The Road To 3K
For as long as I can remember I’ve been a movie lover. Engorging on any and every movie I could get my hands on. Didn’t matter the genre or the rating. I just wanted to imbibe as much of it as I could and like other nerds before me I have kept an excel sheet of every single one of those films. Its allowed me to chart my progress and see just what kinds of movies I love the most. From all time classics to Grade A shit sandwiches I’ve seen my share putting my total at 2,820 unique films. A mere 180 films from a pretty big milestone. With that in mind I thought i’d do a series of posts here to let you in on which films I’ve watched recently to get here and which ones I’ve got in the pipe on my quest to 3K. To get the journey started I’ll share with you the last six movies I’ve watched and why and the next 6 or so movies that I plan on watching in the next few days.
I started off last Friday by watching the one new release in theaters. The video game adaptation of Mortal Kombat, and it was about on par for me as Godzilla V Kong was. The action fights are really cool and everything else is dogshit. With the exception of Kano, the dialogue in this film is atrociously on the mark with no subtlety and all the exposition you can gorge on.
Also, spoiler alert, there’s no actual tournament in the movie. That’s right. The adaptation of a tournament style fight to the death includes no tournament style fight to the death. Interesting choice.
The next night my girlfriend and I watched the new Netflix science fiction film Stowaway. It stars Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim (of Lost fame) and Toni Colette as three astronauts who, on their two year mission to mars, find a stowaway on board. Things become perilous when they discover the ship is only designed to support three life forms and not four, so not everyone is making it to Mars. It’s a super tense, very realistic take on science fiction terror and it hit my sweet spot. There is a super tense scene outside the spaceship at one point that really made the movie. Totally recommend that one for anyone looking for a good movie on Netflix.
This past Tuesday I watched another science fiction space travel film in Voyagers. This one a retelling of Lord of The Flies but in space, which had me I’m not going to lie. I didn’t even see a trailer. I just heard that tag line and was like sign me up. The movie is alright. Not the worst sci-fi movie but nothing extraordinary either. It follows all the beats you expect in this tale but there is some solid acting by the villain of the movie. I was just waiting for Tye Sheridan to kill him the whole movie.
After that, my brother told me about a movie on Netflix called Synchronic. Yet another science fiction film, this one dealing with time travel though and I am a huge time travel fan so this was right up my alley. I was planning on watching it on Netflix but found it for just ten bucks at Best Buy on my way home from work so picked it up for the collection.
The film has a really awesome premise in that people are taking this drug that is opening up a neural pathway in their brain that allows them to register time and they literally time travel into the past for seven minutes and many of the people who go never return. So Anthony Mackie and Jaime Dornan are two paramedics who are seeing dead people turn up left and right from this drug and then Jaime Dornan’s daughter goes missing after taking it so Anthony Mackie starts taking the drug so he can go back in time and bring her back. It’s really trippy and visually nuts really hammering home the effects of the drug. It’s definitely a must watch for any sci-fi fans.
With the third one coming out this summer, and everyone telling me they’re some of the best horror films out there, I finally summoned the courage to return to horror and watch the two Conjuring films. I usually stay away from horror as I watch pretty much watch all my movies stoned and being stoned and getting scared are not two things conducive to each other, so I avoided them. But these ones I’ve wanted to give a shot since everyone raves about them and boy did they deliver.
The first one was my hands down favorite. In fact, I’d go so far as to say it’s one of the best movies period. James Wan created such a perfectly horrific atmosphere in that film. There wasn’t a second that wasn’t dripping with tension and when shit finally hits the fan it just builds and builds until you feel like you’re gonna explode. It’s so good.
The second one is good in that it manages to retain that scary atmosphere and really ratchet up the scares but the movie collapses if you even take a second to think about the plot, which trades in the first ones simplistic nature for a movie way too lofty to remain afloat. For reasons never explained, the Nun (the bad demon) wants to kill Mr. Warren (Patrick Wilson) so first it shows up to Mrs. Warren (Vera Farmiga) in a dream telling her her name and revealing that the she wants to kill Mr. Warren. So her way to do that is to kidnap an old spirit and force him to haunt his family house to lure the Warrens to the house wherein she could then kill Mr. Warren by convincing him to jump out the second floor window onto the sharp staff of a broken tree. Interesting choice.
And with those two movies it brought me to my current total of 2820.
I plan to up that count by at least three for sure by the end of the weekend. There are no wide releases in theaters this weekend but Netflix is dropping two films and Amazon one so I will be watching those for sure.
Netflix is dropping Things Heard & Seen with Amanda Seyfried that looks like it could be a creepy thriller but from early reception and my screenwriting intuition, this movie feels like it’s easily gonna be the worst of the bunch by a large margin with a story that folds in on itself as we reach the nonsensical conclusion. But I remain hopeful it can surprise me.
The other Netflix film being released is The Mitchells VS The Machines which I am super excited for. I remember seeing the trailer for this pre COVID and it looked so silly and well animated. I love animated movies and this one looks like it can definitely join the collection of great animated classics we’ve seen the last few years.
Last on the new releases line up is my personal most hyped for the weekend and that’s the film, Tom Clancy’s Without Remorse film starring Michael B. Jordan. I love me some Tom Clancy action and putting Michael B. Jordan in a starring role in one of them is such an inspired idea. I really hope this leads to a cross over film with him and John Krasinki’s Jack Ryan. Build that Tom Clancy universe Amazon.
If I find the time I may try to sneak some old movies in their too. I just bought the Raid 2 movie collection and Peninsula, the sequel to Train to Busan, so hopefully I can watch at least one of those because I love me some foreign cinema. I also have no idea what I’m going to make my 3,000th movie. If it should be a new wide release or an old all time classic I’ve never seen. We’ll see as we get closer but let me know what you think. Who knows? If it’s a good one I may just do it.
Until next time, Adventure On!