Netflix Quickies #2 (The Imposter, Bully, Frankie & Johnny, Hiding Out, Antichrist)

Alright so whenever I go on Netflix Instant I just sorta pick random movies from my queue, try them for a few minutes, and then if I’m not feeling them moving on to another until I finally find one I don’t hate, and then I watch that one. This ‘Netflix Quickies’ thing is basically a series where I just talk about movies I decided not to watch after some amount of minutes and explain exactly what turned me off about them. Here goes:

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The Imposter (2012)
Directed by Bart Layton
99 min. (Gave up after 7 min.)
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Three O’Clock High: Where Has This Movie Been All My Life?

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Three O’Clock High (1987)
Directed by Phil Joanou
Written by Richard Christian Matheson & Thomas E. Szollosi
101 min.

Spoiler-free (is the way to be!)

I hadn’t heard of this one until Greg mentioned it in his Husbands essay. And then the title kept swimming around in my head after that, for some reason. And then about a week ago, I was scrolling through the guide on my TV, and bam, there it was, about to start, on one of the movie channels. So I DVR’d it. (When the universe strongly suggests, through synchronicity, that I watch something, I abide, like a good little God-in-embryo.)
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‘Dark Horse’ & ‘Damsels in Distress’: A Tale of Two Departures

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One of the best shots in recent history. This, right here, is how you say ‘fuck you’.

Dark Horse (2011)
Written and Directed by Todd Solondz
86 min.

Spoiler-free.

I should’ve seen this one in theaters. But I didn’t. I listened to people. I should never listen to people. People are shit. By ‘people’ I mean those-who-tell-you-a-movie-sucks-and-that-it-is-an-unwelcome-departure-from-said-filmmaker. Those people. Fuck those people.

Why is it that they never caution you about the right movies? I would’ve killed for someone to tap me on the shoulder before I saw Damsels in Distress and warn me that Whit Stillman—a once perfect filmmaker of remarkable integrity—has decided to cop out and pander to a generation he doesn’t understand, and isn’t even worth understanding. But no. They had to warn me about this one instead.
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Argo: I Barely Watched It (So You Don’t Have To)

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Yes, this is really from the god damn movie.

Argo
Directed by Ben Affleck
Screenplay by Chris Terrio
121 min.

I tapped out after about 15 minutes on this one, and normally, I’d just not review the thing on here, and tweet “argo sucks ass” and call it a day, but I gotta talk about this fucking thing. Because I look at a movie like this and I can’t understand the world I live in. This movie is so the antithesis of everything I value as far as movies are concerned (and what you, ideally, should value too) and it’s times like these I feel like the great Roddy Piper in They Live, staring at the plain-to-see ugliness in front of me, and I just wanna force glasses onto everyone around me with my words. So here goes.
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Django Unchained: Tarantino’s Worst Since Pulp Fiction

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Django Unchained (2012)
Written and Directed by Quentin Tarantino
165 min.

Warning: Very mild spoilers.

Look, I’m not saying that Django Unchained is a bad movie. Or that Pulp Fiction is either. They’re both good movies. Tarantino has never made a bad movie. The good parts of any one of his films always seem to outweigh the bad—the two with the strongest good-to-bad-part ratios being Inglourious Basterds and Jackie Brown. Those two are damn near perfect. All the others are either ‘very good’ (Kill Bill Vol. 1 and 2, From Dusk Till Dawn, True Romance) or just ‘good’ (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Death Proof, Django Unchained). And Death Proof is a bit more solid than Django in my opinion, therefore, Django is his worst since Pulp Fiction. (By the way, I should point out that yes, I’m fully aware that Tarantino wrote, but did not direct, From Dusk Till Dawn and True Romance. If I don’t mention that, some fanboy will point it out in the comments like he knows something I don’t or whatever. Well guess what, hypothetical fanboy? You know nothing I don’t. So you can take that hypothetical fact and shove it. Although, and I don’t wanna get off on a tangent here, but isn’t it weird how often people fall for that ‘Quentin Tarantino Presents’ thing? There are people in this world that legit think Tarantino was involved in the writing or directing or whatever of The Protector, Hostel, and others. Swear to god. I worked a video store, dude. I know things. And that’s honestly the tip of the iceberg as far as ‘weird things customers think’ goes. I’ll have to do an entry or entries about my video store days one of these days…)
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