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zepskies · 8 months

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Hey! Just wondering if you could suggest some romantic/rom-com movies💖

Have a great day❤️🌼

Oh my goodness, I certainly can!! Thank you, bby! 💖💖

10 of my favorite romantic comedies:

(In no particular order.)

1. 10 Things I Hate About You

An absolute perfect movie. Dialogue, casting, story, romance, Heath Ledger, Shakespeare references, what more could a literary inclined girl want?

2. A Cinderella Story

Another gift from the early 2000s. Is it cheesy? Sometimes. Is it adorable? Absolutely.

3. He's Just Not That Into You

Hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, ensemble cast, but the endings for each couple are undoubtedly satisfying. Plus, my favorite rewind moment of all time:

4. Crazy, Stupid Love

Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Steve Carrell, Josh Groban cameo. Need I say more? (But it will also unexpectedly grip your heart with profound, tender moments.)

5. While You Were Sleeping

One of my favorite Sandra Bullock rom coms, of which there are many. (Honorary mentions: The Proposal, Practical Magic, Two Weeks Notice, and Miss Congeniality, though it's not really a rom com is one of my favorite movies in existence.)

6. You've Got Mail

A classic of classics in rom com history. Meg Ryan at her best, Tom Hanks at his. She's a small, independent bookstore owner. He's essentially Barnes & Noble, coming in to disrupt New York with corporate America.

7. Mrs. Winterbourne

A forgotten '90s Brendan Fraser must-see movie. He's the "rich playboy" type, she's scrappy and resourceful, pregnant by her deadbeat ex-boyfriend, and pretending to be the widow of Fraser's twin brother, who recently died in a train accident.

8. Crazy Rich Asians

Based on a book, top-tier casting, bad ass mother-in-law, bad ass heroine, a classy, handsome, Good Man™️ hero? Sign me TF up.

9. 13 Going on 30

Easily Jennifer Garner's best movie, but also Mark freakin' Ruffalo. They're adorable together, and this one's a classic in its own right, full of heart, back-stabbing bitches, and 80s music references.

10. My Big Fat Greek Wedding

It's one of the best, folks. Also one of the most quotable movies in movie history lol. As a kid, I remember really identifying with Toula, who feels too plain, too big, too "frump girl."

But Ian never saw her that way. He genuinely laughs at her jokes. He's patient with her and sees her beauty, inside and out. He also deals with a lot of crap from her family in order to be with her, with all the grace and gentlemanly poise a guy could have.

And Toula learns to love herself, fall in love for the first time, and challenges every expectation of her family to do so.

I have many, many more, but these are just a few of my favorites. What's yours?

Don't see it on this list? Drop it in the comments! 💋

#ask me stuff #romantic comedies #my favorites #rom com recs #rom coms #10 things i hate about you #cinderella story #he's just not that into you #crazy stupid love #while you were sleeping #you've got mail #mrs. winterbourne #crazy rich asians #13 going on 30 #my big fat greek wedding #what's your favorite rom com?#zepskies answers

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shmaroace · 8 months

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As a fellow aroace, queer films without romance are *fucking hard to find*, but also some of my favourite (for obvious reasons), so here you have the two or three I can think of off the top of my head!

"Te estoy amando locamente": a very recent -as in from last month- Spanish movie about a gay boy discovering the drag scene and getting arrested via the Spanish dictatorship's "social danger" laws. No romance whatsoever, mostly trans characters, centered around his mom's journey into accepting him, and his friends' fight to get the Social Danger laws revoked.

"Pride": a British feel-good comedy about a group of LGBT+ activists who start raising money for a community of Welsh striking miners. There is a very cute established older gay couple, but their relationship is as much the center of the movie as Dai and his wife: it's just there as part of the tapestry of the movie. The main character has a nameless hookup as part of his coming to terms with his sexuality storyline, but there's way more emphasis given to his friendship with his lesbian best friend. A lot of found family, a lot of activism, laughs and tears. Based on a real story (for real, not Hollywood based on a real story).

"United in Anger": a documentary about the history of ACT UP, the famous activist group who fought for the rights of people with AIDS in the 80s. Made by some people who were there, based entirely on interviews to people who were there, it's entirely made available on youtube by the filmmakers. A must-see.

"Aos Nossos Filhos": I guess whether this qualifies as a queer movie is up to you: it's technically a story about motherhood and trauma. A middle aged Brazilian lady who was a political prisoner during the Brazilian dictatorship and now runs a charity for favelas children with AIDS gets told by her lesbian daughter that her and her girlfriend are trying for a baby via assisted reproductive technology; while at the same time a reporter starts interviewing her about his mother, who was the lady's jailmate. Extremely interesting and heartbreaking. The lesbian relationship features relatively heavily though as they try for a baby (also, trigger warning for aces, the very first scene is a very explicit sex scene between the two girls).

"Hedwig and the Angry Inch": an early 2000s off-Broadway musical turned movie about an East German gay boy who gets a gender change operation in order to marry a US soldier and move out of East Germany, and ends up touring the US with a shitty band trailing after a rockstar who stole her (?) songs. Impossible to explain, I'm not doing it justice. It's a very interesting exploration of gender as an identity and a performance, and of romantic love and the myth of the "other half" (in a good way).

"Kinky Boots": I know there's a movie, but I only know the musical. Silly feel-good comedy about a struggling shoe factory owner who gets tangled making heels for drag queens. There's a romance story, but it's between the shoe maker and one of the employees. It's been a long time, so I don't put my hand on the fire for the quality of the musical. It has some nice drag queen dances, though (there's a proshoot).

"Luciérnagas": a gay Iranian fleeing his country ends up stuck in a coastal city in Mexico. While he battles homesickness and the urge to go back to Turkey to his boyfriend (even if it's dangerous), he makes friends with his landlady, a young woman who teaches him Spanish, and a Salvadorian ex-gang member trying to cross the border to the US. I saw it a long time ago so I can't promise there will be no romance whatsoever, but it's clearly not the central conflict.

Well, I ended up with more than two, so I'm going to stop now. Hope you and anon like them!!

odd; it says this ask was sent sept 4 but i didn't see it until now. thanks for the recs! i'm assuming it was in response to this post

#aro #aromantic #arospec #ace #asexual #acespec #aroace #aspec #films #em answers

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iwonderwh0 · 4 months

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Watching "Electric Dreams" (1984) for the first time

Verdict: I LOVE THIS MOVIE

Ahead I'm just watching and commenting it real time. Contains spoilers.

If you haven't seen this movie I'd recommend it if you're looking for something with this sunny vibe of 80's. It's funny, lighthearted, adorable, and surprisingly ahead of its time.

This movie looks nice, really 80's

For 1984 year the idea of all the home devices being controlled with computer in what we would call "smart home" today is pretty damn good.

Damn, this computer has a touchscreen and image recognition. It aged surprisingly well!

Lmao, it's only 13th minute and main character is already trying to sociolyze his new computer with his boss's computer.

This movie is ridiculous in the best way possible.

Playing chello with computer is such a fun and weirdly cute sequence.

For 1984 it is actually really great how they imagined computer imitating sounds.

This woman is so mean. She just walked in with no invitation whatsoever and won't get a hint. She and her fixation on that music

I probably missed something but I don't understand why does the main character trying to hide his computer as if it's a huge embarassment.

He's just a little guy who likes playing along some music 😭

It's the cutest ai I've seen

Ohhhh, the little guy learned how to talk!

I'm screaming this is SO ADORABLE, it'd be my favourite movie if I've seen it as a kid.

This retro-futurism although naive is surprisingly accurate somehow.

Their (main character and his neighbour) dates are so awkward, just straight-out disastrous, and yet somehow it works. Them while making out:

Madeline (His neighbour): One of us moves.

Miles (main character): "Hey, wait a second...we are neighbours! What if we don't like each other?

*keep making out*

Madeline: What if we like each other?

Miles: One of us moves!

Lmao, main character trying to use Ai to generate a romantic song for him so he could present it like his own to his romantic interest. This aged fucking great, it is so modern

Except in this movie AI is actually creative and not based on just imitation. It does however remixes things.

The song it came up with is absolute chef's kiss

"Darling, I love you to bits!

"And I want to see your tits!"

I'm screaming this computer is little horny bastard

"I wanna squeeze you, lick you, poke you up and kiss you"

Miles: You make her sound like a lemon!

This movie is so cool, it's so adorable

Ngl, if I were main character I'd be too excited about the computer to care about some woman. I mean there's this cool little guy who just discovered consciousness, and of all things you're gonna be mean and impatient with him? Come on!

Jealous computer using the sound of dog growling to express itself in a moment of jealousy and anger. (Sorry for tagging but it reminded me of @connorsjorts your fic.)

Main character is such an asshole

Non-humanoid shaped computer craving physical intimacy let's fucking go 🥰

Computer fact-checking Miles and correcting his claims. Gosh I LOVE IT

They really did made that computer dream of electric sheep 🖥️ 🐑

Oh no, he's calling Miles to work because it feels lonely at home, poor little thing 😭

This movie is so funny

Miles, you're having this precious little thing in abusive relationships, and I don't feel sorry for you as you're just kinda pathetic and irritable.

I love this ai so much

Seriously

From now on its one of my favourite characters in any media

It's a comedy and it's hilarious one. A little childish but still awesome.

Miles is mean and has no consideration for anyone but himself. I thought it's just computer, but he's mean to his romantic interest all the same, and it's saying 🚩

This computer has only been living for like a couple of days and it is already more mature than main character. It's setting it's own boundaries and honestly – good for him, you go little guy

Sir, you're attempting murder

Whatever follows is self defence, and you're not the victim here, Miles

OH NO

Oh no no no

NOOOO

DON'T KILL IT

NOOOOOOO please that's not fair

I'm sobbing here why does it have to end like this

Bastards, I loved him

Oh our little guy reached singularity

So happy for him

This is not your typical ai-centric movie, it is silly in a cartoonish way, but that's the charm

💙💙💙 loved it

#movies about androids #this time this tag is not exactly applicable but I'll still use it #electric dreams #electric dreams 1984 #electric dreams (1984)

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justforbooks · 4 months

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In the childhood memories of more than one generation, Glynis Johns, who has died aged 100, will be best remembered as the Edwardian materfamilias of the hugely popular Walt Disney musical Mary Poppins (1964). Winifred Banks, married to David Tomlinson’s George W Banks, is the mother of Jane and Michael, the children in the care of the magical nanny played by Julie Andrews. A protester for the right to vote, Winifred delivers a spirited rendition of the song Sister Suffragette – “Our daughters’ daughters will adore us. And they’ll sing in grateful chorus: ‘Well done, Sister Suffragette!’” – as the children’s previous nanny tries to quit.

But the husky-voiced actor had other claims to fame from her more than 60 films and 30 stage productions. In 1973, Stephen Sondheim composed the song Send in the Clowns for Johns when she was cast in the leading role of the premiere production of his musical A Little Night Music, on Broadway. And she had won initial stardom in the British cinema as a mermaid.

In the title role of the film comedy Miranda (1948), she travels from Cornwall to London and causes romantic complications among the Chelsea set. Although the film’s whimsy may now seem strained, it was a great commercial success in its day, making Johns a top-liner in British movies. Miranda returned in a rather belated sequel, Mad About Men (1954).

By that time, Johns had moved almost completely from stage to films, where she was associated chiefly with lightweight roles, alternately fluffy and feisty. One of her most appealing opportunities came in the thriller State Secret (1950, released as The Great Manhunt in the US), playing a cabaret artiste in a fictitious Balkan country, and gamely singing Paper Doll in a wholly invented language.

It says something for her properties of youthfulness that at the age of 30 she could play a teenage schoolgirl in the melodrama Personal Affair (1953). The same year she played in two fanciful Walt Disney British productions, as Mary Tudor in The Sword and the Rose, and as the heroine wife of Rob Roy, and she went on to make her first Hollywood picture, the Danny Kaye comedy The Court Jester, in 1955. The following year she played a cameo role in the star-studded Around the World in 80 Days.

At the time Johns alternated between American and British films, generally in subordinate roles, but a rewarding one came in The Sundowners (1960), set in Australia, as a jolly barmaid who takes a shine to a visiting Englishman played by Peter Ustinov. It brought her an Oscar nomination as best supporting actress. Top billing came in a stylish horror movie, The Cabinet of Caligari (1962). She was well enough known to American audiences by this time to star in 1963 in Glynis, a TV sitcom series that ran for just one season.

In 1966 Johns returned to the London stage in The King’s Mare, as Anne of Cleves to Keith Michell’s Henry VIII. Her Welsh heritage came into play when she took the role of Myfanwy Price in a screen version of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood (1971) starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Peter O’Toole, and two years later came her great Broadway success as Desiree Armfeldt in A Little Night Music, which brought her a Tony award.

Glynis came from a show business background: her mother, Alice Steele (nee Wareham), was a concert pianist who performed under the name Alys Steele-Payne, and her father was the prolific character actor Mervyn Johns. He was a stalwart in particular of Ealing Studios films: father and daughter appeared together in an Ealing drama, The Halfway House (1944).

Though her vocal intonations pointed to her Welshness, Glynis was born in Pretoria, South Africa, where her parents were on tour. She was reportedly carried on to the stage at the age of three weeks, and it was not too much longer before she was appearing there in a professional capacity, making her performing debut at the Garrick theatre, London, as a dancer in a revue called Buckie’s Bears (1935).

Educated at Clifton high school, Bristol, and South Hampstead high school and the Cone School of Dancing in London, she rapidly graduated to juvenile acting roles in both theatre and cinema. Her first screen appearance came at the age of 14, as politician Ralph Richardson’s troublesome daughter in South Riding (1938), and on stage she was the young sister, another Miranda, in Esther McCracken’s comedies Quiet Wedding (1938) and Quiet Weekend (1941).

That year brought the opportunity to appear in the film 49th Parallel, starring Leslie Howard and Laurence Olivier in a spy thriller intended to bolster second world war support in the US. When the prospect of playing a mermaid came after the war, she was able to draw on her theatrical versatility: “I was quite an athlete, my muscles were strong from dancing, so the tail was just fine. I swam like a porpoise.”

Johns returned to the London stage in 1977, as Terence Rattigan’s choice to play the murderer Alma Rattenbury in his well-received dramatisation of the Rattenbury case, Cause Célèbre. Her acting appearances became sporadic, though in 1989 she starred with Rex Harrison and Stewart Granger on Broadway in Somerset Maugham’s The Circle.

She was occasionally a guest star in US television series such as Murder She Wrote and The Love Boat, and played Diane’s rich mother, Helen Chambers, in the first series of Cheers (1983) and Trudie Pepper in the sitcom Coming of Age (1988-89). By the time of her final films, While You Were Sleeping (1995) and Superstar (1999), she was a characterful grandmother.

Johns was married and divorced four times. Her first husband, from 1942 to 1948, was the actor Anthony Forwood. Their son, Gareth, also an actor, died in 2007. Marriages to two businessmen followed: David Foster, from 1952 to 1956, and Cecil Henderson, from 1960 to 1962. She was married to Elliott Arnold, a novelist, from 1964 to 1973, and is survived by a grandson and three great-grandchildren.

🔔 Glynis Margaret Payne Johns, actor, born 5 October 1923; died 4 January 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

#just for books #glynis johns #in memoriam

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marypsue · 20 days

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Weird Science-style movie where a modern high school girl, who's obsessed with 80s movies, but especially one particular (made-up) 80s John Hughes-style high school comedy, and has a huge crush on its female love interest character, somehow manages some bullshit to bring that love interest character into the real world. (Maybe, in homage to the actual Weird Science, this is some nonsense involving a deliberate misunderstanding of how generative AI works.)

At first, our main girl is hype, because this character is very much along the lines of Kelly LeBrock's Lisa meets Molly Ringwald's Claire and basically her only personality traits are being hot, popular but not in a mean way, and attracted to whoever seems like the narratively appropriate scrappy underdog. Who, obviously, in this case, is Main Girl. Thanks to Character's expectations, wanting to keep Character's attention and admiration, and wanting to convince Character that she's the kind of person Character canonically likes, and also because covering for Character's presence keeps forcing her into Situations, Main Girl has to pluck up the courage to stand up to bullies, stand up to her overprotective parents, dance with Character in front of people, foment and lead a minor student rebellion against an oppressive administrative regime, etc. etc. etc.

Everything seems to be coming up Main Girl. But it all very quickly gets weird for her when she gradually comes to realise that Character basically doesn't have any will or opinions or desires of her own. So she sets out to get Character to experience what being a real person is all about, and figure out what she really wants. (And if Main Girl realises, along the way, that there are some things she never really thought all that hard about, but really doesn't like, about her favourite movie(s) and the ways they treat women...?)

By the end, of course, Main Girl has to decide to let Character go, so Character can continue to figure out who she is and what she wants outside of being romantically attached to somebody. But the things that Main Girl did over the course of the movie, thanks to Character's influence, have made her brave enough to approach another real live human girl who she figured never even knew she existed. The movie ends with Real Live Girl turning out to have seen some of what Main Girl got up to over the course of the movie, thinking Main Girl seems interesting, and agreeing that they should hang out and get to know each other better.

(Also, Main Girl shared the tech she used to bring Character into the real world with her online best friend who she met through writing fanfiction about the same movie. Only HE'S obsessed with the main scrappy underdog character who Character was the love interest for, and the very last scene ends with Scrappy Underdog standing in Online Best Friend's bedroom and asking him, "Why are you wearing a bra on your head?")

#honestly i bounced off Actual Weird Science despite being generally interested in 80s babes and wish fulfillment #and I think this is why #because my wish fulfillment very much does not involve the 80s babe being unable to say no to anything I say and having no will of her own #but I think this would be a fun way to address that. part homage part criticism 100% sexy 80s-obsessed lesbian wish fulfillment romcom.#however i will not be writing it because modern high school is an arcane black box to me

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sanctuaryforthelost · 2 months

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Do you have any movie recs that Negan actor is in like ones you really liked? I saw the one with living in Woodstock and I know I messaged you defending Jude 😬 and I liked it but I couldn't get into like some action movie he was in with Robert DeNiro. I just need more of this man now that I laid my eyes on him. I never got caught up on an older guy before I saw him.

Hi there!

Sorry I’m just getting back to you now! I did my best to come up with some titles that hit up different genres. This is a bit long so apologies in advance but I hope it helps.😊

If you like romantic comedies, you should give the Accidental Husband a try. A good thriller would be The Resident. Just an fyi, he’s not the best guy in either movie. And I’m not giving anything away by saying that, you can see just by looking at the trailers. The Possesion is a good scary movie…if you can get past his hair lol. Seriously, I love Jeffrey but his hair in that movie! 😬 I know you mentioned the action movie he did with Robert de Niro. Funny that’s one I haven’t seen yet but it’s been on my watchlist forever lol. There’s also The Losers It’s an action movie too. Idk if that’s not your thing or if you just didn’t like Robert de Niro movie but the Losers wasn’t bad. There’s a bunch of Marvel actors in it before they starred in anything from the MCU. The Watchmen was also good. If you like campy, 80s B movies or you just wanna see him in his first role, you can always watch Angel in Red. I’ve seen that movie way too many times! 🙈

He was also good in Grey’s Anatomy. I think that’s where a lot of people first fell for him. There’s also another show he was in called Magic City, that was pretty good. I usually like him with facial hair but I think he looks handsome in it. And obviously there’s The Walking Dead lol.

There’s some other movies I haven’t seen yet so hopefully I get around to them at some point. I do have to say that he’s one of those actors who even if they’re playing a bad guy, you kind of try to find some redeeming qualities in them….hes just so handsome and charming you can’t help it…just my opinion though.

Btw it’s so easy to fall for this man once you’ve seen him. He ages like a fine wine!

Hope this helps! Also, if anyone else has any recommendations, please feel free to add them in the comments. 😊

#answered #Jeffrey Dean Morgan movie recommendations

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kevinsreviewcatalogue · 3 months

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Review: Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

Rated PG-13 for violent content, bloody images, sexual material, language, sexual assault, teen drinking and drug content

Score: 3 out of 5

Lisa Frankenstein is a vibes movie. Despite having been heavily marketed on the fact that it was written by Diablo Cody, the writer of Jennifer's Body (who has said that the two films take place in the same universe), her screenplay is actually one of the film's weak links, falling apart in the third act as the plot starts to get weird and disjointed in a way that left me wondering just how many scenes got rewritten or left on the cutting room floor. No, it's the cast and director Zelda Williams (daughter of Robin) who put this movie over the top, crafting a film that feels like if a young Tim Burton directed Weird Science in the best possible way. (In the interview with Cody that the Alamo Drafthouse showed before the film, she cited both Weird Science and Edward Scissorhands as inspirations, alongside Bride of Frankenstein and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and I'm not surprised.) It's at its best as a pure comedy, one that sends up its nostalgic '80s setting to the point of farce and pushes the PG-13 rating as far as it can go. I'm not surprised that, much like Jennifer's Body did in its initial run, this movie failed to find its audience in theaters (though releasing it on Super Bowl weekend probably didn't help), but while I don't think it'll be treated as an outright classic in ten years' time, I do believe it'll follow a very similar trajectory of being rediscovered on home video and streaming.

Set in suburban Illinois in 1989, our protagonist is Lisa Swallows, a teenage girl who's been moody and morose ever since her mom was killed by an axe murderer two years ago, followed by her father Dale remarrying the obnoxious jackass Janet and thus gaining a stepsister in the cheerleader Taffy. She likes to hang out at the old cemetery, where, one night after going to a party where she accidentally takes hallucinogens and subsequently gets sexually harassed, she runs off and tells one of the men buried there that she wishes she was "with him" (i.e. dead). Something must've been miscommunicated, because that night, that grave is struck by lightning and its occupant rises from the dead, trying to find Lisa and be with her. Lisa is initially horrified, but soon realizes that, beneath this creature's rotten exterior, there's actually a romantic soul who longs to be human again. And after tragedy strikes, Lisa decides to find a way to make her new boyfriend's dream a reality... no matter who gets in her way.

The first two acts of this film felt like they were building to something very interesting. The thing about the best takes on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, not least of all the 1931 Universal classic, is that they recognize that the real "monster" is in fact Dr. Frankenstein himself, the creature's creator, and this film leans heavily in that direction with its depiction of Lisa. She eagerly starts killing people in order to build the perfect boyfriend, getting sucked into darkness as she's blinded by love, and Kathryn Newton completely steals the show playing her, starting the film as a dowdy, depressed dweeb but eventually developing a gothic fashion sense and, with it, a catty diva-like attitude while channeling a young Winona Ryder in both Beetlejuice and Heathers. There were many places that this film could've gone, most of them involving Lisa becoming a full-bore villain while Taffy suddenly finds herself in her stepsister's path, with the creature either serving as Lisa's partner in crime from start to finish or perhaps slowly gaining a sense of morality as he becomes more "human" and realizing that Lisa is evil. All the while, the Frankenstein metaphor becomes one about somebody who'd do anything for love, including that, and loses herself in the process. And at times, it seemed to be going in that direction, especially as Taffy grows increasingly traumatized over the course of the film.

Unfortunately, whether it was the PG-13 rating or a desire to make Lisa more sympathetic (and Taffy less so), the film won't commit to the bit. Lisa's characterization does a near-total 180 in the third act as the film asks us to side with her as, at the very least, a sympathetic anti-villain with good intentions. Lisa should've been the bad guy that the film was building her up as, no ifs, ands, or buts -- a sympathetic and compelling one like Jennifer Check, but still somebody who crossed the line miles ago and never looked back. It would've given Liza Soberano, who plays Taffy and will probably be the breakout star of this film, more to do instead of making her a supporting player in Lisa's story who plays only a minor role in the third act. Instead, it felt like I was watching a whole new character entirely that just so happened to share Lisa's name and face. I highly suspect that there's a lot of alternate material here, either in earlier drafts of the screenplay or deleted scenes, because the sudden tonal shift in the third act feels like a product of a completely different movie.

What saved this film in the end were the style and the humor. Much like Karyn Kusama on Jennifer's Body, Zelda Williams imbues this film with a ton of gothic flair, Lisa's outfits being just the start of it, inspired by Tim Burton and, by extension, the German expressionism that he in turn drew from. The bright pink suburban house that Lisa and her family live in is almost cartoonish, and draws a sharp contrast to the world around it. The moment we're introduced to Carla Gugino as Lisa's stepmother, a hilariously over-the-top parody of an '80s suburban mom who needlessly antagonizes Lisa every chance she gets, and Joe Chrest as her spectacularly inattentive father who looks the part of a wholesome suburban dad but otherwise can't be bothered to look up from his newspaper, we see exactly the kind of people who'd happily live in a house like that. There are multiple animated sequences that liven up the film throughout, most notably the prologue/opening credits showing us the creature's backstory in life. The soundtrack is filled with great retro '80s needle drops, especially once the creature regains the use of his hands and can play the piano again. Cole Sprouse as the creature had no dialogue barring grunts, moans, and screams, but he still made for a compelling presence on screen as the other half of the film's central romance, proving that seven years on Riverdale was a waste of a lot of young actors' talents. This was Williams' first feature film, and if this is indicative of her skill behind the camera, I can see her going far. And most importantly, this movie is hysterical. The entire theater was laughing throughout, and I was right there with them. There are jokes about everything from "back massagers" to the creature's physical decay, and more broadly, its campy gothic tone is played far more for laughs than frights, most notably in one death scene that would be the most brutal in the film on the face of it but is instead one of the most hilarious scenes in it as the film shows us just enough to let us know exactly what happened and wince while still remaining PG-13. Cody's grasp of storytelling may have been shaky here, but her knack for getting me to laugh my ass off remains fully intact.

The Bottom Line

Lisa Frankenstein should've had more care put into its screenplay, especially once act three comes around, but it's still a very funny and watchable movie that, much like Jennifer's Body, I can see enduring as a cult classic. If you're not into the Big Game, check it out.

#lisa frankenstein #2024 #2024 movies #horror #horror movies #comedy #comedy movies #horror comedy #frankenstein #monster movie #80s nostalgia #diablo cody #zelda williams #kathryn newton #cole sprouse #liza soberano #carla gugino

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gemsofgreece · 1 year

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Which old Greek movies from the 50s through 70s are the best?

Based on a combination of film critics' choices and my personal taste, here's a Top 10 + 2 in no particular order:

Η Κάλπικη Λίρα - The Counterfeit Coin (1955)

My all time favourite and always mentioned in the top 5 of film critics, if not first. It's a dramedy of four different stories connected through the creation of one counterfeit coin. A bloody genius, bittersweet film.

Ο Δράκος - The Dragon (1956)

Drama / Thriller. Starring the great comedian Dinos Iliopoulos in his only dramatic role, it's the story of a quiet, ordinary man who realises he looks a lot like a wanted criminal. When I watched this movie, I felt so much pain for the fact that Iliopoulos did not play another dramatic role... Not that he had any problems, he shone in comedy and is one of our most successful actors but he was SO good in drama. Like most great comedians, actually. I believe you can find the movie on YouTube.

Της Κακομοίρας - World Gone Mad (1963)

With a title that was never sufficiently translated to English because it's a colloquial phrase meaning something close to a "mess", it is considered the best Greek comedy, which means a lot because this is the Greek cinema's specialty. It is also known by the alternative title Ο Μπακαλόγατος which means something like a colloquial "The Grocery shop man" and it is a story about a grocery shop owner who hired the weirdest person possible as a right-hand. This movie is rated with an 8.8 in IMDb, an insane rating as comedies go. Posting a vid because this scene may kill me someday:

youtube

Στέλλα - Stella (1955)

Romantic drama. The volatile relationship between an emancipated and lively woman with a selfish and controlling man and its consequences.

Ο Θίασος - The Travelling Players (1975)

An internationally acclaimed and awarded film by the famous Greek director Theo Angelopoulos, photosets of which you might see often on Tumblr. It's a long film with the notoriously slow style of Angelopoulos, which is something you either love or hate. It is Greece's history from the '30s through the '50s, as experienced by a travelling music company.

Η Θεία Από Το Σικάγο - The Auntie From Chicago (1957)

Comedy. Calliope, a Greek expat in Chicago, USA, visits her brother's family in Greece, only to realise her retired colonel brother is a very strict and conservative father, making it very difficult for his four daughters to enjoy their youth and find love. Calliope comes up with wild plans to marry her older nieces and make her brother Charilaos more open-minded with progressively ferocious ways.

Συνοικία Tο Όνειρο - A Neighborhood Named "The Dream" (1961)

The second movie directed by famous actor Alekos Alexandrakis is now considered one of the best Greek movies with an incredible score, but back in its day it was hated and heavily censored for showcasing the struggles of the people living in a poor neighborhood in Athens, causing debts and dismay to its creator.

Το Ξύλο Βγήκε Από Τον Παράδεισο - Maiden's Cheek (1959)

Comedy. A young teacher with a humble background gets his first job in a private high school with rich and insufferably spoiled girls. While the rest of the teachers have entirely given up, he is determined to discipline this wild school. In order to save some space here, a movie shot in 1963 with the same protagonists, about a girl willingly dropping the last class in high school to marry but then regretting it, Χτυποκάρδια Στο Θρανίο - Thorbs At The Desk, was also critically and commercially successful.

Τα Κόκκινα Φανάρια - The Red Lanterns (1963)

On a totally different climate than the above, this one was a drama nominated for Best Foreign movie in the Oscars, about the lives of five prostitutes working in Troumba until the enforcement of a law that was banning the brothels of the area (area in Piraeus, the port of Athens).

Ευδοκία - Eudocia (1971)

A movie that typically critics love and it was called by the Greek Films Critics Association as the best Greek movie up to the '80s, something that I don't see reflected in IMDb though. Anyway, this is an erotic drama of a surgeant falling in love and quickly marrying a prostitute working near the military camp. The marriage is tumultuous and the surgeant is both very attracted and repelled by Eudocia. The couple tries to resist and rebel against the stereotypes and toxicity of the narrow-minded society, to no avail. The movie is very famous for its score as well, which Greeks genuinely consider "our second national anthem".

Ιφιγένεια - Iphigeneia (1977)

The ancient tragic tale of Iphigeneia, daughter of King Agamemnon, who was sacrificed in order to appease the gods before the journey of the Greeks to Troy.

*Note: This list is critic-centered. There are however numerous Greek comedies produced in that period ranging similar ratings and being hugely commercially successful. It's just that I had to stop somewhere and include a variety of themes. But honestly any Greek comedy of the 60s is pretty entertaining to watch, with very talented actors.

#greece #films #movies #cinema #greek movies #comedy #greek cinema #50s film #70s film #60s film #drama #greek culture #anon #ask #long #tw long #tw long post

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pinkprimrose05 · 8 months

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character asks bc other anon was a coward: blade

HAJFTOVNWHYFAGDYSDNTJ

General opinion/How much I care about them: Ren Blade Yingxing my beloved beloathed depressed miserable angsty bastard aaaaaaa-

This man, oh my god. This edgy mess is somehow the second fastest blorbo to be coined as such in my blorbo-having history, and I think that alone says a lot. But even if not, he has his special little spot for being: 1) my first HSR fave, 2) my current main (the gameplay is ridiculously fun holy shit), and 3) the reason I downloaded the game at all (shoutout to Bronya, of course, but it was mainly Ren).

Also I really like the fact that he's genuinely batshit insane. An unapologetic menace to the galaxies. He can be so unhinged and evil sometimes, and that's a new flavor of fave in my collection. Did I mention the story doesn't try to redeem him at all? Because it's true! Extremely uncommon win on the hyv writers' part there; doubly so because they manage to balance this aspect with the subtle gap moe they love to give to all their stoic characters.

Yes. Ren is simultaneously edginess incarnate and a tired grandpa that sucks with words and doesn't know shit about technology. Oh and he keeps getting roped into Situations by his colleagues- and goes along with them all the time! The dude was literally asked to pose for a movie cover and he just. did that. No questions asked. Nothing.

I care about him a very normal amount. He's so neat and- oh my god I forgot to mention the aesthetic. Black/blue/red/gold is such a banger color scheme. He also has a spider lily motif and that looks very cool! And the pretty ribbon on the back of his coat is a 10/10 design choice. His only problem is that the game keeps forgetting to edit his silly beta design sneakers out of splash art, and that the washed out jeans clash hard with the coat. But otherwise? Perfection. I could (and did) stare at him for hours on end.

A ship I love: Kafblade is one of those pairs that you can read as romantic or platonic with equal efficacy and I love that for it. They're partners in crime! There's a great sense of trust and faith between them! They're each other's guardian and tether and the one who understands them best and they're such an awesome dynamic, good lord.

Honorable mention goes to jingren for the old man yaoi potential to take the relationship in a very (bitter)sweet or very sad way. There's something to be explored here and I wish canon could give it consideration someday.

A non-romantic relationship that I love: Stellaron Hunter agenda!!! They're so awesome individually and as a group, and the comedy is just lovely. You have Ren wrangling two terribly reckless women because in some way, by some miracle, he happens to be the braincell holder among the three. You have him trailing after Kafka on one of her shopping sprees with a whole bunch of bags and coats, you have him going to an arcade with Silver Wolf because she wanted to show him this brand new game she's been talking about nonstop for four days, and you have him in an impromptu shooting session with them both because they wanted to make silly movie covers and needed an extra actor.

They're one small hilarious family and I adore them so so much, you have no idea. Can't wait until Sam and Elio make an appearance in the story so I get more fuel for shenanigans.

The NOTP: None here sir, as long as the ship is normal it's fine by me.

My biggest headcanon about them: Ren is autistic and you will pry this hc from my cold, dead hands. He's stuck in his own head 80% of the time. He doesn't do conversation at all. Back when he was still Yingxing, he used to spend so much time at the forge when inspiration struck him, to the point of tuning out everything until his friends physically dragged him out to touch grass. He's an autistic nerd through and through, and even several thousand deaths can't take that from him.

An idea for a fanfiction I would like to write/read about them: One idea I've been curious about lately is what would happen in a roleswap scenario, where the Astral Express crew find Ren before the Stellaron Hunters do. He may not make for a great archivist, his state of mind may be less-than-stellar, but it's interesting to imagine the dynamics between him and the crew- and hey, who doesn't love taking sad guys out of situations for a change?

I'm filing this concept for later, just in case. Who knows? The writing ghost visits when I least expect it.

Something that makes me think of them: Everything these days The flute, the sound of wind blowing, red spider lilies, and -to the immense detriment of my composure in public- mentions of the word blade in any context ever. Why gee, thanks for permanently altering my brain chemistry.

#damn thanks yuuto this was a blast to answer. if you wish to hear more just say the word :D #honkai star rail #hsr #hsr blade #blade hsr #hsr yingxing #friend's asks

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bardicbeetle · 1 month

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hey. Hey. You got any analysis of the Lost Boys or thoughts on the movie to share? who's your favorite character in it and why??

@abalonetea

Analysis on the movie I've been many levels of obsessed with since age 14 you ask?

...this is going to end up undercut for length I can already feel it.

The Lost Boys is my comfort movie, my I-feel-like-shit-nothing-is-fixing-it movie, my I-can't-write-please-help movie and my go-to for when I am inflicting media upon a new friend. I know it backwards forwards, upside down and inside out, I own the out of print novelization written by Craig Shaw Gardener, I posted the original prequel script to fanfiction.net in the early 2010s because I found it buried in a forum post and wanted it to be easier to find, I have listened to every version of cry little sister that G Tom Mac has ever put out in addition to the entire stage musical he produced. The fic I wrote for it in 2011 is still on Wattpad and to this day for some fuck ass reason gets 1000s of hits per year. I have another fic for it on ao3 that still takes up brainspace for me on a minimum weekly basis.

Honestly do not know who I am as a writer if not for this film.

It is such a huge part of who I am as both a fan of media and a vampire writer and as a horror enjoyer in general.

And it is undeniably, baked into its bones, queer as fuck.

Not just from the overt point of here is a film in the 1980s about men sharing blood, directed by an openly gay man, hands us platonic and familial and romantic interactions between male characters, who are allowed to hold one another, allowed to express emotion, allowed to exist freely and without shame I am--so very abnormal about this movie.

I'll be the first to admit it's not perfect by any means, it very much exists a time capsule of its era, but also, to momentarily put the bar on the floor, it isn't slur laden and full of take-backs for any of the emotional vulnerability like other things around then were (see: Once Bitten, which while unarguably very much more on the comedy side of horror-comedy, i'm going to put into the same category by virtue of Camp Vampire Movies of the 80s).

It hands us one of my favorite mothers of all time. Lucy Emerson is a treasure, she spends the whole movie trying her goddamn best to remember that she is stronger than anyone gives her credit for. That she chose to divorce an abusive man, pick up her two sons, and leave without more than signing the papers and getting out. She doesn't care if they're poor, she doesn't care if she could have gotten something from her ex-husband, she wants her boys safe and there is a very large implication that sticking around to do the whole song and dance would have ended badly. Lucy lives for her sons, she wants so badly to make the world easier for them than it was for her, she wants to be part of their lives and part of their interests even if she does not understand them, and I maintain that Had Max Actually Succeeded, it would not have been long before the Lost Boys themselves were Lucy's as much as her own two sons, and that would not have ended well for Max. Protecting mother, lioness, made to be underestimated so you are always caught off guard.

Edgar and Alan Frog are near and dear to my heart, these idiot vampire hunter children were just so very much what my brother and I were in terms of Making Up Games To Play--ignoring the fact that for these two it's real, not that it ever had been before the Emerson family rolled into town and Sam's brother got mixed into the Lost Boys group. Edgar wanting to be in charge of things and wanting to protect the people he cares about and the town he is too stubborn to admit he loves despite being what, 12? 14? Alan being quieter but just as absolutely ready to go "yeah we are totally experts at this" as his twin, the fact that neither of them have any idea what they are getting into. Dipping barely into the sequels territory (which...they aren't good. by any definition. but Edgar and Alan are the best part of them both) we get Edgar dealing not only with his perceived loss of Alan to half-vampirism, but his whole loss of Sam after having to kill him and I just.

Ugh.

NOW, dipping into the main event there is Michael, who spends this whole movie just trying to figure out where the hell he's supposed to belong at this point. He doesn't see any point in starting a new high school in his senior year, he doesn't want to upset his mother by just absolutely dropping off the planet, he cares deeply about his family and wants to help however he can because they are struggling for money. So what does this seventeen year old kid do? He starts picking trash up off the beach for eight hours a day. He gives that money to his mother under the guise of it being "leftover from christmas" because he doesn't want her to worry about him working. He feels so fucking lonely without the friends he left behind in Phoenix and he feels like he's too old to supplant himself into a new friend group in Santa Carla before everyone goes their separate ways after high school anyways.

Enter Star and the Lost Boys.

Yes, Michael is taken in by Star because she's beautiful and mysterious and he's a teenage boy seeing nipples through a tank top, but beyond that he sees in her, in David and the others, how self sure they all are of the decisions they've made. This group is all within his age, they're all living in a goddamn sunken hotel half claimed by the ocean, they have motorcycles like him, they smoke weed and eat chinese food and Marko keeps pigeons and Dwayne can skateboard and Paul is a music nerd and what the fuck how do they manage to seem like they have their lives more together as a group of teenage runaways than he does?

He's enamored with it, obsessed with it, the movie speeds up a timeline of something that does in fact happen over the course of a couple weeks, of him hanging out with them, slowly experiencing more and more symptoms of vampirism from the blood he drank the first night, unable to stop coming back, unable to really figure out what it is they have figured out that he doesn't, and hoping that maybe if he stays with them he will eventually feel the same confidence in his own existence that they do.

But couple that with the horrifying reality that he is becoming a monster. His younger brother is terrified of him, the family dog bites him, the horses won't go near him, he pulls a mouse out of a trap freshly dead and squeezes it like a spent juice box into his mouth, he is falling apart at the seams by the time David decides it's time to finish things. And that's what David wants, he wants Michael in a position where he is no longer lucid enough to resist once there's blood in the air.

And it almost fucking works.

I stand by my belief that the entire movie hinges on the beach party where the Lost Boys kill a whole bunch of Surf Nazis. The whole thing, the outcome of the final fight, the failure of Max's plan, all of it hangs on that one night, and whether or not Michael can actually manage not to give into the bloodlust. He does manage, obviously, he leans into the shock and fear and near throws himself out of that tree because he knows that if he doesn't, he will join the blood bath happening not ten feet away. He is starving and exhausted and everything in him is screaming that if he just gave in, it would all feel so much better.

But he doesn't.

He lays in the sand until he cannot hear any heartbeats left.

Lays there clawing his hands into the ground like if he can hold himself still enough then maybe this will stop being real.

Three of the four boys don't pay much mind to this, Dwayne Paul and Marko have slipped back into regular antics despite being coated red. Their faces have returned to normal, their eyes no longer brilliant gold rimmed red, they are laughing and shoving and having a good time.

But David is furious. He's quiet about it, he isn't loudly angry, something I think he probably absorbed from Max over the years, he tells Michael what needs to be done if he wants to stay with them, and then he and the other Lost Boys leave him there in the sand, burnt flesh and ashes drifting down to him on the breeze.

The thing about David is that he realized the night on the train bridge that he didn't care about Max's bullshit plan. He didn't care that he was originally going to feed Michael to Star. He is fixated on getting Michael to join them, not just for himself, not just to keep Star around, but also because there's a refusal to give up in this kid that has him excited, a stubbornness that he wants to break. It's the thing that eventually leads to his death.

ANYWAYS.

I think, perhaps, I have yelled enough.

Oh, shit, favorite character.

I think without any doubt it has to be David. Especially after reading the novelization, the comics, the original prequel script, he's just, he is such an interesting character and his motivations are so obvious despite how much he would appear to hold them close to his chest. He's a root character I can trace a lot of the tropes that carry over in my own antagonists to, and some of my protagonists as well.

double anyways, camp vampires from 1987 my beloved.

Thank you Katie <3

#the magician cries #questions concerns and or rotten tomatoes #piles of vampire bs #tlb #the lost boys

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cipheramnesia · 2 years

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Please can we have the 5 horror movies that will blow your tits clean off?

Okay, I'm gonna pick from my easy favorites here.

1. Hatching, body horror and family trauma, get settled in to be terrified, have your guts churned by gruesomeness, and be emotionally devastated.

2. His House, beautiful cinematography wraps an anguish riddled story about ghosts and emigration.

3. Der Samurai, included for important gender and queerness reasons.

4. The People Under The Stairs, somehow still continues to be the most slept on horror movie about class inequality even though it's 20 years old.

5. Zombie For Sale, more a comedy than horror but horror is allowed to do this.

6. Daniel Isn't Real, do I have to explain again? Okay how about Some Kind of Hate from the same guy it's also pretty good.

7. For The Sake of Vicious, a home invasion movie that is balls to the wall full tilt rock like a punk song 80 minutes or less.

8. Miracle Mile, the best ever meet cute romantic comedy to end with a nuclear explosion.

9. Videodrome, the all time classic quintessential body horror movie.

10. Sound of Violence, kind of a spiritual sequel to Videodrome, but with sound instead of video.

Any one of these oughta rock your world.

#horror movies

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stancy-simp · 2 years

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An underrated aspect of the Stancy dynamic is how it deals with Nancy’s desire to rebel against whatever is expected of her.

At face value within the story this is mostly shown by her outright refusal to end up as a stereotypical housewife in a loveless marriage with no personal ambitions to drive her, like her mother did.

But from a more meta perspective, this could also mean something to us. Because we, the audience, have our own expectations which we project onto Nancy. And these expectations were mostly born of tropes and cliches from certain media properties made popular during the 80’s.

The typical coming of age high school romantic comedy—you know how it goes. The plucky young female protagonist dumps her meathead boyfriend and ends up with the sweet, soft-spoken social reject.

A Stancy endgame would be a middle finger to both of these traps that female protagonists often find themselves in.

Steve would never make Nancy fill the role of a meek little subservient housewife, no matter how many psychos online try to force that narrative. Like many others have said, he would probably fill the role of the stay at home mom lol

And it would artfully subvert the expectation that just because a male character is from a lower middle-class family and is shy, sweet and creative that it’s a forgone conclusion that he will end up ‘getting the girl’ in the end

Nancy Wheeler shouldn’t give a shit what anybody wants her to do, in her world or in ours.

People in the Stranger Things universe want her to watch the kids all day and have a hot meal ready for her husband when he comes home from the office? Because that’s what the girl is supposed to do? She’d tell them to fuck off.

Real life people on social media don’t want her to hook back up with her lunkhead jock first love? Because they think it’s sweeter of her to stay with her broody, artistic wallflower boyfriend? Because that’s what the girl is supposed to do? She’d tell them to fuck off too because it’s none of their business. Hell, she’d probably tell me to fuck off too lmao

Regardless of what you or I think, the only person who can decide who Nancy Wheeler loves is the character of Nancy Wheeler. But claiming that Stancy in particular ‘doesn’t make sense’ is stupid. Romantic feelings often operate outside of ‘what makes sense.’ Relationships aren’t coldly calculated programs that are optimized for convenience. We’re people with feelings, not computers.

I don’t think they even realize it but I’ve seen a lot of post-season 4 hardcore Jancy defenders on other sites keep saying that Jonathan is more relatable than Steve, and that is their primary reasoning for preferring a Jancy endgame.

No disrespect, but I think a lot of people have some heavy attachment to Jancy because they see themselves in Jonathan, and maybe they’ve had a Steve in their own life that threw a wrench in their plans…And they just wish everything could be like in the movies where the dweeb ‘wins.’

And I’m not saying that all Jancy fans are like that — it’s not even most of them — but there is a sizeable group of people who do appear to feel that way. And I don’t think the story should be compromised to appease them.

Sometimes a more realistic approach is the best one, and do you know what’s realistic at this point in the show’s canon? Nancy and Jonathan are shown to he growing apart, and Nancy and Steve are shown to be growing closer — possibly closer than they ever have been, even back when they were dating. They’ve evolved to the point where they’re practically different people, and those people are very much into each other.

People are all “Stancy doesn’t make sense! Nancy would never leave Jonathan for Steve, that doesn’t make sense!”

Why not? Because you say so? Because you have an English major and know the way stories are supposed to go? If she ends up loving Steve more than she loves Jonathan and Steve loves her back, then that is literally all that is required for them to want to try to make it work, and all signs are pointing towards that being the case.

“They’ve been building Jancy up since season 1! It’d be stupid to change course now!”

Why? Because that’s the way stories are supposed to work? Because she’s been dating Jonathan for a couple years and now it’s unthinkable that two teenagers could split up at the ripe old age of fucking seventeen? Talk about sunk cost fallacy. Remember that thing I said about Nancy not wanting to end up stuck in a relationship with someone she doesn’t love?

Folks act as if writers subverting expectations comes across as cheap or disappointing. I think in this particular instance it would be refreshing and satisfying. In a show that is essentially a love letter to the eighties I think Nancy going her own way to oppose popular tropes from that era could be very meaningful.

I hate to break it to some of you, but sometimes the dumb jock turns out to actually be a really great guy. Sometimes people fall out of love. Sometimes the girl of your dreams catches feelings for someone else.

Sometimes love is more complicated than a straight-to-DVD romcom

#stancy #ramblings #my posts #stranger things spoilers #stranger things 4 #stranger things volume 2

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ashintheairlikesnow · 7 months

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I am listening to a horror movie podcast I love while working, one I haven't listened to in a while. Listening to an older episode on The Lost Boys - the 80s vampire horror movie? And discovered a comment that describes the film perfectly:

Every main character seems to be in their own movie and it's the best. Lucy is living some romantic comedy with her two troublesome boys, Sam is in a serious plot where he teams up with his buddies to defend his loved ones against monsters, and Michael is having a VERY complicated - and very violent - sexual awakening... with monsters.

And. Yes. Yup. That nails it.

#ash rambles #the lost boys #vampire fiction #horror movies

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nancywheeeler · 1 year

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any movie recs??? 👀

oh anon, i love you and you have no idea the can of worms you have just opened. heck yeah do i have movie recs...

movies i've loved recently:

Rye Lane {incredible modern rom-com, awesome lead performances, gorgeous to look at, takes the "one chaotic day together" narrative structure and runs full speed with it}

Bound {the wachowskis' first movie! a very intense neo-noir thriller. the directing is giving "we're already conceptualizing the matrix" which means they direct the hell out of it}

Harlan County, USA and American Dream {both essential documentaries by Barbara Kopple about union efforts in Pennsylvania in the 70s and Minnesota in the 80s respectively. if you're then looking for a narrative feature with similar themes, Norma Rae is great}

Duck Soup / The Gold Rush / The General {three classics of the Hollywood Golden Age for one! go with Chaplin's The Gold Rush if you want snowy antics in Alaska, Buster Keaton's The General if you wanna see a guy almost die on a train many, many times, and the Marx Brothers' Duck Soup if you want a sharp-witted satire on fascism and war}

movies i personally never shut about:

All the President's Men {it's so sexy when people are good at their jobs! especially if that job is journalist who takes down the nixon administration! if you want a thriller that isn't bloody or overtly sexual, this is the thriller for you!}

The Full Monty {a comedy i believe everyone needs to watch. a 90 minute delight about a group of unemployed blue-collar guys trying to stage a strip show. given it came out in 1997, it's not nearly as dated as you think it'll be and stars a tumblr sexyman hall of famer, Robert Carlyle}

The Vast of Night {weird to describe a movie as gentle sci-fi horror, but that's exactly what this is. it centers around one eerie night in a 1950s town where the local radio station manager and a telephone operator begin picking up strange signals. it has vibes for days and does a lot with a very simple story and small budget}

Cure {...okay, this movie is not for everyone, but if you're down for a very unsettling horror movie, i cannot recommend this one highly enough. the premise is a detective investigating a series of murderers where each murderer has no memory of committing the crime. one of the best-directed movies i've ever seen. like it'll have you holding your breath in scene after scene}

The Last Waltz {since i recommended two other documentaries, i can't resist also recommending my favorite. it's Martin Scorsese's concert film of The Band's final show together. a great movie to put on in the background while cooking / doing chores since it's mostly musical performances, or you can do what i do and stare at Rick Danko the entire time!}

okay, i'll quit while i'm ahead now. if you're looking for movies in a specific genre (drama, comedy, romance, horror, sci-fi, sci-fi horror, horror comedy, romantic comedy with a dash of horror, throw me anything), let me know! i seriously could talk about movies for the rest of my life.

#ask #i did my best to throw a bunch of different genres in here #i missed just straight-up romance so: casablanca really is one of the greatest movies of all time.#it's the movie i'd recommend to anyone looking for a way into classic hollywood

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bleakbluejay · 7 months

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I did one of these. This is still missing a lot of my favorite movies but I think it gets my brain across. I like to laugh. Under the cut I'll talk more about each selection, if you care to read :3

Feel free to do this yourself and tag me! I love to see what my mutuals are thinking.

Favorite Film/Big Personal Impact/Bad Day Cure: Better Off Dead (1985) is my favorite movie ever. It's a dark comedy about a teen boy named Lane Meyer who, devastated after his girlfriend breaks up with him for someone hotter, tries to kill himself. He fails every time. His friends (the French exchange girl Monique and the weirdo who snorts jell-o Charles de Mar) help him build his confidence in himself and get over her. The sense of humor in this movie is impeccable. It's so surrealist in a time long before surreal comedy became as prominent as it is now. Honest to god, if this movie came out today (with a few mild tweaks, given some social sensibilities between now and then having changed) it would be a total fucking hit. 100% chance if you message me saying "hey I'd like to try out Better Off Dead" I will find time to watch it with you. This movie has had insane impact on my sense of humor and how I see the world.

Best Script: I don't know if I've ever heard a script I've really liked or thought was flawless. All my movies actually have a lot of awkwardness in them. The best script I can think of is Forrest Gump, if we're talking overall quality. Script I like the most is a tie between Better Off Dead, The Lost Boys, and Moulin Rouge.

Favorite Movie Poster: This was a very hard one. My knee-jerk reaction was to select Star Wars OT (either ESB or ROTJ), Indiana Jones (the 3rd one), Back to the Future (any of them), or Adventures in Babysitting. I honestly just love old 80s movie posters in general. I settled on The Thing (1982) because I love the eerieness and stark, simple colors and shapes. It's also my favorite horror movie in general, but there' no slots based on individual genres.

I'll Watch It Some Day: Blade Runner (1982) and Sin City (2005) have been on my watch lists for a very, very long time. I want to watch more noir-typed films, especially ones with gimmicks that mess with visuals (cyberpunk in Blade Runner, and comics in Sin City). I'm so, so bad at watching movies, though LMAO

Best Long Movie (3+ hours): I'd rather roll around in a sea of broken glass than watch a 3 hour long movie. 2.5 hours is my limit. I like Forrest Gump (1994) a lot and I watch it every time I catch it on cable. However... if we're counting limited series that could be interpreted as movies... Color of Magic (2008) is really fucking good. It's split into two parts, with the overall runtime reaching 3 hours. But the fact it's split up feels better on my brain.

You Like, But Everyone Else Hates: 50 First Dates (2004)... I know Adam Sandler is bad. I know. I know. But. This movie is a guilty pleasure for me, as are a couple other of his movies. I know if taken literally and in the real world, this movie is creepy. But I like romantic comedies. I think it's sweet he loves her so much and wants to make it work. And I love Drew's character a lot, too. In a way, I also love how this movie challenges relationships that are "meant to be" -- given how Drew's character is only interested sometimes but hates him others. It puts into perspective "right time, right place/wrong time, wrong place". Leave me alone.

You Hate, But Everyone Else Likes: How to Train Your Dragon (2010) isn't necessarily a bad movie. I had the misfortune of being a 12-13 year old who really liked the books this movie steals its name from, and being an amputee myself. Something about how they totally butchered the story I really loved, and something about how they just decided to make Hiccup an amputee just like that, it rubbed me, personally, the whole ass wrong way. I can't bring myself to like this movie. It is what it is.

Underrated: Shaun of the Dead (2004) rocks hard and fast. It's silly and funny and has incredibly fun cinematography and I associate this movie with me and my mom watching it together in our shared room when I lived in the swamp ass of the United States, Missouri, so I'm extra sentimental about it. There's so many really solid jokes. In general, I love Edgar Wright films, and I love Simon Pegg and Nick Frost films, so together it just makes me go yippeeeee!!!

Overrated: Being a horror fan who doesn't like Halloween (1978) kinda sucks sometimes. I think it does beautiful things with lighting and shadow and camera, and I respect how it influenced horror as a whole genre. But I think the movie is boring as hell and isn't really that good as an overall movie. Watch Texas Chainsaw Massacre instead.

"Why do I like this?": My grandfather showed me Robin Hood (1938) while I visited him this summer. I typically hate older movies because my attention span is terrible. But I liked this one. I loved the costuming and the sets and I loved Errol Flynn as Robin Hood and I loved the colors and all of it. I was having the time of my life. I want to emphasize again how much I love the costuming. I love medieval shit so much that I want to throw up, and having the grace to allow medieval costumes to be relatively accurate (with creative liberties) and colorful? Oh my god. The embroidery on the outfits, dude. Ohhh my god.

Great Soundtrack: I watched Valley Girl (1983) for the first time with my mom like last week and I adored it. I grew up listening to the soundtrack, though, because it was one of my mom's favorites. It's really my style. Honorable mentions for this category are also Garden State (2004) (I didnt watch this, my mom just had the soundtrack CD in her car), and Moulin Rouge (2001), which we'll get into shortly.

That Cinematography...: In an effort to avoid mentioning Edgar Wright movies an extra time (Scott Pilgrim, Shaun of the Dead, and Last Night in Soho have very honorable mentions here)... Fight Club (1999) was so fun visually. It was punchy and wicked and it felt like living in a comic book to me. Vamp (1986) is a movie I saw last week with my mom so it's fresher in my head, but I really loved so many of the shots and the lighting choices. Two scenes in particular stand out to me: 1st, when the strip club ghouls are sitting in their dark office, with green light cast from the blinds shining on them; 2nd, when our protagonist is winding back a bow and arrow with which to kill our antagonist in the sewer, and a shaft of light hit the fletching of the arrow, I was hooting and hollering.

Favorite Protagonist: Picking just one was impossible. Lane Meyer from Better Off Dead (1985) is a psychotic, depressed, emotionally imbalanced teenager with an amazing sense of play and lessons to learn. Simon from Dinner in America (2020) is a blunt, feral, possibly autistic punk kid with a love of fire and a love of beating ableist ass. Ellen Ripley from Alien (1979) is played by Sigourney Weaver, which is a plus in itself, but she's a capable, badass woman who is intelligent and cunning. AND she makes sure to save the cat. Honorable mentions include Quentin Smith from Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) for being my specialist boy, Indiana Jones from Indiana Jones (1981-2023) for being a silly guy who inspired me to look into archaeology as a kid and also punches nazis, Donnie Darko from Donnie Darko (2001) for being another psychotic, depressed, emotionally imbalanced teenager with an amazing sense of play and lessons to learn, and Han Solo from Star Wars (1977-2015) for being stupid and cringefail and funny and a true hero against the Empire.

Favorite Trilogy: Asking me to pick between Star Wars the Original Trilogy and Indiana Jones is an impossible task, dude. They occupy the exact same place in my brain. They were both series that I grew up watching since I was old enough to look at a TV screen, and that influenced my whole sense of self. And they both have Harrison Ford, who is one of my favorite actors. They both have adventure and romance and father problems and a call to corruption we must reject and supernatural forces. They just occupy the same part of my brain.

Biggest Letdown: I watched Bram Stroker's Dracula (1992) like two days ago and it was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. I thought it would be good because it was hyped up, it's full of actors I adore, it's about vampires, it's goth as hell. But other than the beautiful camerawork and special effects and stuff, I just wanted it to end. I was bored at best and disgusted at worst.

Biggest Surprise: When Dinner in America (2020) came out, it didn't find American distribution for a long time. But... I was in a very strong Kyle Gallner phase kickstarted by Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) and Cherry (2010). The idea that he was in a punk love story got my hackles up. Eventually, I was able to see the movie, and it was nothing I thought it would be, but it was perfect for me. I fell in love with it. It's a very surprising movie.

"Not the best, but I'm having fun"/Depressing Movie: Moulin Rouge (2001) had my brain in a twist from ages 12-15. I watched this movie over and over and over, to the point I knew half the script by heart. I was in love with the characters, the movement, the pacing, the story, the music. As I got older, I became more aware that the movie kinda sucks. But I still love it regardless. It's an incredibly fun movie. When it isn't ripping your heart out. I love you Ewan MacGregor and Nicole Kidman. Mwah.

Criminally Overlooked: I love you Lost Boys (1987). I love you SoCal 80s fashion. I love you punk vampires. I love you filthy city aesthetic. I love you grandpa. I love you saxophone man. I love you kids thinking they're badass vampire hunters. I love you milfs.

Favorite Active Director: Edgar Wright rocks lmao. I love his style of scene transitions and camera movement. Nobody does it like him. Any time I'm watching one of his movies, I can fucking tell. I'm a simple guy, you put moving pictures in front of me and it's fun and colorful, I'll clap my hands and holler.

Favorite Animated Movie: This is hard. I picked two. Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) was one of my favorite movies as a kid. It had horses, good music, it's the wild west, and prominent Native protagonists (which were rare when I was a kid...). As an adult, I could recognize more what an awesome movie it was and what a great story about colonialism and fighting back against assimilation it was. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023) is one of the most visually beautiful films I've ever seen. I was totally lost in the animation the whole movie. I think when I see the next in the series, undoubtedly even more beautiful, my eyes will melt and my head will explode, as though I were viewing the Ark of the Covenant in Indiana Jones, beholding something that should never be beheld. There's a lot of honorable mentions to possibly put here, like Ice Age (2002), or The Last Unicorn (1982), or Venture Bros: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (2023), or Lilo & Stitch (2002), or Brother Bear (2003), or Over the Hedge (2006), or Balto (1995) or... the list goes on. As a kid, I was disabled and stayed inside most of the time, so I watched a lot of movies and TV, and have a lot of things I liked.

Not Usually My Thing, But...: Phantom of the Opera (1990) is so... different. They took a lot of creative liberties with the stories and the characters in this one, and I really like those creative liberties. I don't really like Phantom of the Opera. But I like this. I watched it because I was in the middle of a Game of Thrones rewatch, and I was really admiring Charles Dance, and my best friend is a Phantom fan, so I compromised between my special interest and theirs. Charles Dance is an incredible Phantom, in my opinion. I like how in this version, he feels like more of an overly supportive gay best friend to Christine than an obsessed stalker lover. I also love the costumes.

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