Recently watched movies

[Arcadia]

5 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

Not sure if this belongs here or in BC news. Trailer of Mowgli with BC as Shere Khan... I really don't like the look of it.

 

Oooo. I do.  

[Arcadia]

59 minutes ago, Artemis said:

Well the thing in the spoiler box is an exaggeration for humorous effect, but I understand what you mean.    I would still recommend it though.  It is... an experience.

I agree. That's the perfect way to describe it. Unless you just don't like superhero movies, which I can understand; most of them get a little tiresome. But this is one of those movies that just stayed with me for days, and that doesn't happen often. I want to see it again too, for the same reason you mentioned, Artemis.

[T.o.b.y]

1 hour ago, Arcadia said:

Oooo. I do.  

Really? I thought you weren't a fan of "dark" movies. 

[Sheerluck]

17 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

Not sure if this belongs here or in BC news. Trailer of Mowgli with BC as Shere Khan... I really don't like the look of it.

 

As long as there's no singing and dancing in this one, it'll be an improvement over that other one. Shame they didn't do Kim instead though.

[Detective]

Avengers: Infinity War - 8/10

Deadpool 2 - 8/10 (this is a funny movie. But it also had heart and some depth. But really it was about the laughs. It is really funny, IF this is your type of humor. Also the after credit scene might be the best ever! That’s not an overstatement. I loved it.)

[Arcadia]

14 hours ago, T.o.b.y said:

Really? I thought you weren't a fan of "dark" movies. 

It's the Jungle Book, how dark can it be?  

[Pseudonym]

Tiger vs boy? Especially when the tiger is Khan squared! 😉

[T.o.b.y]

48 minutes ago, Arcadia said:

It's the Jungle Book, how dark can it be?  

Have you seen the trailer? I lost interest after that even though BC is of course the perfect voice actor for Sheer Khan. 

[Arcadia]

Oh, you mean dark as in "not much light"! No, seriously, in spite of the warning at the beginning, it doesn't look that dark to me. "Dark" to me is more things like the good guys being just as bad as the bad guys, things like that. So unless they depart an awful lot from the book, I don't have too many worries.

[Pseudonym]

Admittedly I haven't read the book, does it end with him going back to the human village? Because if so this seems to be set after that? What happens to Shere Khan in the book, is he killed?

[Artemis]

Finally watched the "Mowgli" trailer.  It looks pretty good, but a touch too depressing for me.

 

 

[T.o.b.y]

21 hours ago, Pseudonym said:

Admittedly I haven't read the book, does it end with him going back to the human village? Because if so this seems to be set after that? What happens to Shere Khan in the book, is he killed?

In the book, boy Mowgli kills the tiger and then returns to the jungle. The narrator says he stayed there until he became a man but that this was a different story. That's the end. 

[Pseudonym]

So this looks to be his final face off then so he can return to the jungle...? That's how I'm reading the trailer anyway.

[Detective]

Wanted (2008) - 6/10

[Hikari]

I, Tonya (2017)--Starring Margot Robbie, Sebastian Stan & Allison Janney

This is a wild ride of a film, shot in a mockumentary style but derived from a real-life story that is way stranger than fiction--and even more convoluted and heartbreaking than we imagined at the time.  Released just in time for the 2018 Winter Games, and coinciding with its title subject's appearance on Dancing With the Stars, looking, as one friend of mine put it, like a soccer mom, this movie doesn't 'tell the truth' so much as provide a multitude of realities as revealed from taped interviews from the principal players in the saga of one of the most notorious scandals in the history of Olympic sport.

In 1994, in the run-up to the Lillehammer games, before the ladies' ice skating roster had been finalized, gold-medal hopeful and reigning U.S. Champion Nancy Kerrigan was bashed in the knee with a lead pipe by a mystery man during a practice session in Detroit.  The assailant was a hired thug later traced back to the estranged husband of Kerrigan's rival Tonya Harding.  Even though Harding claimed to have no knowledge or involvement in the plot to break her rival's leg, she was later convicted of obstruction of justice and banned from skating for life.  For a while, Tonya was the most vilified woman in the world, and remains an infamous figure nearly 25 years later.  While I, Tonya shows all the defiantly self-destructive tendencies that made Harding the antiheroine of her own life and tells her story as a decided black comedy, one comes away from it with a great deal of sympathy for a woman who, one feels, was nearly preordained to become what she did.  An unapologetic self-proclaimed redneck who dropped out of high school to pursue her dream of stardom on ice, however it came, Tonya was never going to be a fit for the snooty, patrician world of figure skating as exemplified by her rival Nancy Kerrigan.  She was a force of nature whose native athleticism seemed to thrive despite her lack of traditional training regimes or resources.  Her raw power propelled her to the history books as the first American woman to land a triple axel in competition, and when Tonya was 'on' she could rip off triple jumps like a top.  She was never a polished, artistic skater like Kerrigan or Michelle Kwan or the eventual ladies' champion that year, Oksana Baiul,  but boy, could she jump.  But ultimately the noise of her off-ice life derailed her dream, including an abusive mother (portrayed by Allison Janney, to a Best Supporting Actress nomination) that makes Joan Crawford look cuddly, and as the punching bag in a tempestuous on-again-off-again marriage to a violent man who was very likely a sociopath, who she met when she was only 15.  But Tonya was a scrapper, giving as good as she got, and, after being banned from skating, had a brief career as a female boxer.

Margot Robbie is hilarious and poignant as Tonya, and though all the best efforts of the makeup and costume departments cannot dim the wattage on her incredible beauty enough to really be a physical representation of Harding, she throws herself into the part with gusto.  Sebastian Stan takes a break from beefcakedom in the Marvel Universe to disappear completely into his role as a wife-abusing loser with visions of grandiosity.  And Allison Janney goes uber-creepy as Tonya's sadistic mother, LaVona, whose hairstyle really did look like that.  It seems counterintuitive that this would be fodder for laughter, but I, Tonya is very funny, while it breaks your heart a bit at the same time.

Tonya now lives as quietly as a former contestant on DWTS and historical trainwreck can, staining decks professionally and happily married with a seven-year-old son.  She is a survivor and she's still here.  25 years on, it's easy to remember the trainwreck and the punchline and forget that for a brief and shining moment, Tonya was the top ladies' figure skater in the world. 

P.S.  Tonya finished third on Dancing With the Stars.  Not bad for a 48-year-old mom.  She says she practices skating 3 times a week still.  I wonder what she thinks about this movie, or if she's seen it/received any royalties from it.  I'd say they owe her something.

[Sheerluck]

Deadpool 2. Quite enjoyable for what it was. Even better since it was free.

[Artemis]

I saw “Deadpool 2” yesterday.  I dislike crude/sexual humor, but I was able to put that aside and enjoy the rest of it, which was hilarious.  The audience was absolutely roaring with laughter, which is unusual in my experience.

Also, Domino has my favorite superpower (yes, Deadpool, it is a superpower) in the entire Marvelverse, lol.  I want it.  If she’s supremely lucky, and I’m supremely unlucky, would that make me her arch-nemesis?  

 

 

[Sheerluck]

The Foreigner. I had heard that this film wasn't very good, but they were completely wrong. Jackie Chan is outstanding as a distraught father seeking justice for his murdered daughter and Pierce Brosnan is perfect as an ex-IRA arsehole protecting himself. It is a very good film in fact.

[J.P.]

Alien: Covenant
What a waste of time. I actually thought it could not be worse than the last one, but it was. The same cringeworthy errors and "nobody-does-it-this-way" moments of stupidity. No concept behind the story. Not even M Fassbender can save it.

[Detective]

Upgrade - 8/10

I really like this film! Created by one of the brains behind the first Saw movie, this is a low budget blast!
This summer is packet with superhero movies and sequels a la ‘Avengers’, ‘Oceans 8’, ‘Jurassic World’, ‘Star Wars’, which makes it so great to see an independent small original film.
Original in the sense of execution, not concept.

The basic premise is this:
Set in the near-future, technology controls nearly all aspects of life. But when Grey, a self-identified technophobe, has his world turned upside down, his only hope for revenge is an experimental computer chip implant called Stem.

We’ve seen movies like Upgrade before, but not quite like this.
I know some of you don’t like violence, but if you can put that aside and want to enjoy a small, self contained, interesting movie that too little people will see, then go see Upgrade. I recommend

[Sheerluck]

Early Man. Nick Park's latest offering and it's a treat. I've been a fan since A Grand Day Out and this is no exception. It will bear many viewings.

[Hikari]

LITTLE WOMEN (BBC-TV) - 2017

It has been nearly 25 years (!) since the 1994 theatrical film version starring Winona Ryder, and I thought, after learning of the existence of this 3-part TV adaptation from my mom, I guess there's room for yet another version of this timeless story which has been remade scads of times (https://www.imdb.com/find?q=little women&s=tt&ref_=fn_al_tt_mr).   I didn't think a fresh version could hurt.  'Hurt', maybe not, but having dragged myself through 45 minutes of the first installment before pressing Eject and returning it to the library, it sure didn't help any.

Emily Watson as Marmee (and looking a great deal the worse for it) heads up a cast of nearly-unknown young actresses, all of whom are making their debuts here except for Willa Fitzgerald (Meg).  The young ladies are all fresh-faced and well-scrubbed.  I couldn't call their looks too contemporary for the period, but their demeanor seemed to be.  They are all well-cast for their roles, though 12-year-old Amy's actress Kathryn Newton is actually at 21, nearly 2 years older than 19-year-old Maya Hawke as Jo.  While watching Hawke's wide-open, disarmingly freckled face, I couldn't help sensing she felt familiar, though I was certain I'd never set eyes on her in my life.  Then I read who her parents are and the lightbulb went on:  Maya is the daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, and both of her parents are visible in her features, along with her impressive height.  She embodies Jo very well--tall, somewhat gangly and appealing without being classically beautiful.   She's inexperienced, but that might be an aid in portraying the often petulant, socially-challenged Jo.  She lacks Winona Ryder's fierce gamine energy, but she was more successful than some of her castmates, I felt.  Casting an adult actress as Amy eliminated the necessity of having two actresses portray the character at different stages, but it makes Amy's childish behavior seem psychotic rather than age-appropriate. 

Angela Lansbury is Aunt March, and she was droll in the one scene in which I saw her.

The period production design has been meticulously done, but the overall feeling is hollow . . Little Women as rendered in Stepford, Massachusetts, 90210.   Despite being a BBC production, all the 'little women' are in fact, American, ranging in age from 19 to 27. 

[T.o.b.y]

I could never really get into the novel. Little Women, I mean. The sister I liked best died and Jo's ending felt like a disappointment to me. I didn't care much for her professor. I disliked Amy and Laurie and felt impatient with Meg. I guess I liked the mother. 

[Hikari]

56 minutes ago, T.o.b.y said:

I could never really get into the novel. Little Women, I mean. The sister I liked best died and Jo's ending felt like a disappointment to me. I didn't care much for her professor. I disliked Amy and Laurie and felt impatient with Meg. I guess I liked the mother. 

I read LW at the requisite age (11 or 12), and then, since it was the fattest book in the children's section at the library and there was no such thing as 'young adult/teen literature' in the late 1970s, I had to clandestinely read the smutty housewife books from the adult area and hoped I could pass for 14 which was the minimum age to be over there.

20 years later, I read it again for a young adult lit class.  It was both a product of its time and remarkably progressive in depicting a central character with such a 'masculine' dream as writing fiction.  Jo is of course a stand-in for Louisa herself, and all the March family are modeled after the Alcott family.  Bronson Alcott was a close friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson and David Thoreau and had Emerson, at least, over to the house often.  He went and visited Henry on Walden Pond.

The March girls are also somewhat similar to my own family of four divergent sisters.  I occupy Meg's position as to age as the eldest, but I'm like Jo in my literary aspirations.  The second of us is like Jo in her tomboyish athleticism.  The third of us is a sensitive musician of delicate constitution (she plays the cello) and our youngest is a classic Amy . . social, gregarious, spoiled, quick tempered.  I could easily see her burning a book of mine!

My favorite parts are the Christmas beginning & the parts in the attic during the amateur dramatics.  It does get significantly less interesting as the girls grow up. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

I read the book, I'm fairly certain, but hardly recall any of it, other than wondering why the mother was called "Marmee."  (I'm still not sure.)

I realize this isn't the proper thread (though I'm not sure there actually is a proper thread), but Alex just mentioned that there's a new Bill & Ted movie in pre-production.  NOT a remake, thank heaven.  It's another sequel, with the same actors in the title roles, this time as middle-aged guys, of course.