Category: TV

Things I Watched #8

Movies with a * were seen in theaters.

  • Galavant (2015, season 1); first viewing for Thomas & Beau’s 2nd.
  • Hotel Transylvania 3 (2018); second viewing for Thomas & Beau’s first.
  • Sand Sharks (2011); first viewing for Thomas & 3 for Beau.
  • Inkheart (2008); first viewing for Thomas.
  • Klaus (2019); second viewing for Thomas, and first for Beau.
  • The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (1966); first for Thomas.
  • Cats (2019)*; first viewing for Thomas and Beau.
  • Bo Burnham’s “what” (2013); first viewing for Thomas.
  • Bo Burnham’s “make happy” (2016); first viewing for Thomas, Beau’s somewhere high number count viewing.
  • The Witcher (2019); all of season one, first viewing for Beau and Thomas.
  • Mary and the Witch’s Flower (2017); first viewing for Beau and 2nd for Thomas.
  • I, Frankenstein (2014); first viewing for Beau, and 4th for Thomas.
  • Velvet Buzzsaw (2019); first viewing for Beau, and 3rd for Thomas.

Hey and welcome to another ‘Things I Watched’ post. We have done 8 of these so far and isn’t that kind of wild? Me (Thomas) & Beau watch so many movies together and also apart. I am writing the reviews today for this post. Klaus is a big emotional journey of a movie for me, Velvet Buzzsaw is silly good. It does not deserve to be as much fun as it is. Finally, we round out the written reviews with the first season of Galavant which Beau has seen and turned me onto, so it comes with all of our thumbs up in the fun department.

As always, and before getting into the recommendations. At the end of each blurb there is a link to the website Does the Dog Die? which can be used to search for triggering content in movies. Highly recommend this website and answering questions for movies that you have seen to help others.

I have included YouTube videos that are related to each in this post to mix things up a little bit. I hope you enjoy these movies half as much as I do! Because then you’ll end up falling in love with them.

Klaus (2019); What can I say about Klaus? Would me saying that it is a touching Christmas movie that gives me renewed hope for animated Christmas movies mean anything? Well it is that and more. It’s a charming movie about a postal worker who solves a remote towns blood feud (Hatfields & McCoys style) through the power of presents for depressed children. The movie is touching. The titular Santa Klaus is played by J.K. Simmons if you are looking for a fun voice actors involvement. The movies attention to environmental detail reminds me of the colorful palettes of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009). Blending together 2D with shading techniques so well that I was tricked into believing it was the best 3D animated movie I had ever seen. Overall, this movie is gorgeous and uses 2D animation in a way that will hopefully catch on and is now one of my must watch holiday movies. Check it out over on Netflix! Does the Dog Die.

Behind the scenes video on how Klaus was animated. As I (Thomas) am a Game Art & Animation student this type of tech is inspiring.

Velvet Buzzsaw (2019); Velvet Buzzsaw is a ridiculous horror movie that is a delight to watch. It has both goofy and weird kills, where monkeys pull people into paintings, and graffiti crawls up someone’s skin until it goes into their mouth to suffocate them. It stars a bisexual (?) Jake Gyllenhaal as an art critic. He is extremely over the top and everything in this movie, consistently just lounging around nude while doing research on artists and struggling to maintain his latest relationship as she becomes a rising star for her artistic find. But what she (the woman who found the art that is by a guy who she saw die) doesn’t know is that the art is cursed! It kills all who attempt to profit off of it! Velvet Buzzsaw is a ridiculous movie that is only available on Netflix. If you want a goofy horror movie that is very re-watchable, this movie is worth the 113 minutes. Does the Dog Die.

Official Trailer for Velvet Buzzsaw on Netflix.

Galavant (season 1); This is the singing King Arthur TV show that was cancelled too soon. There are two seasons of it, but if you just want to have a fun romp this is where it is at. Watch Galavant singing through his quest to win back his girl from a peppy and rich Timothy Omundson as King Richard. Galavant wants his happily ever after. King Richard during this season meanwhile is just trying to win over his new queen Madalena by taking on love and confidence tips from his burly hitman murder henchman Gareth. The episodes aren’t long at 22 minutes apiece and the show is very lighthearted. If you don’t like silly musical conversations then this one isn’t for you. If you like silly musicals, fantasy, and need something that isn’t screaming about how intense it is then join me (Thomas) as being a big fan of the amazing Galavant. Does the Dog Die.

Things I Watched #7

Movies with a * were seen in theaters.

  • Tombstone (1993); first viewing for Thomas.
  • Zodiac (2007); first viewing for Thomas.
  • Cowboy Bebop (1998): first viewing for Thomas.
  • Ghost in the Shell: SAC_2045 (2020): first viewing for Thomas.
  • Stalker (1979); first viewing for Thomas.
  • Antichrist (2009); first viewing for Thomas.
  • GANTZ:0 (2016); first viewing for Thomas.
  • Psycho (1960); first viewing for Thomas.
  • The Exorcist (1973); first viewing for Thomas.
  • The Birds (1963); first viewing for Thomas.
  • A Serious Man (2009); first viewing for Thomas.
  • Hail, Caesar! (2016); first viewing for Thomas.
  • The Other Guys (2010); second viewing for Thomas.
  • The Hateful Eight (2015); first viewing for Thomas.
  • Mindhunter (2019); watched Season 1 and Season 2, first viewing for Thomas.
  • Killing them Softly (2012); first viewing for Thomas.

Worth watching

Holy Cow and hello this is just Thomas talking for this post. Me and Beau have been watching so many movies lately, but have also had some trouble finding time where we can write out our movie recommendations. We actually have another post in draft status that has dozens of movies in it. That is too many movies for a single post, so we will be breaking it up into more posts so that we can make sure all of the movies that we want to recommend can get equal word counts.

The first portion of the movies that are being broken apart are of movies that only I (Thomas) have watched without Beau. I have been watching some classics, getting in some Coen Brothers goodness, and have made use of my Criterion Channel subscription. Watching Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist, enjoying the communist Channing Tatum in Hail, Caesar! and admiring the bird attacks in The Birds.

As always, the movie list is of everything that I have watched. The movies that I go into detail on aren’t the only good movies on the list, just the ones that I would recommend to the widest audience. While I think Antichrist was a good movie and thought provoking, that doesn’t mean it is a movie that I would recommend widely or except to a very specific audience.

As this blog has used in our previous posts, at the end of each movie blurb is a link to the website Does the Dog Die? which can be used to search for different triggering content that is in movies or TV shows. This website is highly recommended as a tool to be aware of any disturbing or sensitive content before diving deep into a show. There will be spoilers of course, but on this website we are PRO spoilers.

Tombstone (1993); Tombstone is a movie that stars both Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer as gunslingers in a wild west frontier town. It has Kurt Russell forming a posse out for vengeance for the death of his brothers (including the amazing Bill Paxton). I am not trying to sell the idea of tombstone, but I am here to sell a wild west Kurt Russell and Val Kilmer. Where there is a subtext of homoerotic togetherness as Val Kilmer’s character, despite being in the process of dying will be there for Kurt Russell’s character. It’s a fun and bloody western that is worth the time if you are a fan of both Russell and Kilmer. Does the Dog Die.

Stalker (1979); This movie is slow and supernatural in how it moves. It quietly, but extremely loudly is full of desperation. Its shots are beautiful and show the Stalker taking his clients, the professor and the writer into the zone to a room that grants wishes. A place that is the last hope for the hopeless. This movie is fairly long and requires the viewer to sit quietly and let it envelop their entire body. It talks about respecting the danger and death of an environment, that in our steps we should understand what has occurred in a place over all time. This movie is a must watch if you are a lover of the subtle strange. If you want to watch this movie, it can be found on the Criterion Channel streaming service, and also from their disc collection. Does the Dog Die.

The Birds (1963); I watched two Hitchcock movies in the same day. The first was Psycho and the second was this one, The Birds. Both are pretty good, but if I had to pick one to recommend to everyone it would be 1963’s The Birds. This movie starts by following a young women performing an elaborate prank on a young man but then becomes trapped in an apocalyptic north coast bay as waves of birds attack townspeople. The movie is tense and becomes an end of the world sequence by the end as people are being pecked to death as the birds attack in waves. Bursting through windows and pecking through wood until they can find a human to slay. Why should you watch this movie? Each bird attack is different and filmed in a different way, the tense moments are quiet and hold up as scary. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, the climactic ending sequence is a creeping horror sequence that shows loud booming soundtrack terror isn’t necessary for a horror movies ending. Does the Dog Die.

Hail, Caesar! (2016); On my playlist of what I watched during this post, I have A Serious Man listed. It was an excellent movie that made me feel things that I need to read more about to figure out. But, Hail Caesar is different. It was just a funny good time that involved a singing sailor Channing Tatum being a secret soviet agent that loves and saves a dog. This entire movie has a plot about how George Clooney has been abducted by socialist movie writers who are upset about their lack of compensation for their labors in Hollywood. Clooney’s character then as the kidnapped becomes a socialist and goes along with the plot. It was just a weird movie with funny visuals, and a quick pace that tracked its multiple funny characters. Everyone in this movie feels weirdly like a side character and that works, as its a big rube goldberg machine turning and cranking away at funny situations. If you haven’t seen it, and like the comedy found in coen brother movies I’d recommend giving this one a chance. Does the Dog Die.