I'm extremely fascinated with post apocalyptic/ apocalyptic films and games. There is something about them that is just so saddening but with a little bit of hope. Most movies that depict these things never really show what happens after, it's always what leads up to it. Don't get me wrong, I do love old movies, but I'm not looking for a movie that is 40 years old. Older movies that show large scale disasters just don't feel very immersive (there are exceptions ofc) Also, movies that are filmed 99% in a bunker isn't something I'm looking for either, I'm not saying that something like that isn't good, It's simply just not what I'm looking for.

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Things I think meet this criteria:

- I am legend, not an aftermath film about nukes or war, but still shows what happens after an apocalyptic event.

-The road, really sad but it does show the aftermath.

-Book of Eli, just a hands down 10/10

That's really all I can think of at the moment. If you have anything, please let me know!!!

I was watching Annihilation for the first time and thought the “Shimmer” was gorgeous. While inside of it, light is refracted in ways that are very similar to a trip on a small dose of mushrooms. The colors are vibrant and there was always a lens flair or rainbow of colors on screen. Even though the didn’t do drugs, I felt that with all the molds and things growing, it’s not a far stretch to say that while in that zone things were portrayed as a micro dose.

The best example of LSD that I have seen was in Midsommar when they would take the drugs and you could see the trees warping and colors changing. These were accurate portrayals for me and I’m glad they weren’t over the top, which would have ruined it. I hate instances of drugs used in a movie or show that hugely exaggerates the effects.

No idea if it’s that well-known, or if it was a critical success, or if people hated it, but I’ve just watched it again and honestly think it’s flawless. It’s feel-good and sad, nostalgic and optimistic, makes me cry and laugh. And they made great story and character choices throughout. Plus, the music is genuinely excellent.

Absolutely happy to hear if anyone thinks otherwise, but I will love it regardless. And if you haven’t seen it, I recommend it a lot.

(Tank Girl is on Paramount Plus for anyone interested in watching)

First off, let me say I came into this movie looking forward to all the things it was trying to be. But...it failed. It's not in the "so bad it's good" category, it's simply bad. It's a bad movie. Period. Let me explain why this movie failed so hard for me.

I like camp. The campiness fell flat. I like action. The action was un-interesting. I like non-sequiturs. The non-sequiturs only added to an already disjointed movie. I find the absurd funny. The absurdity was forced, so it didn't work. I enjoy suspending my disbelief and rooting for nonsense characters. Tank Girl herself never got past the nonsense to give me a reason to root for her.

Lori Petty does an admirable job of trying to make Tank Girl into something tangible, but the character never meshes. For me, Tank Girl's chaotic energy would come across better if it was presented more diabolically, rather than childish. The masturbation and penis jokes would actually land if they came from a character who seemed unhinged and not purely cartoonish. Her manic behavior is intended to be fun and quirky, yet dangerous, but instead it's just exhausting.

Let's talk about the action. Most of it is camera shots of Tank Girl shooting off into the distance and yelling at the sky. I'm all for that...when the dosage is right. However, that's MOST of the action in the movie. When you are constantly pulled away from seeing bad guys get mowed down, it disconnects you from the FUN of the violence. Take Robocop for example. That movie is pure art when it comes to making over the top violence fun. You are invested in the rest of the movie as soon as the board room scene happens. It brings you right in, makes you witness something brutal, gory, nonsensical...and you're left grinning ear to ear ready for the rest of the film. The only example of well-done violence in Tank Girl is when she breaks that guys neck between her legs.

Let's talk about the camp and the humor. I'm all for camp. I'm all for cheese. I like the absurd. I don't need reality in my movies. But when you're going for camp and you don't pull it off, it fails twice as hard. I think one of the most glaring examples of this failing is the "saxophone prayer" that Deetee does to honor Johnny Prophet. That was so NOT FUNNY, it stood out in a movie that was filled with moments that were supposed to be funny, but weren't. I'm 100% down for a jazzy saxophone-prayer...but do it well. The lines tried to be absurd, but they were just stupid. There's a way to do what they were trying to do, but that wasn't it.

That (generally) covers the problems I had with the movie as you saw it on screen. And you know what? Maybe you disagree. Plenty of what I described is objective, so I won't die on any of those hills because maybe we just have different tastes in humor or style. What, I think, cannot be disputed is that the structure of that movie is also horrendously bad.

If you read about Tank Girl on Wikipedia or in other articles, you'll hear plenty about studio interference, forced editing, etc. There's nothing to argue with here, because it is obvious. There are glaring continuity errors. There are parts where a substantial amount of time would have had to pass to move the story on, but suddenly we're in the next scene as though we clearly didn't just skip a ton of time. One thing that is left thoroughly unexplained is how the tank itself suddenly becomes autonomous. Did they cut a scene of Jet Girl working on the tank and giving it some type of AI? Regardless, out of nowhere, in the final raid scene, the tank is driving, shooting, and responding to Tank Girl's whistles all by itself...which would be awesome, if there was ever an in-movie explanation for this.

The thing that makes these cuts even worse is...I still found the movie too long, and it was only an hour and half. And get this, before watching the movie, I saw it's runtime and was given hope. An hour and half is the right amount for a movie like this. Let's compare two legends in the action-camp world, Mad Max: The Road Warrior and Waterworld. Mad Max, is an hour and half - perfect. Get in, do the thing, don't overstay your welcome, and call it a movie. I will re-watch that whenever. Waterworld, on the other hand, tries to be Mad Max on water...but it's 2 hours and 15 minutes. It's too much movie for what it actually is, and becomes a stale slog by the end. While I enjoyed Waterworld enough, I highly doubt I'm ever going to watch it again.

I bring those two movies up because Tank Girl manages to be the worst of both worlds. Blame writing, editing, whatever. The fact of the matter is that "Tank Girl" got chopped to pieces in the editing room and became disjointed... but still manages to feel too long. Add in non-sequitur scenes like the musical dance number at the club, and instead of rollicking along with a fun side-track, you're rolling your eyes and waiting for it to be over.

There's plenty more detail I could go into but I'll paraphrase a little here. The Rippers are like the rest of the movie...weird but not in a good way. I feel bad for Ice T, I wonder how he feels about that role. The death of Johnny Prophet, while immensely important to the Rippers, falls flat for the viewer because there's barely any mention of him prior to finding out he's dead. It's hard to care about a character when the movie spends zero time making you care. This generally applies to the Rippers as well. Deetee's death should have been sad and dramatic, instead it was shoehorned, obviously coming, and carried no emotional weight for us watching. Malcom McDowell is pretty great, but let's be real, that's a typecast role for him that he could do in his sleep. Can't give him that much credit for simply doing the thing he's known for.

I don't want to be accused of missing the overt feminism of Tank Girl, as a female anti-hero who uses sex, violence, vulgarity, etc as her means of being a badass is certainly worth celebrating. I'm all for that, and I don't want to take away from anyone who may have been inspired by the character. But what I'm saying is, all those things Tank Girl is supposed to stand for could have been done A LOT better, and I don't think it's wrong to ask for that. I'll give it credit for perhaps being ahead of it's time, or for inspiring future films and artists...but that in and of itself doesn't make it a good movie.

There's articles worth reading that go over the directors displeasure with studio interference, how the creators of the original Tank Girl comics were displeased with the movie because it's nowhere near source material, and basically how all these things interacted to give you the mess that is this movie. None of this would necessarily matter to me if the final product was enjoyable, as I can look past just about anything if I'm having fun. However, Tank Girl, simply put, fails on just about all fronts, and is not a good movie.

The day of the dvd is past but I have fond memories of watching films with director/cast commentary over them. I was wondering what ones people enjoyed the most, added fun details to the movie or were just funny. Probably a pain to go tracking down random films that might have it so figured I'd see what people liked and build a list from that.

Kung Fu Hustle - Ending scene at store. - No matter how many times I watch it, I still get a little emotional when the camera spins around them. The movie is absolutely hilarious all the way through, but that ending really flips the script and I'm fighting tears. lol I'm curious how it affected you or still affects you if you've seen it multiple times? Or not at all? ... Maybe because I'm starting to get older? I didn't see this when I was young so not sure if younger people find it to be a tear-jerker as well?

I'll go first.

Mine was Saving Private Ryan. I was 10 or 11 I think and saw my dad watching it. But he immediately shooed me out of the living room and told me to go away and not look. My immediate thought was "How bad could it be? I saw the Matrix already!". Which was true. The Matrix was my first R rated movie ever, and I loved it. Well one day, when I was off from school in the summer, I saw Saving Private Ryan was free on On Demand, but my parents put in a parental lock which I managed to guess what it was and get past.

Those first 10 minutes of that movie really rocked me to my core. Not because of the violence, mind you. But because I knew it was real. It really happened. People did that to each other.

I had nightmares for a good while after that.

No spoilers please. My local AMC theaters offer John Wick 4 in several different types of theaters:

• IMAX with laser (cinema reimagined)
• Dolby cinema (completely captivating)
• Prime (perceive the power)

Any opinions on which one is the best? I’m having a hard time deciphering their marketing terms and figuring out which type of theater would be best.

Movies that are not listed as war movies, but have really well done battle scenes or involve a battle accurately portrayed. These movies would be a story but not mainly about the battle, like an adventure, biography, or drama that is typically listed as another genre, but depicts a battle. Not sure if this includes westerns, unless there was a significant realistic battle. Dances With Wolves comes to mind, but that scene of battle was short and more of a skirmish. Gladiator is probably a good example where the theme is Roman Gladiators but there is a great depiction of a Roman Germanic battle in the beginning. Barry Lyndon is another good example where it is about an Irish rogue but he fights in a famous battle with the Austrian army. What are others?

My picks would be:

-Charles Lane: Made "The Kid" inspired movie called Sidewalk Stories (1989), shot in black and white & completely silent beyond obvious music. For such a low budget, it is really well-handled in a format that no one even attempts anymore. Because that movie was critically acclaimed, he got a movie at Disney (Touchstone Pictures specifically) called True Identity (1991), which is a comedy about an African-American man who disguises himself as a white man (similar to the plot of The Watermelon Man). The movie was made on a $15 million budget yet only made around $5 million, along with mediocre reviews. And he has yet to direct a movie since, and the only major film he was in afterward was Mario Van Peeble's Posse (1993), and then it is like he disappeared. No social media presence, and I would assume he is most likely doing theater since his Hollywood experience probably was not fun. But Sidewalk Stories (1989) is a really well-made movie, and even True Identity (1991) has its positives. It is interesting how he only worked in movies from 1989-1993, and then disappeared.

-Kevin DiNovis: He made one of my favorite all-time movies, Surrender Dorothy (1998) which plays with ideas of gender identity and sexual manipulation. And then he made a very low budget movie called Death and Texas, that is shot on cheap digital video and stars Charles Durning, he acts in things here and there, but has not directed a single feature since. The difference with him and Charles Lane is that he does have a little bit of a social media presence and seems to be working in theater. Him being forgotten (along with Surrender Dorothy) is certainly not helped that Elizabeth Banks shat on Surrender Dorothy in the press. Which is funny because I would consider Surrender Dorothy to be the best film Banks has ever been in, despite how disgusted she is with it.

This time I will go with a filmmaker that is a bit more popular and has a longer range of films than Lane & DiNovis:

Alan Rudolph: Despite making a ton of movies (22 in fact), and most of his movies being critically acclaimed it is kind of shocking how pretty much all of his filmography has been forgotten, despite all of them being good or great. I would chalk this up to making low budget movies that didn't do great box office. But Mortal Thoughts and Love at Large are incredibly well-made mysteries, but both did mediocre business at the box office. I think his films definitely deserve being seen more, because he's a great filmmaker, and for someone who has made so many American movies with big movie stars you would figure he would better known.

Any other filmmakers you can think of that go into this category, of making good movies, but have been forgotten and haven't been making as many movies recently (or at all)?

This was a pretty okay movie! Kevin Bacon does damn well playing such a toxic perverted piece of shit, and just so happens to become invisible and is then able to commit the crimes shown in the movie.

Josh Brolin and Elisabeth Shue are also pretty damn good in the movie!

The practical effects....fucking seamless and for a 23 year old movie.....still cannot tell how they pulled off some of this shit. Like damn!

And the CGI, while it obviously doesn't look like the best of today's CGI is still pretty okay looking, doesn't take me out of the movie at all. The effects with water and all that they certainly got down.