[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

6 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

I can totally see Melvin Van Peebles taking his kid aside and saying "Let's fuck this accent up so bad on purpose! None of these dumb white motherfuckas is gonna say a word. Just watch."  They come onto set. Day one finishes. Melvin looks over at Mario sideways after they cut and whispers "See? What'd I say?" And they just start laughing.

That sounds totally on brand for Melvin Van Peebles. He did direct Watermelon Man and Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (which I still need to see). I think if a different director or a different writer had made the movie not about a shark getting revenge, but did a 'bait and switch' with the shark to do what they wanted, maybe they wouldn't have.

Or maybe they would've still, this is Melvin Van Peebles we're talking about lol. 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Movies today....

The Wolberg Family (Criterion Channel, leaving on 7/31) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

The Wolberg Family as a movie is a much more plain almost Rohmer-like examination of a family that's driven by their father Simon (Francois Damiens). Comparisons to The Royal Tenenbaums and even Hereditary are apt; the drama in this is much more subtler and quieter.

Simon is having to deal with several different things at once - his lung cancer diagnosis, his wife Marianne (Valerie Benguigui) and her affair with one of the neighbors, his son Benjamin (Valentin Vigourt) acting up in school and Benjamin's response to the affair, and his daughter Delphine (Leopoldine Serre) having her 18th birthday and his falling out with his brother Alexandre (Serge Bozon).

With this movie, the subtlety takes a bit of time to be drawn in; some of the dialogue seem more like the characters philosophizing rather than being in the moment or feeling like actual people. I did like the scene after Simon found out and Benjamin broke Marianne's favorite record; Simon and Marianne seemed like they were having an argument and there was emotion behind it. The scenes with Alexandre and Benjamin discussing how Simon feels about Alexandre being a “bonhomie” and Benjamin playing the guitar well shows that people can’t be closed off to a way of being all the time.

The birthday party for Delphine seemed like Simon saying goodbye to Delphine due to his cancer diagnosis; Delphine has her new life with Philippe (Arnaud Gaby) and the movie ends with Alexandre meeting Simon's assistant Francois (Guillaume Verdier) at the train station.

For me as a French cinema fan, I always love whatever is produced. Axelle Roepert is a great director with eye toward detail and compassion. The 1960s Detroit music actually served as a theme - one song had a line about 'wanting to breathe" which seemed to encapsulates what is going on with Simon having lung cancer.

The Bitter Stems (Criterion Channel, leaving on 7/31) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

Out of the Argentinian noirs I've seen, this feels like a distant cousin to Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole and Orson Welles' Touch of Evil as well as Italy's post-WWII neorealism like Umberto D and Pickpocket. Gasper (Carlos Cores) is walking through a train station with Luides (Vassili Lambrinos) to board a train; Gasper seems distracted and distraught by something occupying his thoughts. I loved how the movie had a 'cold opening' (which a lot of more modern movies would do) as they move through the train station while the credits are playing over that.

Gasper narrates what's on his mind as he sits down, leading up to how he met Luides. From what is revealed, Gasper is a character that is at his wits' edge as a journalist; what he does isn't making enough and requires more of him than he wants. A positively fantastic dream sequence with echoes of German Expressionism, Powell & Pressburger, and even Luis Bunuel play out as it shows Gasper's childhood with his father being a war hero and losing his arm. Gasper never feels what he does will live up to his father and to being able to contribute something as great as helping his country in their war efforts.

With meeting Luides and the scam that Luides cooked up, it reminded me of the scenes in Try To Get Me / The Sound of Fury with Lloyd Bridges and Frank Lovejoy; Luides wants to run a business where he convinces people to fill out ads in newspaper to join a correspondence school. Luides brings up his son Jarvis (Pablo Moret) and needing to bring him first from Europe to Argentina. Gasper sees this as his opportunity to do something as much as what his father did.

Although little by little, Gasper begins to wonder if Luides is lying to him too. In a scene that is drown out by a loud band, Gasper goes to the club where Luides is talking with a woman named Elena (Aida Luz). Gasper comes away from overhearing the dinner that Luides made up the whole thing about Luides' family. Gasper lures Luides to his house and murders him. It plays the way that other psychological based dramas do; Gasper is affected and reminded of Luides by everything he sees.

Gasper believes that Jarvis isn't real until....Jarvis one day appears at the business, excited to meet Gasper. The fact that Jarvis is real and the fact that Luides/Gasper really did scam people is an inversion of other movies about scam artists. It humanizes Luides and Gasper, but doesn't lessen what they are. Luides and Gasper never see what happens to them from the victims, but Gasper murders Luides because of what he perceived.

Gasper eventually learns the truth about Luides from Elena and realizes he made a mistake. We see the other side of the conversation that Gasper didn't hear fully before he murdered Luides.

The final scenes took my breath away. Jarvis finds plants growing in the spot where Luides was buried and wants to dig up the plants to rebury them. Gasper, panicking, leaves and tries to catch a train. He then commits suicide (like at the end of Umberto D) with an oncoming train. Jarvis never digged deeper than a few feet to replant. Once again, Gasper misheard what was being said, yet this time it cost him his life.

The Bitter Stems has incredible Hollywood style cinematography that feels like the noirs of the 1940s and 1950s like Double Indemnity, The Lady From Shanghai, Touch Of Evil and others. Fernando Ayala as a director has his own unique style informed by Hollywood filmmaking, yet is distinct and evocative of his own country.

Native Son (1951) (Criterion Channel, leaving on 7/31) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

The downside to watching a lot of films every day is I began to develop a bit of a critical eye towards certain things in films. The films I've seen as part of black cinema - Raisin in the Sun, Devil in a Blue Dress, Eve's Bayou, Love & Basketball, Judas & The Black Messiah, Do The Right Thing, One False Move - I've rated highly because they are exceptional regardless of who is behind the lens. Others, like Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance With Somebody, Harriet, Hallelujah, Talk To Me, and The Woman King, I'll admit there's faults but the most part are exceptional.

Then there's Native Son.

First off: for as great of a writer Richard Wright is, he is not a good actor. In this adaptation of his own work, he plays Bigger Thomas. It's almost comical watching a 40 year old man interacting with his family while trying to play a 20 year old man. It's very much "How do you do, fellow kids?" type of ageing out.

Then there's the line delivery. Wright sounds very much like he's reading lines and sounds very leaden in his acting. There's not a sense of naturalism that I've seen from other actors, even during that time. I actually had to laugh when he was carrying around a dead body near the start of the movie. It's not supposed to be funny, but it was.

The problem is Wright isn't the only culprit with terrible acting. Every other actor sounds terrible, deadpan, comical, and unemotional in their delivery. The only decent actors were Gloria Madison as Bessie and Jean Wallace as Mary. Gloria Madison has only one credit to her name - this movie. The sad thing is she didn't do more after this - if Hollywood wasn't self-restrictive due to the Hays Code, I believe she would have done really well in another role (nowadays, she would have). Jean Wallace of course has been in a lot of movies, mainly B-movies like Jigsaw.

The thing with Native Son is Thomas tries to use socialism / communism ties to plant the murder on Jan (Gene Michael). When that doesn't work (and in another comical scene), reporters figured out that Thomas committed the murder and Bigger Thomas runs away.

It's not all in vain - Pierre Chenal had great cinematography and shot compositions. I liked the scene where Bessie and Thomas are walking through abandoned buildings due to how the lighting and shots are set up.

Native Son isn't one of the best in cinema, but it's a nice attempt.

Jaws: The Revenge (Peacock, leaving on 7/31) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Honestly, it's popular to crap on bad movies. I was expecting to understand the hatred for this and think it was completely terrible.

Instead, it surprised me.

Jaws 3-D/Jaws III had virtually no characters, no character arcs, no overriding conflict at its heart. It was a soulless, emotionless advertisement for SeaWorld in Ronald Reagan's America where Dennis Quaid was on cocaine for the entirety of the movie.

Jaws: The Revenge is a mediation on grief, loss, longing, and moving on from trauma. What's refreshing about this is the fact that the main character Ellen Brody (Lorraine Gray) is processing complex emotions and memories in the aftermath of losing one of her sons Sean (Mitchell Anderson) in the first 15 minutes of the movie.

It's easy to see where the character would blame and would want to cast blame. "I don't want you to work anywhere near the water." "It took Sean and it took Martin." "Dad died from a heart attack." "It was due to fear." Mike (Lance Guest) works in the water and understands but doesn't at the same time. In a lot of ways, the scenes reminded me of Woody Allen's Interiors with the family relationships. Jaws: The Revenge would have been a different movie if it turned out that a shark didn't kill Sean and wasn't after 'revenge.' Sean just fell over trying to get the piece of the stern from the Orca, hit his head, got knocked out, and drowned. Basically, Ellen imagined that a shark did it and envisioned that it did, when the truth would be a lot different.

As it is though, Jaws: The Revenge has the characters going to the Bahamas. Hoagie (Michael Caine) takes them via plane and the movie does something interesting (that never really gets capitalized on). Hoagie and Ellen have a budding relationship - again, a different movie would talk about a widow finding love again after her kids are grown and she has grand-kids. Movies that won Oscars have done stories like that. Unfortunately, it's just part of the story of Jaws: The Revenge.

So apparently the shark that killed Sean....followed Ellen and Mike to the Bahamas. Never mind the fact that it's scientifically impossible, physically impossible, and just doesn't happen. That's fine. No one watches movies to learn things. Usually. It's just in case, I'll accept that the shark followed them to the Bahamas. It makes sense story wise - Ellen is facing her fears by going headlong into them. She will kill the shark. And she does with the stern of the boat.

Beyond that, there's a lot bad. The shark looks like rubber. Mario Van Peebles has a terrible Jamaican accent (I wonder if they should just had him talk normally). Michael Caine's character Hoagie seems like he would be better suited in a comedy (he was doing Woody Allen comedies like Hannah and Her Sisters at this point so it tracks). There's no possible way that Jake (Mario Van Peebles) would have survived. Also, Melvin Van Peebles' Jamaican accent was terrible too.

But unlike Jaws 3, this is dumb fun that works even with supernatural abilities of the shark.

None Shall Escape (Criterion Channel, leaving on 7/31) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Watching None Shall Escape in 2025 feels a bit different. At the time this came out in 1944, it was one year removed from the end of World War II and what had been going on with Nazi Germany was little known at times.

In 2025, we have the MAGA movement and President Donald Trump touring "Alligator Alcatraz." Billions is being given to ICE for expansion and for $10,000 signing bonuses to ICE agents, at the expense of Medicare, Snap, and other things that actually help the people. Perhaps in 20+ years time, we'll see another movie like this. (I said what I said).

In a way, the movie almost depicts a sympathetic portrayal for Wilhelm Grimm (Alexander Knox). He was spurn by Marja Pacierkowski (Marsha Hunt) and that started him on the path he was on. Not the outlandish things was saying or the beliefs he shared with her. It seems that painting the character as truly evil wasn't possible and there's a section of the audience that's going to feel that the misgynoistic view towards women due to that is justifiable.

As the movie progresses, we see a lot more with the flashbacks. Grimm indoctorates his nephew and later kills him; sending his own brother away to a concentration camp. It's a heartless character that seems to be motivated at getting back at other people, not just his former finance or his brother.

The most horrific scene was the Jewish people being gunned down after a great speech from Rabbi David Levin (Richard Hale). "We'll always be there." Even in 1940s Hollywood, it's chilling to watch (I imagine some stuffed shirt with the Hays Code got mad because of what it depicted).

On a technical level, None Shall Escape is a bit American-ized with its depiction of Poland. The director Andre de Toth understand what he needed to do with this movie and there's a lot of closeup usage for shots. There isn't much in the way of variety of camerawork or shots; it's very much a straightforward drama. I did like some of the angled shots earlier in the movie and one shot with Marja in a field with her face obscured was nice.

Once everyone involved has recounted what happened, Grimm stands before the jury and says that the Third Reich can't be stopped. "We'll come back again and again!"

If only he knew what happened in America in 2025.

 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

6 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

I've honestly wondered what you did for a living given all of the watching but didn't feel comfortable asking. 

The Keep on DVD was a gift for last Xmas and I still haven't gotten around to watching it, but I have seen it once on TV (strangely, because it was practically a lost film for decades) and was taken by the visuals and, well, it's a Mann movie. 

I actually have a cushy gig in a work from home job. The movie watching is before work, during lunch sometimes, and after work. 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Movies today...

The Beast Must Die (Criterion Channel, leaving on 7/31) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Of the Argentinian noirs I've seen, The Beast Must Die is the most "classic Hollywood" of them all. The character names and the premise could have been told in Los Angeles or even in the English countryside.

The premise of the movie is set up like an Agatha Christie novel; the namesake "Beast" Jorge Rattery (Guillermo Battaglia) is killed from ingesting poison in medicine he has to take. All the suspects are there and the detective and an attorney arriving with Ronnie Hershey (Humberto Balado) running off after hiding the poison bottle.

As we learn in the movie, the prime suspect is crime novelist Felix Lane (Narciso Ibanez Menta).

The movie is then told in flashback as Lane's nephew was killed by a driver that couldn't be found. Much of the movie is driven by melodramatic characters and plot; at times, it's a tad difficult to find them believable, much less investing to watch. After getting his car stuck in a creek and meeting the woman who helped a similar couple, Felix meets Linda Lawson (Laura Hidalgo) on a film set.

Menta and Hidalgo have a bit of Humphrey Bogart / Lauren Bacall chemistry (although not as much emotional depth). I imagine that a movie like this in the hands of Nicholas Ray, John Huston, or Billy Wilder would be interesting - a commentary on murderers and terrible people controlling those who have to work in Hollywood. Instead, in this case, it's just an interesting aspect to the two characters and Linda Lawson was essentially used for Felix Lane to get back at Jorge Rattery.

Despite the character and story woes, I did like a few of the aspects of the movie. The scene where Felix's nephew is killed as we see the front end of the car does a match cut to water hitting against the rocks in a John Huston-like moment. I loved the montage scene where multiple people are shown talking about what car and what driver hit Felix's nephew. Jorge revealing to Felix that he knew about the diary was really well done with the amount of dramatic tension and Felix conveying a sense of shock.

The ending ties into the Biblical verse that serves as the title of the movie as well as Christian imagery (with the ship mast looking like a cross).

For the most part, The Beast Must Die is a decent mystery movie that shows elements of 1940s Hollywood films in Argentina in the 1950s.

Bridget Jones's Diary (HBO Max, leaving on 7/31) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

Right now, I'm in a production of Pride & Prejudice for a local theater. While watching this, I subconsciously thought about the Received Pronunciation (RP) videos I watched to remember how to pronounce "better" to where it sounds like "betta" and the other little tricks I have to keep in mind to at least attempt to sound like an Englishman (despite being a Yank).

This will not be a review where I complain about Renee Zellweger's accent (well, not for the entirety of it) or how much this movie is Pride & Prejudice without Bridget Jones (Zellweger) having four other sisters (because then it would really be too obvious). From my research and from noticing things, Renee Zellweger is said to be doing a London accent, but to my ears, she sounds "Southern American but with a cold" in a few of the scenes (mainly at the start of the movie).

Bridget Jones's Diary as a movie is a great romantic comedy and it's easy to see why it has a lot of fans. There's something relatable about Bridget Jones being a character that doesn't get things right the first time; upon arrival to her family's New Year's party, she has to wear a really awful outfit put on by her mum (Gemma Jones). She seems really bad at public speaking for a book party and then ends up as a correspondent on a local TV program (also really badly too). Bridget Jones has to choose between two suitors - her boss Daniel Cleaver (Hugh Grant) and his tremendous hair and philandering womanizing and her childhood neighbor Mark Darcy (Colin Firth) who is due to be engaged (then isn't).

There's a lot of really great sequences throughout the movie - Cleaver and Jones using boats drunkenly in a lake while Darcy and his colleague (?) Natasha (Embeth Davidtz) are in a boat by themselves is hilarious to watch. Darcy and Cleaver having a slugfest to "Raining Men" is also a wonder to watch (as they stop the fight to apologize to restaurant patrons for getting into their food and singing "happy birthday" to a teenager).

For the most part with Bridget Jones's Diary, the story is focused on its main character and the emotional arc the character goes through. I did love the needledrop of "Ain't No Mountain High Enough" and other songs throughout the movie. Some aspects hasn't aged as well as it did in 2001.

Jaws III (Peacock, leaving on 7/31) - 1.5/5 stars

Spoiler

In a way, Jaws III is very much like what was done with Jurassic World. It's a big, dumb movie that didn't get the science and the nuance of the original but it has more spectacle. With Jaws III, there is none of the tension at all that made Jaws and (to a lesser extent) Jaws 2 work. There's no Captain Brody fighting against the mayor and various other powers to keep the beach cleared due to a shark attack. Essentially, if you can't beat them....join them. Michael Brody (Dennis Quaid) works for Sea World and is fine with the rampant commercialism and tourism. After all, we're only in Reagan's America with this one.

As a result with virtually no character conflict except for the brief scenes where Michael Brody had problems with the boss Calvin Bouchard (Louis Gossett Jr), it's a lurk to the end. A good chunk of the movie is an advertisement for SeaWorld. The main conflict with the shark is in the last 30 minutes or so. They blow up the shark with a grenade and results in terrible 3D effects.

Getting to the 3D effects, they are just bad to look at. There's so much bad ADR everywhere in this movie - there's literal scenes where there's a mid range closeup, you hear characters' voices, but the characters onscreen lips are not moving. The only bright spot was Dennis Quaid being dumb in a Chris Pratt sort of way and Bess Armstrong as Kay Morgan not being out of place with Linda Dern for best scientist in a movie. Simon MacCorkindale has Glenn Powell / Aaron Eckhart like charisma as Philip FitzRoyce.

Jaws 3 is proof that you can't go back into the water again.

The Keep (Criterion Channel, leaving on 7/31) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

The Keep is quite literally nothing but exposition. Concepts, characters, and settings are introduced even 45 minutes into the movie.

The premise of evil regimes encountering the fantastic showed up later and executed better in Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Here, the Nazis stumble across "The Keep" in a village and wants the contents of what's inside. They are told not to remove the silver crosses. Two of them do and unleash Molasar (Michael Carter) in a great sequence marrying synths from Tangerine Dream and visuals. The Nazis want to stop the thing from killing their men so Dr. Theodore Cuza (Ian McKellen) and his daughter Eva (Alberta Watson) are pulled from waiting a train to a concentration camp to help. Meanwhile, Glaeken (Scott Glenn) is speeding to the village to stop Molasar.

Honestly, The Keep doesn't really have that much story wise; character motivations change too easily and the 20 minutes or so feel like too much was cut out that would have made the movie coherent. It has a lot of fever dream visuals and synths like the release of the spirit and the love scene with Eva and Glaeken. I watched this in 'starts and stops' and I really don't feel like I missed anything. This honestly is among Michael Mann's worst movies.

The Keep isn't worth keeping.

 

[DVD/BR Collector Thread for the Physical Media Enthusiasts]

13 minutes ago, Control said:

Vinegar Syndrome is releasing a 4K of MAC & ME. Add that to their previous release of HOBGOBLINS, Deaf Crocodile’s MAGIC SWORD, and Severin’s release of POD PEOPLE, and you’ve got an MST3K boutique label starter pack.

Just need Manos: Hands of Fate in 4K and that Mexican Santa Claus movie in 4K. 

[James Bond the VII]

Tom Holland, Jacob Elrodi and Harris Dickinson are rumored to be in the running for Bond:

https://www.indiewire.com/news/general-news/james-bond-wishlist-denis-villeneuve-report-1235135636/

Tom Holland is said to have been picked. If that's true, I won't go see it. Tom Holland is the most charisma-less actor I've seen end up in major features. There's a reason why he gets called "Spider-Boy" and not Spider-Man. I guess he'll be "James Bond Jr" and not the actual James Bond in my mind. 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Just now, odessasteps said:

Have you done Mr and Mrs Smith here yet? 

I've done the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie version, but not the OG version. That will happen soon lol if I can find it somewhere on streaming. 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

I will likely see the B&W 1934 version of The Man Who Knew Too Much sooner than later because I'm basically a Hitchcock devotee. Thanks for the kudos, Curt on Do The Right Thing. I tried to look for the Criterion Collection today at my local B&N and it got sold out. I guess it's Amazon for me. 

Movies today....

An American Crime (Netflix, leaving on 7/1) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Decent independent drama that surprisingly didn't get a lot of buzz. Elliot Page as Sylvia Likens narrates the story and Catherine Keener as Gertrude Baniszewski has a bit of a helplessness to her character. The movie tries to generate sympathy for Baniszewski in some way, despite her being a monster. It somewhat lessens the impact for the movie as a result to have taken that approach.

While watching the movie, I could tell the low budget nature of it with the sets and the cinematography; there isn't a lot of interesting setups and camera angles. I did like the sequence where Sylvia 'escapes' as POV shots are used showing Paula (Ari Graynor) helping her. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case as it turned out that Sylvia was dead.

There is something to be said for the nature of religion in America and child abuse. Rural churches tend to hide it more easily and in some cases excuse the behavior. The movie didn't really explore that aspect of Gertrude or the Likens being part of the church; the lone scene with the pastor visiting should have raised a red flag for him, but yet didn't.

For the most part, An American Crime discusses a searing topic with an average treatment.

80 For Brady (Netflix, leaving on 7/3) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Super Bowl LI was rigged. The odds were highly impossible, but no one looks at the officiating during that game (which this movie shows with the incomplete pass that got ruled as a completed pass), the coach for the Falcons Kyle Shanahan who was friends with Bill Belicheck and had gotten a job coaching the 49ers the next season due to Belicheck, and the mysterious meeting during half time with the Falcons head coach Dan Quinn and only one of the players that no one will talk about and the amount of secrecy with Patriots owner Robert Kraft and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell over the Patriots' actions and recording other teams (even beyond Spygate).

Which is fine. None of that has anything to do with this movie.

80 For Brady has four friends - Lou (Lily Tomlin), Trish (Jane Fonda), Maura (Rita Moreno) and Betty (Sally Field) - trying to enter a contest to win tickets for Super Bowl LI. United by their superstitious belief that what did affects the game (probably as much as believing the Falcons will have an actual team and the owner isn't an idiot), they go on an adventure to Houston for the game. A lot of the comedy is very much The Hangover for the AARP crowd, which makes me wonder why that wasn't done before.

It turns out that Lily lied about the tickets and bought fake tickets on eBay.

Throughout the movie, there's a lot of cameos (MAGA supporter Guy Fieri, Tom Brady, and Billy Porter as a famous choreographer Gugu) but the story of the main four is sweet to watch. I did like the nod to Eyes Wide Shut where Maura walks around in a mask and wonders if she's about to see an underground sex club, but instead Guy Fieris playing poker.

80 For Brady won't win awards, but it's a nice comedy.

Super Bowl LI is still rigged though and Tom Brady has had all the lucky breaks in NFL.

Never Open That Door (Criterion Channel, leaving on 7/31) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

This is my first exposure to Carlos Hugo Chirstensen as a director and he seems to be influenced by both Nicholas Ray and Alfred Hitchcock in equal measures. Too bad that an Argentinian film noir anthology series never caught on.

The first segment is the more Hitchcock-like of the two, but is a bit more melodramatic. A sister Luisa steals from her brother and their family business with the brother taking matters into his own hands and kills the extortionist. The ending of the segment is like a nightmare from Rod Sterling as the phone continues to ring after his death.

The second segment is a bit slower but is the best one. A blind mother finds out about her son going missing and turning out to be part of a bank robbing group. They hide out at her place and in a very extended sequence takes their guns and locks them in their rooms. The remaining two finally break free with one of them killing her son and making her believe that he's her son to escape. The themes for the second segment and the entirety of it would have made a great standalone movie.

Cinematography throughout this movie is incredible with the usage of light and shadow. Christensen knew how to use light sources whether it's lighting a person's face in the first segment or lighting the mom's hands and her holding the gun in the second segment.

I'm looking forward to getting more into Argentinian noirs.

Jaws 2 (Peacock, leaving on 7/15) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

The reason Jaws is considered a classic is it's not just a horror movie or suspense thriller playing on real life fears of sharks that people have. It's more of a Herman Melville like quest to kill something that's not killable and about three distinct characters being tasked to save capitalism. The real monster is not the shark, but the mayor demanding to keep the beaches open for tourism; the color of the blood in the water is green, not red.

With Jaws 2, it tries to be a meditation on surviving an ordeal and things reminding a character what it went through and a teenager summer monster B-movie. Jaws is a 2+ hour movie that doesn't feel long, but Jaws 2 is less than 2 hours long and feels longer.

Brody (Roy Schneider) and everywhere he looks, he's reminded of what happened two years ago. The movie starts with him going to a function for an opening of a real estate development on Amity Island. Capitalism is back and it's bigger and meaner than ever. Just like the shark encountered in Jaws 2, it's super-sized. We're introduced to Brody's sons and a bunch of teenagers (including a guy that looks like Napoleon Dynamite), but they really aren't well written enough to even be important. The only one I remember is Andy (Albert Brooks-like Gary Springer) and that's about it. There's also a teenage girl that later would have been perfect in slasher films for her scream.

Anyway, since the story beats don't matter in this, why recap it? We know that teenagers will be teenagers and will go boating despite Brody telling his sons not to because....reasons. Like anything else in this movie, they get stuck in the middle of the ocean and the shark is going after them. The shark ate one or two of the kids. I don't know their backstories other than they wouldn't be out of place in a Frankie Avalon / Annette Funnicello movie.

Despite my blasting the movie, I will say that the scenes with Brody losing his job and talking to his wife Ellen (Lorraine Gary) stuck with me. "I never been fired from a real job before." A different script and a different movie would have dwelt a bit more on this real life adult aspect: what's scarier than sharks is unemployment. Instead Brody commandeers a boat with the new sheriff and still drives a police truck with the lights to see a diver that got The Bends. Why? Reasons.

Anyway, Jaws 2 is proof that just when you thought it was safe to make a cash-in sequel...it's a workman-like film that doesn't do anything spectacular (SFX are cheesey at times), but doesn't need to.

If I Should Die Before I Wake (Criterion Channel, leaving on 7/31) - 4.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Yes, The Night of the Hunter is a reminder of If I Should Die Before I Wake. But this movie is so much more than that. As I was watching this I thought, "Goddamn it, this is Pure Hitchcock I'm seeing. Alfred Hitchcock would watch this and smile."

Carlos Hugo Christensen has so much cinematic methods and traditions flowing through this movie. The opening (and later dream sequence and upon seeing the climatic house) is something out of Ophuls / Renoir with "magical realism" and camera work - multiple images swirling around, out of focus shots of carousels, stairwells leading to the sky that's out of a Powell & Pressburger movie, the works.

The main character Lucio (Nestor Zavarce) fits into the mold of James Stewart in Rear Window as a character is not believed because he is 'bad.' 'Bad' in the sense of being a rambunctious school age child that's in danger of being expelled like Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows. Lucio finds out about the murder of one of his classmates from overhearing his father. Christensen uses closeups of Lucio's face much like how Alfred Hitchcock would use closeups of James Stewart's face in Vertigo and in Rear Window (you even got a closeup of Lucio as he awakes from a bad dream like in Vertigo). Christensen didn't copy from the Master of Suspense, but they are certainly drinking from the same sources of inspiration.

A common theme throughout this movie is the prayer that the children recite to ask for God to take their soul. During the movie, it is an exercise the children have to write and recite (with a rare look at schooling in Argentina and learning about Spanish prepositions). In the climatic scene with the child murderer, Julia Losada (Maria A. Troncoso) is literally begging for her life during the prayer. Those scenes are tough to watch, even in early 1950s noir. Adults would have a hard time having to do those scenes where two adults are fighting; imagine a child fighting with a grown adult. Everyone involved is absolutely brave for doing this.

Cinematography throughout the movie is incredible, although some of the shots have a washed out look (which is forgivable since the 35mm restoration was even a wonder for being usable). Honestly, this is a near perfect classic in the film noir, suspense thriller, and Spanish film traditions.

Carlos Hugo Christensen is in good company with this.

 

[2025 Upcoming Movies Thread]

12 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Peter Dinklage screaming is somehow the funniest thing ever.

Seing Roman Reigns and Jason Momoa on a screen at the same time looking like that is gonna be really, really funny too.

Also, Eden is a Ron Howard movie? How did that possibly happen?

I'm surprised they didn't have Roman Reigns and Jason Momoa be Ken/Ryu (somehow). 

[2025 Upcoming Movies Thread]

https://youtu.be/lKbcKQN5Yrw?si=QIkhRD6G7ONFZcAn

Sentimental Value

DVDVR Arthouse Film Freaks unite!

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Movies today....not as much due to work and rehearsals. 

Do The Right Thing (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

"Do the Right Thing" is a misnomer.

There is no 'right thing.' There is the capitalistic 'right thing' and the socialistic 'right thing.' The capitalistic 'right thing' is to let someone have their business stay open, take money from the community that's there, and have it go into the owner's pocket. The socialistic 'right thing' is the business is the community and the business must reflect the community; the owner didn't get there alone. It's a gathering place, it's a tradition, it's a connection between groups that have nothing in common beyond their love for what's there.

When it's burned down, what do we have?

People make a community. Communities grow on the strength of love and understanding. But what do we do when someone in a community lashes out and destroys property of someone else? Why would destroying a business and a livelihood fix that? There's greater issues at play than selling pizzas for 25 years and seeing the same people won't fix.

Do The Right Thing as a movie is divided into the movie leading up to the last 20+ minutes and the last 20+ minutes. Spike Lee is shaping a group of characters that are part of a community. Mookie (Lee) is an underappreciated, unmotivated young man with a girlfriend Tina (Rosie Perez) and a young son. (To be honest, I wonder if Spike Lee cast himself because he wanted to lock lips with Rosie Perez, what red blooded male wouldn't?). It's reminiscent of what Woody Allen would do in his comedies where he casts himself as a lead and is paired with beautiful women like Diane Keaton and Mia Farrow. He works for Sal (Danny Aiello) who runs a local pizza parlor in Brooklyn with his two sons Pino (John Turturro) and Vito (Richard Edson). Sal loves the area he's in although it's sometimes wondered if he loves the money more than the people. He does admit that he's "seen the little kids become young men and the old men become older." "This place was raised on my pizza, why would I move?" (It's somewhat eerie and telling that two police officers come in and wonder why there isn't a Trump Pizza.)

Within the last 20 minutes or so, this changes for Sal when he lashes out , is actually racist, and destroys Radio Raheem's boombox. What starts this is what Sal chooses to have on his walls - Italian Americans like Frank Sinatra, Sylvester Stallone, and (an Irish American who played Italians) Robert De Niro. To be honest, there's something just petty about that being a hill to die on; but there's more to it than that. It goes back to doing the right thing as a socialist; the community in Bed Stuy helped build Sal's pizzeria too. What's wrong with having Jackie Robinson, Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson on the wall? No one is an island and his pizzeria is a business he owns; it's not a co-op pizzeria where members of the community can contribute and the business's success is their success too. It's not just capital equity but it's sweat equity too. Especially in 100 degrees in New York City.

Radio Raheem (Bill Nunn) is an engima as a character; he carries around a boombox playing Public Enemy's "Fight The Power." This power is of a social, economic, and caste power; Public Enemy uses this as a call to arms against any form of oppression. The disconnection is between those who've been in power (Caucasians) and those who have more people but less of the power (African Americans). Raheem addresses us as he talks about the pieces on his knuckles with "Love" and "Hate." Hate is stronger than love sometimes, but love is seen as weak, yet more effective. Raheem could take a page out of the DJ Mister Senor Love Daddy (Samuel L. Jackson) and acknowledge and love all black artists instead of just one. Going back into the pizzeria and starting the riot shows what's winning.

The other character that serves as the moral compass of the movie is Da Mayor (Ossie Davis). Da Mayor is afraid of the 'status quo' being changed and he's afraid of change in his own life. For him, it's too late and he's too old to change; it's somewhat sad that Da Mayor would take the side of Sal and his sons but he sees the forest from the trees in some respects. The younger generation sees him and laughs at him; his first appearance has him yelling about not being able to get a Miller High Life at the local grocery store. He pushes a kid out of a way of a car and has love for one of the women of the neighborhood; yet, time doesn't move forward for him. He's as much of a witness and a clarion of the times as he is bemused and helpless by the times.

For the most part with Do The Right Thing, the main character isn't the characters shown, but the block, the stretch of street in Brooklyn NY. There's elements of stage play in addition to the cinematic language of other film directors like Martin Scorsese, Sidney Lumet, Anthony Mann, Billy Wilder, and Elia Kazan within this movie from Spike Lee. Other directors said "we can too!" and got greater recognition like Charles Burnett, Kasi Lemmons, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Carl Franklin, Boots Riley, John Singleton, and Shaka King. Spike Lee is and always will be vital and unique as a director. Seeing Radio Raheem being killed by the police couldn't help but make me think of the current times with George Floyd and Black Lives Matter as the police seem to kill people (usually black and brown) out of frustration and let's face it, racism.

One aspect that gave me pause was Smiley (Roger Guenveur Smith) having a stutter while talking. The movie plays it up for comedic effect, but to be honest, it's rather mean.

A lot of critics talk about the moment where Mookie picks up the trash can to throw into the window about how "that wasn't the right thing." In that moment, no it wasn't; but Mookie wasn't treated as an equal by Sal and his sons. Throughout the movie, he was barked out to go deliver pizzas and barked out that he took too long to deliver them. When Mookie overheard Sal's outburst and what Sal said to Radio Raheem, how was he supposed to react? Whether it's a 'capitalistic right thing' or 'a socialistic right thing,' it's hard to say.

In fact, it was the right thing for Mookie.

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) (Netflix) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Compared to other Hitchcock movies I've seen (and I've seen a lot), this is probably Hitchcock's weakest color efforts. Despite the VistaVision format, there isn't much in the way of the typical suspense story. Morocco (which took up the bulk of the first hour) wasn't really picturesque or having a sense of grandeur. It felt like James Stewart and Doris Day were standing on a soundstage somewhere with the scenery of Morocco being rear projected. It occasionally works in the scene where Louis Bernard (Daniel Gelin) reveals that someone will be killed in London to Dr. Ben McKenna (James Stewart).

Much of the movie is the relationship with Dr. McKenna and his wife Josephine Conway McKenna (Doris Day). In a bit of meta-textualism, Conway is regarded as a famous singer, much like the real Doris Day. Day is given some chances to sing - near the start with Conway's son Hank (Christopher Olsen) then towards the end at the Embassy where she sings "Que Sera Sera" almost desperately.

The aspects that don't work with this and just drag on is nearly everything else. For a movie about stopping an assassination plot and for an American couple seeking their son, not a lot happens. We don't learn about the villains anymore than we did at the start; a lot of menace and intrigue is provided about those characters and we're given breadcrumbs as to who they are and what they are seeking to do. To be honest, I felt that the movie should have ended after the McKennas foiled the assassination attempt and the son was just dropped off at Scotland Yard. It would have made sense, given that the antagonists of the movie were unknown throughout the movie. The last 10 minutes felt a bit unnecessary although the ending is comical with the McKennas coming back and seeing their guests asleep.

Despite the story issues and the length of the movie being a bit too long, The Man Who Knew Too Much isn't a bad Hitchcock effort, I just wish for something more.

 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

3 hours ago, Log said:

I watched Under the Silver Lake last night. I...uh...liked it? No, I did like it. But I'm still processing it. Garfield is really fun in it. I think maybe it could've been shorter, but I'm overall positive on it. My opinion may change either way as I think on it more.

The person who did the soundtrack I wish got picked to do the soundtrack for Drop (since that was a Hitchcock movie basically). They are very much Bernard Hermann-like on Under The Silver Lake. 

[2025 Upcoming Movies Thread]

1 hour ago, RIPPA said:

https://youtu.be/m08TxIsFTRI?si=VU1jgz5biJqkx4SA

Project Hail Mary

The next Andy Weir (The Martian) book turned into a movie

Directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Starring mainly Ryan Gosling

Sorta reminds me of Mickey 17 in some respects just based on the trailer. 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Movies today....

The Road (Peacock, leaving on 6/30) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

To be honest, there isn't a story with The Road. At least not with the movie adaptation.

We follow a man (Viggo Mortensen) and his son (Kodi Smit-McPhee) as they journey through remnants of America, not really in search of anything or with any actual destination. The story is so threadbare within the first 30 minutes that it's practically difficult not to want to stop watching and rate this 1/2 star. (Which I think what another reviewer did while being annoyed at the boy).

As the movie progresses, the boy asks his dad a question that comes up a lot: "Are we the good guys?" Which begs a larger question: are the characters we seeing truly good? With what happened that lead to this vision of the apocalypse, are they just as bad as the people that we don't see that are now dead? The man describes in the introductory scenes that the animals died, everything dried up, and people resorted to cannibalism. We see the man at gunpoint forcing another man to strip naked because he took their cart while the son laments that person's fate they just doomed him to.

The two characters spend the entirety searching for food with the man succumbing to injuries from being shot with an arrow and an illness, leaving his son alone. The son soon joins up with another man (Guy Pearce) and his family. The movie ends with the son saying "okay" (which isn't that different from the ending to The Last of Us).

While story wise there isn't much, the cinematography and music carries the movie. The scenes set in the past and in the man's dreams have a Douglas Sirk / Steven Spielberg hopeful optimism in the shots. It changes as the world collapses and the man sees his wife (Charlize Theron) leave after the birth of their son.

I do feel after viewing this that the movie dragged severely. I found it interesting that people in preparing for the apocalypse in this movie bought cans of Coca-Cola and bags of Cheetos, not salted meat or vegetables or fruits. Even in the apocalypse, corporations still ruled the world after they and people have long past.

The Road is a long road to watch.

Hot Milk (saw in the theaters) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

A lot of the touchstones of queer cinema over the past 20 years - Queer, Carol, Call Me By Your Name, Moonlight, A Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Aftersun - as well as other movies - A Bigger Splash, the more recent Bonjour Tristesse, Grey Gardens, Sundown - went into this movie.

With it being thought that the confluence of influences would be interesting. At times it is and at other times it’s almost too ambiguous.

The movie centers on a co-dependent relationship between a mom named Rose (Fiona Shaw) and her daughter Sophie (Emma Mackey). It’s difficult to tell how much of the conflict is due to Sophie not feeling that her mother is really unable to walk and how much of it is her anger at having to care for her.

During the course of the movie, Sophie has a relationship with Ingrid (Vickie Krieps) that is romantic at times and jealously for Sophie at others. Sophie throws Ingrid’s phone into the ocean and then holds her as she cries.

Sophie meets her father again in Greece and learns of another sister. Rose tells her that her sister was sent away, but never why.

The ending has Sophie essentially saying “fuck it” to even caring for her mother and leaves her in her wheelchair for an 18 wheeler. Whether Rose lives or dies is unknown.

Hot Milk on a technical level is full of sun-kissed cinematography and moody visuals with an interesting score. Occasionally, video clips as Sophie watches anthropological videos for a class she may not resume are shown too.

F1: The Movie (saw in the theaters) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

The American male in 2025 doesn't have many role models. We have Andrew Tate, who is trying to escape rape charges in Romania while telling young impressionable men that they should be "alphas" without acknowledging the downside to such behavior. Then we have Logan and Jake Paul, who were YouTube sensations that became a wrestler and a boxer (while scamming people with their bitcoin).

Not a lot of hope there.

With F1, this feels like a throwback as a movie. It conjures images of Steve McQueen in Le Mans. Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder. James Garner in Grand Prix. More recently, Christian Bale and Matt Damon in Ford vs. Ferrari. It's noble, it's primal, it's pure. It's a guy just sticking with his own set of morals and principles and wanting to win a race.

It's possible that Brad Pitt as Sonny Hayes and Damson Idris as Joshua Pearce might be the last best male leads in a movie.

The movie is an absolute triumph to watch. Joseph Kosinski made flying look exhilarating in Top Gun: Maverick and makes Formula One racing look equally exhilarating. It's pure visual porn with the cameras mounted onto the cars and we see the various tracks around the world. The story in a lot of ways is from a similar template to Top Gun: Maverick - Hayes is lured out of retirement to help a fledging racing team actually win races because the owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) is in danger of being bought out.

In some ways, Hayes calls back to mind Brad Pitt's Oscar winning role as Billy Beane in Moneyball when he admonishes Joshua Pearce for smiling at the cameras even after they lost a race. Pitt even sounds a bit like Clint Eastwood complaining about participation trophies. Hayes although he skirts the rules at first, eventually comes around to wanting to see Pearce win for the team.

A scene that had everyone at the showing I went to exclaiming "Oh my God!" and "Oh no!" was the soundless scene after Pearce gets in a wreck with Hayes saving him from a burning wreck. Pearce can't race for three races while he recovers (it's not a sports movie without a montage so here's one as Hayes goes fast mang and Pearce tries to recover mang). The story beats for F1 aren't original, but what is? When it looks this great, it doesn't need to be.

Although some third act story aspects - like it being revealed one of the board members reported the team so he can sell the team and install Sonny Hayes as a principal and the needless romance between Hayes and Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon) with McKenna barely having enough of a story arc for us to care - weren't as good, Sonny Hayes wins the final race in Abu Dubai (which owns 99% of the world). There's fireworks, incredible shots of the Abu Dubai skyline, the incredible race track, and Ruben getting the first place trophy while Sonny Hayes walks off to race in the Baja 1000.

Honestly, the only way to see this movie is in IMAX. If you're not first, you're last.

Jack Reacher (Peacock, leaving on 6/30) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

After essentially binge watching Mission: Impossible movies for about a week straight, Jack Reacher feels very different compared to Mission: Impossible. It can be considered in the same lineage as First Blood, Bullitt, Walking Tall, Dirty Harry and other vigilante justice movies. The only difference being the main character Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is an investigator tracking down the clues around a mass shooting allegedly done by James Barr (Joseph Sikora).

It turns out the actual shooter was a different person under the direction of "The Zek" (Werner Herzog). Herzog acts almost like Hans Gruber but left in a Russian prison camp.

The movie is thrilling in an action movie way with a tremendous car chase using a 1970s Camero. The characterization for this isn't exactly deep, but Cruise brings a sardonic edge to the character and at times the character wouldn't be out of place in the Dirty Harry movies.

Jack Reacher isn't a bad way to spend 2 hours.

 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Movies today....

The Usual Suspects (HBO Max, leaving on 6/30) - 4.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Quite honestly, when I think of what an ensemble crime drama is, The Usual Suspects would be what comes to mind.

It's weird in a way how this film and Reservoir Dogs seem to speak to each other. Reservoir Dogs is the brutish, more violent version of this, while The Usual Suspects is more methodical and builds up to the finale....just like Keyzer Soze. The actors involved give great performances and each character has an individualistic twist. The standout is Gabriel Byrne as Keaton and Kevin Spacey as Verbal Kint.

Where the movie really shines is the editing and cinematography. I loved how Bryan Singer frames conversations in this movie - characters all appear in a frame easily. It's almost like the noirs from the 1940s in that way.

The ending sequence is incredible to behold as it comes together as to who Keyzer Soze really is.

The Usual Suspects is quite unusual in its greatness.

M3gan 2.0 (saw in the theaters) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

M3GAN 2.0 compared to M3GAN veers a little too close to being Terminator 2: Judgment Day of the series before collapsing under the weight of its own convoluted plot.

M3GAN was a smart, satirical look at always online companies that was secretly a horror movie. With this, it tries to build off of the conclusion of the first one and essentially became a superhero movie. M3GAN (Amie Donald/Jenna Davis) lies dormant in a smart house of Gemma (Allison Williams) and protects Cady (Violet McGraw) when the FBI have invaded the house. Did they knock? Did they produce a warrant? Did they identify themselves? No, why would they do that, this is America in 2025.

Anyway, M3GAN teams up with Gemma, Cady, and their friends to stop AMELIA (Ivanna Sakhno) who is the combination of T-1000 and T-X of the series. Apparently, in a rather involved and almost non-senesical way, AMELIA is only acting under the orders Christian Bradley (Aristotle Athari) and isn't really self-aware/self-directed as was first thought. Part of me wished the movie had revealed that Christian created AMELIA but she went beyond what he programmed her to do and she took on a life of her own and he can't stop her either. Instead, he gets killed and AMELIA essentially becomes the AI version of "Bad Wolf" (from Doctor Who) until M3GAN sacrifices herself to save everyone (insert Terminator 2 thumbs up while going into the lava here).

For the most part, M3GAN 2.0 is a bigger budget affair and more technically savvy but also not as good as the first one. I did like some of the usage of split diopter shots in the movie and the coloring for the movie had a lot of blues and purples going on. Allison Williams and Jenna Davis had better lines and better acting (I personally loved M3GAN singing "This Woman's Work," but can't win them all with this).

M3GAN 2.0 is more of an incremental upgrade than a new version.

Mystic Pizza (HBO Max, leaving on 6/30) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Mystic Pizza as a movie is almost a quaint 'slice of life' coming of age drama centered around 3 sisters in Mystic, CT working at a pizza parlor. Starting off, I'd say it's perfect casting for Julia Roberts, Lili Taylor and Annabeth Gish as the sisters and their best friend - they look almost alike (especially Taylor and Roberts) and they convey a sisterly relationship really well.

As the movie goes, it covers three different storylines for the characters - Josephine Barboza (Taylor)'s anxiety about her relationship with Bill (Vincent D'Onofrio), Kat Araujo (Gish)'s babysitting job/budding relationship with Tim Travers (William R. Moses) and Daisy (Roberts)'s relationship with Charles Gordon Windsor Jr (Adam Storke). With all relationships, they have their ups and downs and heartbreaks, but what ends up remaining is the love the three have for each other.

I liked the scenes where the three take Bill's truck and go to the country club and Daisy pours lobsters into Charles' Porsche. There's something magical and spontaneous as to how the actors were in those scenes and it seemed like something three people would do out of spite, anger, or frustration.

I also liked the slight nod to It Happened One Night when Daisy and Charles are hitch-hiking to get a car to appear after Charles gets a flat on his Porsche. Plus, Matt Damon shows up and doesn't say anything except sit there during Charles and Daisy's dinner with his parents.

The ending begins with the way the characters looked towards the start of the movie - at the stars, contemplating their futures.

Technical wise, Mystic Pizza is a bit standard 1980s drama. There's nothing too fancy and it had some great staging/blocking during the scenes - it lends itself really well to being almost like a stage play. Although holy shit at the Photoshopped attempts at the intro. You know it's a 1980s movie when you have "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" on a TV and a food critic is similar to New York's "The Galloping Gourmet."

Mystic Pizza isn't that bad to dig in.

Runaway Bride (Peacock, leaving on 6/30) - 1/5 star

Spoiler

The nature of romantic comedies is for elements of wish fulfillment. When viewing them, on some level, we see ourselves in the characters and in what happens to the characters involved. Some of us won't make a living as newspaper columnist, or an attorney, or a doctor, but it's fine for us to watch moderately attractive people play them as they undergo human fallacies like relationships and difficulties in connections with someone that person is to love. The comedy part is supposed to be funny and supposed to reveal our own faults as people and we can laugh at it.

A romantic comedy being close to 2 hours would lend itself to being a character-driven movie. We would hopefully pick up on nuances in behaviors and the scenes would be interesting to convey these aspects as two characters rise and fall until they reach a satisfying conclusion.

With Runaway Bride, it's sad to say that none of this occurs.

Ike (Richard Gere) is a newspaper columnist who finds out about the erstwhile Runaway Bride Maggie (Julia Roberts) leaving her third husband at the altar. He proceeds to write a column to expose and her foibles for the USAToday, which leads to Maggie writing back and basically getting Ike fired from the paper. Nevermind the fact that what Ike wrote was his opinion (although a bit chauvinistic and gross). Ike then decides to go to the town in Maryland where Maggie lives to learn more about her.

For the majority of the movie, Runaway Bride seems to have a straight line as opposed to an arc for either character: Maggie isn't interested in Ike and is pursuing the fourth attempt for a husband Bob (Christopher Meloni). Much of the movie is the 'push and pull' between Maggie and Ike; to be honest, it's exhausting. Like any romantic comedies following in It Happened One Night's footsteps, the two eventually find that they like each other. Ike defends Maggie's honor at a rehearsal, which makes her mad.

In the last 30 minutes or so of the movie, Maggie apparently likes Ike. During a walkthrough at a church, she kisses him and Bob naturally punches out Ike. Maggie will marry Ike now! They are going through the wedding ceremony....oh look, Maggie ran away again! What was the point of this late third act character development if Maggie wasn't going to do it anyway?

Maggie eventually examines herself and apparently the type of eggs she likes is the key to this, not I don't know self volition and self determination. Maggie goes to Ike's apartment after he's moved on and she sold her lamps and proposes to him. Maggie and Ike marry finally. Yay!

Runaway Bride during the course of this could have been an examination of why men and women marry and why a woman like Maggie would never get married. The movie almost casts blame at the men, but really Maggie should bear the brunt of blame. Weddings (at least in 1999) were some of the most expensive events to do in a person's life. Why there wasn't more anger at Maggie for not knowing herself why she wanted to marry and instead just wanting to parrot whatever the men she's dating are wanting her to say. Or why Ike didn't say, "You know what? I've been divorced before. How are you going to be different? I'm willing to meet you half way, meet me half way." The movie partially addresses this with Ike telling Maggie, "it's going to be tough, we're going to be mad at each other at some point," which Maggie uses in her proposal. It also has the town view her as the butt of the joke about her never marrying, when in fact their behavior may have caused the problems in the first place.

I think it would have shown real growth if Maggie decided to leave her town in Maryland, sold her father's shop, and decided she didn't need to be married anyway. Personal happiness is more important than making other people happy. Maggie didn't need Ike; it's like a fish needing a bicycle.

In a way, Runaway Bride and Sweet Home Alabama both share the same issue of having likable actors and actresses playing thoroughly unlikable characters. Julia Roberts and Richard Gere are practically gorgeous in this and are two of the prettiest people on the planet. Both Gere and Roberts' smiles could melt ice. It's just too bad the script they had to work with wasn't any good.

Runaway Bride needs to be run away from as fast as possible.

 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Movies today....

The Net (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Strangers on the Net or Net by Netwest would have been too obvious for titles of this.

Sandra Bullock is a computer programmer/hacker named Angela Bennett and also has perfect hair and green sweater combo. If only the computer programmers I knew were as good looking as Sandra Bullock, I would have majored in Computer Science in college.

Anyway, Angela goes on vacation in Mexico (after helping id Software with bugs in Wolfenstein 3D apparently) and meets a charming British man named Jack Devlin (Jeremy Northam), who tries to steal a disk that she obtained from one of her hacking exploits before vacation. She turns to Dr. Alan Champion (Dennis Miller), which you know is science fiction because her character dated him. (Miller just has swarmy villainy vibes all over him that it wouldn't have surprised me if his character was helping Devlin find her). Until oops, he's dead.

Much of The Net is awashed in Hitchcock-isms that it's almost too obvious. Jack Devlin is seemingly cut from the Cary Grant mold and in years past and with Hitchcock, he would have been trying to help Angela Bennett escape from those pursuing her. Instead, he's the one trying to kill her and wanting her dead. There's even a section that gave me deja vu to Strangers on a Train at a fairgrounds at the Santa Monica Pier.

I did like the portions at the office and Angela Bennett able to sneak and copy a file during a fire alarm while the employees not paying attention or recognizing her (even though her face was plastered on the news). The ending section had Devlin and the real Ruth Marx (Wendy Gazelle) tracking Bennett to a computer trade show and both of them ended up killed while Angela deals with her mother, who still doesn't know where she is.

While the premise and much of the story is completely ridiculous and not even having a basis in reality, The Net is decent in the mold of other Hitchcock suspense thrillers. Irwin Winkler as a director has enough variety in his career that his works are both part of mainstream filmmaking and arthouse style. Some of the technical aspects I liked was the match cut from the ferris wheel to the overhead shot of the Pier and the shot at the end where it goes from the computer screen becoming muddy to a row of flowers.

I'm surprised there wasn't a sequel called Nuthin' But The Net about a basketball player also caught up in mistaken identity. Oh well.

Under Suspicion (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Under Suspicion as a movie would be a really great stage play - having Morgan Freeman as Captain Victor Benezet and Gene Hackman as Henry Hearst go back and forth is at times captivating. I can imagine someone staging a version of this for an off-Broadway or a theater production because the character work of the two actors is great. "If you peel away all layers of the onion, I"m just nub." At other times, it seems to be a repeat of David Fincher's Se7en with Richard Fleischer's The Boston Strangler in terms of attempts of style. Victor appearing in Henry's memory as he recounts it (both aspects were in Se7en and The Boston Strangler), slow motion shots, sped up shots, and match cuts for face closeups.

It's just unfortunate the movie is a tad dull in the first 50 minutes or so. Only in the second act and beyond does it pick up and does it present an argument that Henry committed the murders. At one point, there was a scene with Hearst and Detective Felix Owens (Thomas Jane) that had me wondering if Owens did it, just based on what he described to Hearst being too specific not to be noticeable. Instead, it seems to try to rile Hearst up.

The last 30 minutes had compelling acting from Freeman, Hackman and Hearst's wife Chantal (Monica Bellucci).

Under Suspicion in some ways can be considered a mediation on aging and on older men dating/marrying younger women; Chantal revealing how old she was when she met Henry would make anyone's skin crawl. The movie lets Hearst off the hook when 'all of a sudden' the actual killer was found; Hearst is sitting there and confessing to crimes that he seemingly didn't commit.

Coming away from it, it had me wondering how much of it was Henry Hearst culpable and how much of it was Chantal Hearst realizing that she's a victim too. The final scene had them sitting on separate benches before the scene blacks out.

Compared to the rest of Stephen Hopkins' films, Under Suspicion is one of his better movies. (Although Predator 2 is really great with someone just grabbing cocaine from a pile and snorting it right there and Lost in Space is goofy sci-fi fun).

I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997) (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

With I Know What You Did Last Summer, any teenager growing up in the 1990s knew about it. Kevin Williamson seemed to capture an almost idyllic, upper middle class, white utopia of gorgeous people in a gorgeous town. The same way he did when he wrote Dawson's Creek on The WB, wrote Scream and wrote The Vampire Diaries on The CW. Jim Gillespie as a film director was eager to capture Williamson's 1990s teenage up-date of slasher movies like Friday The 13th and Halloween. Except of course, it's set during The Fourth of July, one of the scariest holidays around, due to people getting drunk and getting in car accidents. (What's especially scary about it is giving a President power over removing birthright citizenship from people ad hoc).

Anyway, the movie opens with four teenagers - Julie James (Jennifer Love Hewitt), Helen Shivers (Sarah Michelle Gellar), Barry Cox (Ryan Phillippe) and Ray Bronson (Freddie Prinze Jr) - meeting up on a beach and Barry gets drunk after Helen has won Queen of Southport in the town with dreams of theater acting for Helen. Barry had too much fun and is yelling through a sunroof of his BMW. They hit someone and now got to figure out how to hide a body.

The movie has an element of classism that never really gets resolved - Ray is considered to be lower class compared to Barry, Helen and Julie with Barry pointing it out. Max (Johnny Galecki) is working at a restaurant and Barry of course points out that he's poor. Yet that's as far as it goes - the movie seems to use that to paint Barry as a jerk and that's it. I imagine it would have gone differently if it turned out that Barry Cox set up the whole murders to begin with or at least had a hand in the perpetrator's murders.

One thing that's noticeable (and was noticeable to any teenager growing up in the 1990s) is how hot everyone looks. It's almost Blood and Black Lace like with the amount of attractive people in this. Every guy I knew growing up would mention just watching this movie for the outfits that Jennifer Love Hewitt and Sarah Michelle Gellar wore - Gellar in a blue top and pullover tied at the waist, oh my! Short shorts and yellow spaghetti strap top, oh baby! Hewitt in any top that shows a ton of cleavage was the object of many young men's fantasies. Let's not forget Ryan Phillippe though - him shirtless and with a towel around his waist is a goal for any guy in their workout (and the object of women's fantasies and some men's too).

Another thing I found noticeable is how many needledrops this movie has. The movie opens with Type O Negative's "Summer Breeze." It's about like A Walk To Remember opening with The Breeders' "Cannonball" in terms of whiplash. It also tried to make Kula Shaker a thing with "Hush" being played a few times. 

The back half of the movie falls within the horror/slasher tropes as the bodycount increases and the number of characters decrease. (You know it's serious when Johnny Galecki's character dies and Gellar's character dies too). I will say that Williamson's character writing for Gellar and Hewitt's characters was surprisingly great - there's a hint of sadness to both characters. When we meet with them 'one year later,' Helen has regrets about going to New York City not working out and Julie is in danger of failing college.

Technical wise, there's some neat bits. The opening shot for this is still a really great opening shot. And they do a 'trunk shot' a la Tarantino (well, really Anthony Mann) when Julie, Barry, and Helen look for a body that was in the trunk.

I Know What You Did Last Summer isn't heavy material but it's a fun slasher.

 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

14 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I saw Momey Pit in the theater, not great. IIRC, it’s a remake/update of Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House, which is a great comedy. Not trying to again saddle Andrew with homework, but ,,,

There’s also a Lux Radio Theater version, but, while good, it “suffer#” be Irene Dunne replacing Myrna Loy. 

 

I'll probably watch Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House at some point, depending on where it is on streaming. 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Movies today....internet went out for a few hours so not as many. I need to do more quality over quantity lol.

Draft Day (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

I hadn't known that much about this movie other than learning about it's existence. It's a bit of a shame that this is Ivan Reitman's last movie; Reitman had done quite a few "against the grain" characters with his movies - Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II are main ones, Stripes is another one, Meatballs is another earlier one - that speak to American mythos and avatar for men aged between 20 to 40. Bill Murray as Venkman, Dan Aykroyd as Stantz, Harold Ramis as Spengler and Ernie Hudson as Zeddemore were the 'triumph of the nerds and the outcasts' since they saved NYC (twice). Murray as Winger and Ramis as Ziskey in Stripes was also a 'triumph of the nerds and the outcasts' in the US military. Kevin Kline as Dave Kovic being the President of the United States was also a triumph for someone not known or acknowledged.

So a movie about football players, you know the type that would have stuffed Venkman, Stantz, Spengler, Winger, Ziskey, and Kovic into their lockers, from Ivan Reitman seems unusual.

With football, it's a sport ruled and run by pure adrenaline. High schools spend millions on stadiums for their football teams, as do colleges and as does professional football. Kevin Costner in this plays Sonny Weaver Jr, a GM for the Cleveland Browns. Costner has made a career out of doing sports movies and in roles revolving around sports - Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, For The Love of the Game, Tin Cup, The Upside of Anger, Waterworld. (Not Waterworld, just wanted to make sure you were paying attention).

Weaver in this movie has a lot working against him - the owner of the Browns Anthony Molina (Frank Langella), his coach Vince Penn (Denis Leary), various agents (including baby oil enthusiast and scary guy Sean Combs), other coaches and even his own mother Barb Weaver (Ellen Burstyn). For this character, a lot of what fuels him is living up to his father. In a way, Weaver as a character is actually in line with the other 'nerds and outcasts' that were in Ghostbusters and Stripes. Except he deals in sports, not mathematics and science.

With Draft Day, it's a race against time. The Browns have to make the first pick in the NFL draft and everything is expecting them to pick Bo Callahan (Josh Pence). Weaver finds out about what happened at a birthday party for Callahan and finds out that none of his teammates were there. He also finds out that a playbook with a $100 bill on the last page was sent to Callahan. Other people told the truth about the playbook. They either didn't see the $100 bill because they didn't read it. A few lied about it, but fessed up once they found out. Callahan lied about it - twice. He lied that he read the playbook and he lied about his knowledge of the $100. In a pivotal scene, Weaver calls Callahan about the birthday party. Callahan lied to Weaver about what he knew with the party (he remembered it and he remembered people getting arrested). He then lies to his agent ("Guy who has to pay Sting every time a sample of his song is used and being investigated for his freak out parties" Combs) about the conversation.

Those lies end up proving out what Weaver thought all along.

With Draft Day, a lot of the movie resembles a bit of Ang Lee's Hulk for the usage of split screen throughout the movie (although I wonder if a debt to the usage could be owed to The Boston Strangler and to Brian De Palma). The last 30 minutes of the movie is pure tension and dynamite as Weaver (and the Browns) are on the clock to make their picks. They went with Vontae Mack (Chadwick Boseman in an incredible role) and Ray Jennings (Arian Foster) after Weaver has made deals with other teams to line them up as picks.

What's interesting though is the movie doesn't really delve into how those young men (including Callahan) feel about being used for a short period of time for football. The movie somewhat touched upon the issues with a player and a team as Brian Drew (Tom Welling) argues with Weaver and wants to be traded after trashing his office. Drew is said to be "100% better" after his workouts but how? (In a funny aside, having the TV version of Superman yelling at Zack Snyder's Jonathan Kent is interesting).

Even then, Draft Day is a decent pick and a decent selection within Reitman's filmography.

Friends With Money (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 2.5/5 stars

Spoiler

More like Friends with Problems than Friends with Money. Much of the storylines for the movie revolve around three of the characters: Olivia (Jennifer Aniston), Jane (Frances McDormand) and Christine (Catherine Keener). Joan Cusack's character Franny seems like an afterthought.

McDormand plays Jane as being pretty much a "Karen" who expresses anger at everyone (people cutting in lines, service at restaurants, etc) and her husband Aaron (Simon McBurney) has everyone wondering if he's actually gay. It seems more like he's more reasonable and easier to deal with than Jane but what can be done.

Olivia as a character is grappling with leaving her job as a teacher and with having an affair with a guy she tries to call. She dates a personal trainer named Mike (Scott Caan) and does housecleaning (also, she wears a French maid outfit, which is likely the object of every guy's fantasy in one form or another). Eventually, she breaks up with him and dates one of her clients Marty (Bob Stephenson).

Meanwhile, Christine is dealing with an expansion on the house and eventually separates from her husband David (Jason Isaacs) once she realizes the expansion was a bad idea. David's kind of a jerk too. Franny and her husband Matt (Greg Germann) just grip about being more rich than their friends but do nothing about it.

For the most part, Friends with Money is very much in line with other indie comedies and a bit more Rohmer-like in its storyline. There's not really anything that outstanding about it, but it's neat to see an actor like Aniston doing a 'mumblecore' style movie.

The Money Pit (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

The Money Pit is a bit of a cruel 1980s comedy. Tom Hanks and Shelley Long have a likability as a couple in New York City who are trying to move into a mansion they buy for a cheap price.

Where the movie shines is with the physical comedy. In a way, it's similar to comedies from the 1930s and 1940s as Tom Hanks is basically like Play-Doh with his reactions and the situations he gets stuck in (his being stuck in the floor was hilarious). The scene where he manages to knock down all the scaffolding and ending up in the pond is hilarious.

What makes the movie fails a bit is the attempt to be serious in the third act. This is where the scripting isn't as good and the characters' arcs are a bit limited. Long's character Anna is lied to about her sleeping with her ex Max (Alexander Godunov) and she forgives him a bit too easily.

Still, some of the technical aspects shine with the closeups of objects like a folder while another character talks.

The Money Pit stinks.

The Squid and the Whale (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

For whatever reason, I clicked with this movie.

Like Margot at the Wedding, every character is desperately unlikable and there isn't a way to feel that a character is an 'anchor' to the audience. Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels) is a highly inflated, overly intellectual failed writer who sardonically and dryly talks to his kids about issues he has with his wife Joan (Laura Linney) as they go through a divorce. Their kids Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline) are caught in the middle.

It seems apropos that the movie begins with the family doing doubles tennis. Joan and Bernard do a back and forth even before they announce they are separating then divorcing. Joan gets hit too hard by Bernard's serves and Bernard psychs himself and gets angry at himself. Conflict is inherit to the characters - like the namesake Squid and Whale, like Truffaut and Godard. Both of these characters wear their literary allusions on their heads - Bernard doubts an English teacher that Walt has because "he doesn't know of having two Ph.Ds in literature." Yet Bernard is jealous of Joan - Joan has a story published in the New Yorker and is dating his son Frank's tennis instructor Ivan (William Baldwin). "You're a philistine," Frank tells Ivan, repeating what was said to him earlier. "What's that?"

Frank and Walt react very differently to the divorce. Frank drinks alcohol and smears semen on a girl's locker, which results in a parent conference. Walt dates a girl named Sophie (Halley Feiffer) and meets her family, yet breaks up with her for the 'hope of something better.' Walt also plagiarizes Pink Floyd at a school talent show and is forced to go into therapy. He then resolves to swim in a lake in the city. Walt also harbors a crush on Lili (Anna Paquin), whom his father is also dating and she is staying at his father's apartment.

What's great are the musical choices made through the movie. "Figure 8" from Schoolhouse Rock shows up a few times in the movie and seems to serve as a metaphor for the behavior the characters are doing. "Hey You" (which Walt plagiarizes) shows up in the scene where Walt runs away and goes to the park; "Hey You" is a cry for help but more of a cry to a person who needs help. Walt doesn't realize that he needs saving.

The climatic scenes have Bernard collapsing in the street and taken away with Bernard telling Walt that "I'm fine and it's due to exhaustion." There's no possible way to know if Bernard is telling the truth. The ending has Walt running away to the Museum of Natural History, which is echoed in the later Sean Baker's The Florida Project. Both characters at the end of the movie escape to a 'happy place.' With this, Walt goes to the museum to confront his fear of the squid and the whale exhibit.

A lot of the influences on this movie (French New Wave, Cassavetes, and Italian dramas) I admittedly feel inadequately unable to frame the references. Even after watching enough movies, I'm drawn to those movies like a moth. Maybe I will start watching them in the future because that style seems to be something that just interest me.

Even then, The Squid and the Whale is also something I'm drawn to as well.

 

[2025 Upcoming Movies Thread]

https://youtu.be/_p4BCpJ44Qg?si=565Q4pVBB4pAvllx

Begonia - October

I'm always down for whatever Yorgis Lanthimos is doing. 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Wow, I wonder if Denis Villeneuve will be able to sleep with the amount of movies he's working on.

Movies today....not as much as usual due to stupid work assignments. 

April in Paris (HBO Max, leaving on 6/30) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

Doris Day and Ray Bolger have a lot of chemistry even though the writing for this is a bit subpar and even dull. The plot is inconsequentially silly and doesn't even make sense - they get married on a ship, yet Marcia (Eve Miller) still wants to marry Putnam (Bolger) and fights with Ethel Jackson (Day) at the UN.

Somehow they jump from that to Jackson and Putnam deciding to be married after all due to help from Philippe Fouqet (Claude Dauphin). The only worthwhile thing seems to be the scenes of 'fourth wall' breaking from Dauphin and the outfits Doris Day is wearing. Also, the stock footage of Paris looks nice in Technicolor.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

Crazy, Stupid, Love on its face is a fairly typical vehicle for Steve Carell. Early/mid-40s dad named Cal (played by Carell) that's out of step with what "the kids are doing" and being forced to enter back into the dating pool again after his wife Emily (the always gorgeous Julianne Moore) announces to him that she wants a divorce.

Cal laments his fate and the fact that his wife cheated on him with David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon) until Jacob (Ryan Gosling) is tired of hearing about it and that's enough. Jacob seeks to 'remake' Cal (like what Carell also did in The 40-Year Old Virgin) in order to make Cal more desirable to women and to adopt a similar 'lothario' approach to relationships.

In a lot of ways, as a man in my 40s, this idea that a younger man should help an older man with his dating life is a bit insulting. Jacob's 'solution' seems to entail Cal spending untold amounts of money to update his wardrobe (and then being left with a $800+ drink tab). It's almost heartbreaking as Cal watches various women at the bar he frequents and the feeling that he had missed out. Then, later in a montage, we see Cal's success with women as various women get up and leave with him from the bar. Eventually though, Cal realizes doing this wasn't him.

Cal meets a woman named Kate (Marisa Tomei) at a bar and tries to enact what Jacob 'taught' him only for him to break down and be himself. In the meantime, we met Hannah (Emma Stone) who is hoping that a guy that she's pining for Richard (Josh Groban) would reciprocate. Hannah growing tired of it, finally goes to a bar where Jacob is and lock lips with him and leaves with him. I liked the homage to Dirty Dancing and the self-referential scene that Hannah wants "non-PG-13 rated sex" with Jacob although Jacob says "she'll end up falling asleep, I'll pull a blanket over her, and kiss you." It turns out that was the case with Jacob after he and Hannah talked through most of the night.

The other aspect that's interesting is Cal isn't aware nor acts on his babysitter Jessica (Lio Tipton)'s desire to be with him (in a scenario similar to Sam Mendes' American Beauty).

Crazy, Stupid, Love. can be considered to following with Closer in terms of the relationships and the intermingling of the characters in those relationships. The scene near the end where it's finally revealed that Hannah is Cal and Emily's daughter and then all the characters converge is a height of insanity.

After that, everything settles down and Cal slowly acknowledges Jacob as his daughter's boyfriend and Cal and Emily get back together after a middle school graduation. Cal's son realizes that his crush on his babysitter wasn't healthy (although he wants to come back to her when he's older).

For the most part, Crazy, Stupid, Love. is a nice iteration on the romantic comedy/drama but provides enough new wrinkles on the formula.

George Harrison: Living in the Material World (HBO Max, mini-series, leaving on 6/30) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

Martin Scorsese as a director is a musical fan that it shows up even in his main work. He's also done a few documentaries / concert films like The Last Waltz, Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story, and Shine A Light. This is a bit different since it's set up like a mini-series.

What holds it together are the interviews with other people (like Tom Petty, Olivia Harrison, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, Yoko Ono, Eric Idle, etc) interspersed with Harrison's songs. The tone of the documentary seems more like a wake after Harrison has passed away than anything really examining his life.

Some aspects were a bit shocking even today, like the inclusion of Phil Spector and what Tom Petty relayed after Roy Orbison passed away. "Aren't you glad it wasn't you?" which makes Petty's passing a bit tough to take too. What Olivia Harrison described with the break-in is a bit harrowing to listen to.

The documentary wasn't interested in digging out Harrison's skeletons or the side to him that wasn't good, although it was touched upon in passing.

I did like the scenes from Blowup, The Life of Brian and various posters for Handmade Films (which I need to dig through the filmography for that).

Still, it's a great documentary effort from Martin Scorsese.

Windy Day (Criterion Channel) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

I'm fairly sure I was shown this as a little kid in elementary school by an music teacher or an art teacher that wanted the kids in my elementary school to have a great exposure to the world. The first few minutes seemed really familiar to me.

Which seems appropriate considering it's two siblings just talking and playing amongst each other with the animation developing from that.

Utterly fascinating to watch.

 

[DVD/BR Collector Thread for the Physical Media Enthusiasts]

58 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

Was told the BN Criterion sale will start on Friday. 

I heard 1000s of wallets crying out in terror and were suddenly silent. 

[2025 Upcoming Movies Thread]

5 hours ago, RIPPA said:

https://youtu.be/GXecSGmQDEI?si=lL6N3RvB33w0hoUb

Roofman

Directed by Derek Cianfrance (The Place Beyond the Pines, Blue Valentine)

Channing Tatum, Kirsten Dunst, Peter Dinklage, Ben Mendelsohn, Juno Temple, LaKeith Stanfield and Uzo Aduba

In Derek Cianfrance I Trust. Although it seems him, Darren Aronofsky, Ari Aster and Paul Thomas Anderson are doing more 'grounded' or male focused movies versus anything they normally do. 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

I reviewed The Intern not that long ago and it had me convinced that Nancy Meyers is an auteur. I'll be there day 1 the next time she makes a feature film. 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Movies today....I'm planning on watching Airport & Airport '77 probably this week or next week. As well as Hitchcock that's remaining on Netflix (outside of Vertigo, The Birds and Rear Window) and The Sugarland Express. 

Anyway...

Awakenings (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 4.5/5 stars

Spoiler

"I know it's not 1927....but I wish it was."

Awakenings as a movie is an incredibly life affirming but also incredibly heart-breaking work. Although it can be argued that it's melodramatic (with the score from Randy Newman especially tear inducing), the movie is about trying to get back a life long thought lost. With this, however, it's never reclaimed.

While a lot is said about Robert DeNiro's performance as Leonard, Robin Williams as Dr. Sayer is the focus of the movie. Williams has Dr. Sayer as awkward yet intelligent, humanistic yet shy, and funny yet sad (like how Williams was in life). This is probably Williams' best performance. Williams portrays the character reaching out and wanting to have a connection as much as the patients he meets. The first scene that we see him has him interviewing at the Bronx hospital and shocked at the hospital he's seeing before him. He interviews and his research consists of studies on earthworms. Feeling that he's not the right person, Dr. Sayer begins to leave with those interviewing him asking about his clinical work in medical school and then hiring him.

Dr. Sayer seeing the patients, including Leonard (DeNiro), wonders if something could be done. In a lot of ways at this point, Dr. Sayer attends a lecture about L-DOPA and what it's doing to patients with Parkinson's Disease. At this point, he asks for dosage of L-DOPA and after getting permission from Leonard's mother, administers it to Leonard. The changes start happening with Leonard. Awakenings resembles other movies about helping less fortunate patients like Arthur Penn's The Miracle Worker and Ron Howard's Cocoon. It seems like Leonard is on the upside and is reclaiming his life too.

With DeNiro's performance, there's a reason why he got nominated for an Oscar for his work. DeNiro captures the nuances of someone who has been locked away for 30 years, in a prison in his own body. In Leonard's mind, he is still the 11 year old boy we see at the introduction of the movie, playing with his friends and carving his name into a bench. DeNiro has Leonard acting shy and uncertain with adults and even with talking at first. Eventually, however, Leonard begins to want to see the wider world and Dr. Sayer wants to help. Leonard wants to walk into the Hudson River before the tide comes in and stand on a rock. As Leonard says, "They need to be reminded of what they have and what they can lose. What I feel is the joy of life, the gift of life, the freedom of life, the wonderment of life."

DeNiro has absolutely sweet scenes with Paula (Penelope Ann Miller), who is visiting the hospital because of her father. With those scenes, Leonard is opening up to the current time and realizing he is no longer an 11 year old boy and realizes that the opposite sex exists for him. They revisit this towards the end as Paula and Leonard dance. Another scene that exemplifies this is when Leonard and Dr. Sayer drive around NYC to The Zombies "The Time of the Seasons." People and love and youth and awakening of the world through the seasons is at Leonard's fingertips as he sees the world he never knew for over 30 years.

Unfortunately though, this renewal is short lived. Leonard begins to regress. DeNiro is absolutely brilliant as he is fighting against the regression but losing - for me those scenes made me absolutely cry. The heartbreaking moments of this movie is not in the melodrama, but in the little moments like that. Another scene that broke my heart was a patient being asked how he was doing. "My wife died, my son disappeared, and I know no one." The scene with the quoted line at the start of the review also broke my heart - the life that we knew when we were younger is something we'll never get back, although we wish we could.

Leonard fighting against his treatment and against his tremors reminded me a bit of Nicholson in One Who Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, although this revolution is short lived. Leonard eventually realized that he and Dr. Sayer are on the same side, although Leonard isn't able to continue the fight.

Eventually, every patient prescribed the drugs begin to revert to what they were before. Williams' scene where he recounts what happened is especially heartbreaking to watch; Williams shows that no matter what happened, they couldn't change their patients. "The reality is we don't know what wrong any more than we know what went right," he says. It did make the hospital treat them more humanly though. The ending ends with a beginning as Dr. Sayer communicates with Leonard through an Oujia board.

Penny Marshall with this movie shows that she's in step with Ron Howard, Frank Capra and Steven Spielberg for humanistic and sentimental filmmaking. A lot of the shots in the movie are smart as it focuses on the characters' emotions in scenes through closeups. I did like how the "it's a fucking miracle" scene was shot as Williams and other nurses go through the doors with the camera following them. The camera is then setup in a living area facing them as they enter and then we see the patients after the drugs been administered. The patients walking around, talking, looking at the light sources, and looking at the bed was a 'wonderment of life' to borrow a phrase. It was like the elderly getting up and walking in Cocoon.

For the most part, Awakenings is just an incredible movie with tremendous performances from Williams and DeNiro and tremendous direction from Marshall.

Patch Adams (Peacock, leaving on 6/30) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Having watched Awakenings, it seemed appropriate to watch another "Robin Williams as a medical doctor" movie Patch Adams.

With this, Hunter "Patch" Adams (Williams) decides to become a medical student after a stint in a psychiatric hospital in the late 1960s. In a way, this movie was Williams speaking to Roberto Benigni, who in the previous year did Life Is Beautiful. In that movie, Benigni's character was a Jewish waiter being sent to a concentration camp and his character strove to provide laughter through the pain. Much in the same way, Williams did as Adams in this to the patients at the hospital and to the people he meets.

Much of the movie is a bit more melodramatic than Awakenings was. In a way, the plot structure of Patch Adams is a bit more looser since it focused primarily on Williams. This doesn't mean there weren't standout scenes - anytime that Williams and Phillip Seymour Hoffman (who played Mitch Roman) shared the screen was pure dynamite to watch. Monica Potter's scene with Williams where her character shared her reason for mistrust of men was one of the best scenes as well.

The movie takes a turn after Potter's character Carin Fisher is murdered. Adams as a character wants to throw in the towel on his studies and in a bit of eerie foreshadowing that's uncomfortable to watch now, contemplates suicide on a hillside. Eventually though, Adams resolves to continue studying due to Mitch Roman's insistence. Adams then is faced with a final challenge where he is to be expelled from medical school and stands in front of the state board.

To be honest, even though Adams as a character has his heart in the right place, he should have been expelled for stealing supplies and practicing medicine without a license. Fisher's murder should have served as a 'wake up call' for him because she wouldn't have been murdered if it weren't for Patch Adams opening a clinic in his house. The movie does reward Adams with being able to stay in medical school and Adams of course graduates.

But it speaks to a larger issue of the time and still relevant today about the medical industry. In the United States, the medical industry is the most expensive in the world, even with insurance. One doctor opening a clinic that does so for free and without malpractice insurance is still a risky bet. To be a patient in such a clinic is even risky as well; you can trust the doctor to do what he can to do it right and to do right by you, but there are going to be things that a free clinic cannot help. A free clinic isn't a permanent fix.

Even then, Patch Adams is decent although a bit of a slog to get through. At times, it seems to resemble a Lifetime/Hallmark Channel movie with its overuse of melodramatic music. Williams did a great job as an actor in the role and it shows, but a lot of the movie is working against him.

Oh and you can't tell me the ending song doesn't make you want to watch Scott Bakula on Enterprise again.

I Heart Huckabees (Hulu, leaving on 6/30) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

youtu.be/dXKX0o7U9D8?si=RUfoMpOYdTg0THdm

To be honest, I would rate this 1/2 star for David O. Russell if I could. He doesn't know how to act around people even though he's supposed to be a film director. In life, we've all had bosses that lose their temper and lose their minds while we are working with them. In a lot of cases, we make a conscious choice to get the hell out of that workplace and work somewhere else. With the countless stories about dealing with David O. Russell, it all leads to the same conclusion: David O. Russell has anger issues and impulse control.

After seeing the movie (and the clip above), this is probably the angriest movie I've seen in awhile. The energy is palpable with the anger due to the way dialogue is delivered. I can't exactly tell what was going on with this movie, but it wasn't a happy time or anything with a collaborative comedic effect to it.

What makes this movie work are the actors involved, not the director. David O. Russell to me is not a very good director. His most notable movie American Hustle was a complete homage to Martin Scorsese. Silver Linings Playbook is a bit like a spiritual sequel to I Heart Huckabees. Amsterdam (which was one of the worst movies I've seen last year) tries to transplant the energy of Huckabees but to 1940s New York and with comedy about war wounds.

To be honest, I Heart Huckabees is by default David O. Russell's best movie.

Albert Markovski (Jason Schwartzmann) is suffering an extenstial crisis at a protest to save a forest from a Huckabees being built. Huckabees seems to be a weird Walmart/Costco hybrid that we never see the inside of during the movie. Just the corporate offices. Within the corporate offices are Albert's rival Brad (Jude Law) and Brad's girlfriend Dawn (an incredibly hot Naomi Watts). Albert hires two detectives Vivan Jaffee (Lily Tomin) and Bernard Jaffee (Dustin Hoffman) to determine the source of his crisis. We never learn the answer, but we aren’t supposed to.

Along the way, there's Tommy (Mark Wahlberg), who is suffering his own crisis after his girlfriend leaves him and the doorman at Albert's parents' condo (Ger Duany), Competing with the detectives is Caterine Vauban (Isabelle Huppert). Also appearing is Shania Twain, Albert being fired from the coalition, Tommy insulting a couple about oil and using SUVs and showing up to a fire on a bicycle, Dawn shooting commercials for Huckabees, and Albert imagining drinking milk from Brad's teet.

It's like the blanket. It represents all the matter and energy in the universe, okay? This is me, this is you, And over here, this is the Eiffel Tower, right, it's Paris!

I found I had to accept the fact that this movie didn't make any sense. Sometimes, things are filmed and it just works out in the end. The hallucinations that Albert undergo are trippy to watch and the manic, angry energy just flows into the scenes throughout the movie.

I Heart Huckabee works because you have to accept that it does.

 

[2025 Movie Discussion Thread]

Movies today...

To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar (Peacock, leaving on 6/30) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

As is likely to be compared to The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar as a movie is a bit different. Whereas Priscilla had more of a focus on the three main characters and their relationships with themselves and each other, the trio in this is more interested in saving a small town they are having to stay in until their car is repaired. While Priscilla is more of a road trip and you can sense the places the characters go to for their arrival to Alice Springs, Australia, this was less of a road trip.

We don't really learn anything about the three - Vida (Patrick Swayze), Noxeema (Wesley Snipes) and Chi Chi (John Leguizamo). Vida's backstory is briefly touched upon as it turns out she's from wealthy family and we see the three drive past her house. A lot of the conflict at first is with Vida and Noxeema accepting Chi Chi as part of their group. (It sorta didn't make sense for Chi Chi to win other than to have the real Julie Newmar cameo).

The bulk of the movie is John Waters like in its campiness as the three characters save a small town and make those living there feel better about their lives. I did like the scenes with Swayze and Stockard Channing as Carol Ann. Carol Ann learns to accept herself and learns to stand up for herself to not allow her husband Virgil (Arliss Howard) to abuse her and hurt her any longer; yet, she decides she must stay in the town when offered a chance to leave.

A lot of the movie is carried by Swayze, Snipes, and Leguizamo's performances. The movie did drag a bit (pun not intended) in the middle of the movie and the subplot with the sheriff (Chris Penn) looking for the drag queens was a bit unnecessary (although the scenes with the town standing up to him were a great visual). I did like the Fellini-like dance scene where people in the town danced together while the trio watched.

For the most part, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar is a different kind of movie about drag queens and is a nice American take on it.

The Loneliest Planet (Mubi, leaving on 6/30) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

So much of The Loneliest Planet falls into the complaint that nothing happens and there is no drama. This isn't necessarily true; the couple (Gael Garcia Bernal and Hani Furstenberg) seem to be using the hike as a novelty in their relationship without there being much spoken for their relationship. The movie opens with Furstenberg being completely nude and jumping up and down as Bernal comes in to wash her off; obviously, the characters have a shared intimacy to do that. They go to a restaurant to share a drink and dance, but so much is unspoken.

They finally find a guide named Dato (Bidzina Gujabidze) who takes them on a hike through the Georgian countryside. Everything is going fine until they encounter a local and two kids with the local pointing a gun at Alex (Bernal). Alex instinctively pulls Nica (Furstenberg) in front of him with Nica pulling herself behind him. It reminded me a bit of what Ruben Ostlund did in Force Majeure where the male's desire for self-preservation took over for his desire to provide protection.

Through the rest of the movie, Nica is distant from him and from the guide. Just with her body language alone and lack of talking, she spells out her discomfort and her fear over what Alex did. They never talk about it and there isn't a loud argument over what happened.

Towards the end, Nica and Dato end up alone and Dato makes a move on Nica, with her pushing away. Nica goes to the tent and sleeps with Alex and then has sex with him. It's not known at the end if they've really have reconciled as Alex and Dato pack up and take down the tent.

The Loneliest Planet is primarily a cinematography showcase with beautiful shots of the mountainous region. The night time scenes were nearly in pitch black and this isn't really a movie to watch in day light hours.

IWOW: I Walk On Water (Mubi, leaving on 6/30) - 0.5/5 star

Spoiler

Quick! Want to know how this movie was made? I'll tell you.

1) Record footage of anything in New York City, doesn't matter what it is. Guy walking down the street, police sitting in a car, guy holding flowers, it doesn't matter.
2) Record audio unrelated to the images being shown where people have conversations with you on subjects that may or may not have a point and are conspiracy theories.
3) Find a schizophrenic man from Haiti called "Frenchie" and exploit him....I mean, become friends with him where you record the gibberish he says.
4) Take mushrooms and scare the shit out of your mom while recording it.
5) Wash rinse repeat for 3 hours and 16 minutes. (basically, claiming you're Jesus, so this tracks).

Khalik Allah had something with his short films because they make sense. This didn't make any sense. I did like the Wu Tang rappers he talked to and Fab 5 Freddy gave him good advice ("you gotta watch out for the people you bring into your home").

This would be played at an art installation in New York City while people sip champagne. Jean Luc Godard would watch this and go, "What the fuck are you doing? I at least have a point when I do video essay/collage style films!"

Frenchie may be a good guy, but this is a bad movie.

[NOTE: I only watched 2 hours of it. It's not like I was judging it. I kept waiting for the alchemy moments as I call them to happen where the film gels together with the format style presented, but that never happened.]

The Monuments Men (Netflix, leaving on 6/30) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

For a movie about WWII, this is about as low frills as you can get. This seems to be an excuse for the director George Clooney to work with his friends again - a reunion with The Good German co-star Cate Blanchett and a reunion with Oceans trilogy co-star Matt Damon as well as a reunion with The Fantastic Mr. Fox co-star Bill Murray.

As it is, the movie has the characters with Frank Stokes (Clooney) as the leader being tasked to recover stolen art from Nazi Germany. The movie comically has middle aged / older men going through Army training and then having to be in the field to do it. Even then, two of them are killed during the mission. It's not quite Indiana Jones, but it seems to be like a movie Ron Howard would do and gets shown on a Sunday afternoon after football.

For the most part, there isn't a whole lot that's even interesting with this. Although Cate Blanchett as Claire Simone has a commendable French/Belgian accent to her character.

I did like the cameo with Nick Clooney as the older version of Frank Sloane for the ending.