Fun Bad Movie Night
Fun Bad Movie Friday is kinda a tradition at Herkes House, having taken over from SciFi Saturday Night.
(I still mourn the passing of the SyFy Channel, which tried to graft All Things Pro Wrestling onto its lineup and collapsed under its own weight.)
Anyway. Last week we watched John Wick 4, which was shocking in it not-badness.
I mean. There are many things about the John Wick movie franchise that qualify them as Fun Bad Movies, from ridiculous premises, to lack of plot, to absurd impossible action scenes. But JW4 knew what it wanted to be & delivered in style. Brilliant production values in everything from casting & acting to cinematography and sound editing.
It's a cartoon world, but it feels real. The violence is brutal, but never ever casual or without consequence. And preventing it from affecting bystanders is a critical plot element.
Tonight Spouseman & I watched Fast X. What a contrast. Oof.
A+ for scenery-chewing & nonstop Exploding Car Chase energy, but everything else about it was howling bad. So bad. I would even call it painfully bad, but only because I was laughing so hard at plot-inapproprite moments that my ribs hurt.
I went in expecting it to be atrocious and it didn't even reach that low bar. Things blow up. People blow up. No one cares unless it's a character with a speaking role. People as scenery, props, or demonstrations of the villain's evil nature? Bad in the unfunnest of ways.
And the plot? Multiple times I replayed bits of scenes thinking I'd misunderstood something, but no. Some dialogue literally made no sense. Most of the cast totally owned their gobsawful lines, tho, full credit to them.
There was some goodness. The kickass, badass girlfight scenes were beautifully choreographed, and the movie did give me 10 min or Jason Statham brawling in a tank top & sweats.
And I made cookies while the movie was going. Chocolate chip shortbread squares.
So. Definitely not a total waste of time.
In other news, I've got a full scene written in a short story I've been pondering since shortly after finishing Sharp Edge. So of course it went bounding off through left field into the weeds the instant I started writing it.
But I have a full scene written, the next sketched out, and a pretty clear idea how I want it to end. If things stay on course, that should be a done story in a week or two. Ever hopeful optimist, that's me.
The first scene passed its Alpha Reader Approval Test with flying colors (thanks, Spouseman, glad you liked it!) & I will post it on my Patreon for patrons to read next week.
That's all for now.