Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[The Cat]

Yeah, this stuff can be so hit or miss, but Galaxy Quest is pretty special. It manages to be campy and fun, yet evoke sweetness and have substantial character arcs.

And the casting is so dead-on, especially with some of the character actors they pulled into this. They all nail their roles -- even Sigourney in a blonde wig, playing against type.

I laughed pretty hard when the actor playing Balthazar eventually showed up as an "Agent Smith" style knockoff in Deadpool.

My only complaint in the entire movie:

Fuck that is the correct situation threat awareness word.
Screw that is what you say when you decide not to wait in a train stop so you make a u turn before any other cars get behind you and take a different rout home. Or decide not to walk into a dark alley.
Chompers is definitely a fuck kind of situation.
But I guess this is what happens when you meet a stranger in the alps.​

 

[Totenkindly]

My only complaint in the entire movie:

Fuck that is the correct situation threat awareness word.
Screw that is what you say when you decide not to wait in a train stop so you make a u turn before any other cars get behind you and take a different rout home. Or decide not to walk into a dark alley.
Chompers is definitely a fuck kind of situation.
But I guess this is what happens when you meet a stranger in the alps.​

They should have gone with Fuck officially -- but it's really amusing in itself that you can tell she is OBVIOUSLY shouting "FUCK THAT" and the dub doesn't match her words.

 

[The Cat]

They should have gone with Fuck officially -- but it's really amusing in itself that you can tell she is OBVIOUSLY shouting "FUCK THAT" and the dub doesn't match her words.

I also liked that we got to see two bond dynamics that the show had made for the characters in the movie. There's the dysfunctional family bond of the cast, and the tight bond of deep friendship of the nerds brought together by a shared love of science fiction before the internet took off.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I think neither of these deserves #1 but The Godfather is still the best option among them...

Godfather is definitely better than Shawshank. It's been a while since I've seen either but I think the tragic story of a man who can't escape the family business is more compelling. Shawshank gives you easy answers like "oh, don't worry, you can root for this guy because he didn't actually do it"; it's more of standard go-down-easy "Hollywood" movie. Michael, by contrast, isn't really a hero, but I do think he's tragic. He became (not unwillingly, either) involved with the business and it turned out he was good at it, and things proceed from there.

I love the Dark Knight but I think Godfather is the better movie despite not having any Chicago locations. I would say the Dark Knight is perhaps the best superhero movie.

 

[Totenkindly]

Red Lobster dishwasher rescues ‘one-in-30 million’ orange lobster

A Red Lobster in Colorado has spared the life of a rare lobster it found by handing it off to a local aquarium.

www.yahoo.com

Orange lobsters are one in 30 million, the release added. Its color stems “from a genetic mutation,” which “affects and prevents encoded proteins,” said the aquarium. Without one or several proteins, lobsters can be different colors, such as blue, yellow and orange.

If I get its blood on me, will I steal the power to rewind the day??

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Red Lobster dishwasher rescues ‘one-in-30 million’ orange lobster

A Red Lobster in Colorado has spared the life of a rare lobster it found by handing it off to a local aquarium.

www.yahoo.com

If I get its blood on me, will I steal the power to rewind the day??

I noticed that they are still named after Cheddar and Biscuit..

I thought all the Red Lobsters were shutting down because of the endless Endless Shrimp ruining them financially.

 

[Totenkindly]

I noticed that they are still named after Cheddar and Biscuit..

I thought all the Red Lobsters were shutting down because of the endless Endless Shrimp ruining them financially.

they are not doing well, but they were only shutting down the least profitable locations.
(I think around 100 stores were shuttering? Could be more, could be less.)

I would say they are more shutting down places because their food is overpriced and mostly tastes like ass.

 

[Totenkindly]

I also liked that we got to see two bond dynamics that the show had made for the characters in the movie. There's the dysfunctional family bond of the cast, and the tight bond of deep friendship of the nerds brought together by a shared love of science fiction before the internet took off.

I should tell you that your annoying clip forced my hand to buy the film on Vudu and watch it that night.

It made me very happy.

I would like to correct my horrible mistake and announce the character I mentioned was Mathesar. Pardon my confusion, lol.

This was Justin Long's first film. Damn. He's like a little lost 21-year-old puppy here.
I forgot Heidi Swedberg was in this film too -- it's after her Seinfeld years.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I read something recently on social media about how dystopian stories aren't trying to predict the future, and they're really about the time they are written.

This brings us to the post-apocalyptic dystopia, as distinguished from the cyberpunk dystopia, or the stereotypical totalitarian dystopia. The explosion in popularity of post-apocalyptic stories like Fallout, Mad Max, Walking Dead, etc. in the past decade or two is extremely interesting.

Can't we take from this the implication that we already live in post-apocalyptic times? I would argue that yes, we can. I'd place 9/11 as the genesis of this, with Covid adding fuel the fire. We already live in an age of social collapse, without a functioning government. It's not immediately obvious, but I think it goes a long way in explaining our politics. The buildings aren't mostly ruins, and there are no hordes of mindless monsters prowling the land (or are there?), or bandits ravaging the highways for guzzoline, but can we say that our government is acting the way it should? Isn't division within society growing more and more intense?

 

[Totenkindly]

I would say the culture and society is in a ruin but our infrastructure hasn't yet collapsed due to its inherent strength. But if the culture and society isn't solidified and unified, it will eventually erode and collapse.

We're already operating on a tribal basis, although the different tribes are still intermeshed across the continent and haven't yet become physically isolated. If there was an easy way for that to happen, it might have by now. We do have "pockets" congregating particular tribes, but not a full-scale consolidation of sides in their own areas.

 

[SearchingforPeace]

Godfather is definitely better than Shawshank. It's been a while since I've seen either but I think the tragic story of a man who can't escape the family business is more compelling. Shawshank gives you easy answers like "oh, don't worry, you can root for this guy because he didn't actually do it"; it's more of standard go-down-easy "Hollywood" movie. Michael, by contrast, isn't really a hero, but I do think he's tragic. He became (not unwillingly, either) involved with the business and it turned out he was good at it, and things proceed from there.

I love the Dark Knight but I think Godfather is the better movie despite not having any Chicago locations. I would say the Dark Knight is perhaps the best superhero movie.

Just rewatched Godfather 1 and 2. Not as good as I remembered. The problem is that we have now seen the story again for 50 years in different movies and TV shows, so the flaws stand out.

They were great for their era but just OK for Mafia and gangster movies. In comparison, I recently watched Scarface again and it holds up much better. Al Pacino seems much better in Scarface -- better acting, but casting, etc.

Lots of '60s and '70s movies, with their young rebellious directors, don't look as good over time.

I haven't watched Shawsank in awhile, but it was pretty open in its values and goals.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Just rewatched Godfather 1 and 2. Not as good as I remembered. The problem is that we have now seen the story again for 50 years in different movies and TV shows, so the flaws stand out.

They were great for their era but just OK for Mafia and gangster movies. In comparison, I recently watched Scarface again and it holds up much better. Al Pacino seems much better in Scarface -- better acting, but casting, etc.

Lots of '60s and '70s movies, with their young rebellious directors, don't look as good over time.

I haven't watched Shawsank in awhile, but it was pretty open in its values and goals.

I haven't seen Godfather or Shawshank in quite some time, but my memories of Shawshank cause me to think it's overrated. I remember it as being a decent movie but nothing particularly special. Who knows, though. It's been quite a long time since I've seen it.

I think that, for whatever reason, I'm interested in Mafia stories and I'm not sure why that is. I have a few theories about it but nothing that I can settle on. I have not seen Scarface.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I watched Emily the Criminal last night.

I frequently hear people say that Aubrey Plaza isn't a great actress; this is often stated as though she were just playing herself. I suppose she does tend to play a specific type (offbeat girls who are at least a little spooky), but I thought she was very good here. She did a very good just at communicating what she was saying and thinking through nonverbal means. It stood out to me during the first interview scene. There are moments when you can see her wanting to tell the interviewer to fuck off; this is before she loses all patience and finally does it.

This is a thriller at points, which I was not expecting. Those scenes had high levels of tension.

This was a very entertaining movie that I think had some interesting things to say about some issues, while also being a thriller with some funny moments.

We don't get a "Crime Doesn't Pay" ending either, or if we do, it's subtle.

 

[Totenkindly]

I haven't seen Godfather or Shawshank in quite some time, but my memories of Shawshank cause me to think it's overrated. I remember it as being a decent movie but nothing particularly special. Who knows, though. It's been quite a long time since I've seen it.

It's fairly close to the Stephen King story, with a few key changes that might make it less good (where the character detail or plotting lost some nuance). And I'm not talking about how Morgan Freeman is cast as a white Irish guy with red hair; Darabont made it into a decent joke (calling a black guy "Red"), it is stuff mostly with the Warden etc that was overdone.

However, it's pretty much verbatim the ending, and the ending is primarily why people love it so much.
It is one of the best Stephen King endings both in his writing and in the film adaptations that is actually a positive and inspiring ending.

For whatever reason, the Gen X FB groups have been arguing this week about whether Forrest Gump deserved its Best Picture win over Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption.

I think Gump was kind of dazzling with its tech savvy at the time, as well as some inspiring themselves; Pulp Fiction was more of a niche film and Shawshank hadn't really been attended much when it dropped in the theater. I think at the time, it's understandable why a blockbuster like Gump had the most votes and awareness. Nowadays Gump scores the lowest on IMDB but all are in the top 15 from what I thought.

However, over time, especially with its tech marvels diminishing (because we've seen so much more since), basically Pulp Fiction is easily the most creative of the three (Tarantino is firing on all cylinders), while Shawshank actually earns the heartfelt drama without reliance on cheap gags and had been seen by a lot more people. If the Oscars had been held a few years later, there might have been a different outcome.

I think that, for whatever reason, I'm interested in Mafia stories and I'm not sure why that is. I have a few theories about it but nothing that I can settle on. I have not seen Scarface.

Huh. I don't tend to have much interest in that genre myself. I'm not sure why either. I'm not adverse to it -- I really like Bound (but more because of the queer themes and the cinematography and performances) and The Departed, for example, and I will watch mafia movies that have been deemed good, but usually remain kind of indifferent. It feels like a limited genre to me and a lot feels alike to me.

I've never felt a strong desire to watch The Sopranos although I know a lot of people love the series. Maybe if I watched the first few episodes, it would grow on me.

I frequently hear people say that Aubrey Plaza isn't a great actress; this is often stated as though she were just playing herself. I suppose she does tend to play a specific type (offbeat girls who are at least a little spooky), but I thought she was very good here. She did a very good just at communicating what she was saying and thinking through nonverbal means. It stood out to me during the first interview scene. There are moments when you can see her wanting to tell the interviewer to fuck off; this is before she loses all patience and finally does it

That's one reason why I recommend the film -- mainly because of Plaza's performance. She's actually acting (and doing a fine job), not just playing the stereotype she's often known for or being eye candy for male viewers who think she is pretty.

 

[The Cat]

I haven't seen Godfather or Shawshank in quite some time, but my memories of Shawshank cause me to think it's overrated. I remember it as being a decent movie but nothing particularly special. Who knows, though. It's been quite a long time since I've seen it.

I think that, for whatever reason, I'm interested in Mafia stories and I'm not sure why that is. I have a few theories about it but nothing that I can settle on. I have not seen Scarface.

I like them because they tend to center on unconventional families, bring up considerations of loyalty vs legality, kings and pirates, The importance of respect, integrity, and situational awareness, the dangers of hubris, and the complications that come from living in a bloody world against the narrative.

 

[Totenkindly]

Rewatched Dead Reckoning Part 1 again.

I think my main frustration with the film still just remains on how poorly (aside from sleight of hand to be revealed in the latter half that is in production) it treats Ilsa Faust -- although I do see that Faust does make a conscious decision to do what she does and isn't merely a patsy. That makes that scene a sacrifice rather than a violation per se. But I think again it's good for filmmakers to think about the audience experience. We were introduced to Ilsa in MI 5. We thought she was gone but she comes back as a major player in MI 6, where the ending of the film feels more like, "Okay, now Isla is a thing," due to how it positions her against Hunt's ex-wife. Then in the very next movie -- we get this?? its like there was no actual story told with her once she was really established but just viewed as a piece to maneuver around the plot... .and there are characters we've had even longer attachment to, who DID get the "middle of their story" with Hunt (like Benji and Luther) who are men and could have been taken out more legitimately, with similar sense of loss. It all felt like a plot contrivance against having too many women in the film series (as now Grace and Paris are getting some film time).

There's very little else I can criticize about the film or its execution, honestly. I think the Venice portion is just brilliant aside from Elsa, and really well-produced -- the editing, the music, the acting, the camera-work, the fight sequences. It's just so well put together (especially when we hit the cut action sequences where Gabriel is facing Grace etc on the bridge and Ethan is trapped in a thin alley fighting for his life). It just builds and builds and builds among 4-5 different moving pieces and it still all feels coherent and tense, while looking entirely beautiful (such as the running through meters and meters of burning candles).

The car chase in Rome isn't bad either, again with multiple groups all chasing each other.

And the train ride is pretty solid. I still feel kinda bad for Cary Elwes, who really always has a comic undertone to his performances that might or might not work here as well (it's better for less-serious films) -- he feels a bit of a stooge and you can just see him blundering into the pitfall he ends up in at the end. The train cars plummeting off the bridge sequence is horrifying, and the whole subplot with Paris is really interesting.

Esai Morales as Gabriel (the hand of the Entity) is just great -- he's intimidating, handsome, capable, relentless. I'm surprised I haven't seen him in more things looking this way. Meanwhile, The Entity is like the character you never officially see (aside from the screen patterns) but you can hear and feel it throughout the film; it's the Player on the Other Side whose strength is calculating everything to the nth degree but might be able to be outsmarted because it thinks too much. But again, can you blame it? It was a pawn of another power that became self-aware and is merely protecting its own interests, much like the fabled Skynet.

 

[Totenkindly]

5 Crazy Stories You Didn't Know About the Making of 'Caddyshack'

From rampant cocaine use to Bill Murray being a "magnificent flake," it's a miracle "Caddyshack" made it into theaters at all

www.thewrap.com

 

[SearchingforPeace]

I haven't seen Godfather or Shawshank in quite some time, but my memories of Shawshank cause me to think it's overrated. I remember it as being a decent movie but nothing particularly special. Who knows, though. It's been quite a long time since I've seen it.

I think that, for whatever reason, I'm interested in Mafia stories and I'm not sure why that is. I have a few theories about it but nothing that I can settle on. I have not seen Scarface.

I first saw Scarface a few years after it came out. I was pretty shocked by it as a teenager. We have seen the Miami coke dealer story many times since but it started it all and was brilliant. Oliver Stone's script was based upon research in Miami with feds, prosecutors, cops, drug dealers, drug smugglers, etc.
It still mostly holds up and is a good movie. Pacino is awesome, explosive and intense, and very different from his Godfather character of a few years earlier.
Shawshank was about friendship more than anything else. Good acting jobs. The story might have been better with a guilty hero, but hard to have a lot of sympathy for a guy who really killed his wife.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It's fairly close to the Stephen King story, with a few key changes that might make it less good (where the character detail or plotting lost some nuance). And I'm not talking about how Morgan Freeman is cast as a white Irish guy with red hair; Darabont made it into a decent joke (calling a black guy "Red"), it is stuff mostly with the Warden etc that was overdone.

However, it's pretty much verbatim the ending, and the ending is primarily why people love it so much.
It is one of the best Stephen King endings both in his writing and in the film adaptations that is actually a positive and inspiring ending.

For whatever reason, the Gen X FB groups have been arguing this week about whether Forrest Gump deserved its Best Picture win over Pulp Fiction and Shawshank Redemption.

I think Gump was kind of dazzling with its tech savvy at the time, as well as some inspiring themselves; Pulp Fiction was more of a niche film and Shawshank hadn't really been attended much when it dropped in the theater. I think at the time, it's understandable why a blockbuster like Gump had the most votes and awareness. Nowadays Gump scores the lowest on IMDB but all are in the top 15 from what I thought.

However, over time, especially with its tech marvels diminishing (because we've seen so much more since), basically Pulp Fiction is easily the most creative of the three (Tarantino is firing on all cylinders), while Shawshank actually earns the heartfelt drama without reliance on cheap gags and had been seen by a lot more people. If the Oscars had been held a few years later, there might have been a different outcome.

I think Pulp Fiction is the best of the three. I've seen it the most recently out of all of them. I don't remember me loving or hating Forrest Gump when I saw it, but I think as I learned more about the history of what it was covering, it began to bother me. I tend to see it as a list of Boomer cliches, sort of an annoying cinematic "We Didn't Start the Fire." This is probably unfair, and I should give it a rewatch before going on a long-winded rant about why I don't like it.

Shawshank I don't hate, but I've changed so much since I saw that I may have a very different reaction now. I'm more open to being moved by things.

My favorite King adaption to date is The Shining (RIP Shelley Duvall), which everyone knows King hated. I love atmospheric horror, especially when it centers around isolation. I haven't read very much King so I can't comment on the divergences from the books

Pulp Fiction though.... That movie was way ahead of its time. There's just the structure of it. Now lots of movies do nonlinear storytelling, but I don't think they were doing it too much before Pulp Fiction came around. I think the story and characters must also have been unusual. Jules is my favorite, as he must be for most people who watch the movie. The only real issue is that there's something Tarantino decided to do in the movie, and I have to wonder why he thought it would be a good idea to do that. Everyone who has seen the movie probably knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Huh. I don't tend to have much interest in that genre myself. I'm not sure why either. I'm not adverse to it -- I really like Bound (but more because of the queer themes and the cinematography and performances) and The Departed, for example, and I will watch mafia movies that have been deemed good, but usually remain kind of indifferent. It feels like a limited genre to me and a lot feels alike to me.

I've never felt a strong desire to watch The Sopranos although I know a lot of people love the series. Maybe if I watched the first few episodes, it would grow on me.

The Sopranos does many different things subtextually that are interesting. It often riffs on ideas some people have of masculinity (although I'm sure some people that watch it don't see it that way). The characters will spend a lot of time pontification on the rules, and then demand other characters follow them, while proceeding to break them, and I find stuff like this comedic. There are also episodes that touch on religious hypocrisy, and I think it's interesting to see how other family members come to terms with what Tony is.

For me, I think this scene sold me:

---

I also watched The Creator today. I enjoyed it, although I saw a certain plot twist coming.

Alpha-O is his daughter, and he was going to wind up on the side of the AI. I didn't predict that his wife was Nirmata, however. I was imaging a Pat Morita-type figure.

This story dealt with a lot of themes I really love. For instance, I love sci-fi that traffics in the idea of humans fearing something they don't understand.

I believe Harun (I think) says at one point that it was a coding error that launched the nuke in Los Angles, that it was humans blaming AI for their mistakes. I snorted and said, "Oh, of course humans would do that."

It also dealt with broad, archetypal concepts and I felt that gave the story much emotional resonance.

For instance you have a kind of mother goddess, and a human father seeking reunion with the goddess and in his quest discovering the fruit of their union, a Holy Child with magical abilities that can change the world. It's interesting to see that play out against a futuristic backdrop.

I was definitely moved by this movie, and it mostly hit all the right notes for me.

My only criticism of this film is that I got really tired of them showing up at a place, staying for a while, and then getting attacked and having to flee to wherever will move the plot along. I think it would have been ideal to go to this well less often; I think it diminished the impact of the climax of the film.

This is not the movie's fault, but I got tired of CC making references to "New Asian". In particular, I got sick of the caption saying "Police officer yells something in New Asian." Like, why not just make It Japanese or Chinese? There's no New English or New American.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

I like them because they tend to center on unconventional families, bring up considerations of loyalty vs legality, kings and pirates, The importance of respect, integrity, and situational awareness, the dangers of hubris, and the complications that come from living in a bloody world against the narrative.

I think part of it is the tension between being very successful at organized crime, while wishing they could be legitimate. They're tragic in the way MacBeth is tragic. We don't have the same epic history other places have, so instead of medieval power struggles, for instance, the Mafia scratches that itch.

I think there are also lots of other interesting things you can read into these stories thematically, like the American Dream, masculinity, etc.