One Week Challenge Idea: "Don't, Accept this Challenge"

The gist is this: watch movies or TV episodes with the word "Don't" in the title.
Points are as follows:
FTV: 1 point
Movie: 2 points
TV episode: 1 point

Any genre accepted. Only exclusion is tv series with "Don't" in the title of the series, but episodes OF the series with "Dont" will count.

Whatcha think?

10 to Midnight (1983)

Last night at about 10 to midnight, I decided to put this movie on. It's a fairly decent early 80s detective story about the one and only Charles Bronson as he hunts a fit young asshole who hates women. Now this dude clearly has issues, stripping naked before he pursues his young attractive victims. There has to be something sexual about what and why he does these things, but he doesn't try anything dirty on them. He just wants to kill him. What a weirdo.

As the pieces connect, you begin to notice this guy has his alibis and defense strategies all planned out, advised by his low-moral lawyer played by the great Geoffrey Lewis. It becomes less about who did it and more about how do we stop this guy when we don't have the evidence to convict him?

Bronson is the older and more jaded detective here, willing to break the rules to catch the bad guy, whereas his partner is new and virtuous. Fortunately for us, this isn't that guy's movie. This is Bronson's movie.

Oddly enough, there isn't a lot of Bronson action in this one. He's mostly there in the background trying to piece things together while we follow the main villain, who seems like a valid inspiration for Patrick Bateman in ways. This dude is trying to steal the show, but in the end, Bronson reminds us whose movie this really is.

I also love the abruptness of the ending. As soon as the climax is over, the credits roll. We know what we just watched, so there's no need to wrap it up with some boring epilogue of characters trying to explain things. When it's over, it's over.

#Review

The First Purge (2018)

Wow... the only Purge movie I've been avoiding turns out to be the only one I liked. I figured it would be a politically motivated movie, but... of course it is. It also happens to be the only way in hell that this series' ridiculous premise could ever get off the ground. Government subsidized rioting with undercover mercenaries to take out the lower class.

I actually liked the characters. The buff hero was pretty bad-ass, and the progression was decent too. People are unsure how to react, starting off as a rather slow night until killing becomes commonplace. Participation is incentivized with more government money, so the poor black people of Staten Island are the first, which naturally paves the way for psycho junkies, nazis, KKK, and weirdos.

Making the original film set in the future allowed this movie to be slightly more contemporary, which coincides with (even predating the Floyd stuff) all this racial tension these days. The timing of this in regards to the BLM and Hollywood's own 'purge' seem oddly connected somehow, but throw all that shit out of your mind and this movie is entertaining.

#Review

Starcrash (1985) 4/10

The bad guy wants to take over the universe, and the good guys are out to stop him.
This is one of those films that has so many bad elements mixed in, it comes across more enjoyable than it should. Wise-cracking robots, hot women in skimpy costumes, cheesy special effects and bad writing/editing. Oh, and toss in David Hasselhoff for good measure. On the plus side, it starred Caroline Munro, one of the more well-known B movie actresses.
People who can shoot lasers out of their eyes, Amazons on another planet,, badly done stop motion, extreme overacting, a weapon that can freeze time, but they forget about it in the very next battle.
But like I said, it was more fun than it had any right to be.

Three Came Home (1950) 7/10

This film is based on the real-life story of Agnes Newton Keith, an American author who was at Sandakan when the Japanese army invaded. The white residents were all sent to prison camps; men in one, women and children in another. It details the hardships that the prisoners went through, including murder, forced labor, and rape.
I'm a WWII junkie, so I found the film extremely interesting. When most people think of WWII prisoner camps, they think of the German concentration camps. But the Japanese counterparts were just as bad, if not worse.

The Dead Don't Die

So, this lowkey zombie movie is supposedly a comedy, but I didn't really see anything to laugh at. It was really quirky, but that's not the same thing as funny. But there was one single guy in the theater who kept laughing, so I guess some people must find it humorous. I just thought it was weird. It seemed like the sort of thing Quentin Dupieux (Rubber, Wrong, Wrong Cops) would have made. Adam Driver's and Bill Murray's characters made it clear in a few parts that they were well aware that they were in a movie, a gag that I always find to be pretty stupid. And with lots of zombie head chopping, they had the perfect opportunity for plenty of gore, but black dust would come out of them instead of blood. All in all, it wasn't a terrible movie, but pretty disappointing nonetheless.

The World's End (2013)

I watched this a bunch when it first came on cable. Pretty much every few days, I'd give it another whirl, but it's been a few years and I'd mostly forgotten about it.

Of the Cornetto trilogy, I definitely like Shaun the most, but Fuzz and this one are tied. I wish Edgar Wright would be more redundant with his career and make these types of movies again. Baby Driver was alright, but it was definitely trying too hard to be 'cool', whereas these movies are so funny, the effort to be cool is less emphasized, so it hits harder and is overall more effective.

The five muskateers are great. Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie Marsan work on all levels and I really love the fights with the blanks/nobots/blue-bloods. They're well choreographed and they get me jazzed up.

Plus, this movie makes the beer look so delicious.

Oxygen (2021)

For the most part, I like Alexandre Aja's movies despite the handful of remakes he did early on in his career. I'm one of those people who still groans at the mention of yet another remake, but I occasionally enjoy them. That includes Aja's remakes even though the most memorable aspect about them tends to be the gore.

When I heard there was going to be a new Aja movie on Netflix, I was looking forward to watching it. I was a little disappointed to discover it wouldn't be a horror movie, but I was still optimistic.

The premise for Oxygen is fairly simple: a woman wakes up in a cryogenic chamber and can't remember who she is or how she got there. She can't open the door and her only contact with the outside world is through phone calls the cryo chamber's built-in, talking computer can make for her. The reason she woke up is because the chamber is running low on oxygen and it's steadily getting lower. The chamber is small and it's a movie meant to feel claustrophobic.

While I never really found myself bored with Oxygen despite the slow pace, it'll probably be a long time before I feel any urge to watch it again. Some of the details the main character learns about herself and the situation she's in are mildly interesting, but by the end, I mostly felt indifferent about the whole thing.

On the subject of Aja and remakes, Oxygen reminded me of Buried, where Ryan Reynolds is buried in a box and his only contact with the outside world is through a cell phone. Does that mean Oxygen is a remake or rip off of Buried? Maybe, but it wouldn't surprise me if other movies had a similar concept before Buried.

Rating: 5/10 4/10. The more I think about this movie, the less I like it.

The Banquet (Legend of the Black Scorpion) (2006) 7/10

The same basic setup as Curse of the Golden Flower: Tail end of the Tang dynasty in the Chinese imperial court in the late 9th century.
Whereas Curse had the Empress as the figure the story revolves around, Banquet revolves around the Crown Prince, who has left the court to be am actor. He is dragged back into the imperial intrigue when he gets news that his father, the Emperor, has died from what can best be described as less than clear conditions.
Complicating the matter is that the Empress and him have a relationship, as well as his love for the daughter of a high official. The Emperor's brother has lain claim to the throne, and has decided to marry the Empress.
The Empress, meanwhile, is not happy that the Prince has another lover, is not happy with the new Emperor, and wants the prince for herself.
Complicating matters (as if they are not complicated enough) is that the father of the prince's par amour wants his son to be Emperor.

Whew...

Alien Resurrection

I always liked this movie. I remember renting it on vhs in the late 90s and said it was my favorite of the Alien movies. It's easy to hate on Alien3, but most people only suck the first two movie's dicks. AR is never held in high regards.

Over the years, my opinion changed to think Aliens was the best when I was in Cameron fanboy mode, but now, I think the first movie is the best. It's visually defining, slow burning, and moodier than all the other movies.

A1 - single alien on space ship
A2 - multiple aliens on planet
A3 - single alien on planet
A4 - multiple aliens on space ship

As you can see, they had to play around with the formula to get all the right combinations, but I think the space ship setting for AR is pretty cool. This movie has a lot of good things going for it: cast, characters, action, gore, alien slime, sets, colors, clones, mad science, military schemes, and ugly monsters.

Every time a movie has someone holding their breath underwater for a side plot, I try to hold my breath too. This movie has one of the most difficult stretches out there. It's a great scene sandwiched between more great scenes. If I was in the movie, I would have died before I even got to that scene, thank God.

I can understand why the series wanted to try out a crossover after it, but those AVP movies sure did suck. I'm glad Prometheus tried to go back to the roots while not doing the same shit again, but the same shit was saved for the next movie, which wasn't as great.

AR did leave it open for a sequel with future clone Ripley on earth, so why didn't that ever happen? Later talks had her in talks for that Blomkamp sequel to Aliens, which would have disregarded AR entirely at the bonus of reviving Michael Biehn's Hicks, so I can't say I wouldn't watch it, but I would have easily accepted a sequel to Resurrection as is. With that said, the original Alien "Quadrilogy" ends on a high note.