Movies 2022 Movies Discussion Thread (v.2.0)

[The Natural]

21 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Upper back in the middle.  I am tall so I need leg room.  I also like look directly at the movie screen instead of craning my neck.

Assigned movie seats and recliners are blessings from God.

My brother is bang on. Cineworld and the National Media Museum of Film and Photography at the time didn't have assigned seats. I got lucky seeing The Dark Knight twice and The Dark Knight Rises both in IMAX getting great seats slap bang in the middle. Those cinemas have assigned seating now. I've gone to The Light Cinema since 2018, assigned seating and better still big comfy ass chair recliners. So good.

[RIPPA]

33 minutes ago, J.T. said:

Upper back in the middle.  I am tall so I need leg room.  I also like look directly at the movie screen instead of craning my neck.

Assigned movie seats and recliners are blessings from God.

This is why you and I get along so well

[J.T.]

The recliners at my local Cinebistro are also heated.   I was so comfortable that I nearly fell asleep in the middle of The Batman.

[twiztor]

somewhere in the middle-to-back, slightly off center. but really, i can sit anywhere. i'm not picky.

my only empty theater experience was seeing Snakes On A Plane at the dollar theater on a weekday afternoon/evening. i got an unimportant phone call and answered it, right there in my seat. 

[Contentious C]

Hey, look, Monday again.  It's Day 286 (and counting) of some stuff no one else cares about, Curt McGirt Is Wrong as Usual Edition.

Hot Garbage

The Opposite of Sex - Here's another one of those, "This is somebody's favorite movie and I already know I hate this person without meeting them" kind of movies.  Just the Most Tedious of Tedious Narration that drags along a flaccid script that might have made a few 14-year-olds laugh in 1998 but is in fact lifeless and brainless.  None of the performances are any good, except maybe Lisa Kudrow, and the story is flimsy and ridiculous and gets a completely undeserved ending, given that the whole thing is jam-packed full of dumbasses and narcissists.  Anyone nostalgic for this movie needs to grow up and admit they are just nostalgic for Christina Ricci's boobs, because I can't imagine any other reason why someone would sit through this more than once, and I certainly wouldn't suffer through it again for that.  Fuck right off with this.

The Ugly Truth - And fuck right off with Katherine Heigl's entire career too, for that matter.  Has she ever been good in anything?  If there is even the most faded, gray-like-a-corpse silver lining to the idea that tentpole franchises are killing off movies, it's that hopefully, hopefully, just maybe, if we're lucky, fewer of these utterly pointless rom-coms will exist along the way.  Or at least they'll exist only on the back end of Amazon's disgusting monopoly on everything ever released, instead of ending up in an actual theater where people might make the mistake of paying to see something like it.  I could actually talk about the movie, I suppose, but why flog the flog used to flog the flog that flogged the dead horse of rom-coms we have all already seen a kajillion times?  Fuck right off with THIS!

Frances Ferguson - OK, maybe don't completely fuck right off with this, but come back when it's a real idea, instead of about a quarter of one.  Tedious Narration is not, in fact, made less tedious when Nick Offerman reads it!  Kaley Wheless, who you've probably never heard of, is in practically every scene of this, and I can understand why this made at least a couple of waves at film festivals, because she does completely nail her character's state of mind; her delivery is low-key, but so understated that it's rendered even more withering as a result.  And boy does she loathe, well, her entire life, pretty much.  It's actually surprising, in fact, that Wheless hasn't been cast in about 12 other things since then, because she's really good here.  Unfortunately, she's effectively the only good thing here, as it doesn't feel like there's enough development with respect to anything else - the plot, the characters, the sense of time and place, anything - to make you care, aside from the latest annoyed reaction she has to whoever is irritating her at any given moment. 

Dirty Work - And I guess don't fuck off entirely with this, either.  Far from the worst SNL cast member movie, but far from the best, too.  Actually, I don't know what would be the best, unless I just default and say Wayne's World.  But if you liked Norm's humor, there's going to be probably just enough about this that you'll be OK with it.  But man, ENOUGH with the hooker jokes.  There are other things that are funny!  I dug the running gags with getting thrown into dumpsters or out into the streets, and it's kinda neat that they staged a production of Don Giovanni just to completely take the piss out of it, but really, it's almost OK Norm's dead so I never have to hear him make another hooker joke as lame as these were.

Acceptable

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral - I had a hankering to rewatch Tombstone, so I watched this first.  It's... all right.  There are just a lot of much better Westerns than this, and I can't say I like Burt Lancaster.  So, this is basically the Kirk Douglas show, and that's usually enough to carry it along.  But it's certainly no history lesson, as it hardly has any details right about the shootout itself.  What this *does* have, though, is quite possibly the stupidest original song in all of the 20th century, and that's covering some major ground.  They just keep bringing it back and rehashing it, and it made me want to hit the mute button nearly every time.  Luckily, the guy playing Doc Holliday was pretty good.  This seems to be a theme.

Lucky - This was also mostly all right.  Harry Dean Stanton is pretty good in it, but when is he not?  I liked most of the script and the characters, but the big discussion that caps the movie just feels unearned in a way.  It's too on the nose, and everyone's reaction to it is hard to believe, as everyone gets wistful and brotherly when the actual content of the dialogue is the kind of stuff that sounds like it ought to have been shouted at each other with exasperation and a bit of self-defeat.  But the movie doesn't have the nerve to sever any of the ties it's shown us along the way.  It's a weird cap to a movie that otherwise has a decent collection of strange moments worth exploring.  I kind of see the comparisons someone else made to The Straight Story, and I kind of don't, mostly because that movie had a better grasp of what it needed to say without literally using its main character to say it.

The Northman - Spoilered again for newness...

Spoiler

Yes, this is easily Robert Eggers' worst film, and it's not even close in that respect.

Is it a bad film?  Not at all.  It is painfully self-serious at times, and it's about as obvious as obvious gets, but definitely not bad.  The "Conan + Hamlet" comparisons are on point; even the main character's name is a fucking anagram of 'Hamlet'.  Then again, it could be trying to say that Shakespeare came up with Hamlet from some story like this.  Whether that actually flies with anyone is another matter entirely. 

So, what works?  Well, it's fucking GORGEOUS most of the time, as the size and scope of it are next to perfect and the cinematography matches the stakes.  The movie this reminded me of the most wasn't either of his other films but Midsommar instead, as it had a similar 'place of unspoiled beauty and unspeakable horror' look to so much of it.  The sound mixing is huge and crazy and in-your-face, so it strikes me as the kind of movie that will work better in theaters than at home.  And I liked Björk and Willem Dafoe exactly as they were.  You can't take two really good things in the film and simply say, "Have more and it will be better!" because their appearances and roles were meted out just as they needed to be.  Reusing them would have spoiled the way they were ultimately used.

Then what doesn't work?  A fair bit of the rest.  The biggest thing is the nature of the plot itself.  Why do we care about this quest for revenge?  Why is this a worthy task?  The thing is, it isn't, because all of these people we get to know (save one) are the Worst Fucking People, and they all deserve what's coming to them.  We currently live in a time where Generationally Shitty People throw their money around and use that to abuse power in the worst sorts of ways, despite decades or centuries of institutional safeguards put in place to stop such things.  So why should we ever cheer the revenge story of just another Generationally Shitty Person?  And maybe we aren't supposed to, maybe we're supposed to acknowledge the similarities between the past and the present and say "Fuck you" to the lot of them, then and now.  But if that's the case, this movie and its characters either have too much or not enough self-awareness.  The middle ground it inhabits from an ethical standpoint makes it hard to really care about what happens to whom.  That said, I didn't expect Nicole Kidman to actually do something *good* ever again, and although she's rarely of any direct importance, the one big scene she does get is pretty great, some of the best work she's ever done.

But yeah, The Lighthouse this ain't.  It's too familiar, too predictable, too trodden a path.

Awesome

Tombstone && - Naturally a rewatch, because I'm pretty sure I saw this in the theaters when it came out.  It might be impossible to make another movie like this ever again.  Not that it's *that* well-written or *that* well-directed (though it's awfully close in both of those departments), but getting all these pieces pulling in the same direction so successfully and managing to wring either the best or second-best performances out of nearly every single actor in the cast is just staggering to watch, even today.  And since I hadn't seen it in forever, there were familiar faces I hadn't even remembered: Terry O'Quinn!  Paula Malcomson!! Billy Bob Thornton~!~!~!  There are plotlines that I wish had received more attention, like having Michael Rooker on screen more often or doing something more to develop the Priestley/Billy Zane subplot I never even noticed before, but there's only so much time you can invest in this kind of thing before it wears out its welcome, and this never does.  And goddamn, the ONE thing it has to get right, it gets EXCEEDINGLY right, as the shootout is one of the best choreographed pieces of mayhem there is, and it all hinges on something so small as one drunken jerk winking at a dipshit he doesn't like.  Val Kilmer was robbed; in fact, you could have swapped out every nomination for The Fugitive at that year's Academy Awards with something from this movie and it would have been more fair.  That speech at the end is also kind of my idea of what love is supposed to be.  Especially if I ever get to say it to Dana Delany myself.

Good Time - I'd watched maybe the first 15 minutes of this before, so this wasn't new and wasn't a rewatch, either.  Gotta say, I really didn't care for Uncut Gems much at all, but this worked for me, largely because it's a movie that leaves you with so much to think about after it's done.  Pattinson's great in this, but it's really the scenario and the script that push this to another level.  That line of "Don't get confused.  It's just gonna make it worse for me" is one of those utterly chilling moments in a movie where someone has done one awful, awful thing after another and yet you just know you'll watch them sink further into the quagmire because they know no other way to be.  And the level of criticism thrown at our institutions and social problems is just massive: a turtles-all-the-way-down daisy chain of abusers and the abused, of those with a little more power than the next person and those who get run over by that power, over and over again.  You could say the ending is good for Nick, but to me, it still felt like a defeat, a sad and lonely finish for someone pushed around and mistreated who just ends up somewhere where, like so many of society's problems, he can be conveniently ignored instead of understood.  I almost want to watch this again just to see what I missed.  But holy shit is it 32 flavors of crazy. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Contentious C

[Brian Fowler]

Caught Everything Everywhere All At Once and The Northman the last two days, and, God damn those are two excellent movies that help restore my faith in modern cinema. Absurdly highly recommended on both.

[Curt McGirt]

15 hours ago, Contentious C said:

Curt McGirt Is Wrong as Usual Edition

 

 

[Brian Fowler]

Northman semi-spoilers

Spoiler

FWIW, both this and Hamlet are loosely based on the legend/myth of Amleth. Though I think there's less Conan the Barbarian in the original myth.

 

[J.T.]

Yeah, it is dawning on us that The Northman is Shakespeare with Vikings but Holy Fuck, even shitty 13th Warrior had more than its share of satisfying Nordic bloodshed.  Axes need to be drawn and blood needs to be spilled.

Edited April 27, 2022 by J.T.

[Mister TV]

On 4/25/2022 at 11:56 PM, Contentious C said:

Tombstone && - Naturally a rewatch, because I'm pretty sure I saw this in the theaters when it came out.  It might be impossible to make another movie like this ever again.  Not that it's *that* well-written or *that* well-directed (though it's awfully close in both of those departments), but getting all these pieces pulling in the same direction so successfully and managing to wring either the best or second-best performances out of nearly every single actor in the cast is just staggering to watch, even today.  And since I hadn't seen it in forever, there were familiar faces I hadn't even remembered: Terry O'Quinn!  Paula Malcomson!! Billy Bob Thornton~!~!~!  There are plotlines that I wish had received more attention, like having Michael Rooker on screen more often or doing something more to develop the Priestley/Billy Zane subplot I never even noticed before, but there's only so much time you can invest in this kind of thing before it wears out its welcome, and this never does.  And goddamn, the ONE thing it has to get right, it gets EXCEEDINGLY right, as the shootout is one of the best choreographed pieces of mayhem there is, and it all hinges on something so small as one drunken jerk winking at a dipshit he doesn't like.  Val Kilmer was robbed; in fact, you could have swapped out every nomination for The Fugitive at that year's Academy Awards with something from this movie and it would have been more fair.  That speech at the end is also kind of my idea of what love is supposed to be.  Especially if I ever get to say it to Dana Delany myself.

 

The story on the initial production of Tombstone is pretty interesting, screenwriter Kevin Jarre was out of his element as a director and fired a month in, Kurt Russell then directs the picture with George P. Cosmatos as just a figurehead director due to union rules, Russell and the producers also cut a lot of things out of the massive script.

[Contentious C]

Yeah, I saw there was a "making of" movie that might be interesting to watch.  But that's got to be one of the more compelling tidbits from it, so you may have just spoiled it for me.  Just makes the whole movie that much better, if anything, and certainly explains why Cosmatos is a no-name.

[Mister TV]

19 minutes ago, Contentious C said:

Yeah, I saw there was a "making of" movie that might be interesting to watch.  But that's got to be one of the more compelling tidbits from it, so you may have just spoiled it for me.  Just makes the whole movie that much better, if anything, and certainly explains why Cosmatos is a no-name.

I never knew there was a "making of" movie on Tombstone!

[(BP)]

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a blast; however, the theater had multiple seniors with walkers who kept inexplicably switching seats while dragging the walkers noisily behind them and screaming, “I can’t see in the dark!” Thirty minutes in one of them loudly asked, “Is there a ghost in this movie?” It quickly went from aggravating to one of my funniest experiences in a movie theater. 

[Curt McGirt]

31 minutes ago, Contentious C said:

certainly explains why Cosmatos is a no-name.

HEY NOW. He directed Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra (another movie directed by the lead). The legend of the man! 

[RIPPA]

1 hour ago, (BP) said:

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a blast; however, the theater had multiple seniors with walkers who kept inexplicably switching seats while dragging the walkers noisily behind them and screaming, “I can’t see in the dark!” Thirty minutes in one of them loudly asked, “Is there a ghost in this movie?” It quickly went from aggravating to one of my funniest experiences in a movie theater. 

Its like an hour later and I am stilling laughing at the idea of some Octogenarian yelling "IS THERE A GHOST?"

Like did they think they were watching a different movie or did they think Nic Cage was a ghost?

[(BP)]

17 minutes ago, RIPPA said:

Its like an hour later and I am stilling laughing at the idea of some Octogenarian yelling "IS THERE A GHOST?"

Like did they think they were watching a different movie or did they think Nic Cage was a ghost?

My wife and I just had our third discussion about it. I think that when he said it there had just been a dissolve transition to a new scene and he thought Nicolas Cage had become transparent.

[Kuetsar]

7 hours ago, J.T. said:

Yeah, it is dawning on us that The Northman is Shakespeare with Vikings but Holy Fuck, even shitty 13th Warrior had more than its share of satisfying Nordic bloodshed.  Axes need to be drawn and blood needs to be spilled.

13th warrior is awesome, in its own way. If liking that movie is wrong, I don't want to be right.

[(BP)]

2 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

HEY NOW. He directed Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra (another movie directed by the lead). The legend of the man! 

Plus, his son took his residual money from those and made Beyond the Black Rainbow and Mandy. A royal family in Hollywood for sure. 

[Contentious C]

3 hours ago, RIPPA said:

Its like an hour later and I am stilling laughing at the idea of some Octogenarian yelling "IS THERE A GHOST?"

Like did they think they were watching a different movie or did they think Nic Cage was a ghost?

I think it's more like a poker analogy: if you can't spot the ghost in the room, it's because you're it.  Bound to fit in their cases.

[Tabe]

Jason Sudeikis apparently had Olivia Wilde served with custody papers while she was on stage giving a presentation at CinemaCon:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/celebrity/olivia-wilde-was-served-custody-papers-from-ex-jason-sudeikis-onstage-at-cinemacon/ar-AAWFHFR?li=BBnb7Kz

 

[Brian Fowler]

Tombstone isn't necessarily a particularly great movie, but what it is is fucking cool. Bad ass line after bad ass line delivered flawlessly by a cast during on all cylinders, covering up that the screenplay is really wildly uneven. It's just fucking cool.

 

[John from Cincinnati]

8 hours ago, Tabe said:

Jason Sudeikis apparently had Olivia Wilde served with custody papers while she was on stage giving a presentation at CinemaCon:

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/celebrity/olivia-wilde-was-served-custody-papers-from-ex-jason-sudeikis-onstage-at-cinemacon/ar-AAWFHFR?li=BBnb7Kz

 

Sudeikis is denying any prior knowledge of her being served in that setting and allegedly he wouldn't condone it. 

Kind of personally maxed out on former Hollywood couples' bullshit at the moment, but that's the story coming from someone seemingly close to him. 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/jason-sudeikis-olivia-wilde-custody-cinemacon-1235137039/

[J.T.]

4 hours ago, John from Cincinnati said:

Sudeikis is denying any prior knowledge of her being served in that setting and allegedly he wouldn't condone it. 

Kind of personally maxed out on former Hollywood couples' bullshit at the moment, but that's the story coming from someone seemingly close to him. 

I used to work for a law firm as a researcher and an investigator before I went tech.   I can believe Sudeikis.  Process servers will serve the papers at the convenience of the process server, not the person being served and they're not diplomatic about it. 

If you need to be angry at someone, be mad at the process server, the legal representation for Wilde and Sudeikis that did not work this shit out in advance, as well as CinemaCon's security that allowed this person to just walk up to the stage and present the documentation.

Edited April 28, 2022 by J.T.

[The Comedian]

Homey you don't need to concern yourself with the opinion of someone who didn't laugh uproariously throughout Dirty Work ..

On 4/26/2022 at 3:27 PM, Curt McGirt said:

 

 

Edited April 28, 2022 by The Comedian
I said homey not honey I don't know the guy well enough to call him honey yet

[Tabe]

5 hours ago, J.T. said:

I used to work for a law firm as a researcher and an investigator before I went tech.   I can believe Sudeikis.  Process servers will serve the papers at the convenience of the process server, not the person being served and they're not diplomatic about it. 

If you need to be angry at someone, be mad at the process server, the legal representation for Wilde and Sudeikis that did not work this shit out in advance, as well as CinemaCon's security that allowed this person to just walk up to the stage and present the documentation.

Having thought about it a bit, I think you're right.  About all of it.