2024 MOVIES DISCUSSION THREAD

[Technico Support]

17 hours ago, tbarrie said:

So are people mad because he's wasting time or because he's saving time? Make up your minds!

Maybe it's a kink...like he keeps everyone waiting, spending 8 hours in his trailer just pounding waters to get to the 30 seconds of unfathomable pleasure that is voiding himself into a Gatorade bottle.

[Curt McGirt]

Well, it definitely has a... curious... power dynamic. 

Can't wait for the BOTTLE PISSER signs to show up next time he's on Raw.

[odessasteps]

While discussing the Ex Mrs Brandon at work, I looked up what the fifth of five movies was that William Powell made in 1936. 

just a little film called Libeled Lady, with Powell, Myrna Loy, Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow. Nominated for Best Picture. 
 

I love trailers that with “our big stars are just having fun and loving life” like they’re a Michelle Mccool. 

[Travis Sheldon]

If the film he was working on was an Amazon joint, then I suppose he was trying to get into the culture.

[Andrew POE!]

Movies seen today....a bunch of mumblecore movies on Mubi.

Gabi On The Roof In July (Mubi, leaving this month)

Spoiler

Decent movie that starts out sarcastic but turns slowly serious by the end. It's like a John Cassavetes movie except everyone in the movie is not an ahole and insufferable throughout the movie.

Funny Ha Ha (Mubi, leaving this month)

Spoiler

Decent movie at times although there never seems to be any real character moments. The conversation towards the end with Marnie and Mitchell was completely uncomfortable; yet, she wouldn't tell him to get out and never see her again.

Mumblecore seems to be reduced to movies made by people who want to be Mike Leigh or John Cassavetes but have people who aren't as charismatic.

The Color Wheel (Mubi, leaving this month)

Spoiler

I like the almost Godard in the '60s style of the movie at first. Although it does become progressively awkward including the gross bit of incest at the end. Carlen Altman is quite fetching looking yet her character is a liar and potentially insane. Her brother (Alex Ross Perry) is borderline non-emotional and maybe has autism. Worth checking out.

Starting on: Little Fish (Hulu), Ishtar (Criterion), and The Silent Twins (Peacock)

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today....

Ishtar (Criterion, leaving at the end of the month)

Spoiler

There's nothing wrong with a terrible movie. A boring movie is even worse. Ishtar is a boring movie.

At first, it's pretty much the precursor to John C Reilly/Will Ferrell's comedies like Step Brothers and Holmes & Watson. It has the same kind of humor and same kind of wavelength that those movies do.

When the movie has them going into the desert, there goes any interest. This isn't to say it's not completely bad - some scenes with Hoffman/Beatty are hilarious (especially when they are wandering a market and Hoffman is following Beatty while being followed by numerous agents).

But objectively, the movie isn't any good.

 

The Silent Twins (Peacock, leaving this month)

Spoiler

Movie is at times Michael Gondry-esque with its animated and dreamlike sequences but is very much a standard biography. The ending sequence was gorgeous however; I also dug the scene where the twins try pot for the first time.

I'll seek out the director's other films; The Silent Twins is an adventurous film for the choices made although it did drag a bit.

Sun Don't Shine (Mubi, leaving this month)

Spoiler

Rather boring thriller with Malick-like voiceover sections. The movie really doesn't pick up at all until maybe the last five minutes. Kate Lyn Sheil has been in better "mumblecore" movies and Kit Gwin was great in the brief time she was in the movie. Kentucker Audley isn't very interesting as Leo.

Jeanne Du Barry (saw at the theater)

Spoiler

Movie had beautiful cinematography throughout but the story was dryly told. Maiwinn was incredible in her role as Jeanne Du Barry, but Johnny Depp was kinda handcuffed in his role (likely due to not being a native French speaker). Movie picked up in the last 30 minutes. Best scene was Jeanne watching Louis XV receiving his court behind a glass.

Post movie Q&A compared it to Barry Lyndon. Barry Lyndon it ain’t. It does do costume dramas well. A more apt comparison is to The Favourite but less offensive.

 

[HarryArchieGus]

On 5/1/2024 at 10:15 AM, Andrew POE! said:

Yeah, I wonder if La Chimera will work for me better on a repeated viewing (I'll track down the Blu Ray). What's strange for me is I dug Challengers a hell of a lot more than I did Civil War, even though the cinematography of Civil War was unmatched.

My movie watching schedule is a little intense. Basically, I get up and before work, I watch a movie. I do work stuff, but try to schedule a movie around lunch time then finish up work for the day. I finish the movie after work. I then watch two (or three if I'm lucky) movies in the evening.

For longer movies (that take two to three hours), I break it up during the course of a day. For longer than 3 hours (like Norte End of History recently), I won't watch it in one sitting and it may take multiple days. There have been instances (like The Turin Horse, Lost Illusions and Neighbouring Sounds) where it can be a long movie and completely engross me all the way through.

On Thursday - Sunday night, I try to catch movies in the theater through AMC A-List.

The main thing for me is if I find I'm getting bored with the movie on a streaming service, I take a break or in some cases, just don't finish it. Lightning Strikes Twice (which left Criterion Channel) was that way for me. The movie just wasn't appealing to me. Mubi had a few that I never finished from April as well for the same reason.

Thanks for sharing on your watching schedule. I saw Civil War today.

Spoiler

Not enough redeeming qualties to get over the gratuitous use of 'cool violence'. The De La Soul music video scene featuring uncaring violence set to a beat followed by Joel's 'What a rush' line made it difficult to really give a shit about any lives being lost going forward. The trailer misled me to believe Jesse Plemmons had a substantial or lasting role in the film. A bit disappointing, but he, Plemmons, was great in his limited role. I liked many of the performances - Dunst especially. I agree the cinematography was generally excellent. I loved those shots of the planes. I needed a thicker denser weight of dread over everything following that first explosion. I tried to get into the movie in more of a classic action/adventure Spielbergian vein, but it just felt far too hollow in the end.

 

[Andrew POE!]

12 minutes ago, HarryArchieGus said:

Thanks for sharing on your watching schedule. I saw Civil War today.

  Hide contents

Not enough redeeming qualties to get over the gratuitous use of 'cool violence'. The De La Soul music video scene featuring uncaring violence set to a beat followed by Joel's 'What a rush' line made it difficult to really give a shit about any lives being lost going forward. The trailer misled me to believe Jesse Plemmons had a substantial or lasting role in the film. A bit disappointing, but he, Plemmons, was great in his limited role. I liked many of the performances - Dunst especially. I agree the cinematography was generally excellent. I loved those shots of the planes. I needed a thicker denser weight of dread over everything following that first explosion. I tried to get into the movie in more of a classic action/adventure Spielbergian vein, but it just felt far too hollow in the end.

 

Yeah, I should note also that I won't watch movies when I'm completely wiped out or about to go to sleep. It makes it harder to maintain attention.

Spoiler

What's weird for me is I "liked" the bombing section at the start where Kirsten Dunst was hiding behind a car and the sound was completely cut out. But yeah, I can see why the violence in the movie made it difficult to care about anyone losing their lives.

I took a different approach with the movie - I wasn't looking for it to be Spielbergian like Saving Private Ryan or his version of War of the Worlds. I tried to approach it like the '70s political movies like All The President's Men or The Parallax View or even Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake or Soylent Green. The situation in general for the premise of the movie is completely fucked up and nothing will save it - except for the main character and their search for a 'truth' that's being ignored or stopped.

The problem with that approach is the politics behind Civil War weren't very deep. The reason why could be reduced to "just because." I was hoping Kirsten Dunst and the other characters with her would 'stop' the civil war. Instead, they're just added to the body count.

 

Edited May 3 by Andrew POE!

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today....

Little Fish (Hulu, leaving next week)

Spoiler

Incredible movie. While the movie doesn't spell it out, it captures the feeling a lot of us had at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic and what we were seeing, hearing, and thinking - especially during the scene where Jude and Emma pass by the guy with the sign saying "the government has the cure and are doing population control" which echoes the misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines.

What makes this movie incredible is it presents a scientific scenario and root it in reality. Movies about epidemics are more scary with stories that attempt to create actual people versus archetypes, caricatures, or stereotypes. While the characters in this movie are middle class - Emma is a vet and Jude is a photographer - I do wish there was a slight focus on how the poor or "people who weren't born on second base" would have dealt with the memory loss disease.

There were moments that were true to life - like Jude being late for a wedding and the father yelling at him, or the woman jumping off the boat upon news of successful drug trials.

I love the work that all the principal actors did in this movie - Olivia Cooke (Emma) and Jack O'Connell (Jude) especially. I'm finding myself wanting to seek out more movies with Olivia Cooke and with the director Chad Hartigan.

It's sad to me that this movie didn't generate more buzz - I guess the time the movie was released in (the start of Covid-19 pandemic) had that effect.

Don't Worry Darling (Max, leaving next week)

Spoiler

eXistenZ meets The Stepford Wives. I like what Olivia Wilde attempted, but the execution wasn't very good. Leading up to the conclusion, I thought it would be an Andrew Ryan/BioShock version of the Manhattan Project, but it was something different.

Characterization was all over the place. I sadly tried to watch this movie but got distracted several times by other people in the room talking so I couldn't keep my concentration.

Empire Of Light (Max, leaving next week)

Spoiler

Movie at times tries to do too much. It tries to be a love story with Hilary (Olivia Colman) and Stephen (Michael Ward) and tries to be a "statement of the times" clumsily comparing early '80s Britain to 2022's Black Lives Matters movement, tries to be a story about mental health with Olivia Colman and tries to be a story about cinema and only partially succeeding. The character moments in the movie are few and far between; for every moment like Hilary awkwardly reading poetry prior to a showing of Chariots of Fire and confronting the theater manager with their affair in front of his wife and the police knocking down the apartment door, there's moments where nothing substantial seems to happen. Like the projectionist telling Hilary about his son that he's never seen (which doesn't have any weight on the story at all). Or the "Welcome Back" party for Hilary (even though despite Colin Firth's character moving to another city, I would be concerned if the person involved would do something rash and ask them nicely not to come back).

Despite all of that - the cinematography stays wonderful (no wonder it got nominated for an Oscar for that). But cinematography can't do all the work - the overall movie has to grab you and the characters in the movie compel you to continue watching. I found myself caring very little for almost all the characters in the movie - even the two leads.

Empire of Light is a very gorgeous movie with a disappointing execution.

Started on Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell (Kanopy) and Do Not Expect Much From The End Of The World (Mubi). Will have to watch Inside.... soon before Sunday.

Edited May 4 by Andrew POE!

[odessasteps]

 

[Andrew POE!]

6 hours ago, odessasteps said:

 

Yeah, that was the difference for me with how Johnny Depp spoke French versus how Jodie Foster spoke French. Jodie Foster had a better ear for it and spoke it more naturally (I've seen other interviews she did in French and she sounded close to being a native speaker). Johnny Depp in Jeanne Du Barry sounded a bit stilted but still fluent - he didn't carry on full conversations, but he was barely audible and learned it a bit later in life too.

I learned French in high school and college and still can't really carry a conversation in French, so they are doing better than me.

[J.H.]

My parents, in their wisdom, sent their Dyslexic ADD riddled son to a bilingual school in NYC in the 70s. I'm convinced every teacher there were ex-Vichy regime members.

My moment of triumph came in grade 2. Still in remedial French, the assignment was to construct and recite a sentence in French, in class for the end of the week. I, being the smart Aleck 7 year old recited "Je déteste Mon professeur de Français" 

I was sent to the principals office and sat awaiting my father, who had been called in from his job in the financial district because my mom was visiting relatives in Florida.

Dad arrives. Shoots me an unamused look and asks what I did. The Principal and teacher explain and say my behavior is unacceptable. My Dad sits there for a moment and then looked Madame Whatahername (oh all teachers were referred to as Madame or Monsieur) in the eye and asks "Did he complete the assignment?"

The teacher and principal were confused and insisted that wasn't the point. So again my father asked "but did he complete the assignment?". The teacher grumpily said yes so, my father followed up with the question of "So why am I here?"

The Pass/Fail exercise was changed to Pass, despite my teacher's angry protest. To cap it off, my Dad turned to the principal and stated "For the record? I hate his French teacher too. Next time, consider if it's worth your time and mine to make me leave work before calling me".

I miss my Dad.

Now back to movie discussion!

James

Edited May 5 by J.H.

[Curt McGirt]

Was the teacher still sitting there? That would make it even better. 

[Technico Support]

On 5/2/2024 at 11:18 PM, HarryArchieGus said:

Thanks for sharing on your watching schedule. I saw Civil War today.

  Reveal hidden contents

Not enough redeeming qualties to get over the gratuitous use of 'cool violence'. The De La Soul music video scene featuring uncaring violence set to a beat followed by Joel's 'What a rush' line made it difficult to really give a shit about any lives being lost going forward. The trailer misled me to believe Jesse Plemmons had a substantial or lasting role in the film. A bit disappointing, but he, Plemmons, was great in his limited role. I liked many of the performances - Dunst especially. I agree the cinematography was generally excellent. I loved those shots of the planes. I needed a thicker denser weight of dread over everything following that first explosion. I tried to get into the movie in more of a classic action/adventure Spielbergian vein, but it just felt far too hollow in the end.

 

Anybody see “Love and Death” on Max?  Plemons was really great in that, as was Elizabeth Olson and my favorite bit player Tom Pelphrey.

Edited May 4 by Technico Support

[HarryArchieGus]

1 hour ago, Technico Support said:

Anybody see “Love and Death” on Max?  Plemons was really great in that, as was Elizabeth Olson and my favorite bit player Tom Pelphrey.

Absolutely! Love and Death was truly (and kinda quietly) excellent. I loved Plemmons and became a big fan of Ms. Olsen from her spectacular performance. Very excited to see what comes her way in the future.

[odessasteps]

When was an undergrad, you had the option of "speaking" French, "reading/writing" French or normal French. I took reading/writing, which, given all the Fench New Wave I would see, may have been the wrong option. Good for reading Caheirs du Cinema, bad for actually watching the movies.

[driver]

My only experiences "speaking" French come from two interaction a week apart in Montreal in Feb. '02. Both times were delivering an motor home to the same dealer in Quebec. The first time the desk lady was chatting to another customer in French and when it was my turn I started speaking English, she held up her index finger and somebody who spoke English came over. No problem. I was a fish out of water. I caught a cab to the bus station in Montreal from somewhere in the suburbs. I got there and when I got up to the desk at the bus station and the deskman spoke to me in French I answered "No ParleZ Vous Francais!(No Do You Speak French?)" and his reply(in perfect English) was "Oh! You're American!" LOL.
Twenty plus years later my French still sucks, my Spanish is somewhat intelligible and my English is still a garbled mess(unless I use a "vaguely"  Eastern European accent and it somehow becomes perfect). Go figure. Just felt like sharing.

[J.H.]

11 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Was the teacher still sitting there? That would make it even better. 

Oh absolutely! My Dad was very much about voicing his displeasure to your face

James

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today....

American Movie (Criterion, leaving at the end of the month)

Spoiler

When starting this movie, I thought this wasn't real. I thought it was a "mockumentary" in the style of A Mighty Wind or Best In Show or This Is Spinal Tap.

Turns out these were real people.

It's confidingly one of the best documentaries ever made. What's amazing is the final product created as part of the documentary is a standard horror movie. This isn't a film maker who is trying to do Ozu or even Brian De Palma style movies. He watched '70s horror movies and thought "I can do that!" Rather than finding professional actors, it seems to be people he knows locally and some of them aren't very good or experienced.

Mark's uncle is probably the most depressing person I've ever seen in a movie.

The Fall Guy (saw at the theater)

Spoiler

Day For Night meets ‘90s action movies.

Beyond that....I love how self-referential to other movies this movie is - where it references Memento (talking about sticky notes lol!), Notting Hill (while confusing the plot of it with Pretty Woman), and Love Actually.

It has one of the best action sequences involving a trash dumpster and Phil Collins' "Against All Odds."

Another reviewer on Letterboxd pointed out obvious issues with the story however once you begin to dwell on it a bit: there's a LOT of plot holes and a lot of "things occurring for the sake of the movie rather for the sake of the story." I somewhat thought the story would be the main villain would be bigger than Tom Ryder (Aaron Taylor Johnsen) and the producer thought it would be - a la Tropic Thunder. Instead, no, the main villain is Tom Ryder and the producer and that's it.

Mars Express (saw at the theater)

Spoiler

One of the better sci-fi movies I've seen in awhile despite the somewhat simplistic conclusion and characters. Some of the animation is a bit rough, but it was instantly compelling with the world-building and the story.

 

Edited May 6 by Andrew POE!

[odessasteps]

Most importantly, is the Fall Guy TV theme in the movie, either the original or cover? 

[Andrew POE!]

6 hours ago, odessasteps said:

Most importantly, is the Fall Guy TV theme in the movie, either the original or cover? 

Spoiler

It is. It shows up as a cover version. Also, the original actors show up in a mid-credits scene.

 

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today....

Inside The Yellow Cocoon Shell (on Kanopy, rented it for 72 hours)

Spoiler

For "slow cinema," it seems to become an excuse for a director to have non-professional actors barely perform their jobs and stretch a story out that should take an hour and half to tell to almost 3 hours. Most of the movies I have seen in this style, I liked or could find myself draw to the hypnotic flow due to how well the director did it or there was an actual story being told within that style. All above it works when the director had a point to what she/he was doing.

This movie I'm not sure what the director was doing.

Other reviews talk about how it is about spirituality during Thien's search for the husband of his sister in law's funeral. There were a lot of scenes in the last hour or so that didn't have a point. At one point he meets his ex girlfriend on a roof (is this in the past? or in the present?) and it's not well explained the timeframe this takes place. (I did dig the reference to It's A Wonderful Life and I wondered if George Bailey would have contemplated jumping off the bridge if he saw this movie) Towards the end of the movie, he meets the new wife of his brother and she inexplicably disappears and the director plays a trick with having him asleep on his bike. If you aren't explaining how what happens occurred and the audience is having to figure out how it got to that point, the movie failed.

There's other bits that just shows this isn't that great of a movie - the bathhouse scene where a mysterious hand wipes the camera lens shooting the massage table. A scene where an actor stares down the fucking lens while talking to the person in front of him (again, it goes back to having non-professional actors attempt to read lines - don't look towards the camera because that breaks the immersion of the movie!). A director trying to tell a story would have reshot those scenes and re-framed the sequence where Thien is talking to the shroud maker. But nope, let's copy Tarkovsky or Apichatpong Weerasethakul while not even making an interesting movie as the result.

Yet, the director gets an award at Cannes that should have been a participation trophy that said "You Tried." It's almost like the people at Cannes watched an hour of it, played on their phones for maybe the middle of the movie or took a nap, and woke up in the last 30 minutes to give the movie Camera D'Or. All the other movie directors in the running were like, "Fuck, why did that boring movie get it and we didn't?"

Despite all of this, the movie is shot very well and has great cinematography. Certain scenes do have tremendous atmosphere - the first hour or so does work on a lot of levels. But that's about it.

War Dogs (Hulu, leaving this week)

Spoiler

The movie tries to thread the needle of being a stoner comedy and The Wolf of Wall Street /Vice serious comedy and barely does it. Jonah Hill (Efraim) is unable to be likable in this movie and it's no surprise if he screws over his partner David (Miles Teller) but how he screws him over. Ana de Armas is the best part of the movie - she can facilitate between emotions throughout her scenes. She deserves to be in a better movie.

The last 30 minutes of the movie work really well.

A lot of the problem with modern "based on a true story" movies is it eventually runs out of ways to tell its story. The same story beats seem to occur throughout a lot of them. War Dogs is a product of other movies in this style without adding anything new. The introductory scene was the lone difference where David breaks down the cost of outfitting military personnel.

Kid-Thing (Mubi, leaving next week)

Spoiler

Having seen the latest movie from the Zellner Brothers, Sasquatch Sunset, Kid-Thing could function as a 'prequel' on some level. Instead of documenting sasquatches, the movie almost functions as a documentary on another creature: a 10-year old kid.

Growing up in the South, I knew kids like Annie in this movie. Their parents were absolute shit at doing anything and were largely absent from their kids' lives. They were completely negligent, then acted surprised when their kids would act like psychopathic/sociopathic monsters at schools.

The movie is fascinating in the fact that this kid is completely isolated: she steals things, smashes a neighbor's birthday cake and steals a present, is given an opportunity to help someone but thinks there's a catch to it despite the person being completely helpless.

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (saw at the theater)

Spoiler

Saw this in theater today and had to deal with a kid screaming during 20th Century Fox/LucasArts logos and the opening scrawl, so that ruined the mood for me.

Movie looked incredible in a theater. The pod racing section is still great.

The Conjuring (Max, leaving this week)

Spoiler

Beginning of the movie was a tad slow and borderline uninteresting. The '70s style decor and clothing design was hard to gauge.

However, the last hour or so really makes it worth watching.

I'm not really a horror fan. I find that horror movies seem to not be so much scary as they are exercises in jolting the audience. The Conjuring is definitely scary and so much of the horror of the movie is implied rather than shown.

I saw Annabelle a couple of years ago and didn't like it. But I found I liked this a bit.

Ape (Mubi, leaving next week)

Spoiler

Movie is literally Joker (2019) except the main character doesn't end up in Arkham Asylum. A few things happen apparently. I liked how the intro scene shows up later but from a different angle.

 

[driver]

I watched Unfrosted yesterday. It was silly fun.

[zendragon]

better or worse than Rob Zombie's Munsters (which I found to be silly fun)

[odessasteps]

When I read that last night, I thought it said Apu (as Sanjit Ray) not Ape.