I watched The Night House (on HBO Max, I think). Seemed to me the makers of this one must be big fans of The Ring as there are a lot of similarities (or they just ripped it off).
I’ve never cared too much for Rebecca Hall but she was ok in this. It has some good imagery and creepy atmosphere. The resolution to the mystery is kind of lame / farfetched but it definitely held my attention and overall it’s much better than the majority of what passes for horror these days. I would recommend to anyone who likes the genre.
There are several movies called The Changeling. Which one are you talking about? I presume you mean the 1980 one.
Three for the Show (1955) with Betty Grable and Jack Lemmon. The story is an entertaining bit of fluff, and the dance interludes are well worth watching.
Yes, the one with the wheelchair and George C . Scott.
I’m watching 2012. Holy Christ, this movie is a steaming pile. Just about the most asinine thing I’ve ever seen. Whoever made this is just trolling!
A.k.a. The Brain-Stealers, although no brains are actually stolen, only switched and drained.
This is one of several attempts by Shaw Brothers of Hong Kong to cash-in on the Bond craze. It’s very fast-paced, with plentiful action, cheesy set design, a super-ridiculous plot and (thankfully!) no obnoxious/silly ass comic relief characters. Lily Ho is an elegant heroine (and judo master) whose perm never falters, the bad guy rants and laughs maniacally a lot (his “secret” ID is totally obvious) and the story hinges on “L333” which accelerates growth in plants and animals…and maybe humans.
Despite the misleading expectations raised by the English title, had I been 12 or 13, I probably would have thought this was one of the greatest films ever made. As it is, I imagine it’s one of the better HK attempts at the genre.
Never heard of this. But I noticed the cast included Betty Ting Pei. She is somewhat known - she was the last person to see Bruce Lee alive.
A filmmaker discovers a box of video tapes depicting two students’ disturbing film project featuring a local horror legend, The Peeping Tom. As he sets out to prove this story is real and release it as a work of his own, he loses himself and the film crew following him into his project.
I loved Blair Witch, so I had hopes for this. Pulling back a bit, this differs in a few
ways. For instance, it goes into motives, methods, and such. The person “making” the film isn’t the one who shot it. So in the film some asked, should the footage be “cleaned up,” or is that tainting the evidence? There’s some back story about the film maker’s financial problems. Also it gets self-analytical, like people actually talking about what a “found footage” film is and isn’t.
I liked it a lot for its potential. It fell short in execution, but sometimes I’m fine with that—if it gives you food for thought, might be remade as a better film later on, etc. I think the direction was lacking a bit and the main character could have been better cast. I invite you to watch it, knowing you’ll be biting your tongue a bit here and there.
Also, for the record, I looked it up. The legend here is that if you stare, without blinking, toward the end of the tunnel for an hour this figure will appear. This was one of my points of disbelief, that anybody could do that. What’s the record?
Red Dawn remake. Chris Hemsworth, Josh Peck, Josh Hutcherson, Adrianne Palicki, Isabel Lucas, and Jeffrey Dean
I enjoyed it. The basic premise is the same.They did change details of the teens creating an insurgency.
Won’t spoiler. The kid’s sacrifice (saving the group) at the end really tore me up.
The movie is even more relevant because of Ukraine. Wolverines has been seen painted on destroyed tanks.
I’ll watch again while its on Paramount +.
Watched No Time to Die for the first time several weeks ago. Thought it was ok. My brother and I watched Onward for the first time last weekend. We both enjoyed it.
This has some really good photoraphy in it.
Tried to watch Babo 73 yesterday. Only 57 minutes, yet turned it off and deleted it after 25. What the hell is this piece of crap, why is it in the Criterion Collection, and why would TCM waste an hour to air this old bullshit???
The Northman
Did you watch the TV show Vikings about Ragnar? This is like a great season of that show compressed into two hours. I liked this movie a lot, but I will admit at laughing at a couple of the bigger moments in the movie. “I am vengeance!” and the manly grunting/screaming at each other during fighting actually got a laugh from me.
Eggers is a great movie-maker and this is a solid movie, but I think he can do even better in the future. I heard the studio got involved and definitely wanted a mores standard movie than he usually delivers.
Sounds like I didn’t love it, but in a way, I actually kind of did. It may end up on my top 10 movies of the year list at the end. Any criticisms are minor. It is well worth your time.
A&E ran Shawshank Redemption
It’s rare to watch a movie without one bad beat. The plot flows along through 20 years, the characters are interesting and Andy’s triumph over a severe injustice is uplifting.
Great movie that I usually watch whenever its on tv.
We watched “Operation Mincemeat” on Netflix. Though a bit of star-crossed romance and internal backstabbing is thrown in to add some drama, it’s largely based on a real WWII incident in which British Intelligence dropped a dead body carrying a briefcase loaded with fake documents off the coast of Spain to trick the Nazis into thinking an invasion of Greece was in the works, when the real invasion was planned elsewhere. It’s considered the most successful, meticulously planned (and improbable) deceptions in military history.
We especially enjoyed the snappy dialog in which the protagonists crafted the smallest details of the fake soldier’s history; his background, his life, his romances, every possible thing to convince the Germans that he was indeed a real person. Once in motion, the plan doesn’t play out quite as expected, leading the group to question who’s deceiving who, “are we tricking them or are they tricking us.”
Well-written, well-acted by an outstanding cast, led by Colin Firth. This would have made zero dollars at the box office, and I’m glad Netflix made it available. Many people will find it slow and talky, with no fight scenes, car chases or explosions, but if a well-crafted story involving real-life spies interests you, we highly recommend it.
I read a book about it, but didn’t know it was made into a movie. I’ll look for it!
There was an earlier version of Operation Mincemeat:
“The 2022 theatrically released film ‘Operation Mincemeat’ (2021), starring Colin Firth and directed by John Madden, tells the same story as this film but is based on a different source novel and includes some details that were not known at the time of this films release.”
My son and I watched all the Mission Impossible movies. Very fun and he is pumped to go next year to see the next one. I’d rank them like this. Number in the series is in parentheses.
From best to worst
- Ghost Protocol (4)
- Mission Impossible (1)
- Rogue Nation (5)
- Fallout (6) <—amazing final 30 minutes, rough rest of movie
- Mission Impossible 3 (3)
- Mission Impossible 2 (2) <—the only truly bad one. Just terrible all the way through. I think they have legitimately forgotten about this one in all other sequels. Trash and not worth your time at all.
Read some good reviews, and my better half used to live there, so we checked out Montana Story yesterday. It kind of says something when the scenery was the best part of the movie. Real Montana (not what you see in “Yellowstone” ).
Good, tough performances. But slow pace. Like could have been a full hour shorter. (Yet another) story about a dysfunctional family, a tragic event, and the grown children coming to terms with it.
I enjoyed The Man Who Never Was, maybe I’ll have to give Operation Mincemeat a try. I didn’t find its title at all appealing, especially in the context of a war movie, but a lot of good movies have bad titles.