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2022 Movies Discussion Thread (v.2.0)


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Backtrack (aka Catchfire) might have the most insane cast. Dennis Hopper (also director), Jodie Foster, Joe Pesci (uncredited even tho he's the main antagonist), Dean Stockwell, John Turturro, Vincent Price, Fred Ward (RIP), Paulie Walnuts, Julie Adams (of getting romanced by the Creature from the Black Lagoon fame), Charlie Sheen, Alex Cox, Toni Basil, a very young Catherine Keener, and an uncredited Bob Dylan.

Hopper must have called in every favour he was owed. He's also doing a hilarious New York accent.

I'm only halfway through, so I can't really comment fully yet on if its good or not, but it is....interesting?

Also watched Slamdance, and damn does Tom Hulce rule. Why does he only have 30 credits and most of them TV movies and shit? He's fucking Mozart. I loved it. I love when Adam Ant shows up in anything. I also love how much of a smokeshow Virginia Madsen is, even though she isn't given anything to do other than be the murder victim that drives the plot

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On 12/19/2022 at 4:32 PM, Dolfan in NYC said:

Don't see a Box Office thread, but in  Avatar 2: Electric Boogaloo made $134M domestic and $300.5M foreign.  

That's about half of what Spider-man VIII (and III) made last year.  

Though that's a pretty good number, I still haven't seen any analysts saying if this was a good opening for it. 

 

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Yeah.  We're here, more stuff.  It's day 526 (and counting) of Some Stupid Bullshit or Other, Honesty Is the Best Policy - Said No One Ever, Evidently Edition.

Your Baby's Dirty Diaper

Black Adam - Hey, look, it's Ant-Man, Dr. Strange, and Black Panther-except-he-Flies fighting Evil Shazam!  Oh wait, you're telling me all these characters have different names, faces, original places, and back stories?  Well, that's convenient, because otherwise we've seen literally every single beat of this before, down to the fucking annoying kid who tries to help the hero seem cool because the kid is quite possibly the only person to ever live who thinks the hero *can* be cool.  At least a callback to Last Action Hero is less recent. Not well-written, not well-acted (when Pierce Brosnan steals the show, you have a serious problem), not worth the ridiculous budget this must have had.  Some of the early action sequences are compelling from the standpoint of showing off how big of a Big Bad Black Adam is supposed to be - he *is* the kind of guy who's supposed to be able to fight the entire Justice League to a standstill - but nothing else about this works, especially how Hawkman has "indestructible" metal armor but it totally ignores the fact that that would only make him that much more very very very very very destructible while he's being punched through buildings inside said armor!  Don't think about it, don't think about it, just lie back and think of England, babe.

AXE Body Spray Instead of Shower

The Last Witch Hunter - Well, we can settle this one: 2nd-round KO by 2015 Vin Diesel over 2008 Vin Diesel.  Babylon A.D. is significantly worse than this, so that's probably his worst movie (that, or XXX, or one of the umpteen Fast & Furious I haven't seen yet).  This?  This isn't half-bad sometimes, but the issue is those good moments draw a stark contrast to the things that don't work.  The villain is threadbare and uninteresting, the details of magic here are equally shoddy, and of course, it still stars Vin.  One crucial moment in the film comes when we see the big betrayal sequence that takes place, and our protagonist is a CGI crispy critter at this point.  However, he's being kept alive despite his state, and what his cohorts do effectively tortures him, and tortures him effectively: I actually felt real revulsion and empathy for a computer-generated corpse at this point, which is quite a feat from a bunch of unknown filmmakers.  But, I also felt more empathy for a CGI corpse than I did for the lead actor at any point in time.  All that said, though, the script is...actually pretty good as often as not, and you can wonder how much better this would have been if someone better had been cast.  It's kind of too bad it has the reputation it does.

Don't Worry Darling - Did she just try to reclaim getting Get Out-ed for white women, because The Stepford Wives kinda did it first?  Because that feels like what she just tried to pull, down to the one prominent Black actor in the film doing the Lakeith run-in to try to save Professional Mind-Loser Florence Pugh.  Could this have been better?  I don't know, probably not in a 2-hour film format, because while it *looks* amazing (seriously, props to the D.P.), it leaves every single interesting thought it's ever had for later; you know, when the credits roll and you stop to think, "But hey, what would happen if this or that?"  This feels like it really should have been a limited series instead of a movie, maybe 8 eps with the film bits getting stretched out a little to encompass the first 3 episodes and then the blowback being dealt with during the remainder.  Regardless, it's more than a bit of a failure to have your smart thriller save all its smartest ideas for things no one actually gets to see.  Also, how much does she think surgery residents make, Michael?  Ten dollars?

Bend It Like Beckham - Another in the "cultural smash hit" bucket that I never got around to watching.  And while it's hard to imagine something like, say, Ms. Marvel existing in the form it does without this movie, it's also a movie that really raises my fucking hackles to watch for some of the same reasons.  It felt like there could have been 20 minutes of this chopped out, because we got the point the first eight times that her family hates what she's doing but she's going to do it anyway, so we didn't need an additional five entries in that category.  Most of the gossipy little shitbirds here who do nothing but run their mouths and spew garbage come off like bad cardboard cutouts, but I suppose it's good if they are cardboard cutouts, because then I wouldn't hurt myself by punching each and every one of them in the face like I wanted.  And I'm not sure the romance angle or the attempt at a comedy twist with Keira Knightley's mom works, either, so I'm actually finding myself wondering why I have this in this category.  And it's probably because as two-dimensional as the rest is, Knightley and Parminder Nagra are pretty good together. 

That'll Do, Pig

Bullet Train - Hooo boy, luckily I watched this when I was in the mood for something zany and goofy and over-the-top, and does it ever deliver.  The ending is...not good, not in basically any way, shape, or form does it work.  But the getting-there is quite a good time, and Brad Pitt & Brian Tyree Henry really are the guys you want taking you for a ride like this.  And even with a limp and a lot of gray in the beard, Hiroyuki Sanada looks like he could take the whole cast in a fight without getting his suit wrinkled.  This is easily the most Tarantino-esque movie I've seen since, uh, the last time I said that (A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night for those who forgot), but whereas that was 100% style, this is a little style but also more structure and jigsaw moments that are less "A-ha" and more "Oh, crap".  But I gotta say, if you want someone dead, there are bound to be easier ways to get it done than this.  Really bad planning by the villain, on several levels. 

The Iron Lady - I suppose there is, after all, an art to garnering sympathy from an audience, even under layers of make-up and ridiculous fake teeth; I just wish that art weren't wasted on someone like Margaret fucking Thatcher.  This is pretty well-shot and pretty well-executed, but it just feels like your typical pandery Oscar Bait kind of scenario, rather than something with a point to make.  It churns through the usual kinds of things you'd see in a biopic and never quite dwells on any moment long enough to teach you anything new, nor does it linger on any decision long enough to really see the implications of it, aside from the ghastly way she eventually treats almost everyone in her life.  In that sense, the early line of "It used to be you wanted to do something, now everyone wants to be someone" gets weaponized against her, but that's about as far as anything like biting criticism really goes.  Then again, if there was a world leader in the 1980s who *didn't* deserve to end up with Alzheimer's, I'm blanking on who it was (Gorbachev, maybe, I guess, but really?).

The History of Future Folk - Yet another indie movie where music is a big part of the to-do, and as ever, these kinds of movies only work as well as the music.  And this?  This is all right!  The predictable plot point early on becomes an opportunity instead, as Alien # 2 turns out to have a freaking awesome voice, so it goes from one weird seemingly-DeVo-influenced guy to something like an actual band with actual talent.  The rest of what's here is more or less OK; not as polished all over as Frank, but considering the budget here, it's all right.  And thankfully this is very short, so there are worse ways to spend 85 minutes.  Hondo!

Yeah, But...

Last Night in Soho - Crossing off a lot of recent biggies here, eh?  Aside from what feels like Edgar Wright's weird, judgy, vaguely puritanical and rather contradictory views on sex work, this is really solid.  And he definitely cast the two strangest-looking 20-somethings he possibly could for this movie.  I found myself wondering why Thomasin McKenzie looked so familiar when I watched Leave No Trace several months ago, and it's because I'd seen the trailer for this (and wanted to see it in theaters) prior to watching that.  The best trick this pulls is in making the supernatural seem relatable; it is, in several respects, quite a bit like Peter Jackson's The Frighteners, where you know all along that the nightmares are real and you feel nothing but pity for how the main character is going to be treated by the rest of the world as a result.  It also feels like Wright's most restrained movie in a lot of ways (I haven't seen Baby Driver but I'm guessing this is going to be a more restrained affair than a movie called BABY DRIVER), despite some dizzying camera work and all the CGI: at least he left the self-referential stuff to the Cornetto trilogy.  But it's got the right touches where it needs them: bright and vivacious (almost tacky) when dwelling in the past, and fatalistic and hear-but-don't-listen in the present.  As much as anything else, though, the film feels like Wright is trying to shake himself out of his own innocence and his own desire to see the 60s as some halcyon time, instead of just a papered-over nostalgia pill of the things we chose to remember about it, ignoring all the trash we swept under the rug, and behind the couch, and between the floorboards, and out the window.

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Liked Black Rainbow well enough. I think the tone would have been better served to lean into more of a creepy/horror vibe. And I didn't really care for it ending with a very 80s shootout/chase scene. But the leads, especially Robards are great. Tom Hulce did forget he was doing a southern accent at times.

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12 hours ago, Kuetsar said:

Loved glass onion, I think it was better than knives out, certainly more fun. What's up with Batista's head though? It looks like it has gig marks all over. . . . 

He’s done his lips too. 

I think he’s pretty much on one of those never ending cosmetic surgery benders that he won’t escape from until he’s a walking tomb, like Madonna.

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I really liked Glass Onion too. I think Knives Out was a better movie with a better mystery, but I still had a hell of a good time with the new one.  The cast was great, Kate Hudson especially was a stand out.

Now that Natasha Lyonne the actress is canon in the Benoit Blanc-iverse, I hope that doesn't disqualify the chance we may get a Blanc-Poker Face team up mystery movie.

I kind of love that Blanc isn't really the hero in these movies, he just points the heroes in the right direction

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I have actually never seen The Princess Bride before until last night. Most of the night I was in bed puking but that certainly lightened my mood. Andre was legitimately great in the movie... hell, EVERY actor was great in the movie. The first Saw showed that Cary Elwes should have never taken a non-comedic performance, though. I loved him attempting a bear hug on Andre of all people who always used it, won with a sleeper, and then Mandy Patinkin busts out a Shooting Star Press in HIS fight with Cary. 

So Carol Kane was Billy Crystal's wife in the movie? I could have swore it was Tracy Ullman. If you look at the Wiki for the film the slew of incredible actors that auditioned for or wanted the roles is wild, especially for Buttercup. 

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On 12/26/2022 at 10:34 PM, Kuetsar said:

Loved glass onion, I think it was better than knives out, certainly more fun. What's up with Batista's head though? It looks like it has gig marks all over. . . . 

I think that's just how some bald guys look.  I've seen a few others that look like that.  Maybe weight gain/loss?

Anyway, it's Day 533 (and counting) of some bullshit, Men with the World's Worst Daddy Issues Edition.

ALERT ALERT ALERT - Unforgivable Instance of Film Malpractice, Flaming Dogshit in a Sequel

A Christmas Story 2 - Ugh.  I'm not one to extol the virtues of the original film, because, frankly, it has very few of them: the fatalistic rudeness of Santa shoving Ralphie off the slide with a hobnailed boot, and the quick chop of the duck's head at the Chinese restaurant, and....yeah, we're done here.  It's not a good film itself, but it certainly speaks to a section of American culture, and the "say one thing in dulcet tones, show us the rotten truth" device is ultimately lazy but well-done enough, considering.  This movie, though?  Oh, go fuck yourself.  Take every joke from the original, find a way to dumb it down and make it horribly unfunny, and then fill in the blanks with stuff that vaguely resembles "fan service" but looks more like Larry Sellers plagiarized the original script and lost it in the Dude's El Camino.  I think I laughed twice, and otherwise this was like nails on a chalkboard.  I'm pretty sure everyone who watches this comes away having less charisma than they did before viewing it, much like everyone who acted in it; it's not a Dump Stat, it's a Dump Stat Vortex.  But, now I never have to see it again.  Also, Daniel Stern and his attempt at out-turkey-necking George Lucas should never appear in anything ever again.

Your Baby's Dirty Diaper

Copenhagen - I wondered why Netflix recommended this, and also why it looked a tad familiar, but it was directed by the same guy who did Kodachrome, so, there you have it.  But, it turns out that guy might be something of a pederast, if this squicky fucking script is any indication.  Gethin Anthony, who you'd recognize as the very gay and very dead Baratheon brother from Game of Thrones, is well and truly a first-rate, S-tier, Grade-A shitheel for most of this movie, but that might be about all it has going for it, and it's not like when his inevitable moment of self-reflection comes that you truly believe it, since he's been so thoroughly awful for most of the film.  There are just far better instances of "cad learns not to be a cad" than this; it feels like a weird combination of 'way too autobiographical' from the director and 'wanted to see the young ingenue's tits on camera' from said director.  Either way, blech.

Saturday Night Fever - This isn't really a rewatch, since I'd only ever seen the first few minutes, as well as most of the dancing sequences before.  Turns out, if I'd ever sat down and watched the rest of the movie, I'd remember it, because holy SHIT is this one of the most appalling piles of crap to ever be called a "classic".  The *music* might be famous, but maybe people have developed some serious selective amnesia about the horrorshow of misogyny that permeates the other ninety minutes-plus of footage here.  None of the characters are well-written or remotely likable, and yet we're supposed to, what, sympathize with Polyester Alex Delarge and his droogs?  Uh, no.  Nope.  Uh-uh.  By the end you hope they all jump off the fucking bridge. 

Staying Alive - This, on the other hand, I hadn't seen a moment of, even by accident.  And it feels like the legacies of these two movies should be reversed: this may not have much (or any) memorable music to it, unless you like making fun of Frank Stallone (btw, this was probably Norm Macdonald's favorite movie), but the actual *story* is loads better, since it isn't just a collection of every awful racist and sexist thought the screenwriter ever had.  So, even though this is thought of as a turkey, it probably shouldn't be, and a lot of the credit for that goes to the script that Sylvester Stallone co-wrote.  Unlike the prior movie, this actually shows some believable, understandable growth from Tony, and for once, you actually want to see him succeed.  But, then you get to the fucking RIDICULOUS Broadway show, and it's hard to keep a straight face.  I don't know if that's really a condemnation of this movie, though, or if it's a reflection of the state of Broadway in the early 80s (The Fan was every bit as hokey when it did stage sections).  Plus, Finola Hughes is maybe the deepest of my deep-cut celebrity crushes, and clearly, she was always stunningly beautiful.

AXE Body Spray Instead of Shower

We're the Millers - Whew, a lot of crap this week.  This probably could have easily gone a notch lower, as I'm beginning to realize from his film catalog what a complete fucking psychopath Jason Sudeikis must actually be.  The thing is, I just don't understand why Olivia Wilde didn't spot it sooner, unless she is also a complete fucking psychopath of a different sort.  Most of this is pretty predictable stuff, and it's not really that funny; I'd imagine most people who've seen it are guys who wanted to see Jennifer Aniston do a pole dance.  But for me, the real winner?  It's the scene where he comes clean about the money and how he'll split it up, and he tells a homeless runaway he'll give her $125,000.  "You can buy yourself a house and then run away from it!"  Put that one in the Comedy Hall of Fame.  The rest of it sucks.

Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki - I kinda hate to say it, but having seen 2 Miyazaki docs now, I kind of think he's more interesting than his movies are or were.  It's just such a strange thing to see this hard-edged, sorta-crazy, exacting, obsessive perfectionist always push and push and push, especially when so many of his movies have such different emotional tones to them than what he evidently walks around with on a daily basis.  This ends in an appropriate way, with Miyazaki saying, "I'd rather die that way (waiting for my next movie to be done) than doing nothing; I'd rather die while I have something to live for."  Nothing else can quite encapsulate his strange behavior any better than the notion that creating is the only thing that's given his life purpose.  But, this is in the category it's in not because of the subject matter, but because of what a shoddy job NHK did in making this in the first place.  It feels quarter-assed and amateurish and rarely seems like the technical quality is on par with its subject.

Yeah, But...

The French Dispatch - I should probably rename this category, "The Wesley Wales Anderson Memorial Award for Nearly Always Hitting but Instead Consistently Missing the Bulls-eye" because GOD if he doesn't just do this over and over again.  Grand Budapest and Fantastic Mr. Fox are a cut above for me, but everything else he's done, this included, is just a little too disjointed, or a little too long, or spends too much time with characters who are not that interesting, or indulges his habit of casting his favorites even when they don't really add to the movie.  This one probably falls into the latter 2 categories, if any.  Benicio del Toro's bit is a good section, but I'm not sure the other pieces quite hit the same heights, except with trickery (like the animated sequences towards the end).  Then again, you can make a strong argument at this point that his entire repertoire is trickery...just like every other director's, except he wants you to know you're being tricked.

Glass Onion - I refuse to call this "A Knives Out Mystery"...why didn't he call it "A Benoit Blanc Mystery"?  Like, c'mon, it was right there.  I didn't care that much for Knives Out; I'm not sure this is substantially better, but it's more fun, and it seemed like the cast had more fun with it.  I actually didn't track Janelle Monae at first - I thought she was Ayo Edebiri from The Bear, and then I had to spend the entire movie asking myself if she would have been better in the film than Monae was.  The first hour is pretty tight, but I think it loses too much momentum once it starts explaining itself.  I also wonder how well this will hold up over time, if we'll still be having a good laugh at the expense of these sorts of vacuous dipshits, or if we'll be too busy stealing guzzoline from one another and trying to stay shiny and chrome.  Enjoy it while you can, I guess.

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Well I decided to watch Willow finally, after of all things (you can start laughing now) The Princess Bride, and boy was that saddening to me. I must've read a kid's storybook version or watched the screen on the arcade game at Shoe Carnival too much because I remembered the skull guy and the two headed monster and people's names and shit but this was... ooof. It is basically Lord of the Rings in its entirety, only with bad humor, too much dialogue, Val Kilmer being Val Kilmer (in other words a dick), irritating sidekicks and a wizardry theme stolen from Lucas' own Star Wars concept, an abandoned castle battle scene stolen from Conan the Barbarian... time to stop there. But hey, that skull mask is cool, and the battle at the end was too. There was a LOT of fast-forwarding done during this one. 

Let's see, what else today? I recorded the end of Emperor of the North because I caught it halfway through, watched a little, and decided to finish later. It's Lee fuckin' Marvin and Keith Carradine as what we now call travelers and they used to call bums riding the rails and having hammers thrown at them by Ernest Borgnine, of course you gotta record that. The 2017 Life was recorded cuz hey, another Alien is always fine by me, if it's worth it let me know. And Above the Law was on with Henry Silva chewing the scenery leading to me finding this online: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-9J2P4XZUo&ab_channel=SirenSara

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