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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 re-watched the original Spongebob Movie (2004) the other day. Didn't really have a specific reason other than a scene randomly got stuck in my head and I needed to watch it to get it out of my mind. This movie was probably my favorite movie as a kid so I have a lot of nostalgia for it.
I think the movie still holds up amazingly well 20 years on. It's got a great story that doesn't just feel like an extra long episode of Spongebob. It's got great characters in King Neptune and Princess Mindy and the rest of the main cast. The core message of the movie about how it's alright to be a kid at heart while you're an adult is one that resonates with me still. The jokes scattered throughout the movie are still great and I do quote them sometimes with friends.
Overall, if you're a fan of the Spongebob series, you'll love this movie.
Watching Interview with the Vampire for the first time and admiring Brad Pitt's level of cool with the initial events of his transformation.
If I ever got turned, I think I'd still wear a little foundation.
edit: what a terrible movie with mostly terrible performances. Dunst was great.
another edit that nobody will see: Just watched Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999) --- another film where the soundtrack is way better than the actual film.
This is another film that I've known about forever but always neglected. I'm glad I watched it, but... it should have been so much more. Not a bad film, but not great.
another: Red, White, and Blue (2023, Short) -- crushing.
I saw Interview with a Vampire for the first time recently. I quite enjoyed it, not really what I was expecting. I had heard something about homosexual undertones, but it’s actually quite overt in that regard. Including the toxic partner baby trapping the normal guy. And everyone being so enamored by Brad Pitt’s beauty.
From a technical perspective it’s quite impressive though. I think it’s cool that stars as big as Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt took on these roles.
yeah, nothing about this is subtle with the homosexual 'undertones' -- haha.
I'm glad you liked it. I think I'm in the minority. I wish Cruise would have done more roles like this instead of COOL HUNK DOES COOL THINGS AND GETS THE GIRL stuff.
Ha! Read your edit! I love anything Jim Jarmusch does, but yeah, that's not my favorite.
Have you seen Night on Earth? or Dead Man? Or Only Lovers Left Alive? Those are some of my favorites of his.
I haven't -- but I will! I may have seen Only Lovers Left Alive, but I can't remember.. but I'll add them to my list. He's a great director and even the stuff I don't really like still has plenty to appreciate.
Anora
I’m not the biggest Sean Baker fan. I haven’t seen Red Rocket, but I don’t really care for The Florida Project. I really liked Tangerine though.
I liked this a lot. The first act is so-so, it meanders too much and could have been cut in half. But after that it becomes, essentially, a screwball comedy. It’s really funny and beautifully shot on 35mm. Mikey Madison is great, she’s basically doing Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn accent but it works for the character.
There’s an emotional undercurrent to the film about the main character’s loneliness and lack of actual affection that works well, that seems to be what high brow critics are focusing on. But I still see this primarily as a screwball comedy, the stakes aren’t that high throughout the film.
Heretic
Really liked this. Its cinematography and score are surprisingly beautiful. All the performances are great and Hugh Grant’s charm is effectively utilized.
Another surprise is how much it analyzes and examines our relationship to religion and faith. It gets into things much deeper than you would expect. For all the marketing saying it is not a criticism of Mormonism, it is very clearly a criticism of organized religion at large. While atheism is presented to be “the truth” it shows that whether or not you’re nihilistic about life determines your outcome.
Pretty cool stuff.
Blitz
A subsequent dud for Steve McQueen after his frankly overrated Widows. It’s clear this is McQueen’s attempt at making Empire of the Sun, it doesn’t work because his inherent style is the antithesis to Spielberg. McQueen’s films are often subtle and cold, and this is him trying to be sentimental. It doesn’t work. Its narrative gets disrupted too often to build momentum, it often feels preachy and cartoony. A lot of the dialogue felt like stuff out of Wonka or Mary Poppins.
Overall, it’s just a bore.
Like every other millennial geek I was highly into the Lord of the Rings movies. Saw them all at release date in theater, the extended edition with all the extra stuff several times. However it must have been 10 years since last time I went through them and I think rewatching Fellowship yet again held me back. It is probably the first one I have seen the most as you always start there. But here is no good reason to always do that and I really enjoyed just jumping straight into The Two Towers. Just to sort of "feel the atmosphere" of Middle Earth again. Often seen as just the middle movie, I came to really like this time around. I had forgotten how bleak and full of despair it actually is. Fellowship is still mostly the beginning of an adventure, whereas here we get a proper sense of how the coming war affects regular people. We see families torn apart, villages burned to the ground and families filled with terror of what is to come.
I also opted for the theatrical cut, which I haven't seen since release in 2002. I didn't feel I was missing much really. The extended editions are after all not a director's cut, just simply "more".
Watched two movies over the weekend.
Twisters - Utter and extremely predictable horseshit that has all of the elements I hate about modern movies.
Joker: Folie à Deux - Absolutely amazing and I can only imagine all the pushback and box office disappointment from it are because people hate musicals for some reason.