Movie 2021 MOVIES DISCUSSION

[J.T.]

The Green Knight was pretty awesome and trippy in a good way.  I kinda wrinkled my nose at the one liberty taken with Arthurian legend:

Spoiler

In this movie, Gawain's mother is Morgan Le Fay, but he is actually the son of Morgause, the queen of Orkney and Arthur's half-sister.

but other than that it is a solid addition to the A24 catalogue.

[Control]

THE WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS is a very fun kaiju film. 

 

[J.T.]

1 hour ago, Control said:

THE WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS is a very fun kaiju film. 

 

I am particularly fond of War of the Gargantuas and the Daimajin trilogy.

[Tabe]

Another weekend, another movie:

 

Nobody - Bob Odenkirk, AKA Saul Goodman, is an average guy living an average life when one day a couple of robbers break into his home.  During the break-in, he has the opportunity to clobber one of the crooks and refuses.  This leads his family to even further view him as a wimp.  Then he discovers that the crooks had stolen his daughter's bracelet and now it's on like Donkey Kong.  Suddenly, Saul Goodman is transformed into Liam Neeson and Keanu Reeves as he beats up a bus full of thugs and takes on a vague Russian mob.  We slowly learn more about our hero's background and he was a secret agent in a past life.  This is basically a remake of John Wick in almost every way minus the weird underground assassin world.  Overall, I was entertained, but it certainly wasn't great or even very good.  Bonus points for 500 year old Christopher Lloyd blasting people with a shotgun that never needs reloading though.  6/10.

[Casey]

Completely random, but I see HBO Max has added all three of the old Jurassic Park movies and I've never seen them so I'm going to watch them all tonight. I'm too amped up to sleep, and my actual TV is broken, so I'm watching it on an old 720p 16 inch TV right next to my laptop.

[John from Cincinnati]

50 minutes ago, Casey said:

Completely random, but I see HBO Max has added all three of the old Jurassic Park movies and I've never seen them so I'm going to watch them all tonight. I'm too amped up to sleep, and my actual TV is broken, so I'm watching it on an old 720p 16 inch TV right next to my laptop.

I continue to be here for your reviews of old pop culture. Not that I expect I'll agree with anything, but there's always some curiosity in what a person will think of movies like that so far out of their moment in the culture. 

[JRV]

I'm watching Reminiscence right now. It's kind of a noir detective story with a fairly interesting gimmick about a machine that lets people relive memories, but the setting is so original. It's basically Miami at some point in the future, where it's half flooded, and temperatures are so high that people have become nocturnal. And it's Hugh Jackman as a gritty older dude searching for a nightclub singer he had an affair with. Just fun.

[Casey]

4 hours ago, John from Cincinnati said:

I continue to be here for your reviews of old pop culture. Not that I expect I'll agree with anything, but there's always some curiosity in what a person will think of movies like that so far out of their moment in the culture. 

I lied, I only made it through the first movie before I passed out due to excitement and the adrenaline running out.

But - surprise! - the first movie held up really well I thought for being as "old" as it is. The dinosaurs were actual props or whatever, right? I prefer it this way, as opposed to the CGI stuff in the newer ones. Not big on Sam Neill's character though (love him in other stuff, like Event Horizon).

And to put things in perspective: I was about to turn 5 when Jurassic Park 1 came out. I had just turned 12 when the third came out. There's probably a lot more 90s pop culture stuff that I missed out on or don't remember seeing because I was a little kid.

[JRV]

19 minutes ago, Casey said:

The dinosaurs were actual props or whatever, right? I prefer it this way, as opposed to the CGI stuff in the newer ones.

I'm such a sucker for the animatronics. Stan Winston designed them if I recall correctly.

I actually saw the original Lost World from 1925 this week. It's a silent movie and takes a lot of adjusting to sit through, but the really cool thing is that they used stop motion to film all the dinosaurs, and to moviegoers in 1925, it was just the most mindblowing thing. It's cool to try and imagine how people's perception functioned before all the advanced animatronics and even contemporary CGI, it just took a lot less to impress them!

[Tabe]

11 hours ago, Casey said:

The dinosaurs were actual props or whatever, right? I prefer it this way, as opposed to the CGI stuff in the newer ones.

Combination of physical props and CGI.  The close-up stuff, like the triceratops laying on the ground, was 100% physical props.  The big stuff, like the first appearance of the brachiosaurs*, was CGI.  I agree that the movie holds up incredibly well and still looks great.  Brilliant movie.

* - that moment where they first see the giant dinosaurs is exactly the stuff movies are made for.  So perfectly captures the incredible size of the creatures and the overwhelming awe that the people would feel.  And the movie puts you right there.  What an incredible moment of movie magic.

[Casey]

I'll find out about the other two later tonight/tomorrow, but I really like how the first movie is kind of presented in a horror movie-ish way with the dinosaurs. The scene with the two kids in the kitchen and the raptors... straight up horror vibes.

For some reason that scene made me want to watch Aliens (another franchise I've never seen a lick of), but none of them except Prometheus are on HBO Max.

[Contentious C]

27 minutes ago, Casey said:

For some reason that scene made me want to watch Aliens (another franchise I've never seen a lick of),

[Casey]

You’re right, it probably sucks.

[odessasteps]

Game over, man, game over

[J.T.]

You always were an asshole, Gorman.

[EVA]

3 hours ago, Casey said:

 

For some reason that scene made me want to watch Aliens (another franchise I've never seen a lick of), but none of them except Prometheus are on HBO Max.

Amazon Prime has them right now, if you’re subbed to that service.

[Tabe]

6 hours ago, Casey said:

I'll find out about the other two later tonight/tomorrow, but I really like how the first movie is kind of presented in a horror movie-ish way with the dinosaurs. The scene with the two kids in the kitchen and the raptors... straight up horror vibes.

For some reason that scene made me want to watch Aliens (another franchise I've never seen a lick of), but none of them except Prometheus are on HBO Max.

May I present the pitch meeting for the 3rd movie:

 

 

[Casey]

Jurassic Park 2 is fucking terrible. How does this one feel older than the first? And looks worse. I barely paid attention to anything in the movie, honestly. I do not have high hopes for the third.

I’ll probably do the Alien franchise next weekend. I should have a new TV by then hopefully.

[Tabe]

Stillwater - Matt Damon is a dad from Oklahoma whose daughter is accused in France of murdering her roommate. Basically a fictional version of the Amanda Knox story. Unfortunately, this one is not any good. It's really, really long and really, really slow. It's a waste of time. 3/10.

[Unnatural]

Not having any familiarity with the poen of the green knight 

Spoiler

I fucking hated it. So his mom thinks he needs to man up because he's got no direction in life, no aspirations. She summons this thing to the feast so her son can overcome it and get some fame

 

Then he gets whiny about how he has to face down the green knight etc etc like he didn't know what the deal he was getting into was? 

Then he has finally gets around to meeting up a year later, and we get a flash forward sequence that kinda eats up the 3rd act, and then cut to credits. 

I'm not saying I need my hand held for this movie, but this is that Indiana Jones situation where nothing really gets resolved by the protagonist. He could've literally sat back and done nothing at the Christmas feast and him just living his life like he'd been doing would be about as fruitful an outcome as this movie gave us.

How much of what he experienced on the journey was real, and what was magicks his mother conjured? He loses the axe but it returns. He's jumped by a gang but he escapes, finds the beheaded girl and the fox and the singing giants...

 

I dunno. Felt like that godzilla movie where every time he's gonna fight the migos or mugos they cut away to something else and the big fight at the end is done after like 3 minutes? 

I'm likely being overly critical, man, and thats not even my handle sorry for infringement

[Log]

On 8/21/2021 at 7:22 PM, Tabe said:

* - that moment where they first see the giant dinosaurs is exactly the stuff movies are made for.  So perfectly captures the incredible size of the creatures and the overwhelming awe that the people would feel.  And the movie puts you right there.  What an incredible moment of movie magic.

I didn't think that scene could get better, but it did...

 

[Raziel]

2 hours ago, Log said:

I didn't think that scene could get better, but it did...

 

I'll see you and raise you:

 

 

Edited August 23, 2021 by Raziel

[Contentious C]

Hey hey, it's that time again - because I actually watched more than one or two good movies, and I have things to say.  It's Day 41 (and counting) of My Big Damn New Movie Kick, It's Better than Bad; It's Good! Edition.

Hot Garbage

Disturbia - Had this been a 5-minute short documentary film called THE BRIEF AND TRAGIC LIFE OF The Beef, STARRING The Beef, I would have been thrilled.  Alas, the movie is not a documentary of The Beef getting hit by 2 cars and dying.  Instead it's "an update of Rear Window", which works about as well as saying the Jackass movies were "updating" Charlie Chaplin.  The tone of this is just...ehhhh.  It's sad and tragic, then it's obvious-horny-teenager-hijinx, then it's a thriller.  Clearly the notion of building to a point wasn't high on the priority list here.

Terminator: Genisys - I wanted to like this, because I love Emilia Clarke, and I think she's a good Nise Sarah Connor.  Arnold has some fun with his bit, too.  But there are a couple of stunt sequences (the bus flipping and the beginning of the helicopter scene) that are Mission: Impossible 2 levels of fucking ludicrous, and it's also widely understood that Jai Courtney is the worst actor of his generation.  How do you try to re-roll Michael Biehn's Kyle Reese - one of the very, very best acting performances EVER turned in by an actor who is otherwise merely OK (yes, I've seen Tombstone, The Abyss, and Aliens; he's still mediocre, get a grip) - with this fucking guy?  No.

I'm Not Here - Not to be confused with the Bob Dylan movie, I'm Not There.  This has J.K. Simmons and Sebastian Stan playing an alcoholic whose life is about as wrecked as it can get, and little stream-of-consciousness flashbacks triggered by various events tell his story.  I wanted to like this, but there's just not enough meat on the bones to anyone's performance outside of Simmons, who wouldn't win Best Actor but certainly could have won Most Actor for this.  On top of that, the ending just drops trou and takes a huge dump on the prior 75 minutes of the movie, so I couldn't consider this acceptable.

The Longest Week - Oh, it's Olivia Wilde, how bad can this be?  It can be real fucking bad, that's how bad.  For God's sake, STOP COPYING WOODY ALLEN MOVIES THAT WEREN'T EVEN GOOD IN THE FIRST PLACE!  This has a handful of big names slogging their way through a set of characters who are thoroughly unlikable with a Vicky Cristina Barcelona-wannabe narration that has his head so far up his own ass that he can Inception entire meals.  Blah happens and Blah lies about it and Blah reacts and BLAH BLAH FUCKING BLAH.  I want all these people to fall down an open manhole, not have their innermost thoughts turgidly explained to me by some dipshit who isn't clever. Yes, you, Peter Glanz. You.  Fuck.  Right.  Off.

OK, that was more negativity than I remembered.  Anyway, onward.

Acceptable

A Quiet Place Part II - They should have subtitled this, "The One We Stole from Video Games".  A family Tomb Raiders its way to a new safe place where Lara Croft can bandage some wounds, then Joel & Ellie try to solve the world's problems, but then they're attacked by Trappers who've gone mad in the Far Harbor Fog, and Old Longfellow isn't there to save them!  I mean, what the fuck.  But this is still OK, even though it continues to rely on the stupidity of its characters to add tension (looking at YOU, Marcus).  In a twist that surprises no one, the first movie was a lot better.

The Bedroom Window - I can't believe there's a Steve Guttenberg movie on the Criterion Channel, and I can't believe I liked it.  But, here I am.  Granted, it wasn't because of Steve Guttenberg - one wonders how much better this could have been with Harrison Ford.  But it's one of Curtis Hanson's early movies, so I took a shot, and I was pleasantly surprised.  It's the rare movie where actions have legitimate consequences that still have to be faced, and the good guy doesn't just get some heroic win over the bad guy; it's ugly and scrappy and all spills out into the open for the cops to clean up.  Isabelle Huppert is pretty good in this too, as she goes from being a fairly likable lady who's stepping out on her husband into the most steel-plated, heartless piece of shit imaginable.  It's also a movie saying A LOT about the male gaze, as there are a lot of clear nods that the only real difference between the Bad Guy and the Other Guys is that the bad guy acts, but the others are sure as Hell thinking it.  Plus, it was fun to see mid-80s Baltimore.  Worth checking out.

Adventureland - The hardest thing to buy about this movie is the notion of Jesse Eisenberg's character being a virgin when it's very clear he has such an easy chemistry with literally every other actor in the whole movie, so you figure this guy must've gotten laid at some point.  It probably also needed more of Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig, instead of them being just there to hit a few spots; when they're on camera, especially Hader, they're golden.  But Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart actually seem to work together pretty well, and I wouldn't mind seeing them in more movies opposite one another.  This is mostly just decent, but far from a waste of time, either.

Awesome

Annihilation - Ooof.  My biggest regret was that I watched a Youtube video about doing Cosmic Horror correctly in film, and this was featured prominently, so I kind of knew where the ending would go.  But this is really solid otherwise.  I don't think it would have made my Best of 2010s, but it would have been a late cut.  Fantastic art direction and CGI work, interesting script, a good cast - especially Gina Rodriguez - there just isn't much about this to criticize, except for the eyeball bit at the end, which I think is lame and trite.  But this was pretty much the reason I signed up for a free trial of Paramount, and I'm glad I did.  This might be Alex Garland's worst movie and it's still pretty fucking good.

Bad Education - I feel like this loses a lot of steam as it gets closer to its conclusion, but Alison Janney and Hugh Jackman are really at the top of their games here.  What's really great about it is how, at least for the first 40 minutes or so, you think the situation is potentially limited in scope and you feel for Jackman's character; accusations get tossed like bombs at him, but you almost wonder, "Nah, he couldn't, could he?" because Jackman plays him so sympathetically.  But nah, this guy's a piece of shit, too.  There are some compelling little digs about the nature of how this could happen, too, like how real estate people can make millions off "good schools," but the people who actually make them good feel unfairly compensated.  Interesting story and well-crafted.

Bloody Sunday - I used to wonder why Paul Greengrass was tapped to direct the 2nd Bourne movie and United 93, and now I wonder no longer.  Holy fucking shit.  This was reeeeeeeeally close to being a Winner, but it has these fairly annoying fade-to-black edits throughout to denote small passages of time, but what they do as much as anything else is take you out of the sense of realism that's otherwise all over this gem.  It's got his typical voyeuristic camera work during dialogue scenes and shaky madness during the worst and most chaotic moments, and it's just totally unflinching about detailing the amount of fucking up that had to happen for an event like this to transpire.  By the time the shooting is over and you're left with the local MP trying to find out what's happened, the sounds of wailing mothers and angry fathers is going to make the room incredibly dusty.  And then they close the movie with a fucking stellar live performance of "Sunday Bloody Sunday", keeping the screen black and playing the full song instead of cutting it off when there are no more credits.  *chef's kiss*  This would definitely make my top 100 of 2000s, if I were doing one of those on Letterboxd or something...

Next time: Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Times We Name-Dropped Tony Stark!

[Curt McGirt]

Yeah, Bloody Sunday was absolutely devastating. The tension just ratchets up and up and up and then they just take a sledgehammer to your emotions. I hate U2* but that is a great and powerful song that deserved to be played there. 

* The only other song I like of theirs is "New Year's Day". 

[Swift]

14 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Adventureland - The hardest thing to buy about this movie is the notion of Jesse Eisenberg's character being a virgin

I've never actually thought about this before but I could totally buy his character being a virgin in literally every thing I've seen him in.

Edited August 25, 2021 by Swift