Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

I like it when multiple people talk about a movie at the same time. We should make some sort of movie club thread where we pick an easily available but not mainstream movie of the week and all talk about it.

 

Shadow on the Wall (1950)
Dir. Pat Jackson



David, a widowed father of a daughter and recently remarried, is happy to return home from a business trip. His daughter Susan is ecstatic about his return. His wife Celia isn't home to greet him. Later that day, he finds out that this was because she was actually out with her lover, the husband of her sister Dell. At a dinner party that evening, David reveals the infidelity of their respective spouses to Dell. In the aftermath of that revelation, David and Celia have a fight that escalates into violence. It leaves David in serious trouble and his daughter Susan traumatized. Yet Dr. Caroline Canford believes she can help Susan and in doing so also help her father.

Fairly entertaining little noir, clocking in at just over 80 minutes. Zachary Scott is a charming presence in this, though the focus of the story after the first act is primarily on Susan and Dr. Canford. The latter is played by Nancy Reagan (then still going by her stage name Davis).

 

The Party's Just Beginning (2018)
Dir. Karen Gillan



Liusaidh is a young woman living in Iverness, Scotland. She is generally unhappy, bordering on depressed and tries to drown the fact that she is lonely and dissatisfied with both her career and her personal relationships in alcohol and casual sex. For whatever reason, death and loss seem to dominate her life. Through a series of flashbacks, it is revealed what was the event which finally pushed her into this dark state of mind.

This was a very enjoyable watch. I was surprised at the level of skill that Karen Gillan displays here, both as a director and as a writer. This isn't a flawless film but enough of it is good for me to be very curious about her future career as a writer/director. There are some very creative shots in there, and she certainly knows how to use the frame.

Tonally this felt more like a dramedy, though that might overstate the comedy parts of it. Perhaps a drama with a handful of comedic moments in there might be more accurate? Besides Karen Gillan, Matthew Beard is very good as her character's best friend.

 

Perhaps this link might have helped her...

https://www.nhshighland.scot.nhs.uk/YourHealth/Pages/MentalHealthandWellbeing.aspx

Instead, she preyed upon unsuspecting men ( I assume men, maybe not men )

 

Brawl in Cell Block 99 (2017)

Bradley is facing hard times, but a change of career to drug transporter upgrades his small house into a mansion, his cheating wife into a faithful one, and an inability to get pregnant into a baby 4 months from being born. But his good drug lord boss makes a deal with a bad drug lord from Mexico. The Mexican's minions end up messing Bradley's mission big time, but the bad drug lord blames Bradley. He tells Bradley, in cushy medium security prison, to get himself transferred to Redleaf maximum revolting prison and kill someone there in order to get square, or else he will do disgusting things to Bradley's wife. Let the beat downs commence.

A modern day exploitation film with impressive fight choreography and a bile raising level of gore. I mean sweet Baal almighty some of it made me want to hurl. If you like seeing a graphic depiction of why being 10cm taller and 3 stone heavier than your opponents is such an advantage or think breaking femurs is a good negotiating tactic this is your movie. But I can't fully hate it because Vince Vaughn was fantastic. When faces weren't being scraped off of places where faces go, he was captivating.

Buffy fans will like seeing Marc Blucas as the good drug lord. I mean, they will like seeing him, not that they want to see him as a good drug lord. Because no one likes drug lords, even ones that are charming and tasteful. Or drug runners, even when they correct other's racist attitudes or show a forgiving and courageous heart. I guess I'm saying I don't get this thing's morality. And I really really want to forget that face thing.

 

I guess S. Craig Zahler cannot be everyone's cup of tea. I love him and think he's the closest thing 2019 has to Sam Peckinpah.

I would stay away from Bone Tomahawk if the gore in Cell Block 99 was excessive, since that movie has a scene near the end that makes the Cell Block stuff look like kid stuff.

 

Bone Tomahawk had been in the previews of a number of my recently seen DVD's and I had been interested, but I think I will take your advise.

It totally slipped my mind that you saw Cell Block 99, and wrote a really good commentary on it. And I had read that page of the thread just a few weeks ago (I often go back in the thread and read 10 random pages to remind myself of things I'd like to see). Sometimes things just don't click in me head.

 

Echo In the Canyon: The Birth of the California Sound (2018). D. by Andrew Slater . We're fresh from the theater, but this was a terrific documentary of a sort exploring the "Southern California Sound" that, it turns out, was basically the Beach Boys riffing on The Beatles who in turn were riffing on The Byrds. The "echo" in the title refers to Jakob Dylan and his contemporaries on the right putting together versions of songs by The Beach Boys, Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, the Association and a few others interspersed with interviews from musicians and producers from back in the day. At 82 minutes, it could easily be twice as long (it might have lost some narrative coherence if other Laurel Canyon residents appeared, say, Joni Mitchell and/or Frank Zappa, but I doubt anyone would complain. And walking around afterwards, we concluded that we will spend every 4th of July we are able to in a college town located in a state where fireworks are illegal.

 

Tank Girl (1995)

In the far distant year of 2022 the Earth was turned into a barren desert. A small band of rebels are subdued by the all powerful W&P corporation. Most are killed, one woman is taken as a slave to work in the mines. Wait, wasn't there supposed to be Girl with Tank related activity in this thing?

I don't know who directed this and I'm not about to revise my usual incuriosity to find out, but this person didn't get it. It was extremely conventional, with lots of establishing shots and continuity and context and all the crap that slows this kind of movie way down. It should be confusing and exciting and make you say "wtf is going on?" and never give you a chance to answer because it is so damn manic. An origin story is the totally wrong choice for this - it took 40 minutes for Tank Girl to get a Tank, as if explaining how a Girl gets a Tank in the post-apocalypse makes it more believable. You have to start in the middle. You have to Buckaroo Banzai it. I can't believe that something made during the pinnacle of the music video so rarely has that kind of energy.

They depend on Lori Petty and some well chosen 90's music to give it a spark and while 100% of Lori Petty and 30% of her dialog was great there definitely wasn't enough of the music.

 

Pavarotti d. by Ron Howard. -- (2019). Fresh from the theater, again. This is a conventional, but good, bio-documentary of the great Italian tenor whose fame took him well beyond the stages of all the great opera houses. If the director was tempted to do a "behind the music" type exposé, he resisted it, though to be sure, there were elements of his life that Pavarotti wishes he'd done better at, but Howard doesn't let those personal failings as a human being shape the narrative (which is a good decision, because we all have personal failings). Another good decision was concluding with a recital performance of "Nessun Dorma" after scenes from the funeral procession in Modena, Italy, in its entirety. Also f interest was the suggestion that the Three Tenors concept was initially planned as a fund-raiser for Jose Carrares after his long treatment for leukemia, but then they figured out it could be scheduled to coincide with the 1990 World Cup finals, which means they could get tickets. The thought that it would make them a ton of money was farther down the lust for the singers (though not, obviously, for their management).

 

I am glad it worked for them, but for 21 year old me and my friends on Tenerife in the Canary Islands, learning the "Gran Gala de la Copa del Mundo" was a trio of tenors instead of something directly celebrating soccer was profoundly disappointing.

 

American Honey (2016)

Eighteen year old Star is a barely paid nanny for a totally disinterested mother and a father who is far too interested in Star. She is offered a job as a door-to-door magazine seller by a charming Shia LaBeouf and she runs off to join the Midwest-roving crew. She finds out the Secret of Selling, and then finds out Shia isn't as into her as she is into him, and so on and so forth.

This movie feels youthful and connected. I also hated the extended road trips in a packed van with the loud meandering conversations which would be a hellish experience for me. But most of all I hated how it felt like poverty tourism. Poverty is too personal, too internalized for a movie to look at straight on. It has to be seen sideways (like in, say, Mystery Road or Medium Cool).

It's supposed to be very youthfully and connectedly sexy at the end, but I didn't make it that far. Shia was good, though.

 

An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn (2018)

In a very 1980's version of the 1980's, donut store manager Shane Danger is extremely upset that his wife's brother, Adjay, is more successful than he is. Shane gets his employees to don wigs and rob Adjay's cashbox. Not fooled for a second, Adjay hires laundromat drifter Colin to get the cashbox back. In the crazed situation that develops, Shane's wife Lulu takes charge and ends up taking the cashbox and Colin for herself. She needs the money because she knows that tomorrow night a local hotel will host, for one magical night only, An Evening with Beverly Luff Linn and Lulu will do anything to see him. That's when the story actually starts, because this isn't a crime story of incompetent criminals, but a love pentahedron story of incompetent lovers.

A bizarre and weird movie, and one that takes great pains to be obvious about it. The look and the acting are affected and unreal. It has an uncommon and strongly non-American flavor of humor - but now that I think of it it does feel like other works featuring Jemaine Clement, one wing of Flight of the Conchords, just more so. Not all of the humor worked, but lots of it did. One thing I loved was the nearly ever-present drone, the kind a science fiction movie would use to indicate a god-like level of power and importance. And the movie honestly contains the greatest dancing scene I have ever witnessed. It is the true spirit of art and emotion itself.

 

Let the Bullets Fly [让子弹飞] (2010)

In 1920's China, bandit leader "Pocky" Zhang attacks a rich-looking carriage and finds someone claiming to be the counselor to the man who just bought the governorship to Goose Town. As the governorship costs a lot, there is no money in the train, but by pretending to be the new governor, Zhang can get rich collecting taxes from the poor, as long as he shares most of them with local mobster Master Huang. The noble Zhang has other ideas, but can't confront Huang directly without blowing his cover. The battle of wits is about to start.

A decent western that was better when it was trying to be clever instead of direct and better when it was trying to be funny instead of serious (and it shifted gears pretty drastically between those two). It was also confusing at times, as so many people were pretending to be things they weren't or pretending to not know things they did. The acting was good, particularly Chow Yun Fat as the mobster, and the sets and costumes all looked fantastic The CGI in the opening scene was spectacularly bad, but fortunately we did not see it's like again. It's a little bit A Fistful of Dollars and The Magnificent Seven, a little bit gangster movie, and a little bit make you want to read about Chinese history of the time because those things don't really mix in American cinema.

 

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

Neurosurgeon Buckaroo Banzai is finishing a delicate brain surgery before his big mission of the day - be the test pilot of an experimental jet car. But not only does it go faster than the speed of sound, it will go through solid matter by way of the Eighth Dimension using the Oscillating Overthruster. What physicist Banzai does not know is that an Overthruster was nearly created in 1938 by Italian scientist Emilio Lizardo, whose failed experiment allowed dozens of Black Lectroids to escape the Eighth Dimension and their leader, John Whorfin, to take over Lizardo's mind. I'm just spouting gibberish at this point, aren't I? Banzai is a rock star too, by the way.

I hadn't see this in such a long time this was practically a first time experience. And it blew me away. It makes no sense, but in a way that totally makes sense. A comic book movie for a comic that doesn't exist, it prophesied the form of the Marvel Cinematic Universe a quarter century later. Everything in it is a reference to a rich history that never existed and is barely or never explained. The movie ends with a promise for a sequel named Buckaroo Banzai Against the World Crime League, and it's vital to the concept of the movie that this promise exists even if BBAtWCL itself doesn't. It's part of the diegetic and meta-diegetic universe continuing before and after that the movie is conjuring out of whole cloth.

I love that everything looks like it was done by cosplayers on a budget. I love that they kept multiple flubbed lines. I love that Banzai got a parachute from nowhere at the end. I love how they use the rocket car as a regular car at the end, and show it driving within the speed limit signalling a turn. I love how Banzai has a revolver in a western holster and an automatic in a police holster at the same time. I love that they never tell us what the watermelon is doing there. I don't know if this was actually a labor of love, but it has the style of something done as a labor of love. And I love this ugly, three legged IKEA table of a movie whose owner is so proud of their handiwork.

The end credit sequence will outlast humanity as a testament to our greatness.

 

YouTube just put Buckaroo Banzai up as a free-to-watch movie. You can see it yourself here for who knows how long:

 

I wonder, did you see The Florida Project?

I liked American Honey quite a lot; I didn't have the same reaction to its depiction of poverty.

I thought The Florida Project was outstanding, though.

 

Blockers (2018)
Dir. Kay Cannon



Julie, Kayla and Sam have been friends since kindergarten and because of that their parents have been acquainted with each other for equally as long. The three girls make a pact to each lose their virginity on prom night. After Julie's mom stumbles onto an open IM window on her daughter's laptop, their plan is revealed to her, prompting her - along with Kayla and Sam's dads - to head out to stop their kids before they can have sex. Naturally the night doesn't go exactly as planned and hilarity ensues.

I enjoyed this comedy more than I thought I would and probably more than it might deserve. Some of the humor is decidedly low-brow, but I love this cast, both the young cast members and the actors who play their parents. This film properly got my attention with the plunger line and the writing had another few of those nuggets. It's also note-worthy for being surprisingly sex positive in the end. A decent 100+ minutes of entertainment.

 

Here is a really good film criticism discussion of Buckaroo Banzai and comic bock movies in general:

 

The last movie I watched was Us and it was quite scary and good. It's a unique storyline. They should create this kind of horror movies from now on.

 

Men in Black International ~ F. Gary Gray

Perfectly fine for an afternoon on basic cable. Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth still have great chemistry, but like the other MIB sequels, this doesn't go anywhere new or expand the conceit, so it feels like a rehash.

 

Tully was a very watchable movie with a fabulous ‘twist’ ..

Charlize Theron