Movies 2022 Movies Discussion Thread (v.2.0)

[JLSigman]

2 hours ago, J.T. said:

More A24 goodness appears on the Showtime Networks.  The Green Knight is now on heavy rotation and is also available on SHO OnDemand.

 

It is a godsdamned shame this didn't get nominated for any Oscars.

[Curt McGirt]

Thanks for getting ahead of that one! Recording for me tonight. 

[HumanChessgame]

Speaking of A24 movies, I watched The Tragedy of Macbeth recently and if you've ever wondered what Ingmar Bergman making a Shakespeare adaptation would be like, that's what it reminded me of.

[EVA]

Did another unintentional double feature recently.

NIGHMARE ALLEY: Guillermo del Toro’s craftsmanship has never been less than stellar. He’s one of our premier visual stylists, and when he sets his mind to achieving a certain mise en scene, there’s little he can’t do. But, if I’m being honest, I haven’t loved a film of his since…the second Hellboy? IMO he’s been on a run of lackluster scripts for a decade. And I just haven’t cared for any of it (good for him on getting those Oscars, tho!). But I’m happy to say that this is his best work since…Pan’s?

Look, if you have seen more than one noir film in your life, nothing in this film is going to surprise you. Everybody is exactly who you think they are. This is not a clever subversion of the form. But I found a lot to enjoy in how meticulously GDT sets up the pieces and moves them around the board. No cheats. Everybody’s actions make sense based on their characters. Pretty early on, you know exactly where Bradley Cooper’s character is going to end up, but the rise and fall is a trip worth taking. You’re in good hands with this one.

THE FRENCH DISPATCH: Another one of our foremost cinematic stylists, who had been on the exact opposite trajectory from GDT over the past decade. I’ve felt like Wes Anderson has been getting better and better with each passing film (err, with the exception of the dog movie). But, man, I didn’t get this one. The direction is still top notch, but there’s, um, not a movie here? I enjoyed the Benicio del Toro short, but all the rest were either rather cute but disposable or actually pretty annoying.

[odessasteps]

I realized today this year should be the Sight and Sound poll. 
 

the last poll in 2012 one came out in August that year. 

Edited March 6, 2022 by odessasteps

[Mister TV]

On 3/5/2022 at 10:07 PM, EVA said:

THE FRENCH DISPATCH: Another one of our foremost cinematic stylists, who had been on the exact opposite trajectory from GDT over the past decade. I’ve felt like Wes Anderson has been getting better and better with each passing film (err, with the exception of the dog movie). But, man, I didn’t get this one. The direction is still top notch, but there’s, um, not a movie here? I enjoyed the Benicio del Toro short, but all the rest were either rather cute but disposable or actually pretty annoying.

I'm a huge Wes Anderson fan but when I saw that this movie was a "tribute to The New Yorker" I knew it wouldn't be my cup of tea. The only segment I even kind of enjoyed was the last one and that was purely due to Jeffery Wright's narration, the middle one with Frances McDormand and Timothée Chalamet was really bad and seemed like a parody of Wes Anderson flicks.

[EVA]

Yeah, that was the one that really turned me on it.

[odessasteps]

I liked the Del Toro segment. I thought it was fine, but a step tier below Hotel. 

[Contentious C]

Movies!  I watch things!  I say things!  You ignore the things!  It's Day 237 (and counting) of some dumb crap, Nobody Asked for a Damn 3-Hour Long Batman Edition!

Hot Garbage

America's Sweethearts - I can't tell if this was better or worse than Cusack's other early 2000s huge pile of shit, Serendipity.  I'm going to say worse, because it wasn't even likable on any level.  Basically all the characters except Julia Roberts are awful people.  And Hank Azaria does Hank Azaria things, mostly involving accents he shouldn't be doing.  The few times I laughed felt more like contrast laughs than anything else: "Oh, this is boring as H--hey wait, that wasn't the worst joke I've ever heard!  Maybe it w--nope, no."  Catherine Zeta-Jones plays a pretty great batshit crazy lady, but that's a thin straw to grasp in a river of tepid garbage.

The Greatest - Another movie with a ton of big names where you wonder, "How is it *this* awful?"  Sarandon is screechy and unbearable, Pierce Brosnan is flat as Hell, even Michael Shannon - who I swear has only ever made a movie better every time I've seen him - adds nothing to this, which seems like it ought to be a crime.  Carey Mulligan is all right sometimes, but only sometimes, as the movie spends most of its runtime with the four principal characters and their little hobbyhorses that they're trying to deal with, and hers is particularly irksome.  This is, however, the only time I've seen Johnny Simmons actually act, and he's pretty good in the one scene where he stretches out a little.  But, it's probably the only believable moment of grief in a movie that's about grief; most of the time, you just want to roll your eyes and say, "There's a movie like this every year." 

All that said, Zoe Kravitz is in it, and Johnny Simmons does get to be my hero for about 5 seconds during one scene; if you've seen this before, you might know what I'm talking about, and now you also know what my kinks are.

The Baytown Outlaws - Ho boy.  There's someone out there, I'm sure, who says this is their favorite movie.  And...*shudders*.  I mean, as far as ultra-violent, rednecky, misogynistic films go, this one has some modicum of decency to it, as it tries however poorly to show that the main characters have a good heart, but, ugh, the way it goes about it.  No.  Just no.  Also, I'm actually kind of surprised that 2K Games or Gearbox didn't sue these guys, because the opening and closing scenes of the film pretty much entirely rip off the Borderlands games, right down to the Gunzerker moment.  This *also* has a fair number of recognizable faces in it, but man is it just not good.  I think you've failed to make your over-the-top comedy successful (and by successful, I mean, "actually funny") when the Michael Rapaport outtakes you show during the closing credits are funnier than anything in the actual movie.  I remain amazed at the things people are willing to spend millions of dollars on.  But hey, it's got Hood Pirates!  Maybe they can fight some big gorilla wolf motherfuckers.

Acceptable

A Cat in Paris - This is a very short (relative to the other things I watch; I give myself a 1-hour minimum time to qualify as something I watched) film that's...not bad most of the time.  The plot is pretty predictable, and the cat's a little too wise for any sense of believability - the movie's generally better when you're just sort of following it around instead of watching it show agency.  But, it's a nice enough story that's pretty well-done with respect to the voice acting, and the art style is kind of a Gothic Dali meets Duckman, which is a mix that somehow works.  The last scenes of the climax also veer almost as weird as the art, even if the rest is stuff you see coming a mile away.  I'm a little surprised this was Oscar-nominated, but maybe it was a weak year.

Retaliation - OK, so, there are a couple of things you need to know about this.  First, the subject matter is INTENSE.  I've sat through plenty of hard-to-watch movies since starting this, and this is right up there with the worst of them at times.  Second, it has Orlando Bloom as its star.  I know, he was awful in the LOTR movies.  And he was awful in Elizabethtown.  And...well, nearly everything else.  But between this and Carnival Row, I'm really starting to think he saw what McConaughey did and said, "Fuck it, maybe I can't do that, but I can try", and he's actually rather good here.  I think part of why I feel that way, though, is I've known a lot of seriously broken people like his character, and there's always this push and pull between avoiding trust and desperately wanting it that comes through clearly during the whole film.  And there are a couple of really well-written scenes that help string together the more screwed-up bits and make it feel like a much more solid film, rather than just a dreary collection of terrible things that people do to one another.  So, worth a watch, but know going in what you're getting yourself into; read the synopsis on Amazon Prime and judge accordingly.

Life Partners - Hey, a twee indie movie that didn't bore my face off!  This actually reminds me a lot of Very Good Girls, which I reviewed a few weeks ago and actually came out the year before.  This has the feel of a spiritual sequel to that, at least if Elizabeth Olson's character found out she was gay and 10 years went by and their lives were still kind of messy and uncertain.  I was thinking about this earlier, and I thought, "Hey, maybe we should have a rom-com shared universe!" but then I just realized that's...y'know, this universe, pretty much.  Anyway, about this movie!  Gillian Jacobs is really good, Leighton Meester is really good, and even Adam Brody, who usually manages to ruin things by being himself (he's like the adopted 3rd Franco brother that way), is the least Adam-Brody I've ever seen him.  And this is actually funny, unlike practically every other attempted comedy I watched this past week.  Maybe Naomi Foner & Susanna Vogel should get together and write a spiritual sequel to both their films, about women in their 40s still struggling to find their way.  Maybe call it Backdoor Roths or something.  Recommend.

Awesome

Lenny - I think you know by now there are a lot of "great" actors I don't like.  It's mostly men, although I will happily set aside Sophie's Choice and bang the "Meryl Streep is overrated" drum for anyone who wants to hear it.  But, yeah, lots of actors do nothing for me.  On (though not at the top of) that list is Dustin Hoffman, and this might have been the performance that finally turned him around a little bit in my mind.  I decided I should watch this after starting season 4 of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, where Lenny Bruce appears as part imp, part inspiration, and while Luke Kirby's character is interesting in the confines of that show, it, uh, it ain't Lenny Bruce.  This version, I can believe.  All of Hoffman's neurotic, twitchy energy really works here, as it builds and builds and just funnels right into all the awful, self-abusing crap the man goes through.  And Bob Fosse really directs the holy Hell out of this sometimes; the first big nightclub scene is just extreme, grimy, ugly close-ups of disgusting faces and sweathogs and gross old men, and it puts the lie to the notion that people who are "out on the town" are trying to make themselves look good, or that they look like anything other than creeps.  The last big on-stage incident is the total opposite and works just as well: clinical and detached and every bit as uncomfortable as the audience felt, watching someone disintegrate before their eyes.  It's not an easy watch, but it's damn sure a compelling one.

Edited March 8, 2022 by Contentious C

[Tabe]

I almost always look up on IMDB most of the movies Contentious C mentions to explore further and see if I might want to add them to my list of future movies to see.  When looking up Life Partners, I was presented with this box art for the movie.  And I couldn't help but wonder what the heck happened to "Leighton Meester" on the cover.  Is that even her?!?

Edit: The board hates me and won't let me post a picture of the poster/cover.  Just Google it.

[Curt McGirt]

Here you go. I've no idea what she's supposed to look like though.

[Contentious C]

I never watched Gossip Girl; did she really look that different to you? Granted, it's not a good picture.  I think this was the first thing I've seen where she played a major role.

Edited March 9, 2022 by Contentious C

[Log]

21 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Here you go. I've no idea what she's supposed to look like though.

Hey, you know that 'Meester Meester Lady'... I think I just killed her!

[Tabe]

On 3/8/2022 at 1:28 PM, Curt McGirt said:

Here you go. I've no idea what she's supposed to look like though.

 

18 hours ago, Contentious C said:

I never watched Gossip Girl; did she really look that different to you? Granted, it's not a good picture.  I think this was the first thing I've seen where she played a major role.

Yeah, she looks completely different to me.

[The Natural]

Fuck. I've listened to this show since 2004 at least. Next month will mark 10 years of me meeting Mark Kermode/The Dodge Brothers. When it was announced at the start of today's show, I thought it was a bad joke with the date but it's not. Fuck.

[tbarrie]

On 3/7/2022 at 10:29 PM, Contentious C said:

I was thinking about this earlier, and I thought, "Hey, maybe we should have a rom-com shared universe!" but then I just realized that's...y'know, this universe, pretty much.

Wait, if we're living in the rom-com shared universe, I should be dating a manic pixie dream girl by now. Where's my manic pixie dream girl?

[(BP)]

During the pandemic I started doing movie premieres in the tv room for new streaming kids releases. I get some party supplies with the new movie characters on it, order some Happy Meals, pop some corn, and it makes it feel like a special event for the kids. 

My daughter has been counting the days until Turning Red came out for months. There’s very little merch for it in stores, possibly because of the Disney/Pixar feud, so I got a couple of activity books and some solid red plates, napkins, tablecloths, etc.

My wife and I had talked about it being a puberty parable, but now that reviews are calling it a “menstruation adventure” I looked at all the stuff I bought and I realized it looks like I’m throwing a dang First Period party. 

[Contentious C]

1 hour ago, tbarrie said:

Wait, if we're living in the rom-com shared universe, I should be dating a manic pixie dream girl by now. Where's my manic pixie dream girl?

Taking her lithium, probably.  Yours and mine both.

[Dolfan in NYC]

Black Panther director Ryan Coogler was briefly detained for attempted bank robbery(!) by Atlanta PD earlier this week.

He apparently went to withdraw $12,000 and the teller mistook his request to do so "discreetly" as an attempted robbery.

Police let him go when they verified he was who they say he was and that he did have that much money to withdraw. They also said in the report it was a mistake by the bank and he was never in the wrong.

...

I'm guessing that account is closing very soon and that poor teller is currently looking for another job.

[Zimbra]

On 3/11/2022 at 10:32 AM, (BP) said:

During the pandemic I started doing movie premieres in the tv room for new streaming kids releases. I get some party supplies with the new movie characters on it, order some Happy Meals, pop some corn, and it makes it feel like a special event for the kids. 

My daughter has been counting the days until Turning Red came out for months. There’s very little merch for it in stores, possibly because of the Disney/Pixar feud, so I got a couple of activity books and some solid red plates, napkins, tablecloths, etc.

My wife and I had talked about it being a puberty parable, but now that reviews are calling it a “menstruation adventure” I looked at all the stuff I bought and I realized it looks like I’m throwing a dang First Period party. 

Yeah, we watched it last night and I did not expect the puberty metaphor to be so overt.

Really fun, though.  Whoever did the voices for  Mei and her friends really knocked it out of the park.

[Contentious C]

Movies!  They are a thing, apparently!  You don't give a crap, but I...also don't really give a crap, either, I'm just bored?  It's Day 244 (and counting) of Movie Bullshit, Too Much Bad News Lately Edition...

Hot Garbage

Everything Is Illuminated - Maybe this should be an "incomplete", but nah.  I watched this on Kanopy and, despite a good 2/3s of the movie being in Russian and/or Ukrainian, there are NO SUBTITLES for any of that dialogue, so you have to intuit everything that might be said during those scenes.  And...I mean, you *can*, but you shouldn't have to.  It'd be one thing if it were a choice - if the point of skipping them is to make the audience feel as confused as Elijah Wood's character, then, hey, um, I guess you could try that.  Or maybe that's exactly what Liev Schrieber did, and he failed to actually do it worth a damn (I don't know, because it's not like I saw this in theaters or on physical formats).   But this is just a huge cock-up with respect to streaming the movie.  But even if you could follow along, it isn't necessarily good in other ways.  There are maybe 2 characters who are legitimately interesting, the "blinding light" scene wipes get old *really* fast, and the music is generally insufferable (though I do distinctly recall people here talking about Gogol Bordello at some point). 

Still of the Night - Is this Meryl Streep's worst movie?  Probably not overall, but it's got to be up there.  A bland, blatant, snoozefest of a Hitchcock ripoff that goes exactly where you expect with no mind of its own.  Streep is boring, Roy Scheider is gross - maybe the only movie star who could out-squick Tom Skerritt's performance in Poison Ivy just with his regular face - and the script and direction are flatter than a smash burger.  This reminded me a lot of The Bedroom Window, which I reviewed months and months ago, if you took out every bit of charm and detail and griminess and humanity from that movie and left it with the flaccid husk of what used to be a thriller.

Reign of Fire && - I thought about sticking this in Acceptable...but nah! Also counting this as a rewatch though, now that I have definitely seen it once through, I'm not sure I actually had watched it in its entirety before.  I think I'd just seen the middle hour-ish.  The opening premise is fairly compelling, but the final execution of it is full of plot holes you could drive a tank through.  McConaughey as some kind of crazed tough guy is pretty laughable for the most part, though it does seem like Woody Harrelson basically stole this performance for what he did in War for the Planet of the Apes.  And it's kind of funny to see that Christian Bale just recycled this exact look for early Bruce Wayne.  But it's just grim and dark and darker and more grim and then a solution gets pulled out of someone's backside, and it's all better.  There are probably a lot of people who like this movie but I can't fathom why, except that they're like ferrets, only they become mesmerized by dragons instead of shiny things.  Would probably explain Game of Thrones, for that matter.

All About Steve - Ugh.  Well, this wasn't *as bad* as everyone made it out to be.  I seem to recall Bullock winning a Razzie for this the same year she won for The Blind Side.  I'm not sure she deserved either.  The whole point of her character here is that she's obnoxious and unbearable at first glance, so if anything, she actually did a good acting job in this.  I mean, the rest of the movie is pretty dumb and insulting and ridiculous and badly executed, so, hey, it's still terrible, but she isn't some collapsed star of shittiness pulling everything around her into oblivion.  It's much more like a full solar system of crap, each thing being shitty and pointless and a waste of your time in its own special way. 

No One Lives - Uggggggggggggggggggh!  My first, accidental foray into the "output" (read: something else from an orifice) of WWE Studios!  This has...wait, no wrestlers in it, and several recognizable actors in various roles?  I'm confused.  Why is Luke Evans in this?  This seems like they meant it to be, I don't know, an Undertaker movie, but then they realized that he can't talk, or walk, or run, or do anything besides shit his pants, so they cast Evans instead.  And why'd he take it?  Did he lose a bet with someone?  Did he lose a bunch of bets and owed a bookie?  Anyway, the only thing keeping this from the So Hot So Bad depths of Seventh Son/The Crow: Wicked Prayer and its Mount Flushmore is Adelaide Clemens, who one or two of you might recognize from Rectify, where she was generally excellent.  She gets every remotely good line in the movie, delivered very much at the expense of every other poor schmuck getting butchered throughout.  And...we're done with the positives.  The fake blood budget on this had to be more money than a lot of us make in a year, which should be illegal.

Acceptable

I'm Your Woman - Not exactly what I expected Julia Hart to do after Fast Color, which all of you should watch.  This is...good at times, but it's slow getting there.  You're as much in the dark as Rachel Brosnahan's character until about halfway through, and then every connection in the world just gets flopped into your lap.  The movie isn't so much about her deadbeat husband as it is about the wreckage he creates, and she gets to see various stages of that not only in her own life, but in the rebuilt lives of the people who were his past and might be her future.  It's not entirely captivating as far as thrillers go, as the real emotional kick of the movie comes more from the bonds that she forms with a family she didn't know she had.  And there's some interesting stuff there, but it's kind of backseated so that all the "people are mad and have to shoot other people" nonsense can play out.  Oh, and the number one thing that makes it obvious this is a 70s set piece?  Putting a kid in the front seat with no seatbelt and then handing him a fucking baby to hold while she drives.

Olympia - This is...OK, a newish indie movie about, what else, a Millennial who can't find her way.  Let's just say I've watched A LOT of this in the last 8 months, and you've had to read me talking about A LOT of this, and I'm very done with it right now.  We get it.  Life is hard.  We get it.  We don't need every movie to remind us of that, because our lives are *also hard*, and we especially don't need those movies to all wrap up in the same fucking way every time.  I mean, that's what annoys me the most with these sorts of movies.  There are 3 or 4 scenes that are pretty solid and keep this from the scrap heap, but then it just squanders that goodwill by having a boring ending that's been done to death in every other movie in the same space.  The rest of it is only occasionally funny or interesting, but oftentimes it feels like someone with ADHD watched a lot of HBO TV and then tried to write their own spec script.  But compared to a lot of other things I watched this week, this is practically Annie Hall.

Harry Brown - I dunno how I feel about this.  On one hand, it's kind of classist and racist and "old man shakes fist at cloud" in nature, especially with the initial setup, but boy does this get down and dirty eventually.  I don't buy Michael Caine as any kind of guy who could actually go around merking dudes at 70 or 80 or whatever, but...here he is.  The real highlights, though, are Sean Harris, who plays the most believable drug dealer you may ever see in your entire life - he's so creepy that he should be the "scared straight" video going forward for *actual* drug dealers.   And Emily Mortimer plays the DI who suspects that Caine's character is off his rocker and taking matters into his own hands.  The ending seems like it's going to go one way, then ends up a whole other, uglier, crazier direction that kind of knocks you on your ass.  I think your willingness to suspend disbelief will decide how much you like this.  I couldn't really, and so it leaned hard on a few big moments and performances to drag this up to about average.

Dream Lover && - I watched probably 30 or 40 minutes of this maybe 15+ years ago on USA, flipping back and forth between channels, having not caught the beginning and feeling totally unable to follow what was going on.  It was such a bewildering experience (especially since I also skipped the ending) that I have meant to watch this all the way through ever since.  Oh, and Mädchen Amick was the most beautiful woman on Earth when this was being filmed, and I'll hear no slander otherwise.  I mean...just the *HAIR* on these two is ridiculous, it's like the two nicest heads of hair you've ever seen coiffed anywhere at anytime, no wonder they're schtupping each other.  But right, the movie.  It's weird and twisty and screwed-up in some fun ways, although having now seen it in its entirety, it's also fairly misogynistic and over-the-top with how James Spader's character responds.  It does presage a lot of the intensely creepy roles he's done ever since (almost to the exclusion of his sappier roles like Stargate), and while the stakes in this are pretty high, you have to wonder if the ending is deserved or if it's just the icing on the cake to a lot of awful thoughts about women.  But the movie itself is still kind of fascinating, though, and worth seeing.

Awesome

Heathers && - I don't think I'd watched this in probably 10 years at least, and other than the hanging scene that Winona Ryder does, I didn't have a great memory of how the movie went.  I think it drags a lot in the middle, once J.D. stops being this mysterious guy and starts being a plot driver, but otherwise this is just a ton of fun.  I never noticed the musical cues that Slater gets in the first 30 to 40 minutes of the film, where his appearances are almost like some funhouse mirror version of The Man with No Name, blowing into town and wreaking havoc on the normies who don't know who he is or what he's about.  Of course, he's also the anti-Mifune/Clint, as he's so massively insecure and so full of his own hype that he can only see one way of doing anything.  But you're really here for the script and the tone, which are close to perfect and still haven't been matched in the teen comedy realm, despite many, many, many imitators.  This also makes me feel that Winona Ryder is a wildly underappreciated actor but equally underachieving; she's had so many really good roles, but she's also never had that one where you think, "Finally, she put her stamp on something."  This may still come the closest.

Edited March 15, 2022 by Contentious C

[odessasteps]

Disappointed that Olympia reviewed was not the 1936 Berlin Olympics Doc. 

[Tabe]

I remember watching Harry Brown several years ago.  I don't remember any details about it, just that I liked it even though Caine is a tough sell in terms of believability.

[New Blood]

Just finished rewatching Con Air on Tubi and it was a lot of fun. Probably haven’t seen it since the late 90s. It had a great cast and went by pretty fast even though I thought the ending was tacked on and dragged the film a tad. Overall I really enjoyed this loud stupid movie. Although it doesn’t take the prize of best 90s action film like I’ve heard people talk about. That honor goes to Stone Cold and Parole Violators!

[Zimbra]

19 hours ago, New Blood said:

Just finished rewatching Con Air on Tubi and it was a lot of fun. Probably haven’t seen it since the late 90s. It had a great cast and went by pretty fast even though I thought the ending was tacked on and dragged the film a tad. Overall I really enjoyed this loud stupid movie. Although it doesn’t take the prize of best 90s action film like I’ve heard people talk about. That honor goes to Stone Cold and Parole Violators!

Con Air isn't even the best action movie starring Nic Cage released in June of 1997, let alone the whole decade. 

It does whip ass, though.