Movies 2025 Movie Discussion Thread

[(BP)]

Outside of Sidney Poitier and Danny Glover, Black leads were often aged out of action/adventure roles at like the midpoint of their careers and usually became character actors playing police chiefs or mayors. Sam Jackson sort of broke that mold, but he also didn’t become a star until middle age and has basically looked the same for forty years. 

[Curt McGirt]

Dunno where this should go, but found out that Lars von Trier has Parkinson's and got moved into a care facility recently.

[J.H.]

Well Roundtree was in the 2000 Shaft, as the original no less. Also appeared in the 2019 version but the less said about that the better. What the continuation were missing wwre the grit of NYC in the 70s. Sadly, Ernest Tidyman died in 1984 and Gordon Parks in 2008. While Parks appeared in the 2000 Shaft, part of me wishes he had been a consultant.

James

[Andrew POE!]

I really need to watch the other two Shaft movies Roundtree did before I go through the remakes. I looked at my review and the conversation with @J.H. from last year and smiled.

[odessasteps]

I will repeat my perhaps hot take that the theme from Shaft’s Big Score (by OC Smith) is better than the Issac Hayes Shaft theme. 

[(BP)]

Roundtree’s a lot of fun in Q, but of course he’s overshadowed by Michael Moriarty and David Carradine both being utter maniacs. 

[J.H.]

17 hours ago, Andrew POE! said:

I really need to watch the other two Shaft movies Roundtree did before I go through the remakes. I looked at my review and the conversation with @J.H. from last year and smiled.

No one should knowingly subject themselves to Shaft In Africa, unless you are the bottom in an exclusive BDSM relationship and your Top says you must. In the event that happens, consider a new Top.

As to the "Theme From Shaft" in Big Score being better than the original... I'm just a huge fan of the original's overall soundtrack. So much good music from that record. The Babymaker was on fire in 71!

James

Edited February 20 by J.H.

[Brian Fowler]

4 hours ago, J.H. said:

Well Roundtree was in the 2000 Shaft, as the original no less. Also appeared in the 2019 version but the less said about that the better. What the continuation were missing wwre the grit of NYC in the 70s. Sadly, Ernest Tidyman died in 1984 and Gordon Parks in 2008. While Parks appeared in the 2000 Shaft, part of me wishes he had been a consultant.

James

Whatever else you can say about those two movies, I do think it's cool that they didn't remake/reboot the franchise but rather kept them in continuity and kept Roundtree in them.

[(BP)]

Getting Babygirl’d into watching awful movies is a wild concept. 

[Contentious C]

Yeah. Do what I do. Babygirl yourself into watching awful movies.

[J.H.]

"You miserable worm, youre not even worthy of licking my  booted feet... unless you watch these Joe Don Baker movies..."

The Secret Sessions of Eva Taurel!

James

Edited February 20 by J.H.

[Andrew POE!]

3 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Yeah. Do what I do. Babygirl yourself into watching awful movies.

I apparently have Babygirl'ed myself into watching awful movies. The Canyons. Nosferatu in Venice. Red One. Love Hurts. Canary Black. Jade.

I hate myself apparently.

Edited February 20 by Andrew POE!

[Andrew POE!]

Speaking of Babygirl'ing myself to watching movies, here's what I watched today:

Blaze (Criterion Channel, leaving on 2/28) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

"All you keep is the getting there.
To live is to fly
Low and high,
So shake the dust off of your wings" -Townes Van Zandt, "To Live Is To Fly"

It's quite easy to compare Ethan Hawke's Blaze to Richard Linklater. This would be due to I suppose Hawke's proxmity to Linklater from his Before Sunrise movie series and Boyhood; some of what Linklater did rubbed off on Hawke's approach for this movie.

In other ways, Blaze is a more contemplative movie and a sadder affair; Blaze Foley (Ben Dickey) is a Texas singer/songwriter who couldn't get out of the way of himself to have commercial success much less a functional career as a musician.

The story structure meanders and sometimes loses its point; much in the way of a conversation that drunkards that fancy themselves as intelligent would have. The characters in the movie including Blaze's girlfriend/wife Sybil (Alia Shawkat), Zee (Josh Hamilton) and fellow songwriter Townes Van Zandt (Charlie Sexton) stumble in and out of the story as Blaze himself stumbles around.

Oftentimes in scenes, Blaze is largely playing for an adversarial audience - he gets in a fight with a guy arguing with his girlfriend about ordering pizza on a payphone during his concert, he tries to play a bar in Chicago and no one there is interested (including a bartender claiming "you're singing a John Prine song") and the financiers of a record label (which include Sam Rockwell and Richard Linklater as oilmen) find him drunk and angry at the money lost in the endeavor.

Throughout the movie is an interview with Van Zandt as he recounts meeting Blaze and the connection as musicians they share.

For me, I loved how the movie was shot - it used a lot of natural lighting and although it's using RED digital cameras, the movie appears quite cinematic with how scenes are shot. I loved the scenes toward the end where Blaze is killed as it's interspersed with Sybil finding the house where he died in. The sound during the scene is just of Blaze's breathing his last breath as people's yelling is muffled.

Gloria (2013) (Mubi, leaving on 2/28) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

"Late that night I parked my car
Staked my place in the singles bar
Face to face, toe to toe
Heart to heart as we hit the floor" -Roxy Music, "Love Is The Drug"

Gloria does something a bit different that wasn't in a lot of movies at the time: an older/middle aged woman looking for love. After her children have grown up and she's divorced her husband, Gloria (Paulina Garcia) goes out to singles' night and catches the eye of Rodolfo (Sergio Hernandez). Gloria and Rodolfo have an "arm's length" relationship at times - with Gloria's own uncertainty due to her family and her age and Rodolfo's uncertainty due to his weight loss surgery and his family.

One thing I noticed at the start of the movie is how shots are framed with Gloria. Gloria is always shown inside a doorframe, which implies restriction. Upon meeting Rodolfo, the shots of Gloria open up; there are more mid-range shots of her as she talks with Rodolfo. I loved the scenes where Gloria is taken to "Vertigo City," an amusement park that Rodolfo owns. The camera follows Gloria as she's in a harness high in the air.

The thing about Gloria and Rodolfo's relationship is Rodolfo never lets Gloria actually meet his family. Throughout the movie, Rodolfo has phone calls with his daughters. "I can't tell them I'm with my girlfriend, they'll laugh at me, dating at my age!" Rodolfo says in one scene.

One scene that highlights their relationship is when Gloria takes Rodolfo to meet her ex-husband, his new wife, and her children. Gloria is sitting next to her ex, looking at old wedding photos, seemingly oblivious to Rodolfo. Rodolfo takes a phone call and then...disappears. In a lot of ways, I couldn't help but feel terrible for Rodolfo: he's on the outside looking in. The problem is Rodolfo's conditions for a relationship seem manipulative: he's fine with finding out about Gloria's family but doesn't really want her to know about his family. Yet he gets mad when the attention isn't focused on him. "I was looking for your light in your eyes, but it wasn't there," he says in a later scene.

Gloria and Rodolfo then try to patch it up and of course Rodolfo disappears again. This time, Gloria walks out of the hotel, hooks up with a random guy, wakes up on a beach, and does a 'walk of shame' back to the hotel.

The other thing I found interesting is when Gloria breaks things off for good with Rodolfo and throws his paintball set in the trashcan. In a striking image, Gloria holds the paintball gun in front of Rodolfo's house and shoots him with it. Rodolfo's ex (?) is shown coming out as does his daughters. In that scene, it makes me wonder if everything Rodolfo said was a lie - he's still married, he never gotten a divorce after a year of marriage. The movie never comes out and tells us, but I couldn't help to read in between the lines of the Rodolfo's behavior toward Gloria.

Also, I should mention Gloria's neighbor and his mental health issues - the movie does treat what he's going through rather meanly but he did give her a cat and the gift of weed.

The ending has Gloria at a wedding and dancing to her namesake song, losing herself.

In a lot of ways, Gloria is very much a standard melodrama with some interesting shot compositions and an unique premise. I'll see the American remake with Julianne Moore as Gloria soon (probably next month or later next week).

Armand (saw in the theaters) - 3/5 stars

Spoiler

Armand is proof that parents thinking their children are 'little angels' isn't an uniquely American phenomenon.

Renate Reinsve plays Elisabeth, a single mother of Armand; Elisabeth is noted throughout the movie as being an actress. What noticeable with the movie is we never seen Armand or Jon on-screen. Is Armand a bully and a terror? It's not known. Did Armand witness spousal abuse on Elisabeth when her husband was alive? That's not known either. Did the parents of Jon - Sarah (Ellen Dorrit Petersen) and Anders, owner of a jazz festival T-shirt (Endre Hellestveit) - sexually abuse Jon? That's not going to be known as well. Did Jon make the whole thing up? You get the picture.

Armand delves in more questions than answers at times.

The thing to keep in mind when watching this is Elisabeth begins to experience psychosis or quite possibly is suffering from an unknown trauma. What is brought up quite a bit is Armand is acting out something with his behavior - he's shown his penis to other classmates and he's had 'other situations' (that apparently the hapless school administrators didn't think warranted action) until the incident with Armand and Jon. If a child is acting out from something that's going on in their lives, who's to say an adult like Elisabeth isn't either?

Elisabeth has a long uncomfortable laugh that leads to her crying. At one point in the movie, she begins to act out a dance with the custodian, as she pulls her own hair and dances as though someone else is controlling her. She has parents touching her in an extended sequence as she tries to get away - then the parents go outside due to the fire alarm going off (again) and act like everything's fine. Did they pulling on her and touching her actually happen or was it in her head the whole time?

While this is going on with Elisabeth's possible psychosis, Sarah and Anders have a discussion in a classroom with a projector emitting a blue light. According to color theory, a blue light symbolizes order and trust; yet the director Halfdan Ullmann Tondel has anything but that in their conversations. Is there something more going on than what Sarah leads on? During the rain storm scene, Sarah and Anders come out last and Anders goes under the shelter. Yet Sarah is sobbing in the rain. Did she confess to something to the administrators and to Anders?

Whatever it is, it leads to Sunna (Thea Lambrecths Vaulen) telling Elisabeth the school owes her an apology.

With Armand as a movie, I loved the cinematography choices throughout the movie. The movie uses soft focus lenses, has naturalistic lighting and noticeable usage of handheld camerawork. I especially loved the camerawork in the scenes where the camera goes past the administrator and Sunna as they are in a conversation and then 'spins around' with a cut to shoot them in the opposite direction. There's a nice usage of dolly zoom as Elisabeth is walking down a hallway - I also love the camera angle used as Elisabeth is running down the hallway after a psychotic (?) episode.

As mentioned, what weakens the movie a bit is the unclear conclusion to what happened, but I do wonder if that's the point. We're not supposed to know if Armand is innocent or guilty or if Jan is innocent or guilty; we're only supposed to know that their parents think their child is innocent or guilty. School administrators like the ones depicted in this movie really don't have a plan; they are just mitigating lawsuits or harmful press coverage. After all, if parents complain enough about The Bluest Eye or Native Son or It Can't Happen Here being on the school library shelves, administrators will acquiesce with the hope that the parents will go away.

 

[J.H.]

It dawned on me after using the Joe Don Baker joke that the Forrester family's abuse of their employees is the audience at large watching an ongoing "Babygirl" relationship.. kinda...

Yes, MST3K! The Cinematic equivalent of going to The Vault in the 90s!

James

[odessasteps]

I was expecting to read about the Paul Newman movie Blaze. 

[J.H.]

Just now, odessasteps said:

I was expecting to read about the Paul Newman movie Blaze. 

Me too!

I started reading the review and was like "when is POE going to mention Paul Newman?"

I've never felt more like Milhouse waiting for Itchy & Scratchy to get to the fireworks factory!

James

[Andrew POE!]

I wasn't aware there was a movie with Paul Newman called that. I guess I'll add that to the list of movies to watch along with Shaft's Big Score, Shaft In Africa, and the two more recent Shaft movies.

[J.H.]

1 hour ago, Andrew POE! said:

I wasn't aware there was a movie with Paul Newman called that. I guess I'll add that to the list of movies to watch along with Shaft's Big Score, Shaft In Africa, and the two more recent Shaft movies.

*waving my hand like I'm doing the Jedi mind trick*

Shaft and Shaft's Big Score are the only Shaft movies. There are no other Shaft movies!

James

[Zimbra]

I think Shaft 2000 is fine, if totally unnecessary.  At least we get a pretty good Jeffrey Wright performance out of it.  And isn't it always nice to see Lynne Thigpen?

 

Might as well put this here: Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson signed over creative rights for James Bond to Amazon/MGM, so expect to see some real dogshit out of that.

[(BP)]

Every jerkoff who’s written a teen Bond boarding school book has their fingers crossed. 

[The Natural]

James Bond's long-serving producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson give control to Amazon:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1mn9gz5x3mo

I have a real bad feeling about this.

[Curt McGirt]

I don't know why you'd make the Blaze Foley movie when the Townes movie is right there.

[Curt McGirt]

Also, you are gonna have to explain to me what getting Babygirl'd is

[Andrew POE!]

1 minute ago, Curt McGirt said:

I don't know why you'd make the Blaze Foley movie when the Townes movie is right there.

Charlie Sexton was absolutely perfect as Townes. I would go to see a Townes Van Zandt movie too.

[The Natural]

2 hours ago, Zimbra said:

I think Shaft 2000 is fine, if totally unnecessary.  At least we get a pretty good Jeffrey Wright performance out of it.  And isn't it always nice to see Lynne Thigpen?

 

Might as well put this here: Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson signed over creative rights for James Bond to Amazon/MGM, so expect to see some real dogshit out of that.

 

1 hour ago, (BP) said:

Every jerkoff who’s written a teen Bond boarding school book has their fingers crossed. 

 

1 hour ago, The Natural said:

James Bond's long-serving producers, Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson give control to Amazon:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1mn9gz5x3mo

I have a real bad feeling about this.

Spinoff: Odd Jobs with Oddjob.

Edited February 20 by The Natural