Let's All Go to the Lobby

Posted by: @dannyboy121070

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 I'll probably catch this on streaming. I love the TOY STORY films, but it's like a switch got flipped a few years ago, and I really have no desire to watch animated family films anymore. Another sign of old age/crankiness, I guess.

I can relate 100%. I have to make myself sit through them anymore. And I don't. Toy Story 5 is the first one I've had any interest in watching since...Toy Story 4.

 

My son and I caught JACKASS: BEST AND LAST this past week, and we both had a great time. The film relied way too much on clips and stunts from the past movies (Which my son and I just binge-watched earlier this year), so that was disappointing, but the new stuff was fun. We laughed a lot, and even got emotional a few times watching the old crew coming to terms with the idea that this might be the last hurrah. 

Checked out Obsession (2026), which is being hailed as some new modern horror classic, and left rather underwhelmed. The film follows Bear, a love-lorn sad-sack type, as he pines for his childhood friend, Nikki. Losing the nerve to express his feelings, Bear opts for making a wish on magical trinket called a "one wish willow" that Nikki will love him more than anyone else in the world. What results is a Monkey's Paw-type tale, where Nikki's "love" spirals out of control in various ways.

To put it bluntly, the film didn't work for me. The plot becomes repetitive after Nikki's falls under the spell, resulting in scene after scene of Nikki doing insane stuff and Bear pleading for her to stop. Unfortunately, the weirdness starts at like a 9 out of 10, so the film gives itself little room to ratchet up the terror.  Combined with some of the "scary" shots going on way too long, this threatens each moment to lean into silliness instead of terror, while characters rarely behave in a manner that would makes sense when confronted with Nikki's behavior. 

The film does tip its head towards dealing with themes of loneliness, isolation, agency and consent, but seems content to point to the theme without really delving into it. There are some truly interesting moments in the film, particularly one where Bear has a conversation with a sleeping Nikki, but these compelling moments are followed up on to any degree. The ending swerves into some interesting areas, but ultimately, the film feels more like a YouTube short stretched out to feature length. 

Director Curry Barker shows a lot of promise and I'd be curious to see what he does next, along with what else the cast does. 

My wife is away dealing with a sick parent, so I gave my son a choice of seeing OBSESSION in a theater, or buying it on-demand, which is actually cheaper than a trip to the theater, lol. He chose on-demand and Grubhub, so we're going to have a guy-movie night tomorrow. I have an Amazon credit that should cover the film, a 35% off Grubhub offer, and low expectations about the film, lol. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Posted by: @dannyboy121070

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My wife is away dealing with a sick parent, so I gave my son a choice of seeing OBSESSION in a theater, or buying it on-demand, which is actually cheaper than a trip to the theater, lol. He chose on-demand and Grubhub, so we're going to have a guy-movie night tomorrow. I have an Amazon credit that should cover the film, a 35% off Grubhub offer, and low expectations about the film, lol. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Curious to hear your thoughts after you see it.  I’m definitely in the minority on this one.

 Also, sorry to hear about the sick parent. Hope everything is okay.

 

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Curious to hear your thoughts after you see it.  I’m definitely in the minority on this one.

 Also, sorry to hear about the sick parent. Hope everything is okay.

 

Thanks! To put it in context, when I first started dating my wife (20 years ago, in a few months!), she rushed me over to meet her mother, because she was "dying". Twenty years later, she's still dying. She'll outlive all of us, lol.

 

Finally got around to watching the 2022 movie Moonfall. A lot of bad CGI and overall just an action film. I enjoyed John Bradley in the film but there were massive plot holes and not supported well by the actors and/or script. 

It filled a few hours of my day while I had the television to myself. So that was a bonus. 

The movie gods smiled down upon me and our local drive-in movie theater was showing Spider-Man: Brand New Day, so my wife and I caught it on opening night.  I was happy to see the drive-in packed with people that night. There's only 16 drive-in theaters currently operating in California, so I like to support whenever I can and I'm always thrilled to see the theater getting business. But I digress.

As for the film itself, Marvel delivered a solid follow-up to their first Tom Holland-led Spider-Man trilogy. Set roughly four years after Spider-Man: No Way Home, the new film is a heavier, slightly more somber take on the web-slinger as Peter Parker struggles in the aftermath of his decision in the finale of the prior film. I'm actually a really big fan of the awkward and rather naïve Peter Parker of the prior trilogy, so the transition of Holland's Spidey into a more confident character felt initially like a little bit of a letdown. It didn't feel quite like the character I hoped to revisit. However, as I've sat with it a for a few days, it's really grown on me.  It's also great to see the Scorpion show up in costume after the character was teased nine years ago (!) in Homecoming. I can't talk too much about the main villain without risking spoilers, but I liked it quite a bit. 

The Spider-Man/Punisher team-up was fantastic. Bernthal's Frank Castle is slightly less intense than in his previous outings and might give viewers of One Last Kill a bit of whiplash. However, in my opinion, they nailed the dynamic of the two characters from the comics and left me wanting more team-ups between the two in the future. It was also cool to see the Hulk back in all his rampaging glory, though since I hadn't watched She-Hulk, I had no idea what happened to "Professor Hulk" from Avengers: Endgame. A little in film recap would've been nice. 

Ultimately, in our post-film discussion, I gave the movie a B+, but I feel like it might grow in my estimation on a rewatch, and I will be rewatching it in the future. 

The movie has also made an INSANE amount of money. The film opened domestically to a larger weekend than Avengers: Endgame and worldwide has made almost $1 billion. I'm curious to see what the drop will be over the second weekend, but considering Brand New Day will be sliding into IMAX theaters this week, there could be some more good news on the horizon for Marvel.

In preparation for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, I did revisit of some other Marvel films.  I'll try to keep this short and sweet. 

Captain America: Civil War might have actually been a little bit better on this third watch. I always liked it previously, but felt it paled in comparison to Winter Soldier, which it does, but is such a solid film on it's own. Avengers: Infinity War and Endgame are quite literally two of my wife's favorite films, so we watched these yet again and, man, these are some tightly plotted films. Every scene moves the films forward. They are lean and mean and lots of fun.

Followed this up with the original Tom Holland MCU Spider-Man trilogy. I remember liking Homecoming, but it's been so long since I've seen it that I forgot just how much fun the movie is. It doesn't hurt when you've gotten Michael Keaton as the heavy in the film. I do remember not liking Far From Home that much.  I didn't think it was bad, just kinda okay, but this go around I liked it quite a bit more. It's still my least favorite of the trilogy, but better than my first impression of it. And, of course, No Way Home, which pulled off a stunt of a plot that shouldn't work but absolutely does and is so, so good.

Finally, we ended our Spider-Man preparations by watching Punisher: One Last Kill. Both the action and Bernthal's performance is intense, but in the end, the plot felt a little slight. Hopefully after the success of Brand New Day, we'll see a Bernthal-led Punisher film in the future.  

@sock_monkey We went and saw the new Spidey film yesterday, and my wife and I were shocked when we arrived...we have NEVER, in twenty years of going to that theater, had to park so far away. The place was PACKED. Spider-Man was playing in seven theaters, THE ODYSSEY was in three, plus the IMAX. The concessions line was almost out the door. Our particular screening was at full capacity. I guess super-hero fatigue might be a thing, but there seems to be no Spider-Man fatigue! Maybe Spidey will dethrone AVATAR as #1...

 

The whole Frank/Peter dynamic was amazing...I'd love to see Spidey interact with Frank and Daredevil for a street-level mission sometime. The whole Hulk situation is kind of a mess...I gave upon why, I just go along with whatever iteration we get, and figure "shit happened between films"...and all the brief villain cameos were great, especially Tombstone, who has always been a favorite of mine. I'd love to see him be featured on DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN. 

I completely forgot to mention Tombstone! I was excited to see him pop up as well. He was also one of my favorites from the comics. For some reason or another, my local grocery store growing up carried Spectacular Spider-Man instead of Amazing, and I caught a lot of the tail end of Conway's run that had Tombstone in it.  Due to that, I always thought he was a bigger villain than he actually was. A role in Born Again would be great.

As for your comments in the spoiler tag,

The Hulk is mostly a mess because they can't give him his own film and they jumped over the whole Banner/Hulk integration storyline in Endgame. Maybe they'll get this fixed at some point because I do really enjoy Ruffalo as Banner/Hulk.

 

Looks like that character showed up at the tail end of my collecting days. Had to look that one up. 

Posted by: @sock_monkey

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and I caught a lot of the tail end of Conway's run that had Tombstone in it.

 

THE DOG STARS, Ridley Scott's film adaption of Peter Heller's fantastic book of the same title (and recently reprinted in deluxe format by Lividian), is due out August 28th. I hope it's good, and I hope, too, that it's able to capture the same quiet themes of humanity and hope that the book did, and not be a paint-by-numbers, loud apocalyptic action film. The trailer seems to suggest it does ramp up the violence and drama, which is understandable for film, but I just hope it's able to retain a fair balance of the other as well.

The Dog Stars | Official Trailer | In Theaters August 28

Ron, I said it looks like they took a quiet book and made it a very loud movie.  By the way, a friend of mine told me they are making a movie of A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World.  I know you were lukewarm on it, but I have hopes.

Posted by: @dannyboy121070

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Posted by: @sock_monkey

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While I tend to like Edgar Wright films--Shaun of the Dead is, of course, a classic, but Baby Driver won me over despite not finding the lead actor very charismatic and Last Night in SoHo is rather slept on in my opinion--but I finally got around to The Running Man (2025) and, man, did this movie just not work for me. The movie is pitched at an 11 at all times, lending a melodramatic feel to what should be grounding moments, and the bad guys are rather forgettable. Even bigger issues than that is it didn't feel like Glenn Powell's character really was in danger at all times nor did the character have anything even remotely resembling a character arc. It wasn't even that much fun on an action level. Overall, a pretty big dud for me. GRADE: D-

 I'm a HUGE Wright fan, but I agree completely, this film just did not work for me. BABY DRIVER is a film that I can surf to at any point, and I end up just sitting and watching the rest of it. SUCH an amazing film...The car chases are thrilling, so it was a real letdown to not feel any of that in THE RUNNING MAN. I think the story was fine as a book, but the original film made a big improvement by compressing the timeline. Running and running and running for a month, or whatever it was, was just too much. The Arnold film was much faster paced.

  That said, my son loved the film.

 

I saw The Running Man in the theater last fall, and it was a complete mess.

Seems like they tried to thread the needle between the dark grittiness of the book and the over the top campiness of the Schwarzenegger movie, and failed miserably on both counts.

B