Movie 2021 MOVIES DISCUSSION

[Raziel]

16 minutes ago, Swift said:

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.

You might be confusing Eisenberg with Michael Cera.

[Mister TV]

I never understood why they set Adventureland in Pittsburgh, go ahead and shoot it in Pittsburgh but just set it on Long Island, hell Forest Hills, PA and Forest Hills, NY look so much alike that they have the same name. I turned 13 in Pittsburgh the summer the movie took place and it might as well be set on the Moon since it was nothing like Pittsburgh in that timeframe, that totally soured me on the movie. Also, Ryan Reynolds character would have been bragging about playing with Donnie Iris not Lou Reed.

[driver]

Pretty sure Eisenberg wasn't a virgin in The Hunting Party.

Edited August 25, 2021 by driver

[AxB]

 

[BrianS81177]

God damn. I lost my dad to cancer too and it took all of a minute for me to start crying watching that.  Actually probably less than that. 

Edited August 26, 2021 by BrianS81177

[driver]

Who started cutting onions in here?

[Technico Support]

On 8/21/2021 at 5:27 AM, JRV said:

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.

I was kind of meh on the first half of it but it really picks up in the second half.  I really enjoyed how faithfully it stuck to all the noir detective tropes -- Jackman is a detective, flawed, ex-military but still completely ineffective in every single fight, falls for the wrong dame -- just great!

[Zimbra]

Mandy Patinkin is a real one.  I love the interview he did where the host had to leave because his wife was in labor and he just got so excited.  You can skip to like a minute in:

 

[Mister TV]

I was checking my JustWatch app the other day and saw that The Big Town was now on Prime, now I had seen most of this movie 15ish years ago on possibly HDNet Movies, I had never heard of it before and turned it off when I thought it was over. The Big Town (1987) is one of the few movies about Craps, stars Matt Dillon along with a solid cast consisting of Diane Lane, Tommy Lee Jones, Lee Grant, Tom Skerritt, Suzy Amis and Bruce Dern totally Bruce Derning it up. The middle part of the movie is pretty good but it kind of wanders around in the last third and there's points you think it's ending but then it keeps going. The Wikipedia states that original director Harold Becker who directed a few decent flicks was replaced by mostly tv director Ben Bolt, with a different director and some work on the script it could have been really good, but Tommy Lee Jones hamming it up and Bruce Dern make this a fun watch. Also, the movie is set in Chicago but filmed in Toronto so no one attempts a Chicago accent, which is a good thing.

Now I had never heard of this movie before I saw it pop up around 15 years ago, I then totally forgot about it until I saw it pop up on the app and it brought back memories of other 80's movies set in the 50's & 60's that are kind of "lost" to what I assume are music rights issues. Movies like The Flamingo Kid with Matt Dillion, Eddie and the Cruisers, Long Gone, The Wanderers, The Idolmaker, The In Crowd and I'm sure a lot more.

[Contentious C]

I'm pretty certain I saw Eddie and the Cruisers on either Amazon or Netflix in recent years.  Probably less to do with rights and more to do with their willingness to keep something in rotation that no one is actually going to watch.

[AxB]

On 8/25/2021 at 11:52 PM, driver said:

Pretty sure Eisenberg wasn't a virgin in The Hunting Party.

His character clearly stopped being a virgin at some point in the Zombieland franchise.

I watched Memory: The Origins of Alien (2019). One of those movies that feels like it could maybe possibly have been a DVD Extra, but somehow became a whole other movie instead. Like, it was interesting, but it's not as if this was an unexplored topic before. Although the way that they basically exposed that the movie was kind of a Reservoir Dogs/ Star Wars hodgepodge that seemed original largely because it was a series of unoriginal or derivative ideas that had never been arranged in that particular order before.

[Curt McGirt]

The DVD documentary on it from my Alien boxset (the one with films 1-4 in it) is better than Memory, and more thorough. For one, I think Memory didn't get into how salty Dan O'Bannon was about them reworking his script; am I right or wrong about that?

[AxB]

Yeah, you're right about it. It brings up that there were changes, but it's like: O'Bannon wanted Giger, Fox didn't want to pay for Giger, so O'Bannon paid out of his own pocket. Then Fox/ Walter Hill rejected those designs... but then when Walter Hill left and Ridley came in, he wanted to do all the Giger stuff, so O'Bannon was right all along.

I'm guessing that the cost of having his widow be in the movie, was that it had to tell (her version of) his side of the story.

[J.H.]

I'm not a fan of Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind as I find it so insanely dull and I really want to slap Jim Carrey's character like he is Johnny Fontaine. Yet...  I fuckin love the hell out of Cold Souls , which is kinda similar in themes but I'd rather watch Paul Giamatti play a fictional version of Paul Giamatti than Jim Carrey play anything

James

Edited August 29, 2021 by J.H.

[odessasteps]

In a very weird parallel, i was actually once on the Long Island Rail Road going out to visit an old college girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, but it was after i worked at Borders. 

(Sadly, she was married with 2 kids at the time, so nothing actually happened, and no memory loss.)

[Zimbra]

19 hours ago, odessasteps said:

In a very weird parallel, i was actually once on the Long Island Rail Road going out to visit an old college girlfriend on Valentine’s Day, but it was after i worked at Borders. 

(Sadly, she was married with 2 kids at the time, so nothing actually happened, and no memory loss.)

That you remember...

[driver]

I watched The Last Mercenary on Netflix. Van Damme's tongue is planted firmly in cheek. Very light.

[Curt McGirt]

Nixon is playing on Epix right now. I had no idea Oliver Stone loaded it with an absolute murderer's row of acting talent. I mean, Bob Hoskins playing J. Edgar Hoover? Get out. Anthony Hopkins plays Nixon without makeup and little inflection which is a wise choice that even Nicholson as Hoffa didn't make (and that's another movie that makes good use of flashback). Hopkins also plays Nixon as totally haunted which is probably closest to the truth though perhaps more sympathetic than he deserves. 

EDIT: Holy shit, Paul Sorvino is totally unrecognizable as Kissinger, and spot on. And there's James Karen in a role even! 

EDIT II: WHOA. I had no idea Nixon got caught in a conversation with a bunch of students at the Lincoln statue, and they dropped the motherfuckin hammer on him. The ego of the man. He was transparent. 

EDIT III: Well, despite its length that film was brilliant. Joan Allen deserved to win the Oscar, James Woods embodied Haldeman (and probably does in real life more than just in the film), and one of the real corkers comes from Larry Hagman, J.R. Ewing himself, playing the head of a shadowy cabal of businessmen who laces into racist invective about school busing and complaints about the EPA, whereupon Nixon shuts him down by saying "You have a problem with the EPA, try the IRS." Great movie.

Edited September 3, 2021 by Curt McGirt

[Contentious C]

Hey, I watch movies!  Lots of movies are sort of trash.  Day 51 (and counting) of this crap I'm doing, Evil F#%$ing Mouse Edition...

Hot Garbage

Runaway && - This is something I never sat down to watch before, but I'm counting it as a rewatch instead of a new one because it was one of my father's favorite movies when I was growing up.  When I saw who directed it, I found myself shouting, "Another DAMN MICHAEL CHRICHTON MOVIE!" like Mr. Szasz telling the story about Penguin's straight flush in Arkham City.  There is literally one really good scene in this, which is the bomb removal bit, which actually seems believable and Selleck and Rhodes are both great.  Annnnnnd, the rest is stupid bullshit.  The one other thing it gets right, though, is how robots & technology affect the world: nothing actually changes, we're just annoyed, frustrated, and bored - but with robots.

Green Lantern && - I (ugh) paid money to see this in the theaters and kind of liked it at the time, but soured on it the more I thought about it.  So, I rewatched to see if it were as bad as I remembered.

...

Yup, this is a big piece of shit.  I feel bad for Reynolds & Mark Strong, who are both really, really good and would have made for an interesting set of films once Sinestro turns, had this one not been so godawful.  But damn, just nothing else about this works.  Maybe Hector Hammond a little, but they fuck up Amanda Waller (though I guess she's "Dr. Waller" so maybe it's a sister or cousin?), they fuck up Parallax, and Blake Lively probably should have won a Razzie for this.  Did she?  I don't have the energy to find out.  The CGI is mostly terrible, the script is awful, but hey, Taika Waititi!  He'll save i---no, it's a huge pile of shit.

Bad Teacher - Bad Santa is one of those utterly crass movies you think is going to just be dumb and offensive and then ends up winning you over.  This...is not that.  Other than Justin Timberlake acting like the biggest dipshit in the history of film, it's more annoying and unlikable than anything else.  There are a few good jokes, but they're so sparse that it's a waste of even a 90-minute runtime.  But hey, Muppet Baby appearances by Kathryn Newton and Kaitlyn Dever, and they had to start somewhere...

Acceptable

The Courier - This is based on the story of a British spy who allegedly helped the Cuban Missile Crisis from becoming the first film in the Mad Max saga.  Cumberbatch is pretty solid in it, and Rachel Brosnahan has one scene in it where she just RIPS him something fierce that I absolutely loved, but even though this is good, it's stuff you've seen before by and large.  Still, if you go in for Cold War stuff, it's worth a look.

Pickpocket - Maybe not my best choice for a first Robert Bresson film, but it's less than 80 minutes, so I gave it a shot.  I didn't care much for it, but it's certainly as "economical" as Criterion claimed his films would be.  Almost too much so, really, as you don't even get a chance to hear character's names more than 2 or 3 times for the whole film, not that there are many of them.  Plus, it's got the whole "telling instead of showing" thing that I find tedious, but, hey, it was the 50s.  There are some fairly fun bits where you're playing 'chase the stolen goods' with the camera, and those are well-done, but the thrust of the film left me cold, and its structure did no favors, either.  I could see this as a big influence on others, though: it made me think I was watching a more spiritual version of Following, sometimes.

The Vast of Night - There's some fun period work in this that keeps it moving, but once it has to actually get to the point of following through on what it has set up, I don't think this works well at all, and then it's just over.  There are some genuine moments of creepy tension in the middle third, but a part of me thinks it might have been better to end on a less certain note, where no one is really sure what's actually happened, including the audience.  It's also a little weird that the opening sequences attempt so much hotshot camera work when so much of the film afterwards is two people sitting and listening to something.  Pick a tone and stick with it, people.

The Burning Plain - This was awfully, awfully close to the Hot Garbage pile, except this has some really solid acting from Kim Basinger, Charlize Theron, and Jennifer Lawrence in what was one of her earliest roles.  Theron is the central focus of the movie, but the others are typically better than she is, which is a letdown.  What's also a letdown is the script, the directing, and the overwrought self-seriousness of this mediocre movie.  The climax of the movie is easy to spot a mile away, and the resolution of everything doesn't genuinely feel earned, so really the only reason to watch this is for the performances.

Frozen - Why did people make such a big deal about this movie?  This is as dead-average as average gets.  The music is more annoying than anything else, none of the characters besides Anna have a brain in their heads, and the most likable character is the fucking reindeer.  I feel bad for Kristen Bell's back after she had to carry this to watchability.  Maybe the worst Pixar movie I've seen.

Wreck-It Ralph - now THIS is more like it.  Granted, the middle of the movie is pretty boring, as the first 20 minutes and the last 20 minutes do all the heavy lifting, but this at least has an interesting premise and followed through on it pretty well.  For whatever stupid reason, I didn't see the big reveal coming, so I let out a hearty, "YOU SONOFABITCH!" when that happened, but I guess that just means I was invested.  Probably needed more Jane Lynch, though, because she was great (big surprise there). 

Awesome

Attack the Block - I was going to put this into the Acceptable category for probably the first hour, because it really bugged the shit out of me that these asshole kids who mugged someone were going to come out as some kind of heroes, but it was just too funny at too many of the right moments to put it anywhere else.  I pretty much flipped it to Awesome once Probs said, "No one's gonna call you Mayhem if you keep acting like such a fucking pussy!"  Wouldn't have made my Top 100 list, but it's definitely something I'd show to people if they hadn't seen it before.  And I'd just set it up as, "Finn, Firestorm, and Doctor Who Kill Some Big Gorilla-Wolf Motherfuckers".

Mulan (1998) - This is also a significantly fucking better movie than Frozen, aside from it being vaguely racist and having a lot of unfortunate dialogue about Mulan pretending to be a man.  But the songs work, the characters work, the story works, and it pays off well.  I'm not the biggest fan of Coked-Out Robin Williams roles, so this is probably the last "great" non-Pixar Disney movie, and their best since The Little Mermaid.  Don't know that I'd go to all that much trouble to rewatch it, but I'm definitely ready to hate-watch the live-action one, now.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings - I said a bit on it in the Spoiler thread and won't say too much else here, except the fights are really, really good, and this felt like an easy Top 10 MCU entry to me.  But it's probably one of those movies that's either going to hit you right or leave you cold, and you'll think it's mediocre.  I guess it hit me right.  Pretty much the opposite of Black Widow, where I had expectations and they weren't really met; went into this with none and was very pleasantly surprised.

[Curt McGirt]

I believe I heard somewhere (maybe here) that Attack the Block 2 is coming sometime soon. 

[Eivion]

3 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Green Lantern && - I (ugh) paid money to see this in the theaters and kind of liked it at the time, but soured on it the more I thought about it.  So, I rewatched to see if it were as bad as I remembered.

...

Yup, this is a big piece of shit.  I feel bad for Reynolds & Mark Strong, who are both really, really good and would have made for an interesting set of films once Sinestro turns, had this one not been so godawful.  But damn, just nothing else about this works.  Maybe Hector Hammond a little, but they fuck up Amanda Waller (though I guess she's "Dr. Waller" so maybe it's a sister or cousin?), they fuck up Parallax, and Blake Lively probably should have won a Razzie for this.  Did she?  I don't have the energy to find out.  The CGI is mostly terrible, the script is awful, but hey, Taika Waititi!  He'll save i---no, it's a huge pile of shit.

 

The only good things to come out of Green Lantern are Reynolds and Lively getting together and jokes about how bad Green lantern was.

[elizium]

Green Lantern should have been great, they absolutely nailed the casting (well not Blake Lively but Hal, Sinestro, Hammond and Kilowog are perfect), but the whole thing was completely undone by production choices. The story isn't good or anything, but it is passable as a superhero origin, but the look the look they chose my god.

I love the Green Lantern comics because they are so visually pleasing. The suit and the constructs should be bright and crisp, instead everything is dull and cloudy. Oa is so so ugly

Why would you change Parallax from a cool looking giant skeletal dragon monster into...dust I guess?

[Control]

PICKPOCKET below MULAN. Ok.

[Contentious C]

Feel free to explain why I'm an idiot.

[Control]

Nah. 
 

Bresson’s style is pretty hard to get into, and sometimes he leaves me cold altogether, but PICKPOCKET is usually one that’s broadly popular. 
 

Now, A MAN ESCAPED? If you’d put that below MULAN, well … probably nothing, because I got better things to do than police other people’s tastes. But that movie rules.