Last Movie Watched.... The Xenforo Edition

Discussion in 'Movies, TV and Music' started by Val1, May 4, 2012.

  1. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
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    Aug 19, 2002
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    LOL! True story, there was a moment in the film I thought of this song:

     
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  2. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Palm Springs (2020)
    Dir. Max Barbakow

    [​IMG]

    Nyles and Sarah attend the same wedding in Palm Springs. For Sarah, it's another sad opportunity to realize that she pales in comparison to her younger sister, the bride. Nyles is there as the boyfriend of one of the bride-to-be's friends. On the night of the wedding party, Sarah and Nyles gravitate towards each other. The night culminates in some strange events and the next morning, Sarah finds out that it's once again the morning of her sister's wedding day. Confused by this, Nyles soon informs her that the events of the night before have caused her to be trapped in the same time loop he has been stuck in for a while: whatever he does, he finds himself waking up in the same place, at the same time. Sarah first tries to escape the time loop, in spite of the fact that Nyles insists this is impossible. The pair then grow closer as they are forced to spend eternity together.

    It struck me as I watched this that there is a weird thematic similarity between The Old Guard and this movie, in that it's essentially about people who are made to spend eternity together due to circumstance and no real choice of their own. Only Palm Springs approaches this from a comedic POV. This isn't the first Groundhog Day clone of course, but it's certainly far from the worst I have seen. It's elevated by the quality and chemistry of the main cast (Samberg and Milioti), who are both incredibly charming in their own way. Doesn't quite stick the landing as elegantly as I had hoped but I had been thoroughly entertained already by that point. It's worth rewatching the first fifteen minutes or so with the benefit of hindsight.
     
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  3. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Hollywood Story (1951)
    Dir. William Castle

    [​IMG]

    James O'Brien is a movie producer who settles in California to tackle the next phase of his career. A business partner and long-time friend arranges the purchase of an old silent movie studio that will become his new base of operations. During a tour given by the old caretaker of the place, they come upon a bungalow on the studio lot with a dark past: in 1929 a famous silent movie director was murdered there, the crime having never been solved. James is immediately intrigued by the story and decides to make it the basis for his next movie. But since a good murder mystery needs the killer to be revealed at the end, he takes it upon himself to investigate the cold case himself, bringing into focus a cast of characters from the twilight years of silent cinema, each of whom might have had his or her reasons to kill the man in question.

    This was very enjoyable. I assume that this was loosely based on the real-life unsolved murder of silent movie director William Desmond Taylor, though it borrows only the vaguest outlines of said crime. There is also something to be said for its runtime, a little over 75 minutes. In a time where every superhero movie is over two hours long and some of them near three hours long and even comedies all feel the need to have at least ninety minutes worth of screentime, the art of making shorter features seems to have fallen to the wayside a bit. Richard Conté is always a good lead in this kind of fare.
     
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  4. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
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    Ford vs Ferrari 2019 dir Joseph Mangold
    [​IMG]
    I was in my 20s when these events took place. I went with high school buddies twice to the Riverside Grand Prix, the first time in 1963, when Jim Clark drove a Lotus Ford to 5th place. I was quite interested in road racing.

    This movie dramatizes the relationship between Carroll Shelby and Ken Miles, the first American race car driver to win Sebring, Daytona and Le Mans in the same calendar year, and their involvement in Ford's development of a competitive grand prix race car, the Ford GT40.

    There is a LOT of Miles in the car roaring around a track, which is understandable, and there is a maybe overdone conflict between Ford management and Carroll Shelby, but the movie is enjoyable on a number of levels.
     
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  5. chad

    chad Member+

    Jun 24, 1999
    Manhattan Beach
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I often share your takes, but whoa Nellie not on this one!

    My wife and I thought it was really boring. I particularly did not like Samberg’s character at all — Nyles’ objectification of every other person struck me as sadastically juvenile and probably indicative of Samberg’s own lack of maturity and sophistication (very Brooklyn 99 in this way). The “love” angle was at best an an idealized version of an arranged marriage.

    Maybe if the movie had been done from Roy’s perspective, it would’ve been more interesting. But then it might’ve just been a vampire movie, instead of a movie about a dick in a “time” box. [emoji2371]
     
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  6. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    I interpreted this as a side-effect of him having been locked in the time-loop for a long time.
     
  7. chad

    chad Member+

    Jun 24, 1999
    Manhattan Beach
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I think that was the idea, as well. Alas it rang hollow for me since it relied on him adopting a solipsism that everything in the world reset when he died/slept.

    In other words, the film never took seriously what happened to non-loopers. Either they reset as well, but fatalistically in ignorance and without agency, or they continued on in different timelines, impacted by and living with the consequences of Nyles' behavior. Nyles assumed the former and concluded it gave him carte blanche to behave as he wished. His pain is real; their pain is not.

    The ending solidified for me that Nyles' character was a juvenile. That scene was supposed to be funny? Not to me. It was a scene that captured Samberg's orientation to the world, rather than about a character. That is either the depth of his comedy and/or the depth of his thought. :)

    (My knowledge of Samberg is from SNL and from Brooklyn 99 - which my kid tried to get me to watch, but I couldn't stand it.)
     
  8. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
    SoCal
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    Which "him"?

    As a pedantic side note, instead of "him", it should be "his". "Having..." is a gerund and takes a possessive.

    https://getitwriteonline.com/articles/possessive-case-gerunds/
     
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  9. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
    SoCal
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    I still don't know which "him" you mean. :)

    I'm starting to feel as if I am locked in a time-loop.
     
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  10. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Resistance (2020)
    Dir. Jonathan Jakubowicz

    [​IMG]

    In 1938, Marcel Mangel is a butcher's son who braves his father's ire in his desire to pursue a career in the performing arts. His cousin pulls him into a scheme of helping orphaned Jewish children, brought to Strasbourg from Germany. Initially a reluctant participant, Marcel becomes increasingly committed to helping the children and keeping them safe. After the invasion of France, Marcel, his family and the children move to Limoges where an underground network finds safe places for them to hide during the occupation. To hide his own identity, Marcel changes his name to Marcel Marceau during this time. Whilst operating in Lyon, their activities come onto the radar of Klaus Barbie, meaning that the group will have to take more desperate measures to keep the children safe: successfully smuggling them into Switzerland.

    Basically a dramatized account of Marcel Marceau's war time experiences. Not the worst war time drama I have ever seen, not the best either. I am mostly focused on something that I cannot help shake in terms of Jesse Eisenberg performances: I cannot believe him when he is not playing a jerk, or at the very least a character who speaks sarcasm as his first language. Whenever he is meant to play more earnestly kind characters, I just don't buy it. I think it's because whatever role he plays, the irony never seems to completely leave his eyes. In this movie it mostly bothered me during the Klaus Barbie scene. Here his character's life depends on convincing the Nazi butcher he is but a harmless schlemiel, instead his eyes betray borderline contempt for the man interrogating him.
     
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  11. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
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    Hoping @Belgian guy is ok. He hasn't watched a movie in six days. Or maybe on vacation, though I wonder how Europeans are vacationing in Corona Spring.
     
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  12. yasik19

    yasik19 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Chelsea
    Ukraine
    Oct 21, 2004
    Daly City
    Just saw this yesterday. It's definitely not as good as GD, but probably equally as entertaining as Russian Doll.
     
  13. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Aug 19, 2002
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    I'm fine. No movies this week because I was either playing video games or watching Netflix' Cursed (overall pretty meh but some fun performances).
     
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  14. Val1

    Val1 Member+

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    Mar 12, 2004
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    I'll wait for your review of Cursed before I chime in with my thoughts. "Meh" is a.good starting point.
     
  15. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
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    Aug 19, 2002
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    Finished it but don't really have much to say. In general it didn't leave a great impression. It was kept interesting by the inherent kookiness of some of the material (I don't know if this was the same in the original graphic novel or not). In that regard, it reminded me of The Witcher, which was also saved by its weirdness (though The Witcher is considerably better).
    There are some performances I liked, Gustaf Skarsgard was a good Merlin and he might have done even better had he better writing to work with. I thought the lead was ultimately underwhelming and generally played off the screen by the girl who played Morgana, who would have made a much more interesting Nimue imho.
    Sebastian Armesto was also decent as Uther.
    I also liked the Red Spear gang, one of the few funny/charming things about the first season (I especially liked Pym's increasingly big-eyed shock during her time spent with them), but they barely got any screentime.
    Not sure if I would recommend this to anyone, TBH.
     
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  16. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    You Should Have Left (2020)
    Dir. David Koepp

    [​IMG]

    Theo and Susanna are a bit of an odd couple in that he is an older, retired banker whose reputation was tarnished by a dark episode in his past whilst she is a young Hollywood actress at the peak of her career. During a break in the filming of her latest feature, the couple and their young daughter Ella decide to take a small vacation in the Welsh countryside, living in an isolated villa at the top of a hill. Both of them soon start to feel a bit weird inside of the home and they share bad dreams, along with their daughter. Then it becomes increasingly apparent that it isn't just the isolation that is playing tricks on their minds, especially since the locals also seem to treat the house with a fearful reverence.

    A pretty mediocre psychological horror/haunted house movie. The 28-year old age difference between the leads is pretty big even by Hollywood standards, which is perhaps why it is addressed within the screenplay through a series of "old man" jokes. Bacon and Seyfriend are two good actors but the material is just too thin to make this truly work.
     
  17. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
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    Aug 19, 2002
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    Spin a Dark Web (1956)
    Dir. Vernon Sewell

    [​IMG]

    Jim Bankley is a Canadian trying to make a fast buck in London. He tracks down another Canadian he served in the army with in the hope that his friend will help him find a job, the man in question introducing him to his own employer: Sicilian immigrant Rico Francesi, a career criminal with a finger in many, largely legally dubious broths. Jim is eventually hired by Rico due to the insistence of Rico's sister Bella, who feels an immediate attraction to Jim. Though his time with the gang is initially lucrative, the slow revelation of what the Francesi clan is capable of chips away at Jim's loyalty to them.

    Nice little low-budget noir. Visually speaking, this is at times weird and a bit disjointed, with some of the on-location footage almost feeling like they were shot in documentary style (some of it reminding me a bit of early Melville). Faith Domergue is a very good femme fatale.
     
  18. ASU55RR

    ASU55RR Member+

    Jul 31, 2004
    Brooklyn, NY/Brno,CZ
    Club:
    FC Zbrojovka Brno
    Nat'l Team:
    Czechia
    I actually appreciated the landing although its probably grading on a curve, because

    Minor spolier (open)

    I was convinced it was going to be the millionth attempt at the "artsy choose your own adventure" endings that's been a cliche for at least a decade and was actually relieved that they gave it a resolution.
     
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  19. Val1

    Val1 Member+

    Arsenal
    Mar 12, 2004
    MD's Eastern Shore
    Club:
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    I agree about the guy who played Uther. When he's the best actor, and maybe the best character, then your hero's journey saga probably sucks.

    Too many characters introduced on the fly made it implausible. Like the fisherman. He's being set up to be the Big Bad, then he shoots Merlin, starts monologuing, kneels down to put a net (???) on Merlin, and pulls out the poisoned arrow, kills the fisherman, and rides off, pretty much unharmed.

    The conceit that these guys are all players in the Arthurian milieu was disconcerting. I didn't care for the Witcher either, though I can see the same similarities.
     
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  20. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
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    Aug 19, 2002
    Belgium
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    The Silencing (2020)
    Dir. Robin Pront

    [​IMG]

    Rayburn Swanson is the caretaker of a nature sanctuary where his main responsibility is keeping hunters and poachers away from the animals. He is also a wounded man still traumatized by the disappearance of his 14-year old daughter five years earlier, an incident that ended his marriage. Still trying to find his child after all those years, there is a sudden and unexpected lead in the form of a body of another young woman being discovered in the woods, a girl who had seemingly been hunted by an unknown man prior to her death. For Rayburn, this becomes personal when he starts to believe the man in question might also be responsible for the disappearance of his own child. The investigating Sheriff meanwhile has other things on her mind as her younger brother might be involved in a criminal mess of his own.

    A pretty straight-forward thriller, with a cast that is better than the material they have to work with. Nicolaj Coster-Waldau, Annabelle Wallis, Zahn McClaron and the still criminally underrated Melanie Scrofano are a talented and fun ensemble. Noteworthy from a Belgian standpoint for its director, Robin Pront, though I feel like his Belgian film d'Ardennen (with which this shares some stylistic traits) was far superior.
     
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  21. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Yes, God, Yes (2019)
    Dir. Karen Maine

    [​IMG]

    Alice is a 16-year old girl who attends a strict Catholic high school. She struggles with the friction between her nascent sexual feelings and the fact that her school environment considers any form of acting upon those urges, including masturbation, as a sin. When her best friend convinces her to join in going to a weekend-long Christian retreat, things escalate as both temptation (in the form of an attractive football player who is also attending the retreat) and the slow revelation of the two-facedness/hypocrisy of some of the people who insist on her chasteness change her perception on life and her beliefs.

    A sweet little comedy/dramedy almost entirely made worthwhile by a very good lead performance. Natalia Dyer is someone whom most will primarily know from her work on Stranger Things (she plays Nancy Wheeler on the Netflix show). Here she is charming, funny and emotionally honest in equal measure as Alice.
     
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  22. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

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    Frequency (2000)
    Dir. Gregory Hoblit

    [​IMG]

    Frank Sullivan is a firefighter living in late 1960s New York who has something of a daredevil reputation among his peers. Thirty years later, in the late 1990s, his son John Sullivan is an NYPD detective who still is scarred by his father's death thirty years earlier, when he was still a young boy. After the neighbor's kid unearth's his father's old ham radio, John and his friend Gordo set it up and later that night, John has a conversation with a man he eventually realizes to be his father Frank. After both men are convinced of the fact that they are indeed talking to their respective father and son through a thirty year time gap, John uses the quasi-time machine to warn his father about his impending death during a fire department call at an abandoned factory. Due to the changing of the time line, Frank's father does indeed survive, but the law of unintended consequences makes sure that there is a price to pay: the cold case serial killer that John had been investigating jumps from having three victims to victimizing ten women the police know of. With the radio communication across time still intact, John now uses the radio to help his father save the women in question, only their decision to further alter the time line has more unwanted consequences.

    This is an old favorite of the early 2000s of mine, one which I hadn't seen in a while. Apart from some dated special effects, this still holds up incredibly well. I like the novel time travel conceit as well as the fact that they never bother to explain how it works, other than some vague allusions that it might be connected to extreme sun storms and accompanying auroras that are occurring exactly thirty years apart. A very good cast too, with what might be the last great Dennis Quaid performance, a very good Jim Caviezel, the always excellent Elizabeth Mitchell as Frank's wife and John's mother and Andre Braugher as a sympathetic cop.
     
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  23. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
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    The Outpost (2020)
    Dir. Rod Lurie

    [​IMG]

    We follow a unit of soldiers during the final few months of the existence of Outpost Keating, a dangerously located U.S. army outpost in Afghanistan, near the Pakistani border, which faces almost daily attacks due to its placement in the valley between three mountains. As the outpost goes through several COs, the soldiers and especially the NCOs try to keep morale high, until the inevitable big attack finally occurs.

    This was a war movie in the mold of Black Hawk Down, essentially a battle which turns into a fight for survival, seen from the perspective of the soldiers themselves. Technically accomplished and nicely shot (I especially liked the use of low angles to amplify the feeling of vulnerability the location gave its soldiers). On the other hand, this is another "brothers in arms" type movie that focuses on the loyalty between soldiers and asks very few questions in terms of the morality of the conflict itself. And as per usual, the enemies are faceless and nameless drones who are killed by the dozens during the movie's bloody climax.

    Whenever I watch one of these, I always want to re-watch Cross of Iron as some sort of antidote.
     
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  24. StiltonFC

    StiltonFC He said to only look up -- Guster

    Mar 18, 2007
    SoCal
    Club:
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    Sneakers - 1992 - dir Phil A. Robinson
    [​IMG]

    I think this movie holds up pretty well. I think I've seen it 3 or 4 times. It's a Post-Cold War caper flick, with a star-laden cast. I've always found Mary McD especially fetching, so there's that as a plus. I wish River Phoenix's part had been played by someone else. Seeing him and knowing that he died the following year is a bummer.
     
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  25. Belgian guy

    Belgian guy Member+

    Club Brugge
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    But River is great in this film!
     

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