CS Film Club II

I guess that settles it. Drac watches O.G. Roadhouse. Dooms watches the remake.

I’m enjoying this partnership with PhantomKnight.

Shit! I just watched half of Wonka just to knock it out.

Well if Dracula locks in on Road House OG then I'll watch the remake as well (although I also have never seen Road House OG).

Too late.  You already started Wonka.  Finish it, you coward.

Wonka

When I watched the trailer for Wonka I was thoroughly underwhelmed.  There was nothing that appealed to me, it didn't seem to be in my wheelhouse and looked like a typical 2024 film; a random property stuffed with CGI, forced humor and questionable casting choices.  Director Paul King has gained favor due to his successful Paddington movies and now he tries his hand at Wonka, a franchise that's not exactly 'in' at the moment but some of us 30s and 40s folks have pretty fond memories of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, memories that don't exactly translate to Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Where the first movie was weirdly enticing and the Burton movie was irritating, King's Wonka just feels banal and uninspired, just using familiar characters to go through a stock story while using obvious CGI as a crutch.

As an extremely simple prequel to the story most of us are already familiar with, Willy Wonka arrives at...London?  Paris?  I don't think we know but the center of his focus is the Gallery Gourmet, a place where all 'chocolatiers' thrive.  Unfortunately the other chocolatiers led by the conniving Slugworth (callback!) who, along with the police captain in his pocket, plots to keep Wonka out of the chocolate business.  Wonka fortunately has a house full of fellow lodgers who are anxious to help him but are constantly looking over their shoulders for Mrs. Srubitt and Mr. Bleacher, the two landlords who have screwed them all into eternal indentured servitude.  But thanks to Wonka's hat and some silly hijinx he's able to win over the hearts and minds of the Londoner...er, Parisia...uhh, non-descript citizens of the world and finally opens his famed factory.

Wonka is mind-bending in a way because it's all so average, so run of the mill and has nothing memorable about it.  At the same time it's hard to point out what could have made this better because it doesn't feel like there's anything that could be done other than simply not making the movie.  Nothing is egregiously offensive, it all just sits there on the screen.  The musical numbers aren't memorable or catchy.  The characters are one-note and derivative.  It doesn't even feel like they ever decided which direction they wanted to take Chalamet's portrayal of Wonka.  It's as though they didn't want him to be a regular guy but didn't want him to be totally insane so instead they tried to run him down the middle which was probably the worst of those three choices.  He's weird but not weird enough, he's sort of a regular guy but in no way relatable.  I thought Chalamet was miscast even when watching the trailer because in this role he has the feel of a high school senior in his class production of the story.  He feels like he's just playing himself and doesn't feel like he ever makes the role his own.  Not saying he had to go off the rails like Johnny Depp but there doesn't feel like there's a whole lot to his performance.  At the same time I acknowledge Chalamet didn't have the greatest material to work with so I give him the benefit of the doubt.  Hugh Grant also made waves as the Oompa Loompa when the trailer dropped but he is only featured in a handful of scenes and is really shoehorned into the story serving no real purpose.  It definitely has the feel of filmmakers saying amongst themselves 'alright but we gotta work in the Oompa Loompas somehow' without really fleshing out the plan.  And that's this entire movie, something that just feels like a 2 hour first pass at everything.  I wish I could say I found this movie at least a little charming but I didn't really like it nor did I really dislike it.  It's a movie that exists to be watched and forgotten and those are the movies that drive me nuts.

C so says Doomsday

Now the question, to Road House or not to Road House?

A little of column A.
A little of column B.

Don't spoil it!

Am I following Doomsday on Letterboxd??





Get the fuck outta here. McGregor stole the show.

And if I don’t see Golden Stake nominations, Dracula better be prepared for the hell I’ll unleash.





donny’s boy Scott Adkins would have elevated this to an A-.

Road House (1989)
I was both pretty aware of Road House’s reputation going into it but also not quite sure what to expect. I knew that it was considered something of a cult classic but I wasn’t quite sure what the nature of its campy appeal was going to be. Seeing it I think the movie I’d most readily compare it to is actually Showgirls, firstly both because both are about hospitality workers who take their rachet-ass jobs way to seriously, but more because they’re both movies that have a “so-bad-they’re-good” quality to them despite having been made on a large-ish Hollywood budget and are made in such a way where you’re never quite sure how much their creators are in on the joke. As that comparison goes I’d say Showgirls is probably the more crazy and out there movie and also probably the more compellingly filmed one given that it had the talent of Verhoeven behind it and that it gives more of a vibe that it’s trying to say something, but I’m more inclined to believe that Road House is entirely self-aware. One of the weird things about Road House is that it kind of feels like a time paradox: it’s both “totally 80s” while also dealing in subject matter that would have made more sense as a Burt Reynolds vehicle in the mid to late 70s, it carries itself like it’s Lethal Weapon but the stakes are the fate of a rowdy bar rather than some kind of international drug ring. That they somehow managed to get Patrick Swayze to star in this weird-ass movie right between Dirty Dancing and Ghost, basically the height of the guy’s fame, adds to the oddness of it all. And the dude really commits, maybe more than he should. And despite all the weirdness, most of the action spectacle is not half bad, in another context it would kind of whip ass. This one’s kind of a tough call, as I do think that looked at outside the lens of camp a lot of this is in fact quite bad, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t find some entertainment to it and it wasn’t necessarily from laughing at it.
*** out of Five

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DRACULA


Furious 7

Over the weekend I found myself on a 4 hour plane flight and limited viewing options to keep me entertained. Lots of kids stuff I could watch on my laptop like Migration or Sing 2 but then near the end of the list I saw them. All the Fast and Furious movies. I felt like it was divine intervention, a gift from above that was shaving a year off my F&F window. I even thought 'could I squeeze two of these in?' but didn't want to push my luck. It's enough of an assault on the senses watching two of these movies in a week, I was apprehensive to try and make it three. Nevertheless, I knew that it was destiny for me to tackle the next Fast movie in line, Furious 7.

Right off the bat I liked this better than Fast and Furious 6 for one reason; they finally have a bona fide villain with some semblance of a motive and Jason Statham being his usual Statham self as Deckard Shaw fits pretty nicely here. In fact I rather enjoyed the opening scene where he’s visiting his brother, Owen Shaw from the previous movie (remember that nobody dies in this franchise), and we follow him to reveal that he’s basically destroyed this entire hospital and wrecked every single person inside. Outlandish, sure, but it was a good way to set the tone. It gives you someone to root against rather than a one dimensional drug dealer that we've seen time and time again in this series. This new Shaw starts going after the Fast gang and before long he and Dom are about to go toe to toe before government official 'Nobody' intervenes. From here on the movie becomes a Mission: Impossible style fetch quest where they have to find a hacker, then the hacker's drive that was very stupidly sold and then they spend the third act outrunning a drone. I've said it before but it's incredible how far we've come in this series. We started by watching a team of Los Angeles locals boost trucks and race sexy cars. Now they're the best drivers, the best hackers, the best fighters and are asked to go on international government missions that would be out of Delta Force's league. They hack into vaults, they outwit entire governments and still manage to make it home in time for family dinner in Los Angeles. Well, everyone except Ronda Rousey. Between this and Expendables 3 I think this was when they were testing the waters to see if she had movie star potential. I don't think that panned out quite like they had hoped but that's where professional wrestling came in.

I know it’s easy and expected to talk about the absurdity of this franchise and I think after 7 movies I’m finally starting to get it. The lack of laws of physics and gravity wholly exist in this universe, why even question it at this point? Why even mention the HALO jumps with armored sports cars? Why bring up jumping a $3 million car between 150 story buildings in Abu Dhabi? Or flexing your way out of an arm cast? It's a pointless exercise and instead if you make the decision to invest your time in this franchise you should just try to see which direction they're going to take this 'family' and how many people they're going to add over the course of the series. The most amount of credit I can give Furious 7 is that at least this movie attempted to take things up a notch compared to the last installment even if those things are just as hair-brained as you can imagine. I know thanks to trailers that I have submarines and John Cena to look forward to which is mind numbing to think about but such is my lot in life as I continue to go through this franchise.

B- so says Doomsday

I double-checked. I do follow you.

Also, what’s this bullshit about PG Cooper having 2,000 followers?? Have they heard of ComingSoon.boards.net?