MASH is the only one I can name off the top of my head.
My personal analysis based on some film history criticism and American political history in no particular order:
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The Korean War was mostly fought by WW2 Veterans and draftees who missed the WW2 cut, but are still pre-babyboom and thus Greatest Generation or Silent Generation. If you were an 18-21 year old draftee into the Korean war it was your great and terrible war but on a societal level it was great power competition in a far-flung locale after the total civilization upheaval of the second World War.
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The Korean war was a major war but nowhere near the scale of the 2 conflicts it sits between. The artistic response to this will necessarily be more muted as a result. This in no way diminishes all of its impacts, but just means you wonāt see as much in a commercial, populist medium like film vs other wars. My Wifeās maternal grandfather was very negatively impacted by his experiences despite living a successful life afterward for example. US casualties per wikipedia.
- WW2 : Total 131,028,000 Deaths: 407,300
- Korean: Total 144,572 Deaths 36,574
- Vietnam: Total 361,925ā¬ Deaths 58,281
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The Vietnam War was a divisive flashpoint during a major cultural change period in the US amongst and exacerbating tensions over race, gender, government, economics, etc. which also occurred during a major change in the film industry freeing up a ton of expression for new, young creatives whereas the Korean war sits within the post-war boom for the US and the peace dividend as well as occurring during a much more conformist culture during the height of the hollywood blacklist and McCarthyism.
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The Korean war is largely treated as a small occurrence in terms of teaching time and materials for what most people experience about US History below the college level. If you are covering modern US history it is at best a day in a course where WW2 and Vietnam will loom large and may even just be wrapped into general events covering the overall Cold War.
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Looking at the list of US films, I recognize by titleā¦ Manchurian Candidate and MASH?
And MASH only occupies TV show space in my mind, having (famously?) run for like 3 times as long as the actual war.
I just saw Glass Onion, the sequel to Knives Out. It only features the detective returning but otherwise is entirely standalone so even if you havenāt watched Knives Out yet you can see it. Pretty much everything I said in my thoughts on Knives Out also hold out with a great plot full of subtle clues and loose threads, and just fantastic casting.
I particularly liked Ed Norton as Musk/Jobs/Zuckerberg kind of guy, someone who got lucky once and now has far more money than they ever had brains. This however also makes the skewering of the wealthy that the series engages in much more obvious than it was in Knives Out, though that isnāt particularly a detriment Iād say.
Great movie, definitely worth the watch.
I watched 102 movies last year. 22 I enjoyed a lot.
Burrageās quartet:
Favorites:
Top Gun: Maverick
Everything Everywhere All At Once
Anti-disappointments (better than I expected):
Pig (honorable mention for Favorites as well)
The Batman
Regular disappointments:
CODA
Raising Arizona
Ultimate Disappointments (expected bad, reality was worse):
The Gray Man
Event Horizon
Hereās to movies in 2023 
Got around to seeing NOPE.
It is very good. I think what I liked the most about it was that there were not that many characters. Less than ten with any amount of lines at all, and only four of major significance. Yet, all of these characters were done very well. Terrific acting, especially Keke Palmer. Oscar level in my book.
Of the Jordan Peele horror movies Iād say itās definitely the tightest and best put together. Get out might have more to say, but NOPE is finest in terms of craftsmanship.
The only thing that disappointed me is that I was expecting primarily horror and suspense. Those elements are certainly present, but itās often lighthearted and downright comedic. Iād say the overall mood is closer to Independence Day than it is to Alien. This is especially true towards the end in the final confrontation and climax. At that point one would expect maximum terror, but itās easily the least suspenseful and scary part of all.
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I am behind in posting my review notes on Letterboxd and this forum to the tune of 11 movies from 2022 and 5 from 2021. So here we goā¦
The Animatrix 2003
ā ā ā ā
Part four of our Matrix Marathon. Itās a fun collection of shorts, filling in some of the backstory and lore of the Matrix. Any of these could fit into Death Love and Robots, but some are better quality than others.
Worth a watch, especially on the back of the movie trilogy.
Donāt Look Up 2021
ā ā ā ā
A big group of Hollywood stars cartoonishly skewer easy targets at the intersection between politics, news, science and the tech industry. Whatās not to like? I liked a lot of it. I even cried a bit, which I wasnāt expecting.
A note on Mark Rylance.
In Ready Player One, based on a story written in 2010, Rylance plays the benevolent tech god who leaves his fortune to the hero.
In Donāt Look Up, written in 2021, heās also a tech god, but anything but benevolent.
We can learn a lot about how society collectively feels about a subject by how it is portrayed in a movie, and how we are all supposed to instinctively react to that portrayal.
This observation, written in February 2022, feels very relevant after 2022 played out.
Dune 2021
ā ā ā ā
Very impressive. Hard to pass judgement until Iāve seen part 2.
Extraction 2020
ā ā Ā½
One man against a city! Like John Wick, but this time in Dhaka, Bangladesh instead of New York City. The setting certainly adds a lot to the formula, despite my qualms about having a white Australian kill many, many, many locals.
Iām not going to lie, thereās some really fun action in this one. But the most interesting fight scene was when Thor had to fight a group of young kids and teenagers, and obviously didnāt want to kill them, and could obviously do so. The tension is pretty great.
So, in all, a pretty okay movie.
Turning Red 2022
ā ā ā ā
I saw part of the trailer and expected a movie about a young teenager going through puberty. Turning Red indeed. But I expected the period material to be in the background, and the Panda to be a metaphor for that.
But unexpectedly from a Disney movie, the girl-having-first-period was totally explicit, with her mum giving her pads and explaining its all natural. Quite refreshing!
Meanwhile, I loved the animation style and the characters. The time and location fit great. The mum Panda showing up at the end was fun, even if I think the finale was a bit overdone. But why not go big? Itās a silly fantasy so sure, knock down buildings.
The best Disney animation for a while.
Free Guy 2021
ā ā ā
I did not expect anything from this movie. But it was pretty good!
Ryan Reynolds is funny and charismatic, and can save an otherwise dumb video game movie. He didnāt save the Pokemon movie for me, but that was due to me having zero knowledge about Pokemon and no nostalgia for it.
But this is based on a Grand Theft Auto-style game, and the writers could invent what they wanted to make the story good and the movie make sense, not be tied to an existing franchise.
The movie is let down by the real-world drama with source code and the tech bro boss. I found it hard to care. It all felt silly.
But then the romance stuff somehow worked? āIs there a button for that?ā I laughed.
An okay anti-disappointment movie.
Prey 2022
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Yes please a good Predator movie. Kicks ass. More like this please.
Everything Everywhere All at Once 2022
ā ā ā ā Ā½
Why canāt all movies be at least this good?!?!?
Why do we keep going back to franchises and mining them for audience appeal? Why not create a new world where we can find out fresh how things work and who we should like and who we are cheering for and who we should boo?!?!?
I think itās because this kind of movie actually looks VERY DIFFICULT to write, and then even harder to make to this level of competence.
Really, this is super high level stuff. Movies like this donāt come along very often, and we should treasure them.
Recent examples:
Knives Out - which spawned sequels.
John Wick - also spawned sequels
Mad Max Fury Road - technically a sequel type thing but unconcerned by that and just wanted to be the best movie possible.
The Lego Movie?
Thor: Love and Thunder 2022
ā ā Ā½
Look, itās fine. Letās keep churning out Thor movies. Chris Hemsworth is worth watching. Korg is funny, Valkyrie kicks ass, etc, etc. Thereās plenty of laughs to be had, and lots of fun stuff to look at, and interesting visuals.
Director Taika Waititi has proved he can do the funny, but there are so many basic movie-making mistakes here. Plotting, casting, action, stakes, pacing, etc, etc.
Russell Crow?!?!? What accent is he trying here? Stunt casting can RUIN a movie! Crow is the worst part of all every movie where heās stunt-cast in as a legendary character, be that Jekell/Hyde or Zeus.
WHY ALL THE GUNS N ROSES!?!?!? IT DOESNāT MAKE SENSE!!! Fun music choices worked in Guardians of the Galaxy because it was a character-defining part of our main character, and the mix tape his mother gave to him when he died.
But in this movie, we are introduced to a NEW CHILD ACTOR CHARACTER who just happens to have the SAME FAVOURITE BAD as the movieās director, to the level that THE CHARACTER CHANGES HIS NAME to Axel. ITāS GARBAGE-LEVEL MOVIE MAKING.
You know what movie is allowed to use āWelcome to the Jungleā as a main part of its soundtrack? A movie called āJumanji: Welcome to the Jungleā, which came out just five years ago!
Fucking hell.
Also I have trouble with the (seemingly) unexamined glorification of child soldiers, but it whatever I canāt take the movie seriously enough to think about it further.
A disappointment but overall okay I guess.
Top Gun: Maverick 2022
ā ā ā ā Ā½
Wait, wasnāt this going to be a movie about how drones are going to replace real human pilots in the future? It seemed thatās what it was going to be at the start of the movie. By the end it seemed to have forgotten that theme and instead
WHOOOSH, PEW PEW PEW, BOOM, CRASH, VROOM
Wait, this plot doesnāt make sense
THE VEINS ON THAT ACTORāS FACE ARE ACTUALLY BULGING DUE TO G-FORCES BECAUSE THEY ARE ACTUALLY IN A JET LOOPING OVER THE DESERT
Something something American military propaganda concern
TOM CRUISE ON A MOTORBIKE
Lightyear 2022
ā ā ā
This was Andyās favourite childhood movie? It wouldnāt have been mine, but it was better than I expected. The tone was all over the place for the first half, with dumb slapstick comedy with tentacle plants mixed with time dilation-induced social exclusion anxieties. Weird.
Unusual choice to have the rest of the main cast only turn up half way through, and then it settled down into a standard sci-fi adventure. By then I guess Iād got used to the unevenness and just sat back to enjoy it.
The cat was funny.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery 2022
ā ā ā Ā½
Please let Rian Johnson keep making movies like this. Sure, itās nowhere close to Knives Out in any regard, but that was always going to be the case, right?
Knives Out was funnier, but felt more serious in its satire and social commentary. Glass Onion felt more like Donāt Look Up, with Hollywood stars skewering easy targets. But compared to most movies, thatās actually a better result than average.
So can we have a new Benoit Blanc mystery every Christmas? Yes please thank you.
Cast Highlights:
Ed Norton doing his best billionaire idiot act and I loved hating him.
Kate Hudson. Has she always been a good actor?
Jessica Henwick again being the āwait where do I know her from sheās awesomeā character. I totally have a crush on her.
Some movies from late 2021 where I didnāt make proper notes after I watched them:
Finch 2021
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Tom Hanks is old now and plays characters that die.
Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings 2021
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A MARVEL MOVIE OKAY?
The Matrix 1999
ā ā ā ā Ā½
We were going to do a podcast after our Christmas Matrix Movie Marathon, but decided to wait until we saw the new fourth Matrix movie, and then never got round to it. So no reviews for these three movies.
The Matrix Reloaded 2003
ā ā ā Ā½
Actually a very good enjoyable movie, way better than I expected or remember.
For a 2003 movie, the diversity of the cast really stands out. But then, in a way that feels more telling, there isnāt a single biracial relationship in any of them. All white characters partner up with white characters, while all the black characters have black love interests.
I canāt help but think those movies would be different to that if made in 2021.
(I havenāt seen the latest Matrix)
The Matrix Revolutions 2003
ā ā Ā½
My notes from watching this a year ago:
- Not great. Feels like only the last act of a previous movie, spread out too much.
- But the details!!!
I think the ādetailsā are from all the miniature-based sets and effects, rather than CGI craft and backgrounds. There didnāt seem to be much attention to the details of, say, the plot or script.
Only 24 movies for me in 2022, which I think is less than normal. Here are my top picks (though not ranked) from the various tags I use:
YUP:
Top Gun: Maverick
Little Women
Everything Everywhere All at Once
The Summit of the Gods
Okay:
Actually no top picks here as okay means not worth noting in particular.
Anti-disappointment:
The Amazing Spider-Man
Free Guy
Ultimate Disappointment:
Spider-Man 2 - seriously how do people think this is the best superhero movie?!?!?!
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No 5 stars huh. Whatās a movie gotta do to get that Luke last half star?
Be as good as Jurassic Park, Knives Out, or Master and Commander? My five star list is very short.
On my book review podcast Iāve done 505 episodes since 2008, and there have only been about 15 books that rated 5 stars. And 9 movies out of about 400 on Letterboxd, though I donāt know if Iāve rated all of those.
I keep it an exclusive rating for only books/movies I enjoy at a super strong level, not just for something I consider good or great.
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Iām watching some of the DC animated films Iāve missed and hereās the two latest.
Justice League Dark: Apokolips War
It had some neat ideas but very poor execution. In nearly all cases, the fun concepts they put in the story and plot were unused or just executed in the most boring way. One of the few exceptions is having two villains face off near the end but even thatās nullified but the needless retcon at the end that undoes everything in the story. I donāt think this could have been great with what they seemed to want to make but could have at least been more interesting than the final product had the creative team committed to their ideas more.
Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
This one was fun. Batman and TMNT kind of just work together. It does nothing new necessarily but executes what it does well. The biggest issue is the villainās objective is a bit nonsensical, however that can be forgiven with it being a somewhat more campy iteration of Batman.
On a personal note, this really worked for me as it finally gave Damian Wayne the chance to be a kid, which nearly nothing else has. Heās still a broody little shithead, just with his actual age being on display more than usual.
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Apollo 10Ā½: A Space Age Childhood 2022
ā ā ā ā Ā½
An animation about growing up in Houston in the late 1960ās as the city changes from a cowboy city to a space city. Itās very good! The animated version of the adult Stanās memories really works to set aā¦ I was about to use the phrase āthrough a mirror darklyā but thatās a bit too on-the-nose considering Richard Linklaterās previous animated movies.
I love a movie/TV show where the director is obviously as big of a fan of space and rocket stuff as I am, so this works at the same level as For All Mankind season 1, which is just high grade Apollo fan service, and Iām fine with that.
But what really connected with me was the depiction of childhood in 1969. This movie is easily the closest match with my own childhood of any movie or TV show Iāve seen. Almost every little detail that is shown or narrated by the adult Stan, I could pause the movie and tell my own little story about the same thing, or event, or detail, or experience. Which I kept doing, of course, because I couldnāt resist it.
Frozen sandwiches in the freezer? I have 5 or 6 different stories! Iām not going to list more examples.
Stan is Richard Linklater, obviously, who was born in July 1960, and was about 9 years old in 1969. I was born August 1980, so 9 years old just exactly 20 years later. That sounds like a big time distance, but a 9 year old kid today is about 33 years younger than me.
Linklater is early Gen X, I guess, and Iām late Gen X, but there must be something to this generational cohort thing because Iām sure, for kids born in the 90ās, the most fantastical parts of this movie wonāt be a 9 year old flying to the moon, but how teachers smoked in the classroom or common it was for kids to have broken bones.
15 teachers doing whatā½
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Glass Onion was good, in the same way Donāt Look Up was good.
Does the job of pointing out the glaringly obvious very loudly.
Which makes it too predictable for a murder mystery. I enjoyed it more than the first movie even though Daniel Craigās accent is still very jarring.
Just doesnāt sound right.
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I finally watched Knives Out, I was super impressed with the whole thing.
EXCEPT THE GO SCENE. ugh, from what I caught they really didnāt play the game in a sensical way. Also, 9x9? were they still learning? Why have it be such a big thing that one could win at it when you only played on a beginning board?
Donāt watch movies where you have a lot of knowledge about the subject kids. Youāre just going to be confused.
The Go scene actually sets up a bunch of character development without you knowing about it. Feel free to watch the TotD video I posted a while back now and you will see the connections.
I didnāt find the Go scene important at all 
The conversation was more important.
Iām not sure why it would be important, as it was just an additional bit of subtlety, to demonstrate each characterās personality.
There are more scenes that already do that.
Any story that uses a game/ game mechanic to push the plot, I assume is just contrived for this purpose. I would never take it literally.
Star Trek: TNG has plenty of examples of this.
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This conversation is giving me flashbacks to high school where we watched The Net in computer class. IIRC it was on more than one occasion.
Canāt forget this Oscar winning scene involving Wolfenstein 3D
If you know anything about anything, itās going to be really hard to enjoy almost any work of fiction if you canāt get over things not being perfectly realistic.
What next, mechanics saying that the Blues Brothers is garbage because thereās no way that car would keep going?
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High Fidelity 2000
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I have watched this movie before. Maybe 5 times before. I assume Iād watched it once with Juliane, but she insisted (correctly) that she hadnāt see it.
Itās a good movie about a whole group of not-particularly-good people in Chicago doing a bad job of dating each other, with John Cusackās Rob the lead not-good person.
How entertaining can it be to see so many people make terrible life choices? Very!
Might not appeal to you if youāre not Gen X enough.
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Chip ān Dale: Rescue Rangers 2022
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Iāve never seen a single episode of the 90ās TV show, but I can try out an Andy Samberg/John Mulaney movie reboot. But not really a reboot, as itās about the actors who played the title characters and their Hollywood lives, in the vein of Roger Rabbit.
And it worked! I mean, the laugh-rate was pretty consistent at two or three big chuckles every scene. Itās about what I expected.
Thereās some great voice work too!
Which brings me to SETH ROGAN STUNT CASTING!!!
WHY OH WHY does Seth Rogan keep getting cast in animated movies?!?!?! Heās ALWAYS the worst part of ALL these movies, even if they are otherwise good movies. HEāS FUCKING AWFUL at voiceover work, and the only enjoyment that can be gained from his appearance is if it makes you chuckle that you recognise his voice. IT DOESNāT MAKE ME CHUCKLE.
I hated him in Kung Fu Panda and as Pumba in Lion King. And whatās worse, those characters turn up IN THIS MOVIE to rub it IN MY FACE.
Itās okay to get Hollywood stars to voice characters! For example, J. K. Simmons doing a fantastic job in this very movie! But did anyone WANT Seth Rogan in this movie, or is he just friends with the director?
Tagged: okay
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