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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 weekend, I rewatched Hell or High Water, and man, what a spectacular movie. Not a moment is wasted. Chris Pine is incredible. Ben Foster is incredible. Jeff Bridges, incredible. That final standoff is chilling, too. So, so good.
It really showed what a capable actor Pine is. But I feel like he hasn’t done anything like this since. It’s a shame. I would have loved for him to turn serious after HoHW
I also just rewatched it last week. Totally agree. Has to be one of the most overlooked good to great movies out there. Fantastic modern Western.
I finally got to watch The Drama last night, and I thought it was really good. Robert Pattinson ran away with it and Zendaya did really good too. Really loved the central conflict and that it was kinda thought provoking and morbidly funny at the same time.
I was coming out of the theater with my friend last night though and I was wondering, has Zendaya ever been considered an amazing actress? Maybe it's because I haven't watched Euphoria but I feel like she plays the same character every time I see her on screen. Don't get me wrong, I really like her a lot and I've enjoyed a lot of the movies I've seen with her in it, but not because of her.
In certain circles she is. Certainly among her fanbase and she’s won two Emmy’s for her performances in Euphoria. Ive oft been a critic of her acting but I do think The Drama marks a stark improvement for her as an actress.
The main issue with her performances is that she does not know how to show emotion. So her main choice is to always play it nonchalant or like she’s too cool to care sort of thing. Which she could get away with when she was playing high schoolers but works less so now that she’s doing adult work.
Honestly I think she’s the weakest part of Dune Part Two and there are moments that require her to be emotional and angry and she just cannot pull that off. In Challengers when she had to show emotion, again, it just felt like she was acting or trying to act. Like we’re in an acting class.
I’m hoping The Drama is a turning point for her in playing different roles. I respect that there’s less of a self conscious aspect to her performance in the film than she usually has. She’s so image conscious that it was getting in the way of her acting. In interviews you can see this play out because she never answers questions and gives rambling PR approved responses (when she was paired up with Pattinson he was often pushing back against her doing this).
That being said I do wish they had just cast Ortega in Dune, which she auditioned for, since I think she would have done more with the role.
I should probably watch Euphoria at some point but it never super interested me. I did think she was a bit better in The Drama but at the same time you can still see that little "too cool" style. The younger Emma was definitely more fun to watch. Part of me was wondering if I was overvaluing range in what makes an actor great, but I honestly think it's still important.
I think you can forgo range if you’re a naturally charismatic movie star type. George Clooney for example has a very limited range and is more often than not just playing George Clooney in different fronts. And I think where it affects Zendaya is that she’s not a charismatic presence. So when you don’t have that presence and don’t have the range, you’re left with not much of anything.
I agree that the younger version of her character outshined her.
And I do wonder how this movie would play with someone that has more range, but at the same time I don’t think the movie gets greenlit without her. At least she’s using her fame to make interesting projects.
Plot wise it was interesting and thought provoking, and RobPat did an amazing job so I liked it regardless!
I saw devil wears Prada 2 the other day. It had some really nice moments and a few resolutions to character arcs I didn't even know I wanted. But it also felt a little like a hollow version of the first movie, just some light entertainment. A lot of it didn't quite make sense as a movie or was trying a little too hard.
Absolutely worth a watch but maybe better for a night in on the couch.
Just saw Obsession. It's a big recommend if you like horror films! Super intense, with fantastic performances from its stars and a lot of humor. Worth seeing in a theater, got a lot of reactions from the crowd I was in!
Watched In the Grey (2026) last night, not realizing it was opening night. It is certainly one of the Guy Ritchie movies of all time. It has a fairly simple story and good cinematography and action. It fills out its 100ish minute runtime decently well, though it is very narration heavy in the first chunk. It's a fun little mindless watch though I probably wouldn't run out to go watch it. The movie basically hand-holds you through most of the plot so you don't have to think about the details. Once you do dig into things a bit deeper, the cracks in the movie starts to show up. The chemistry between the three leads is very much just like coworkers who don't talk outside work. Big story details also just don't seem to make much sense if you think about them for more than a few seconds.
So yeah, would watch this if you've got nothing else to watch.
Obsession
I am a huge fan of Curry Barker’s TikTok skits. Heres a good one. And I’m always going to respect someone that didn’t come from wealth or nepotism making waves in the industry so much that not only has he released his first film, he already wrapped his second film, and will be taking over the Texas Chainsaw reboot.
That being said, while I think he’s technically really good, his writing leaves a bit to be desired. This is a deconstruction of “the nice guy.” It’s fine in that way, even if I think the concept has been done quite a bit (Promising Young Woman, Companion, Dont Worry Darling, Ready or Not) it does something interesting with it because I think the set up is new. But I don’t know how many times I can do “actually guys who think they’re nice… are not” Taylor Swift already succinctly said this. Also Inde Navarette is incredible, a tour de force, a revelation. Just insanely good. Reminded me of Naomi Scott’s performance in Smile 2, with how energetic and layered it was. Everyone else ranged from serviceable to actively bad (the lead).
I’m gonna go into spoilers to discuss my main critiques. This spoils the entire film.
Click to view the hidden text
So the central thing is that the main girl is being possessed by some entity that is making her carry out all these romantic acts with the main character. The main character pieces it together eventually, that the wish he made to make her fall in love with him was real. He also eventually realizes that the girl is being forced into this and is begging to be let go from her curse.
The main issue is that the main character is static. He does not change. From beginning to end. He is the same. When the girl does something weird, he regurgitates the same dialogue over and over. “Stop being weird stop being weird” without much variation to it. So, if this is an allegory for rape or an abusive relationship you can do one of two things or both. The first is to ramp up the main characters aggression towards the girl. Because it stays pretty much the same the entire time. And/or make him have a moment of realization or self awareness. Like say, the moment in American Psycho where Patrick Bateman calls his lawyer to confess all his murders. Cause even at the end when the main character chooses to die, he changes his mind and only ends up dying because of factors outside his control. He remains in the place he was at the beginning. That’s just not super interesting. He has no dimension to him.
People online have been going. Well he’s the villain, he’s a monster, he doesn’t need development or depth. Please.
I would mostly say this is good albeit over celebrated.
In The Grey
I didn’t love Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare or Operation Fortune which were Guy Ritchie’s previous two films. They’ve progressively gotten worse since Wrath of Man (which is a genuinely good movie).
This is not well made technically. I was surprised that Ritchie allowed a film to be this poorly shot and edited. It’s not like him to let go like this. This weirdly has the tone of Wrath of Man but with less serious subject matter that would have made more sense with a comedic tone. Cavill and Gyllenhaal are dull, Gonzalez is fine. It’s oddly paced. But overall it’s entertaining.
Eiza Gonzalez dropped out of A Complete Unknown to do this btw. The role she turned down ended up giving Monica Barbaro an Oscar nomination. Now, who know if she would have done it anyway since her and Chalamet has a fling that presumably didn’t end well. But wow what a career mistake.