Skip to main content

Lampshade & B-team

 Last 2 movies of 2024.

I took a long plane flight and got to watch two movies I had not seen in the mobile format the cinematographer intended.

Here are my alternate title suggestions - 

* "Deadpool & Wolverine" could have been titled "Lampshade: the movie"

* "Borderlands" was "The A-team in space" or perhaps to be fair to the actual A-team, "An assemblage of characters across various aesthetics who think they are in different movies".

D&W spent a little over 2 hours telling me it was funny because it was trying to be funny on purpose. Don't let it be forgotten that this is funny. When it wasn't doing that, it was informing me that it was a multiverse movie and that I shouldn't care for those. It was enjoyable, but I would have liked it 50% more if it had dropped 30 minutes of educating me regarding what it was. 

As for the B-team, it was fetch quest city. You could tell you were on different a quest because of the color and lighting changes. The cast are great actors, but I think the director didn't know that. Each of the actors was doing their thing - and that thing was for at least 3 different movies. Kevin Hart was doing his thing acting his butt off. Jack Black was doing a one-liner routine for a late-night talk show. Everyone else either phones it in, or is in some sort of brooding drama (not counting JLC's role as chief expositionist).

I can definitely say that I saw both films.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Midnight Run (1988)

 I need to add one more to my [perfect movie] list: "Midnight Run" (1988). I don't think I had seen it before until now. It holds up well, it is very quotable, shot and edited really well. You can understand how this guy made "Beverly Hills Cop" four years earlier. I do think the secret of this (and BHC) is character. These characters are really well written and played. Charles Grodin is giving a master class in playing down beat against DeNiro's comedic version of "Taxi Driver". Yaphet Kotto looks like he is going to have an aneurysm - and Dennis Farina is truly a scary Chicago mobster. Added bonus - Danny Elfman soundtrack.

Thoughts On M. Night

 As you know, I am a fan of "good bad" movies -- and that got me thinking about M. Night Shamalamadingdong (sorry - I can't help that). He is not really my thing ... but => With the utmost respect for his craft, using what I think is the highest praise - he is the Roger Corman of $20M movies. M. Night has self produced his last 5 movies - they ALL make their budget back in the opening weekend. All of his movies except for his very first "Wide Awake" made more than they cost (averaging 8x their budget). If you just count the $40M or less movies, there are 6 of them - the return is 12x. For the ones over $40M, the return is 3x. This is a 52 year old person -- He seems to have decided he doesn't need / want to work with a major studio - he makes a movie every 2 years -- he will be making movies for another couple decades if he wants to. Like his movies or not - it is hard to not be impressed by his ability to work that business and produce a product that con...

Fences (2016)

Fences (2016) is nominally a story about being black in the United States of America in the 1950's. 'Troy' is a disaffected working man that never really had a chance. He is unable to make sense of an unfair world. Viola Davis doesn't get as much screen time (this is Denzel's movie), but when she is let on the scene, she destroys. 'Rose' is setting herself aside to make a life & family despite very little prospects for measurable happiness. Based on an August Wilson play - the magic of his writing is that at its root, this story is about people who set aside themselves for "existence". All people yearn for happiness on this world from their achievements (at least to achieve 'success' & 'happiness' relative to people around them). People want to proclaim they are in control of their situations. People want to be treated generously and with respect. People think that the world, society, economy, and people around them should a...