I think the real joy would be trying to review Nymph()maniac without breaking the rules
"She performs a graphic sex act while her future self discusses how it's like fly fishing"
that's not even a fucking joke that literally happens
Project Ludovico
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"She performs a graphic sex act while her future self discusses how it's like fly fishing"
that's not even a fucking joke that literally happens
Jace911
Spider-Dork
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Yasssss
Roar is the story of an absolutely insane man and his lions.
They make a movie together.
A vanity project by director Noel Marshall and his wife Tippi Hedren, Roar is an infamous movie in which they throw the cast and crew into a Darwinian battle for survival with untrained Lions and Tigers, injuring a documented 70 and a rumored 100+. This isn't going to be a long review because well, the movie credits wild animals with writing and just like your cat Chairman Meow, they have little interest in writing a coherent story.
Instead of a coherent script, the movie follows a rough outline of events with improvised fleeing filling out the details, like a Christopher Guest movie but replace Eugene Levy with 700 pounds of murder machine and the brilliant comedy improvisation with terror. The plot such as it is, is that it's the white man's burden (his name is Hank) to save the great cats of Africa by jamming them together with imported tigers from Asia and living amongst them as the Alpha Hipster. He rides majestically on his fixie and\or vintage motorcycle through the African countryside that is in no way his property in California. He is living in vaguely defined and often questionable harmony with the big cats in a vaguely defined experiment and probably smelling like a patchouli factory was struck by hurricane BO. However his nemesis the Grant Committee is wondering just WTF is going on and have brought evil poachers on board to study the effects of killing everything that moves in the true spirit of Captain Planet villains everywhere.
They're soon mauled by the cats and flee for safety, and the FEAR IS REAL. After this incident, Hank sets out on an errand and forgets all about his family that is coming to visit him, namely his estranged wife Madeline played by his soon to be IRL divorced real wife and his real life sons with the addition of the nearly literally scarred for life Melanie Griffin as his promiscuous daughter, a fact that will never have any impact on anything because everyone will be too terrified to talk about much. See, they show up at the home of this actual lunatic not knowing that it is filled with countless lions, tigers, jaguars, cheetahs and madness. They soon find themselves in a desperate struggle for survival while their father/husband realizes oh right, my family and rushes somewhat back to save them.
Along the way the poachers show up, and are easily killed by a lion after shooting some animals and are removed from the movie, having accomplished nothing but some cheap pathos. Soon his family discovers that oh my, these animals are perfectly friendly and meant us no harm the entire time, mankind and predators can naturally live together in perfect harmony. There was never any danger, they were just imagining it because they viewed them as dangerous animals! Everyone lives happily ever after in perfect, hipster harmony and they post about it constantly on tumblr, please ignore all the literal maulings we witnessed.
Roar is an entertaining movie created by a madman. The director would keep rolling as people were seriously wounded in his movie about how safe and wondrous living with wild animals is. In fact, the movie ends with a song about how to save endangered animals, we must let go of our hatred like poaching was a civil rights battle instead of the exploitation of nature. It posits, that we can all learn a thing or two by following this brave white man's lead, Africa. The movie takes such a bizarrely hippy stance on conservation (STOP THE LION HATE) and rams it so far down your throat that you really just want to get involved in a southeast Asian war out of spite. Here's a break down of its plot in fact:
I don't count madness as characterization for this movie, otherwise it would be 100%
You can't bombard us with this bullshit message about how these animals are really adorable and harmless after you kept your wife getting mauled and an hour of people struggling to react to whatever this mass of untrained animals is doing. People are actually getting hurt by these animals and the horror sections absolutely work because the FEAR IS REAL and its terrifying and horrifying to watch this gauntlet that these poor actors have to pass through. This is the finest level of method acting, this is like, some fucking Ricky Bobby "DRIVE WITH A COUGAR" training. And its enjoyable! Aside from how facepunchable the lead is, the movie works and is about the most unique disaster you will ever see. You won't even know what's real anymore because "Real or fake mauling" is a pretty damn hard game sometimes.
This is a movie you absolutely need to see, preferably with a group. Its so unique and bonkers and dangerous, its incredible. This is an absolute must see movie, I cannot recommend this trainwreck enough. THE RIFFING IS REAL.
It's been a while but I think my favorite part of the movie is watching the (tiger?) acting mildly perturbed as its impromptu raft slowly sinks into the river.
To quote David from RPPR: "If it fits, I sinks!"
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
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Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
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- He/Him
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- SMS Odette II
Somehow it seems like the directorial choices for this film smeared the 4th wall in catnip.
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
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So if anyone was like "Wow that was good Moira, I enjoyed this and other works, i would like more of this to come and DANCE FOR IT", please feel free to Support Project Ludovico through my old dead name paypal account as linked right there. Nothing major, maybe just throw us a Lincoln or Hamilton.
Or uh, a *frantically googles like an Ignorant American*
Or uh, a *frantically googles like an Ignorant American*
- An Elizabeth Fry or Charles Darwin.
- Or an Arch and...also an Arch, ok...
- Mr Spock or Old MacDonald (E-I-E-I-Oh Sorry about that eh?)
xa na xa
A.E.I.O.U. - Antarticae est imperare orbi universo
- Location
- σ Octantis
Do you mean 1999 Ravenous or 2010 Ravenous?
The one with Robert Carlyle and Guy Pearce. *googles* The 1999 movie.
BlackAeronaut
Scaring people witless since 1980
- Location
- A state of mind where it is always ****ing Monday.
Is anime fair game? Because I think right now Galaxy Express 999 might be some good fodder. Nothing like some classic Leiji Matsumoto to get the wheels turning.
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
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So I'm going to do a good movie since I needed to find something to cheer up Dissmech, so I went with In The Mouth of Madness.
If you're not a fan of gushing or controversial opinions about the horror genre, please skip this next review.
If you're not a fan of gushing or controversial opinions about the horror genre, please skip this next review.
In The Mouth of Madness: Do you read Sutter Kane?
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
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Cthulhu isn't scary.
I'm not even talking about how he's basically been turned into a commercialized, Mickey Mouse like figure these days, gracing every single kind of merchandise imaginable from Lunchboxes and Plushies (there's one staring at me now with its widdle eyes) to T-shirts and games. Hell right now Japanese dongsmiths are probably folding a Cthulhu dildo a thousand times. I'm just kidding of course, they made that. It exists and you can buy it. You can literally go fuck yourself with a Cthulhu, the second most embarassing thing to happen to the big guy.
What is scary is Lovecrafts writing and the atmosphere he creates in his books. The man used his real fear of everything around him (MISCEGENATION, IMMIGRANTS) in his writing and created the atmosphere of dread and terror he felt just walking down the street. The monsters are scary because he puts you in the right frame of mind to be scared. The guy could probably write about a Pride Festival and make it terrifying. Conchita Wurst would eat 1D3investigators per turn. It's worth noting a shoggoth canonically appears in Xuthal of the Dusk, where Conan kicks its ass and its rousing rather than scary. That was a cool monster too, a lot of Lovecrafts creations run from cool to goofy as fuck. I haven't seen an Elder Thing that doesn't look like the goofiest fuck that probably got its lunch money stolen by Zoidberg.
Bad horror movies, especially adaptations of the Lovecraft stories or ones that try to ape them, focus on the gribbly bits instead of the tone and atmosphere. "Oh look at how many tentacles it has, what a scary monster" we're supposed to think as it fails to deliver on that same sense of foreboding dread and just ends up a tentacled bore. The reason for this is because the descriptions and narration that make up a large part of the charm and/or terror of Lovecraft are now gone, they've become stage directions. The audience will never hear them. You need to rely on your plotting and ability to create a visual atmosphere.
John Carpenter understood that tentacles alone weren't enough, you can to recreate that mood and you couldn't do it through the same methods as with writing. His Apocalypse Trilogy is an amazing set of movies that scared the fucking shit out of me as a kid and Dissmech last night because she's adorable like that. The Thing is of course well known for its atmosphere of paranoia and "JESUS FUCK WHAT NO". Prince of Darkness is one of my favorite combinations of quantum physics satan and murderhobo Alice Coopers ever, with more unique ideas than a years worth of modern horror movies.
In The Mouth of Madness is the final and most Lovecraftian one of the bunch. Sam Neill plays John Trent, an Investigator for insurance companies that begins the movie locked in a mental hospital amid reports of "incidents" that are threatening social order. In flashback we learn that he was given the task of finding Sutter Cane, the not at all Stephen King writer of a series of terrifying novels about that "really have an effect" on people, as he has gone missing. Nobody knows where he is and they want him found because he's got the manuscript for his latest work with him, and the deadline is coming up. The books are so popular that people are rioting over preorders not being able to handle the volume and its expected to be one of the best selling books of all time. Sutter Kane has already sold a literal billion copies of his works in every language known to man but nobody even knows where the reclusive man lives except his agent.
"Well where's his agent?" asks Trent and they tell them he's met him already: He was the insane lunatic swinging an axe at him the other day after asking if he reads Sutter Kane. Trent is pressed to either find Cane and the manuscript, or process the claim for the publisher which would be a huge loss to the company that hired him. Trent is positive he's being dicked around and this is going to be nothing but a publicity stunt but he's an arrogant, smug investigator and by god he's going to rationally get to the bottom of this fucking mess.
So he begins reading the books and the nightmares begin, but those are probably nothing. Books can't effect your mind, they're just fiction after all. In a fugue state he cuts apart the covers and discovers that some outlines on the covers form a map with a spot marked on it, the location ofDerry, Castle Rock, Cabot Cove[ Hobb's End itself, in all its similar yet legally distinct glory. The people from the books are all there, the town is exactly how its described in the books in all its Elder God Worshipping Glory and John Trent is having none of this god damn bullshit.
Hobb's End never existed according to any maps, and there are zero records of anything like it. This has all got to be some publicity stunt bullshit and he's going to do what he does best: Arrogantly Investigate. Much like a classic Lovecraftian protagonist, he is going to stare into the unknown and poke it with a stick to see what the fuck is up. After all, fiction is fiction, real is real and this publishing company isn't going to fucking fool him, he's not going to report back that this town exists when it quite clearly doesn't, he's going to get to the bottom of this. Pack of wild dogs attacking people? Creepy Children? Paintings that change every time you look at them? Nice try assholes, he's going to find the one actor in this town ready to crack and its going to be old man Henderson with a rubber mask on right?
And then of course, when he finally realizes the truth of it all, its far too late and things are only going to get worse for him and you. Because no fourth wall can protect you from Sutter Cane dear reader.
I really love this movie. Its apparently quite divisive but its my jam. I love meta plots and horror that draws you in. The creature effects are rarely used but workable and its more about this arrogant asshole being deconstructed by the plot itself. There's weird shit happening but he refuses to see it and the creepy shit is moving closer and closer but its just out of sight until the right moment when it becomes inescapable, in the most literal sense of that word and then it pushes outward even further. It has themes of madness, sanity and the very act of becoming lost in a good book. I'm going to be light on spoilers because you should see it in my humble opinion.
I give it a My Favorite Color is Blue out of 10.
I'm not even talking about how he's basically been turned into a commercialized, Mickey Mouse like figure these days, gracing every single kind of merchandise imaginable from Lunchboxes and Plushies (there's one staring at me now with its widdle eyes) to T-shirts and games. Hell right now Japanese dongsmiths are probably folding a Cthulhu dildo a thousand times. I'm just kidding of course, they made that. It exists and you can buy it. You can literally go fuck yourself with a Cthulhu, the second most embarassing thing to happen to the big guy.
What is scary is Lovecrafts writing and the atmosphere he creates in his books. The man used his real fear of everything around him (MISCEGENATION, IMMIGRANTS) in his writing and created the atmosphere of dread and terror he felt just walking down the street. The monsters are scary because he puts you in the right frame of mind to be scared. The guy could probably write about a Pride Festival and make it terrifying. Conchita Wurst would eat 1D3investigators per turn. It's worth noting a shoggoth canonically appears in Xuthal of the Dusk, where Conan kicks its ass and its rousing rather than scary. That was a cool monster too, a lot of Lovecrafts creations run from cool to goofy as fuck. I haven't seen an Elder Thing that doesn't look like the goofiest fuck that probably got its lunch money stolen by Zoidberg.
Bad horror movies, especially adaptations of the Lovecraft stories or ones that try to ape them, focus on the gribbly bits instead of the tone and atmosphere. "Oh look at how many tentacles it has, what a scary monster" we're supposed to think as it fails to deliver on that same sense of foreboding dread and just ends up a tentacled bore. The reason for this is because the descriptions and narration that make up a large part of the charm and/or terror of Lovecraft are now gone, they've become stage directions. The audience will never hear them. You need to rely on your plotting and ability to create a visual atmosphere.
John Carpenter understood that tentacles alone weren't enough, you can to recreate that mood and you couldn't do it through the same methods as with writing. His Apocalypse Trilogy is an amazing set of movies that scared the fucking shit out of me as a kid and Dissmech last night because she's adorable like that. The Thing is of course well known for its atmosphere of paranoia and "JESUS FUCK WHAT NO". Prince of Darkness is one of my favorite combinations of quantum physics satan and murderhobo Alice Coopers ever, with more unique ideas than a years worth of modern horror movies.
In The Mouth of Madness is the final and most Lovecraftian one of the bunch. Sam Neill plays John Trent, an Investigator for insurance companies that begins the movie locked in a mental hospital amid reports of "incidents" that are threatening social order. In flashback we learn that he was given the task of finding Sutter Cane, the not at all Stephen King writer of a series of terrifying novels about that "really have an effect" on people, as he has gone missing. Nobody knows where he is and they want him found because he's got the manuscript for his latest work with him, and the deadline is coming up. The books are so popular that people are rioting over preorders not being able to handle the volume and its expected to be one of the best selling books of all time. Sutter Kane has already sold a literal billion copies of his works in every language known to man but nobody even knows where the reclusive man lives except his agent.
"Well where's his agent?" asks Trent and they tell them he's met him already: He was the insane lunatic swinging an axe at him the other day after asking if he reads Sutter Kane. Trent is pressed to either find Cane and the manuscript, or process the claim for the publisher which would be a huge loss to the company that hired him. Trent is positive he's being dicked around and this is going to be nothing but a publicity stunt but he's an arrogant, smug investigator and by god he's going to rationally get to the bottom of this fucking mess.
So he begins reading the books and the nightmares begin, but those are probably nothing. Books can't effect your mind, they're just fiction after all. In a fugue state he cuts apart the covers and discovers that some outlines on the covers form a map with a spot marked on it, the location of
Hobb's End never existed according to any maps, and there are zero records of anything like it. This has all got to be some publicity stunt bullshit and he's going to do what he does best: Arrogantly Investigate. Much like a classic Lovecraftian protagonist, he is going to stare into the unknown and poke it with a stick to see what the fuck is up. After all, fiction is fiction, real is real and this publishing company isn't going to fucking fool him, he's not going to report back that this town exists when it quite clearly doesn't, he's going to get to the bottom of this. Pack of wild dogs attacking people? Creepy Children? Paintings that change every time you look at them? Nice try assholes, he's going to find the one actor in this town ready to crack and its going to be old man Henderson with a rubber mask on right?
And then of course, when he finally realizes the truth of it all, its far too late and things are only going to get worse for him and you. Because no fourth wall can protect you from Sutter Cane dear reader.
I really love this movie. Its apparently quite divisive but its my jam. I love meta plots and horror that draws you in. The creature effects are rarely used but workable and its more about this arrogant asshole being deconstructed by the plot itself. There's weird shit happening but he refuses to see it and the creepy shit is moving closer and closer but its just out of sight until the right moment when it becomes inescapable, in the most literal sense of that word and then it pushes outward even further. It has themes of madness, sanity and the very act of becoming lost in a good book. I'm going to be light on spoilers because you should see it in my humble opinion.
I give it a My Favorite Color is Blue out of 10.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Actually, the first one I found is shipped from Canada of all places.
Damn it, I want to make a great joke here, BUT given your preferences, that'd just be in bad taste.
Is he like including a packet of meth in every book or something?
Because that shouldn't be setting off every red flag saying "GET OUT".
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
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- She/Her
Oh yeah, I wasn't implying only Japan would do that, I found several of them when I searched, I was just making a folded a thousand times\Tentacles joke
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Hey, I was honestly expecting it to be from Japan, not Canada of all places.Oh yeah, I wasn't implying only Japan would do that, I found several of them when I searched, I was just making a folded a thousand times\Tentacles joke
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
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- Dream of The 90s
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- She/Her
Bad Dragon is from Arizona, so I didn't have any illusions.
Sufficient Juice
A steady supply of vitamins
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- The carbohydrates
In the Mouth of Madness is seriously the shit, Sam Neill was born to play normal dudes losing their fucking mind and going where you don't need eyes to see, and the music on the end credits is amazing.
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
- Pronouns
- She/Her
So I had a really bad weekend (I had to pawn my camera to keep our phones on) so I'm doing another just for fun movie: Cutthroat Island.
I watched it a ton as a kid when it came out and then, like, never again to my knowledge for the next 21 years, so lets see what I think as an adult!
I watched it a ton as a kid when it came out and then, like, never again to my knowledge for the next 21 years, so lets see what I think as an adult!
Captain Orsai
Davion Heavy Guards Captain
Frank Langella really going for broke as a villain's usually worth something.
(also a brief appearance by SGM Harper)
(also a brief appearance by SGM Harper)
Sufficient Juice
A steady supply of vitamins
- Location
- The carbohydrates
How's it like to have the entire theater to yourself?
Cutthroat Island: The Pirates of Upstate New York
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
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I don't want to Monday Morning Quarterback a movie thats, well, its 21 years old, but I think there were some warning signs for Cutthroat Island and especially for Matthew Modine. Geena Davis was contractually obligated to be in this mess but you, you had warning signs.
Hey first off, its a pirate movie starring Geena Davis. Did you see Thelma and Louise? League of Their Own? Did you see literally any of her movies? At what point did people go "Yeah, I can see Dottie as a pirate". I mean fucking hell, just get in the same room as her and ask her to talk like a pirate. She uses the same voice she uses in Beetlejuice. I know Connecticut has ties to piracy but its 1668 in this movie, she should have something, anything. She was great in Long Kiss Goodnight but this plays to none of her talents and how the hell did you not see this coming?!
But hey, Matthew Mondine, assuming you didn't think you were starring in the far better Davis movie Long Kisss Goodnight, maybe you had faith in her ability to play a dreaded pirate queen? Well the previous 11 dudes asked to play your part fucking didn't. You were the 12th choice, behind literally everyone else. Keanu was a pick before you and he said no. The director spent so much time trying to find literally anyone to play the part that he forgot to pay attention to the production and had to trash the work done while he was off looking for someone to share the billing with his wife.
You were the "Fuck it" of the movie my friend. You got cast because you knew how to fence and you basically don't fucking fence that much in this movie so like, that's a thing. I know this career advice is like, vastly out of date and just an excuse to talk about the production problems but like, you should have seen this coming. So here is some more relevant career advice: Change your IMDB profile pic for the love of god, it makes you look like a sex offender Lyft driver.
Seriously man, this is not a good photo. People would cancel the ride.
I'm not going to dump on Modine too much here, he does his best with a bad role and like, I found out how he reacted to the reviews unfairly destroying him. I still love you from your other stuff on the incredibly unlikely chance you read this.
So! Cutthroat Island! Let's actually talk about it! Gina Davis plays the dread pirate Morgan Adams known for...uh...literally nothing. Her wanted poster just boils down to "She's a pirate, trust us" and her establishing scene is...sleeping with a guy and having her monkey unload his gun. Ok movie, you've established that she's a good fuck and she has capable people to do work for her. Progress...?
She covertly rows a boat to a ship where her father is being threatened by his brother and her uncle Dawg Brown. Dawg, that's his actual christian name, has killed their brother Richard for a piece of his treasure map that was split among 3 of the brothers by their father. Morgan's father has a piece but refuses to give it up, so he's out on the plank of this pirate ship with the ship's anchor tied around his leg. Sure, those aren't expensive or anything. After Dawg threatens to "Split him apart" (PHRASING), he jumps overboard and is shot while Morgan tries to rescue him.
He tells her to scalp him because his part of the map is tattooed on his head. I can sympathize as my preferred place to hide things is also places that are impractical and can only be obtained through fucking my shit up. She gets her ship and crew on account of daddy saying so, securing loyalty through "My dad is good for it guys I swear!". She doesn't secure her crews loyalty, her father does and she will have zero ability to keep it through the whole movie. She's an inferior predecessor to Marika Kato only you know, she's not a 16 year old girl.
[IRISH FIDDLES INTENSIFY]
So they need someone to translate Latin for them and there's only on person in existence on Port Royal that can do that, conman William Shaw. She manages to win a slave auction for him, but she's recognized from a wanted poster. Literally the only member of the crew that would be recognized and you went along, its called delegation lady. During her escape she blows up basically all of Port Royal because everyone is stupid in this movie and they decided to try to catch this notorious pirate, for certain values of notorious I imagine, by having their ships open fire on the colony. What in the fucking what?! The movies Core Competency is blowing shit up and it blows it up well, but plot and logic are pretty much absent. Why do things happen? Dunno really, but look at the pretty explosions!
"OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!"
So after that insanity, the crooked governor, Queersly McBottom, wants her dead\working for him. He's inconsequential to the plot, just serving as a dragon to Dawg and comic relief because its 1995 and haha, look at that queer. The movie loves characters like that, such as her uncle Mordecai who we meet next. He's hanging out in a rip off of sections of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride but she manages to get close to him by pretending to be a whore, naturally. After a discussion where she calls him a puss, they're attacked by Dawg and he's killed. Quickly capturing her crew, he threatens her with a live eel while they make double entrende #7690, seemingly referencing his apparently nasty dick....MOVING ON.
I SAID MOVING ON FRANK LANGELLA
So she escapes! During the storm, most of the crew mutinies and sides with Dawg, setting Morgan and her loyal crewmates adrift in a life raft. Don't worry though, they end up arriving on the exact island they want with no navigational aids or intent. So that's good and not at all suspiciously convenient and SoD breaking no Ma'am. So they engage in typical treasure hunting shenanigans as they steal Dawgs map from him and find the treasure which despite all the rigmarole is like, pretty easy to find and requires zero effort to find for them.
But her remaining crew are captured and its revealed that McBottom has joined up with Dawg, sending his man o war away for plot reasons, meaning he could have been entirely written out of the plot with basically no impact. So Morgan quickly rescues her crew and gets her ship back, because fuck tension or stakes or anything, lets just quickly resolve everything.
"Ohhh I'm so effete with my wig and foundation and pompousness"
And then it proceeds as you expect, with a final battle between the two ships, lots of things blow up, people are killed, etc. Shaw and Morgan get together, because he owns and operates a dick and she's a woman of some authority without a man. So fuck it, these people who have nothing in common and have no chemistry are fucking now. That's our ending, they have the treasure and she more importantly has dickings. Hooray. Oh but don't worry feminists, she's sexually aggressive and tells him when she wants the dickings, ho ho ho ugh.
So things this movie does well: It looks pretty! Lots of things blow up and blow up well, and the action is decent. Frank Langella puts his back into trying to carry the movie and is a joy every time he's on screen. At one point he's asked why he hasn't just killed McBottom and he replies that if he's going to be the governor of Jamaica someday, he needs to learn the proper bearing and proceeds to do impressions of the fop calling for his man Trotter, apparently working on perfecting it. He gets ignobly killed by a cannon inside his ship by Morgan...somehow. It's a goofy death for poor old Skeletor as he's blasted the entire length of the ship as the camera follows him through every bulkhead. Mediocre.
"ARRGGH, RIGHT IN ME DIGNITY"
The leads are, well, they try. They do well when the action is happening but Geena Davis is just the worst pirate. She has no presence as a pirate and the narrative undercuts her at every turn. She didn't get the ship and crew through her own skill, she got them through nepotism. She and a valley girl driving around a Porsche have the same backstory. The movie can't even come up with prior crimes for her, she's just a pirate, trust us on this. Don't establish her effectively or anything, we'll take it on faith she's a badass I guess? She's shown barely controlling her crew, commands no loyalty or at minimum establishes that you should not fuck with her, and at every interaction with Shaw is undercut. Why is she falling for him? He's some random grifter who's not especially charming and is definitely not someone she could trust because he frequently tries to betray her through a considerable amount of runtime.
I've seen this done better. Mouretsu does it better. Pirate Mom quickly became one of my favorite characters because she's fucking awesome but Morgan has me rolling my eyes. The fact that they went all 90s and went for a million double entrendes doesn't help. She's introduced telling a guy she's taken his balls as she shows him his pistol balls. One, that's lame. Two, that's really fucking lame guys come on, its not even very funny. Three, the movie introduces us to her with a joke about emasculation. Zero sum game much? And its not like its a threat she's able to deliver upon, when its not an action scene she's engaging in all sorts of behavior that's not as progressive as the screenwriter thinks it is. Hell, she played a way better role in a movie released a year later with the very same director. How do you fuck this up?!
They do literally everything better
And again, the plot has very little stakes or tension because it rushes to resolve problems and favors flash over thought. Hey we blew up the bottom of a dudes ship and dumped all the treasure into blue water off the coast of Phuket, sorry, Cuba. Don't worry though, you have some barrels attached to mark where the treasure is and you can just dive down and...wait fuck sorry, its the 17th century, how the fuck did you get several tons of solid gold out from the wreck of a ship. Did the monkey do it?!
Anyway, its fun enough but it was better when I was ten and it was all "OOOOH, EXPLOSIONS" and "Look, a woman pirate! She has a monkey, hahaha". They could have almost certainly made this movie better than they did. Probably if it wasn't a soul crushing experience for everyone involved it would have been better but if you just made her Charlie from Long Kiss Goodnight it would have been better, but at the end of the day you should probably just go see Long Kiss Goodnight because its fucking amazing and delivers and isn't trying to make Geena Davis a pirate
Hey first off, its a pirate movie starring Geena Davis. Did you see Thelma and Louise? League of Their Own? Did you see literally any of her movies? At what point did people go "Yeah, I can see Dottie as a pirate". I mean fucking hell, just get in the same room as her and ask her to talk like a pirate. She uses the same voice she uses in Beetlejuice. I know Connecticut has ties to piracy but its 1668 in this movie, she should have something, anything. She was great in Long Kiss Goodnight but this plays to none of her talents and how the hell did you not see this coming?!
But hey, Matthew Mondine, assuming you didn't think you were starring in the far better Davis movie Long Kisss Goodnight, maybe you had faith in her ability to play a dreaded pirate queen? Well the previous 11 dudes asked to play your part fucking didn't. You were the 12th choice, behind literally everyone else. Keanu was a pick before you and he said no. The director spent so much time trying to find literally anyone to play the part that he forgot to pay attention to the production and had to trash the work done while he was off looking for someone to share the billing with his wife.
You were the "Fuck it" of the movie my friend. You got cast because you knew how to fence and you basically don't fucking fence that much in this movie so like, that's a thing. I know this career advice is like, vastly out of date and just an excuse to talk about the production problems but like, you should have seen this coming. So here is some more relevant career advice: Change your IMDB profile pic for the love of god, it makes you look like a sex offender Lyft driver.
Seriously man, this is not a good photo. People would cancel the ride.
I'm not going to dump on Modine too much here, he does his best with a bad role and like, I found out how he reacted to the reviews unfairly destroying him. I still love you from your other stuff on the incredibly unlikely chance you read this.
So! Cutthroat Island! Let's actually talk about it! Gina Davis plays the dread pirate Morgan Adams known for...uh...literally nothing. Her wanted poster just boils down to "She's a pirate, trust us" and her establishing scene is...sleeping with a guy and having her monkey unload his gun. Ok movie, you've established that she's a good fuck and she has capable people to do work for her. Progress...?
She covertly rows a boat to a ship where her father is being threatened by his brother and her uncle Dawg Brown. Dawg, that's his actual christian name, has killed their brother Richard for a piece of his treasure map that was split among 3 of the brothers by their father. Morgan's father has a piece but refuses to give it up, so he's out on the plank of this pirate ship with the ship's anchor tied around his leg. Sure, those aren't expensive or anything. After Dawg threatens to "Split him apart" (PHRASING), he jumps overboard and is shot while Morgan tries to rescue him.
He tells her to scalp him because his part of the map is tattooed on his head. I can sympathize as my preferred place to hide things is also places that are impractical and can only be obtained through fucking my shit up. She gets her ship and crew on account of daddy saying so, securing loyalty through "My dad is good for it guys I swear!". She doesn't secure her crews loyalty, her father does and she will have zero ability to keep it through the whole movie. She's an inferior predecessor to Marika Kato only you know, she's not a 16 year old girl.
[IRISH FIDDLES INTENSIFY]
So they need someone to translate Latin for them and there's only on person in existence on Port Royal that can do that, conman William Shaw. She manages to win a slave auction for him, but she's recognized from a wanted poster. Literally the only member of the crew that would be recognized and you went along, its called delegation lady. During her escape she blows up basically all of Port Royal because everyone is stupid in this movie and they decided to try to catch this notorious pirate, for certain values of notorious I imagine, by having their ships open fire on the colony. What in the fucking what?! The movies Core Competency is blowing shit up and it blows it up well, but plot and logic are pretty much absent. Why do things happen? Dunno really, but look at the pretty explosions!
"OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS?!"
So after that insanity, the crooked governor, Queersly McBottom, wants her dead\working for him. He's inconsequential to the plot, just serving as a dragon to Dawg and comic relief because its 1995 and haha, look at that queer. The movie loves characters like that, such as her uncle Mordecai who we meet next. He's hanging out in a rip off of sections of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride but she manages to get close to him by pretending to be a whore, naturally. After a discussion where she calls him a puss, they're attacked by Dawg and he's killed. Quickly capturing her crew, he threatens her with a live eel while they make double entrende #7690, seemingly referencing his apparently nasty dick....MOVING ON.
I SAID MOVING ON FRANK LANGELLA
So she escapes! During the storm, most of the crew mutinies and sides with Dawg, setting Morgan and her loyal crewmates adrift in a life raft. Don't worry though, they end up arriving on the exact island they want with no navigational aids or intent. So that's good and not at all suspiciously convenient and SoD breaking no Ma'am. So they engage in typical treasure hunting shenanigans as they steal Dawgs map from him and find the treasure which despite all the rigmarole is like, pretty easy to find and requires zero effort to find for them.
But her remaining crew are captured and its revealed that McBottom has joined up with Dawg, sending his man o war away for plot reasons, meaning he could have been entirely written out of the plot with basically no impact. So Morgan quickly rescues her crew and gets her ship back, because fuck tension or stakes or anything, lets just quickly resolve everything.
"Ohhh I'm so effete with my wig and foundation and pompousness"
And then it proceeds as you expect, with a final battle between the two ships, lots of things blow up, people are killed, etc. Shaw and Morgan get together, because he owns and operates a dick and she's a woman of some authority without a man. So fuck it, these people who have nothing in common and have no chemistry are fucking now. That's our ending, they have the treasure and she more importantly has dickings. Hooray. Oh but don't worry feminists, she's sexually aggressive and tells him when she wants the dickings, ho ho ho ugh.
So things this movie does well: It looks pretty! Lots of things blow up and blow up well, and the action is decent. Frank Langella puts his back into trying to carry the movie and is a joy every time he's on screen. At one point he's asked why he hasn't just killed McBottom and he replies that if he's going to be the governor of Jamaica someday, he needs to learn the proper bearing and proceeds to do impressions of the fop calling for his man Trotter, apparently working on perfecting it. He gets ignobly killed by a cannon inside his ship by Morgan...somehow. It's a goofy death for poor old Skeletor as he's blasted the entire length of the ship as the camera follows him through every bulkhead. Mediocre.
"ARRGGH, RIGHT IN ME DIGNITY"
The leads are, well, they try. They do well when the action is happening but Geena Davis is just the worst pirate. She has no presence as a pirate and the narrative undercuts her at every turn. She didn't get the ship and crew through her own skill, she got them through nepotism. She and a valley girl driving around a Porsche have the same backstory. The movie can't even come up with prior crimes for her, she's just a pirate, trust us on this. Don't establish her effectively or anything, we'll take it on faith she's a badass I guess? She's shown barely controlling her crew, commands no loyalty or at minimum establishes that you should not fuck with her, and at every interaction with Shaw is undercut. Why is she falling for him? He's some random grifter who's not especially charming and is definitely not someone she could trust because he frequently tries to betray her through a considerable amount of runtime.
I've seen this done better. Mouretsu does it better. Pirate Mom quickly became one of my favorite characters because she's fucking awesome but Morgan has me rolling my eyes. The fact that they went all 90s and went for a million double entrendes doesn't help. She's introduced telling a guy she's taken his balls as she shows him his pistol balls. One, that's lame. Two, that's really fucking lame guys come on, its not even very funny. Three, the movie introduces us to her with a joke about emasculation. Zero sum game much? And its not like its a threat she's able to deliver upon, when its not an action scene she's engaging in all sorts of behavior that's not as progressive as the screenwriter thinks it is. Hell, she played a way better role in a movie released a year later with the very same director. How do you fuck this up?!
They do literally everything better
And again, the plot has very little stakes or tension because it rushes to resolve problems and favors flash over thought. Hey we blew up the bottom of a dudes ship and dumped all the treasure into blue water off the coast of Phuket, sorry, Cuba. Don't worry though, you have some barrels attached to mark where the treasure is and you can just dive down and...wait fuck sorry, its the 17th century, how the fuck did you get several tons of solid gold out from the wreck of a ship. Did the monkey do it?!
Anyway, its fun enough but it was better when I was ten and it was all "OOOOH, EXPLOSIONS" and "Look, a woman pirate! She has a monkey, hahaha". They could have almost certainly made this movie better than they did. Probably if it wasn't a soul crushing experience for everyone involved it would have been better but if you just made her Charlie from Long Kiss Goodnight it would have been better, but at the end of the day you should probably just go see Long Kiss Goodnight because its fucking amazing and delivers and isn't trying to make Geena Davis a pirate
Athene
Rise for the Shadow Queen
- Location
- Dream of The 90s
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I used to go to movies at the first showing of Friday morning, so I've in been plentyHow's it like to have the entire theater to yourself?
Jace911
Spider-Dork
- Location
- The Gold-Bricking State
I really want to second this but I'm almost certain she's already seen it.