Cam Bert

When I late found out that The Banana Splits movie was reworked from a rejected Five Nights and Fredie's script it made a lot of sense. Still was a terrible was of time. Jake Gyllenhaal was the only thing that kept me interested in Velvet Buzzsaw. I've come to the conclusion this year that my secret fetish is Jake Gyllenhaal giving us 200% and going full ham in performances. Okja, Velvet Buzzsaw, John Mulaney & The Sack Lunch Bunch, give me more of that over the top Gyllenhaal please.

I enjoyed the movie but it did something I hate. Nothing about the movie but with myself. Obviously the movie shares a lot of similarities with Sing Street which is a movie from a few years ago that I absolutely loved. Once I started noticing those similarities I couldn't help but start comparing the two movies in my mind. This isn't fair to this movie because the story is different (they're both about poor Irish who start bands) and the type and style of music is different. Not to mention the 20 plus year gap between them and this movie could have well influenced Sing Street. I just feel like I couldn't fully judge this movie because the shadow of Sing Street was looming in my mind. I loved the music, didn't like their disrespect for jazz, and thought the movie was good.

I felt similarly about all the relationship stuff. You have Rabbit (I know it was spelled different but so what) who seems to be crushing on... I don't recall all the names, blondie. He gets, short hair to bring her along because she's good looking and obviously he likes her. Then the girls start sleeping with Hot Lips and then the brunette girl asks Rabbit "If we weren't in a band would you go out with me?" Where did that come from? It's not really brought up until the end again when he's talking about where everybody is. Even there it is vague as if they're an item or not.

I would say the two mainstream movies that I very much hated with a passion were Brightburn and Hellboy. Both are movies that want so hard to be "R rated" and "edgy" that they don't take time to ask if that makes sense. Brightburn wants to be Superman gone bad without understanding what Superman is about or how cliched and over done that is. Hellboy I guess wanted to distance itself from the previous one by being a hard R so everybody says fuck ever other word. I mean the start of the film has three major just "really" moments in. First, needless swearing, second a crow eats an eyeball out of corpse because look it's dark and three a title card with a date that immediately goes into narration that says the date and place. That's just sloppy. Either it's just laziness, dumbness or pandering to foreign markets but it's bad film making. Oh, and 6 Underground falls into a lot of that as well. I mean I saw technically worse movies this year but some of them were so boring they're not worth hating, Io, and others are just horrible shit made for no money so what was I expecting, The Banana Splits and Critters Attack! There was also some Brenda Song movie I watched which was so bad my mind has actively blocked it.

I have the misfortune of living in a country that tends to get a lot of the artier movies late so I too am behind and can't help that much. Looking though the films of 2019 I have seen are just lots of ones I hated with a passion and the bigger ones everybody's already seen. The only one I would add to Grudlian's list is Us. My hot take, Us is better than Get Out.

I hope everybody is having or had a great Christmas and holiday time!

Looking forward to this as well!

Forth! I just remembered after reading that interview you posted that he also did the songs and singing for Bugsy Malone.

What I find a bit confusing is the panel of judges at the talent show are all older. The old guard if you will. The audience is a bit younger. They hear this "new" kind of music and go crazy for it. It makes me think back to when rock and roll was introduced and embraced by the youth but rejected by the old guard. This led me to believe the judges would reject the crazy 70s sound of the Soggy Bottom Boys but they voted for them. Were they responding to the crowd? Did they feel intimated by them? Or, maybe, they just know music?

I will jump on the bandwagon and say this movie charmed and delighted me. Otters are some of the cutest animals and their muppet equivalents are equally cute as well. I liked the song and I do like how it uses the Gift of the Magi but does a good twist on it. Also that him and his mom are stronger together is a good message on top of the other messages as well. Here is my one nitpick though. As much as I liked The Riverbottom Nightmare Band they just seem a bit out of place for me. Emmett and his town seem old fashion and as a result a bit timeless, and then Swampy Black Sabbath comes in and is very modern and of their time. Their song as well is a bit more of the moment. For whatever reason this just sort of bothered me a bit. I can't explain why. Look I get the argument that that's what they're suppose to be. They're chaos in this quaint little town and the fact they are so polar to everybody and everything sells that fact. I get that and understand that but don't like it. It also bothers me that these clearly semi-professional or professional musicians enter a talent contest for amateurs and win. Well, duh. If they had lost to that the "Barbecue" guy I think it would have been more tragic.

According to my mom I use to refer to this movie as "Scary Christmas"

HA! Oddly it is just "High Tension" (ハイテンション　Hai Tenshon) which I imagine is confusing but the posters are very bloody to sell the horror aspect. I asked the teachers in the teachers room (6 Japanese women aged 23-35) if they knew the movie. All" no"s so I asked them what kind of movie they thought it would be based on the name. They all agreed comedy/action movie.

It's time for... How Did This Get Named? So again this is a problem we've encountered before. So you've made a movie with unknown actors and you've given it maybe a punny name. I assume the name is a pun or some sort of play on words, again we're all confused on this. It's also word play that doesn't work or have a direct translation. Fun side fact: If you're in Japan you'll hear the phrase "high tension" a lot. However here it means somebody that we would describe as lively or excitable which is quite literally the opposite of what it means in English. So word play is out, banking on stars is out, what are you to do? Well you kinda go with the music and romance angle I suppose. I present to you... ハートビート (Haatobiito) aka Heartbeat! Music has beats and your heart beats and beats more when in love. I think it does as good of a job if not a better of a job than High Strung, B-b-b-b-b-bonus fact-t-t-t-t-t! When we get Western movies here sometimes we get the international versions. This results in sometimes certain scenes missing or extended or slightly altered. Most times its not noticeable at all. Sometimes they even have a different name. For me while the movie is called Heartbeat in Japanese the English title that appears on screen is "Street Dance: New York"

I'm sorry you can only fall in love if it's Christmas and you're Vanessa Hudgens

Also I want to ask one more question, what's the age range? It seems on one hand post-secondary because they are going out drinking, but yet they have kids their practicing music. Do those kids have tutors their for their regular schooling?

I just want to say my thoughts and feelings are going out to that poor violin student at the conservatory that is in desperate need of a violin. Unfortunately they can't play and are almost going to get kicked out of the school as a result. They are in on a scholarship and the airline company lost their violin. They're not sure if they'll ever get it back and can't afford to buy a new one. Fortunately they heard the school lends out music instruments to their students. Unfortunately they lent out the last violin to a dance student who doesn't even know the difference between a viola and a violin for an indeterminate amount of time without asking a single question. Now Johnny is going to get this poor student's free scholarship and they're going to be forced to go back to toil in obscurity in Toledo as their talent and skills slowly fade away and die.

What strikes me odd about your idea is that at first I was like "why not have a few in the music part of the school" but then I remembered the kids are practicing in rooms right next to the rooms the kids dance in. You're mixing them together. Why not have a wing of the school dedicated to music and another to dance. That way you can have a few cheeky snacks in those vending machines in the music wing, while keeping the less fun stuff in the dance wing. Also a dance student that wanted to be bad would have to go all the way across the school just to get to those snacks and they would have no reason for being over there except for a kitkat run. This would shame them and thus force them to stick to their healthy snack machines.

Yes! She was doing the same moves as the hip hop dance crew but in a not as fluid way. She was still very straight and precise which seemed more in line with modern ballet then contemporary style. She still seemed "stiff" which is what the crew and Jane Seymore didn't want her to be and were trying to get her not to be but they all praised her. Maybe contemporary dance is simply a fancy term for "modern ballet."

So does the school want Ruby to fail? She's clearly a trained and skilled ballet dancer and I assume that's what got her the scholarship. However, she admits in the first contemporary class that she has zero experience with contemporary dance. The first day at the school she's told there is no dress code for contemporary dance and she asks what she should wear. Instead of getting a straight answer from the head teacher she gets "Use your imagination." How is that helpful? She doesn't do that kind of dancing and you know that because you just read her bio. What is the harm in saying something helpful? Then she's called out in the first class and after the second class. She has zero experience and you're trying to pull the "It's because she has so much potential." Bullshit. She's had two days and you're already threatening to kick her out even though she promises to start getting better. If you really thought she had potential you would give her actual instruction rather than berate her after her first attempt. Then what? A week goes by and you are threatening to end her scholarship because she's not showing enough improvement in something she literally just started? Maybe wait until the end of the first term or something. Fuck you dance conservatory.

I agree with this. In fact I wish they had filmed the dance scenes better because I might have enjoyed the movie more. I hated this movie and was mostly incredibly bored by it so when the dance scenes started I thought "Finally some fun." Nope they went and ruined those as well. Part of what makes a dancer incredible is seeing them move. It's about what they're doing with their bodies. You don't need close ups of the face let me see their bodies move! While on the topic of horribly shot dance scenes, who was live streaming the subway dance battle? Were they just standing between the groups filming and how were they live editing it as well?

Sorry to disappoint but both are just direct translations. Well Parasite has a subtitle so it is "Parasite: Semibasement/Partialy Underground Family" The word they use doesn't really have an English word. Like in the ground but not underground, like a sunken living room or a subbasement. I'm actually looking forward to the new year. Parasite mid January, Jojo Rabbit the next week, then Knives Out a week or so after that and the Midsummer after that. With Cats and few other things in between.

For the record I prefer Astaire to Kelly, but I do think Kelly does make for the far better romantic lead.

Shhhh! I have to wait another two months to see it! At least I'm now a month away from Parasite.

I want to take a poll. So early in the rotation we had Easter Parade which had Judy Garland and Fred Astaire and now we have Summer Stock which is Judy Garland and Gene Kelly. Now I don't want to start the Astaire vs Kelly debates again too much, but which pairing do you think or if you recall had more chemistry or was just the general better match up?

That would have been too a-moo-sing