Posted on 11/12/2025 5:11:37 PM PST by sphinx
AI has become inescapable these days, with every app, search engine, and internet browser overloading us with pop-ups of why their new AI enhancement/assistant/plagiarism machine is something we just can't live without. In reality, AI is being shoved down all of our throats because a bunch of billionaire weirdos invested an insane amount of money into it and desperately need to convince us that they didn't bet on a lemon....
The force-feeding of AI is an obnoxious intrusion at best, and giving people AI-induced psychosis at worst....
Sam Rockwell plays Man From the Future, a man, well, claiming to be from the future who shows up at Norm's Restaurant in Los Angeles to recruit a ragtag group of unlikely heroes to help him save the world from becoming his future.
(Excerpt) Read more at slashfilm.com ...
Fun movie? Galaxy Quest?
Hit the pause button and take a good look at the ad hoc special ops team towards the end of the trailer, when the Man from the Future tells them, “I’m not gonna sugar coat it. You’re in for a really weird night.”
Have you ever seen a more lethal action team for a possible suicide mission following an apparent lunatic on a quest to save the world? Me neither.
Meh. Forty years later and I’m still trying to figure out Bowie’s Man who Fell to Earth picture.
I’ve never seen that one. I gather you don’t recommend it?
Lol
It was hard to figure out what was going on in “The Man who Fell to Earth,” so it was a disappointment. It didn’t seem to be very well plotted out, but someone could make a case that it mirrored the confusion of our world and the confusion that an alien confronted with it would feel. Anyway, I didn’t like it very much.
Did you see this and did it live up to expectations? Looks like it’s still playing in theaters in some markets.
I presume you are referring to Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.
Yes, I’ve seen it and I enjoyed it. I’ve written it up a couple of times on FR so I’ll skip that here. It wouldn’t hurt to go in without any expectations and just go with the flow.
It swings at the right targets, and it takes a BIG swing in the third act. I liked where it ended up, but it goes over the head of some people. Who therefore need to watch it again.
Remember: this is a movie on which ALL the big studios and streamers passed when the script was being shopped around. More background has emerged in the buzz, and it seems pretty clear that this was almost entirely due to one storyline — the Susan/Juno Temple loop — that the suits thought was too touchy to handle (i.e., “you can’t make fun of THAT!!!). The suits told the writer over and over again that they loved the concept, the characters and the development, but there was too much risk in the one element, Karens being what Karens are.
The writer wouldn’t budge, and the film’s team went the indie shake-the-money-tree route, cutting costs wherever possible, shooting in South Africa because it was cheaper, and skipping a big promotional campaign.
The Karen backlash didn’t happen, so “Hollywood” blew that call bigtime.
So: it’s a worthy addition to the list of good films that “Hollywood” didn’t have the guts to make. Which is another reason freepers should perhaps take a look at it.
It’s worth seeing in a theater if you still can. If not, it’s available on PVOD on Amazon. I’d recommend the theater over Amazon because ... again ... remember: Amazon passed when the movie script was being shipped around. Don’t let a company that didn’t have the cahones to make it be your gatekeeper.
You’ll have to pay somebody to watch it. Man up and buy a ticket. Pay the theater and pay the filmmakers. Don’t pay a big Hollywood studio or streamer. That alone is worth the schlep to the theater in my book. YMMV.
Okay, got it. I’m going to try to see this in the theater. It’s showing in exactly one theater in my state and will require a bit of a drive but seems worth it.
I would drive an hour to see it just to avoid paying Amazon. Or Netflix, Apple, HBO, Disney, etc. Over an hour, your call. Let me know what you think.
Had one of the big studios taken it over, it would probably have sent in a team of writers to bleed all the quirkiness and originality out of it. It would have tripled the budget and tried to cover the hollowness with expensive special effects. And there would have been a swarm of superfluous producers to hamstring the director with interference.
Sam Rockwell’s costume was homemade (because they didn’t have any money). Gore Verbinski and a couple of friends went to a used electronics store — the last stop for junk before the junkyard — and started picking up random parts that they thought would look cool on his suit. There is a blaster that looks like something out of Mars Attacks. And Asim Chaudhry, a British actor with whom I was completely unfamiliar, plays the best redshirt character in the history of redshirts.
Just go along for the ride and have fun with it.
Double check to make sure it’s still in the theater. It appears to be entirely gone here, but it may be hanging on in some arthouse theaters. Which can be fun to go to. It might be pretty empty since the streamers have most people conditioned to be couch potatoes, and it’s now available for home viewing.
Turns out Wednesday of this week is the last day it’s showing, so I’ll need to scramble to catch it, but it should be doable...
Round up a couple of friends and consider the trip a blow against the streamers that are killing originality and risk taking in movies.
I’m trying to see more movies in theaters — for me, that translates into may ten or so a year, which is far more than I used to see — because if the streamers kill the theaters (and the film festivals), the independents will lose the screens they need to end run the cartel that wants to play gatekeeper.
But whatever. Let me know what you think afterwards. The one certainty about Gore Verbinski is that he wants to be original and unpredictable, and he will take risks to get there.
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