July [All]

Penny Dreadful S1, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory, Penny Dreadful S2, Roadhouse [2024], Longlegs, Twisters, Twister, Nothing to Lose, Urban Legend

- Penny Dreadful S1 [2014] - 84

A show I’ve seen before but wanted to revisit since my partner had not, Penny Dreadful is anything but what its two title words would suggest. S1 in particular promises a world that it mostly delivers on and my only real complaint is that one plot is a little more transparent than I’d like… but the reference is worth it overall. All in all, Penny Dreadful is little more in concept than a gothic version of Once Upon a Time, but it’s stellar acting, wonderful sets, and top-notch score really give this show a special place in my extremely small library of shows I’ll return to again and again.

- Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory [1991] - 79

A common favorite among Gundam enthusiasts, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory is better within the context of other Gundam content than it is when being compared to content at large, but it still mostly holds its own. Featuring that truly wonderful 80’s/ 90’s animation and easily the best theme music of any of the series, Stardust mostly begins to fall flat both near the end and when elements of its release time begin to show. Characters that exist solely for the purpose of being gross to women, slews of names and references that hardly matter and are never explained, sides and lines being shifted momentously episode to episode; this show has a lot to fault about it, but it is interesting, fun, and very good to look at when compared against the rest of its kin.

- Penny Dreadful S2 [2015] - 82

A second season to an incredibly strong first, Penny Dreadful S2 only loses some points for me because the concepts get a little more outlandish and the "TV” elements of it become a little stronger. While we get to delve deeply into the backstories of a few characters and events that deepen our connections to them in meaningful ways, the villain of this season is overall less compelling and a touch sillier. Still though, expert performances from all involved keep Penny Dreadful headstone and shoulders above most of the drivel that airs on television.

- Roadhouse [2024] - 43

What the absolute hell even was this movie. While the original certainly wasn’t anything to be particularly proud of, it did have spirit, and it was a good time. Roadhouse 2024 feels like somebody asked Reddit what the major plot-points of the original film were, ignored any answers that didn’t have “fight” within the first three words of the sentence, then asked ChatGPT to write a new script based on that edited information. The plot to this is entirely nonsense and nearly every scene lacks any sort of context or logic, the acting is extremely corny, and every event is so blown out of proportion that it makes 80’s and 90’s action movies look tame by comparison… But not in the way that makes this particularly fun or memorable, just silly.

- Longlegs [2024] - 63

At time of watching [18 July 2024], Longlegs sported a 73 IMDB and a 96/65 Rotten Tomatoes score. At time of writing [1 September 2024], it’s dropped to a 68 and 86/60… and I think that mostly says all I could either. From performances [Maika Monroe especially] to cinematography, Longlegs is actually pretty stellar. It’s a movie that I only made it through because of how engaging she was and how excellently the camerawork that followed her set the various scenes. Beyond those two pieces, however, Longlegs just didn’t uh… have very long legs to stand on. Story wise, Longlegs was vaguely interesting but mostly felt like a castrated The Silence of the Lambs with some weird supernatural angles that were virtually never explored, explained, or given justification, characters were difficult to engage with because we weren’t given any real reasons to care about them, and the ending especially gave too many moments of strange inaction that left me feeling “what…” instead of “oh no” to really leave any sort of lasting impression. Overall, I do hope that Osgood Perkins keeps making films, but this one was just very very bland.

- Twisters [2024] - 57

Twisters is a movie that requires 0 thoughts at all times to enjoy in any way, shape, or form. While I was watching it I was engaged in exactly this way and walked out giving it a mid-7. Upon any sort of reflection, though, the entire thing falls apart into pieces so tiny and sharp and stupid that the effort to put them back together into a meaningful or intriguing plot is twice the effort it would be to write an entirely different film. Most 25-minute children’s television programming offers more compelling stakes than the entirety of Twisters exorbitant 2-hour runtime with its noncommittal, blank-slate, meaningless, and motivation free characters, total lack of consequences for any given action, and a plot that has no real destination; making the journey aimless and slack every step of the way. Thinking about it now… even a 57 might be generous for this one.

- Twister [1996] - 74

Having hadn’t seen the original in many-several years, I decided to venture back to it after watching the 2024 release and… while the OG is significantly wackier in a lot of ways [cow], it also has a compelling plot, interesting and meaningful characters, conflicts that make sense and matter, and stakes that the audience can both relate to and make sense of [another cow… no, I think that’s the same one]. There’s actually development through this film’s runtime and at almost exactly 10-minutes shorter than the new one, somehow also manages to do a ton more within that frame. It is certainly a little sillier at times, but it also has a lot more character, spirit, and personality. If you haven’t sat down to listen to Philip Seymour Hoffman say “Loser! Move on!” in a while, I definitely implore you to do so now.

- Nothing to Lose [1997] - 65

Almost exactly a month out from this one and I remember very little about it except that I wasn’t offended by its stupidity or terribly bored… and I guess those are good grounds for a 65 “almost par” rating. It was funny enough, tried enough, and just generally enough to get an “almost pass”… and that’s basically all I can say about it.

- Urban Legend [1998] - 72

Just as good as any of the other 80’s/ 90’s/ 00’s “whodunit” slashers, I’m really not sure why Urban Legend gets so beaten on in online reviews [56 IMDB, 28/37RT]. I guess coming two years after the original Scream could make it feel derivative and disingenuous, but I just watched all of those schlocky things last year and the only one that stands as worthwhile is the first anyway… but all of those [to include the truly horrendous Scream 6] get significantly more love than Urban Legend. Was it great? No. Was it memorable? Not really. Was it any worse than anything else in this genre? Absolutely not. If you like Scream-style movies and haven’t seen this one, I’d almost guarantee that you’d [at worst] have a good time with it. If not, go ahead and skip it.