Movies 2025 Movie Discussion Thread

[Andrew POE!]

6 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Oh, and definitely watch Malcolm X -- or just read The Autobiography of Malcolm X (a book which frankly changed my whole life perspective). 

There's only so many hours in the day for me to watch stuff.

[Andrew POE!]

Speaking of which, movies today....

Bunker (Mubi, leaving on 6/30) - 2/5 stars

Spoiler

Boring middle aged men with existential crises and subscriptions to Prepper / Survival magazines were a mistake.

Bunker as a documentary has the director visiting various subjects that all have bunkers or live in bunkers. Cinematography is relatively the same and seems to have a few repeating shots. As a documentary, it's somewhat dull. Thankfully, the director doesn't provide commentary on the subjects and instead let's them speak for themselves.

The first vignette showing a company making bunkers while people stare listlessly at their phones was the best one. The subject never talks to the director Jenny Pilan, they just go about their day while what they do is recorded.

The rest of the vignettes are basically a variation on the same theme: let's have a bunker because of some unknown disaster that we think will occur.

The second vignette had people with a stick up their ass about their location being recorded. The third vignette had a guy that was woefully unprepared but seemed more personable. The fourth vignette had a guy I would hang out with and smoke weed with while watching Easy Rider. The fifth vignette is an asshole with a bitcoin and trying to sucker people into coming to his "fortitude ranch." The final vignette seemed to have an awesome fully functional place although the dude was a bit of an ass (willfully watching FOX News means his brain is mush).

Yeah, don't give your kids "Doomsday prepper magazines," this is what they turn into.

28 Years Later (saw in the theaters) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Having not seen 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later, I had no connection with going into 28 Years Later. The story starts with young kids watching Teletubbies as 'zombies' attack the mother with Jimmy running away into a church and hiding under the floor.

From those introductory scenes, 28 Years Later will be a messed up movie.

We go to 'present day' as there is a small isolated community on an island - part The Last of Us and part Midsommar. Spike (Alfie Williams) is to undergo a trial with his father Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) that involves going onto the main land and earn his first kill. During the expedition, Spike isn't able to kill a zombie and his father has to do. Their journey conjures memories of The Road with they hiding out in a barn and eventually having to get back with an "Alpha" on their trail.

They celebrate Spike's 'success,' even though he doesn't feel it was earned. The celebration is something out of Shaun of the Dead with people downing pints and Jamie being very drunk. In the meantime, Isla (Jodie Comer) is ill and Spike asks his dad about taking her to a doctor. Jamie wants Spike to ignore the fire from a camp (where the doctor is) and to forget about it.

Eventually, Spike takes his mother on a journey to meet the doctor using a fire as a distraction.

28 Years Later as a movie is mostly about two journeys. The first journey resembles The Road while the second journey resembles The Book of Eli. Isla, Spike and Erik (Edvin Ryding) come across a pregnant infected that gives birth to a healthy baby - there is pure Grapes of Wrath imagery as Isla holds the baby. Isla and Spike meet Dr. Kelson (Ralph Fiennes), who is a bit mad yet kind. In a nice darkly nod to Hamlet, Dr. Kelson holds Erik's skull and says "Alas, poor Erik, I knew him well."

As a character, Spike is searching for sanity in this world where there is none.

In a lot of ways, 28 Years Later is a metaphor for post-Covid, post-Brexit, post-Westernized world of England. The mainland of England is completely cut off from the rest of the world; Spike and his community operate in isolation, albeit not purposely. It's almost like the scene in The Village where we find out the village is near a national park.

The ending of the movie is a bit infuriating as Jimmy and his group of Jimmys appear to help Spike kill zombies, appearing like football hooligans from Shaun of the Dead. The movie ends with a promise of a sequel, meaning this isn't the end of the story.

I did like quite a few of the technical aspects of the movie. Danny Boyle used a lot of different camera setups for the movie - like the camera mounted to the baby carrier and the quick cuts to other scenes that seem to be almost “out of sync” with the time period of the story (until we find out later their significance). For example, Erik and his squad seemed like something that happened 28 years earlier but is in fact part of the current time period.

I also liked some of the cinematography choices made - the Shell station with the removed “S,” a zombie with a…long stick (someone watching this movie will make a porn parody soon) and the Stonehenge-like monument of skulls.

Even then, 28 Years Later is a decent zombie survival story.

Brokeback Mountain (saw in the theaters) - 5/5 stars

Spoiler

Watching Brokeback Mountain for the first time, I was struck at how similar it was to another movie I saw recently: The Last Picture Show. In that movie, teenagers find love and sex completely destroy them in a small Texas town. With this, love and sex completely Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) in small town Wyoming and the namesake mountain.

The thing with this movie is these two men are broken people even before they meet up. The movie starts with Ennis arriving at an office trailer for a job detail he's doing - his walking through small town Wyoming didn't feel that dis-similar to Jeff Bridges when he strolled through in black and white.

Like the two characters from The Last Picture Show, women seemingly encircle them on account of their swagger, shyness, and good looks. Ennis marries Alma (real-life wife Michelle Williams) and Jack marries Lureen (Anne Hathaway).

What's interesting is the progression of time through the movie reminded me of another romantic film with Texas in the background: Giant. In some ways, Ledger's portrayal of Ennis matches a bit with James Dean's portrayal in Giant. Ennis finds himself unable to understand himself and why he keeps going back to Jack while taking Alma for granted throughout the movie. Ennis as a character bottles up the trauma and the repression and heartbreak throughout the movie; for example, his story about seeing a man being killed and forced to see it from his father. We see what happened in flashback as a young Ennis is pulled along to witness the aftermath. He divorces Alma, dates Cassie (Linda Cardellini) but breaks up with her to never re-marry.

The flipside to that is Jack Twist. Jack never feels completely comfortable or in control. He talks throughout the movie to Ennis about starting up a ranch for just the two of them. His relationship with Lureen is at a disadvantage; she is more powerful than he is financially and socially. One scene that stands out to me was Thanksgiving dinner. Lureen's father (Peter McRobbie) stands up to turn on the television for football and Jack walks over to turn it off. They go back and forth until Jack explodes on him.

I almost wonder if Lureen was aware of Jack's trysts. Jack goes to Mexico and ends up going somewhere with a guy he meets. One of the husbands that Jack meets at a party propositions him with a similar idea that Jack has with Ennis. In the scene where Lureen says that a 'tire exploded in Jack's face' and then we see Jack being killed by several men, I almost wonder if Lureen knew the truth from the way she speaks to Ennis about what happened. Ennis just had to know what happened based on the trauma that was shared with him.

Throughout the movie, the cinematography is incredible - especially in the mountain regions and evokes the cinema of John Ford. There really isn't a wasted shot with the early scenes as Jack and Ennis go through the region herding sheep.

Although some story aspects were a bit underdone and Ledger's dialogue as Ennis was sometimes unintelligible (if you can understand Boomhauer, you can understand Ennis), Brokeback Mountain is a great character driven drama.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Peacock, leaving on 6/30) - 3.5/5 stars

Spoiler

Beneath the road trip approach and questionable approach to queer/drag queen characters, there's a message about accepting yourself for who you are and finding happiness for yourself where you are.

Terence Stamp as Bernadette, Hugo Weaving as Antony/Mitzi Del Bra and Guy Pearce as Adam/Felicia has somewhat of a snippy yet protective friendship with each other as they ride in a bus dubbed "Priscilla" from Sydney to Alice Springs for a show.

Stamp and Bill Hunter as Bob had great scenes together and a healthy respect for each other.

I finally got to see this after seeing ads/trailers on MTV growing up.

 

[odessasteps]

Priscilla would be an interesting double bill with To Wong Fu, given the similar premises and rough,the same time period. Not seen either prob since they were released.

[Curt McGirt]

It's been awhile, but I distinctly recall feeling like one of the wives definitely knew about what was going on between the two of them in Brokeback. Don't remember which one though. 

[Mister TV]

Just looked over what was all nominated for the 1997 Oscars and ouch! That As Good as it Gets, The Full Monty and Good Will Hunting all got nominated for Best Picture over Jackie Brown and Boogie Nights is just wrong. Same with Jack Nicholson winning Best Actor over Robert Duvall for The Apostle and even Peter Fonda in Ulee's Gold. Totally forgot that the actors in L.A. Confidential didn't get nominated for anything!

[Andrew POE!]

2 hours ago, Mister TV said:

Just looked over what was all nominated for the 1997 Oscars and ouch! That As Good as it Gets, The Full Monty and Good Will Hunting all got nominated for Best Picture over Jackie Brown and Boogie Nights is just wrong. Same with Jack Nicholson winning Best Actor over Robert Duvall for The Apostle and even Peter Fonda in Ulee's Gold. Totally forgot that the actors in L.A. Confidential didn't get nominated for anything!

I reviewed As Good As It Gets not that long ago and I thought it was decent, but a lot of it wouldn't work today. The romantic subplot wouldn't have been done today.

I have Good Will Hunting on Blu Ray but I remember that Robin Williams was the heart of that movie. Maybe I need to rewatch it for my insanity of daily movie watching lol. 

I haven't seen The Full Monty, The Apostle or Ulee's Gold. Well, I guess I need to lol. 

Edited June 23 by Andrew POE!

[Andrew POE!]

1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

It's been awhile, but I distinctly recall feeling like one of the wives definitely knew about what was going on between the two of them in Brokeback. Don't remember which one though. 

Spoiler

It was Michelle Williams' character first then Anne Hathaway's character. She seemed too aloof, too specific, too rehearsed, and too cold for it to be a freak accident and especially the way she told Ennis too. 

 

[Technico Support]

2 hours ago, Mister TV said:

Just looked over what was all nominated for the 1997 Oscars and ouch! That As Good as it Gets, The Full Monty and Good Will Hunting all got nominated for Best Picture over Jackie Brown and Boogie Nights is just wrong. Same with Jack Nicholson winning Best Actor over Robert Duvall for The Apostle and even Peter Fonda in Ulee's Gold. Totally forgot that the actors in L.A. Confidential didn't get nominated for anything!

Looking at what the Academy decided to give an award to (purely PR/keeping up the academy's vision of "Hollywood") vs what truly was good is always going to piss us off. 

As Good As It Gets: I enjoyed it at the time but haven't seen it in probably 27ish years.  Your typical "screwed up people trying to get by"/fish out of water thing.  Would it hold up if I watched it today?  Maybe.  Unless I rewatched it and hated it, I'd rank it second, behind Boogie Nights, among the six films you list here.  Damning with faint praise, though.

Full Monty: heart warming, lightweight, foreign film gimmickry that the academy seems to love.  Bleh.   

Good Will Hunting: two young filmmakers came out of nowhere to make...a by the numbers, cloying, weak ass film that's right up the academy's alley.  The academy loves them some flawed geniuses. 

Jackie Brown: I'm in the minority: people disappointed by Jackie Brown.  I loved Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and QT turning around and doing an adaptation instead of another person's original work bummed me out.

The Apostle: never saw it

Boogie Nights: should have won everything  

Edited June 23 by Technico Support

[Curt McGirt]

2 hours ago, Mister TV said:

Totally forgot that the actors in L.A. Confidential didn't get nominated for anything!

Now THAT is what's goddamn criminal. 

Jackie Brown is still my favorite Tarantino film, even though it's a cover version. (Unless I get to pick True Romance, of course.)

[odessasteps]

I really liked Ulee’s Gold, which was quite the renaissance for Peter Fonda. He followed that up a year or teo later with the Limey. 

[Brian Fowler]

Jackie Brown is my favorite American movie of the 90s

[Andrew POE!]

Movies today...

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

Spoiler

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler

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

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

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

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

 

[zendragon]

The Full Monty (I saw it once when it came out on VHS) is fine but kinda an odd choice for a best picture nom

[HarryArchieGus]

18 hours ago, Technico Support said:

Looking at what the Academy decided to give an award to (purely PR/keeping up the academy's vision of "Hollywood") vs what truly was good is always going to piss us off. 

It is kinda interesting the weight those Awards continue to carry with audiences considering how consistently poor the choices have been over the years. 1997 was indeed a great year in film, but add in - Abbas Kiarostami's Taste of Cherry, David Lynch's Lost Highway, and Aki Kaurismaki's Drifting Clouds. 

[Mister TV]

Was flipping through the channels last week and saw that IFC had a National Lampoon's Vacation marathon, since I'm heading off you Europe tomorrow night I decided to watch National Lampoon's European Vacation. First I remember seeing this while on vacation in Wildwood, New Jersey, and I don't think I've seen it start to finish since maybe when I rented it a year or so later, it was a staple on HBO so I remember jumping into at after it started many many times. I think I like this more than Vacation, it moves from bit to bit at a good pace, while the original drags at points, I also never found the Uncle Eddie character funny and he's not in this! Joke wise it bats around .550 and the jokes that don't land or aged aren't that bad. Also, had this been made now or they did a European sequel to the Ed Helms Vacation, they'd totally shot the whole thing in Atlanta or Vancouver, this movie actually went to London, Paris, Rome and a German speaking part of Italy. 

Staying with the travel theme I re-watched Airplane! just like European Vacation this was on premium cable a lot when I was a kid, still a fun watch and almost all of the jokes are still funny.

Last night Netflix suggested Airport, so I gave that a re-watch. This was one of the movies we played during the day at Blockbuster since it was a G, this is the horniest G rated movie ever made, yes its from 1970 and they were still figuring out the rating system, but there's some horny scenes and dialog in this that makes you go "this is a G?". It's also comically over dramatic, and extra over dramatic when Maureen Stapleton is on screen. Helen Hunt totally steals the movie and you can see why she won Best Supporting Actress for this, George Kennedy looks like he's having a blast in his role as Joe Patroni, so much that I kind of feel they gave him the contract for all the sequels when he walked off set one day, Dean Martin is cool as always but seems silly when he has to be frustrated, he calls executive types Penguins and I totally dig that term, they might as well named Burt Lancaster's character Burt Lancaster, with a few exceptions he seems to be playing Burt Lancaster in almost everything. There's multiple scenes where abortion is discussed in a manor that was surprising in today's eyes, hell even in 1993 eyes when I first saw this. It also has that cool late 60's multi box look and editing, like the Woodstock doc that came out that year.

[Contentious C]

On 6/23/2025 at 11:02 AM, Curt McGirt said:

It's been awhile, but I distinctly recall feeling like one of the wives definitely knew about what was going on between the two of them in Brokeback. Don't remember which one though. 

Michelle Williams' character pretty thoroughly impugns the moral fiber of Jake to Heath in one scene. 

Also, Kim Basinger won Best Supporting Actress for L.A. Confidential, so...someone won something. Just not Guy or Russell.

[Andrew POE!]

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

Anyway...

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

Spoiler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler

youtu.be/dXKX0o7U9D8?si=RUfoMpOYdTg0THdm

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

[odessasteps]

I'd have thought, off the top of my head, three kings was easily his best movie, and then maybe spanking the monkey or flirting with disaster. 

[Log]

Awakenings was on some channel a ton and I'd always watch it. Really love that movie. Haven't seen it in years, need to watch again.

 

[Curt McGirt]

14 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Also, Kim Basinger won Best Supporting Actress for L.A. Confidential, so...someone won something. Just not Guy or Russell.

The last time I watched it I just fast forwarded through all her scenes  The whole romantic entanglement sub-plot just seemed unnecessary to me, and felt dated too. A little too 'Hollywood' even for a film based in Hollywood, if you get my drift? Maybe the film's only flaw. 

[J.H.]

.The Intern - This a pretty sweet date movie without a romance storythread. This is a literal De Niro movie and it's charming in it's own way. Anne Hathaway is Anne Hathaway so she's solid. Strong supporting cast and the late, great Linda Lavin giving De Niro the finger make for a few laughs.

I imagine an alternate world where The Intern being a starring vehicle for Jason Statham. In that movie, Statham is the Intern for Anne Hathaway. Statham discovers that Anne's husband is cheating on her (an actual subplot of the real movie) and then Statham secretly goes to her brownstone, beats the crap outta of the husband. After the assaulting the husband asks "Who are you?"

Camera zooms on Statham who then says barely  whisper "I'm The Intern!"

Roll credits!

The actual movie is nice, inoffensive and worth watching in a "it's a weekday afternoon and it's raining" kinda way.

James

 

[Andrew POE!]

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

[The Natural]

Big breaking news, Dune director Denis Villeneuve has officially signed on to helm the next James Bond movie.

[Andrew POE!]

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

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

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

Spoiler

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

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

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

Spoiler

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Spoiler

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

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

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

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

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

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

Windy Day (Criterion Channel) - 4/5 stars

Spoiler

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

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

Utterly fascinating to watch.

 

[odessasteps]

Could be a number of us here.