RainCaster
RainCaster's JournalAbigail: 2024. Classic cheesy horror
Here's a review of this movie, by The Guardian.
The review makes it sounds so cheesy that I simply must see it. Although my wife may not choose to join me, as she has more sense.
Abigail review – Dracula’s daughter gets kidnapped in fun-sucking horror
There’s some low-stakes pleasure to be had in the first half of the gory new film from the team behind Ready or Not and Scream but things fall apart disastrously
Benjamin Lee
Last year’s handsome gothic horror The Last Voyage of the Demeter and bombastic Nic Cage comedy Renfield allowed Universal the opportunity to present known IP as something fresh, at least on the surface, stories involving Dracula but told in ways we hadn’t seen before. They represented a nifty marketing strategy for a back catalogue of classic monster movies but both worked better as loglines than finished films – Dracula on a boat, Dracula as a bad boss – and audiences proved as uninterested as critics, the stench of old property distracting from the promise of something new.
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare review – Guy Ritchie’s fun wartime romp
Read more
As the studio preps a new take on The Wolf Man with next year’s Christopher Abbott-led Wolfman and Robert Eggers’ remake of the Dracula-inspired Nosferatu, here comes Abigail, a poppy reimagining of the little-remembered 1936 horror Dracula’s Daughter. In the contemporary take, she’s a ballerina (Matilda’s Alisha Weir) who gets kidnapped by a group of unaware criminals, hired to keep her locked in a grand old house for 24 hours while ransom money is obtained. But early on, recovering addict and single mother Joey (Melissa Barrera) figures out that something is up and starts to realise that the scared little girl in their care might not be so scared after all.
Abigail comes from Radio Silence, the team who broke out with 2019’s smug yet successful Ready or Not, a gimmicky thriller about a new bride forced to play a deadly game of hide and seek that started with real fizz before turning flat. There’s a similarly precipitous dip here, directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett again crafting a fun conceit with returning writer Guy Busick (here writing alongside Stephen Shields), but without the follow-through. It has the same arch comedy-horror tone, as gory as it is goofy, but it’s missing the touch of a real comedy writer (making it the second film this year after Godzilla x Kong where Dan Stevens has to play comic support without the support of his screenwriter). Set-ups for jokes are left as just that and our wait for any form of payoff starts to mirror the plot at large, our wait for a premise to become a real movie proving similarly endless.
Abigail is out in US and UK cinemas on 19 April
The Departed
2006. Won four Oscars, including Scorcese's only Oscar win. Loads of famous actors in this one. Hugely bloody, gorey and massive gratuitous violence. I only mention it here because I watched it on a Virgin Atlantic flight Friday. This is the most violent movie I have ever seen, bar none. I really regretted watching it.
My son is accused of a felony
He's been waiting for two years for his case to come to court. Because he has this accusation hanging over his head, he can't leave the state, vote or own a firearm.
Why isn't TSF held to that same standard?
John Oliver tonight!!
John's show tonight was a jaw dropper. The analysis & solution offered to fix the rampant corruption on the SCOTUS was excellent.
Found a thread that started sooner - https://democraticunderground.com/100218699751
Sorry Montanacowboy, didn't mean to steal your thunder.
High tech Seagate joins the labor movement
Seagate workers secure collective bargaining rights for Unite in ‘historic ballot’ says trade union
https://www.derryjournal.com/business/seagate-workers-secure-collective-bargaining-rights-for-unite-in-historic-ballot-says-trade-union-4498688
This doesn't happen very often in high tech.
“This result will be noticed by workers right across the economy, most especially in the northwest. Now is the time for workers to join a union and secure a collective voice.”
Unite said that following the result, the employer has 30 days to negotiate a voluntary collective bargaining agreement with the union or else have a statutory one imposed by the industrial court.
Here's another case of the "Butterfly Effect"
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/25/how-invasive-ants-are-impeding-lions-huntScientists have found the spread of big-headed ants in east Africa sets off a situation leading to lions making fewer zebra kills.
Prof Todd Palmer of the University of Florida, a co-author of the research, said the findings were a surprise. “I was stunned,” he said. The fewer kills appear to be due to the upending of a crucial relationship – between native ants and the trees in which they live, causing a loss of cover for lions.
Palmer said the discovery highlighted the importance of interactions between species. “We often talk about conservation in the context of species,” he said. “But it’s the interactions which are the glue that holds the entire system together.”
DFT won with 70% in IA, his base used to be 35%
Has the GOP shrunk by half? Or has the party truly embraced Vladimir Putin and his lackey? Or did all the moderates stay home with the bad weather? What were the total numbers like today compared to last time?
A Good Person on Amazon Prime (no spoilers)
I watch this last night, and I wanted to write a review right away, I was so impressed by it. However, I also wanted to ponder a bit first, so here's my take on it now, after having a sleep on it.
First, I will watch anything with Morgan Freemen. I have never been steered wrong by his choice of scripts. This continues in this project. Morgan plays a quality role as a widowed grandfather raising a teenage granddaughter after the tragic loss of her parents. Other notables in this include Molly Shannon, who often plays quirky characters. She fits the bill in this, playing the frustrated mom of a young lady with some real problems.
This is a story about several families who are connected by a number of different social reasons. There are issues of chemical dependencies, tragic loss and the possibility of recovery. The characters are all of different races, and there are no racial dynamics here- that just isn't a factor in this story. The interactions are all based on normal relationships like dating, being married, having children, dependency issues, and the difficulties of being parents in today's world. There are lots of views on both sides about forgiveness and recovery. To me, it was a very realistic, quality view of the world that I have seen. Worth every bit of time from beginning to end. Two hours and 19 minutes in length.
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