Hot Takes

It's funny, but I have these exact types of feelings about the first two Alien movies, just in reverse.  To me, Aliens is a good, solid, well-made action flick, but nothing I go bonkers for, whereas I consider Alien an excellent movie all around.

Kind of building off that...

I re-watched the first Terminator on Blu Ray last night, and I can now say with confidence that I much prefer that to T2.  Terminator's more horror/thriller vibe is more effective for me because it gives it more atmosphere and suspense, as opposed to the slam-bang action approach of the sequel -- still good in its own right, though.  But The Terminator just engages me more because it's a more tightly-paced film and it doles out exposition in a good way, and like I said, I like the feel of it more than the second.

T2 is better as a kid. T1 works better as an adult.

I still love the fate vs free will narrative of T2. The story is good, if not ruined by a) the retrospective annoyance of Edward Furlong's performance and b) T3 shitting all over the hope of T2.

And that's coming from a T3 defender. In a vacuum, that last 10-15 minutes is fantastic, but thebseries should've stopped at two movies.

T1 and T2 are both awesome.

I agree with Drac, and it's why I said retrospective. I felt the same as Neverending for a while, but Furlong isn't really much different than most kid roles in the 90's.

It's also why the kids that are in Jurassic World don't bother me that much now.

Because one has the same title as the other but with a "2" after it?

GAH DRAC

Alien > Aliens
T2 > T1
Weekend At Bernie's > Weekend At Bernie's 2

These are the three covenants by which we stand.

Blessed be the Lord, and his name be:

3 > -3

I had forgotten how preposterous Absolute Power is, even for Trump's America, although its been 6 months. Basic premise is that the U.S. President, played by Gene Hackman (a dead person according to Doomsday), has a mistress killed and the secret service goes through great lengths to cover it up.

Let's break it down.

Clint Eastwood plays a jewel thief who witnesses the murder. I don't think the President would go to anyone's home to get laid. You need a controlled environment. Even Bill Clinton got his dick sucked in the White House.

The Secret Service kills the woman because things got rape-y and she tried to fight back. The Secret Service heared the commotion, barged in and killed her. There was probably better ways to cover this up than cleaning things up and getting the heck out of there. Have they not seen Forensic Files? This shit never ends well.

Lastly, Clint Eastwood as a jewel thief? This is the era that gave us Sean Connery as Catherine Zeta Jones lover, so I shouldn't complain too much, but geesh.

Keaton didn't win that year, Eddie Redmayne did.  

I thought Gyllenhall was a little miscast as he's supposed to be playing this millennial from hell who's just trying to enter into the workforce and that's undercut a little by the fact that they cast a 34-year-old, he did a pretty good job aside from that but it is a problem.  The movie itself, it's good stuff for the most part.  Some of the jabs it takes at local news seem a bit... dated and obvious, but if you look at it more as an allegory for cutthroat business practices in the abstract it works pretty well.

Whoops, forgot about the other nominees that year.