Obdurate
Celluloid Junkie
Member Since: 26 Jul 2008
Location: Canada
Age: 40
Bio: Most of my "full reviews" will really just be a few random notes of things I want to remember about movies. Anything 51 and up is a recommendation, meaning you aren't wasting your time seeing it. Anything between 51-79 ranges from mediocre to very good. Anything 80+ is what I call a "Great Movie" and it's a must-see and is awesome to various degrees. Anything that's a 50 is something that I'm a fence sitter on (meaning I'm too useless to actually be able to make up my god damn mind) so it could go either way. 49 and under means you should avoid. Under 10 means I was probably raped by the movie or, at the very least, fondled. Despite the effort I've put into explaining my rating system, numbers are a gut feeling so I might actually like a movie I rated 75 more than an 85, I just really can't be bothered to go back and constantly re-do my ratings.
Recent Ratings
Check out Obdurate's...
Eddington (2025) - Rated 21 Aug 2025
"I generally kind of cringe at movies based around COVID, but there is something undeniably entertaining about the way Aster satirizes/explores 2020, a year which completely broke us. I dug the political stuff and the rivalry between Phoenix and Pascal. There's some Aster storytelling going on later, which only kind of works, and the movie is too long for what it is. Some subplots work better than others, but all in all, it's a solid flick."
Night Always Comes (2025) - Rated 19 Aug 2025
"If you want to watch Kirby masterfully navigate her way through a night from hell, then this is the movie for you. It's just a spiral and she's absolutely brilliant. Outside of her, the enjoyment comes from the fact that it's basically car crashes repeatedly. Hard not to get some enjoyment from how unhinged and terrible the night is. Do these people make some dumb decisions? Yeah. But it's entertaining the entire time, despite that."
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (2025) - Rated 18 Aug 2025
"While not as good as the last few, I'll still rate it an 85 because it's great. My only real complaint is that it's a bit long. We could have tightened up the pace a little, maybe don't reuse quite so many things. But I do enjoy the reverence it has for its history in its callbacks and how it plays with earlier events. Cruise still doing insane Cruise stuff. Action sequences hit. There's some heart. A confusing plot but that's part of it. Gabriel's okay as a villain, but the Entity is pertinent."
Weapons (2025) - Rated 18 Aug 2025
"There are things I love: way it's shot, premise, intrigue early on, Julia Garner and Josh Brolin. The chapter structure hurt it because Garner's Justine was the most interesting arc. I would have taken switching between Brolin and Garner's arcs, but the rest are unnecessary. So while I understand what Cregger's getting at with the symbolism, narrative it's uneven. Didn't like the ending. While it has a creepy atmosphere and a few scary payoffs, I don't think it works that well as a horror."
Nobody 2 (2025) - Rated 18 Aug 2025
"I would have rated this the same as the first because up until the finale, it does everything the first does about as well (though I have a terrible memory and don't remember tons). But for all the setup and the explosions and territorial dangers, I just thought the final showdown lacked the imagination of the fight scenes prior."
Fixed (2025) - Rated 14 Aug 2025
"This is brutal. It does have a few funny moments, but they're too few and far between to succeed as a comedy. It fails miserably because not only is it not funny most of the time, it's actively unfunny, meaning it goes beyond me just being straight-faced into territory where I feel like my soul is dying when I'm hearing these "jokes." It's got about 2 or 3 jokes that it hammers repeatedly, and outside of a couple moments, it has nothing to say and no real wit. Animated well though."
The Pickup (2025) - Rated 11 Aug 2025
"Can’t say I disliked it, but there’s not much to say about it. Everything is firing in a competent way, and it does have a couple good moments, but this is just mindless entertainment. Too inoffensive to hate, really, but it is generic."
The Naked Gun (2025) - Rated 11 Aug 2025
"Neeson's great here, and it's awesome seeing a parody movie these days. Like any parody, it throws a lot of usually stupid/silly jokes at you, but a good percentage of them work. Even when they don't, there's still a feel-good energy permeating throughout, so I was smiling and anticipating the next great joke. Not really much else to say besides the fact that it's a parody that's actually funny, outside of just running through the gags... the coffee one being the best."
Bring Her Back (2025) - Rated 10 Aug 2025
"It starts off strongly and disturbingly, and it does maintain a distressing tone the entire time. Seriously, there's maybe only a few moments of relief from what's going on, and even those moments end up getting darker. I appreciate that. And I love Sally Hawkins here. Her unhinged performance is the strongest aspect of this. There are some gruesome scenes. A decent drama but I found after a certain point the movie was predictable and just went through the motions. Still like it."
Sorry, Baby (2025) - Rated 07 Aug 2025
"There's an aloofness to Victor's performance that could have gone either way, but I think it works for this. And the writing's smart, though at a certain point I was kind of iffy on where it might go. Didn't go that way though. Connects emotionally but I think the comedic tone it never completely abandons does prevent it from perhaps reaching higher emotional heights. With that said, I laughed at a few bits and appreciated the tone. Non-linearity was unnecessary but inoffensive."
