Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Oh shiet I forgot. Been a while since I saw it. It was one of those things I caught on late night Cinemax as a kid

I just found out about it through Rifftrax on Pluto. It's also on Tubi.

 

[Totenkindly]

Borat 2: How Much Of The Movie Really Happened (& What's Staged)

Just finished this film. OMFG.

I don't remember my watch of the first film at this point.

I can watch the most dreadful horror pics (even 2000-era French horror like Martyrs and Inside) without turning things off, but cringe humor really gets to me, even when i think it is hilarious. Which this film is. I watched much of it through my fingers, and although it's only about 90 minutes, it took me probably 3 hours to watch altogether because I had to keep pausing it. Just... wow.

Bakalova actually is really good. Not sure it is quite Oscar but... I understand it. She doesn't feel like she's even acting, she really is her character. She might be better than Cohen, who is more over-the-top, she feels even more natural when pretending to be something she knew all along was so absurd. She's never outlandish in the way he can be at times.

The whole baby sequence just killed me, I had to keep turning it off.


And okay -- the whole questions about Guliani, was he or wasn't he? I don't feel like the film is conclusive. And obviously there are edits in the shots. However, it's really clear she was giving him some clumsy flirt cues (like touching him) and he started returning those things as well... despite this woman being young enough to be his granddaughter. And I still don't get why any legitimate persona would go into the bedroom with drinks, after they were interviewing in the living room area. There is just no reason to go back there if you're doing a real, professional interview. So it doesn't look good for him regardless of where his hands were.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Borat 2: How Much Of The Movie Really Happened (& What's Staged)

Just finished this film. OMFG.

I don't remember my watch of the first film at this point.

I can watch the most dreadful horror pics (even 2000-era French horror like Martyrs and Inside) without turning things off, but cringe humor really gets to me, even when i think it is hilarious. Which this film is. I watched much of it through my fingers, and although it's only about 90 minutes, it took me probably 3 hours to watch altogether because I had to keep pausing it. Just... wow.

Bakalova actually is really good. Not sure it is quite Oscar but... I understand it. She doesn't feel like she's even acting, she really is her character. She might be better than Cohen, who is more over-the-top, she feels even more natural when pretending to be something she knew all along was so absurd. She's never outlandish in the way he can be at times.

The whole baby sequence just killed me, I had to keep turning it off.


And okay -- the whole questions about Guliani, was he or wasn't he? I don't feel like the film is conclusive. And obviously there are edits in the shots. However, it's really clear she was giving him some clumsy flirt cues (like touching him) and he started returning those things as well... despite this woman being young enough to be his granddaughter. And I still don't get why any legitimate persona would go into the bedroom with drinks, after they were interviewing in the living room area. There is just no reason to go back there if you're doing a real, professional interview. So it doesn't look good for him regardless of where his hands were.

I hate to be in the position of defending a scumbag like Giuliani, but I think he was literally fixing his mic. That type of mic is often wired in a way that involves having to undo pants. That said I agree it was a bad look for him and if he was just fixing his mic, he should have asked her to temporarily leave the room.

Overall, more of this film felt staged than the first, which itself felt more staged than the original tv series

 

[Totenkindly]

I hate to be in the position of defending a scumbag like Giuliani, but I think he was literally fixing his mic. That type of mic is often wired in a way that involves having to undo pants. That said I agree it was a bad look for him and if he was just fixing his mic, he should have asked her to temporarily leave the room.

Yeah. that's why I said it's not really conclusive to me, it was more the situation that made him look bad -- the hands in the pants thing? Eh.

Overall, more of this film felt staged than the first, which itself felt more staged than the original tv series

the article delineates a lot of it and claims some things were unstaged. I couldn't really tell. I do have to wonder what things we don't see, where people threaten him or don't play along well, so he drops them and looks for someone else who plays better on camera.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Yeah. that's why I said it's not really conclusive to me, it was more the situation that made him look bad -- the hands in the pants thing? Eh.



the article delineates a lot of it and claims some things were unstaged. I couldn't really tell. I do have to wonder what things we don't see, where people threaten him or don't play along well, so he drops them and looks for someone else who plays better on camera.

That was what made the original show and to lesser extent the first movie so great though. The unplanned aspect where people often reacted in the craziest ways. Trying to script out the experiment kind of diminishes the effect. I still think the show was the best because I think it works better as a faux news show with lots of random short segments. Trying to put a storyline and plot to it kind of ruined the Borat and Bruno films for me. Just do a two hour reel of various interview segments and whatnot, and that would work better IMO

 

[Totenkindly]

That was what made the original show and to lesser extent the first movie so great though. The unplanned aspect where people often reacted in the craziest ways. Trying to script out the experiment kind of diminishes the effect. I still think the show was the best because I think it works better as a faux news show with lots of random short segments. Trying to put a storyline and plot to it kind of ruined the Borat and Bruno films for me. Just do a two hour reel of various interview segments and whatnot, and that would work better IMO

okay?

I didn't think we were in disagreement, so I'm not sure why you're going on about it.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

okay?

I didn't think we were in disagreement, so I'm not sure why you're going on about it.

Oh sorry

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I enjoyed Cop Land. it’s basically a typical good cop vs corrupt cop drama, but it is elevated by a strong cast, solid score, good sound design and some good cinematography. Not unlike LA Confidential, although a little less stylized and more efficient and lean. I guess in today’s world those types of good cop vs bad cop movies have fallen out of fashion, but it seems like they were quite popular for a time in the 90s up to about the mid 2000s. I guess The Departed would be the last high profile example, but maybe I’m forgetting some that came later.

Stallone has phoned in a lot of stinkers in his career, but this shows that he can be good when he applies himself. He’s not the greatest actor but he can act well when he tries. This may be his best work. He portrays a certain vulnerability that is rare for him. I suppose he came close to something like this with Rocky and First Blood, but more often he seems to just want to play some larger than life, Mary Sue version of himself.

De Niro is good in a relatively minor supporting role here. I’ve always liked that he has no problem taking a supporting role in a film.

Ray Liotta is the most paranoid and coked up since Goodfellas

 

[Totenkindly]

Finally watched "promising Young Woman" last night, which is put together in a distinctive style and tone. Here's a few points about the film:


This is a funny movie, darkly funny, but it's not really a comedy at core. It's more of a thriller / cultural drama masquerading as a comedy, which makes it go down easier and helps deliver the ideas better. When they call this a "revenge" flick, that is true on one level -- and yet isn't exactly what you'd expect by that term in regards to what the revenge actually is.

There are some really great performances in this film, the two best being Mulligan and Burnham. They are both slyly and whimsically amusing and have wonderful chemistry. But all the performances are typically good, although most are more cameo-length. Alison Brie and others also get a bit meatier roles, but this is a kind of role that Brie can do in her sleep.... she's really great at being endearingly quirky, seriously dramatic, and over the top all at once.

The casting is purposeful and as such really made me ache a great deal by film end. That was the entire point, of course, and so it was excellent casting. It all hurts because of the cognitive dissonance generated by the actors vs the roles you think they are playing vs the roles they end up playing. But that is the reality of it -- that people you perceive one way can end up also being other things you did not perceive, things that disappoint and wound you. This film is still eating at me the next day.

I do have to go back to Mulligan again. This is one of those roles that gave her the ability to show a very diverse range of acting skills within the same story. I've long loved her as an actress (maybe for the last ten years, when I first saw her in "Never Let Me Go"), and she has been recognized by the critic community in the past, but I am happy this time that the mainstream audience has now had a chance to see what she is capable of doing. She is so in command of this film, and her character evokes a range of emotion in me as a viewer -- frustration, sympathy, sadness, consternation, concern, confusion -- I'm still not sure how I feel about everything, and she is definitely not a character on a pedestal, just a woman deeply wounded and outraged (legitimately) trying to figure out what she needs to do to be true to those she cared about and her own moral indignation.

This film was really nicely shot and framed and edited. Some great directorial choices meant to exacerbate character traits and situations.

 

[Tomb1]

I did not like the New Mutants.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

Supergirl 1984 still an awesome movie.

 

[Totenkindly]

I did not like the New Mutants.

It could have been much much better, although I guess at least it wasn't a carbon copy of every other superhero flick.

 

[Totenkindly]

Just watched "Thunder Force" on Netflix, the "superhero" comedy with Melissa McCarthy directed and written by her husband.

I did laugh at some of the stuff in the film (Bateman and McCarthy can be funny at times), but as a film it's pretty lousy. Like... just bad. ("Sky High" is another superhero film written on the same level with a better script and I'm not even saying that film was great.) It's essentially the script and the structure that is bad. This should have been an 80 minute film at best (not 107 minutes) and they should have ditched any kind of attempt at seriousness and just made it funny. As it is, it just ends up being half-assed. My favorite moments are Bateman and McCarthy (on the opposite side of the tracks) falling for each other.

Still, Bateman wonderfully underplays and McCarthy manages to squeeze some laughs out of moments, and Taylor Mosby as the daughter is actually really great despite the film being so lousy -- she has a lot of acting talent.

Pom Klementieff, I feel like she just said, "Make me the opposite of mousy Mantis from GotG please," and so she gets destructive powers and is just a jerk in the film... but it's still so shallow and stupid. Also hard to believe Bobby Cannavale can be the BBEG here as a complete joke but was so great in some other things like Mr. Robot. Melissa Leo is totally wasted.

 

[Tomb1]

It could have been much much better, although I guess at least it wasn't a carbon copy of every other superhero flick.

I just now saw it had been dubbed as a horror movie so, my expectations for it were too high.

 

[Totenkindly]

I just now saw it had been dubbed as a horror movie so, my expectations for it were too high.

yeah, it tried to take things in a different direction than a superhero film.

Although I don't think Josh Boone was a good director choice, and the studio was interfering with the film as well. So it ended up being unsatisfying as a New Mutants film as well as derivative from a horror perspective. I guess the bear and the soulsword looked pretty cool tho.

 

[Totenkindly]

Alicia Vikander deserved her Oscar for Ex Machina, not The Danish Girl

I agree with this, her performance in Ex Machina is physicality and delivery and is mesmerizing and convincing. She doesn't need big speeches to put out a more interesting performance.

Plus the film itself was better. The Danish Girl didn't actually much mirror the real-life story of this couple and instead was just a rehashed version of the older person transition with all the typical cliches... ending up of course with a film where the film won an award for the "long suffering spouse" trope. The soundtrack might have been the best part of the film.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

When immaturity and Ne collide

 

[Totenkindly]

Finished Tombstone today.

Sorry to the people who liked it, honestly it was pretty meh. It wasn't structured or directed in a way that made it riveting (and it's a freaking gunfight movie, so it should have been easier). There's this terrible romantic subplot that is super-flat and has no chemistry between Delaney and Russell. Few characters had arcs, and the few that did were pretty lame and not even done well. I had to view it three different sittings because I was just bored much of the time.

However, the memorable aspect of the film is just the cast -- this film has a who's who's of folks who were either famous at the time or grew to be over the years, even if they didn't really get to shine. Even Charlton Heston gets a cameo here, I kinda laughed when he showed up.

And I think there were two good performances: Michael Biehn as Johnny Ringo (because he was terrifying, and Biehn often gets typecast as the "nice guy") and of course Val Kilmer, whose performance was totally not in sync with the aimless half-assed characterization of the others. [It reminds me of other films I've seen where an actor completely blows a film out of the water by taking things up so high he makes everyone else look bad. Eddie Redmayne in "Jupiter Ascending" is another, his performance didn't belong in the film but was kind of mesmerizing.]

He belonged in a far better movie that should have been about Doc Holliday. When people see Kilmer as a run of the mill actor or a has-been, this is one of the roles that I would point back to in order to distinguish how much talent he's shown at times. (I also think of his comedic timing in "Top Secret" or as the seething muddled Chris from "Heat" -- but there's probably others I am forgetting.)

 

[Totenkindly]

Went to the theater to see "Nobody" with Bob Odenkirk this afternoon. Closest other person was about 15' away, and only about eight people in the whole theater.

It was enjoyable. Odenkirk is a charmer in general, and he actually pulled this off. It was also amusing with Christopher Lloyd as his dad, who ends up getting pulled into the action a bit and loving every minute of it.

Yeah, you can tell the John Wick writer was involved with this as well, it's the same look and feel -- a pretty expedient script, enough interaction to be interesting but primarily to hold the action sequences together. I was reminded both of John Wick and RED (Bruce Willis) here. If you were worried about whether Odenkirk is believable in this role, well, don't -- he's perfectly fine. In fact, he's a maniac; characters think he's a joke at first glance, then they realize he's kind of a mad dog when the shit goes down. Connie Nielsen is a bit wasted but she gives the film legitimacy as well, she can play these roles in her sleep.

It was kind of a fun, violent, bloody film, with a lot of panache, some decent editing and song selections, etc. It never bogs down or gets hung up on too much drama and maintains a consistent tone.

Pretty short too, although it feels just right in terms of length. After all the previews, the film started around 4:08pm and the final copyright notice scrolled off the screen at about 5:40pm. So 90 minutes.

 

[Kingu Kurimuzon]

I think Tombstone is an example of an average movie elevated by a pretty solid cast. The subject matter and story are nothing spectacular but with such a film, good actors and performances can make all the difference.