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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.
Watched Autopsy of Jane Doe. A lot of the elements were generic horror stuff, but still interesting premise and development.
I went to The Wild Robot this week. I had initially dismissed it as a kids' movie, but decided to go see it based on the overwhelmingly positive reviews (8.5 on IMDB and 98% on Rotten Tomatoes). In my mind, Dreamworks were "the Shrek people," and that's pretty much what I got out of Wild Robot. Worth going, but I don't really know enough about movies to articulate why.
I watched Ghostlight (2024) tonight. It's going around the festival circuit, I think.
Really nice film.
quick edit: its neat, too, because the three leads are a real family! What a film!
not a quick edit: Zone of Interest is fantastic. Sandra Hüller gave us two outstanding performances. I hope she doesn't fade off into obscurity or anything. I mean, she won't in the near future. She's cast in Project Hail Mary, so at least we'll see a little of her.
I watched Dr. Zhivago for the first time last week. It is now on my list of best films I have ever seen. Just wow.
It's long and it includes some painful content to watch. The story, the cinematography, the acting, the costumes were amazing.
Wolfs
I liked this quite a bit. I thought it was like an old school studio film. I was actually pretty impressed with Watts’s writing, he’s quite witty. I love Spider-Man: Homecoming so I’m naturally a defender of Watts’s work and I think this shows that he is actually quite talented.
Saturday Night
I was looking forward to this one since it was announced. I didn’t care for it. The set-up is a Birdman-esque structure. Lorne Michaels is trying to launch the first episode of SNL. But nothing really feels at stake. Even with the kinetic camera work and jazz score (also reminiscent of Birdman) I never actually felt a sense of urgency.
It wasn’t as funny as it should have been. I thought a lot of the self importance given to SNL as an “institution” was annoying. I also thought most of the performances were weak. Very disappointing.
Terrifier 3
I liked Terrifier 1 and 2, having watched them back in 2022. They were entertaining slashers with an 80s aesthetic, a sense of humor, and impressive special effects.
This was meandering, so many different plot threads that don’t add up to anything. I suppose technically it is superior to the last two movies but I think that makes it lose the charm the first two had.
I will say though the main actress impressed me with her performance here. She’s a real actor, and I hope she starts getting more work.
That is maybe a little off-topic, but there's this film from Taiwan (Blue Gate Crossing) that made me cry like a baby in the 2000s. I only found it in DVD quality, and not a great encoding, so I went looking into upscaling it. So I found video2x, which seems fine enough. But I don't know, I can't help but think that something is missing and the crappy version somehow has more "soul"? Maybe that's just in my head?
Anyway, I made 2min clips. If anyone's got 4 minutes to waste, tell me what you think.
I have been re-watching some old favorites this week.
Chungking Express was when I first saw it a pivotal changing moment for my film taste, where romance in films was suddenly an option. Romance in movies only works for me if I can believe in the attraction between the characters, and that somehow clicked here. I have since watched several other of Wong Kar-wai's films and some have been great like In the mood for love, but none had quite the same magic. It is a unique strange film with experimental cinematography and a somewhat strange plot, different from the usual expectations for romantic movies. Which is what makes is interesting.
I also went back to a blockbuster classic with Jurassic Park and in my opinion - this is where cinematic blockbusters peaked. Sure, I have nostalgia goggles as this was one of the first proper movies I saw in a theater. I was only 8 and couldn't really read the subtitles, but what an experience for all the senses. Like with Jaws this was made at a time with just the right amount of possibilities with special effects to make it work, but still with some limitations forcing Spielberg to be creative with how to create an exciting narrative. Everything here is just perfectly setup with natural exposition and foreshadowing. The pacing is utterly well balanced making the action scenes stand out better than if it was just full throttle. Of course, re-watching it today doesn't quite get me riled up, as all the methods Spielberg applies here have since been the standard used by everyone else, so you can see the dramatic peaks coming from a mile away. But still, this is still gold and I don't think any blockbuster since has surpassed this classic.
Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! is the absolute best he has have ever done. I absolutely love this movie. No other science fiction comedy comes close. Well maybe Galaxy Quest, but that is somewhat different. I am not really big on Tim Burton's other movies, but this is absolutely gold. I have seen it countless times since 1996, but it has been a while since last time and it still holds up. The fantastic score and the 50's kitsch atmosphere sets the mood and the movie sure doesn't waste any time in its 100+ minute runtime. What makes this work so well is the absolute stacked cast of great actors. Again confirming by belief that good actors are better at comedic timing in movies than comedians. Jack Nicholson is stellar as both the president and the casino-man. Pierce Brosnan has the proper demeanor as the confident professor, making quite a character with his stupid pipe. Rod Steiger nails it as the war-hungry general that they really should have listened to from the start. And then there are all the rest not limited to such big names as Michael J. Fox, Danny DeVito, Tom Jones and Glenn Close. Despite no one really being the main character in this movie and many characters only getting a small amount of screen time, no one falls through and we know enough about them to not really miss anything deeper. Tim Burton is utterly committed to the silly, but extremely well made, action style with plenty of explosions and iconic destruction scenes. All in the name of good old fashioned fun.