Tag Archives: movies

Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Posted on by Henry

Visually, I love Atlantis: The Lost Empire. It’s gorgeous.

I love Mike Mignola’s style, which permeates everything in this movie. I’m very fond of his Hellboy comics, and had no trouble with this movie’s resulting un-Disney-like animation. Admittedly, some of the animation choices felt a little weird, like the animators struggled at times to convert the character designs into moving figures in ways that felt good. Yet at other points (especially in the movie’s climactic fight scenes) those same characters moved fluidly and naturally through a variety of perspectives, surpassing my expectations beautifully. My love of Mignola’s designs smoothed over the awkward bits for me, and I was very happy overall. If you don’t like Mignola’s art style, or you don’t like the movie’s character designs, you might not enjoy this as much as I did.

Narrative-wise, this movie is… fine? It’s both good and bad.

I love adventure stories, which Atlantis is. I love them so much that I’ll put up with a lot. That said…

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Vicarious Squirmy Awfulness

Posted on by Henry

I used to think I loved adventure stories because I’d grown up on them. The truth, I’ve realized, is a bit stranger. I’d rather watch bloody violence and explosions than sit through those gut-wrenching nail-biting moments of social awkwardness that fill so many romances, dramas, and comedies. Those moments fill me with a vicarious squirmy awfulness—the characters may experience emotional or social anguish, but my response is visceral, often literally painful. 

When I last reflected on this in my review of Trying…

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Time Cut (Netflix 2024)

Posted on by Henry

Time travel and slasher movies seem like a rare combination, but there might be something in the air. Last week I watched Totally Killer and really enjoyed it. I think the universe heard my enthused raving, because Time Cut just came out.

I have, in the course of a few short days, seen the number of time travel slasher movies I’m aware of double. Maybe this is the new Moore’s Law and next week I’ll learn about two more? Anyway, I liked Totally Killer a lot, so I had to give Time Cut a try.

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Totally Killer (2023)

Posted on by Henry

Totally Killer has been sitting on my to-watch list since it came out last year.

I’m glad I finally got around to watching it. I had a damn good time. I’m very aware, however, that I was watching this movie through the lens of my love for time travel movies. I have a weakness for them. I feel less comfortable rating this movie as part of the slasher genre—I don’t have the context, it’s not a genre I know as well.

Yes, in case you missed it, this is a time travel movie that was caught in a horrific lab accident and fused with a slasher flick: teenage Jamie Hughes from 2023 is thrown back to 1987 and tries to save her mother and her mother’s friends from a serial killer, without creating a paradox that will erase herself from existence. Your mileage may vary, but I…

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Megamind (2010)

Posted on by Henry

I’ve now seen this movie a second time. I liked it the first time I saw it, and had fond memories of the movie. I don’t remember where I was the first time I watched it, though I don’t think I saw it in theaters. Regardless, it was years ago.

I just watched it again this last week with my niblings. I’m unsettled.

Megamind is a good, fun movie. Mostly. It’s so painfully close to just being a good fun movie, and it still can be if I only empathize with the main character Megamind. That’s probably what I did the first time I watched this.

This time around, I saw things from Roxanne Ritchi’s perspective. In so doing, I realized that Megamind is a horror movie. Now I can’t un-see it.

Is that a bad thing? Well…

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Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Posted on by Henry

It’s not a good sign for a movie’s longevity when my biggest takeaway from a film is that I really enjoyed some of the other films that it referenced.

After watching Deadpool, I was tempted to watch it again. Watching this movie, all I could think of was how I might want to go back and watch Logan, or maybe X-Men: First Class. I would even enjoy watching some of the other X-Men movies.

Previous Deadpool movies have managed to simultaneously deliver snarky commentary, cheeky references, large quantities of superhero movie violence, and plots that feel emotionally grounded enough and central enough to give me a sense of continuity and investment. This movie…

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Road House (2024)

Posted on by Henry

Road House was… fine. Is that underselling it? I’m not sure, the context in which I saw it makes it hard to judge. It did some things really well, but felt extremely predictable. Maybe my viewing experience was skewed: I watched this on the same flight where I saw Madame Web, and I watched the two movies back to back. Thus, I can’t talk about this movie without talking about Madame Web again.

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Madame Web (2024)

Posted on by Henry

Madame Web held so much promise. Instead, it felt… uneven.

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Underdog Sports Movie Showdown, The Boys in the Boat vs The Long Game

Posted on by Henry

I flew this week. On my flight, I watched The Boys in the Boat and The Long Game.

Each movie is a triumphalist underdog sports movie. Each movie is dedicated to a sport that I know little about. I think I’m marginally more fond of or impressed by crew (specifically, eight-person rowing teams) than golf. I like the drama of team sports, and appreciate the skill required to work that smoothly together, even if I have little interest in crew in general. I admire the skill and tenacity of golfers, certainly, but if I had to pick between a movie about golf and a movie about crew, well…

I’d pick the boat.

I’ve heard that you’re supposed to be more prone to enjoying movies that you watch on an airplane. Perhaps that’s because they pull you out of the noisy, cramped tin can soaring through the air at uncomfortable speeds and deposit you (for a limited time) in some other world of dramatic and emotional experience. Regardless of whether what I’ve heard is true, it can’t rescue a movie from simply being worse than its competition.

And “worse than the competition” is a galling and ironic position for a triumphant underdog sports movie to be in, don’t you think?

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The Three Musketeers: D’artagnan (movie, 2023)

Posted on by Henry

I saw this months ago, and only just realized I’d never mentioned it here.

I thought The Three Musketeers: D’artagnan was fabulous. Maybe I was brain-addled, or drugged without my knowledge, but by the end of the film I felt happy, and satisfied, and excited, and… just wow. I was floating. I really liked this movie. It’s one of the rare movies I’ve seen that made me immediately want to watch it again.

If you hate swashbuckling, swordplay, skullduggery, or the idea of watching a combination spy thriller and political drama full of swordfights set in 17th century France… clearly we have different tastes.

On the other hand, if any of that sounds fun to you… this might be the best version of The Three Musketeers I’ve seen.

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