Contentious C
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Posts posted by Contentious C
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Yeah, because what would cinema be without that Uma Thurman scene?
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The only reason to have any at this stage is just to tell people you have a dormant account, so they don't think you're a drug dealer or something.
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On 2/27/2024 at 11:54 AM, Mister TV said:
They're using the name for resorts/hotels and a cheap clothing line at JC Penney.
Two perpetual death spirals that taste great together?
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2 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:
Are they giving away the sandworm tops to all that size popcorns or is it just something special for certain places? Or do you have to pay an extra $20?
Free for any single males in the audience.
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1 hour ago, RIPPA said:
Jalen Brunson appears to have blown out his knee so the Knicks are fucked
No news yet, but some of the footage, when replayed by a few sports med types, suggested it was more of a knee-to-knee contact that caused a nerve issue. His limping looks bad but may be typical for the contact he took? Pretty interesting video here.
Hope he's OK. One of the better stories in the league the last couple of years, and even as an Atlantic rival, it's hard not to root for him.
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My favorite bit is that we broke another Steph "consecutive games with a 3" streak.
On the other end of the spectrum, the Clippers & Wolves played a Late 90s game where neither Conley nor Harden made a bucket from the field for the entire game (62 minutes of floor time combined).
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Dallas & Golden State have been playing as well as anyone in the Western Conference since the All-Star break, maybe them and Denver.
Boston boatraced Dallas despite a Luka TD the other night, and they are absolutely walloping GS in the first half so far. I really don't see who's going to beat them, except A) themselves, or B) bad luck with injuries. Tillman probably isn't going to play heavy minutes, but he looks like he fits right in. Time to lock up that home court...
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10 hours ago, RazorbladeKiss87 said:
Oh, but I will say that I liked Mia Goth in Nymphomaniac.
It's a good thing I'm not in charge of member titles, or you'd be, "The Guy Who Liked Something, Anything about Nymphomaniac". I looked up her part but I couldn't for the life of me tell you who she was in that.
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Meh.
It went fine, but...I don't know. She married her college boyfriend, got divorced 2 years ago, and has only been dating again for a bit over a year, and I very much get the impression she is figuring out who she is on her own. These are, uh, to put it mildly, things I don't need time to figure out. Nor do I need to be "the poor schmuck who happens to be around and gets the emotional short shrift while you figure them out." I'm also getting demisexual sorts of vibes, did even on the first date so...probably wouldn't work anyway. She said she wanted to go out again, but I think I'd rather just not bother if it's going to feel like there's no spark coming from her. It might be simpler to just pose a few telling questions if/when she texts me again and see if I'm right, give myself the reason to hit the eject button now before getting involved.
It's too bad; the rest of it would have worked out nice if it were really about the nuts-and-bolts of "can you coexist?". But I get a significantly stronger "she has the hots for me" feeling off a select few of my married/committed friends than I do this lady, and that's not what you want out of your own prospects.
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Going on a second date with a hot girl I like this afternoon; this is when I kiss her, right?
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Criterion has had that going for a while. Same with TCM.
Anyway, yeah.
The Time Machine (2002) - I'd always heard this was catastrophically bad, and that part of the reason Guy Pearce did an enormous shitload of DTV crap afterwards is because this tanked his career. It's just...averagely bad? There are worse movies than this by a mile. It certainly isn't good, though, since the entire back half of the film is portrayed by generally bad actors, lots of details are never explained in any meaningful way, and then it gets wrapped up too neatly (who knew every tweedy scientist was capable of a muscle-up, right?). The nicest thing I can say about it is now I've seen it, and it showed me how weaksauce and derivative one particular time-travel idea I had for a story would have been.
When Will I Be Loved - Now HEEEERE is the bad stuff. Ugh. If this is any indication, it's probably for the best that James Toback's career has been summarily shot into space post-#MeToo.
I first heard about this in the local paper when it came out; let's face it, it's not famous because it's any good (it isn't). It's famous because this slice of chaos was, inexplicably, Neve Campbell's first nude scene in a film, and back in '04, that was still reason enough to get eyeballs on a movie that otherwise didn't deserve them. Sure, Toback had an Academy Award nomination to his name and a few other credits where people took notice for one reason or another, but there's essentially nothing about this to save it from its current placement in Bad Movie Hell.
It's so shoddily assembled that the edits and sounds border on painful. It feels like something trying to both bask in and also skewer its influences; if it's trying to be a bit like a Woody Allen movie, down to name-dropping him, this is more, "Woody Allen Ain't Got Nothing on What a Creep I Am." If the meandering park scenes and random encounters were meant to evoke, I don't know, Cleo from 5 to 7, this spin on the idea would be more akin to Horny Dingbats from 5 to 7. Calling the ancillary characters thin gruel is an insult to gruel; Mike Tyson as a gossamer-veiled version of himself might be the only member of the supporting cast to sound half as amusing as he's meant to be. And the almost improvisational style of dialogue is laughable at best. In fact, for a wide swath in the beginning, the dialogue is so pathetic and garbled that it seems 100% pulled out of one orifice or another. It reads like Toback told the cast he wanted to do a Mike Leigh sort of film and then only shot a single take, failing to understand the iteration towards competence and emotional authenticity that goes into Leigh's films.
If there's anything that keeps this off the cinder pile of the Truly Worst of All-Time, it's that Campbell and Dominic Chianese are professional enough to make their scenes together work. Their longish section could have had something compelling to say about money, power, aging, sex work, honesty: all sorts of topics, if only it hadn't been trying so hard to fit them all into ten minutes of mostly cruel banter. Their dialogue still feels stilted, self-indulgent, and basted far too long in its own juicy pretension, but they take that chicken shit and turn it into...well...certainly not into chicken salad, but also not-chicken shit.
In the end, it's hard not to think of the contemporaneous and Internet-famous argument that transpired between Vincent Gallo and Roger Ebert due to a screening of Gallo's movie, The Brown Bunny. Ebert's GOAT zinger to Gallo would ring true here, as well. No matter who you are, no matter what you did in life, be thankful: you're not James Toback and you didn't direct When Will I Be Loved. Moreover, it's this writer's fervent hope that, if you did direct any films, you weren't such a sad sack that you thought you could hide your creepy, disgusting insecurities in plain sight, as Toback clearly attempts in this sad little punch bowl stowaway.
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning - Since they claim they're changing the title on the next one, I feel no need to call it "part one" like a lame-o. I really would like Pom Klementieff to just play World's Sexiest Chaos Gremlin in everything; this tops her turn as Mantis largely due to the sexiness factor. But man oh man, it's so weird that they keep casting women opposite Tom Cruise who might be Too Hot for Tom Cruise...and yet the one time they cast someone *as his wife*, it's arguably the least attractive leading lady in the entire series. Anyway.
How's the movie? Welp? Have you seen the last 3? Then you've seen this. Plug in Esai Morales doing...uh, the FUCKING WEIRDEST VOICE EVER (seriously, when did he come up with the oddly deep hypno-drone? He didn't used to sound like that, did he have some kind of freak accident?), Venice and Rome instead of Other Famous Cities, and some different batshit stunts. You've seen this already, it's preposterous, it's mildly enjoyable, it's Mission: Impossible. The whole AI plot is kind of fucking annoying, though, since, at the end of the day, it's completely unclear how its objectives are being met, especially when those objectives are so clearly affecting real-world things (like blowing up bridges with time bombs, apparently it's totally normal to have dudes hanging off this bridge that's part of a famous rail line, embedding shit into the mortar, no one in Austria looks twice at that...).
X - Why, exactly, did people make a big deal about Mia Goth? You aren't bedazzled by her talent. You aren't bedazzled by her looks. It's her GODDAMN LACK OF EYEBROWS, OK? That's what's tweaking your brain, not this pornified-Texas-Chainsaw-Massacre, subverting-tropes-but-not-really, bunch of ageist bollocks masquerading as mid-concept horror. I was thinking I was going to watch this and Pearl, but this was too friggin' boring to make Pearl worth the time.
Urban Cowboy - Speaking of people who didn't need a big deal made about them, John Travolta dancing again, everyone! At least this isn't as blatantly fucking offensive as practically every second of Saturday Night Fever, although this skips over the frequent calls of "See You Next Tuesday" and goes straight into domestic violence as a no-chaser shot. On the plus side, Travolta's portrayal is pretty solid, as it's clear he's a lot more in on the joke with Bud than he was with Tony, making him into a right proper lunkhead in almost every scene before it inevitably draws itself to its absurdly saccharine close. This movie feels like the film version of License to Ill: there's probably a lot of tongue-in-cheek fun being had at the expense of the culture it presents, but it probably did more to typify and celebrate it than anything else. Oh, and this is far and away the Least Craggy I've ever seen Scott Glenn look, but, then again, I still haven't watched Nashville.
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1 hour ago, dogwelder said:
None of which are a surprise. Leno and Gates were bad and Logan Thomas was getting too concussed to bag groceries.
FIFY.
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5 hours ago, JLSigman said:Spoiler
Yes, there's a credit wayyyyyyyyyyyy down the IMDb list, but how they're handling that is...weird? Will probably warrant actually seeing the movie to understand the direction they're going with it.
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Hell, I watched the end of the Rebirth cutscene after...you know, THAT...and it was a bunch of befuddling nonsense. My guess is it will only get more needlessly confusing once everything is finished. I'm glad I was only marginally nostalgic about the original in the first place and won't feel compelled to waste hundreds of dollars on their overblown do-over.
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Forget games on TNT, Shaq messing with Chuck about social media (S: "Just add #onlyfans!" Chuck: "Is that for only fans of mine?") is the real highlight tonight.
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Jerry Jones is evidently caught up in a paternity suit with a 27-year-old.
Thankfully for those of us not in possession of copious amounts of brain bleach, the suit alleges he is the 27-year-old's father, not the father of her child.
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1 hour ago, Shartnado said:
Took my shirt off and noticed a lump on the left side of my upper back that hasn't been there before and certainly isn't supposed to be there, either. It isn't particularly painful, nor is it gooey. Need to keep an eye on it, but it hasn't become any smaller in the few days I've been aware of it. There is no bruising around it, or anything. So, it could be a boil (there is no head as of yet), it could be an inflammation, or a hernia-like injury (is that even possible on your upper back?) If it's a tumor, that would be so my luck, but what the hell, I've had a good run!
Hopefully it's just that you're turning into Ric Flair! No bruising is usually a good sign, but elaborate on "particularly painful" - is it not at all painful to the touch unless you really press on it? Do you have any night sweats lately? Or bruising elsewhere (like lower leg)? And no, no "back hernia" - that's intestine-specific, and you don't have anything up that high that would go through the muscle wall without other problems.
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15 hours ago, Control said:
Thanks! Though I’ll never be able to afford 95-lbs weights, so maybe I’m just out of luck.
I just have dumbbells at home (and a stationary bike).
Pull-up bar might be your best bet. Pull-ups are a PITA to scale, but it's better for overloading than what you probably have on hand.
Pull day for me was pretty good - did 175 for 4x7 on bent-over rows, which were a little bit crap on form, but I'm pretty sure that's a PR for me anyway, so 4 sets of that is good nonetheless. This is probably the closest and hardest I've pushed towards rowing bodyweight. Rest of the workout was fine for accessory work and volume. Dunno what I'm going to do for the next Pull day, though; I haven't done DLs or T-bar rows in a few weeks. Maybe it's time for a Way, Truth, & Light workout again.
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On 2/22/2024 at 1:58 PM, Dolfan in NYC said:
Tim Anderson to Miami 1/5
Are those the terms of his deal or his projected box score every day?
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1 hour ago, Control said:
yet I target it just as often as everything else.
Target it more. Seriously.
What, specifically, is your home gym setup? Dumbbells? Barbell? Squat rack?
Also, to Hell with your grip if you're already going "heavy" (for your grip) on things. Get some straps, go even heavier. With my Versas, I do one-armed rows with the 95-lb dumbbells; without, I'd probably only be able to do the 60s or 65s, which would take forever to fatigue my back.
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I thought about it for about 2 minutes, saw one of the betting lines on it was SAC -7.5, and then recalled the Memphis/Milwaukee game just before the Break where Giannis & Dame lost to some guys 3 weeks out from rec-ball pick-up games. Decided I was good with my $5 in my pocket.
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9 hours ago, caley said:
[b]Abraxas[/b]: Like if someone came up to you and offered you dog poop on a stick and instead you went out and bought ice cream I guess it's technically a choice. but not really.
The producers of this film would like to inform you that the stick was, in fact, made of ancient, petrified dog feces. *sad trombone*
Also, as I sit here and watch the last Mission: Impossible movie, I realize Tom Cruise and Ving Rhames (and to a lesser extent, Simon Pegg) are so damn old they're going to have to call the next movie Mission: Incontinent.
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On 2/21/2024 at 12:25 PM, Travis Sheldon said:
The Black Hole remains a Sci-Fi classic, to me.
Love the cast, a great score by John Barry, and loads of great special effects work.
@Contentious C mentioned the Star Trek/Star Wars influence, which is true, but the screenwriters had to have been influenced by 2001 with the ending.
I can understand how one can dislike the pacing and (non-) ending, but it works for me.
If it's influenced by 2001, it's shoddy. It feels less like that and more like an attempt to smuggle religion into a space story, which is part of why I compared it to The Visitor. I get how it could be a "this walked so X could fly" kind of film, and I definitely wish the film industry didn't CGI everything into oblivion, but at the end of the day, any film that could have changed its name to The Plot Hole and rendered itself a thousand-fold more descriptive is one I'm not going to enjoy (and I say this as someone who likes Man of Steel, FFS).
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Pursuant to our earlier conversation, half-famous people get this way, too.
Ragusea's content has always left me a little dry, because I find his delivery to be smug even when he claims he isn't being smug. But I wouldn't mind having his bank account about now.
2024 MOVIES DISCUSSION THREAD
in MOVIES & TV
Posted · Edited by Contentious C
Just got back from sticking m--nah, just kidding, I don't eat popcorn in the first place. Spoilers ahoy.
I think what I was struck most by - aside from the sound editing & mixing that are just as assaulting as the first film and are therefore almost literally striking you - is that it's the anti-Gigli, a movie so bad the only thing that saved it was 3 minutes of Christopher Walken. Here, Walken might be close to the only weak link in the Blockbuster to End All Blockbusters.
But BOY do they elide or toss out a LOT of the weird from the book. Baby plots (both of them)? Mostly gone or pushed into the future. All of the Baron's internal weirdness being expressed? Gone. The notion of Paul as being the end goal instead of merely one stir stick in the Bene Gesserit pot? Gone. The Fenrings as a colossally weird pair of manipulators? Just one manipulator doing that manipulating with her vag. Chani as someone still shown respect as a love interest? Nah, let's have her get all emo about stuff instead of understanding that Paul is pulling strings that he has to pull.
Some of the changes I get, but some of them just flatten out the profile of a story that was weird and icky and nutso in some good ways (also some bad, but more good ways than bad). Hard to tell what they could do with Messiah, assuming they choose to make it in 5-10 years time, but it might necessitate some big changes considering what they did here.
But, the scope is ridiculous, the acting is good, the action scenes are mostly excellent (though Zendaya is NOT a hand-to-hand fighter), and Austin Butler kind of steals the show in spite of the kookiness of his make-up. I don't think it's as breath-takingly great as some do, but, yeah, it's way up there anyway. Still like Arrival and Incendies better out of Denis' movies, though.