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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.
Over the past week I watched:
Over the coming days I'll probably fill in a few Oscar nomination gaps before the ceremony on Sunday. I almost always disagree with their picks, but tune in year after year anyway.
The only thing I can say about Megalopolis is that the vibes are strong. This is going to sound bizarre but a few times while working I've put Megalopolis on a laptop nearby on mute, just for the striking visual style. Ambience and all that. They'll institutionalise me for it someday but for now, wheeee
Bit of an odd question, but does anyone know of a website that tracks "weird" movie information that isn't necessarily tracked on sites like IMDB? Stuff like:
How long are the opening logos and title cards?
How long are the end credits?
Do the end credits scroll or fade in/out in chunks?
At what point is the name of the movie said in the dialogue?
Who is the oldest actor to appear in this movie?
What font are the optional subtitles in the home video versions?
How far in the past was the movie set when it was made? E.g. No Country For Old Men was made in 2007, but set in 1980, a difference of 27 years. I'd like to track this without having to get both years and do the math.
etc.
This is probably not really what you were looking for, but I recently found out from a friend that there's a website/app that gives the best times to go to the bathroom during a movie.
Most of the info is on their app, not the website, and from my quick peek it does seem to also give the length of the end credits on some movies.
https://runpee.com
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - 2/10
Probably gonna catch a bit of flak for this rating but I have no nostalgia about this series (the first movie I rated 5/10), so I had a very hard time seeing what made this movie so good. I watched it with a friend though and we had a lot of fun making fun of it - one of the cheesiest and most corny movies ever. Only a couple of things were actually good about it though, like parts of the first action scene at the restaurant. Other than that, it was just way too camp and nothing made sense. A good bad movie though lol
Trainspotting - 6/10
Felt this was a little overhyped but a decent watch. I can't speak to what addiction is like but I thought it was a really strange portrayal, however I do appreciate what it was doing in terms of the mood of it being all over the place, changing basically every scene. Characters were great, casting as well, but I didn't like the snappy directing. It really stressed me! Probably the point though. But not really an entertaining movie. It was pretty hard to watch. Glad I watched it, but very unlikely that I'm going to rewatch it ever.
If it makes you feel better, I think Temple of Doom is everyone's least favorite from the original trilogy. It's just... Not good.
I'm gonna compile all the posts I've made from this year's Best Picture nominees. I'll go backwards from most recent watch to oldest:
I'm Still Here
The Brutalist and Nickel Boys
A Complete Unknown
Wicked
Emilia Perez
Anora
Conclave
The Substance
Dune: Part Two
Ranking them:
Does anybody want to talk about any of the following?
The Social Network (2010): ★★★
The Princess Bride (1987): ★★★ (rewatch)
The Substance (2024): ⯪☆☆
The Trial (1962): ★⯪☆
Twelve Angry Men (1954, 1957): ★★★ (rewatch)
All About Eve (1950): ★★⯪
Which version of Twelve Angry Men did you actually watch? The 1954 TV version is impressive as hell due to it being filmed live, but it's kinda hard to watch because of the poor audio/picture quality. I've only ever watched it once.
The 1957 movie, on the other hand, is arguably the greatest movie ever made, IMO. And I've probably watched it a dozen times over the years... similar to The Princess Bride, which is also one of my all-time favorites as well. :)
Both, actually, since the criterion disc has both of them. I had seen the movie before, so I watched the TV version first. And since that's just an hour, I decided to go ahead and rewatch the movie again.
It was interesting to see which lines were lifted directly from the TV version, even lines I hadn't thought were that important. Stuff like "Of course they lock the door, what did you think?" "I don't know, I guess it just never occurred to me." And then there's the demonstration with the knife; he really winds up and takes a proper swing that I wouldn't dare to try with the other guy really standing right there with no camera trickery.
I had seen the Princess Bride a long time ago and remembered some of the jokes/quotes, but it's a different experience to watch as an adult.
Oh, nice. I should try to track down the Criterion version (which I assume was remastered?) and give it a watch... the version I watched was just one I found on archive.org, and it has horrible video and audio. :/
The criterion version is only a bit better than a few bits I skimmed through from that recording. The resolution is better (you can see artifacts from scan lines, etc), but the underlying picture is still an analog TV signal. The audio is a little better, but there is still some crackling.
Criterion is dang expensive, but they do half-off sales twice a year. During the sale, I can stomach the price to get HD/4K versions of stuff on the Mount Rushmore of movies (see also: Citizen Kane).
Ah, if the audio isn't much better then I will probably skip it. That was my biggest gripe with the archive.org version. And yeah, Criterion stuff is pricey. I used to own a few Akira Kurosawa and Zatoichi movies they released, but got rid of my entire physical media collection some time ago now. Criterion's streaming service is a pretty decent price though ($11/mo), and definitively worth getting for a month or two if you like binging.
So not a fan of The Substance? I understand, it is one of those films that are very divisive. Most fall in either love or hate. I think the main reason I liked it was for the theater experience, and I am pretty certain I would like it less if I watch it again at home. There are plenty of things I can find wrong with it, but I can't deny that I had a pretty good time in the theater. I usually prefer movies that handle their themes and messages with subtlety and ambiguity, and this does the exact opposite, so in theory I should hate this. However, I think the exaggeration and how the movie shamelessly just go all in on its metaphors dialed to 11, which make me respect what it does. It wouldn't have been the same if it tried to do subtle.
There are things that annoy me though. Once the concept of the substance is established, the rest of movie pretty much writes itself. You know every rule is going to be broken and until the very end, there aren't that many surprises. It is definitely longer than it needs to, as per my previous point, I was often just waiting for the next inevitable plot development. And I never thought the point of "you are one" made much sense in practice. They clearly are not, as they exists at separate beings in the final act.
Yeah, in some other threads I put a disclaimer that my star ratings are basically my level of enjoyment of the movie, not necessarily an objective measure. I can tell that The Substance is well-made, but I didn't enjoy watching it at all.
I agree that the plot was too predictable. I feel weird saying that because I've more often complained about the opposite - movies where the plot is too convoluted to understand or moves too fast for me to keep up. But this movie flips the other way and didn't maintain my interest the whole way through. And I also agree that the movie delivers the theme/message with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face, but I guess the spectacle couldn't make up for it for me as much as it did for you.
This is probably my lesson to heed content warnings more carefully. The movie is rated R for strong bloody violence and gore, nudity, and language. But I was still surprised by how pervasive the gore was throughout the movie and how sexualized a lot of the nudity was. I don't seem to be bothered by violence and gore in war movies, but I really did not like the body horror in The Substance. If I had read the full IMDB parents' guide instead of just the MPAA description, I probably wouldn't have watched it.
At least I could have cracked a few jokes using this sound bite!
But no image host seems to be willing to host it. Imgur won't let me upload anything at all for some reason, Lensdump doesn't allow sound, and that Streamable link will expire in 48 hours. :(EDIT: Thanks to tomf for porting the clip to Imgur!https://i.imgur.com/QcOTGFy.mp4 -- you can use this. I'll delete this comment once you update yours :)
Thanks! Thus begins my snarky video reply era!
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What do you want to say about Princess Bride? It's one I have rewatched several times. It was a defining movie for my generation along with the Breakfast club and a few others.
I tried to share it with a woman in her early 20s last year and she was disappointed with the character of Buttercup. Standards and expectations have changed.
What did you think?
It was my first time rewatching it since I was in high school, so it was different to see it from an adult perspective. I was actually rooting for Westley and Buttercup to get back together instead of just seeing it as a way to force the plot forward, etc. I went in expecting a nostalgia-driven "Here's where he says the line!" over and over, but ended up liking the movie as a whole.
I've also seen enough movies now to notice when one inspired or borrowed from another. I laughed at the six-fingered man running away, not only because of the joke, but also because I realized that one joke in The Grand Budapest Hotel is basically a tip of the cap to it.
I finally watched Robert Eggers' Nosferatu over the weekend. Maybe my least favorite of his movies so far, but that's only because the competition is so good, it's still like an 8/10 for me.
Also watched The Last Video Store, which I picked up on bluray a while back (sight unseen, based entirely on reading a one sentence premise). I fully understand that this movie will not be for everyone, and isn't really very good by many objective measures, but to me it was like curling up in a warm, comfy blanket with my favorite snack and injecting pure fuzzy nostalgia straight into my brain for 80 minutes straight. An easy 10/10 for me.
(rant)
Is it common for theaters to only show the Oscars' Best Picture winner after the ceremony, but not show any of the other movies? My local theater isn't even doing that, and the theater just over an hour down the road is only showing Anora (4 or 5 times a day for over a week).
This year was my first time really paying attention to the Oscars, and I'm disappointed. I was hoping to see a couple other winners that I had missed like The Brutalist and Flow, but nobody anywhere near me is showing them. I get that Anora won a gazillion of the awards, but I had figured that the other winners would get at least some attention. There are a million sites that will show you what movies are scheduled at a specific theater, but nothing that asks "What theaters near me are showing Movie X in the next two weeks?"
/rant
I don't think it's really all that common for the nominees to get wide (re)distribution around award season, no. Some of the films never get wide distribution in the first place. Some will come back for a limited engagement. Depends on the movie and the studio. I think your best bet is waiting for streaming or digital releases.
There might be some other chains that do this but I know Cinemark showcases all the Picture nominees the week of the ceremony up until Sunday. But after the ceremony it’s not super common for any of the films to get re-released. If a movie hadn’t received a wide release in the year it usually gets one after nominations are announced.
I believe the only Picture nominees not available on digital currently are: A Complete Unknown, Nickel Boys, and I’m Still Here. You should be able to rent/stream/torrent the others.
Edit: Scratch that, I’m Still Here is not available. Both Nickel Boys and ACU are on digital
If you have a local downtown independent theater that may be your best bet. In my experience though they usually do a series of the nominees running up to the awards, not usually after.
I use "JustWatch" (the website not the app) to find where things are streaming if that helps at all.