Jump to content
DVDVR Message Board

AUGUST 2015 MOVIE THREAD


Rev Ray

Recommended Posts

First Bad Words and This Is Where I Leave You and now The Gift.  Jason Bateman = Super Actor?  Who knew?

'This Is Where I Leave You' is one of those movies that's really predictable and, objectively, kinda shitty that I will watch every single time it comes on our movie channels.  A big part of that is Bateman, but Adam Driver and Timothy Olyphant are totally compulsively watchable actors, too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

To be fair I *hate* The Breakfast Club, so that strengthens our bond :)

What the fuck.

 

I was OK with the movie until the "change yourself to fit in" stuff started.  I have the same problem with Grease, if it's any consolation.  Grease is so much easier to sing along to, though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know that shit isn't gonna last though. Those kids are gonna ignore each other as soon as Monday starts and she'll be back looking scruffy and stealing from her parents' liquor cabinet. The point of the movie to me has always been these people realize their inherent similarities based on a temporary situation, but in a larger social setting it'll be back to normal... but like anyone who's shared some serious shit, they'll run off to go smoke some weed together behind the scenes. Or fuck. 

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

At 8%, RT has convinced me that I can skip FF this weekend in favor of The Gift which looked pretty formulaic in the trailer yet apparently rules all.

 

I thought the same thing after watching the trailer play before two movies. I wouldn't mind seeing The Gift if I can.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Watching Showdown in Little Tokyo on Blu-Ray and I remember reading several stories over the years where Tia Carrere famously refused to do nude scenes in that film and had a major fight with the producers and director over it, and eventually won out and they hired a rather famous Asian porn actress to serve as her body double.

 

But I find that hilarious given that for the last third of the movie, she's wearing a white tank top with no bra and you can clearly see her tits for about the last 20 minutes of the film.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Watching Showdown in Little Tokyo on Blu-Ray and I remember reading several stories over the years where Tia Carrere famously refused to do nude scenes in that film and had a major fight with the producers and director over it, and eventually won out and they hired a rather famous Asian porn actress to serve as her body double.

 

But I find that hilarious given that for the last third of the movie, she's wearing a white tank top with no bra and you can clearly see her tits for about the last 20 minutes of the film.

And, she eventually posed for Playboy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

Watching Showdown in Little Tokyo on Blu-Ray and I remember reading several stories over the years where Tia Carrere famously refused to do nude scenes in that film and had a major fight with the producers and director over it, and eventually won out and they hired a rather famous Asian porn actress to serve as her body double.

 

But I find that hilarious given that for the last third of the movie, she's wearing a white tank top with no bra and you can clearly see her tits for about the last 20 minutes of the film.

 

And, she eventually posed for Playboy.

 

and no one cared.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

Watching Showdown in Little Tokyo on Blu-Ray and I remember reading several stories over the years where Tia Carrere famously refused to do nude scenes in that film and had a major fight with the producers and director over it, and eventually won out and they hired a rather famous Asian porn actress to serve as her body double.

 

But I find that hilarious given that for the last third of the movie, she's wearing a white tank top with no bra and you can clearly see her tits for about the last 20 minutes of the film.

 

And, she eventually posed for Playboy.

 

and no one cared.

 

I wouldn't go THAT far (she looked really good, surely in part to PB magic), but it certainly was one of those "now that my star has faded" moments.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Who was the Asian porn star body double?

Time frame makes me think it must've been Kobe Tai.

It wasn't. The name is buried somewhere in a discussion on IMDB but it wasn't Kobe Tai.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

After sitting through both Drinking Buddies and Frances Ha recently, I've started to develop an intense dislike for the whole Mumblecore/"I just turned 30, what do I do with my life" film genre.

 

I really can't wait until Greta Gerwig and some of these other Mumblecore actors/writers hit 40, to see what they turn out.  Presumably, the movies will be a lot like Greenberg except that Gerwig herself will be in the Greenberg role, rather than playing the love interest.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After sitting through both Drinking Buddies and Frances Ha recently, I've started to develop an intense dislike for the whole Mumblecore/"I just turned 30, what do I do with my life" film genre.

 

I really can't wait until Greta Gerwig and some of these other Mumblecore actors/writers hit 40, to see what they turn out.  Presumably, the movies will be a lot like Greenberg except that Gerwig herself will be in the Greenberg role, rather than playing the love interest.

 

I really liked Drinking Buddies, but Happy Christmas was not a very good movie. I think I also watch only 1-2 of these types of films a year, so I think that helps too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I saw Cop Car last Friday, sort of on a whim. I really didn't know much about it, but the Alamo Drafthouse folks recommended it, and they usually know what they're talking about. I really liked it. The initial build-up is spot-on, with kids daring each other to do things and getting more and more bold. There are multiple intense moments involving cars and guns where you think something is going to go wrong. The climax is maybe a little over-the-top but not completely out of line with the overall story arc. It's definitely not a car chase or rampaging cop movie.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I remember trying to watch Drinking Buddies a year or so ago and it didn't feel like a movie as much as just following around a couple of 30somethings for a few days while they did absolutely nothing interesting.  "Mumblecore" is a great way to describe the delivery on there as the characters did pretty much nothing but mutter to eachother back and forth.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Phil Spector: Pacino gives the most Pacino-esque performance ever.  It's quite funny to see him go all out even by his own standards. Mirren is really good and maybe the only one doing any real, non-cartoonish acting.

 

It's a good enough movie but the most insulting thing is when Mamet tries to suggest this blatant madman murderer isn't, you know, a blatant madman murderer. (IIRC, Mamet has said he thinks he's innocent.) He's just a harmless eccentric! You know who had a history of pulling guns on women and just happened to leave his house and tell the first guy he saw "I think I just shot someone" when this woman he brought home ended up shot in the head in his living room. I'm not Miss Marple, but come the fuck on.

 

But, yeah. OK. He's a victim of the press.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After sitting through both Drinking Buddies and Frances Ha recently, I've started to develop an intense dislike for the whole Mumblecore/"I just turned 30, what do I do with my life" film genre.

 

I really can't wait until Greta Gerwig and some of these other Mumblecore actors/writers hit 40, to see what they turn out.  Presumably, the movies will be a lot like Greenberg except that Gerwig herself will be in the Greenberg role, rather than playing the love interest.

Boy did I hate the first little bit of 'Frances Ha', it was basically a movie about these self-centered-types who I hate.  Then, about a third of the way through, I started getting totally into it and actually feeling sorry for the Gerwig character and by the end of the movie I was totally into it and ended up really loving it.  I thought they did a good job of presenting a tough-to-like character, gradually you realize how sad she is, and by the end of the movie you're kinda rooting for her.

 

 

After sitting through both Drinking Buddies and Frances Ha recently, I've started to develop an intense dislike for the whole Mumblecore/"I just turned 30, what do I do with my life" film genre.

 

I really can't wait until Greta Gerwig and some of these other Mumblecore actors/writers hit 40, to see what they turn out.  Presumably, the movies will be a lot like Greenberg except that Gerwig herself will be in the Greenberg role, rather than playing the love interest.

 

I really liked Drinking Buddies, but Happy Christmas was not a very good movie. I think I also watch only 1-2 of these types of films a year, so I think that helps too.

 

I must be the only one but I straight-up LOVED 'Happy Christmas'.  I thought it was funny, touching, maddening, and fairly realistic.

 

This past week I've watched

Ali: which I REALLY wanted to love, but came away just thinking it was pretty good.  The first ten minutes is basically flawless: with Sam Cooke performing songs in the Harlem Square Club juxtaposed with scenes of Ali meeting people and training.  But I felt like it never lived up those first ten minutes the rest of the way through until the last 15 minutes or so.  Part of the problem was the character of Muhammad Ali, himself.  Now, don't get me wrong, Will Smith does a good job, but Ali is really kinda moody, kinda mopey throughout the film.  It's really hard to believe so many people would be drawn to him, including three wives, because, the way he's presented, when he's not fighting, he really doesn't have much life in him.  So, yeah, it was good, but you could save yourself 140 minutes and just watch the first ten minutes or so and be blown away, rather than just okay with it.

 

Paddington: This was actually quite shockingly good.  It's the Paddington Bear story updated for 2015 (2014 in the UK, but per RT counts for the 2015 Poll!) with the talking bear ending up in London, looking for a home.  It's got a solid cast - Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Jim Broadbent, Nicole Kidman and Peter Malcolm/Dr. Who Capaldi - and these really great little visual moments, like a vine painted on the wall alongside the staircase that loses leaves in a crisis and flourishes in happiness.  It's silly, it's actually funny (And not in a "Haha, little kids won't get that dick joke but I did!" way so prevalent in children's films nowadays), and really endearingly heartwarming.  Really just a wonderful little family film.

 

Joe Dirt 2: Beautiful Loser: This was not shockingly terrible.  First off, the entire structure of the movie is so stupid, as it's a narrative, inside a narrative, inside a narrative that's

just a dream sequence anyway.

Seriously, the movie opens with Dennis Miller talking to two yokels and telling them the story of Joe Dirt and his story features Joe Dirt sitting on a park bench telling his story to a woman.  Did no one making this movie make the connection that they have two people doing the same job?  Like, yokel or not, if someone wants to tell me a story, and starts telling it to me by relating it through a guy talking to someone else on a park bench, I'd probably stop them and go "Either tell the story or don't, but you don't need to tell me the details of Joe Dirt sitting on a bench telling a story".  But, yeah, this sucked.  It IS compulsively watchable in a How-low-can-they-go? way.  It features a scene with characters literally walking up and farting in Joe Dirt's face, and another where a guy pulls the 'popcorn trick' only to run into his family.  Also, there's time travel, angels, a possibly supernatural biker gang, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Christopher Walken, reprising his role from the first one.  And Walken is the best part of the film, turning in one of those performances somewhere between brilliant and cashing-a-cheque that only he can really pull off.  It's free on Crackle, and that was actually my favourite part of the movie as, at one point, Crackle misfired and it ran one of its terrible ads (The Subway one with the mariner talking about lobster) but forgot to pause the movie in the background so while they were advertising their sandwich you could hear Joe Dirt screaming in pain/terror in the background.

 

A Clockwork Orange: This was good, but ran way too long.  Like, visually, everything about it, right down to the opening credits, is just staggeringly good (Well, except for the driving scene, which looks terrible).  But, the last part takes about 80 minutes to tell a story they could have probably encapsulated in 20-25 minutes.

 

Pitch Perfect: This was okay.  It was better than I thought it would be, which isn't saying much, because I thought it looked terrible.  But it's a fairly easy watch, fitfully funny, though I had a hard time buying that this team was made up of "misfits" (One scene where the announcers talk about how they're not as visually pleasing as before made me question if I had fallen asleep and missed something until I remembered that they were supposed to be misfits) or that Anna Kendrick wouldn't be the most popular girl at whatever school she chose to attend.  So, yeah, it was okay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...