A workmate hated the movie so bad, he took the time to write a review on Teams so we’d stay away from it. At first, I was happy to have dodged a bullet… Then I remembered that this specific workmate doesn’t have the most reliable taste when it comes to movies. So, we went anyway to the theatre and, boy, am I happy we did!

It didn’t take us more than 5 minutes to be completely into the movie. The story is good with a few turns that make the movie great. The humour is well balanced so it never feels ridiculous but keeps the goofy spirit of the actual Dungeons & Dragons game. Finally, the cast was perfect and I couldn’t imagine a better Holga than Michelle Rodriguez or a better Forge than Hugh Grant.

Wizards of the Coast (which owns Dungeons and Dragons) made stat blocks for the main characters showing their abilities and attributes. All the spells used in the film, while largely unnamed, are all spells used in the Dungeons & Dragons pen-and-paper RPG. (source: IMDB)

We went with low expectations and we enjoyed it so much that I’m ready to watch it again, an instant classic.

We’ve both read the trilogy, we’ve seen the original movie (diected by David Lynch), I’ve played the video game on Commodore Amiga (one of my favourite, even though I’m not into RTS) and my nickname – Sardoken – is a derivative of Sardaukar, the elite military force of the emperor.

There was no way that we would miss Dune on the big screen!

My first advice is: if you’re a fan of Frank Herbert or of Science-Fiction in general, watch this movie at the theatre. The amazing images and the otherworldly music of Hans Zimmer make for an amazing spectacle that deserves to be seen on a huge screen.

My second advice is: if you know someone who has something negative to say about Dune… You know, the kind who always finds something that he would have done better… Turn your back and walk away from him/her. This movie is incredible and nitpickers should be ignored.

Dune is a very complex story and Villeneuve’s adaptation doesn’t sacrifice the impressive detail of Frank Herbert’s original vision.

I could have used a picture of Rebecca Ferguson for the post, she is awesome as Lady Jessica. But even her couldn’t steal the show from the real star of the movie: the worms of Arakis.

We’ve just completed a full rerun of the Alien collection. I’m not gonna write a review for each movie, I don’t think that I know enough superlatives to describe how much we love the franchise. Instead, here is our ranking from amazing to excellent:

1. Alien: The original stays incredibly good, actually our favourite of the franchise;
2. Aliens: Much more of an action movie with more guns and more jokes. While very entertaining, it has lost a bit of its mythical aspect compared to the first chapter;
3. Prometheus: I know, the purists will go crazy, but we honestly think that Prometheus is an incredible movie and that it fits perfectly in the story;
4. Covenant: That’s it, the purists will never come back to our blog now! Still, I can’t help to find the end of the story a perfect fit;
5. Alien 3: Still excellent, but slower and darker. Enjoyable but not essential;
6. Alien Resurrection: An excellent sci-fi movie and a great Alien movie, but it’s the one that we find less amazing, just excellent.

If the entropy was reversed, this generation would instantly disappear because, while we are the future’s past, we’d become the future’s future.

So, in terms of Kenneth Branagh’s career, Gilderoy Lockhart would be Andrei Sator’s past. But, if the entropy would be reversed, Lockhart would become Sator’s future. Of course, the entropy would have to be reversed by the first Lockhart, using technology sent to him from the future by Sator and I’m not even sure that Harry Potter would be made a second time in a reversed future, but it was fun making this image in Photoshop because I like flashy arrows.

More trivia about Tenet:

• It is written, directed and produced by Christopher Nolan. I can’t imagine how much his head must have been spinning writing the story, mine is still not back from watching the movie;
• 3 actors from the casting of Harry Potter play in Tenet: Clémence Poésy, Kenneth Branagh and Robert Pattinson;
• The stunning soundtrack is composed by Ludwig Göransson, who’s also behind The Mandalorian’s OST;
• It took me exactly 2 hours and 11 minutes of watching Tenet to understand the concept of reversed entropy while it took me only 21 minutes to write this post (Photoshop included). It doesn’t mean much, but I enjoy statistics.

Every summer, Sardoken and I love to rewatch all Harry Potter movies during the annual mind-numbing heatwave. This year, no exception. There we were hanging in the couch, suffering the scorching temperatures, trying to alleviate our pain by watching one of our favourite movie series. After all this time, still as magical as ever.

Instead of ranting endlessly about the heat, here’s one particular scene with my favourite Hogwarts teacher, professor Slughorn:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=JBwu5Wqg1jM

This is the first movie we’ve watched during our one week of summer holidays. We thought it would be fitting our mood of sun and blue sky during this strange month of July. For some reason, I’ve believed all my life that Palm Springs is a place on the border of a beach with lots of palm trees, imagine my surprise seeing a desert instead. I immediately googled Palm Springs after watching the movie, and yes, it apparently is a desert resort city in California. I’ve learned a new thing that day…

The movie was fun to watch, Andy Samberg was as hilarious as always. Movies about time loops always reach their best point when the people who are stuck in them, accept their fate and completely let go. Throwing a bomb at a wedding, dressing up like a pirate, camping in the desert while stoned and watching dinosaurs pass,… life would be so much fun if none of your actions would have any consequences, the day starts over and over again anyway.

Also, those inflatable pizzas look so comfy, I could see Chris and I floating on one of those babies in our imaginary pool.

Another consequence of the Covid Pandemic was the cancellation of the Eurovision Song Contest and that’s super sad because it’s one of the best evening of the year.

Thanks to this movie, we had a taste of our favourite contest. It may not have filled the gap, but the duo Ferrell-McAdams made us laugh and brought a welcome Eurosong touch to this disastrous year.

Lately, we’ve seen contestants trying to adapt their act to the standards of nowadays pop music… But Fire Saga reflects what I think Eurovision is about: a celebration of individuality where people from all over Europe bring something different.

Now, let’s hope that 2021 comes fast.

Friday was warm, so warm that our traditional pizza-gaming eve got replaced by a pizza-movie eve. But what movie to watch when there’s barely any air to breathe?

I don’t know why we decided to watch The King of Staten Island… To be honest, the trailer and the tattoos were probably the selling point. Anyway, we watched it with greater pleasure than we anticipated. The King of Staten Island created a nice chill vibe over our week-end and it still hasn’t left.

While not much happens, the ambiance is great and Scott is a very attaching character with an amazing t-shirt collection, his sense of humour was balancing perfectly the dramatic undertones of the movie.

I remember going to the cinema with my mom to watch Rambo II… I was 11 and I loved that movie so much, it made me wanna be a soldier.
My mom had to drive me to an american army supply shop to buy military equipment. I was spending all my pocket money on survival knives and pellet rifles. Rambo was my hero and I wanted to be him (not sure why I use the past tense here).

With the years passing, I got out of the badass soldier trip (and moved on to science-fiction). I don’t remember much about the third movie and I have never seen the fourth.

Probably because of all the COD Warzone I’ve been playing lately, I got in the mood for a Rambo movie. So, last Sunday, we watched Last Blood.

We loved it. In fact, it’s probably been one of our best evening of 2020. Stallone remains the original action hero: attaching, damaged and ruthless. The movie surprised us with a few scenes of ultra violence followed by an ultimate vengance rampage. I enjoyed every minute and found myself on the border of my coach screaming “go get them, John!”.

This final chapter is an amazing way to end the serie (if it’s really the end, you never know with Hollywood).

I’ll end this post with my favourite quote:

“I’ve lived in a world of death. I’ve watched people I’ve loved die. Some fast with a bullet, some not enough left to bury. All these years I’ve kept my secrets, but the time has come to face my past. And if they come looking for me, they will welcome death.”

Sardoken

There is nothing I hate more than a psychological drama camouflaged as a horror movie. It’s always the same with that kind of movie, the beginning is promising but, half-way through, you realise that it doesn’t keep its promise, that everything has been slowing down for 30 minutes. You keep watching in the hope that it’ll pick back up, but it never comes. Then you know that you’ve been fooled by the crappy ratings of nowadays drama lovers on places like Rotten Tomatoes and, even worse, respected horror websites like Bloody Disgusting.

I don’t care that it’s artistic, that the mix of ballet dancing with the fight scenes is well done. I don’t want symbolism or references to metaphoric crap from the Bible. I came for a horror movie, and I ended up with a dramatic opera. I would have preferred that the other families would have been aliens trying to replace us.

So, if like me, all you want is to watch a horror movie, don’t watch Us, it doesn’t belong in that genre.

Soforah

The only horror related to this movie are the high ratings. Seriously, this movie was bad!

The first scene looked promising though, the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in 1986 had me expecting an epic 80’s themed horror movie. While it had a lot of potential, they had to go completely bamboozled in the second part. Conceptual art doesn’t belong in movies! Who likes that anyway? The whole fight vs ballet scene was unbearable.

I’ve read that the concept of the movie is based on Jeremiah 11:11;

Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them.

True story *ahum*… I think that my scientific brain can’t take these kind of things seriously.

Anyway, they could have used this idea for something darker and creepy, a real horror story! All in all, this was one of the worst movies I’ve watched in 2019. I think I will be more cautious next time I see high ratings on a horror movie.