Midweek Movie Free Talk

I've been rewatching a lot of films lately. Like I've talked about before. And I have noticed that there's been a shift in my taste a little bit. And I first experienced this last year when I rewatched Swiss Army Man and Hail Ceaser. Which I actually documented right here. I had attributed that to me not being 16 anymore and having seen a lot more movies since.

That's probably still some of it. But, I was talking to an online friend that I met on Reddit. And he's a little bit older than me an has watched a lot more movies than I have. He's much more knowledgeable in this area than I am. But I was telling him about my rewatches of 2021 movies. And the conclusion ended up being that EEAAO was kind of a watershed moment for me. I think that was the first time where the response to a movie was so positive and my response to it was not, that it reset something in the way I watch movies.

It's kind of odd, and I don't think it was a conscious choice on my part. But I have been watching some stuff I really loved from the late 2010s and have found myself not really loving them that much anymore. Maybe my film taste got de-twitterfied.

My daughter chose DC League of Super Pets to watch tonight, and I was not expecting to enjoy it as much as I did. It's laugh-out-loud funny and is full of superhero lore jokes. It has an all-star voice cast. I honestly think it's the best comic book movie I've seen in a while. Highly recommended.

I'm wondering if anyone else has any "kids movies" that they recommend for adults?

Apparently I like feminist movies from the past rather than the present. Watched Agnès Varda's Le Bonheur from 1965 last night and it was a very unique experience. On the surface the movie is nothing but happy people, with a good life, happy marriage (and a happy mistress), lovely children - all set in the beautiful French countryside with nice summer colors, pretty flowers and no ill intent or any conflict in sight. Yet when it ends, it was like having seen a horror film. Beneath all this almost sickeningly depiction of a mans joyful life is lurking a nagging thought about where the perspectives on happiness for the women is left in all this. It is sort of like Barbie where one gender is left as an accessory, but not spelled out in capital letters. Here I am forced to be alone with my doubts and unclear interpretations.

Recently watched Napoleon and was really underwhelmed. I was going in with it as my most anticipated film of the year and it really just fell flat. The visuals- costumes, the grand sweeping shots of the battles- were all great, but the story felt chopped up and confused. Several times my fiance and I had to pause and kind of reset to make sure we were all squared away on who was who. While granted we're not history buffs so we were maybe reading Wikipedia articles about the French Revolution during pauses, I thought Scott didn't really have a vision for what he wanted to do, it just felt unfinished.

I saw Boys in the Boat. My mother loves this film.

The music was beautiful. I liked the way they handled the great depression, economic struggle, class. It was fun to see the old time costumes, especially the hats.

I enjoyed the film but didn't love it. It was polished with a lot of attention to detail. I could see it winning awards but it didn't overwhelm me.

I just saw The Zone of Interest last night on the big screen and I'm so glad I got the chance to see it in theater. The sound design was hypnotizing from the opening scene right until the credits rolled. Having the full experience in a theater sound system was crucial. I would certainly have missed a lot just watching at home.

Overall, I found the film to be an incredible look at a topic that's already been covered countless times. It manages to bring a modern perspective. There's an unsettling known that insidiously creeps up on the audience along with all the characters in the film.

I have been watching old UK documentary films. Many of these are short. They're from the BFI (British Film Institute) collections:

Land of Promise and Shadows of Promise.

Land of Promise covers the years from 1930 to 1950 and Shadows of Progress covers the years from 1951 to 1977.

I find this stuff fascinating because it's real people in mostly real situations (although obviously the camera crew must have some kind of impact). The clothing is interesting and it's interesting to see people wearing what would be thought of as quite formal clothing (wool slacks) for manual labouring. There's a bunch of social stuff around poor people, and it's mostly not judgemental.

I've said "documentary" because that's how they're sold, but some of them are clearly scripted. They're not trying to hide this, there's no pretence there. But I found it interesting to see just how old the "dramatic reconstruction" techniques has been in use.

There's some caution needed: UK between the 1930s and 1970s was massively racist and there's some uncomfortable viewing. There's also a lot of people who are not heard in these films.

Many of these short films are available on YouTube.

I just watched an open matte of The Watchmen: Director's Cut. A lot of people hate this, a lot of people love this. I think its great and enjoy it every time I rewatch it (~6 or so times.)

I normally do the Ultimate cut, but I started late and figured I can just watch the Black Freighter separately this time.

edit: I'm watching Adventures in Babysitting for the first time since... it came out. This movie has everything! If you have even the faintest memory of this movie, watch it again. They could say 'fuck' a few times for the rating, and they picked their spots perfectly!

Alright before any more ceremonies happen here’s what I think is winning above the line in March as of right now

Picture: Oppenheimer
Director: Nolan
Original Screenplay: Anatomy of a Fall
Adapted Screenplay: Poor Things
Lead Actor: Cillian Murphy
Lead Actress: Emma Stone
Supporting Actor: RDJ
Supporting Actress: D’avine Joy Randolph

The Zone of Interest

I'm a big fan of Under The Skin. I think Glazer has an extraordinary vision. I think his style is really interesting and engrossing. And I thought this was a great examination of the evil of humanity. It's interesting how so much of what the film is trying to say is told through sound. We're witnessing a domestic family, but we're constantly surrounded by the sounds of the horrors happening in Auschwitz.

I dig the ending as well, I like the way it was edited. It feels like there's so many layers to this, almost like a nightmare version of Playtime. I left the theater in such a weird headspace afterwards.

As a side not this was now the third film I've seen in theaters this year, and I've yet to watch an actual 2024 release. I was hoping to have watched this before Oscar nominations but A24 was patiently waiting to give it a wide release by calling it a Best Picture nominee.

Coup de Chance

Woody Allen is my favorite director, so I'm gonna be biased towards all his movies. Even a lot of his post-Blue Jasmine work which was received mostly negative reviews I enjoy. I loved Magic in the Moonlight and A Rainy Day in New York.

This got the best reviews for him of this final stretch of his career (although interestingly enough it was panned in France despite them raving Cafe Society and Rainy Day).

I enjoyed it a lot. It is definitely his best film since Blue Jasmine, and it is an excellent movie to retire on.

My wife and I spent Sunday watching several movies we hadn't seen: Bombshell, Baby Driver and Wind River.

Bombshell I felt was just okay. Margot Robbie js always great, and John Lithgow was almost unrecognizable in that makeup, but the movie seemed to want to ignore what Fox News broadcasts. It engages with the ideas in an oblique way, but not so much at the character level. I thought at first there would be more development there with the relationship between Robbie and McKinnon's characters, but that was largely relegated to the sidelines in the later half of the movie, focusing in more on Megyn Kelly's story.

Baby Driver was great, on the other hand. I loved the way the soundtrack was incorporated into the story and the choreography. Edgar Wright's style came through very clearly here.

Wind River was the movie I knew the least about going in. All I knew was that it was a crime mystery movie with Jeremy Renner. Halfway through the movie I looked at the wiki and realized it was written by Taylor Sheridan and things clicked. I really liked this movie. It was well paced, crushing, perfectly tense. The shootout at the security lodging was very well done.

I'm going to make a second comment because this is a different topic from my previous post, but I recently watched the first two Mission: Impossible movies for the first time (and haven't seen any others) and from what I understand these are the two least liked of the franchise, but wow I'm honestly pretty surprised they kept making these movies, especially after the second. The first I was a little bored and somewhat confused by, but the second was just... Not a good movie.

I'm curious what people think about these movies and the franchise as a whole here.