Saw “Don’t Look Up” last night, and I was very impressed! Meryl Streep was superb, and I even liked DiCaprio of whom I’m not a big fan. I strongly recommend it!
I couldn’t find a star emoji, so I give it 4 suns. LOL
My wife and I watch this every year. And every year we say the same thing.
It’s a great movie.
But George Baily is kind of a dick through a lot of the movie.
Real Genius holds up incredibly well today. Outside of the hair cuts and special effects, you wouldn’t know it was a forty year old movie. Hell, it does a better job of presenting women as human beings and not trophies for the male protagonists than most films released today. Plus, none of the casual racism or homophobia that mark a lot of its contemporary films. (Okay, there’s also maybe one character in the film who’s not white, but considering it was released the same year as Porky’s 3, it’s still remarkably progressive.)
I tend to agree. I loved this movie when it came out and still do. That said, it is as you mention incredibly white, like most of its contemporaries. Also, the trope of the “witty, charming, ne’er-do-well man-child” character (always white) who goofs off, quips, and fucks things up for everyone else but is still the hero (cf. Shawn Spencer from Psych among many others) has worn a bit thin for me personally over the years.
But I still love this movie. “For God’s sake, stop playing with yourself!”
“It is God.”
Marry Me (Peacock) Rom-com with Jennifer Lopez, Owen Wilson, Sarah Silverman.
We weren’t planning to watch it (we’d seen the trailers a few times recently in theaters) but it was right there in front of us, for free. And … I’m embarrassed to admit that I liked it. It follows the well-worn rom-com tropes: meet-cute, fall in love, break up, get back together. But they’re so darn likable you’re rooting for them.
So if you’re in the mood for a rom-com this Valentine’s Day you could do a lot worse.
Also: if you fast forward through all of J-Lo’s song numbers, it’ only about 45 minutes long.
The Tender Bar. I wasn’t sure I would like this coming-of-age story directed by George Clooney, but I did, more than I expected. The first half, with the main character as a young boy, is more interesting than the second, in which he’s a young adult, but I found myself still caring about him. Ben Affleck’s performance is great as a self-educated man who’s both funny and wise and takes the boy under his wing as a substitute father figure.
However, the film has a glaring error that really annoyed me. As a former radio DJ of 50-or-so years, I’m keenly aware of when pop music is used incorrectly, and in this movie, it’s almost always. Songs are used for seemingly no purpose and featured during time periods that were years before some of those songs were even popular. If you’re going to use pop music as an important part of your soundtrack, use it correctly. It’s easy enough to do.
But that’s just me. Otherwise, it’s a good watch.
Have you read the book? If you felt engaged by the characters and would like a much deeper dive, I heartily recommended it.
I watched the last of the Walt Disney Silly Symphonies collection. There’;s a special section that you have to go through an intro by Leonard Maltin to get to that has all the cartoons that have now Politically Incorrect content – mostly caricatures of black performers like Stepin Fetchit. Definitely worth having a look at, especially the Mother Goose Goes Hollywood cartoon. Disney was doing the “caticature Hollywood stars” thing before Warner Brothers was. I didn’t realize that two of the cartoons feature a stereotypical “black mammy”-type cook/maid character seen from the knees down only in a cartoon featuring animals, ages before the MGM Tom and Jerry cartoons had “Mammy Two-Shoes”
In the 1960s MGM rotoscoped a white woman’s legs over the original black legs and redid the voice-over so that they could run the cartoons on daytime TV without being offensive. The white lady’s legs you see in the opening cartoon in Who Framed Roger Rabbit is done in imitation of these later MGM cartoons.
Bigbug (2022) on Netflix directed and written by Amélie director Jean-Pierre Jeunet. It’s one of those films I’m glad I watched but one that I’m sure I would be hated for recommending. It looks great! Like Wes Anderson on a day he couldn’t say “no!”. The acting is very…French, but like the set design, the actors all look marvelous and their characters are cartoonishly defined. The story could have been ripped from just about any 1950s SciFi magazine. If I learned anything from this movie it’s that robots should never be programed to smile. It might be a good film to watch while buzzed or stoned.
ETA - If you do watch it, do so in French with English subtitles. The two minutes I watched dubbed in English were intolerable.
Kimi on HBO Max. A tight 90 minute thriller by Steven Soderberg. Not over complicated; just an edge of your seat thrill ride. Really good except the heroine ends up with the wrong guy at the end.
Hail, Caesar!. It’s a pretty standard Coen Brothers film - lots of weird conversations going on way too long for comedic effect, a very loose plot, and a lot of style.
After what felt like ten minutes of “Would that it were so simple” I just thought - I just watched all that. But it paid off at the end anyway.
Totally agree. It was….interesting…in that Del Toro was riffing on his usual icky vibe, but without any fantasy elements. The story was by-the-numbers, but maybe that is to be expected from the source material. I’ve never been a big fan of Bradley Cooper, but I do confess he has developed into a really good actor, this being exceptional work on his part.
And, to coin a phrase, “they art directed the sh*t out of this”. I include Cate Blanchetts face in that statement, as she seems to have trascended being a person and instead has become a “face”.
Every time I see Bradley Cooper in something, I always wish it was Jon Hamm instead. But I guess Hamm prefers comedy these days.
That was hands-down the funniest part of the movie, I thought. Not my favorite Coen Bros. film, though, in any event.
I did finish it but I have to say I thought the acting was over directed or something? I’m no expert but it just felt very clumsy considering the talented cast. I really did not enjoy this movie even a little…
Trying to stay away from sex&violence films, and been it’s real hit and miss.
Little Women (with Winona Ryder as Jo). The all star cast cannot rescue this relatively faithful adaptation from its inherent sentimentality. The director did introduce a few mentions of the far more interesting real back story, but Alcott’s complete obfuscation of her father’s failures (and genius) I now find hard to accept. A perfectly nice children’s film.
Okja A Korean American collaboration which involves a sweet gigantic genetically modified pig, a Monsanto-like global corporation, a very determined Korean farm girl, and the Animal Liberation Front. I thought it very well done, dramatic, fast paced, even amusing, but it will make you want to be a vegetarian.
Fast Color A truly fine film, which tenderly explores the tensions between generations of an all-female black family, addiction, dystopian futurism, and a woman’s take on superheroism and accepting the responsibilities of power. You would think how the heck can that description even work, but the exceptional acting of the protaganists is absolutely compelling.
All these on netflix
In case you weren’t aware, this is by Bong Joon Ho, maker of the Oscar winning Parasite.
Disney’s The Black Hole. Even if the effects are a little aged and you can see the wires at times, it’s still a beautiful and haunting movie. And that music!