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Midweek Movie Free Talk
Have you watched any movies recently you want to discuss? Any films you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
I saw The Holdovers this week. It's quite good. Gentle and tragic at the same time, somehow.
Finally got to see Godzilla: Minus One in theaters today! Em the theatres sound system was pretty bad tbh but holy shit what a great movie. The characters were actually real characters and I loved the themes of collectivism vs individualism woven between the narrative of an incompetent government. I've never been a huge Godzilla fan but I loved it.
I really didn't like Interstellar. Its bloated, self-indulgent, and cheap in a lot of ways (the voiceovers, for example.) Anyway, I don't care what your views are on this part, but I found Interstellar: Where We're Going, a killer fanedit that removes a lot of the bullshit that held the movie back -- essentially saving Chris Nolan from himself.
If you know how to get this stuff, definitely give it swing after reading the changes. I really enjoy this version.
I also didn’t really care for Interstellar when I first watched it. It’s grown on me over the years though.
I want to live in a world where a ghost is giving me relatively easy to decode messages and the logical jump is to assume its my father. This edit removed so much of the corny stuff.
Does the original use a few Simon and Garfunkel tracks in the score? This used Scarborough Fair and it fit perfectly.
Wonka
So I've been hyping this shit up for a while. I actually tried to go looking for a post that had me stating it was one of my most anticipated of the year. Couldn't find it for some reason.
On here the trailer received a very negative response. Which I was shocked by because I thought it looked really good.
I'm a fan of the Paddington movies, but I also just like a good movie musical. Mary Poppins Returns was one of my favorite movies of 2018 to give you an example. I grew up with both Willy Wonka and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Willy Wonka is one of my favorite musicals, and Charlie is more of a guilty pleasure of mine.
I loved this. I thought it was beautifully made. It really is what you imagine would be the results of giving the director of Paddington a 120 million dollar budget. It's a studio film made with a lot of whimsy, a lot of sincerity, and a lot of heart. Chalamet delivers a good performance and shows his range with his apt comedic timing.
I've always been more open to franchise, or IP, filmmaking, than a lot of other film lovers (especially those who have a similar watch history to me). So I don't really come at movies with a lot of cynicism. I know it doesn't seem like it a lot of the time considering how often I criticize stuff. But comparatively to a lot of the Criterion crowd I'm more open and likely to be swept up by the emotions of a film. Even if it wouldn't be considered "high art." This film almost brought me to tears at the very end.
It's one of my favorites of the year, and I highly recommend it. If you guys go to the theater on Christmas as a family tradition I believe this is the movie to go see.
Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I was initially down for another movie until I saw Chalamet's delivery in the trailer. Maybe it's worth a shot when it's available to stream
I saw a really bad review recently but I would see it and make up my own mind.
Reviewers can really miss the mark, especially with nostalgic content.
The movie overall has positive reviews although a big critique against it is that it's all fluff.
The Criterion Channel has a small list of movies named Women of the West and I watched Forty Guns from 1957 last night, hoping for some interesting female lead characters. While it does star Barbara Stanwyck as sort of a gang leader with 40 gunmen around her, which has some pretty funny scenes where they are all dining at a ridiculous long dining table, sadly her character is quickly devolved into the stereotypical damsel that falls head over heels in expressing her undying love for the stoic gunslinger hero. The movie does look fantastic in widescreen black and white with a noir-like cinematography with a super crisp transfer.
If anyone can recommend westerns with good female leads, I am interested. Bonus points if they are from the 50s or earlier.
Not a western, but "Went the Day Well" has some exceptional women. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035429/
It's a film I very much enjoy. Here's a good discussion of it: http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/454179/index.html
Talk To Me is an Australian supernatural horror movie made by Danny and Michael Phillippou. It is unsettlingly creepy, at times very graphic, and I thought it was a pretty good horror movie. Sophie Wilde was great as the lead, and it had
EowynMiranda Otto, who I think is generally good in all that she does.Very mild spoilers
It can be succinctly described - some teens have a macguffin that contacts the dead; there are consequences - and no part of the plot is particularly surprising. At every turn, you have a fairly good idea of what will happen in the next 5 minutes, which gives the entire movie a feeling of inexorability.
The acting was good, the effects and makeup were exceptional considering the budget, and this is a solid A24 movie.
Eden Lake is a brutal thriller / horror movie that felt a lot like Martyrs or High Tension. I didn't enjoy it, but it was well crafted; the story works, the acting was very good, everything was technically well done.
Full Spoilers of the whole movie
I didn't know anything about it and watched it on a whim. It felt particularly cruel at every step, because it always felt as if it were a movie where the victims would succeed, but then the worst possible thing happened. Steve extricates himself, but dies off screen, Jenny gets out and finds help three separate times but always in vain. All the characters who are remotely good end up dead as a result. The whole film was like an unrepentant cheese grader to the soul, and has the temerity at the end to either try to make you feel something for the main antagonist or at least rub in your face that there were no repercussions for him at all.
I wasn't prepared for any of it, and it was kind of a gut punch. The director did a very good job of preparing you for a "our heroine saves the day" movie and then gleefully snatching all that away. The third time she got help was too much for me, though; when someone shows up at a party covered in shit and blood after crashing a car in the front yard, there would be an immediate call to the police, not a 20 minute discussion / wait before calling, so the fact that nobody immediately got on the phone tipped off that something else was going to happen. Other than that it was very well crafted.
Alright Globes Winners predictions:
Drama: Oppenheimer
Comedy: Barbie
Director: Christopher Nolan - Oppenheimer
Screenplay: Barbie
Actor Drama: Cillian Murphy - Oppenheimer
Actress Drama: Lilly Gladstone - Killers of the Flower Moon
Actor Comedy: Paul Giamatti - The Holdovers
Actress Comedy: Margot Robbie - Barbie
Supporting Actor: Robert Downey Jr. - Oppenheimer
Supporting Actress: D'avine Joy Randolph - The Holdovers
Original Song: "I'm Just Ken" from Barbie
Original Score: Oppenheimer
Animated Film: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
Non-English Language: Past Lives
Cinematic Box Office Achievement: Oppenheimer
Here is an article criticizing the recent Napoleon film for ignoring his campaigns to subjugate former slaves in what is now Haiti.
Apologies for the ugly link. I'm on mobile today.
https://theconversation.com/the-napoleon-that-ridley-scott-and-hollywood-wont-let-you-see-218878?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Saturday%20Newsletter%20%20December%2016%202023%20-%202828028644&utm_content=Saturday%20Newsletter%20%20December%2016%202023%20-%202828028644+CID_9285c4f02906a037e088fb0330bf5e17&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=The%20Napolon%20that%20Ridley%20Scott%20and%20Hollywood%20wont%20let%20you%20see
I have a mubi account and iv not used it much but recently the desire to watch good films inspired me to start delving into more cinema.
I watched bacurau the other day. Its a great film from Brazil that kinda gave me bone tomahawk vibes. Although it's more comical at times.
The film is set in the town of Bacurau which itself feels like a character in the movie. The rest of the cast feel relatable and the story had a nice twist to it. I'd definitely recommend it.
I also watched the new godzilla minus one film. It definitely lived up to the hype that iv been hearing about it.
Finally I watched 12 angry men today. Damn that was a great film. I was totally engrossed the whole time. Its definitely one I will revist from time to time.
Watched the "written by Richard Curtis" movie Genie this weekend. What a load of crap it was! Melissa McCarthy is OK in it, playing the same part she always plays in comedies. This time as a fish-out-of-water ancient Genie in modern times. Although it's played for laughs, the plot holes started to annoy me (e.g. how did she know to conjure up a pizza if she didn't know what pizza was?)
The "hero" of the film, Bernard (Paapa Essiedu), is really bland. He mopes through and is neither endearing nor charming. He's just dumb. His wife, Julie (Denée Benton) is very irritating and I loathed every minute she spent on screen.
The film repeats the same story points several times, with people going from Bernard's flat in New York to some house in the country (?). It's tedious and repetitive. The plot involving "Chekov's football shirt" is very stupid.
It has a few funny moments, and the drone shots of New York using that zoom technique so it looks like a tiny toy-town are pretty cool, but the dull characters and tedious story make it a pretty terrible film overall.