[Macros]

I was just about to come post the trailer.
Damned Nerds beat me to it

[TheRetiredBridgeburner]

That looks like so much fun! We loved the first Netflix series (Revelation?), so I think we'll definitely be going to see this!

[worry]

QuickTidal, on 22 January 2026 - 07:20 PM, said:

I'm just glad the earth stuff seems like it's a small part, and the large majority of it takes place in Eternia proper.

I hope you're right, cuz what a waste of time.

[QuickTidal]

My favourite singer of all time has a concert movie out! Also, as someone who attended this tour in my city, it's SO good!

[Tiste Simeon]

So I watched the new version of The Naked Gun, being a huge fan of the originals (and indeed all things Leslie Nielsen) and I utterly loved it. They'd obviously taken care to keep to the spirit of the original without just rehashing the same jokes. It isn't groundbreaking comedy in one sense but then it's not trying to be. If you go in expecting a wonderful homage you'll love it.

There's also a sneaky bit of satire about the state of policing throughout the movie which I really appreciated!

[worry]

Yeah it was pretty great. The little winter vacation segment in particular.

Speaking of reboots, I watched the Toxic Avenger movie with Peter Dinklage from recently (it did festival rounds in 2023 but had issues finding a distributor until late last year, so I'd still consider it recent). It's very, very silly but I mostly liked it. It's gross and it's crass, obviously, but it's also cartoony and fun rather than dingy and miserable. It's not a masterpiece or anything, I'd give it like a 3 out of 5, but an amusing and never boring 3.

[QuickTidal]

Watched AFTER HOURS...and quite frankly, as someone who doesn't care much for MOST of Scorsese's work (my fave film by him is Bringing Out the Dead; if that tells you anything)...this film was really good. Like I don't know that it works without Griffin Dunne who is the PERFECT person to play Paul...his slow descent into the maddeningly insane night and getting progressively more unhinged as he tries to get home...like the absurdity of some elements were hilarious...like the bartender's keys to his cash register are inexplicably at his apartment...or Julie having the stupid bagel paperweight.....or mohawk night at an after hours club...like all of it is completely mental...every moment is thought out to be as absurd as it can be, so when Paul is incredulous about these things you're sitting there nodding along going "Yeah, what in the fuck?"...and then when he's explaining all the batshit stuff that happened to the male escort it's like he's seeing himself at the beginning of the film when he's still sane and the weird stuff only just started to happen.

Amazing. Probably my second fave film by him.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 09 February 2026 - 02:18 PM

[worry]

Yeah I watched that a couple years ago and thought it was pretty rad for all those same reasons.

That reminds me, have you seen Miracle Mile from 1988, with Anthony Edwards? It's like a pre-apocalyptic take on the "one crazy night" thing -- Edwards is just like a regular guy in L.A. who learns that nukes may be imminent. It's somewhere between After Hours and Repo Man, but slightly more of a thriller than both of those, but with plenty of room for the weird.

[QuickTidal]

worry, on 09 February 2026 - 02:31 PM, said:

Yeah I watched that a couple years ago and thought it was pretty rad for all those same reasons.

That reminds me, have you seen Miracle Mile from 1988, with Anthony Edwards? It's like a pre-apocalyptic take on the "one crazy night" thing -- Edwards is just like a regular guy in L.A. who learns that nukes may be imminent. It's somewhere between After Hours and Repo Man, but slightly more of a thriller than both of those, but with plenty of room for the weird.

I have no seen it, I'll put it on the list...I've heard SOMETHING WICKED is also in that vein, just by Jonathan Demme, so I feel like I should check that out too.

I'm very particular about "weird" (Like I hate Lynch's stuff) but something like this where someone sane is thrown into completely the deep end of strange and absurd...hits me just right.

Same reason I like Murakami's AFTER DARK, as it follows the same dreamlike principles.

[worry]

It's not particularly Lynchian or abstract, and I would say it's even less dream-like than After Hours, but still follows that one-thing-after-another template as the night progresses. Maybe if Adventures in Babysitting was Rated R, less of a comedy, and kinda science fiction in the broader sense that includes "nuclear anxiety" stories.

Anyway, I watched Predator: Badlands over the weekend and it was pretty good. If you have Predator and Prey at the top of your list for this franchise, this isn't that good, but I think it slots in comfortably at #3 for me. I read that Dan Trachtenberg was at least in part inspired by video games for this one, and that does come through -- stoic main character with a chattier companion is a video game staple these days -- but that's kind of true of the action movies that inspired those video games, so one big happy circle. It does lighten the mood, and this movie did turn out to be PG-13, but I think that's mostly because there are no humans in it rather than the violence being toned down. There's plenty of blood, it's just not red.

[QuickTidal]

I watched CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND on the flight....I had never seen it. One of the only Spielberg flicks I'd never seen in fact...

But I didn't like it?

Like two reasons. One; It's WAY overlong. It's like CLOSE ENCOUNTERS was his 3rd year film, and ET was his polished 4th year film. Good, but he let himself get away with too much. It would be so much better if it was tighter.

The other reason is that I've seen THE FABLEMANS...so you can FEEL him pumping the real life shit with his parents into Dreyfuss, and Garr, and Melinda Dillon...like it's so obvious so I likely would have liked it better before I knew.

That said, it was fine and not awful...but I doubt I'll have any reason to watch it again.

And compared to ET it's insanely night and day for quality.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 18 February 2026 - 01:31 PM

[Abyss]

DUNE pts 1 and 2.

Beautiful to look at, wildly ambitious, some excellent fx, well performed by the cast.

They completely nailed the Worms.

The Fremen were flawless, culture and look and acting.

The decision to keep Paul's sister in utero yet still active in the story was clever and creepy and well handled.

The villains were meh... The Baron and Rabban were effective villains for 1, they spend most of 2 standing around getting angry about things and waiting to be stabbed. Feyd is introduced late, visually threatening but otherwise Villain Archetype #3 - stabby albino misogynist. His entire power appears to be the ability to stab people which is fine but inadequate for the scope of what they were trying to do w him. I adore Christopher Walken but his Emperor was neither Imperial nor effective, he mostly looked confused. The Bene Gesserit were ok but so much of what they did was infer bigger and more interesting things than whatever they were doing at the time.

Failed to stick the landing for me. End of pt 2 felt rushed, flat, incomplete. Entire character arcs seemed cut short or reduced to an intense gaze we're supposed to interpret as something. The entire Great Houses subplot is almost entirely offscreen and near meaningless.

Was worth watching, but not quite the cinematic sci fi masterpiece i was hoping for.

[Slow Ben]

Yeah. That pretty much nails it. 100%.

Still haven’t got around to Prophecy.