#zeenor

the truth is i haven't seen many christopher nolan movies... and i'm also realizing i may not be a big fan of movies about greek mythology or times in history when people had swords and shields. just not my cup of tea maybe. but i thought to myself that if any movie was going to make it enjoyable it would Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey right? by golly, i have never been so wrong.

This movie is exceedingly competent, well shot, well designed. amazing special effects and just overall nice looking and nicely composed. but thats part of the reason why I feel so bad about not enjoying this movie at all. there are scenes where I was a little interested, and getting involved with the characters and story, but just as quickly as it arrived it disappeared. replaced with long as fuck scenes of soldiers being thrown up into the air and screaming and being cut in half and drowning. you could probably cut 30 minutes off the run time if you just got rid of all the scenes of men running around and yelling. For me, alot of the events in the movie lack weight and motivation. Alot of Matt Damon telling me in voice over how i should feel, or what a moment actually means instead of it actually happening. Let me see the battle of troy and the moment that men broke Zeus's Law and became evil. Don't save it until the end so Matt Damon can deliver the longest fucking protagonist of all protagonists hero monologue about how they "lost their way". I would've rather seen all these horrible things happen, them doing all these horrible things, and then all of them getting slashed at and terrorized would've made alot more sense. the last 40 minutes of the movie matt damon walks around in a cloak and aura farms as he gets to gradually reveal his identity to every character individually so they can have a reaction shot that goes on for long. have all the suitors be like comically evil family members from those alpha omega short form content ads you get on fucking facebook. "get this disgusting peasant away from me! who do you think you are?" and then matt damon gets to be cool and say "i am this awesome guy in a cloak and you will soon find out who i am when i get to kill all of you by myself with a big axe in the longest scene ever". this isnt a bad movie its just not saying anything. this movie has nothing to say, nothing profound about life or living or good or evil. and that would be fine, if i could even say i was entertained. I was frustrated for most of this movie. Some things in this movie happen so fast you are left confused, but they have plenty of time to watch giant metal knight guys stomp smaller men into pulp. and more screaming and yelling. and lots of water. i didnt care about any of his crew at all and i didnt care about their journey and i didnt care about any of what was happening at all. when he made it home i didnt care because everything had to happen in the most overblown, overdramatic way possible.

im saying all of this to also say, i dont think this is a bad movie. just i think, deeply, DEEPLY, not the movie for me. I didn't enjoy it because of many of the story issues mentioned above, but also because point blank, this may have just not been the movie for me. remember, never listen to what zeenor says. i watched fucking loonatics unleashed when i was a child theres something wrong with me.

fantastic four (2025) review, spoilers for all 4

if theres anything this movie proves its that when marvel has any kind of competition they start to try at least a little bit. this movie's aesthetics are the biggest success this movie has. it shows that marvel maybe couldve started trying a little harder to make quality nice looking movies a long time ago and didnt want to even bother. the vintage aesthetic here, the set design, the graphics, the slight grit a lot of this movie has. why couldnt more of their movies have more of a stylistic edge like this.

the story for this movie isnt astonishing, isnt gonna blow your cock off, fully reinvigorate the mcu like i think they hoped, but its adequate. I like these smaller stories for marvel, and this is alreayd bigger in scale. They go to space and meet a giant cosmic god and a weird silver surfer lady, thats ALOT. but the execution feels more homely, more friendly. the conflict goes from, oh my god this space god is blowing up earth into oh my god this space god wants to take my baby. which imo.... is the most emotional and human driven story we've gotten in the mcu in a long time. a lot of the stuff with the silver surfer and johhny storm feels clumsy, how they deal with the public feels unrealistic and corny. but the stuff with sue storm and reed richards and their baby, feels very heartwarming and real. Im unfortunately a sucker for a mom protecting her child type storyline. I love that kind of conflict, i love those kinds of stories. id rather this than deadpool and wolverine or doctor strange 2 misery. i think this movie holds up on it's own, i like the characters, i like the setting i like the conflict. its not amazing, but its also not completely obnoxious and fatiguing. there arent ten million plot threads, but i dont know if i want that. im giving this movie maybe more credit than it deserves too, because all the mcu stuff ive seen in the past three or so years has been so abysmal.

i might be compltely reaching with this one but i wouldnt be surprised to find out that marvel maybe made this movie the way it is a little bit because of superman. I know they only came out less than a month apart, but i can imagine that marvel got some info on how they were doin this whole superman thing and decided to change their shit. They were doing rewrites in 2024 as well, so maybe. Superman noticably skips an origin story and establishing characters, something this movie also skips over rather quickly. superman noticably focuses on themes of empathy, humanity and love. These things are also a big part of fantastic four just in general as who they are as characters, but i wouldntttt be surprised if the studio approached the story for this one in a particulrly kind and empathetic family way because they overheard some shit about superman. this is obviously me just speculating, but its hard to watch this movie without that lens. it doesnt hurt to compare i guess.

this movie isnt as good as superman. superman has more to offer for fans and other audience goers, its a decently more compelling story and i think the characters are a little stronger. but these movies have drastically different tones. James gunn has that edgy, bombastic tone to his movies. theres snips, and sarcasm and quips and yelling. more engaging and punk rock.its like riding a six flags rollercoaster. this movie by comparison, is a peaceful walk in the park. its a smooth, pleasant to look at. kind, soft and warm. its like the fantastic four are taking me on a classic johhny quest style adventure. the stakes are high, but you always know the characters will do the right thing. its more exciting action set pieces are genuinely very nice, certainly not as humongous and punk rock as superman. but i kind of like that. after years and years of marvel bullshit movies where everyone everywhere all the time is in the movie and they die and they come back and blah blah blah and it doesnt even matter. this movie is just simple, straight forward. you know the stakes, you know the characters and you arent expecting john krasinki reed richards to show up and die. fuck me. i think the only reason i like this movie more than other mcu stuff is actually looks and sounds pretty nice. my eyes ddidnt hurt while i watched it :) i like..... how this movie looks... more than superman....

superman review (spoilers for superman. spoilers for spiderman 2.)

the first half of this movie i wanted to leave the theater i was so fatigued. you get thrown into this movie so hard you're left with a bizarre sense of whiplash for a good while. then clark kent and lois lane start arguing about events you didn't even get to see and i really start to feel like i should've read the junior novelization. i know a little bit about superman but I dont know this guy all that well. not to mention most of the live action superman interpretations we've gotten in the past 15 years haven't exactly been everyones cup of tea. i watched zach snyder's man of steel when i was like 10 and it was so bad and so boring I fell asleep and when i woke back up I left the room and probably played with my superhero toys. a movie so bad I said "i can do this myselffffff". i don't want an origin story, but I also don't want to feel like i missed two previous seasons. clark kent is in so much promotional material for this movie, but there are only about two scenes maybe where hes actually clark kent working at the daily planet. more scenes with him as clark kent might help ground him more in humankind, tying back to the theme of this whole damn movie. overall a good movie. competently made. i just wanted a few scenes of lex luthor cutting a ribbon for the new metropolis hospital and seeing the public cherish him for being an awesome businessman. why are all these twinks agreeing to work for him???? huh??? its better than man of steel thats for sure, 7/10.

batman forever (1995) review (spoilers for batman forever.)

y'know its not everyday that they build a giant horrifiyng realistic bat animatronic for val kilmer (my condolences to his family) to stare at, and then cut the scene out of the movie. in zeenor's eyes this makes this movie a 0/10 y'know, but my mommy always used to say don't cry over spilled milk. or dont cry over animatronic bats they took out of movies.... fuck.

this movie is special because i dont think any movie (other than batman and robin) has managed to match this movie's energy. the camp performances, the weird set design and aesthetic choices. Jim carrey's riddler is an indisputably iconic performance, in all the wrong and right ways. All the choices this movie make are simultaneously the best and worst. at least it's consistently weird. this movie also has the title of being the only real live action batman franchise so far to show us a robin origin story, which really doesn't mean anything unless you're a freak like me. this movie is a joy to watch, it makes no god damn sense. it reeks of the bombastic loud 90s era it was made in. it's almost a time capsule of that time. I recommend it just for that reason, and then additionally just to bear witness to to what is a perpetually unusual movie. disney and warner brothers wouldnt have the balls to make a movie like this now a days. honestly sony could.

Or not hard

Based as hell omfg RAHHHHH

The Black Phone 2 (2025) movie review from zeenor (spoilers for ethan hawke)

now let me be honest... i have seen the first half of the first black phone movie....not the full thing so far... and im not the biggest fan. i think its a good movie just kind of a tough watch. horror movies with little kids is always a hard thing because i dont like seeing little kids get abused or yelled at or grabbed or anything like that. if a movie is good enough and knows what its doing, you can have those things in the movie and it works out. im not sure the Black Phone 1 is good enough to fully justify having those things in the movie. the writing in this movie is inconsistent at times. sometimes i love it, sometimes it makes me grit my teeth and cringe a little. i just think with some different editing and slightly different directing you could get a movie that is a thousand times more haunting and less jarring. thats the black phone 1 as i remember it (the parts ive seen, zeenor loves to start rumors)

now the Black Phone 2 throws a lot of that serious stuff out the window and gets down to the good stuff, classic supernatural slasher horror fun. freddy krueger type stuff! Aesthetically this might be my favorite horror movie from last year. I love the winter aesthetic, I love the cold blues and the vintage effects and grit they put on the footage when you are in a flashback or dream. This movie has an aesthetic like really nothing else out there, and is just a treat to watch. so beautiful, so fun, an amazing time. i mean how can you turn down a gimmick like your slasher villian ice skating around on a lake killing people??? you just cant! dont go into this movie expecting all the gripping horror and kidnapping terror of the first movie. expect that he is on ice skates and he is skating around. and hes kind of funny and bitter.

i watched this movie before i had seen the first one and didnt understand why people didnt like it. but i kind of get it. the first one deals with the very real and horrifying idea of children being kidnapped and murdered, and also implied sexual assault. the creators have come out to say that he is a pedophile, which then makes everything about the sequel and everything else they do with this character so fucked up. having a sequel where he tries to put the protagonist in a pizza oven and skate around in little ice skates feels kind of deeply offensive when this guy is a god damn creep. as if killing children wasnt enough, hes a pervert too! what! also putting him in fortnite??? what??? This is just so odd. Do I recommend this sequel?? maybe a little, but god damn it its a horrible recommendation.

Clown in a Cornfield (2025) movie review (spoilers for clowns)

the title is self explanatory! clown in a cornfield!

this movie is a straightforward slasher. teen girl moves to town with her father after their mother's tragic death. this town is "old fashioned" and has an obsession with the town mascot, a clown named Frendo. but oh my gosh! someone in a Frendo costume is going around killing people, especially our cast of obnoxious teens. Blah blah blah, when we finally get to the cornfield it's revealed theres like 20 Frendos trying to kill these teens. The twist is its a town conspiracy!!! no way!! the townsfolk dress up as Frendo every year on Founders Day to kill any teens or young people they deem "unruly" and not following their guidelines. Also two of the teens are gay boys and they make out, awesome yay. the gays and the girl and her dad survive! yay! Classic normal, by the books slasher.

I'll be honest, I hoped it was literally one guy in a clown costume killing people. the introduction of a town conspiracy really doesn't interest me at all. I don't find the traditional townsfolk killing off the unruly teens that exciting or scary or compelling or anything. It would've been much more fun if it was just some really evil guy in a clown costume killing people for me at least. here are my pitches for a different clown in a cornfield:

The Baypen Corn Syrup Factory gets burnt down or some kind of big accident, and an employee in a Frendo mascot costume gets killed in the fire. The town speculates that the unruly teens burned it down. A year later around Founders Day, this guy comes back from the dead in his Frendo costume to get revenge. He sabotages the event and hunts down the people he feel have wronged him. The reveal is that the mayor/council people burned it down for insurance money. This guy is out to kill everybody, not just the council members but their whole families. One of these teens is the mayor's son and is in big danger. the clown guy should be a lovable slasher vilian, very evil but also kind of funny and scary.

in this movie the obnoxious teens make well edited scary videos of Frendo being a slasher scary clown killer. it would be fun if they made those, and theres this weird guy who comments on their videos all the time and is obssessed. they ignore it, but this guy takes their videos too seriously and acts on it. maybe also posting videos of what he does, and it looks so real. blurring the lines between fictional internet horror, and a guy who is actually doing it. the teens get in trouble with the police and are desperately trying to stop what the guy online calls "the founders day massacre". fun slasher stuff ensues. this guy is pathetic and sad, but also creepy and cold and calculating.

some evil guy dresses up as the town mascot and starts killing people, no motivation, no tragic backstory. hes doing it because hes evil and likes killing people. conflict arises between teens and town as they try to figure out who is doing it, but we know who is doing it. and its just this evil guy from out of town. fun!!

dinner with andre (1981) review

a movie thats about nothing, but yet everything. its about life and art, class and wealth. is art what provides us our living? is it even enough money to live? is art really art when its in service of wealth? what makes art art, and what makes it valuable to you. but more succinctly, this movie quite literally just watching a conversation between two very very different people. what im about to say is horrifyingly degrading to this material, but you could put this damn movie on like a podcast and listen to the conversation itself. you will miss some really amazing performances in the faces. but the conversation is at many points funny, maybe even frightening and illuminating of the class difference between the two people in this conversation. I think this is a great watch as long as you are expecting that its quite literally a conversation between two people, with some really amazing performance moments, about art, life and purpose. I love when Wallace Shawn's character says that a good day for him is to wake up and find that the coffee he left overnight does not have a dead fly or bug in it. I think this is the kind of movie that might make you either feel a little sad, because there really isnt any happy ending climax. Its rather drab, slow, maybe peaceful. I think this movie is at least an overall enjoyable watch, pleasant to put on, pleasant to listen to, pleasant to look at. Just listening to a nice conversation might be grounding i guess. if you also have consistent psychological breaks. this movie is jsut on youtube right now. zeenor very much so approves 8/10 zeenor