Movie 2021 MOVIES DISCUSSION

[John from Cincinnati]

1 hour ago, Curt McGirt said:

How about Cop Land? I always thought that was his second best role after First Blood. (Even though I like boxing I have never seen all of any Rocky movie, however.)

Cop Land is secretly Mangold’s masterpiece and my favourite use of Stallone in a movie ever. Just nice tasty subversion of a guy’s image as an action star that gets back to the vulnerability of his star-making performances and then cuts his legs out from under him and pisses all over his macho bullshit. Walk the what? Logan who? Never heard of ‘em. Cop Land is where it’s at. 

[Contentious C]

OK, I had no interest in Cop Land until you said Mangold directed it.  Now I have to watch that, too.

Next, you're going to tell me someone like, say, Denis Villeneuve made a great movie with, I dunno, Harrison Ford as an important charact--ohh, right.

[Curt McGirt]

God I love that movie. Such a murderer's row of character actors -- I mean seriously, look at the IMDB and it's such a who's who that you will forget that X person was in it -- and Stallone is one of the only honest cops I've ever seen portrayed in a movie that I believed was an incorruptible, decent guy. He played so beaten down and injured by life, so sad and so earnest. The plot is a little convoluted but how it wraps up is perfect. Ray Liotta also plays a better cokehead than in Goodfellas which is wild. 

Nighthawks is great too but that's on the back of Rutger Hauer. Major props to Stallone risking his life for the drop out of the monorail (or whatever that thing was) though, especially with a fear of heights.

EDIT: It's a cable car/cable transport. I couldn't think of the term.

Edited July 7, 2021 by Curt McGirt

[Curt McGirt]

The other two incorruptible cop roles I can think of are Guy Pearce in L.A. Confidential and of course Al Pacino in Serpico. And even Pearce had to do some fucked-up shit.

EDIT: Just thought of the most egregious example of the incorruptible cop role feeling like a total joke: Everyone in The Untouchables. 

Edited July 7, 2021 by Curt McGirt

[odessasteps]

Popeye Doyle?

[Curt McGirt]

Doyle was a moral void! What's the point in being incorruptible if you're still a total piece of shit? 

[tbarrie]

15 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Doyle was a moral void! What's the point in being incorruptible if you're still a total piece of shit? 

Robespierre was known as "The Incorruptible". Was this Doyle guy worse than him?

[Curt McGirt]

I have read incredibly little about the French Revolution, but let's go to Wiki about Popeye: 

Quote

In the 1971 movie The French Connection, Popeye is a rough police detective who routinely breaks the rules in an effort to catch criminals, in this case a group of French drug smugglers. On an individual basis, Popeye has many negative qualities; he is a racist, womanizing alcoholic who is often disrespectful to his superiors. Nevertheless, he is a dedicated officer leading the New York Police Department's narcotics squad in drug arrests and is willing to do whatever it takes to lock up known drug dealers, even if it involves civilians. Near the end of the movie, Popeye accidentally kills Bill Mulderig (Bill Hickman), a federal agent with whom he previously had an argument. Undeterred by Mulderig’s death, Popeye continues in pursuit of his foe.

"Total piece of shit" seems pretty accurate, at least. 

[Contentious C]

OK, Cop Land was no masterpiece, or a great movie, but it's got some strong bits.  It definitely makes the third Stallone performance I like, probably ahead of what he was doing in Creed.  And yeah, Ray Liotta is just awesome from the word go.  This might be my favorite performance of his; he didn't have as much to chew on here as in other things, but he was more believable and authentic in this than in any number of his other roles where he's been typecast as the gangster Big Bad or some similar piece of shit.

But, the score of the movie is generally hokey; the script is weak as often as it's strong; the ending (not the climax) is basically garbage; the voice-overs with DeNiro are high-schoolish; the women in the film are exactly the sorts of roles that the Bechdel Test exists to call out; and the whole movie just does not look good.  Pretty clear Mangold was still figuring things out with this.  I might actually like his first movie, Heavy, as a whole more than I like this as a whole, but this definitely brought the goods in the acting department.

[Mister TV]

Thanks to some rainy days I've been watching some obscure flicks on the various streaming services I have. 

First Lifeguard a 1976 flick starring a pre-grizzled Sam Elliott! I had seen parts of this movie in the past but never from start and never to the end, It's way more interesting than good, it has a time capsule feel since it's shoot all on location and there's a few WTF moments. The biggest WTF is shortly after lecturing a newbie lifeguard played by Parker Stevenson about the dangers of having sex with someone under age, Elliott's character has sex with a 17 year old girl played by Kathleen Quinlan, in the freaking Lifeguard Hut! They don't show them having sex, its just a shot of the hut with a sappy song playing but the way it's edited it seems like Elliott's character was pretty quick. He doesn't get arrested for this, he just has to deal with her hanging around him all summer. There's also a scene with an old man flashing people at the beach, that is just as creepy as that would be in real life. Elliott's character dealing with getting old and having people be "OMG your 32 and still a lifeguard" is what you would expect it to be, the movie does have one of the best high school reunion scenes I've ever seen. On Showtime and their app.

Family Business a 1989 film directed by Sidney Lumet, I don't think I had seen this since the 90's. Just like Vincent Patrick's other novel adapted into a movie(The Pope of Greenwich Village) it's ruined by bad casting that overshadows a good story. Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman, and Matthew Broderick play grandfather, father and grandson, Connery's character is a lifelong thief who is depending on the scene either Scottish or Irish, Hoffman is his son Vito who was a thief but went straight after some time in jail his mother is Sicilian, Broderick is a genius who won a prestigious scholarship and his mother is Jewish. It's really hard to believe any of them are related, plus Connery and Hoffman kind of phone it in. The story is good and I actually read the book when I was in high school but this movie is a huge disappointment. Was on Vudu but I think it's gone now.

The Last Rites of Joe May a small 2011 movie starring Dennis Farina. This was way better than I thought it would be, it's shame that it disappeared after its initial festival run since Farina is great in it. Can be found deep in the bowels of Peacock.

All Square a 2018 film that I don't think had any real release outside of festivals. This movie is character actor and "that guy, that girl, that voice" heaven, Michael Kelly who's in a ton of stuff usually as a cop or FBI agent, plays a bookie who can barely make ends meet and is a total scumbag, he ends up kind of befriending an exes son which leads to him taking bets on Little League games. This isn't really a comedy and at times is really depressing, but it totally nails small time bookies and gambling addicts. Currently on Amazon Prime.

Edited July 8, 2021 by Mister TV

[Contentious C]

"Deep in the Bowels of Peacock" sounds like a lost Lovecraft story.   And probably something Dennis Farina would have done, were he still alive.

[Control]

I am just watching TRANCERS for the first time, and so far it’s BLADE RUNNER meets BACK TO THE FUTURE. But directed by Charles Band.

[odessasteps]

16 minutes ago, Control said:

I am just watching TRANCERS for the first time, and so far it’s BLADE RUNNER meets BACK TO THE FUTURE. But directed by Charles Band.

Did we actually do that for the Xmas movie club? I know I had suggested it to Curt, as it's his kind of movie. 

[Curt McGirt]

Yep, I reviewed it, and loved it 

Or hold on wait, did you mention it and I picked it for somebody else? Yeah, because I got that horrible Steve Martin movie from Rippa to review and gave somebody else Trancers, but still watched Trancers again. Anyway, thanks

Edited July 10, 2021 by Curt McGirt

[Control]

Watched 3 movies yesterday (it was rainy), including SHIVA BABY, UN FLIC, and the aforementioned TRANCERS.

TRANCERS is a good little low budget sci-fi flick, which is well-served by its two leads (Tim Thomerson and Helen Hunt). Full Moon/Empire films are always best when they’re trying to make a real film and not just a knockoff or cheap attention grabber. Helps that this one is well-written: the same writer would go on to script THE ROCKETEER and DA 5 BLOODS. For Full Moon, he did ARENA, which is really good: if it had a big budget and some punched up dialogue, it’d be GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY. Anyway, TRANCERS is a good example of low budget genre filmmaking.

UN FLIC is the last Jean-Pierre Melville film, starring Alain Delon, Catherine Deneuve, and Richard Crenna. Made me think Michael Mann was a Melville fan. The centrepiece is a 20-minute train heist, which is quite good, though the establishing shots use miniatures, so it’s suddenly like you’re watching a 70s Godzilla film. Anyway, all Melville is worthwhile.

Finished off the night with SHIVA BABY, which is a claustrophobic black comedy about a young woman sitting shiva, only to realize that she’s stuck with her ex-lover and her current sugar daddy. It’s like a horror film, except instead of grizzly kills there are extremely uncomfortable social interactions.

[Execproducer]

On 7/9/2021 at 6:03 PM, Curt McGirt said:

Yep, I reviewed it, and loved it 

Or hold on wait, did you mention it and I picked it for somebody else? Yeah, because I got that horrible Steve Martin movie from Rippa to review and gave somebody else Trancers, but still watched Trancers again. Anyway, thanks

Yeah, I reviewed it, obviously not very memorably.

[RIPPA]

Curt had too much blood in his eyes from all the rage

[RIPPA]

So the story making the rounds this weekend is from Matt Damon who doing one of those Masterclass deals at Cannes. He revealed that when he turned down the lead in Avatar he was also turning down a deal that including 10% of the profits. As a reminder Avatar has made almost $3 billion.  (Sam Worthington did not get the same 10% offer)

He had scheduling conflicts due to the Borne movies and didn't want to bail on his commitments to them.

He joked that he will go down in history as the actor who turned down the most money

He also talked about his almost directing opportunities

Quote

The actor also talked about how he has never directed, despite coming close on several occasions. He said he was supposed to direct Promised Land, which Gus Van Sant eventually helmed, and at one point was set to helm eventual Oscar-winner Manchester By The Sea. After reading Kenneth Lonergan’s script, however, he said, “Kenny, you have to direct this, this is you.”

Damon was also set to star in the movie but it ended up clashing with The Martian. “The only person I would ever give the role to was Casey [Affleck],” he said on finding his replacement, adding that they were told they would never get funding with Affleck in the lead role, but eventually producer Kimberly Steward gave them the financing. “She risked her brand new company on it,” he added.

 

[Curt McGirt]

12 hours ago, Execproducer said:

Yeah, I reviewed it, obviously not very memorably.

Dammit. I now request your pick for the next movie project. Halloween?

[Execproducer]

Here is to hoping that the movie review projects make a big comeback for Halloween.

[odessasteps]

Without the data, it seems like Halloween is the one that gets the most participation.  

[Execproducer]

That is definitely true but I think it declined a bit last year. 

[RIPPA]

12 hours ago, Execproducer said:

That is definitely true but I think it declined a bit last year. 

In terms of number of people who say they will participate - it is always the highest because there are at least 4 people who only participate in Havoc and not the other ones

That being said - like the movie polls - a lot of the regulars have moved on from the board in general

[Contentious C]

Welp, I found it: the movie the critics were most wrong about in the 2010s.  More on that at the end.

Since I only have access to Showtime until...tomorrow, I knocked out a few things there.  I pleasantly recalled Some Kind of Wonderful from my childhood, maybe because I had a crush on Mary Stuart Masterson, but I couldn't find I recalled much about it except the ending.  Turns out there's a reason for that: because it's utterly forgettable.  If John Hughes hadn't written straight diarrhea like Curly Sue or the Beethoven movies, this would be one of his worst.  Certainly is one of his worst of the teen-centric set of films he wrote.  It's a bunch of characters who don't seem to have any reason to exist in the same universe just all out there being quirky, like some proto-Joss Whedon-inspired hellscape, mostly played by actors 10 years too old to play them (Lea Thompson has a couple of good scenes towards the end, and I like her, but c'mon, man).  No one's high school was that interesting, and if it was, it was not a good kind of interesting. 

I had passed up watching Don Jon on any number of occasions when it was on Netflix, but when I saw JGL wrote and directed it, I thought, "fuck it".  It's...certainly the Jersey-est movie I've seen in a long time, right down to Brie Larson pulling a version of Silent Bob.  There are bits where the material matches the intent, of it being appropriately satirical and parodic, but mostly it's just a lot of characters who feel flat or so thoroughly unlikable that you're just waiting for them to get theirs, or for someone to call them out on their bullshit.  You don't really root for anyone, you don't really empathize with anyone, and the one multi-faceted character has to have The Big Tragic Backstory tacked on to explain away all the things about her that are legitimately interesting.  Watch if you like Julianne Moore enough; otherwise, meh.

But, the movie the critics were really wrong about: The Vanishing of Sidney Hall.  I'm by no means calling this a great movie - it's just...pretty good - but its Metacritic score is 18!!!  It's very much a decently-acted, decently-written film that maybe doesn't have as much going on in the direction or photography department.  I think I've decided I don't care much for Logan Lerman based on this; then again, save Tom Holland, there isn't a single male actor his age that doesn't make me want to puke or punch the TV.  So, he's definitely a weak spot, but it's got 4 or 5 smaller parts that really shine.  Kyle Chandler is sneaky good in it, and Margaret Qualley has one batshit crazy scene that grabs you by the throat and makes you take notice.  But the real stars here are Michelle Monaghan, who only has about 5-10 minutes of screen time total but OWNS every last one of those minutes, and Elle Fanning, who is pretty much always the best part of anything she's in, and this is no exception.  If stories about reclusive, mysterious writers sound too pretentious for you, by all means, steer clear.  But this is pretty touching and far better than a bloody 18.

Edited July 15, 2021 by Contentious C

[elizium]

Watched No Sudden Move and it was...okay? I really wanted to love it, but nothing really grabbed me. Great cast, but a lot of them just seem to be going through the motions and it had some really flat cinematography. I definitely feel like I should give it a rewatch, because a lot of the time watching was spent trying to parse out the various machinations of the plot. Every scene seems to drop one or two new names on you. Most of the enjoyment came from seeing people like Brendan Fraser and Bill Duke get to be in an "important" movie