This Friday at 9PM PST / 4AM GMT we’re diving into Time of Death (2013).
Announcing early so you can stock up on popcorn and bad beer.
Here’s the pitch: every murder happens at the exact same time—10:44PM. Sounds cool, right? Well… that’s where it gets dicey. This was made by a tiny Canadian studio on a shoestring budget, and opinions are all over the map. Some people swear it’s a hidden gem. Others say it’s one of the most boring “thrillers” ever broadcast on TV.
But that’s exactly why it’s perfect for LIVE MOVIE FRIDAYS. Odds are you’ve never seen it. Odds are it’ll be clunky. Odds are we’ll be yelling “what the hell was that?” at the screen at least once.
Oh, and yes—that’s Kathleen Robertson from Beverly Hills 90210 starring in a bargain-bin crime flick about synchronized murders.
Where to watch:
So—good, bad, or so bad it’s good—we’re doing this live.
See you Friday night.
I appreciate all the work you put into organizing this and finding links, but… next time couldn’t we watch good movies together? Or at least decent ones?
I get stuck watching bad movies on my own for stupid reasons – like watching Absolute Beginners because it has BOTH David Bowie AND Ray Davies (The Kinks) in it, but it isn’t good. I wouldn’t try to get anyone else to watch it. Rotten tomatoes only gives Absolute Beginners 39% and The Movie DB gives it 54%. My minimuim bar is generally 65% unless I’m looking for something specific from the film (like 2 famous musicians or a cinematographer who does amazing stuff even in bad films). For comparison, Time of Death gets 57% from TMDB and 36% from Rotten Tomatoes.
I guess I don’t mind stumbling into ‘so bad it’s good’ once in a while, but I don’t want to intentionally schedule it very often. Maybe we can switch it up?
All that said: I’ll be watching Time of Death with you on Friday!
That’s the thing, we don’t know if it will be good or bad. It could be good—and we might be stumbling upon a hidden gem.
Because the thing is, I don’t put a whole lot of stock in what other people say about a film until I’ve seen it myself. I’ve been surprised too many times—and we might be here again too.
And if it’s bad? At least we took a risk.
Time is valuable, so unless I hear someone I trust suggest that despite the flaws, a thing has value for X reasons, I don’t want to waste my time with it.
I don’t want to eat at a crappy restaurant when I can cook better at home, I don’t want to read a crappy book when so many good books await, and I don’t want to watch a crappy movie when so many interesting ones exist.
Discovery isn’t a waste of time—it’s the whole point. Someone else’s “good” might bore you to tears, and someone else’s “trash” might be your new favorite thing.
Skipping the chance to find out? That’s safe, sure. But safe doesn’t always make for the best stories.
Still, if you’d rather pass on the gamble, I get it. Some people play the slots, others watch from the bar.
I don’t want to argue with you because I really like your content and I admire the dedication to having a movie community at all… but… if I see a cow, I haven’t ‘discovered’ it; seeing movies ain’t discovery unless you are watching a recent release and there has not yet been time to reflect on it. I remember how bad the reviews for Blade Runner were on initial release, but a critic I followed suggested it worth a watch despite the flaws. I fell in love with it. It was totally unique for the time. I tried to share it with someone a few years back and he said there’s nothing special to it – it reminded him of a dozen other sci-fi moveis (to which I replied those all came after and this was their inspiration, but oh well).
I won’t play the slots because that’s a losing game. The house always wins. I might play the horses, but I’d need a tip on why to pick one horse over another. I really want some decent critic/archivist/mega-fan to give me a tip on why to watch a movie that is generally considered bad.
Well, you’re in luck—I do reviews.
In fact, I’ll be talking about this one live as we watch it. So if you don’t feel like rolling the dice, you can just scroll the thread later and decide if it’s worth your time.
Everybody wins. The adventurous get the thrill of watching an obscure movie unfold in real time. The cautious get the crib notes afterward.
I know! And you are good at it! I really liked your write up for Curse of the Cat People and meant to comment, but life took over and then later it felt too late.
One of the things I learned during my years in business was that you can’t dwell on the past. Mistakes are inevitably going to be made.
Yeah, this was as bland and unremarkable as all the indicators suggested. It would have been a fine filler in any of several TV detective shows where we care what develops between the recurring characters, but it wasn’t worth making into yet-another-generic-grey movie.
Watching this got me looking for a better movie-night community and accidentally discovered that wombat@hexbear.net posts list Thursday Cinema nights I’d like to watch. Unfortunately, that basically involves joining hexbear.net and I am soooo not ready to take that step.
Movie hasn’t started yet and we haven’t even done the live thread. 🙂
Sorry I forgot which timezone so I guess I watched slightly early.
Well, I wrote a review. I’d be curious to if you agree with it.
It is a very good writeup with which I totally disagree. I found it predicatble, uninteresting, and devoid of atmosphere.
Before watching this, I’d watched Central Station and needed to ruminate on that for a bit before watching anything else. The characters developed with the story. The sets were busy with life and activities, and the settings were anything but generic. In comparison, Time of Death was so enervating that I needed to take a nap after the effort to sit through it.
