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2022 Movies Discussion Thread (v.2.0)


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i just got back from seeing Sonic 2 with a buddy. no kids to blame, just two old school video game fans (plus, he considers himself a Sonic historian. me, not so much).

the first 20 minutes i was questioning why i was there, but the flick won me over by the end. had a good bit of fun and wound up enjoying it.

the wedding scene/subplot was terrible and had no business being in the movie.

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My son who loves Sonic and plays the shit out of Sonic 2 and Generations loved it.

 

I figured the wedding subplot was an excuse to remove Marsden's character from the front half of the movie, do a needlessly overly complicated way to introduce GUN and put Sonic and Tails in the right place for the start of the 3rd act.

The boy is super excited for 3 given the mid-credit teaser, so they did their job.

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7 minutes ago, odessasteps said:

Nicholas Cage did an AMA and said his three best moves were Bringing Out the Sead, Pig and Leaving Las Vegas. 

Any alternatives? 

I haven't seen Pig but of the Cage flicks I've seen Raising Arizona would be #3.

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That's understandable; I was going to suggest that Vampire's Kiss belongs despite the movie overall not being nearly to the level of some of his others.  Maybe I should rewatch Bringing Out the Dead sometime.  I can't even remember when I watched it last.  I think Goodfellas was literally the only Marty movie I'd seen to that point and I had no appreciation for him whatsoever.  I forget what I was even doing in college at that point; probably doing some stupid thing like trading wrestling tapes.

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Hey look, another Monday.  I watched more stuff, but no Nic Cage.  It's...whatever the Hell this is, Day 272 (and counting), Why Is Sydney Sweeney in Everything? Edition.

Hot Garbage

Nocturne - Why do these Blumhouse movies make money?  Really?  They're just...ugh.   UUUUUGGGGGGH.  I think a new detail I need to put into movies is, "Moment You Know What You're Watching."  I was thinking about this for Good Will Hunting and I still haven't quite nailed down the point where you know what you've got on your hands, but it's pretty early.  This...jeebus cripes, you know once that dumbass vocalizing starts over the goddamn opening credits.  "Oh, right, it's going to be dumb trash."  And it is.  The sad thing is this probably could have worked pretty well if it just shot all the supernatural bullshit into space and went hard on the professional jealousy/sibling rivalry aspect of it.  I mean, Black Swan won an Academy Award for that kind of thing 10 years prior, so why not just play it a little straighter and just get weird when necessary?  But no, It's Supernatural Bullshit All the Way Down. 

Prince Avalanche - OK, I watched some mediocre bullshit this time, and here's a case where even Paul Rudd's Pornstache can't save the day.  I'm still baffled that one of the guys who co-produced and directed episodes of The Righteous Gemstones & Vice Principals made a movie this decidedly unfunny.  There isn't a single legitimate belly laugh in this whole thing.  I mean, granted, part of that is that Emile Hirsch is also on my list of Actors I Irrationally Dislike to the Point of Killing a Movie, but...he's not good here.  He's less-chubby, less-talented Jack Black.  Did they only cast him because Jack Black was too old to play the role?  What about the guy from Balls of Fury, what was he doing?  There's one fairly compelling bit in the middle, once you get to the dramatic peak of the film (assuming you can call it that), where the camera work and the artistic direction takes a huge swerve, and it's kind of nice in a "Hey, I watched Solaris, too" kind of way, but then it's just back to unfunny attempts at two louts doing the Odd Couple bit.  Ehhhhhhh.  No thanks.

By the way, have you heard my new band, Paul Rudd's Pornstache?

The Babysitters - This was WAY more of Katherine Waterston than I ever expected to see.  And I have to say, she's actually pretty good in it, but then again, she manages to be pretty good in most stuff, even when it's trash (or, judging by the HP universe garbage, especially when it's trash).  And this is one of the few times I've actually kind of liked John Leguizamo in anything, even though his character is a straight-up pedophile, as are...well, all the men here?  So there's your first problem.  It's basically trying to do a Risky Business kind of thing but "empower" the girls since they're running the show, but it's still a movie written and directed by a guy, and ultimately, any attempts it makes at having something to say are shot straight in the face by how sleazy it is.  There's one particularly interesting moment in the middle involving Ethan Phillips (who you've seen in a ton of stuff) that seems like it could go somewhere worthwhile, and then two seconds later, the movie just shoots it all to shit by doing the lame-ass "You're 16 and you're perfect" thing that Hannah Gadsby tore 14 new assholes in her Nanette special.  So, just no.

Trouble Man - Maybe I judge this a little harshly, and films like it, but I think I just have a limited stomach for bland action movies, no matter the genre or intent.  Just the photo montage from Super Fly was enough to ground the rest of the film's action in a larger picture and a larger world with something to say, and this...has nothing like that.  The acting isn't good, the writing isn't good, the characters may as well be cardboard cutouts, and every action trope you can think of is on display here.  I can very much imagine the cops at this police station playing the game featured in the Chicken 4 Dayz episode of BoJack.  Good soundtrack, though; Sam Wilson wasn't lying about that.

I Love You Philip Morris - Jim Carrey says he's going to quit acting now that he's done Sonic 2.  I'd like to know: when the Hell did he start acting?  He didn't do a whole lot of it here, and isn't this supposed to be one of his better movies?  I'd actually watched maybe 15 minutes of this for the 2010s project, so this wasn't a "new" movie, just one I thought I should finish, and now I kind of wish I hadn't bothered.  The story itself is ridiculous and compelling and strange and fucked-up, but between the overacting in every scene and the Tedious Narration, I wished Amazon Prime had a 1.25 - 1.5x speed like they do for audiobooks.  Listening to him in a squeakier voice the whole time might have made it funnier, if nothing else, because it didn't have anything else going for it.

Acceptable

Together - Hey, a COVID movie!  Is this the first one of these I've watched?  I think so.  This is riotously funny for the first 30 minutes or so, but it just kind of collapses under its own weight a bit.  It's a two-hander that's almost entirely fourth-wall breaking, but it isn't condescending like House of Cards - it's a lot more relatable and conversational, and man, they really don't pull any punches for a good chunk of this.  At least, that is, until they have to wrap it up, and then it becomes a little too safe and anodyne, given everything that came before.  But it's some of James McAvoy's best work, although he certainly excels whenever he has to be a massive prick.  All told, it's worth a look, since it has some pretty incisive stuff to say about the last two years of total mayhem we've all lived through.

Carmilla - See?  You can suggest supernatural horror without directly invoking supernatural horror, and sometimes it works!  This is...well, harder to get through than most movies, because it's pretty slow and dull, but the last 20 minutes or so of it pick up relatively well, and the ending is about as brutal and awful as a movie can get.  I do wish, though, that this had a little more scope and ingenuity to it.  For a lot of the outdoor scenes, I thought, "Hey, didn't this person see CJF's Jane Eyre?  Can we get some mood from the scenery?  Please?" but it's only dribs and drabs of that, rather than turning the oppressive nature of their surroundings into a character of its own.  It's the kind of movie where you think, "OK, yeah, you got it about half right, but if you'd got the other half right, too, it'd be the creepiest and saddest thing anyone saw all year."

Awesome

Under the Silver Lake - I think if I were any more of a Lynch fanboy - or any less of one - I probably wouldn't have liked this so much.  But this is just a great thumb to the eye of everyone trying to read so much into movies, instead of taking what they give you.  What other, better reasons have people ever needed to be shitty to one another, than sex or power or money?  People do stupid things and terrible things and disgusting things for no more or less than that, and, although this does say that a little too directly at times - Anne Hathaway's character from Interstellar says hi by the way - this movie holds true to its concept, while also being so absurd and over-the-top that you can't help but laugh at how twisted-up Sam gets.  Once I saw Patrick Fischler - who you know as the man from the Winkie's Diner scene in Mulholland Dr. - as the conspiracy theory nut in this movie, I knew it was only going to get weirder and funnier, because you have to have a set of brass balls to explicitly reference one of the most legitimately terrifying movie scenes of the the last 25 years and then completely take the piss out of it.  I think its directness makes it a little bit of a one-watch-and-done kind of movie, but unlike the things it sends up, at least it's honest about itself.

Edited by Contentious C
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I feel like it really speaks to how dire the cinematic landscape is right now that Michael Bay, who has not directed a film that the critical consensus has deemed “good” in like 25 years, has been hailed as some kind of returning hero by critics for AMBULANCE and spoken of like some kind of noble martyr for its box office performance.

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Everything Everywhere All At Once is getting rave reviews on Letterboxd, almost overwhelmingly 5 star reviews, but unfortunately it just didn't appeal to me all that much. Michelle Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan both give excellent performances, it's very fun visually (some great costumes and set design) and I liked the overall story of wondering what other paths you may have taken in life and where they would have led you, but it's all let down in my opinion by relentlessly juvenile humour - 

Spoiler

dildoes, butt plugs, hot dog fingers, raccoons

all annoyed me. I suspect most people here will love it though, and it is a wild and crazy ride, but it just wasn't for me. I'll watch it again when it's available for streaming because I didn't hate it. I want to experience the love people are feeling for it.

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On 4/11/2022 at 9:18 PM, Contentious C said:

I Love You Philip Morris - Jim Carrey says he's going to quit acting now that he's done Sonic 2.  I'd like to know: when the Hell did he start acting?  He didn't do a whole lot of it here, and isn't this supposed to be one of his better movies?  I'd actually watched maybe 15 minutes of this for the 2010s project, so this wasn't a "new" movie, just one I thought I should finish, and now I kind of wish I hadn't bothered.  The story itself is ridiculous and compelling and strange and fucked-up, but between the overacting in every scene and the Tedious Narration, I wished Amazon Prime had a 1.25 - 1.5x speed like they do for audiobooks.  Listening to him in a squeakier voice the whole time might have made it funnier, if nothing else, because it didn't have anything else going for it.

I was thinking about this movie over the last day or two, so funny timing. I remember thinking it was fine at the time. 

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I'm not even clicking on that because Steven Seagal is openly and actively supporting Putin and his fucking grotesque invasion of Ukraine.

--

Onto much more pleasant subjects:  Everything, Everywhere, All At Once is absolutely amazing.  You should go watch it.  

I'm only upset it got released in April, because it could very well be forgotten about when it comes to next year's awards season. 

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On 3/23/2022 at 11:01 PM, AxB said:

https://watch.eventive.org/satoshikon

From Saturday, for a week, all of Satoshi Kon's movies will be streaming for free. For 7 days. You should watch Perfect Blue, at least.

Thanks to this event, people are rediscovering the awesomeness of Magnetic Rose; the first entry in the Memories anime anthology.

All of the short stories in Memoires are by Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) and Kon adopted Magnetic Rose into a screenplay.  Memories is arguably one of the best anthologies of any genre bar none.

Edited by J.T.
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Hey, Monday, Movies, Stuff, you ignoring every word I say.  You know the drill.  It's Day 279 (and counting) of...this?  Whatever this is: The Only Things More Addictive than Shitty Movies are McDonald's Cheeseburgers Edition.

Hot Garbage

The Neon Demon - I'd watched about 10 minutes of this previously, so it's not part of the new movie streak, but anyway, what a wasted opportunity.  If - and I can't believe I'm about to say this - this movie were made with someone showing more restraint, like DAVID LYNCH OR DAVID CRONENBERG, it could have been fucking fantastic.  Yes, I just said Nicolas Winding Refn is indulging his bad habits more than guys known for either going way over the top, indulging bad habits, or both.  That's how ridiculous this movie usually is.  There are subplots that don't need to be there, or could have been their own totally separate movie, like the whole Keanu Reeves thing, aka, how do we get an actual movie star in our movie so people will watch it?-Class 101.  Other recognizable folks flit in and out with no real rhyme or reason, so the whole thing boils down to whether you can tolerate the fact that the movie languidly plods along for 90 minutes before it does anything.  Visually, it's stunning, and there's one scene near the midpoint where things take a pretty serious turn in another direction, and it *almost* kinda works because Elle Fanning is good at her job, but unlike Drive, there's no sense of grounding the abrupt and jarring moments in a world that gives the decisions meaning.  They're just...increasingly weird for no good reason that actually builds to anything.  There's about 15 minutes max of stuff that actually applies to the plot, such as it is, and the remainder is a huge waste of time.  Bella Heathcote is certifiably insane for nearly the entire running time, so there's that, at least.

The DUFF - Man, I enjoyed this piece of shit more than I expected to, but make no mistake, it's every bad teen movie cliche you can think of, or ones that are subverted in a manner that no one in their right mind would actually believe.  Yeah, sure, a *school newspaper article* goes viral and makes teenagers - a group of society known for its lack of frontal lobe development - rethink their life choices.  Let's wrap with that as the ending.  Sure.  Good good.  But, having said that, it is kind of funny sometimes.  Allison Janney is usually pretty good, the rapport among Mae Whitman and her friend group is actually believable (other than the fact that Whitman played a 20-something 5 years prior in Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and is now playing a teenager here, hahah, great job Hollywood!), and there are some occasional decent laughs, though I still subscribe to the school that says Ken Jeong is painfully unfunny anywhere other than the first Hangover movie.  And I guess now I know who Bella Thorne is, though I don't really know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

Autumn in New York && - Somehow, I managed to watch this twice.  I have no idea how long ago I saw it the first time; I only believe I'd seen it before because I knew the broad strokes of the ending.  What I didn't realize was that Joan Chen directed it.  It's...not the worst thing, and you can tell she wanted to do something of a love letter to NYC and to sappy romances like this at the same time, and she's not half-bad at it.  Not necessarily half-good, either, though.  And besides, Richard Gere is really, truly the worst leading man in our modern times.  Just the absolute worst actual actor.  Every time he tries to act, it's just so pathetic.  There's one good, really good scene in this where he and Vera Farmiga finally confront each other, and you can just sort of see him rewatching this scene later on, thinking, "Why do I only see one set of footsteps?" and Vera responding, "It was then that I carried you."  Winona Ryder could still get away (mostly) with being a 30-something playing a 20-something, and hey, J.K. Simmons was in this!  Nice to see he wasn't always typecast: here he plays an asshole *surgeon*, instead of an asshole newspaper man or an asshole music teacher.  If there's a silver lining here, it's very very gray in the form of Elaine Stritch, who plays Winona's grandmother, whose daughter used to be in love with Gere's character, too (yeah, the movie's that squick).  She has some pretty great scenes, but even then, the script kind of lets you down, and you wonder why it didn't swing for the fences more and have something memorable to say, instead of just every obvious thing these kinds of movies have already said.

Scenes of a Sexual Nature - I was going to do this whole bit where the Most Annoying Dr. Who Companion meets Rick Grimes and they go off together to bump into Bane and the three of them whatever whatever for all the different people who are in this, like Hugh Bonneville and Sophie Okenedo, but so few of those people actually come across one another anyway, and besides, this hackneyed Love Actually wannabe doesn't deserve the time it would take to make even a mediocre joke.  There's one good pairing in this, and it's the old couple, and even then they blow the best part of that way too early and then use them as sort of the director's voice, trying to say airy, significant-sounding things the rest of the film.  Another waste of time, but least Neon Demon had the decency to be pretty.

Acceptable

Guest Artist - This could have slid into Hot Garbage, except that the scope of it is about right, and Jeff Daniels is pretty great in this.  Granted, he did write it, as well as the play that he did for who knows how long, so he'd better know exactly how he wanted to do this in each and every moment.  The kid he has to play opposite is irksome for at least half the movie, but there's just enough give and take that it doesn't entirely feel like Daniels is just smushing everyone else in the film into a corner and sucking all the oxygen out of the room.  Luckily, it's only 75 minutes long, so the scenes at the beginning and the end that are the emotional linchpins are close enough together that the far less interesting middle doesn't quite make you turn it off.

Written on the Wind - Aside from Dorothy Malone deservedly getting herself an Oscar, this really doesn't have anything on All That Heaven Allows.  That was just way prettier, way better acted, better writing, better concept.  The scandalous bits of this have probably aged just as badly, if not worse, than the latter movie, too, since now you can't pass a Twitter thread these days without hearing about the latest way that rich people are the fucking worst.  But if I had one thing to single out about this that I really didn't like, it's Robert fucking Stack and his stupid face.  It isn't a "he's the Unsolved Mysteries guy and I can't imagine him anywhere else" sort of thing, it's more, "Jesus, he sucks and should go away, and Unsolved Mysteries was the ceiling of what he could do well."  He'd be the Donald Trump of actors if Donald Trump weren't already.  But, this isn't bad by any means, just not as consistent as I would have hoped.  The script has some spicy stuff once in a while, but it's only once in a while, and there aren't enough scenes like the dance/staircase scene to really keep it rolling in the right direction effectively.  Plus, I can totally do without the whole genre of "show the finish first and then explain how we got there".  Morty Smith is right about that.

Compliance - Ugh.  Ugggggggh.  I mentioned in the other thread about having Injustice Radar - this was a big goddamn trigger of that.  Just one of those all-too-effective, skin crawling the whole time kind of movies.  And lo and behold, Ann Dowd is front and center while awful things happen to good people.  I don't really want to give too much away about this, because it's too easy to spoil and then you can guess virtually everything that goes on the rest of the way, so the less you know, the better.  But if you've heard the adage about the frog slowly boiling in the pot, this whole film is like that.  The most fucked-up thing is that it's based not on a true story, but literally dozens of them.

Awesome

The Batman - Oh, so that's why we need a 3-hour Batman movie: so it can be fucking awesome.  I like the Bale Bat-Ninja movies, and I liked the DKR-tinged Batfleck from BvS, even if much of the rest of the movie is bullshit (we really just should have had a 2nd stand-alone Superman movie prior to BvS, but that's neither here nor there).  But they weren't *The Motherfucking Batman*, the way Kevin Conroy lives in that gloomy place.  This?  This comes awfully, awfully close to that.  It's the most *fun* I've had with a Batman film, fun in the way TAS was and the Arkham games usually are.  And I love how it's a little bit raw and Year One, but really it's just more grounded and believable.  It's one guy - one fucking guy, really - against all the tools and people and vices of the modern world, and there's a certain sense of honor and nobility in that constant struggle, even when it's clearly too big for him.  It's the one note this movie gets totally right that none of the others came close to hitting, except for maybe the early stretches of Batman Begins (and especially not the ridiculous ending to The Dark Knight Rises).  Plus, he's an actual detective for once!  Jesus, that only took almost 35 years!  I am here for more of this, as long as whoever they get for Yet Another Joker Movie is not Travis Bickle Jr.

Winner Winner, Chicken Dinner

Everything Everywhere All at Once - Gonna spoiler this since it's new, so...

Spoiler

Wheeeeeeeeeww.  Let me get the bad out of the way first.  The constant flip-flopping, even mid-sentence, between languages, is pretty hard on those of us who don't hear all that well, and you feel like you miss dialogue, especially since Yeoh and Ke Huy Quan have persistent, if not strong, accents.  And as far as movies about the idea of multiverses go, this should be the absolute fucking floor of what that sort of movie should contain.  The floor.  It's MULTIVERSES.  Show some goddamned creativity, people; go at least this big or stay the fuck home.

Now, the rest.  EVERYTHING ELSE IS GREAT.  I kind of hate Stephanie Hsu in practically everything else, but this was my "Adam Driver in The Man Who Killed Don Quixote" moment with her, because she's fucking wonderful.  This is the best thing I've ever seen Michelle Yeoh do, and she is about as reliable as any woman in Hollywood.  The script is great, the editing is great, the variety is great, and hey, bonus round: you can spot all the people in your audience who have Fetlife accounts by who laughs out loud at the first appearance (of many!) of a buttplug on screen!  *raises hand* 

But I do wonder about the message this sends.  I mean, there's frankly no message, especially in American film, more trite and high on sniffing its own farts than the one that says, "You can do anything if you believe in yourself."  And there is a lot of that here.  But, I think it is tempered mightily with the idea that nobody gets through this alone, and there are no real heroes; everyone pulls together, or everyone tears each other apart.  That said, I wonder if this is really saying what it thinks it's saying, or if it's in fact saying the exact opposite.  If you can imagine a multiverse where you're happy, or successful, or you wrote the several books you meant to write for the last 15 or 20 years *raises hand again*, then it's kind of giving you tacit permission to *not* do the work, not put in the effort, not be those things in your here and your now if they're "true" in some alternate version's reality, if that makes any sense.

However, I think everyone will approach that problem - likely an unsolvable one - differently.  Really at the core, it's a hell of a metaphor about growing up and growing old and growing apart, and how you already have a million versions of yourself inside you, because every relationship you carry with you can so often be different from the one next door to it, or the one it was a year ago, or ten years ago.

And that's without even getting into the cool shit they're doing here.  The office building stuff gives off a real Die Hard/Stranger Things kind of vibe with the set design and lighting, there's the obvious kung-fu references, and then those morph into a Wong Kar Wai lovefest that's just beautiful, so it's very much one of those movies that will likely require multiple viewings just to catch it all.  Oh, and I totally bet you the Daniels played a lot of Saints Row 3 (and possibly 4) and came up with some of their character designs based on zany bullshit they did in that game (because I have done the exact same zany bullshit in that game).  Best movie I've seen since Drive My Car...but Drive My Car is better, still.

Bonus Winner!

The Piano && - Is there a tier above Winner?  Because maybe there should be.  I hadn't watched this in about 10 years, but then I bought the 4K, and--fuck it, you know what?  I make the rules around here.  There is.  There is another tier.

The Piano

The Piano && - There.  Better.  I think this might be, not necessarily my *favorite* movie, but my favorite idea of what a movie should be.  The first time I saw this, I was appropriately blown the fuck away by it, and I thought, "Nah, it's not going to be like that again, is it?  It's going to disappoint me a little, right?" Nope.  Not even a little.  Not in the slightest.  I think I've seen so much of Anna Paquin being mediocre for the last 20 years that I forgot how GREAT she is here.  I won't even say anything about Holly Hunter's performance except to say, hey, sorry Angela Bassett.  Really.  But the real revelations for me this time were Harvey Keitel and especially Sam Neill.  I don't really like Keitel (though he's amazeballs in Bad Lieutenant), so I didn't know how I'd approach this, but for as manly and tough and gruff and broody as he seems, he's got such a delicate touch throughout that sets off so many little details that work and help you appreciate why his behavior is...well, it's over the line, but you also understand perfectly why Ava chooses him, and even with a lesser actress, you'd still understand just because Keitel is so good.  But Sam Neill, holy shit.  He's someone I usually do like, but I'd never seen something definitive from him.  Or, it turns out I had, I just wasn't paying attention to how good he is in this.  If you just go by dialogue and actions, you could string up his character as your stereotypical stuffy Englishman who's out of touch with his emotions.  But he plays it with such a wonderful blend of sympathy and insecurity and cowardice and cluelessness that his decisions almost seem like they're on rails once you understand how closed off he is from so many things, especially his own ability to express himself in a simple and honest way to the people who are supposed to matter to him. 

Oh, and then there's the beautiful fucking lighting, and the music, and the scenery, and the mud, and the ending, and everything else that makes this a mind-bending experience.  And I sincerely believe that there has never been and never will be a more beautiful and perfect thing committed to film than there is here, with the sight of Holly Hunter's neck.  Yes, I know what else is in this movie; that's great, too.  But I said 'neck' and I absolutely mean it.

Edited by Contentious C
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On 4/11/2022 at 11:52 AM, odessasteps said:

Nicholas Cage did an AMA and said his three best moves were Bringing Out the Sead, Pig and Leaving Las Vegas. 

Any alternatives? 

Bringing Out the Dead: is great. I remember reading that one market it totally appealed to were..EMT drivers who said they basically sat around watching this because it was so spot-on. I've watched this countless times. It just gets more and more insane as it goes.

I'd add:

[b]Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans[/b]: Which is manic Werner Herzog gonzo filmmaking (Iguana-vision camera! "His soul is still dancing!" and on and on and on) coupled with arguably the most insane, unhinged performance of Cage's life. I genuinely thought he was on drugs during the film (Maybe he was) but it just absolutely unlike anything else out there. The fact that some studio thought Bad Lieutenant could be turned into a movie franchise is questionable at best, the idea that they figured the best person helm that movie is Werner Herzog is some legendary Hollywood madness.

[b]Adaptation[/b]: In which Cage turns in two wonderful performances as screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and his fictional brother Donald Kaufman as the former works on the adaptation of 'The Orchid Thief' while the latter tries to follow in his footsteps. It's an absolutely insane screenplay that adapts the book, while also satirizing the way Hollywood adapts books. Cage is so good that you tend to forget he is playing both roles. That both Charlie and Donald got best screenwriting nominations is the cherry on top.

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And I have never seen all of Port of Call New Orleans. The idea of doing another Bad Lieutenant was so offensive to me that I only saw part of the end on TV and the clips that of course showed up later. I want to see it so, so bad nowadays though. Really, WTF was wrong with me? I already loved Herzog from My Best Fiend and the subsequent viewing of Aguirre. I already loved Cage from Wild At Heart. It's peanut butter and chocolate. 

Edited by Curt McGirt
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The DUFF totally gets a pass for the ridiculously subversive daydream scene (I'm horny... for sex..) where Mae Whitman goes totally off character.  Yes, Ken Jeong is remarkably unfunny in this movie.  Robbie Amell carries this movie on his back across the finish line.  Bella Thorn is so good at playing bitchy roles that I cannot tell if she has good range or if she is just being herself.

The Neon Demon wouldn't be so bad if it could figure out what it wanted to be about, but it can't.   Bella Heathcote being batshit crazy and Abbey Lee's fabulous bondage braids can only make you forgive so much.

The Batman is totally great.  My thoughts are in the DC Movies thread.

I have heard good and bad about Everything Everywhere All at Once, so I will have to go see it and judge for myself.

Edited by J.T.
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