Recently watched movies

[Van Buren Supernova]

On 1/18/2023 at 11:34 AM, Artemis said:

Are there any upcoming movies that anyone is actually excited to see?  I want to go see a movie but I looked through the lineup and... ugh.  There's just nothing.  If you guys have some suggestions for promising potentials, I'd love to hear them!

I'm looking forward Mindcage starring John Malkovich. It has a strong Hannibal vibe, which is my favorite TV series (Mad Mikkelsen). Maybe my expectation is too high, but at least the casts are strong. 

I will also watch John Wick, because Keanu! And anyone who kicks dog abusers' asses is my hero.

 

Just watch Knives Out 1 and I like it a lot, the setting, the cast, and even though it's predictable, still a great twist!

[Hikari]

Really enjoyed this from Amazon Studios (streaming on Prime) that I watched yesterday . . 

ALL THE OLD KNIVES (2022) starring Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton

Fans of espionage thrillers like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the Bourne franchise, check this out.  

8 years ago, Islamic terrorists hijacked a plane, killing all aboard on the tarmac at Vienna airport, including 9 children and a member of the Vienna station of the CIA who was feeding information about the terrorists to his station colleagues.   When this agent was executed on camera and his body thrown off the plane as the first hostage to die, it's clear that someone in Vienna station gave up his identity.  The mole was never discovered.

Present day, field agent Henry Pelham (Pine) is dispatched by his boss (Laurence Fishburne) to re-interview the two chief suspects of the mole hunt in a reopened investigation into the incident:  ex-section chief Bill (Jonathan Pryce) and Henry's former colleague and lover, Cecilia (Newton).  After seeing Bill in London, Henry goes to Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA to rendezvous with his old lover, now retired, married and a mother of two, at her favorite wine bar with an ocean view.  As the two old flames play a game of intellectual cat-and-mouse over the course of the evening, interspersed with flashbacks to the days in Vienna, will Henry get the answers to his questions?  Is Cecilia the mole?  Is that why she left him suddenly and without explanation in Vienna, the morning after he asked her to move in together?  This twisty and cerebral thriller has got some surprises up its sleeve.  Despite the title, there are no actual knives that make an appearance; only the figurative knives of memory, loss and regret.

I have wanted to live in Carmel ever since I watched Clint Eastwood's Play Misty For Me back in high school   Clint fell in love with Carmel, too.  After filming there, he moved there and became Carmel's mayor.  The cinematography does not disappoint.

[Hikari]

THE OUTFIT (2022)  Starring Mark Rylance & Zoey Deutch

Mad Men style meets The Tailor of Panama in an intimate mob drama that manages to be edge-of-your-seat thrilling despite taking place, like a play, on one set. This is the directorial debut of screenwriter Graham Moore, Oscar winner for The Imitation Game starring Benedict Cumberbatch.   1956, Chicago:  English tailor Leonard lives and works quietly in his shop where he cuts bespoke suits for the discriminating gentleman.  Many of his gentlemen are actually 'wise guys' from the local Irish mob family, the Boyles, who use the unassuming Leonard's premises as a stash house for dirty money and other aspects of 'family business'.  Leonard is forced to tolerate this arrangement because he owes his shop and his livelihood to the Boyles, who control the entire neighborhood.  Leonard has a mouthy receptionist, Mable, who is secretly dating the mob boss's son, Richie, unbeknownst to her boss.  When Richie is shot and seriously wounded in a skirmish with a rival family, he comes to the family tailor to be sewn up since he can't go to a hospital.  Over the events of one chaotic night, the mousy little tailor will reveal hidden talents.  Until then, Leonard knows how to keep his head down and learn more than he gives away.

It doesn't sound like a weighty enough premise for a whole movie but Mark Rylance (Wolf Hall, Bridge of Spies) is captivating as Leonard, a quiet man with a quiet gift and a murky past, living on the edge of a very dangerous world.  Rylance, the former director for a decade of the Globe Theatre in London is one of the best actors of his generation, bar none.  I try to see everything he's in.  And if Ms. Deutch as Mable looks familiar . . I will save you the aggravation of wondering *why* she looks so familiar:  She is the daughter of Lea Thompson and director Howard Deutch.  She's got promise--it's in the genes.

 

[Hikari]

RED SPARROW (2018) Starring Jennifer Lawrence & Joel Edgerton

This movie only garnered 45% on Rotten Tomatoes and on first viewing I was inclined to agree that it was bad.  But it stuck with me nevertheless and I ended up watching it again, with a better opinion of it, or at least, of JLaw's performance the second time around.   It is definitely flawed, overlong at 2 hours and 20 minutes, and even for a spy thriller, the scenes of sexual and physical violence become gratuitous.  The movie definitely had Bourne-sized aspirations, with an established director (Francis Lawrence, no relation to star Jennifer Lawrence, helmed the last three films in the Hunger Games franchise) and a cast of surprisingly heavy hitters in support (Jeremy Irons, Joely Richardson, Mary-Louise Parker, Charlotte Rampling and Matthieas Schoenaerts) and two leads who gamely go through their paces.  They deserved a better, tighter movie but I didn't think it was as bad as its reputation.  Rolling Stone gave it 2/4 stars . . I'd stretch to 3 overall.  A watchable popcorn thriller if you like spy films like Bourne . . which I do.  After breaking out as Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, and picking up an Oscar the same year for Silver Linings Playbook, making her the second-youngest Best Actress winner ever at just 22 (Marlee Matlin was a year younger when she won), and gathering a slew of subsequent Golden Globe and Oscar nominations afterwards, JLaw embarked on a trio of consecutive box-office flops from 2016 - 2018.  This film is the last in that run and having seen one of the others, I will confidently say this one is the least-bad of the JLaw clinkers, if you can buy into the premise.  Having so many excellent actors around helps. 

The casting is inventive to say the least, with Louisville, Kentucky native JLaw tasked with playing a Russian prima ballerina with Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet, with a heavy stereotypical Russian accent and even heavier brunette bangs.  The set-up says Black Swan but the hair is decidedly Fifty Shades of Grey as sported by Dakota Johnson.  JLaw looks good as a brunette, though halfway through the film she will undergo the obligatory Covert Agent in a Spy Thriller Makeover to Disguise Her Identity which entails keeping the identical hairstyle, just dying it blonde with drugstore dye from a kit in an inadequate bathroom.  One of my failures of suspension of disbelief, though not the first was the implausibility that a woman with that bulk of dark hair extensions could become a convincing blonde with only one box of hair dye.  As if.  A larger implausibility is accepting someone as curvaceous and endowed as JLaw as a prima ballerina in the first place but the dancing parts are minimal, all the quicker to get to the spy action.  As an Oscar-winning actress, Lawrence is deeply, deeply committed to stripping off whenever possible and/or spending a great deal of time with very little on to bring that extra dose of authenticity to her characters.  

Dominika (Law) lives in a state-provided apartment with her disabled mother (Richardson) and acts as her caretaker by day and by night she dances at the Bolshoi.  One night, her partner accidentally (or not so accidentally, as Dominika later discovers) breaks her leg during an awkward jump, instantly ending her dance career.  Since she can no longer perform, she will lose her apartment and her mother will have to go into a state hospital, unless she can find another way to be useful to the state.  When she becomes a witness to an assassination of a government official, her days are numbered.   Her uncle Vanya (Schoenaerts) is a highly placed spymaster with the KGB with connections and also a very non-uncle appropriate fixation on his niece.  So Dominika is sent to training to become a Sparrow--a covert operative specializing in seduction as well as an array of other spycraft skills.  Her first mission: get close to American CIA agent Nate Nash (an equally miscast Joel Edgerton, pride of Blacktown, New South Wales, Australia) who's been running Russian informants to see what he might know about a mole high, high up in the Russian intelligence community.  With a new identity, Dominika follows her prey to Budapest, but while she's watching Nash, his cohorts in the CIA are watching them both.  JLaw gets to wear some really great outfits and the locations, principally Budapest and Vienna, give the feel of a Bourne movie.  Red Sparrow may have done disappointing box office but it had a lot of budget lavished on it.  

[Fantasy Lover]

Thor ragnarok

Now this was a good marvel movie! The goats were the best thing of the movie along with stormbreaker. I give it a 8/10

 

Black panter wakanda forever

Chadwick's boseman death is clearly tangible in the movie, but Black Panter remains my least favourite marvel hero. Mainly because it still has the stereotypical clothing, accents and music from the previous movie. Ugh, 4/10 for this movie.

 

Avatar the way of water

This movie is very similar to the first: it has Jake narrating, Jake learning to ride a animal, humans destroying nature and its animals and the movie ending with Jake opening his eyes. I felt like neyteyem didn't receive enough screentime, so when

he dies, I wasn't sad

4/10

 

Puss in boots

This movie is quite filosofical for a kids movie, it's about puss learning he spend 8 of his 9 lives and seeks a fallen star to grant him him back his lives. Together with old and new allies he goes a quest to find the the star, but there are others who also seek the star and it quickly turns into a race to find the star first, 8/10 for this movie.

 

The next movie is not a blockbuster, but an indie movie made by Belgium: Le otto motagne. I only watched this movie because it was my dad's Christmas present and there was nothing else to see. This movie was so dull and boring, I nearly fell asleep. I know people say that the Lord of the rings is nothing but a New Zealand commercial filled with people walking, well I can say the same of this movie except its in Italy, this movie deserves a 0/10. 

[Carol the Dabbler]

On 1/30/2023 at 12:41 PM, Fantasy Lover said:

... people say that the Lord of the rings is nothing but a New Zealand commercial filled with people walking

Good heavens, do they really?  I was already familiar with the books, and perhaps that made it easier for me to follow the films, but it did seem to me that they had plenty of story in addition to the gorgeous scenery.

Did you have that feeling about LotR?  If so, maybe you could help me to understand that criticism.

 

[Fantasy Lover]

Yes, it's even in this video 

I disagree with the criticism, there is an interesting story with great characters and awesome music so all the walking doesn't bother me. But Le otto motagne didn't have an interesting story, or great characters, or great music.

 

Seriously, that day was awful: first the food was terrible which I ranted about in the rant topic, a then a boring movie. I said to my mom that it was her fault because I wanted a spaghetti and she urged me to take something else because spaghetti is too ordinary, and that next time we're going to the movies and there is nothing interesting to see, we're not going to the cinema for the sake of seeing a movie.  

[Carol the Dabbler]

17 hours ago, Fantasy Lover said:

I disagree with the criticism, there is an interesting story with great characters and awesome music so all the walking doesn't bother me.

I wouldn't take Honest Movie Trailers' take on LotR too seriously -- they're basically doing comedic parodies, though (like all good parodies) they do make some valid points here and there.

You have my sympathy regarding the boring other movie and the awful food.

 

[besleybean]

Laughing, remembering the fake Sherlock reviews on...Amazon was it?

[Carol the Dabbler]

53 minutes ago, besleybean said:

Laughing, remembering the fake Sherlock reviews on...Amazon was it?

Oh, my, yes -- those were hilarious!

For anyone who didn't see them, this was before Series 3 (I think) had actually premiered, but Amazon had the DVD up for pre-orders, and fans started doing reviews, referring to zany made-up plot lines.  I suppose those are still there -- if one wants to select "Newest First" and then click "Next Page" 230 or so times.

As I recall, when Series 4 came up for pre-orders, they did not allow reviews!

 

[besleybean]

I wonder why not?!

Chortle.

[Fantasy Lover]

Ant-man and the wasp quantumania

This movie was hilarious! But also serious. The villain is ruthless, but his right hand is a joke. 8/10

I don't know if anybody will know know this film, because it is mostly know by the French and the Belgians. it's called Asterisk and Obelisk and the middle kingdom, it was hilarious mostly because the song "say you say me" being used 3 times in the same context. 8/10

[Carol the Dabbler]

33 minutes ago, Fantasy Lover said:

I don't on't know if anybody will know know this film, because it is mostly know by the French and the Belgians. it's called Asterisk and Obelisk and the middle kingdom.

Oh my, is that Asterix from the comic books?  I used to love those, but haven't seen them in ages!

 

[Fantasy Lover]

The very same!

[Fantasy Lover]

The super mario bros movie, this movie made the inner child within me very happy. All those nods from the games! Bowser was the best thing about the movie. 8/10

Guardians of the galaxy vol 3, all the animal cruelty made me sad. And the villian was too hammy for me so 4/10

John Wick chapter 4, it's quite amusing that I saw this movie first and not as last. But I saw 1 to 3 on the plane to NYC so I noticed some similarities in all the movies: endless faceless goons, headshots, plot armour and endless ammo. 6/10

Spiderman across the spiderverse, sweet Jesus does this movie takes it's time to end! But it was worth it though, but I had to rewatch the first because it made a nod to the first and I was like: what are you talking about? I can't wait until the sequel! 6/10

The little mermaid, I'm very happy that Ariel is illiterate in this movie. Because the fact that Ariel could write in the original movie could have avoided a lot things! 8/10

Mission impossible dead reckoning, this movie gave me the same impression that Johnny English Return gave me. That is was made by a bunch of men in a midlifecrisis complaining how evil technology is, especially AI. Unlike Johnny English Returns, I liked this movie 8/10.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

8 hours ago, Fantasy Lover said:

Guardians of the galaxy vol 3, all the animal cruelty made me sad.

Thanks for the warning!  I don't generally watch things where animals are (supposedly) being treated badly, though I'll cut a little slack for historical or quasi-historical things.  I especially hate it if it's supposed to be funny.

 

[besleybean]

Have I warned people on here about Amazing Grace?

Think that's the right Benedict movie.

Awful scene of animal cruelty, quite near the beginning of it.

Good film, though.

[Carol the Dabbler]

19 hours ago, besleybean said:

Have I warned people on here about Amazing Grace?

Think that's the right Benedict movie.

Awful scene of animal cruelty....

There have been a good many mentions of that movie here -- no earlier ones by you that actually mention the title, but perhaps you responded to somebody else's post.  Maybe someone can either confirm that was the movie you're thinking of, or else name some other movie that could have been it.

 

[Caya]

DoesTheDogDie confirms it: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/21980

[Carol the Dabbler]

Thanks for that link, Martina.  I've now bookmarked that site.

[Carol the Dabbler]

  

3 hours ago, Caya said:

DoesTheDogDie confirms it: https://www.doesthedogdie.com/media/21980

 

I've bookmarked it, but no longer quite sure how helpful that site might be.  I checked its listing for one movie where I was pretty certain a pig had been killed on-screen (and https://humanehollywood.org/ confirms that it was).  Right at the top of the page, DoesTheDogDie says "This movie contains 0 potentially triggering events" -- even though both "Does an animal die?" and "Are animals abused?" are checked YES a bit further down.

The site has apparently expanded greatly from an initial focus on animal abuse, with a current list of over 200 possibilities (ranging from "Are there end credit scenes" to "Is there a nuclear explosion?")  So if someone sees "This movie contains 0 potentially triggering events" right there at the top, they may not scroll down-down-down to discover that it does reportedly contain, for example, an onscreen rape.

Note:  If anyone's wondering why I watched the snuff flick in the first place, I had read the book that it was based on (a collection of letters from a pioneer woman), and even if it had said something like "We butchered a hog yesterday," that would have been the extent of her comments on the matter, whereas the movie seemed determined to be in-your-face realistic.  Seems to me it's possible to be realistic and yet to avoid graphic violence.  You don't have to show everything, nor do you need to pretend that bad things never happen.

 

[Fantasy Lover]

I can imagine that's a very unpleasant experience, but you can always adjust it by editing it on the website itself, I'm just not sure if you need an account to do this.

[Carol the Dabbler]

4 hours ago, Fantasy Lover said:

you can always adjust it by editing it on the website itself

The problem is, the appropriate boxes (death of an animal, etc.) are already ticked -- yet the top-of-page count (which I take to be an automated function) is nevertheless zero.

 

[Carol the Dabbler]

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

There are a couple of interesting new characters, one being the now-adult daughter of an old colleague of Jones's.  She's one of those basically good but not immune to money types that tend to crop up in Indy's universe.  Also there's a cheeky mid-teens kid with amazing mechanical skills.  This allows Jones (now around 80, albeit fit and healthy) to specialize in being the brains of the operation, at least when he can get the others to listen.

Of course there's a powerful historical artifact being sought by evil forces, requiring intervention by Indy and crew on the side of (mostly) righteousness.

The movie is set in the 1960s, consistent with how long it's been between the earlier Jones movies and this one.  But a number of scenes are set years earlier, with a younger Jones.  I thought boy they sure have good makeup, but it turns out they used a younger actor with a CGI face -- very convincingly done!

The cast includes John Rhys-Davies (Gimli in LotR), Toby Jones (Culverton Smith in "The Lying Detective" and Dobby the house elf in the Harry Potter movies), and Mads Mikkelsen (brother of Lars Mikkelsen, who played Charles Augustus Magnussen in Sherlock's 3rd series).

All in all, I enjoyed it, but being a recently made movie, it has the requisite amount of loud noise (including music) that often made the dialog hard for me to hear, so I had trouble following the plot at times.  Hoping the DVD will have subtitles!