The Movies Thread

[Crewe]

I was poking around for something else to watch nd came across the doc called the Killing of Kenneth Chamberlain on HBO Max so I gave it a watch.
I say its a doc, it isnt but its based on a true story.
68 year old black man accidentally triggers his med alert while sleeping and the service gets no response so they send cops out, white cops.
The film covers about an hour and a half to two hours of Mr. Chamberlains life, from 5:30 am until his death around 7am.
What begins as a wellness check ends up, well, you know.
Obviously dramatized but tragic nonetheless.
Seriously depressing and offputting but I also think people need to be continue to be made aware of these instances.

[Crewe]

42

In honor of having an upcoming baseball season, I watched 42 today.
Terrific acting by Chadwick Boseman and Harrison Ford, as well as Nicole Beharie.
Such an emotional story that needs to be told, and honestly, should be mandatory viewing by every American today, regardless if they are a baseball fan or not.
While the liberties taken are truly poetic license and sometimes, slightly overdone, the overall message and emotion cannot be overstated.
As for baseball realism, there are far worse baseball movie actions. And while I doubt a third baseman in 1947 would pirouette and throw a rope to first base, it still doesnt seem out of place here.
Watch this film, again.

[BojackHorsefella]

I'm just gonna call out a bunch of movies I've watched somewhat recently and try to keep the blurbs small. Lets do this. Lets get some Oscar noms (and snubs) too. All of these are 2021 films, except for the first one, which obviously came out this year.  Lets start with that -

The Batman - not terrible! Praise about it being "better than the Dark Knight" is mostly just recency bias. I saw it in theaters, I liked it, didn't hate it, but it does feel very "I've seen this all before." It is neat seeing the mixture of Burton elements, Nolan elements and what Reeves and RPat bring to it (Zoe Kravitz is fine as Catwoman, but in terms of the character it's nothing we haven't seen before. Colin Farrell's Penguin feels new, although he also feels like he's in a completely different movie). If you like Batman, it's a fine addition, but not genre-redefining as some superhero movies have been. But it's also not Morbius.

 
Nightmare Alley [best picture nominee] -  Not sure if it still is given it's April now, but this was free on Hulu and HBO Max for most of March I believe (maybe February)? It wasn't well received in theaters with the remnants of the pandemic and a marketing campaign that focused mainly on the first act, despite a settings and story change that occurs after. Set your expectations aside, this movie is a mastercraft in both set design and intent. I think people wanted a bigger story given the carnival elements, but the story it tells is much more personal and well constructed, and I think really accomplishes it's aims well. The hidden intentions and sneaky grifts would make this a great double feature with another film I'm going to bring up later - Red Rocket.


Licorice Pizza - Don't think this is available to stream for free anywhere, just rent. Good movie! Saw this one in theaters with kiddo while he visited back in December, I like it. A good PTA film, it's not his BEST work but still enjoyed it overall, and loved the 70s setting. Sort of a younger "Once Upon A Time in Hollywood." Worth a watch, didn't think it would get best picture. Mostly a hangout movie.


Drive My Car - nominated for Best Picture, winner for Best Foreign Film, and currently still available to watch on HBO Max. 3 hours long, many subtitles as it has spoken Japanese, Russian, and other languages (including Korean sign language). A rumination on life, main character Yusuke Kafuku is grieving his lost wife, when he receives an opportunity to direct a performance of Uncle Vanya. Kafuku's real life and the "imagined" life of Uncle Vanya swirl together, and his relationship with the young lady hired to drive him around in his car for the length of time he's directing the play leads to new possibilities for Kafuku. That makes it sound like a romance movie, it is not. Powerful, and my #1 movie of 2021.



OSCAR SNUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUBS (mostly foreign films, I am transitioning back to my movie snob self)

The Worst Person in the World - coming from Joachim Trier out of Oslo, Norway, Worst Person in the World tells the story of Julie, as she oscillates between a relationship with the older Aksel and new crush Eivind. The movie's about how people grow and change while society arounds them also grows and changes, and touches upon elements of human nature, cancel culture, and various other aspects of everyday life. Subtitled, highly worth it. Had the opportunity to catch this in a theater and it did not disappoint. Keep an eye out for it streaming.


The Lost Daughter - free on Netflix! I have this in my Oscar snubs, maybe not a snub (but deserved to be there more than Don't Look Up). Based on a novel and a directorial debut by Maggie Gylenhaal, The Lost Daughter tells the story of Olivia Colman's character while she's on a vacation. She meets a young mother, and the two lives collide in strange and unpredictable ways. The source material is highly regarded and it deals with some uncomfortable matters that you don't often see on screen. The nature of motherhood, sisterhood, I was really enraptured with this one (that being said, my wife liked it less, for what that's worth). No subtitles this time!


Bad Luck Banging Or Looney Porn - Currently streaming for free on Hulu (although highly edited), a Romanian film by director Radu Jude, it concerns a married teacher who films a sex tape with her husband, which finds its way into the public purview. Now, the parents of her students want the school to fire her, and a parent-teacher meeting has been scheduled for all to attend.

The film is in four chapters, with the fourth chapter dedicated to the ending, and the second chapter dedicated not to the story, but to a series of images and videos accompanied by scathing critiques in text. Most of these pertain to the Romanian government and Romanian history, but it's not hard to see a US version of this movie existing, as the themes of hypocrisy and the sort of "ouroboros" of society clash throughout. On Hulu, although edited (the sex scene in the film is 100% unsimulated, adding to the authenticity of the content within the rest of the film. The Hulu version censors the sex act, with basically a powerpoint presentation that's tongue-in-cheek and still delivers the message (one such slide simply says "You can show a man killing another man but can't show a blowjob." Shit like that). Also subtitled, in Romanian.



A Hero - Free on Amazon Prime video, A Hero is an Iranian film from Asghar Farhadi. I haven't seen Farhadi's other movies, but have heard great things about A Separation. Again, subtitled, A Hero follows Rahim Soltani, a prisoner in debtor's prison who gets released for a special occasion. While on release, Rahim's girlfriend presents him with a bag of gold coins she found, which he can use to pay his debt. Rahim refuses, and instead returns the bag of coins to its owner, making him an instant celebrity. Intrigue soon follows.

To say more would be to spoil it, again, but I've seen this referred to as the "milkshake duck" movie. Per Wiki -  Milkshake Duck is a person who gains popularity on social media for some positive or charming trait but is later revealed to have a distasteful history or offensive behavior. The meme is a reference to a Twitter post on 12 June 2016 by Ben Ward, an Australian cartoonist using the online handle "pixelatedboat".[6] His Twitter joke describes a fictional Internet viral phenomenon of a "lovely duck that drinks milkshakes" and is then immediately discovered to be racist.

This movie doesn't go the racism route, but there are some secrets to be revealed.



Red Rocket - last but not least, absolutely one of my favorite movies of the year for sheer entertainment but which also has something to say. An A24 film, director Shawn Baker is probably best known for his film The Florida Project, about a motel in Florida occupied but society's outsiders, and Tangerine, about a trans-sex worker taking revenge on an assailant (I've seen the former, not the latter, although kiddo tells me it's very good).

Saw this one in theaters with kiddo as well, it stars Simon Rex, famed MTV VJ and star of the earliest Scary Movie films, as Mikey - a former porn star returned to his ex-wife and mother-in-law's house in Texas. Initially, it seems like he might be changing his ways and ready to accept his role as a husband and provider, but after meeting the young girl working the counter at the Doughnut Hole, things start to change.

Red Rocket, much like Nightmare Alley (and, to a certain extent, A Hero) is about America's love of grifters. The 2016 presidential campaign plays like a specter in the background, its own metaphor for the way Mikey says whatever he needs to say to entice those around him to follow along while his ulterior motives play out. Surprisingly entertaining despite Mikey being a massive piece of shit, part of the fun of Baker's films is they play without judgement. The movie doesn't tell you how to feel about Mikey, it lets you make your own conclusions, it's just shining light on a forgotten spot in America (Baker loves bringing light to sex worker issues). Anyways, this one isn't streaming for free anywhere yet, but it's 100% worth the rental. Very funny movie as well.






That's all I got!

[rollntider]

Watched Morbius a few weeks ago.... mostly Meh, its not terrible, its just not good either.

Watched Top Gun, it was a fun film and had a feel good theme. First movie I have seen in a while that was pretty good.(at a theatre)

[Sakura]

Typically if I see a movie, it's usually been out for a while now.

Movies we've watched of late, Bronson -- Tom Hardy nails the character to a T, though I wasn't expecting to see his Bronson in the first 5 minutes of the film. The Greasy Strangler watched this one because of RedLetterMedia a long while ago, I remember it almost made me vomit. We watched it again recently, and again it almost made me vomit. My best friend was absolutely disturbed and traumatized, and that just made us laugh all the more about it. Sometimes we threaten to put on the Greasy Strangler again, and his visceral reaction is just awesome.

At some point we watched The Apocalypse Trilogy which is an unofficial nickname for John Carpenter's films. I can't remember if it was The Thing, Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness, or if it was They Live, PoD and ITMOM. I just assume it's The Thing. I forced them to watch my favorite film, Casablanca, which they didn't seem to mind too much. Falling Down which is just great, one of my friends has utter contempt for the film and calls it overrated, but he doesn't show up to movie nights either, so I can just ignore his opinions anyway.

We watched The Exorcist and The Exorcist III: Legion. Legion is a favorite of mine, the first Exorcist film is decidedly alright, but I wouldn't go out of my way to watch it. George C Scott is fantastic. We watched 1408, I'm not really a fan of Stephen King, but I like 1408 and the original 90s IT TV film. The Lighthouse with Robert Pattinson and Willem Defoe is good of course.

And of course you can't do a movie night group without watching Fight Club and American Psycho, they are absolutely required viewing. We've watched a lot of found footage films of late, most of them were from my own catalogue of films, but we watched one I'd never seen before The Borderlands, which is not about psycho mutants in a Mad Max style wasteland, but instead about psycho catholic priests in an Irish wasteland, absolutely dreadful ending. Guests of honor: [The Blair Witch], [Lake Mungo], [The Tunnel], [As Above, So Below].

We watched The Evil Dead 1 and 2, haven't watched Army yet, then we'll get into the new ones (which I don't much care for, but c'est la vie). We watched White Noise with Michael Keaton still doing his Batman routine. Dishonorable mention: Wish Upon, to hell with that movie.

We watched through the original Ring movies, I didn't mind most of them, but the last two [Black/White] I hated with a passion. We'll get to Ju-On eventually. Parasite Eve was okay, but is based on the novel so it was unfamiliar to us. Kairo (also called Pulse) is decent, but the ending is crazy.

We watched RedLetterMedia's The Recovered and Gorilla Interrupted. I like them, but I understand why they tell people not to watch them. Liked the followup film How not to make a movie where they recount how they made Gorilla, and how Mike Stoklassa came to hate Garrett Gilchrist. Totally deserved enmity, in my opinion. Especially considering the stories he's been telling about them behind their backs. Not related to movies, though, moving on.

Blade Runner is awesome, nuff said. We watched The Final Cut, but I'm gonna make them watch the Theatrical Cut soon. Harrison Ford's horrible narration must be witnessed.

We watched The Call of Cthulhu and The Whisperer in Darkness, both by the HP Lovecraft Historical Society. Great films, both made in black and white to hide the lack of budget (Call of Cthulhu is actually a silent film too). They used digital film grain, since the movies were shot on digital, which is always a drag, but it is what it is. A while ago we watched The Lurking Fear, which is just awful. My friend requested a film Macario which is a Mexican film about mortality. Not really my thing, didn't care for it.

Oh right, also we watched The Menu with Anya-Taylor Joy. Good film, but we had a guest viewer and he just wouldn't stop asking me to tell him what happens next in the plot, it's like shut up and watch, the plot will happen in good time.

[rollntider]

I need to rewatch Blade Runner, been a while

[BojackHorsefella]

Still haven’t seen Oppenheimer, but saw Barbie with the wife. Good movie, deserves all the praise it’s getting and glad Gerwig is getting the recognition she deserves as an excellent director.

Also rented The Black Demon due to Meg 2 reviews being awful, so figured I’d get a cheaper Megalodon fix on Prime. I drank 3 16 oz cans of a 10% abv beer, and under those conditions the movie was very fun. Also, I’m pretty certain Josh Lucas was drunk during filming based on his performance. So yeah, if you watch this one, don’t watch it sober.

[rollntider]

I havent been to the theatre since Top gun last year. Work gave us tickets.
Finally saw Guardians 3 on Disney plus. Pretty good, did not like this groot version.
But enjoying twisted metal, damn good series so far.

[Crewe]

So uh, hit me with your favorite Halloween esque movies.
Doesnt have to be Halloween centered, just, scary, thrilling, horror, whatever.
There's really not a single horror genre anymore. Matter of fact, there's hardly a single genre period. But mystery thrillers, all that stuff.
Ill see if I can squeeze it in this month if I havent seen it already.
Some films I havent seen in forever might crop back up like Candyman, Nightmare, Hellraiser, but then, Ive had those backed up for years now so, maybe, maybe not lol
Not interested in camp, like say Waxwork.
If it's Hitchcock, Ive seen it, but throw me your favorite anyway just because I'm curious.
And we can skip the obligatory Halloween flicks

[BojackHorsefella]

I will always take opportunities like this to vouch for The Collector and The Collection. Both are fairly gory, but the first one I’ve seen a few times and is just an edge of your seat thrill ride with a fantastic ending. I saw the second in theaters and remember liking it a lot although I can’t remember specifics anymore.

[Crewe]

then i might just take a look