Movies 2020 MOVIE DISCUSSION

[Tabe]

Yeah, what Fowler said. It was lazy. They had 8 minutes of movie left and needed to somehow redeem this guy who was high on coke after trashing his hotel room while drunk. So they pull a twist out of nowhere and then he decides to confess. Bull. It didn't fit his character and it's just lazy.  Also, this completely self-involved dude all of a sudden gets a bout of conscience and decides to protect a woman he kinda likes (but only in a plaything kind of way) so as to "not throw her under the bus"...except, by doing so, he throws everybody who lied for him under the bus.  All the other crewmembers who testified they didn't notice anything wrong, they're now obvious liars.  

Edited May 6, 2020 by Tabe

[J.T.]

Happy Birthday, Ishiro Honda.  RIP.

 

[AxB]

So, Yesterday (2019). A movie with an interesting central conceit, that is utterly determined to do nothing interesting with it. It is quite interesting how much it - inadvertently - makes it clear that as far as pop music goes, it's never just about the music*. Because here we have a solo artist from the Home Counties playing Beatles songs, and even though the performances of the songs are note perfect, it lacks the charm the Beatles had. The fact that they were a band, the fact that they were from Liverpool and had those accents and that sense of humour, that gives them a likeability and charisma that the fictional Jack Malik doesn't have.

Also, YMMV but Ed Sheeran is all over this movie, it's not a cameo role, and I can't stand the trite bastard and his awful muzak. And the film is absolutely clear on the idea that he's a creative genius and that puncturing his superstar ego and reminding him that there's always somebody better is a bad thing. James Corden is thankfully just a cameo (in a dream sequence), but goddamn, this movie really wants me to hate it with it's 'celebrities playing themselves' roles. Maybe they could have got Ricky Gervais in as well, complete the Axis of Annoying.

Another thing I disliked, when you're watching a movie and you guess ahead what the punchline to a joke is going to be, and then they don't tell it. Happened here. When he realises that he's crossed into another reality where The Beatles never happened** he starts googling to see what else has changed. The Rolling Stones still happened (wouldn't they have been bigger though, without the competition? Nature abhors a vacuum). Childish Gambino still happened. But then he searches Oasis and gets the Wikipedia definition of a watering hole in the desert. Searches Oasis Wonderwall and gets the Wikipedia definition of 'Wall'. But I thought the next thing that was going to happen would be that he would search Liam Gallagher and find 'Manchester Man sentenced to Six Years...' and that didn't happen. Even though Liam himself has done the Dead or In Jail answer to the If you weren't a Rockstar question, I'm sure he wouldn't have minded. But yeah, that's not in there.

Then Kate McKinnon shows up playing a caricatured money grabbing executive and it goes into a price of fame/ spiralling paranoia/ this is all getting out of hand sequence. But you know how Richard Curtis just makes the same romantic comedy over and over again and nothing in his movies has consequence because it all works out alright in the end? This is absolutely that. You can go from obscurity to being one of the most famous people in the world and back to obscurity without minding, and without anyone really noticing. Just plain not true. If you've ever been famous, you don't ever get to be fully not famous ever again. You don't ever get to have never been famous. But this movie thinks you can.

Basically what i'm saying is, it's not very good. But it's not very good in an infuriating way, because it's a great idea executed terribly.

* If a band is doing an "It's just about the music" gimmick, they are ultimately doing a gimmick. If their image is a non-image, at some point they made a conscious decision to have a non-image. 

** They do NOTHING to explore this idea. Either how he switched from one reality to another, or what else in the world has been Butterfly Effected by the fact that one of the biggest cultural events of the 20th century never occurred. Nor does anyone try to find out why. Not only that, they play with the idea that other things never happened too. In this reality nobody smokes because Cigarette is just a town in France. But that implies the Transatlantic tobacco trade never happened, which would have caused a massive shift in the economic development of the world for the last 500 years (and it would also mean that everyone who died early due to health issues from smoking would have lived much longer). AND, right, it establishes that David Bowie still happened. But what were the lyrics to Rock n Roll Suicide, then? Because cigarette is literally the fourth word in the song, and I don't see any lyric replacement that would still work in context. "Time takes a silver spoon, puts it in your mouth, you pull on a finger, then another finger, then silver spoon". Doesn't work, does it?

[caley]

On 5/4/2020 at 1:25 AM, Tabe said:

Oh yeah, forgot a couple:

Molly's Game - Jessica Chastain plays Molly Bloom, an enterprising woman who manages to put together a high stakes underground poker game after an injury wrecks her Olympic skiing career. Naturally, it eventually goes south. Based on a true story, Molly is the sister of Olympic skier Jeremy Bloom. This one holds no great surprises but it's entertaining and a fun story. 

 

I can NEVER ever watch this movie.  Our lone remaining video store was having a closing-out sale, while still renting titles and the most irritating woman in the world came in while I was buying a pile of DVDs and monopolizing the poor, soon-to-be-jobless, worked-off-their-feet employees with questions, rather than looking.  "Do you have The Goonies? I LOVE The Goonies.  I HAVE to have The Goonies.  Oh, if you don't have it, then I'm not going get these other ten movies I pulled off the shelf!" (And I wanted to yell "If you LOVE The Goonies so much, why didn't you pick up a DVD copy of it in the 35 years since it came out!? It's like $5 at Wal-Mart!"), she then decided she was going to rent 'Molly's Game'.  But, she pronounced it weird (Like a HEAVY emphasis on the first part "MAWWW-LEEEE's game") then drove me bananas, then proceeded to spend 5 minutes talking about renting it.  "Do you have MAWWW-LEEEE's game?  I want to see MAWWW-LEEEE's game.  Oh, you do have MAWWW-LEEEE's game? Where is it? Oh, under M? Where's MAWWW-LEEEE's game?  Oh, here's MAWWW-LEEEE's game.  Is it any good? Did you like MAWWW-LEEEE's game?  Well, I don't know.  I guess I'll get it."  Then on the way out the door, to her husband "I rented MAWWW-LEEEE's game.  What do you mean we've seen it?  I haven't seen it.  I don't remember that."  Now any time I see the title, all I can think of is the way that woman pronounced it, and it fills me with white-hot rage.

[Brian Fowler]

I liked Yesterday significantly better than @AxB did, but it is massively frustrating in many ways. 

But, I definitely disagree with how it portrayed Sheeran (who I find completely useless in every other context.) The entirety of his role was a joke about how he's arrogant and bad for music.

[Contentious C]

I only found Yesterday noteworthy for two reasons. 1. I knew Danny Boyle directed it, but 10 minutes in, I thought, "Why is he doing a Richard Curtis-style movie?" Then I saw the script credit at the end. Curtis must have been too busy. 

2. I liked the way things played out with the other "rememberers". I figured there'd be some dark business, but it put the right spin on everything. Otherwise, it was as average as a Starbucks coffee. 

[Control]

What I watched the weekend:

SHIVER OF THE VAMPIRES (1971)
WOMEN IN CAGES (1971)
LOULOU (1980)
BABE: PIG IN THE CITY (1998)
COLOR OUT OF SPACE (2019)

Based on that list you’d probably think the LOULOU was a Tinto Brass movie or some shit, but it is indeed the realist Maurice Pialat film.

COLOR OUT OF SPACE is listed as 2019 on IMDB so it qualifies for the Best of the 2010s poll. I’ll put it on my list. Closest film I’ve seen to THE THING since THE THING. Admittedly, half-assed Nic Cage is nowhere near on par with full-assed Kurt Russell (and Peter David and Wilfred Brimley).

Gene Siskel chose BABE: PITC as best film of 1998, saying "it expands our notion of what a film can be. [It] expresses the joy of a filmmaker, director George Miller, the creator of the Mad Max movies, in using the many tools of his trade." He was not wrong.

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, Control said:

Based on that list you’d probably think the LOULOU was a Tinto Brass movie or some shit, but it is indeed the realist Maurice Pialat film.

Let's not get into any discussion about Tinto Brass.  I would not like to have Cristina Garavaglia on my mind right before I start winding down and getting ready to go to sleep.

[EVA]

18 hours ago, Brian Fowler said:

 

But, I definitely disagree with how it portrayed Sheeran (who I find completely useless in every other context.) The entirety of his role was a joke about how he's arrogant and bad for music.

Agreed on this.  He is the butt of countless jokes!

[Curt McGirt]

Somehow it doesn't surprise me at all that Siskel picked the sequel of fucking Babe as his movie of the year over films as good as Pi, The Big Lebowski, Fear and Loathing, Happiness, Buffalo '66, Saving Private Ryan...

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

[odessasteps]

I'll take Babe over at least 3 of those movies. 

[Control]

26 minutes ago, Curt McGirt said:

Somehow it doesn't surprise me at all that Siskel picked the sequel of fucking Babe as his movie of the year over films as good as Pi, The Big Lebowski, Fear and Loathing, Happiness, Buffalo '66, Saving Private Ryan...

That'll do, pig. That'll do.

Ebert chose DARK CITY that year. Those are both solid choices that buck the dominant trend.

I'd take LEBOWSKI over those two. I remember LEBOWSKI getting really lukewarm reviews when it came out--I think it was a critical and financial flop.

[odessasteps]

"Shakespeare in Love won seven awards including Best Picture. Other winners included Saving Private Ryan with five awards, Life Is Beautiful with three, and Affliction, Bunny, Election Night, Elizabeth, Gods and Monsters, The Last Days, The Personals, The Prince of Egypt and What Dreams May Come with one."

not a great year for award winning films.

Of those films, I'd prob take Election, Elizabeth and Gods & Monsters to rewatch. 

[Curt McGirt]

Never seen this and I just lost it. "Sometimes I might be in your house, no reason at all, I don't have to justify that to you." 

Very NSFW

[driver]

I watched The Wrong Missy last night and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Light, formulaic and if it were anymore fluffier it would meow.

[NikoBaltimore]

EDIT: Wrong thread 

Edited May 16, 2020 by NikoBaltimore

[(BP)]

We bought Scoob! yesterday. From a peace and quiet perspective, it’s paid off as we’re on viewing number five right now. 

It was fine. I mustn’t have paid much attention to the marketing because I had no idea it was a Hanna Barberaverse movie, so it was cool to see all of the references and cameos. I love Will Forte but he doesn’t really do much for me as Shaggy. Everyone else was okay. It’s very action oriented and there’s not a lot there for adults outside a couple of chuckles. As far as humor and sophistication in this property, nothing’s ever going to touch the Mystery Incorporated series anyway.

I can’t complain, as my daughter’s a certified Scoobamaniac right now and we’ve been through every show and movie on our streaming services multiple, multiple times. 

[Fuzzy Dunlop]

So, I watched two recent films today.

Onward? Really enjoyed it. That damn Pixar and their damn feels kicking me right in the feels.

Capone? Holy shit, what a turkey. You figure, hey, Tom Hardy and he's playing later years Al Capone and that sounds pretty good, right? Yeah? Nope, nope, nope, nope. It was 1 hr 40 mins and felt like 6 hrs 40 mins of pish and I still haven't decided if Tom Hardy is good or bad in it. 

No, fuck it, he's definitely bad. 

[AxB]

I just watched Glass with Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis and James McAvoy. I didn't dislike it as much as I expected - I'd heard it was really slow and uneventful, so I was actually pleasantly surprised that at points in the movie things actually happened. But the pacing was all slow for most of the middle, and then it picks up for the final climax, and 

Spoiler

the climax is not the one we were promised, but one that was clearly much cheaper to shoot than the promised climax would have been. Then the movie ends but it doesn't end because there's a twist ending, but that wasn't the ending because there's another twist.

Shyamalan gotta Shyamalan. If you've not seen it and now you want to because I said it was better than I expected, lower your expectations.

Very well acted though. Bruce Willis really loving that McAvoy is going over the top, so he can be extra taciturn to provide contrast. And he really loves to do taciturn lately.

[Southside Jim]

Was Capone a movie Hardy did for the art, where he could ham it up as a dying, senile mobster. Or was it a movie he did for shitloads of money/the studio would only green light his passion project if he did this film?

[EVA]

The art.  CAPONE is a passion project for disgraced director Josh Trank.  It’s not a big studio movie.  Redbox is one of the producers.

[Kuetsar]

On 5/16/2020 at 6:57 PM, AxB said:

I just watched Glass with Samuel L Jackson, Bruce Willis and James McAvoy. I didn't dislike it as much as I expected - I'd heard it was really slow and uneventful, so I was actually pleasantly surprised that at points in the movie things actually happened. But the pacing was all slow for most of the middle, and then it picks up for the final climax, and 

  Reveal hidden contents

the climax is not the one we were promised, but one that was clearly much cheaper to shoot than the promised climax would have been. Then the movie ends but it doesn't end because there's a twist ending, but that wasn't the ending because there's another twist.

Shyamalan gotta Shyamalan. If you've not seen it and now you want to because I said it was better than I expected, lower your expectations.

Very well acted though. Bruce Willis really loving that McAvoy is going over the top, so he can be extra taciturn to provide contrast. And he really loves to do taciturn lately.

Spoiler

Yeah that ending can go fuck itself. No reason to kill off Willis like that. . . .

 

[AxB]

I think it was a "Set up potential sequel, but don't disappoint people who would expect to see the established stars in it" deal. Although I don't see how a sequel would work without it being just another superhero movie.

[Curt McGirt]

Finally got around to watching The Battle of Algiers last night, and unsurprisingly it was great (that makes two Criterions this week as I did manage to find The Seventh Seal, for free no less on Youtube). It's no wonder the Pentagon showed it to staff in 2003 because it is the blueprint for urban warfare ever since. You couldn't get away with making it today though due to the bias against the French colonialists; even though it would technically be politically correct, you just couldn't get away with making terrorists look good. It's a rare film to be that powerful so many years later as history just keeps repeating itself. 

[odessasteps]

I presume this should go in the comics movie folder but guessing more people will see it here.