Movie 2023 MOVIE DISCUSSION THREAD

[Lawful Metal]

Did anyone love the Creator as much as I did?

[Contentious C]

No Paddington remarks?  Whatever.  Movies.

Thunderbolt and Lightfoot -The first third feels like Bank Robbers Club, where Lightfoot is nothing but a figment of Thunderbolt's imagination as he questions all the choices he made when he was years younger and dumber. There are little details throughout that make that a believable piece of head canon for a while, like how Lightfoot picks up 2 women but Thunderbolt is the one who actually scores with his.  And LF has white pants/shoes on, while TB has black-on-black to represent his life choices.  But of course, this is the seventies.  No one's dreaming up unreliable narrators quite yet.  And so, this just pivots and becomes a standard heist movie. Well, OK.

One of Jeff Bridges' better performances, though, and I usually can't stand George Kennedy, but he might be the best part of this, showing a lot more vulnerability and a believable portrayal (at least compared to the other robbers) of someone who actually did hard time and paid the price for it.

Planes, Trains & Automobiles - Typing that without the Oxford comma hurts my fucking soul.  I can see why this works for a lot of people.  It seems like it's going to be a pretty snarky, angry sort of movie - that first hotel scene, WOOF - and then it reveals some hidden depths.  I think this might be John Candy's best role.  That probably isn't saying a lot, since the only way he was ever going to attend the Oscars was if he bought a ticket, but he wasn't just there for the jokes.  Steve Martin as a real piece of shit works better than I expected it to, as well.  I don't know if this is the best John Hughes, but it's definitely a contender, even if some of the more slapstick bits feel like dry runs for what they did in Christmas Vacation.

Chairman of the Board - Let's face it, if you've seen this in the last 10-15 years, it's only because of Norm Macdonald's famous interview on Conan O'Brien.  And, uh, well, the John Tesh joke they make still holds up.  And we're done saying nice things about this.

How bad is it?  Well, unlike (probably) most of you, I can't fucking stand Larry Miller.  Before Miles Teller, Larry Miller had the most punchable face in Hollywood.  His schtick is boring, he has the acting range of an X-ray crystallography laser, and I pretty much always want him off my screen.  But, for most of this movie, all I could think was, "At least Larry Miller is in a lot of it."  But hey, it doesn't lie to you; you know within about 60 seconds what a massive pile of hippo shit this is going to be.

Desperate Hours - More Michael Cimino!  This is a remake of a William Wyler movie with Bogie and Frederic March, apparently.  And...it's not good!  Anthony Hopkins is a total fish out of water as the frustrated good guy, and he needs a charisma infusion with Mickey Rourke like an origami fireplace needs homeowner's insurance. There's Kelly Lynch nudity because what would a Kelly Lynch appearance in the late 80s/early 90s be if the director and producers didn't ask her to flash everyone; the editing goes utterly sideways in the last third; Lindsay Crouse does more acting in 3 minutes of this than she did in all of House of Games and it's still bad; and a young Dean Norris eats her lunch in every scene (from an acting perspective anyway).

At least there's David Morse showing up, like he usually does, as the only strange, conflicted, sympathetic weirdo out of this bunch of cardboard cutouts.  Pass.

Eyes of Laura Mars - Hey, a John Carpenter script, Irvin Kershner directing (the biggest reason I watched it), and a couple of acting heavyweights: how bad can it be?

It can be real, real bad. Every attempt at ratcheting suspense is more hokey than anything else; the love angle is impossible to believe, since Tommy Lee Jones was fresh off his Best-of-Fifteen 80#-Grit Sandpaper Glove Boxing Series with Edward James Olmos; the film has nothing particularly interesting to say about the society it inhabits despite flailing wildly in that direction in the first 10 minutes; and the "twist" ending is one of the most unearned, pointless, insulting pieces of crap imaginable.

One really wonders if this might have been something had Carpenter stayed in control of the whole thing, but GODDAMN, it is decidedly not-something.  I didn't care for The Fan from a few years later, but this makes that look positively gripping in comparison.

Edited November 5, 2023 by Contentious C

[odessasteps]

Despite being a teenager at the time, how do I not remember a teen comedy starring Jennifer Connelly called “seven minutes in heaven?’

 

Edited November 5, 2023 by odessasteps

[Mister TV]

On 11/5/2023 at 12:34 AM, Contentious C said:

Planes, Trains & Automobiles - Typing that without the Oxford comma hurts my fucking soul.  I can see why this works for a lot of people.  It seems like it's going to be a pretty snarky, angry sort of movie - that first hotel scene, WOOF - and then it reveals some hidden depths.  I think this might be John Candy's best role.  That probably isn't saying a lot, since the only way he was ever going to attend the Oscars was if he bought a ticket, but he wasn't just there for the jokes.  Steve Martin as a real piece of shit works better than I expected it to, as well.  I don't know if this is the best John Hughes, but it's definitely a contender, even if some of the more slapstick bits feel like dry runs for what they did in Christmas Vacation.

Am I a bad Gen-X'er in that I pretty much hate every John Hughes directed film but this one? This is totally Candy's best role and he should have gotten an Oscar nomination either Best Actor or Best Supporting. I mean Robin Williams got nominated for Best Actor that year for Good Morning Vietnam where he just did his shtick and a sad scene, in the Best Supporting category Vincent Gardenia was nominated for playing a way over the top stereotype of an Italian-American.

[(BP)]

We were probably robbed of at least a couple Candy/Martin reteams in the vein of the 90s Lemmon and Mattheau movies. 

[J.H.]

Netflix decided to make Silverado available to stream so after I put the kid to sleep Friday night and hunkered down to watch one of the best odes to old school Westerns that Lawrence Kasdan could muster.

Seriously, this is such a joy to watch, with such an amazing cast and joyous soundtrack. If I had taken part in the old Best of The 80s balloting this would be in my top 40 or so. I love it so much!

James

 

[Log]

5 hours ago, Mister TV said:

Am I a bad Gen-X'er in that I pretty much hate every John Hughes directed film but this one? This is totally Candy's best role and he should have gotten an Oscar nomination either Best Actor or Best Supporting. I mean Robin Williams got nominated for Best Actor that year for Good Morning Vietnam where he just did his shtick and a sad scene, in the Best Supporting category Vincent Gardenia was nominated for playing a way over the top stereotype of an Italian-American.

Watching PT&A recently, I was thinking it was sad we never got to see a serious John Candy performance. I think there's a real chance he could've been great at it.

On PT&A, my wife and I have always commented on how dour Martin's wife in the movie is. The scenes with her just seem tonally off. Come to find out, there's a whole thing cut out of the movie where she is suspicious he's having an affair, and he's faking not being able to get home.

[Contentious C]

6 hours ago, Mister TV said:

Am I a bad Gen-X'er in that I pretty much hate every John Hughes directed film but this one? This is totally Candy's best role and he should have gotten an Oscar nomination either Best Actor or Best Supporting. I mean Robin Williams got nominated for Best Actor that year for Good Morning Vietnam where he just did his shtick and a sad scene, in the Best Supporting category Vincent Gardenia was nominated for playing a way over the top stereotype of an Italian-American.

That generally had to be one of the weakest nomination years ever, and as I've been going back through the 80s stuff, it seems even more egregious.  I always had this idea in my head that the 80s were sorta weak for great movies, but if anything, it's pretty top-heavy for all-time greats.  1987...did not have any of those.  I can't believe there are people who like Moonstruck.

But I don't like Hughes that much, either.  When you look at what he wrote...good God, he wrote a lot of garbage, especially in the 90s.  I like a few of the things he directed, I can't stand a few others, but it's either this or The Breakfast Club that's his best movie and I'm not sure it's that close to whatever would be third.  Bueller is overrated, Sixteen Candles is kinda dull, Weird Science is funny but not good per se, something that maybe only worked in its time.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Contentious C

[Tabe]

2 hours ago, Log said:

Watching PT&A recently, I was thinking it was sad we never got to see a serious John Candy performance. I think there's a real chance he could've been great at it.

On PT&A, my wife and I have always commented on how dour Martin's wife in the movie is. The scenes with her just seem tonally off. Come to find out, there's a whole thing cut out of the movie where she is suspicious he's having an affair, and he's faking not being able to get home.

You could make the case somewhat for Only the Lonely being a serious performance. At least that's how I remember it. It has silly/funny moments but had plenty of serious, too. JFK had Candy in a flamboyant role but he certainly wasn't playing for laughs. I would say he was good in both. 

[Stefanie Sparkleface]

11 minutes ago, Tabe said:

You could make the case somewhat for Only the Lonely being a serious performance. At least that's how I remember it. It has silly/funny moments but had plenty of serious, too. JFK had Candy in a flamboyant role but he certainly wasn't playing for laughs. I would say he was good in both. 

Yeah Only the Lonely definitely counts, I think.

[elizium]

For Uncle Buck to work, you definitely need him to be able to believably carry some of the melodrama. I think Candy is someone who absolutely could have had a John Goodman type career if he was a little better at choosing some of his roles.

[J.T.]

On 11/4/2023 at 2:07 PM, Lawful Metal said:

Did anyone love the Creator as much as I did?

Yes!  I thought there were some bits that were a tad ham-fisted but overall I enjoyed the movie.

[Contentious C]

Stuff.  Things.  Movies.

Aftersun - Whooooof.  I don't know that this is particularly worth reviewing in a traditional sense.  It's one of those films that's either going to bounce right off you or hit you where it hurts.  For me, it nearly did both, since the first 15 minutes are sloooooooooooow.  But, if slow cinema is your thing, and all the unspoken pieces of this are experiences you can empathize with, it settles in and really connects.  The look and feel of the movie are rather nice, too, but it makes you wonder if Charlotte Wells has anything in the tank for an encore.  Time will tell.

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri - Jesus, if there's a more misunderstood movie in the last 20 years...I think this will probably settle in right next to American Beauty as a film people put out of their minds because it hits too goddamn close to home, if anything.  I know people like this.  I grew up around people like this.  And no, contrary to what some might say, the lesson of the story isn't "white supremacists are people, too"; it's a shitload twistier than that.  The film starts with an act of dehumanization that is almost too awful to talk about until someone *does* talk about it, and the town's response?  To...dehumanize the person who speaks out.  And that act spins out into more awful treatment, and that awful treatment spins out into more, and more.  And *THAT* is the motherfucking point of the movie: once you've started Othering and Us-versus-Themming and escalating, where does it stop?  How do you stop wallowing - drowning, even - in your own grief and rage and impotency long enough that you see those "Others" are often suffering in similar ways - that maybe they don't feel *your* pain, per se, but that their pain defines them as much as yours defines you?  How do you de-escalate and see the humanity in someone else, even if their actions have only served to aggravate you? 

So no, the way this ends isn't a "redemption arc"; it's a big, long, murky, snowy path 'forward' where the right way isn't always obvious and sure as shit isn't easy.  When someone's "redemption arc" involves suggesting a cross-country trip to murder a dude, there's not a lot of "redeeming" going on.  It's just...trying to put one foot in the right place, one time, and then trying to do it again.

Maybe this isn't a review so much as it's a response to the vitriol the movie has garnered, but damn, a lot of people whiffed on this.  Not sure it was the best movie of 2017, but for my money, I would have handed it Best Picture over The Shape of Water.

Werewolves Within - OK, let's face it, you and I only watched this because Milana Vayntrub (Lily from the AT&T commercials) is adorable in it.  That's fine.  But hey, it's full of other faces you'll recognize from the last 5 or so years of every TV show and indie movie you've seen, too, perhaps most recognizably Glenn Fleshler of True Detective fame.  It's...just OK sometimes, but it feels like it's trying to do too many things at once.  Hey!  Here's a little Edgar Wright!  Hey! Here's some Clue!  Hey! Here's a Thing reference!  But it never feels enough like itself.  Gotta say, though, that one line about "Werewolves are real," etc. was some cold-blooded shit to say.  Hope Milana gets more starring roles.

Streetwalkin' - OK, the Girldads who aren't fond of grimy 80s B-movies can click the Back button.  This is...actually kind of all right?  But it's strange.  Why did I even watch this, you ask?  Well, I clicked through Roger Corman's production credits, thinking I was looking at what he directed, and I thought to myself, "He directed a movie about hookers?" He didn't, but then I saw MELISSA FUCKING LEO as the main character and I had to watch.  This is like a Sleazeball Funhouse Mirror version of The Man in the Moon here, where she's out-acting everyone just like Reese Witherspoon did in her movie.  No huge surprise there.  But there are a few others from the period who do pretty well with the material, like Khandi Alexander and Julie Newmar, of all people.  Dale Midkiff is sort of the Big Bad here, but he's not as consistent, though still miles better than I'd seen him in anything else.  What's maybe a little disappointing about it is that the plot is just on rails.  The opening scene is as fucked-up and disturbing as anything in the movie, because you know what's coming down the pipe as a result, but then the film just...hops forward, and there are no really gross, morally bankrupt bits where we see the downward spiral begin.  A movie like Lovelace, with Amanda Seyfried, didn't shy away from that stuff like this does.  I mean granted, you don't *really* want to watch that kind of thing, but it's also the part of the story that would arguably be most compelling, and we get none of that.  Still, though, Melissa Leo is the best.

Fast & Furious - A...a what? A movie in this franchise that isn't awful? Then again, I'm essentially bored to tears by what this franchise stands for: convincing an entire generation of dumbasses that these movies are something to live up to (or worse yet, treating them like they're documentaries), rather than just being an overpriced car commercial. I live near at least one goddamn waste of skin who acts like he wants to be an extra in one of these movies, and frankly I'd love it if he got blown up in some drug tunnels.  But back on track, I gotta say I kinda like it when a plot gets grumpy and dark and testy and people's minds go to bad places, even if it's Vin Diesel trying to do the heavy lifting.

And for once, the Paul Walker Memorial Terrible Fucking Actor in the F&F Franchise Award doesn't go to a main character (Walker/Gibson/Buck for the first 3, for the record): it goes to Gal fucking Gadot, who is a really special kind of awful here. Hasn't even figured out how to deliver lines that you can hear or understand. When she and Diesel get a scene together, it's sad to watch Vin act circles around her (then again, he can act circles around people: just watch Multi-Facial sometime, the more pressing question is often, 'Why not do it consistently?').

Best line in the movie: "Don't shoot the boss, idiots!"

3 minutes later: 'Well, T-boning the boss into a multi-flip rollover can't be that bad...'

Edited November 9, 2023 by Contentious C

[Curt McGirt]

On 11/9/2023 at 12:07 AM, Contentious C said:

OK, let's face it, you and I only watched this because Milana Vayntrub (Lily from the AT&T commercials) is adorable in it. 

Damn you... yes. But yeah, she deserves more roles, period.

Thunderbolt is really fun and George Kennedy is a real scum in it. It's a vintage heist role like Peter Boyle in The Friends of Eddie Coyle or even Pete Postlethwait in The Town; everybody is a villain but there is one dude that is quietly, cruelly treacherous and comes off way worse than the rest. 

Eyes of Laura Mars was picked out by Mario Cantone (along with Magic, which I still like even if you don't) for a horror night on TCM recently and I got through about 15 minutes before cancelling the contract. Just, no. I can see why the super gay comedian would pick something so openly garish and fashion-oriented, and it was an American giallo, but as soon as I saw Brad Dourif looking like the ultimate red herring and Tommy Lee walking around as a stalker it was over. Carpenter HATES what they did to it.

[Contentious C]

Magic?  I don't know what that means.  If you mean the Anthony Hopkins movie, I've never watched it.  I even did a term search here and the only use of it I found in a title was Practical Magic, which, frankly, if you liked it I would never speak to you again, and the Kidman/Bullock film also seems like the kind of thing Mario Cantone would think is a horror movie, because he's a motherfucking talentless doofus.

But I'll check out Magic sometime.  Eventually.

Edited November 10, 2023 by Contentious C

[odessasteps]

It seems like Magic has come up before, in various threads. I’m sure we’ve had a discussion before about creepy ventriloquist dummy movies before. 

[Curt McGirt]

Yeah, I coulda swore you made a negative review on it. SOMEone must've, because I was kind of shocked. It seems to be well-loved, and has great performances from Hopkins, Ann-Margret, Burgess Meredith, and a young Ed Lauter of all people. 

[Contentious C]

There's still time to take a shit on it!

[Curt McGirt]

It does feature a split-personality Tony Hopkins turning into a potty mouth killer doll with a separate voice and everything. Your mileage may vary. 

Edited November 11, 2023 by Curt McGirt

[Curt McGirt]

Just an FYI, on Night Flight TV (yes, this exists, and you can sign up for like $1 a month) there are gonna be 10 El Santo films that got new English versions done up on commission from Robert Rodriguez for El Rey (which, yes, still exists and is also showing them). 

[driver]

Did a double feature of The Passenger and The Killer. Mid 70s Jack can't be beat. Loved The Killer. A nice slow burn and the use of The Smiths makes it that much better.

[Contentious C]

OK, yeah, I've been on a bit of a binge lately.  But I just signed up for an Apple TV free trial and I figured I should watch the 7 and one-third films they have in their catalog before it runs out.

I already talked a little about The Marvels elsewhere, but it's probably going to be divisive, and I'm OK with that.  It's whatever, I had a good time.

Fingernails - Considering all the horror movies Jessie Buckley has starred in, this is just about the kindest way she could end up missing half her fingernails.  I worried this would be as gimmicky as The Lobster but without any of the substance; this may actually be more gimmicky, but it treads rather different waters. The brilliance of The Lobster is in how absurd the concept is, but that the entire world has embraced it so completely that their actions and choices are equally (if not more) absurd. It leaves you, the Only Sane Person Involved, with a lot to ponder.

Fingernails...well, it doesn't do that. It's murky and contradictory, trying to pin down certainty out of an emotional state that, oddly enough, fills so many of us with an undeserved level of certainty. But it also feels more than a little immature; it's closer in most respects to a teenager's idea of being in love than what it's like to be in a real, healthy, strong relationship that recharges you and helps you move forward. There are hints that Jeremy Allen White's character is in that place, even if no one else is, but he's never the focus long enough to actually develop any real sense of what he feels, and moreover, what Buckley's character might be sacrificing. So it just doesn't feel all that lived-in or authentic, even if the acting is usually terrific and that one line at the end is going to probably keep this movie quoted until the end of time.

The Pigeon Tunnel - Rather early on in The Pigeon Tunnel, David Cornwell draws an important (at least to him) but perhaps false distinction between the "duped" and the "joiners": the dupes like his father's financial victims and debtors, or Nicholas Elliott; or the joiners like himself or his frequently-dark reflection in the film, famous traitor Kim Philby. He admits to seeing through his father's nonsense from an early age, and recounts a number of stories where, as time wore on, his recidivist pops tried to convert him from carny to mark. Some of them even worked, to at least some small degree.

Of course, there is a problem with this, one that Errol Morris never quite grapples with - perhaps to let us reach that conclusion ourselves, perhaps because he doesn't quite have the nerve to pose the question to Cornwell, a man who worked a double-agent job, wrote a double-agent career, and, according to his most recent biography, slept his way through a pair of double-agent marriages. 

It's brought up in passing, once, in regards to Elliott's betrayal by Philby, but it doesn't expand outward: at its core, the carnies have to make marks of themselves to believe they can pull it all off. The joiners dupe others by first believably duping themselves. There's no logical reason why one cannot be both the duper and the duped; it's a false dichotomy, but one that's maintained, often for the vanity of all parties involved. And it's impossible to shake the feeling that Cornwell - le Carre, whatever the Hell he wanted to call himself, not that it particularly matters considering his opinions on human nature - was as gifted at duping himself as he was at any other task in his life.

CODA - OK, yeah, this wasn't even the best film on Apple TV with a 2021 release date, let alone Best Picture for that year.  Then again, Drive My Car was never going to win, so I have to appease myself with the minor injustice of merely Best Foreign Film.  But this is...it's still really fucking good.  I very much get some of the criticisms some might have: visually, it's nothing to write home about.  It's just another indie movie for the most part in terms of how it's shot, and that's fine.  It looks at times a little like Manchester by the Sea, but hey, that's Massachusetts as seen from a boat, I guess. But the story is just a good, old-fashioned tearjerker, and if you're in the mood for a misty living room, this will more than get the job done.  Emilia Jones does a great job, she has oodles of chemistry with basically everyone in the cast but especially her crush, played by Ferdia Walsh-Peelo from Sing Street, which is a lucky bit of casting, since the movie revolves around their various missed opportunities.  Not worth paying for Apple TV by itself, but very much worth burning the free trial to watch it.  Though I don't know if I should dock it for the use of "Both Sides, Now" by Joni Mitchell as a sort of cheap emotional blackmail.

Flora & Son - I caught a trailer for this I don't even know when - Cocaine Bear? - and it's a John Carney movie, so, given my love for Once, I had to see this since it's on Apple, too.  And WHAT THE FUCK?!?!?! More of "Both Sides, Now" as cheap emotional blackmail?  Really?  Am I going to watch fucking Beastie Boys Story and hear them gush about how Joni changed their careers?  What the fuck.  I actually haven't watched Sing Street or Begin Again yet, so I can't really say how this compares to *everything* Carney has directed, but it's definitely a couple steps off from Once, which had better music and better performers; this film may have real actors, but it feels like musical talent shines through and is rewarded more than acting ability in Carney's films, if this is any indication.  The music is...OK, sometimes pretty interesting, and the story hangs together well enough, but it's rather reliant on being cute and heart-warming rather than being those things as well as really well-done.

The Tragedy of Macbeth - OK, here's the best film on Apple TV from 2021.  Kind of irksome, actually, that something as genuinely boring as Nightmare Alley was got a BP nom and this got skipped.  There are problems I have with it: they try to jam the whole play into an hour-forty-five, and it means Denzel is speed-reading some of his lines, and that isn't great if you're hearing-impaired or just not used to listening to Shakespeare.  And I really wonder if there will ever be someone who really, truly nails Lady Macbeth, because Frances McDormand gives it a shot but still doesn't really work.  Another issue is that the both of them feel just too old for this; granted, there's very little sense of the passage of time, like Macbeth is king for maybe a year, but one of the crucial points of the play is the notion of him having no heirs, and casting younger actors might have made it more plausible to think time would pass, where they would try (and fail) to have any (or anymore) children of their own.  Having a couple of 60-year-olds as your leads means that horse already bolted the barn.

But GODDAMN if this doesn't look amazing, and if it isn't the creepiest, awfulest, most demented thing Joel Coen's done since No Country for Old Men.  The performances are mostly great, and, although I've never seen Welles' film adaptation - with the paper crown and everything - I get the sense that, if he'd been making movies now instead of then, this is the way he would make Macbeth look.  The black-and-white is a nice choice, but it also feels like a capitulation to some degree, since Justin Kurzel's 2015 version is, frankly, about the most spectacular looking Bard-based film this side of Ran, and Coen wasn't going to top it in color.  Very much worth checking out, though.

Edited November 12, 2023 by Contentious C

[odessasteps]

If you didn’t know, Welles version was filmed on a B movie  western set. It was for Republic Pictures and a shoe string budget might be an understatement. But he makes it work (said as an admitted Welles mark). 

[Curt McGirt]

12 hours ago, Contentious C said:

But it also feels more than a little immature; it's closer in most respects to a teenager's idea of being in love than what it's like to be in a real, healthy, strong relationship that recharges you and helps you move forward.

Looking at the premise again, it feels more like a 12 year old's, if not a 9 or 10 year old's secret wish for finding your true love. It seems really silly. And here's another thing (and maybe this gets explained): If you finally get around someone who's your true love after the fingernail's already off, does your finger glow like E.T. or something? You have to fuck 'em first, maybe? Does it take a couple of dates, or do you have to propose? What if you end up just finding the right pet? 

See?

Edited November 12, 2023 by Curt McGirt

[driver]

Hard Rock Zombies, this little gem from 1985 has zombies, a rock band and a rock band full of zombies, plus a whole lot more(including a lot of run time padding). It's like a fever dream.