2024 MOVIES DISCUSSION THREAD

[Curt McGirt]

Here's what Wiki says: 

Spoiler

On January 14, 1979, DeSimone's wife, Angela, reported him missing. She said she had last seen DeSimone a few weeks earlier when he borrowed $60 from her.[12] It is believed that DeSimone was murdered as revenge for the two unsanctioned murders of John Gotti's men, Bentvena and Jerothe.[10][13][14]

When Hill became an FBI informant in 1980, he told authorities that DeSimone had been murdered by the Gambino family. Despite the oft-given date of death of January 14, 1979, the exact date of DeSimone's murder is uncertain. Hill claimed that in "the week after Christmas", he and Burke had gone to Florida to straighten out a drug deal gone bad. DeSimone had remained behind in New York, having been told in late December 1978 or early January 1979 that he was going to be made.[7] Peter Vario (Paul Vario's son) and Bruno Facciolo took him to an unknown location, where he was murdered. Hill also indicated in both the book Wiseguy and the DVD commentary to Goodfellas that DeSimone had already been killed when Martin Krugman disappeared on January 6, 1979. In 1994, Hill, in his book Gangsters and Goodfellas, gave an expanded story of the events leading up to DeSimone's death, which was in part due to DeSimone's attempted rape of Hill's wife, Karen.[15]

Two theories about DeSimone's alleged murder and murderer(s) exist from mob "insiders". According to mob informant Joseph "Joe Dogs" Iannuzzi, Thomas Agro claimed in 1985 that he had murdered DeSimone, as well as his brother Anthony after he turned informant. Agro also suggested murdering the eldest and last remaining brother, Robert. According to Ianuzzi, Agro would often laughingly refer to killing the third DeSimone brother, stating: "Maybe it's time to go for the DeSimone trifecta!" Another account, told by Hill in Gangsters and Goodfellas, states that Gotti himself was the assassin, although in the presence of Agro. On May 17, 2007, episode of The Howard Stern Show, Hill reaffirmed that Gotti had killed DeSimone. He also added that the death "took a long time", as Bentvena had been a personal friend of Gotti's, and he wanted DeSimone to suffer before he died. Gotti's role as the assassin was repeated in the 2015 book The Lufthansa Heist, co-written by Hill and journalist Daniel Simone,[10] although this account claims that DeSimone's death was instantaneous from three gunshots to the head. According to Sal Polisi, DeSimone was killed by Agro (in the presence of Gotti), and that Agro slowly tortured him to death.[16]

It has been theorized DeSimone is buried in The Hole, a suspected "Mafia graveyard" on the Brooklyn-Queens border near Kennedy airport, where the body of Al Indelicato was found in 1981 and where the bodies of Philip Giaccone and Dominick Trinchera were recovered by police in 2004.[17][18]

After I saw the bolded I went to Karen's page.

Spoiler

Henry Hill wrote in his 1994 book Gangsters and Goodfellas that Tommy DeSimone tried to rape Karen while Hill was in jail.[4] Karen was meanwhile having an affair with Vario. After DeSimone attempted to rape Karen,[5] one theory is that Vario reportedly took revenge by telling the Gambino crime family that DeSimone was the one who killed made man Billy Batts. They in turn killed DeSimone.[6]

Hoo boy. That... would explain it. 

Edited February 20 by Curt McGirt

[Contentious C]

Haven't done one of these in a while.  You can read the "Stuff" thread to guess why.  Life stinks, and so do movies, sometimes.  But sometimes they're great, too.

Past Lives - If I'd paid closer attention to this film's synopsis, maybe I wouldn't have been so excited to finally watch it. It's hardly a new sort of story; after all, I lived my own and wrote about it, too.

The first bit of this that really grabbed me by the scruff and made me take notice was the tiny argument about first- and second-place in school; right out of the gate, it was like reliving a chunk of my past. Hmmm, if I'm Contentious C, then, well, let's call my old friend "Fanciful F". She and I routinely traded best and second-best test grades, fastest answers, the occasional wicked second-grade barb, and maybe an Eskimo kiss or two. When I wrote my graphic novel about my relationship with F, this was one detail I had omitted, but it's one that definitely rings true, so good on Celine Song for putting it in her rendition.

There, things diverge as they (evidently have to) do. F and myself were younger when we separated, and I was the one who left. But, as so many of us probably have done, social media helped us find a way back; in our case, it was the long-ago Before Times of Myspace, along with several paragraphs of prose so purple it would make any film review I ever write look drier than a rice cake left in the sun. It worked, though, maybe because F was in a bad place and because my message arrived a day or two before her birthday.

Three months later, just before my birthday, we saw each other again for the first time in 18 years; by New Year's Eve, she finished rebounding out of her prior relationship and moved on from me, punching an F-shaped hole out of my heart.

When I wrote my graphic novel the following spring, I gave Anna and Adam a better ending than either of us got, maybe a better one than poor Hae Sung and Nora, as well. Ultimately, it's not really possible to expect anything as brave and brash as true love from someone so far back in your past. It becomes a high wire act, at best, to truly love them for them, rather than clumsily grasping for evidence of the infallible caricature you've loved from a distance for decades of your life. Eventually, their faults come to the fore, and that's when, in the immortal words of Liz Phair, you know that the problem is you.

But still, it's good to know things like this are out there, and that they happen all over the world to all sorts of us.

Even if, after another 18 years, they still hurt sometimes.

What about the movie, you say?  Yeah, watch the movie, and bring some Kleenex.

Drugstore Cowboy - Interesting but borderline inessential if you've seen any significant amount of Gus Van Sant's output.  In a number of different respects, this feels like a dry run for the superior My Own Private Idaho, and it helps the latter film that he pulled a story from Shakespeare rather than a contemporary novel.  Having said that, it was funny as Hell to catch the goofs in this film: it's set in 1971, but in the first pharmacy, they're standing at a comic book rack that has "Zell: Sworddancer" on it, and man, does the obviously-not-1971 art style jump off the frame at you.  Plus, Matt Dillon's bandage is literally on-again, off-again in the silliest possible way.  How long are you going to keep your head bandaged like that for a scalp wound?  The acting is fine; it's one of Dillon's better roles, and one of Heather Graham's better Ubiquitously Dead Girl turns.  But ultimately, James Le Gros is the only one who looks like he could be a drug addict; everyone else is too fucking glamorous, especially Literal Goddess Kelly Lynch.  But if a story about being so strung out that you don't want to make it with her doesn't get people to skip drugs, there's no hope for addicts anywhere.

The Black Hole - *Late in the film* Wait, did Maximilian just punch VINCENT with his robot dick???  *scans back and replays*   Holy shit, he did!

Still, this is an absolutely dreadful wannabe Star Wars/Star Trek pile of garbage with Low-Rent Captain Ahab as the baddie, and virtually every moment of it is a masterclass in how to fail at "Show, Don't Tell" (other than that fucking bonkers ending). The miniatures are something, though.  But even though this is a bit under 100 minutes, it's so full of bad exposition dumps, "action" moments that are information-free, and bad plotting that it feels like 100 minutes underwater.  Between this and the even-more-dreadful The Visitor, 1979 must have been the nadir for shitty rip-offs.  I blame George Lucas.

Black Snake Moan - I'd tried repeatedly to watch this and could never really get past the opening half-hour. This feels like Sam's Last Gasp, one of the only roles he had left where he wasn't just "Sam Jackson as" and instead inhabited the character as intended. Of course, it doesn't hurt to run most of the film opposite Christina Ricci, who is mostly great in this and keeps the proceedings on course (and may also be the hottest sweaty person ever).

But...then there's the rest of it. The plot's lifeless when it has to swing back to Timberlake et al, and there is that more-than-troublesome first half-hour. Its message tries to be hopeful but in the most patriarchal way possible, stepping on its own tail in the process. The music bits are nice, but the intercalating footage breaks up the flow too much when it shows the second time; it could have just been skipped altogether.  So yeah, this is all right. Just depends on what you're watching it for (hopefully more than just boobs, because, c'mon, just go elsewhere for that).  Not the best example of anyone doing exploitation-with-a-twist.

Kiss Me Deadly - ...because maybe this is?

I don't know.  This is one of those movies, like The Rules of the Game or The 400 Blows, where I don't think I'm ever going to be able to appreciate it like I should.  Pulp Fiction - one of this film's most obvious descendants?  Yeah, I got that head-to-toe right out of the gate; it's easy to contextualize because I lived then and the movie does feel and has felt lived-in.  But it seemed like every time I read what someone else had to say about this ball-buster of a movie, there was another layer of the onion being peeled, another detail I couldn't parse because my post-modern-film-drenched brain couldn't see how the cold open or the ending or the characterization or the genre subversions were different, because films like this launched that kind of cutting, self-referential, "turn the funhouse mirror back on society's ugliness" filmmaking.  I've watched the movies this engendered my entire life, and now all its innovations seem utterly normal.  I guess that's the biggest tip of the hat of all to Robert Aldrich: changing someone's perspective without that person ever knowing.  Watch this, watch this, watch this.

Edited February 20 by Contentious C

[odessasteps]

I remember my major issue with Kiss Me Deadly being the weirdness of transplanting Mike Hammer from grim and grittty NY to sunshiny LA.

but it does have young Cloris Leachman.. 

 

Edited February 20 by odessasteps

[Brian Fowler]

Yeah Black Snake Moan is well acted and well made, but I couldn't shake the feeling throughout the movie that the film itself thought kidnapping a woman and chaining her to a radiator because she slept with multiple men or whatever was a morally good thing to do.

[Curt McGirt]

4 hours ago, Contentious C said:

the even-more-dreadful The Visitor

So pissed to actually order this and watch it. It was a recommendation from a website! Who would recommend THAT? 

 

[HarryArchieGus]

On 2/20/2024 at 2:05 PM, Contentious C said:

Haven't done one of these in a while.  You can read the "Stuff" thread to guess why.  Life stinks, and so do movies, sometimes.  But sometimes they're great, too.

Past Lives - If I'd paid closer attention to this film's synopsis, maybe I wouldn't have been so excited to finally watch it. It's hardly a new sort of story; after all, I lived my own and wrote about it, too.

The first bit of this that really grabbed me by the scruff and made me take notice was the tiny argument about first- and second-place in school; right out of the gate, it was like reliving a chunk of my past. Hmmm, if I'm Contentious C, then, well, let's call my old friend "Fanciful F". She and I routinely traded best and second-best test grades, fastest answers, the occasional wicked second-grade barb, and maybe an Eskimo kiss or two. When I wrote my graphic novel about my relationship with F, this was one detail I had omitted, but it's one that definitely rings true, so good on Celine Song for putting it in her rendition.

There, things diverge as they (evidently have to) do. F and myself were younger when we separated, and I was the one who left. But, as so many of us probably have done, social media helped us find a way back; in our case, it was the long-ago Before Times of Myspace, along with several paragraphs of prose so purple it would make any film review I ever write look drier than a rice cake left in the sun. It worked, though, maybe because F was in a bad place and because my message arrived a day or two before her birthday.

Three months later, just before my birthday, we saw each other again for the first time in 18 years; by New Year's Eve, she finished rebounding out of her prior relationship and moved on from me, punching an F-shaped hole out of my heart.

When I wrote my graphic novel the following spring, I gave Anna and Adam a better ending than either of us got, maybe a better one than poor Hae Sung and Nora, as well. Ultimately, it's not really possible to expect anything as brave and brash as true love from someone so far back in your past. It becomes a high wire act, at best, to truly love them for them, rather than clumsily grasping for evidence of the infallible caricature you've loved from a distance for decades of your life. Eventually, their faults come to the fore, and that's when, in the immortal words of Liz Phair, you know that the problem is you.

But still, it's good to know things like this are out there, and that they happen all over the world to all sorts of us.

Even if, after another 18 years, they still hurt sometimes.

What about the movie, you say?  Yeah, watch the movie, and bring some Kleenex.

 

Certainly Past Lives could be considered overrated, but at the time of it's release it felt refreshing to have a popular movie for Adults. I thought there was a lot to like. 

Quote

Drugstore Cowboy - Interesting but borderline inessential if you've seen any significant amount of Gus Van Sant's output.  In a number of different respects, this feels like a dry run for the superior My Own Private Idaho, and it helps the latter film that he pulled a story from Shakespeare rather than a contemporary novel.  Having said that, it was funny as Hell to catch the goofs in this film: it's set in 1971, but in the first pharmacy, they're standing at a comic book rack that has "Zell: Sworddancer" on it, and man, does the obviously-not-1971 art style jump off the frame at you.  Plus, Matt Dillon's bandage is literally on-again, off-again in the silliest possible way.  How long are you going to keep your head bandaged like that for a scalp wound?  The acting is fine; it's one of Dillon's better roles, and one of Heather Graham's better Ubiquitously Dead Girl turns.  But ultimately, James Le Gros is the only one who looks like he could be a drug addict; everyone else is too fucking glamorous, especially Literal Goddess Kelly Lynch.  But if a story about being so strung out that you don't want to make it with her doesn't get people to skip drugs, there's no hope for addicts anywhere.

 

I'd argue Mala Noche, My Own Private Idaho and Drugstore Cowboy are the Essential Van Sant. I'm a fan of latter day Van Sant too, but it's a bit more hit and miss. Commercial fare and slight experiments with varying degrees of success. As a long time fan and champion of Drugstore, I feel the complete opposite of your review. ‘The acting is fine’? I agree Lynch is a beautiful woman, but she's a perfect dirtbag here. Matt Dillon defines the term heroin chic. This movie doesn’t require you to know the context and that era, but it might help provide some much needed respect for what they accomplished. Strong finish to to a pretty careless review.

Quote

Kiss Me Deadly - ...because maybe this is?

I don't know.  This is one of those movies, like The Rules of the Game or The 400 Blows, where I don't think I'm ever going to be able to appreciate it like I should.  Pulp Fiction - one of this film's most obvious descendants?  Yeah, I got that head-to-toe right out of the gate; it's easy to contextualize because I lived then and the movie does feel and has felt lived-in.  But it seemed like every time I read what someone else had to say about this ball-buster of a movie, there was another layer of the onion being peeled, another detail I couldn't parse because my post-modern-film-drenched brain couldn't see how the cold open or the ending or the characterization or the genre subversions were different, because films like this launched that kind of cutting, self-referential, "turn the funhouse mirror back on society's ugliness" filmmaking.  I've watched the movies this engendered my entire life, and now all its innovations seem utterly normal.  I guess that's the biggest tip of the hat of all to Robert Aldrich: changing someone's perspective without that person ever knowing.  Watch this, watch this, watch this.

Glad you gave this one some attentiion. Rules and 400 Blows, depending on your french, might require a couple views to sync the story with the visual and legendary performances. At least, that was the case for me. Rules in particular is a tricky first watch. The version I first saw was a Criterion VHS with a bonus feature at the end. The bonus broke down the scene in which the host showcases his toys. A fascinating breakdown that made me realize I’d missed at least one very key scene. I watched it a second time soon after and thoroughly loved it. It’s not an easy film, but well worth giving attention to. Again, it's very visual, and reading subs on first view really pulls away from the attention to detail required.

I love Truffaut and 400 Blows was a delight for me from first viewing onward. I’d already devoured a little of his catalog before seeing it. Day for night was my introduction. Blows is a movie that gets better every time I go back to it. If you’ve only seen it once I have a feeling giving it an encore might surprise you. It might also lead you down the path of the entire and excellent Antoine Doinel trilogy. 

Edited February 21 by HarryArchieGus

[Curt McGirt]

Seeing a movie like Drugstore as a kid out of nowhere on IFC where the film was firmly on the side of the antiheroes and showed them getting away with shit was pretty different. It still feels pretty different. 

[Contentious C]

I never said Past Lives was overrated.  Where did I say this?  It's always funny when people read what they want into things, instead of things I said.  Whatever.  I have better things I ought to be writing anyway.

Edited February 21 by Contentious C

[Travis Sheldon]

The Black Hole remains a Sci-Fi classic, to me.

Love the cast, a great score by John Barry, and loads of great special effects work.

@Contentious C mentioned the Star Trek/Star Wars influence, which is true, but the screenwriters had to have been influenced by 2001 with the ending.

I can understand how one can dislike the pacing and (non-) ending, but it works for me.

 

[HarryArchieGus]

6 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Seeing a movie like Drugstore as a kid out of nowhere on IFC where the film was firmly on the side of the antiheroes and showed them getting away with shit was pretty different. It still feels pretty different. 

I’m with you, but it’s not without a pretty serious price. 

5 hours ago, Contentious C said:

I never said Past Lives was overrated.  Where did I say this?  It's always funny when people read what they want into things, instead of things I said.  Whatever.  I have better things I ought to be writing anyway.

I was sharing my own opinion. And where I thought you might be going. Apologies for the corrected and misleading quotation mark. 

I just read your review in full and really liked it. Thanks for sharing. 

Edited February 21 by HarryArchieGus

[Cobra Commander]

Watched Oppenheimer (streaming on Peacock!) and I suspect if the Academy Award taste for awarding movies about movies set during the 1940/50s red scare hold up, Oppenheimer wins all the Oscars (it'd have a pretty good shot even without that habit, unless there's a movie about movies in the running that I forgot about)

[Curt McGirt]

Fun fact: Harry Dean Stanton was 53 already when he did Alien. 53.

[Mike Campbell]

Since I enjoyed Mission Impossible III so much, I've been making my way through the rest of the series.

 

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol - Not nearly as good as MI: 3, but still a good action movie. The plot device of the whole IMF Team being disavowed harkens back to the original film, and the scene of Ethan climbing the windows the ridiculously high hotel buidling is one of the best scenes in any of the films.

 

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation - Another great entry in the series, with tons of callsbacks to the other films in the series. The Alec Baldwin Character talking about the NOC list from MI 1 and then the last movie with the explosion in the Kremlin. The Syndicate is definitely reminiscent of SPECTRE from the Bond series, and I mean that in the best possible way. Great scenes at the Opera and the underwater scene where Hunt has to switch out the secuity credentials. And an awesome twist at the end where it's learned how the Syndicate came to be, and the villain actually being captured and not killed.

 

Mission Impossible: Fallout - Hands down my new favorite of the series. If only the Owen Davian character had been allowed to live, he'd have fit right in with this Syndicate group. My wife was decribing it as if it was a movie where I was actually the agent. With every possible thing going wrong and mucking things up. The only thing that I could have done without was the constant questions with who is really on who's side. I'm still not entirely clear if the Henry Cavill character was actually CIA or really just a Syndicate operative.

[Curt McGirt]

According to my TV guide's description of Godzilla vs. Megalon, Gigan is "a big black chicken".

...

[Contentious C]

On 2/21/2024 at 12:25 PM, Travis Sheldon said:

The Black Hole remains a Sci-Fi classic, to me.

Love the cast, a great score by John Barry, and loads of great special effects work.

@Contentious C mentioned the Star Trek/Star Wars influence, which is true, but the screenwriters had to have been influenced by 2001 with the ending.

I can understand how one can dislike the pacing and (non-) ending, but it works for me.

 

If it's influenced by 2001, it's shoddy.  It feels less like that and more like an attempt to smuggle religion into a space story, which is part of why I compared it to The Visitor.  I get how it could be a "this walked so X could fly" kind of film, and I definitely wish the film industry didn't CGI everything into oblivion, but at the end of the day, any film that could have changed its name to The Plot Hole and rendered itself a thousand-fold more descriptive is one I'm not going to enjoy (and I say this as someone who likes Man of Steel, FFS).

[caley]

On 2/17/2024 at 1:53 PM, Mike Campbell said:

A guy I'm friendly with made the proclamation that "Hereditary" is the scariest film made in the last ten years. So, since it was streaming on Max, I fired it up on Thursday night after the rest of the family had gone to bed. It's not a half bad film, and I've always been high on Toni Colette, but at no point did I think it was scary. It had a few scenes that definitely grab your attention, but that's pretty much it. 

This is really a 'Hate It or Love It' movie, I think. I watched it and kind of loved it and was unnerved by it and thought it was a particularly effective scary movie (Maybe not 'greatest director of our times' good but...). My friend and his wife saw it and HATED it, didn't find it entertaining, scary, upsetting or anything. My mom (HUGE fan of Halloween movies (not the franchise, I mean, more like Halloween-season movies:  Christine, Addams Family, The Shining, Silver Bullet etc.) but not necessarily gory/horror films was completely non-plussed by it. 

On 2/18/2024 at 4:33 AM, Mike Campbell said:

I fired up Mission Impossible III last night, since I've had the Blu Ray box set for close to four years and have only ever seen the first two. And holy shit, I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to do it. Easily my favorite of the first three films so far. Philip Seymour Hoffman is the best antagonist of the first three films by a freaking kilometer. And I'm seriously sad that his character wound up dying, because of how great he'd have been as a Blofeld sort of recurring villain for future movies. And the scene where Hunt is making his escape through the elevator shaft and takes over the radio frequency and plays a loop of "We Are Family" over the Walkie Talkie had me laughing my ass off.

My sister was a HUGE Felicity fan at the time this came out and went to see it with her now-husband and the scene where they

[spoiler]set off a bomb in Keri Russell's head[/spoiler]

came and went and she whispered to him "Do you think she's ok?" and he went "Considering her eyes are pointing in two completely different directions...I don't think so." ad THAT is the onlly thing I can remember about the movie.

I watched 

[b]Borderline[/b]: I thought this was going to be a semi-gritty smuggler Film Noir with Claire Trevor and Fred MacMurray, but it was more like a drug-smuggling 'It Happened One Night'. This was rather innocuous and somewhat dull but it does feature the single WORST musical number I've ever seen with Trevor trying to seduce Raymond Burr which should be funny but the dancing women are completely out of rythym and sound like squawking chickens. So it's worth a watch for that alone!

[b]Black Widow[/b]: This one the other hand was a great little murder mystery. Van Heflin is Broadway writer who strikes up a friendship with a young female writer and offers her support (All the while keeping his wife in the loop about it) and even letting her write at his place during the day. Of course, she ends up dying and, of course, he ends up being the suspect and gradually all his friends (Reginald Gardiner and a scenery-destroying Ginger Rogers) and his wife ( Gene Tierney) start to suspect him as he runs around NYC trying to stay ahead of the police (George Raft) and clear his name. I was genuinely surprised at the murderer's identity (But maybe I'm just easily misled) and thought it was fun little flick that I haven't seen discussed much.

[b]Abraxas[/b]: The Jesse Ventura as a space cop one with (thankfully) Rifftrax commentary. This movie was SO full of made-up sci-fi terms and legends and the like, that 60% of the movie was like reading installation instructions in another language. On the IMDB trivia page it says that the lead role was offered to Arnold Schwarzenegger before he opted to do 'Terminator 2' instead as if that was any sort of choice. Like if someone came up to you and offered you dog poop on a stick and instead you went out and bought ice cream I guess it's technically a choice. but not really.

[b]The Super Mario Bros Movie[/b]: This was okay, as a "Hey there's one of those things" nostalgia movies but as an actual story it didn't really have any weight to it. All the crises last about 2 minutes (He's going to have to fight DK, done. They crashed off the track, done. She's gonna have to marry Bowser, done.) even the big final showdown was like "Eh" (He doubts he can beat Bowser, he hears one of his commercials, he gets inspired to beat Bowser). I'm not sure I've ever seen a big blockbuster movie that was so...light?

[b]Smiley Face[/b]: I'm not sure I've hated another movie as much as this one in a while. Anna Faris is a pothead who ingestsa lot of marijuana, then seeks out to make money to replaceit, then just meanders from one thing to another. I'm not a pot-smoker, but not against stoner comedies/movies- heck- my favourite movie is The Big Lebowski!- but this was basically pointless. The big climax was stupid, the denouement was pointless. Anna Faris was reasonably funny in the lead, and you can tell someone saw John Krasinski as Jim playing Dwight and said "Do that but for a whole movie" and that's fine, but if you don't see this, you're really not missing anything. Actually, hate is really not the right word because there's really not enough to hate. It's just kind of fluff. Pointless fluff. Pointless, unfunny meandering fluff. Maybe hated is right.

 

Edited February 25 by caley

[odessasteps]

Happy 47th birthday Slap Shot 

 

[Contentious C]

9 hours ago, caley said:

[b]Abraxas[/b]:  Like if someone came up to you and offered you dog poop on a stick and instead you went out and bought ice cream I guess it's technically a choice. but not really.

The producers of this film would like to inform you that the stick was, in fact, made of ancient, petrified dog feces.  *sad trombone*

Also, as I sit here and watch the last Mission: Impossible movie, I realize Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames (and to a lesser extent, Simon Pegg) are so damn old they're going to have to call the next movie Mission: Incontinent.

Edited February 26 by Contentious C

[Mike Campbell]

9 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Also, as I sit here and watch the last Mission: Impossible movie, I realize Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames (and to a lesser extent, Simon Pegg) are so damn old they're going to have to call the next movie Mission: Incontinent.

When I was watching M:I Fallout last weekend, my first reaction to seeing Ving Rhames was "Wow, age is not being kind to him." It was like seeing Q out of breath and popping pills in The Living Daylights.

[HarryArchieGus]

16 hours ago, caley said:

This is really a 'Hate It or Love It' movie, I think. I watched it and kind of loved it and was unnerved by it and thought it was a particularly effective scary movie (Maybe not 'greatest director of our times' good but...). My friend and his wife saw it and HATED it, didn't find it entertaining, scary, upsetting or anything. My mom (HUGE fan of Halloween movies (not the franchise, I mean, more like Halloween-season movies:  Christine, Addams Family, The Shining, Silver Bullet etc.) but not necessarily gory/horror films was completely non-plussed by it. 

There's a lot to like with 'Hereditary'. Strong performances, especially Collette, and a strong visual style - as is Ari Aster's MO. That said, I challenge the praise for a movie with that flimsy ending. Aster's follow-up 'Midsommar' also had a lot to offer - more so technically. It may be my personal aversion to Horror (in general), but it seemed to provide nothing but a dreadful feeling coupled with emptiness. It's the opposite of what I want from a movie. Strangely, his most recent 'Beau's Afraid' actually mostly worked for me. There seemed to be a much needed sense of humour at play. Not so goddamn serious. Perhaps a missing element of at least Midsommar. Beyond his movies, Ari Aster is a great historian and orator of Film History. He's nowhere near my list of Greatest Directors of this time, but nonetheless he's a great film conversationalist in interviews. I wouldn't mind being championed by Marty either.

[Curt McGirt]

He did Beau Is Afraid? I might have to watch that then, got it on the DVR. The scene that I saw where he was looking at his mom's tribute wall and the old girlfriend (I guess) showed up was just too fucking sad for words so it's just been sitting there.

[Curt McGirt]

For your Slapshot: 

Spoiler

 

[Curt McGirt]

Finished watching The Drop this morning. Tom Hardy plays Bob, a bartender at the place of his cousin Marv, played in his last role by James Gandolfini. Bob is seemingly a simple kinda character, the guy who never gets the joke and acts kinda slow. Marv is a ten time loser at gambling so his bar is owned by Chechens now and is used as a floating money drop in Brooklyn. It gets robbed by some doofuses under Marv's direction and you can guess where things go from there. In the meantime, Bob finds a dog in a trash can, takes it home and the lady whos trash it was in forms a friendship with him. 

Pretty good movie that's really dependent on its acting, and Tom is such a good fucking actor who can do so much with so little. The big reveal for his character and the dialogue before, during, and after it feels like a moment where you could drop a dime in a crowded room and hear it hit the floor. It may be kinda obvious, but the way they pull it off is *chef's kiss*. Noomi Rapace as the tough but vulnerable love interest and Matthias Schoenaerts as her psycho ex are also great. But the final leg on this table is Gandolfini who like in the prior year's Killing Them Softly feels like a man who's ran out of time, bitter at his choices and the results, done with caring and ready for -- if you'll pardon the pun -- the other shoe to drop. It makes you wonder about his passing not long after.

[caley]

1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

Finished watching The Drop this morning. Tom Hardy plays Bob, a bartender at the place of his cousin Marv, played in his last role by James Gandolfini. Bob is seemingly a simple kinda character, the guy who never gets the joke and acts kinda slow. Marv is a ten time loser at gambling so his bar is owned by Chechens now and is used as a floating money drop in Brooklyn. It gets robbed by some doofuses under Marv's direction and you can guess where things go from there. In the meantime, Bob finds a dog in a trash can, takes it home and the lady whos trash it was in forms a friendship with him. 

Pretty good movie that's really dependent on its acting, and Tom is such a good fucking actor who can do so much with so little. The big reveal for his character and the dialogue before, during, and after it feels like a moment where you could drop a dime in a crowded room and hear it hit the floor. It may be kinda obvious, but the way they pull it off is *chef's kiss*. Noomi Rapace as the tough but vulnerable love interest and Matthias Schoenaerts as her psycho ex are also great. But the final leg on this table is Gandolfini who like in the prior year's Killing Them Softly feels like a man who's ran out of time, bitter at his choices and the results, done with caring and ready for -- if you'll pardon the pun -- the other shoe to drop. It makes you wonder about his passing not long after.

I'm up and down on Dennis Lehane stuff (love Gone Baby Gone, meh on Mystic River) but this was one where the book (or was it a short story? I forget...) actually added some much needed context for the peripheral characters like how the ex=boyfriend had been so badly abused that you could at least comprehend -while not condoning= what an awful person he was. Hardy was amazing though

[Curt McGirt]

Apparently it was initially a short story titled "Animal Rescue" and expanded into a novelization by Lehane after the movie came out.