Random Movie Thoughts Thread

[Totenkindly]

I dunno. Not really feeling much about this... except maybe Galactus.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[Totenkindly]

Damn, Anna

 

[The Cat]

Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise crazy, just be glad its him not you, if you had Tom Cruises troubles you might be Tom Cruise Crazy too. You'd flash your big white shiny smile, you'd buy expensive shoes...But you'd be the only man on earth who couldn't enjoy Tom Cruise.

 

[Totenkindly]

 

[Totenkindly]

Rewatched Arrival. It just guts me every time. I start sobbing as soon as the strings start playing at the beginning. Like Louise, everything in the film is unfolding on me simultaneously. it's no longer linear but omni-present, a complete circle, a comprehensive picture.

Shyamalan's "The Sixth Sense" and this film have quite a lot in common in how the story is delivered. Both films present narrative points that the audience takes for granted, not even realizing they have misinterpreted events. But why would they? The assumptions being made are the most natural ones in the world, falling right into the same framework as how we determine every day life. To question these events would mean we would have to start questioning everything. (Which is an interesting point in itself.) Sometimes it's easy to forget that Shyamalan actually had salient twists to make about life, versus gotcha grabs for attention. (Villeneuve has always been a more conscious director who doesn't need to put himself ahead of his own films, he's happy to remain in the background and let the film speak in its unique voice for itself.)

I can't even really judge Louise. I understand why she does what she does, and I accept it. I understand why Ian is angry.

Life is so big and vast.
You cannot separate the joys from the sorrows.
Everything is part of one tapestry.
To deny yourself pain is to deny yourself life.

I think that is what is so fascinating about Louise early in the film.

We assume the greyness of her world, the listlessness she is experiencing at work and at home with its subdued palette, her detachment from her mother, her distance from her class, is due to the loss of her daughter.
It's not. This is her life of loneliness, of having nothing but her work to fill her days.
The way the color palette expands with Hannah in the picture conveys how even knowing what is going to happen has filled her world with color.
It's too big for me to judge, and whether Hannah should be resentful for having only a sip of life or otherwise ecstatic for being able to experience joy and the love of two brilliant parents for the time she was able.
Her daughter did not ruin her life, she saved it.
It's such a human story. "I forgot how good it was to be held by you." Cue tears.

 

[Totenkindly]

Gawd.

Critics Have Seen Captain America: Brave New World, And Are Angrier Than A Red Hulk Over How It Turned Out

Quick, Cap, hide behind the shield!

www.yahoo.com

I mean, I used to see every MCU film on opening weekend.
That is no longer the case.
And there's a good chance I will not see this one in the theater, because I just... don't... care.

...Writing for Roger Ebert, Robert Daniels gives Captain America: Brave New World 1 star and claims:

The entire franchise’s inability to balance substance with pleasure crashes into its inept conclusion. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve hated an ending to a movie more in recent memory than this one. … This movie is anything but brave. It is the most feckless, spineless blockbuster of the last decade, a film in need of burning down the old world before daring to look for the new.

 

[The Cat]

And there's a good chance I will not see this one in the theater, because I just... don't... care.

This is the way.

 

[Totenkindly]

This is the way.

He actually used the word "feckless" in a movie review. That's pretty awesome.

 

[Totenkindly]

This is kinda off-color mainly because it's a quote from Deadpool & Wolverine:

It's funny because Chris Evans delivers the actual line in "Deadpool & Wolverine" as the character Johnny Storm.

"And I'll tell you who 'her' is: Cassandra Nova. A megalomaniacal, psychotic asshole. A finger-licking dead-inside pixie slab of third-rate dime store nut milk. And I'll tell you what she can do... she can lick my goddamn cinnamon ring clean and kick rocks all the way to bald hell. In fact, I don't give a shit if she removes all my skin and pops me like some nightmarish blood balloon, if the last thing I do in this godforsaken cum gutter existence is light that fuck box on fire, I still won't die happy. I won't be happy until I've urinated on her freshly barbecued corpse and husk fucked the charred remains while gargling Juggernaut's juggernuts. And you can quote me." ~ Johnny Storm, "Deadpool & Wolverine"

 

[The Cat]

And he did. Boy did he ever.

 

[Totenkindly]

Flow is on Max now and is pretty good. Really nice animation and sound, and the whole story has no real words. It's a little unclear what causes and ends the flood, or what the light in the sky was and where our secretary bird ends up, but the animal interactions were really great and their behavior overall (except maybe figuring out what a rudder is) seemed pretty typical.

 

[SensEye]

Gawd.

Critics Have Seen Captain America: Brave New World, And Are Angrier Than A Red Hulk Over How It Turned Out

Quick, Cap, hide behind the shield!

www.yahoo.com

I mean, I used to see every MCU film on opening weekend.
That is no longer the case.
And there's a good chance I will not see this one in the theater, because I just... don't... care.

One of the critics said this:

Every story development is incredibly basic, a shallower version of something we’ve seen in a previous MCU film, spoiled in the trailers, or all of the above.

Just cut and paste this and apply it to pretty much every MCU movie. It would save time and trouble on the reviewers part.

 

[The Cat]

they need to go back to hiring writers that don't use ai for everything. its called a craft for a reason. Hire competent, practiced trades folk and get quality stuff. You can imitate it but you cant duplicate it without putting in the work.

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched The Gorge on Apple TV today.

Enjoyable film similar in tone and production value to "The Tomorrow War," with the feel of the rom-com relationship from "Edge of Tomorrow." Mostly a two-person film (aside from a big name cameo), but since it's Miles Teller and Anya Taylor-Joy, the film keep rolling right along even amid any momentary silliness -- and the creepy monster designs are rather cool.

I also gotta note this is similar to the maxim about films with black holes: "If there is a mysterious gorge in the film, someone's gonna fall into it before the end of the story."

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched Butterfly Kisses (2017) on Prime, based found footage horror that is a movie within a movie within a movie.

It's decent enough, even if a bit rough at times, with a decent jump scare -- but I was interested in it because it's very local and I know the locations since I've been to most of them including the tunnel in question.

--

Also watched Fall (2022), where two young women climb a 2000+ foot signal tower and get stuck at the top.

I have to say, it was mostly enjoyable, except there was a lot of stupidity. The three people who start the film don't seem to really know how to climb rock faces safely and none of them seem to have any common sense. Even with the two women scaling the tower, they should have been examining the ladders and fastenings on the wall up rather than assuming a tower where public access is banned and is exposed in the open to ongoing weather conditions would naturally remain in enduring shape. Like, this whole incident could have been avoided easily, but they all continued to be clueless. And some of the shenanigans atop the tower? Wow.

Despite that, the acting of the two female leads was decent, they actually do set up a lot of plot points in the film ahead of time (so that was decent writing in that regard), and while I kinda guessed the one twist, the endgame itself was a gut-punch -- so audacious and (in its own way) awesome. I can admire that moment of surprise.

 

[Totenkindly]

I actually know a lot of these (I think)... but there's a few I can't quite place and don't feel like looking them up.

See Spoilers for names and a few things they were in (but most were in a ton of stuff)

Row 1
William Fichtner - Heat, Contact
Bill Duke - Predator
? [Fake Matthew Fox]
David O’Hara - Braveheart, Harry Potter 5

Row 2
Michael Cudlitz - walking Dead
David Morse - The Crossing Guard, Contact
Keith David - Cloud Atlas
Peter Sarsgaard (?) - Knight & Day

Row 3
? [Fake Tim Allen]
Noel Gugliemi -- Training Day
Eric Roberts - Julia Roberts' brother, Emma Roberts' dad
Ciaran Hinds - Road to Perdition, GoT

Row 4
? [fake Zachari Levi]
Peter Stormare - American Gods, Minority Report, Fargo
? [fake Lee Byung-Hun?]
? no clue

 

[Totenkindly]

Watched Anora last night. It was much funnier (esp the Armenians) than I expected. What a shitshow in terms of what unfolds.

Mikey Madison is terrific. Also Yoriy Borisov. The last 20 min of film are unexpected and really takes the film to a new place.\

Edit: Rewatched the final 20 minutes again. I really think this piece of the film is what pushes it from the merely really good to the actual great. It pulls together everything we have learned about Anora and Igor and exposes it openly, vulnerably. I cried both times in the final 15 seconds of the film when I watched it.

The main bulk of the film feels like a Cinderella story with a competent hard-ass, dominant stripper/sex worker. Madison just owns the screen. And then when things don't go the way she hopes, the film becomes almost a caper movie with hilarious banter and just ridiculous plot turns.... leading to the inevitable ending where your heart sinks as your eyes are opened along with Anora's and you realize it is all for the best.

... and then that last twenty minutes, which at first feels like a veer but you realize was actually telegraphed the entire way through the film.

 

[The Cat]

I actually know a lot of these (I think)... but there's a few I can't quite place and don't feel like looking them up.

See Spoilers for names and a few things they were in (but most were in a ton of stuff)


View attachment 32240

Row 1
William Fichtner - Heat, Contact
Bill Duke - Predator
? [Fake Matthew Fox]
David O’Hara - Braveheart, Harry Potter 5

Row 2
Michael Cudlitz - walking Dead
David Morse - The Crossing Guard, Contact
Keith David - Cloud Atlas
Peter Sarsgaard (?) - Knight & Day

Row 3
? [Fake Tim Allen]
Noel Gugliemi -- Training Day
Eric Roberts - Julia Roberts' brother, Emma Roberts' dad
Ciaran Hinds - Road to Perdition, GoT

Row 4
? [fake Zachari Levi]
Peter Stormare - American Gods, Minority Report, Fargo
? [fake Lee Byung-Hun?]
? no clue

Kim Coates (Battlefield Earth, sons of anarchy, waterworld, Resident Evil Afterlife & many more, he works a lot. Myriad television shows, solid performer, I either like him or enjoy hating him in whatever I see him in.

Vinnie Jones (Gone in 60 Seconds, Snatch, Euro Trip & MAny more) Usually plays a big silent calm scary guy or a big loud angry scary guy.

I keep drawing a blank on some of the others, but I dont watch a lot of procedural crime, law shows, or medical dramas these days and something tells me that's where I know them from..

 

[Totenkindly]

Actor Gene Hackman, His Wife and Dog Found Dead in Santa Fe Home: Sheriff

The two-time Oscar winner and star of 'The French Connection' and 'Superman,' has died at 95 alongside his wife Betsy Arakawa

www.yahoo.com