very Vermont Christmas (2024) 5/10
I am not a Christmas in July watcher, at least that I remember, but I think I know why. July is where Hallmark dumps the movies that just aren't good enough for Christmas releases. My first Christmas in July, will be my last. As for this movie, it isn't awful, but it's lacking charm, chemistry, and setting the story in a microbrewery was not a change to the formula at all. There's nothing to make this stand out.

Real Steel 2011 7/10
Had ignored this one for years as it just didn't seem interesting to me, but I ending up choosing it today, and I wasn't disappointed with it at all. It was very, very formulaic, but that isn't always a bad thing. For a boxing robot movie, it had a sweet story. Dakota Goyo put in a really good performance. It entertained me, and that's really all I ask for.

The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024) 4.5/10
I don't know what I just watched. It was like a few different scripts mushed together into one mess. This had the potential to be good. I wasn't expecting a romcom, so that was on me, but even the romance parts didn't seem genuine. The last scene was also a huge groan in that department. There wasn't enough whimsy for the title, and I felt like the social commentary I was looking for, was just pushed in as an after thought to not great success. The cast deserved something a lot better than this.

Possum 2018 7.5/10
I enjoyed this a little more the second time around, although watching it with a group of people who didn't really appreciate it the same way I do did diminish it a little. While it doesn't really bring us anything new, or profound to the genre, I do like the imagery, and I thought Sean Harris was great. He was almost unrecognizable. Alun Armstrong was great too.

The Big Steal (1990) 6/10
The cast was the main draw to this film for me. I'm not really a car person. I already hated used car salesmen. I thought this was juts okay. There were some funny scenes, especially with the parents, but it didn't really grab me. I liked it okay, but I don't think I would revisit this again.

Buzzin' off with the best of 'em!

Oppenheimer (2023) - A heady but accessible dialogue-based biopic with grand sweeping themes rooted in personal stakes. All the scenes set in universities were steeped in Nostalgia. 8

Godzilla (2014) Instead of Bryan Cranston being the human anchor character, how about we get his dead-eyed son and dead-eyed wife and their dead-eyed kids. 6

Eden Lake (2008) - Rough, dirty violent and effective. 7

The Big Empty (2003) - Kind of a Sundance novelty of its time, with barebones production values standing in for far-reaching ideas. One of these days we'll get a cowboys and aliens movie that works. One of these days... 6.5

The Belko Experiment (2016) - A shining example of undercooked. James Gunn wisely chose to produce and hand the directing duties off to someone else. 6

Possum (2018) - Not the best choice for a watch party, but still a commendable slow burn horror tale. Those familiar with writer/director Matthew Holness might see this movie's potential for veering into parody territory, but for the most part it remains on the straight an narrow path of a character's unearthed trauma manifesting as a scary monster. 7

The Big Steal (1990) - A tender John Hughes-tinted teenage romance steeped in Aussie car culture. Best of all, it thumbs its nose at the shoddy design of Jag-yew-arrs. Babyfaced Ben Mendelsohn charms for the ages. 7

Also this week:

Deadpool and Wolverine (2024) - An irreverent send-up of superhero movies for the mythic audience of fourteen year-olds who have been reading Variety since 2004. 7

The Malibu Bikini Shop (1986) - Imagine a world - somewhere vaguely in the area of Venice and Santa Monica (but definitely not Malibu) - where the bikini-based economy is tightly regulated and enforced. We want to make sure that our beach-side citizens are not subject so some fly by night bikini shysters, after all.

But when a recent business school graduate Alan (Who Cares) reunites with his underachieving slacker brother Todd (BRUCE GREENWOOD) to take over their dearly departed aunt's fledgling swimsuit store, their hijinx and business innovation shake up the tight-knit beach community and attract the ire of several stuffy snobs. They introduce such innovative ideas as artisan hand-sewn bikinis as well as bikinis supplanted by a military themed fashion show with loosely choreographed dance numbers. One cannot help but admire the scrappy spirit of these endeavors.

And yet, despite the climax being setup with back to back MTV-style montages, this movie hums along at a crisp clip thanks to Greenwood's performance. What I mean is that there are layers to this beery beach bro character that he develops over the course of the film, introducing new developments at every turn with his sly grins and jumping out of frame to end a scene as if he's about to catch a wave just off camera.

We could all use a character like Todd in our lives, he with a free spirit and remarkable abs despite guzzling beer by the case every day. Maybe that's what living in your dead aunt's beach house in Malibu-by-way-of-Venice/Santa Monica got you back then. If one drinks a bunch of beer by the beach, does one ever accumulate calories? Without this movie as proof, we may never know. 7.5

Movies

-When a Stranger Calls (2006)
It should've been easy to improve a movie that's very much flawed except for the first 20 minutes. Well, forget it, this movie just stretches out the most tense scene of the original to 90 minutes, which is just plain boring.

-Prom Night (2008)
The original may have had awful disco scenes, but this movie has absolutely nothing to offer. Annoyong characters, no suspense, no mysterious killer, boring ass kills and a setting that doesn't work.

-April Fool's Day (2008)
I thought the original was cheap, but hell, this looks like a movie made for Youtube. It looked even more amateurish than The Room! What the movie should've done with its seemingly low budget, is be more of a satire, so it could've been somewhat entertaining. It also has noting to do with April Fool's Day.

TV Shows

-Savannah - marathon
One of those shortlived night time soaps I watched back in the 90s and like to rewatch every now and then.

-Pacific Blue - marathon

Deadpool and Wolverine. 2/10

It was just comic references and nostalgia with the same inuendos and gags from the last DP movies. The villian was so overpowered that she just disappeared when the machine was stopped. The story, a riff on the end of 20th century fox's x-men was a nice idea without a plot.

People are starving for good comic book movies that they think nostalgia with a little movement is actually a story. It's not.