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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 watched A Quiet Place Day one.
I wouldn't say it was an amazing film but there was something very moving and poignant about the main character and the cinematography made me feel a lot. It was an unusual premise that made for an adventure
I took my daughter and her friends to see Despicable Me 4 on its last day in theaters. I had only gotten a few hours of sleep the night before, so I went in expecting to kick back and nap for two hours. But I watched the whole thing, and it turned out to be one of the most enjoyable movies I've seen this year. That probably reflects the relatively narrow gamut of movies I have time and opportunity for as much as anything, but I would recommend it to anyone, and fans of comic book or SF movies especially.
It's amazing to me that this can be the 6th movie in the franchise, and it can be so fresh. It is also full of references to other films, great visual gags, and an engaging story.
I watched Bird Box: Barcelona. I did not enjoy it.
Spoilers
This movie really suffered from not having someone as the main protagonist. The main character is "evil" and not really that likeable. Seeing him heel-turn relatively early was a real turn off for me, and I just wanted him to die, and for the random people he was killing to survive.
About halfway through, we are introduced to a character that I guess fills the main "protagonist" role, but it's too little too late - we don't have the same bond with her that we have with, say, Sandra Bullock in the original.
Effects were decent, acting was okay, but the way the story was told really let me down.
Just got done with City Lights (1931). Shocking how funny that film still is :)
We had a discussion about this a few months ago
Nice :) I was looking for good resources post watch and there seems to be a lot in the thread there, appreciate the heads up :)
I really liked the book Less than Zero -- but the movie absolutely does not land for me. It felt 'this then then this then this' -- not unlike Denny's dealings with Chris R in The Room.
I'm still sticking with my calendar, but man.. this was a 90m slog.
Yeah I didn’t think it was great, felt like an after school special at times. I liked RDJ in it though
yeah, he was good. His coke booker was a nice call back to Neil Young during The Last Waltz :) Whoever made those did a great job.
This is what 90210 would have been if Spelling got the rights for the original Degrassi
Trap
I forgot to write this on Saturday. I loved Shyamalan’s last film Knock at the Cabin and it landed on my Top 5 of the year. I thought it was brilliant filmmaking.
This is not that. Look, I think it’s fun. But I wouldn’t say there’s anything in here that blew me away like Knock did. And in fact I think the writing in here is actually pretty weak overall. The film has like five different natural end points but just keeps going and going. It feels longer than its runtime.
I thought Hartnett gave a great comedic performance. And while I liked the music from Shyamalan’s daughter, she ends up becoming a supporting actress here and she does not possess the skills necessary to do so. I feel like Shyamalan himself should have realized she wasn’t cut out for that and minimized her role in it and kept it purely as a setting.
For some reason this is the movie that made film twitter start going on about how Shyamalan is a genius and how he’s never had a bad film, and it’s including revisionist writings of both The Happening and After Earth. I think it’s too much of an over correction of the Shaymalamadingdong stuff that came out during the late 00s and early 10s thanks to YouTubers like The Nostalgia Critic or YMS. AND if this was gonna happen why didn’t it happen last year for his better movie? Seems odd.
Anyways, yeah a bit of a let down. I feel like it didn’t really take full advantage of its high concept.
It’s a comedy?
Well... not really. I think Shyamalan often incorporates comedy in his films and there are so many moments in this where Hartnett's performance was actively courting laughs.