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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.
watching A Better Tomorrow II (英雄本色2) (1987) and I really appreciate that it has a 'Previously on...' recap of the first movie's ending. I wish more films did this.
edit: this movie is insane
edit: 02/13: Hard Target (1993) --- what a ride! The move would be about 20 minutes shorter without the constant slow-motion. JCVD is a terrible shot.
This movie has everything... Wilford Brimley's terrible cajun accent that gets worse as the movie goes... the ol' hand over the eyes of the dead person thing... unlimited ammo... everything blows up.. john woo doves... perfection.
edit: 02/14: Marty Supreme (2025) --- this movie is great and I love the aesthetic so much. The chemistry is so good across the board. Abel Ferrara is unbelievable casting for this. The casting in general is neat... David Mamet, Isaac Mizrahi , etc --- Perfection!
I watched "Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die" in early access yesterday because I've been in LA this month! It was a bright, colorful movie, and I enjoyed the humor of it, but honestly the main message was very much "phone bad" which is kinda not exciting. I also think it's main anti AI message was somewhat undercut by the movie's usage of AI in some parts. It was fun overall though!
Crime 101
This had the potential to be a great pulp crime film but it gets bogged down by a bunch of useless bullshit. Feels like S Craig Zahler should have been given the script for a rewrite to fix it.
It starts off really interesting but then it becomes a slog. Hemsworth is just not that good of an actor and he struggles so much with an American accent. Ruffalo, Berry, and Keoghan are all great in their roles. Monica Barbaro is useless and should have been cut out of the film with aspects of her character being merged with Berry’s. And there should have been less focus on Hemsworth, who is clearly shaped by movies like Thief and Drive but isn’t nearly as interesting as those characters.
(2.5/5)
Wuthering Heights
I was mixed not Saltburn. I’d go back and forth between disliking and liking it. Fennell is clearly a strong visual director. And that’s evident here, it feels old Hollywood with the sets and how dramatic the shots and weather seem to be.
The script, like in Saltburn, is weak. I wish she would get a writer to fix her stuff. I threw around the guy who wrote both The Menu and Bugonia, since he also focuses on themes of class which Fennnell is clearly interested in. Robbie is great, Elordi is a little disappointing. It’s still an entertaining and technically well crafted movie. And it’s very trashy which seems to be Fennell’s sensibilities. Having a polished film but told in a low brow way.
(3.5/5)
Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die
Verbinsky’s first feature film since 2017’s A Cure For Wellness. He had back to back bombs with The Lone Ranger and Wellness. Which is why it took him so long to get another project.
Disappointing to say the least. There’s an ironic, self-aware, Reddit, EEAAO, type humor to this. It’s also structured through vignettes which gets kind of tiresome. Don’t really think Verbisnky added anything to this. There’s only one scene that shows his signature technical bravado.
It’s all a shallow and over-the-top commentary on technology. It’s smug, it doesn’t really say anything in a clever way. It’s frustrating. And it’s not that funny.
Sam Rockwell is good, Juno Temple is giving an awards caliber performance, and Hayley Lu Richardson (who I’ve recently fallen in love with) is charismatic and engrossing. Though I think this film speaks to her poor choices (she turned down Midsommar for example).
(2/5)
Does anybody want to talk about:
Office Space (1999): ★☆☆
Clerks, but with cubicles. I've worked in an office and been laid off, so I enjoyed the jokes about that. But the actual plot of the movie didn't keep my interest. It's interesting to compare what the office was like in the mid 90s compared to today.
The Land Before Time (1988): ★★☆ (rewatch)
This is a movie I haven't seen since I was a kid, and my theater was showing it for $3. This is definitely a different movie to watch as an adult, but still enjoyable. I didn't remember it being so short, but the story is simple and doesn't need two hours to make its point.
Thelma and Louise (1991): ★☆☆
Somehow I had gotten the idea that this was a lighthearted road trip romp, so I was not expecting a thriller/drama. That made me more surprised at the inciting act and beginning of the movie, but that also means it wasn't really what I was in the mood to watch. So, entering from stage left...
Happy Gilmore (1996): ★★☆
Expected a dumb Adam Sandler comedy; got a dumb Adam Sandler comedy. For once I was able to set aside the fact that a sports movie took ridiculous artistic license with the rules and was able to let go and enjoy it. It starts kinda slow and the early gags don't land, but it does better in the second act and manages to save par.
Her (2013): ★☆☆
I think this is a movie I needed to see before generative AI entered the zeitgeist. In the same way that you can't remember not knowing how to do something after you learn to do it, I can never watch this movie without preconceived expectations about AI, so I can never really put myself into the character's shoes.
The operating system, holographic video games, wireless earbuds, and other tech would have seemed futuristic and impressive at the time this movie released, but now they're mostly not-quite-right versions of things that actually exist. The depictions of the tech fall into uncanny valleys that wouldn't have existed in 2013. So the main character makes some dumb decisions early on that make him hard to sympathize with, which usually kills my enjoyment of movies. Now people are more wary of chatbots hallucinating and flattering you, so Theodore seems dumb at times. But I only got that impression because I'm watching the movie over a decade late after a serious shift in the culture around AI. This is a movie that I literally can't give a reasonable opinion on because of how much the world has changed since its release.
The credits of Her contain a special thanks for the late Catherine O'Hara. Does anyone know why she got that credit?
Her: Spike Jonze (apparently) had a habit of thanking friends even if all they did was read the script over. Notably the ex-wife’s name is Catherine.
The movie is supposed to take place now which is why you’re getting that uncanny valley feeling. If anything I think it’s quite impressive that Jonze was able to predict so much stuff as closely as he did, with the main thing he got wrong being that the world was a lot more serene and colorful compared to what we see actually have.
I think it’s actually prescient. There’s been so many articles about how people have AI partners. I’ve seen TikTok videos of people talking to the AI voices as if it were their boyfriend. It’s not as good as we see in Her, but that’s because it’s dialogue written and performed by humans. And I think the main commentary is the increasing isolation we’re experiencing.
Thelma and Louise: don’t have much to add to this BUT this was Brad Pitt’s first major role. Famously George Clooney auditioned for it. And someone I get told I look a lot like, Mark Ruffalo, also auditioned for it. Which makes me feel pretty good since the role is supposed to be a very attractive guy.
I think this is an unfair characterization of both Theodore and Spike Jonze. Jonze didn’t do anything wrong he didn’t cheat, he wasn’t abusive. In Lost in Translation he’s just shown to not be very present, and in Her they both divorce because they drifted apart. Painting Jonze as a bad guy is doing a disservice to both how mature the real life people handled the divorce and the mature depictions we see in both films.
What’s the worst thing Theodore does in Her? He goes on a date, gets drunk, and isn’t entirely interested in pursuing something seriously with Olivia Wilde. How is that a terrible action. Why must natural human interactions be painted in such a negative light.
Film Bro as a concept isn’t really a thing anymore, but i find it and its counterpart in literature, LitBro, to be a non-sequitur and mostly popularized by people who have vendettas against MFA guys they’ve dated.
The crux of the film is not “oh woe is me I have high standards” that’s never implied. It’s basically, being so isolated and alone that you seek comfort in the unreal. He’s also generally depressed because he’s still grieving the marriage.
I think your reading of the film is the most uncharitable read one could possibly do.
I recently watched hit new Indian movie Dhurandhar (2025). It's a spy-action thriller "inspired" by real life events where, after a number of terrorist attacks on India planned by Pakistan, India sends spies to a suburb of Karachi, where their orders are to rise up in a local gang in order to destroy the system. It's a fairly gorey movie, with many violent scenes not shying away from showing the blood splatters and violent actions. For example, there's a scene where a character gets their head bashed in with a concrete block. They show you the character's half open head as they fall off a table and the internals spill out. Overall, I enjoyed the movie and it has a great soundtrack too. I look forward to the sequel next month.
I put "inspired" in quotes above because the movie directly references many terrorist attacks India suffered in the 90s and 2000s, uses video and audio recordings from certain attacks, and even uses real life Pakistani gangsters as characters in the movie. Like many other Indian films, the movie depicts Pakistan and Muslims as nothing but terrorists. It is a hit hypocritical of me to criticize this aspect of the movie as I'm an American and this is exactly what Hollywood does as well but it'd be nice to see them portray Pakistan and Muslims in a different manner lol.
I watched In The Lost Lands (Milla Jovovich, Dave Bautista). Think Resident Evil meets Mad Max. Nothing earth shattering, but a fun watch.
My head-canon theory... (spoilers)
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Is that Gray Alys is actually Alice from the Resident Evil movies, living long into the future due to the T virus, and that the fall of civilization was due to the T virus outbreak.