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2019 Q3 MOVIE DISCUSSION


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15 hours ago, Tabe said:

Saw Overcomer over the weekend. It breaks no new ground, and you can practically write the script ahead of time, but I was still entertained. Do you like Kendrick a Brothers movies? Yes? Then you'll enjoy it. If you don't, avoid it. 

I find their model somewhat fascinating. Critics hate the movies, most people have no interest in them, but they have a demographic that doesn't just support the movies, but also love them. A+ cinemascore, 99% audience score on RT (vs 38% from critics) and this isn't their first time outstripping even their own studio's expectations by a lot.

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A Simple Favor took so many goddamn twists and turns in the middle/towards the end that I was dizzy by the time the credits rolled. Not super satisfied with that ending, either. Maybe it's because I'm just a huge Blake Lively mark, but I was rooting for her the entire movie. Anna Kendrick's character was just.... off, somehow. A little too squeaky clean, even if her past was absolutely drowning in some dark stuff.

It was still good, however, and was one of those movies I had been dying to see for a while now.

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4 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

I find their model somewhat fascinating. Critics hate the movies, most people have no interest in them, but they have a demographic that doesn't just support the movies, but also love them. A+ cinemascore, 99% audience score on RT (vs 38% from critics) and this isn't their first time outstripping even their own studio's expectations by a lot.

I have seen most, if not all, of their movies. They're formulaic and simple but they're positive and squeaky clean. Sometimes it's nice to have a movie like that. And you can see how they've gotten better, technically, from one movie to the next.  I can honestly say I've enjoyed all the movies of theirs that I've seen even if they wouldn't make my top 10.

You're right though - their model is interesting. They know their audience and they hit the mark. 

Edited by Tabe
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I surprisingly found Kinji Fukasaku''s Cops vs. Thugs on Night Flight Plus. It's solidly in the vein of his Battle Without Honour or Humanity series of yakuza films with the title being more of a comparison than a competition between the two sides. Pretty much everyone is a snake in this one, from the slimy city council head that wants to rig land bids for polluting oil companies to the brutal. straight-laced police head who starts to clean up his division by picking fights with his peers where he can use off his significant judo skills. The lead is a solid antihero trying to strike a balance between the cops and the yakuza. Give it a watch if you're in for some nihilism (and can handle the rampant misogyny which is just par for the course). 

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This DVR sure is coming in handy. Among the gems I've scored already is To Live and Die in LA by William Friedkin. It's pretty much Manhunter (Kinda) Works for the Secret Service. William L. Petersen, playing one Dick Chance (heh), is a not-so-ethical SS guy whos partner gets whacked out raiding a counterfeit money operation by a very, VERY seedy Willem Dafoe so him and his reluctant new partner get locked in a full-bore run at getting revenge. They do all kinds of perjurous shit, from stealing from a crime scene to an operation involving another theft that goes extremely wrong and ends up in a car chase to rival Friedkin's other classic in The French Connection. It's the film's centerpiece -- like Connection's was -- and how they pulled off multiple cars chasing one car through LA's film-famous drainage basins and up the freeway going the wrong way with a thousand wrecks occurring is beyond me. You can kind of grasp how they pulled off Gene Hackman chasing that train but this one is mind boggling. Aside from that the plot is complex but reasonable and the goings on are nice and sleazy, plus there's some welcome gore; Friedkin's a fan of people getting shot in the face apparently. Roger Ebert actually gave this four stars when it came out. I wouldn't go that high but it's a solid, very '80s noir.

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Thanks to some rain over the holiday weekend I ended up re-watching some flicks that used to run on cable every all the time back in the day but are kind of forgotten now.

Tank - James Garner is a soon to be retired Army Sgt. Major who owns his own Sherman Tank and has an issue with the local Sheriff played by G.D. Spradlin. This movie really doesn't know what it wants to be but ends up being entertaining due to G.D. Spradlin hamming it up in a sort of serious way. The first half with Garner's character dealing with a changing Army could have been it's own movie or tv show kind of like Heartbreak Ridge, the second half is just ridiculous when they become folk heroes but it's so watchable. As someone who's formative years were in the mid-1980's the media really pushed someone wronged becoming folk heroes be it James Garner, C. Thomas Howell and a Sherman Tank or Helen Slater, Christian Slater and Yeardly Smith becoming folk heroes over a stolen moped in The Legend of Billie Jean.

Summer Rental - So thankful this was never remade with either Tom Arnold or Cedric the Entertainer in the John Candy role, sure it's a doofy family movie but it has Rip Torn with his Rip Tornness turned up to 11 and Richard Crenna playing a straight up dick. This movie was on cable all the time from 1985 to the late 1990's yet it's somewhat forgotten or over shadowed by other John Candy movies.

One Crazy Summer - I was 12 years old when this came out and it was clearly made for 12 year olds, it was a struggle to watch this the whole way through. Like Summer Rental there's a big sailboat race at the end to settle everyone's differences because that's how things were settled in beach town back then.

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I don't know if Hulu has always had them or just recently added them, but they have the entire Lethal Weapon franchise and my morning has been pretty fun. I'm not generally a fan of 80s movies but these have always been favorites of mine.

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4 hours ago, happjack said:

Richard Crenna playing a straight up dick

I saw him playing a deceptive science officer in Leviathan on Comet yesterday. He was good at villain roles, which if you've ever seen him in Wait Until Dark you well know. I grew up always thinking him of Col. Trautman from Rambo so had no idea until watching that.

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1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

I saw him playing a deceptive science officer in Leviathan on Comet yesterday. He was good at villain roles, which if you've ever seen him in Wait Until Dark you well know. I grew up always thinking him of Col. Trautman from Rambo so had no idea until watching that.

LOL small world!  We had Comet on at the same time as you did, apparently.  I yelled in form the kitchen, "IS THAT DEEP STAR SIX?"

Edited by Technico Support
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I've never seen Deep Star Six and wish somebody would show it. Only seen Leviathan the once before this, had it on just as background noise really while I was doing other stuff and didn't pay much attention because I thought I'd autotuned it on the DVR... and didn't. Dammit. But that did lead me to go seek it out again on Comet and scoop up all kinds of craziness they've got in the next couple days. No Leviathan of course, but it's a long month, it'll probably be on again.

I DO have the Fangoria with the poster for Deep Star Six with its monster on it though. The Leviathan monster(s?) is way better but Deep Star's is a nice '50s style BEM (Bug Eyed Monster). 

EDIT: Well, '50-through-'80s-eyes BEM. This is the closest I could get to the poster

Spoiler

MV5BNTM3ZTFiM2EtNzFlZS00NWYxLWFjYTMtMGU1

 

Edited by Curt McGirt
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Levithan also has Peter Weller delivering a great one liner at the end.  Although I love both movies equally.  Abyss was ok, but too long and really, not much outside of the sub fight.

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Fun fact: Sean Cunningham shot DeepStar Six at 22 frames per second, allegedly because he feels actors spend too long emoting before responding, so he speed it up a tiny bit when it would be projected at the standard 24 fps.

Jason Goes to Hell was also shot at 22.

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Attention, Deep Space Nine fans. The documentary that the show runner got made is finally out.Its called " What We Left Behind."  I didn't bother renting it, I fucking bought it since I know I'm going to watch it frequently. 

Its awesome. And they do a recurring bit where a group of the writers sit around and brainstorm an imaginary first episode of Season Eight , with some animation. I loved it.

 

Edited by Johnny Sorrow
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1 hour ago, West Newbury Bad Boy said:

Hayley Atwell (Captain America’s main squeeze Peggy Carter) is going to be in the next Mission: Impossible movie. 

And now I'll watch my first MI sequel , because I hated the first one. 

I rewatched both seasons of Agent Carter two months ago. It's still fucking great.

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14 minutes ago, Johnny Sorrow said:

And now I'll watch my first MI sequel , because I hated the first one. 

I rewatched both seasons of Agent Carter two months ago. It's still fucking great.

Skip three (Philip Seymour Hoffman is really good in it but it's otherwise terrible) and start with Ghost Protocol. They've been non-stop awesome since then.

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I mentioned in the Roman Reigns/leukemia thread a while back that my wife passed away from breast cancer last October and, for the time being, my now-eight-year-old daughter was living out of state while I rebuilt my life and dealt with my wife's estate.

The good news is that the two of us are back together and now living in central Florida. I work for The Villages, the "supertown" for the 55+ crowd. Money's good, my daughter is a student at one of the best schools in the state, and we have a nice home that's close to work and school -- no more two-hour roundtrips to work and back.

So why is this in a movie discussion thread? The Villages has three movie theaters owned by the town, with a total of 26-28 screens. What's unique about these theaters is that, ever since I moved to the area in June, only once has a movie been shown on more than one screen simultaneously ("The Lion King"). If you are tried of going to your 12-plex and seeing screenings of the new Marvel movie in 11 of them, than the Villages theaters could be for you. 

The theaters show all of the mainstream films ("It", "Good Boys", "Angel Has Fallen"), arty fare, documentaries (recent ones at our theaters include "The Spy From Home Plate" about Moe Berg, as well as "Mike Wallace Is There" about the "60 Minutes" reporter), and the like. Some films that struggle at the box office tend to do well here, particularly those that cater to the 55+ crowd (Diane Keaton's "Poms" ran for two months here). The theaters also feature Fathom Event screenings and occasional film festivals.

But with nearly 30 screens, there are bound to be a few clunkers. These theaters tend to be the dumping ground for films that are quietly shuttled to the straight-to-DVD or straight-to-VOD bin. Need to show a film in one theater to fulfill a contractual obligation? Bring it to one of our theaters! John Travolta's latest films are box office disasters? Not at the Villages theatres, where the first two screenings of "The Fanatic" were sold out weeks in advance. This may also be a good time to explain that Travolta lives in nearby Ocala, has purchased access to the same Villages theater to premiere his last four films, and bought popcorn and drinks to all in attendance (to his credit, a colleague who interviewed him for "The Fanatic" for The Villages newspaper said he was very nice, and he apparently took time to shake hands and talk to everyone who attended the "Fanatic" screening).

So what are these films that only see the light and day at my neighborhood cinemas. Here are a few examples of films showing this weekend ...

 

SATANIC PANIC

High-fallutin devil worshippers seek to sacrifice a pizza delivery girl, but our heroine has something to say about it. Stars Mr. and Mrs. Jerry O'Connell.

 

STRANGE BUT TRUE

A woman tells her dead boyfriend's family that she's pregnant with the man's child. Features Greg Kinnear.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD1crZOXcqc

NIGHT HUNTER

Given the cast involved (Henry Cavill, Alexandra Daddario, Ben Kingsley), this has a "release delayed several times only to be sent to the VOD bin" feel to it.

Edited by colonial
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