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DECEMBER 2017 MOVIE THREAD


Curt McGirt

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Funny enough, I saw the show first and loved it, then saw bits of the movie and didn't like it. I thought it was just a direct Dolemite ripoff and ignored it the thousand times it's been on satellite since, but when I saw it was coming on and decided to give it a second chance, I officially had a nice pie of crow served to me. 

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Body of Lies has been in rotation on HBO.  For a Ridley Scott film with an A List cast (Russell Crowe!  Leo!), it's pretty dull.  A nice rumination on the pointlessness of the war on terror, I guess.  But it's been done to death and done better elsewhere.  As someone who loves Hollywood's "no fucks given" approach to casting "ethnic" roles, it was amazing to see English AF Mark Strong wearing a salt and pepper bouffant wig and playing a Jordanian.

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On 12/3/2017 at 4:09 AM, Curt McGirt said:

If you get ANY. CHANCE. to see Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri in the theater, take it. Not a single damn film this year is gonna top that. And you will cry as much as you will laugh, I promise. 

EDIT: Also, for us Wire fans out there, Three Billboards has the return of Lester Motherfucking Freamon in the flesh. So there's that as another hook...

Saw this one tonight. I was going to see it Friday after the work but it turned out today was the last day because the theater already has extra showings of The Last Jedi plus The Greatest Showman and Jumanji as the new releases this week. Ended up being one of the best decisions I ever made.

That was easily in the top 5 of the best films I've seen this year and I've seen a lot. About 15 minutes in, I thought this was going to be one of those you-go-girl, melodramatic films where for some unknown reason, the female protagonist is like this fake folksy, hokey super-heroine. Fortunately, I was sadly mistaken. I'm so glad they didn't turn the Mildred Hayes character into the biggest social justice warrior and play into every film trope imaginable. I mean it easily could have. EASILY. Let's see...we got the neoliberal outspoken white lady. Said white lady also happens to have an interchangeable hip black female friend because we all know black feminism was birthed from white feminism and we need the white lady to show her the way. We have a few unredeemable bigots who just happen to not like gays and Mexicans. We got the Lolita loving, womanizing domestic abuser.  We have the person with the incurable, terminal illness (I won't spoil that part). We have the rebellious daughter or children in this case. We also have the magical Negro, which as a black person viewing a film in a theater setting is instant walk-out justification for me, played by the aforementioned Clarke Peters bka Lester Freamon. We also have another magical black person who was kinda magical but it wasn't offensive so I will leave that one out. This would be instant corny Oscar bait for like 9/10 Hollywood directors.

Luckily, everything I mentioned doesn't play out that way or at least play out completely. You get a lot of stuff for comedy, which was legitimately funny. You also get the director letting an acting powerhouse in Frances McDormand play the role instead of directing her to be a character Sandra Bullock or Julia Roberts could've played years ago and probably now but with the over-the-top, pandering caveats. Mildred is a deeply flawed character and that's the way it should be because by making her this full on Walking Tall Buford Pusser character or female John Rambo from First Blood (although one scene is reminiscent of that film), you can't feel sympathetic because she's going to win the day anyway IMO. She's a shitty mother. Like a really shitty mother with an unhealthy relationship with her kids and her exes. She is a way too impulsive and thinks she is smarter by half. She's a tad bit racist and has a little white entitlement (I don't know anyone w/ my skin color who can talk to police like she did and not turn into a future Twitter hashtag). But all this makes perfect sense because she's from a shitty town outside the Ozarks. She has to live in that town (and her children and friends have to as well) and it doesn't make sense for her to be this terrifying person as she finds out. She tries to come up with this perfect, ideal solution for the problem but it's a mere mechanism to set off a big Domino effect of some  good and a lot of bad. From that, she creates another dozen problems varying in degrees. What makes it fascinating to watch is there are situations where she cannot play hard ass because there are people who give less of a shit than she does. That scene when that random guy walks into her shop was fucking amazing. You just feel something bad in the pit of your stomach like "oh shit" Anton Chigurh in the rest stop gas station bad. If that isn't Oscar material for Frances McDormand, then I don't plan to watch the Oscars. She tries to put on a brave face and hide behind her normal wisecracks, but she ultimately can't because fear is very much a human response (fight-or-flight). There isn't a gun, a knife, or anything visibly lethal but just the fear of someone's eerie presence and really not knowing how it may end is enough to make you show you're intimidated and afraid.

The moment I realized this was an excellent film is really a little over midway through where I was pondering to myself why as a young black man was I identifying with this haggard looking old white lady who has the balls to do what a bunch of other people don't have the guts to do. Then, as the film played out, I found out it wasn't really her actions (or the motivations). It was the fact that through creating those problems I mentioned after she believed she had a solution, she realized that the best thing to happen to her was accidental change and not just completely the forcible change, which by the end she is clearly still enamored by. If she didn't make those moral concessions or realize she's putting people who she knows and doesn't know at greater risk by losing grip w/ reality, "the run ramp-shot in a small town" would run its course and she would either be dead or in prison for real. When I saw the trailers and the preview ads, I thought I would love this character because she seems like a total 180 from the real life figures of black moms who are instantly forgiving cold hearted killers for murdering their child. Yet, the reason why I really love the Mildred Hayes character is she fits perfectly in the middle. She isn't too forgiving, but she's not like this emotionless robot who wants everyone who did a bad thing to be thrown into an active volcano. She wants to get true justice, but her understanding of a very corrupt justice system steeped in racism and bigotry allows her to see that justice isn't obtained in one fell swoop. Moreover, that not-so-easily obtained justice isn't going to be exactly for who you think it should go to.

Maybe I might be a little offbase, but this is my God's honest response after seeing it 40 minutes ago. Easily recommended.

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Glad you liked it, and FWIW that landscape is Bootheel Missouri to a tee. I know it, I lived in it. And the people? Don't even get me started. 

EDIT: My only complaint/criticism and we can hash that out in spoilers is 

Spoiler

Clarke Peters saying "we're not all bad", which philosophically sits at the crux of the film from all of the characters' identities/personalities/perspectives is a little too obvious to me to be spoken out loud. Also, a cop saying that, no matter how good his character is...

 

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Bright (2017)

Fuck the haters, this was a solid buddy cop movie with a damn fine twist, probably the closest thing to Shadowrun out there. Absolutely loved the world-building they did in the flic, would really love them to explore what happened in the past that led to such a dystopia present.

The sequel has already been green-lit so looking forward to that... wish it was a mini-series thou (a lil more room to explore but not too much to lead to bloat).

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It's likely to lose the writer, since a number of allegations have been levied against Max Landis.

 

Just got back from The Greatest Showman, which was thoroughly decent. I'm going on record now saying Zendaya wins an Oscar within the next decade. Michelle Williams is frankly overdue for hers.

 

 

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Saw Downsizing tonight.  Major disappointment.  The movie you see in the ads and trailer is not the movie you get. 

The first third to half of the movie is the light-hearted, amusing movie you see in the trailers.  There's a few size sight gags and some genuinely funny lines.  And then it goes off the rails and turns into this cult movie with a doomsday scenario and Cult of Personality leader.  The movie  slows to a crawl and becomes very boring.  The ending is thoroughly unsatisfying as well.  And Kristen Wiig, all over the trailers, disappears after 5 minutes a la  Bryan Cranston in Godzilla.  

Rating: 3/10.

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14 hours ago, odessasteps said:

I thought it looked horrible from the trailer. So not terribly surprised

I could live with it being horrible.  I thought it looked good but with the potential for horrible.  But to be something completely different than the trailers?  That I don't like at all.

 

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16 minutes ago, Tabe said:

I could live with it being horrible.  I thought it looked good but with the potential for horrible.  But to be something completely different than the trailers?  That I don't like at all.

I would honestly much rather have that, than have the trailer spoil the entire movie.  YMMV

On the other hand, I heard it wasn't supposed to be a good movie, and didn't understand why.  I read your spoiler and appreciate it because now I understand what the problem is.

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Just now, S.K.o.S. said:

I would honestly rather have that, than have the trailer spoil the whole movie.  YMMV obviously.

On the other hand, I heard it wasn't supposed to be a good movie, and didn't understand why.  I read your spoiler and appreciate it because now I understand what the problem is.

I don't want the whole movie spoiled.  I'm just saying don't (hypothetically, not this move) sell me a shoot-me-up action movie in the trailer and give me a romcom in the theater.

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From r those complaining about trailers giving away the entire movie.  The 45 second trailer for THE BELLS OF ST. MARY'S from 1945 does exactly the same thing.

The entire plot of the movie is "will this guy give the nuns his new building?" and they show the clip where he does in the (I'm assuming only) trailer

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So, yeah, I saw a couple of films which will be there or thereabouts around Oscar time.

Lady Bird

I'll probably come across as a gigantic fucking idiot (which I am but still) but this struck me as a more indie-rrific, slightly more gloomy version of every teen film ever made in the history of ever (maybe that was the point? I dunno? I'm such an idiot). I don't get the whole film of the year shit surrounding this; the performances were good and that, Saoirse Ronan is usually good and Laurie Metcalf is Laurie Metcalf but was this any better than, I dunno, The Edge of Seventeen? I guess that didn't have the whole Greta Gerwig indie legitimacy surrounding it but, yeah, I dunno, I'll keep rambling. Point is, I didn't get it. But I'm an idiot.

What I did get though is Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (fuck it, I ain't shortening the title). In Bruges is one my top 10 favourite films and I've been waiting 6 months for this since I first saw the trailer. Yeah, watch it, it's funny and dark and beautiful and sad and will break your fucking heart in a billion pieces and Frances McDormand is a force of fucking nature but then we knew that already.

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20 minutes ago, Fuzzy Dunlop said:

So, yeah, I saw a couple of films which will be there or thereabouts around Oscar time.

Lady Bird

I'll probably come across as a gigantic fucking idiot (which I am but still) but this struck me as a more indie-rrific, slightly more gloomy version of every teen film ever made in the history of ever (maybe that was the point? I dunno? I'm such an idiot). I don't get the whole film of the year shit surrounding this; the performances were good and that, Saoirse Ronan is usually good and Laurie Metcalf is Laurie Metcalf but was this any better than, I dunno, The Edge of Seventeen? I guess that didn't have the whole Greta Gerwig indie legitimacy surrounding it but, yeah, I dunno, I'll keep rambling. Point is, I didn't get it. But I'm an idiot.

What I did get though is Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri (fuck it, I ain't shortening the title). In Bruges is one my top 10 favourite films and I've been waiting 6 months for this since I first saw the trailer. Yeah, watch it, it's funny and dark and beautiful and sad and will break your fucking heart in a billion pieces and Frances McDormand is a force of fucking nature but then we knew that already.

For some reason (well the reason is Fox is stupid so I know the reason), we got Lady Bird here for maybe three weeks but I have no clue of when I can see The Shape of Water other than next year *probably*. I didn't even see a trailer for the former which is probably why I didn't see it when I had the chance.

It's spooky that my original intent for this reply was to bring up the film 20th Century Women (which I forgot featured Greta Gerwig) as a film I didn't understand the buzz for. I know its way out of my wheelhouse as a coming-of-age film (I grew up in a lower middle class black family in the 80s/90s Mississippi Delta in a town that 80% black), but goddamn was it a struggle to make it all the way through it. I tried though. I tried! 

The Edge of Seventeen was fun. The scene where Hailee Steinfield's character has a mini conniption and the older black couple just looks at her slightly confused and a little bewildered was the funniest shit ever. Now I certainly identify with that!

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2 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

I am an idiot. For some reason, I thought Lady Bird was about LBJ's wife.

We had like two or three dueling LBJ films in the last two years and the 450th portrayal of Jackie Onassis. Might as well do one.

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See, as I say, I keep thinking I'm the idiot because Lady Bird is just, yeah, not for me and I finished watching it and immediately thought, well, fuck, The Edge of Seventeen dicked all over that but doesn't have Lady Bird's FILM OF THE YEAR Oscar Greta Gerwig indie tastic legitimacy and, yet, I much preferred it and I'm so confused and I'm a fucking moron. Or am I? I don't know, help me.

But, yeah, I watched Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri two days ago and I'm still thinking about it.

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