I saw that in a theater. I thought I was going to laugh myself into a heart attack when the VW wouldn’t stop meeping.
I thought it pretty tiresome. The singing dwarves were just cartoonish, as were several of the scenes in the series. I thought it was geared for a younger audience than LOTR and not as well done at all.
I just finished Human Capital, which was a huge yawn. Marisa Tomei is always watchable and the other actors did a good job, but I just didn’t see the point of damn thing.
Three Thousand Years of Longing
A fairly standard movie about a genie(djinn) that tells his life story to a woman. Well acted, quite well made, and a decent way to spend some times. It doesn’t amount to all that much, but I enjoyed the experience. It’s from George Miller, the director of Mad Max 1-4, but it feels fairly generic. It breaks no new ground, but was a nice enough movie. And really quite uplifting and upbeat.
Count me as another lover of the LOTR trilogy who was distinctly underwhelmed by the Hobbit films.
Discovered my partner hadn’t seen the LOTR trilogy so we watched them on dvd recently. They still hold up brilliantly and for 9 hours I was hooked. Golem is still my favourite character and part 2 my favourite of the three. Partner impressed too and it really isn’t her thing. Hopefully we will enjoy the new series on Prime too, been saving it til it’s all available and have avoided any plot spoilers whatsoever.
For some reason the wife wanted to watch In Dubious Battle (probably because of the unionizing theme), a James Franco film based on the Steinbeck novel. A high-powered cast that just couldn’t make the material work. Part of the problem was that it was directed by Franco. Ed Harris and Vincent D’Onofrio gave it their best shot, but it wasn’t enough to save it. And the inexplicable presence of Selena Gomez didn’t help. I honestly don’t know how she continues to get roles in anything, as her performances are invariably wooden and uninspired.
Bodies Bodies Bodies
Disappointing. It’s supposed to be a murder-mystery comedy, but the characters are all extremely unlikable and the movie isn’t funny enough to make it enjoyable.
So, the mystery is not intriguing enough, the characters are unlikable, and the comedy isn’t funny enough. Ouch.
Skip it.
Thor: Love and Thunder (Disney+)
Blech. I didn’t really enjoy the previous Thor outing, so my expectations for this were quite low, and it did not meet even those. The biggest problem is tone: it’s basically two very different movies uncomfortably joined together - a serious movie about grief and loss and the unfair nature of the universe, and a goofy bro movie about clueless Thor. The combo was a big fail for me. Half the jokes were like giggling at a fart during a funeral, and most were stale, recycled bits that we’ve seen many times before in the Thor movies. For example, in the opening Thor fight sequence, who didn’t know that the glass temple was going to fall down at the end? Anyeone? Bueller? Of course the answer is nobody, because it was telegraphed so obviously, but also because Waititi and Co. have done 100 variations on that same joke and it has become predictable and stale. The editing was also choppy (story-wise).
On the plus side, Christian Bale was quite good as Gorr. The shadow effects associated with him were cool. The emotional pay-off at the end was decent, if mostly unearned. But overall I cannot recommend it.
Yes indeed.
Haha, I should have saved myself time and quoted your post! Agree 100%.
No way, I appreciated reading your description!
In church, we just saw Sunday Morning Rapture. I was crying.
Glengarry Glen Ross
I saw the play on its original Broadway run, but never saw the movie, which has two scenes added not in the play (Alec Baldwin’s entire part, in fact). Really impressive cast – Jack Lemmon, al Pacino, Alan Arkin, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Kevin Spacey, Jonathan Pryce – none of whom had appeared in the play prior to the film (although they did afterwards). I thought the actions and motivations were more clear in the movie than they had been in the play (which I just re-read a month ago). Definitely worth watching, although, as my wife said after watching it (she hadn’t seen it or the play before), “It’s really depressing”. True. Based on David Mamet’s own experience as a real estate salesman back when he was a struggling playwright.
That was actually the setup of the joke, with the payoff being “no backies” of the screaming goats.
Gonna have to agree to disagree there. The temple falling was clearly intended (and failed) to be a big laugh payoff, to my eyes.
Does anyone else here like to watch The Asylum movies? They are knockoffs of famous films, sometimes meant to be funny, sometimes meant to maybe fly under the radar and be rented mistakenly, always designed to look/appear to be like a popular film but on a low budget.
I’ve watched a lot of them, and they can be quite fun, but I just took a swing at Planet Dune, mainly because it has Sean Young, but it definitely earned its 2.3 IMDb rating. I wasn’t able to finish it, in fact I bailed in about 15 minutes, which is funny because I have a pretty high tolerance for these movies.
A foursome review. Sherlock Holmes during WWII.
Sherlock Holmes is a time lord who travels to England along with trusty (rusty) sidekick Dr. Watson. S.H.'s superpower is deductive reasoning. Remember, this was actual war, everything was rationed, perhaps film as all of them have a run time just over 1 hour. With these restrictions, ignore the cheesy backdrops, non-moving cars (film going on behind) plot oddities. If they had more elaborate sets, Basil Rathbone would have chewed them all up anyway. Kind of a toss up between him and Robert Downey which was more dominant.
Sherlock Holmes in Washington (not really); S.H. and the Voice of Terror; and S.H. and the Secret Weapon all involve Nazi’s as the enemy. The latter has an additional Time Lord (Moriarity) as a guest Dr Evil. To the writers, directors, etc… credit, the Nazi’s are not portrayed as bumbling oafs but as a worthy (ish) opponent to S. H. These are propaganda films during England’s darkest hour so good triumphs. The dialog is crisp, a few plot holes, everyone smokes; pipes, unfiltered cigs, cigars on planes (just sets), on trains and in cars. Very much a period piece, just jarring today. The Washington movie has some good stills of D.C. building from the era; also a clipper ship (plane) water landing short clip. S.H. Faces Death is a straight ahead mystery (deaths in a giant spooky old house), lightning storms, secret passages. A small connection to the war is that some of people at the manor (suspects all) are recovering soldiers/airmen from the shock of battle.
Dr. Watson does bother me a bit; he doesn’t add anything to S.H… More of a worn ottoman for Holmes to put his feet up on. I don’t know if the character was written like this but I preferred Jude Law in the latest films. A more active participant, he completes the larger-than-life persona that is/was Sherlock Holmes. IMHO
All free on Roku, Tubi, and others with some commercials. If you have a rainy cold afternoon, brew up a big pot of tea, some pastries (crumpets?) and watch one or two. A short run time and weirdly intriguing. No Oscars were bestowed. These were active war time films.
I watched Elysium on Netflix. I should say that I re-watched it, as I do remember the plot and all, but I’ve forgotten all the details. Matt Damon goes bald, which isn’t a good look for him, but it wasn’t a bad action flick.
Bullet Train
Nice movie, but unfortunately it just doesn’t have enough great stuff to be a really great movie. Brad Pitt is clearly the best thing in this movie and he gives a great performance that is hilarious and just really fun to watch. It’s a shame the overall movie isn’t as great as the performance Brad Pitt gives. Still, I had a lot of fun.
If you want to see a movie similar to this that is much, much better, see Wanted starring James McAvoy.
Fast Times at Ridgemont High – 1982 – Showtime - ★★★★ out of ★★★★★ – A re-watch of an old favorite. There are definitely sections that have not aged well, but every one of the Sean Penn/Ray Walston scenes are gold.
Harold and Maude – 1971 – TMC - ★★1/2 – A movie I always felt that I should see. I’ve tried a couple of times in the past, but never got past the opening scenes before losing interest. Kind of left me feeling unfulfilled. The best thing it has going is its Cat Stevens soundtrack.
Being There – 1979 – TMC - ★★★★1/2 – Another one that has long been on my radar but remained unseen. Peter Sellers played the perfect (single) note throughout, and was very effective, if not a little farfetched. I enjoyed it muchly and definitely recommend it if you have not had the pleasure.
Dear Evan Hansen – 2021 – DVD - ★1/2 – I watched this only because I am going to see the highly regarded play soon. The music is forgettable, the acting is subpar, and the writing is ham-handed and predictable. Teens probably love it. Steer clear.
I watched Gravity today. Now, I’m not much of a Space and Science talkin’ guy, like say Neil DeGrasse, but I think I spotted a few things that we’ll say, well, maybe were a little improbable. That, and it was dangerously close to making me dizzy while watching most of it. I’m going to go with “Not Recommended”. At least it wasn’t very long, but certainly long enough.