I wasn’t aware when I watched Pearl that it was supposed to be a prequel to X, which I haven’t seen and was only vaguely aware of. Will watch it tonight with that chronology in mind. My expectations are appropriately reduced given your comments and the relative ratings, but still, there’s a lot of talent there in terms of writing, directing, and acting so I’ll probably enjoy it.
I just watched an interview with Mia Goth about Pearl. My goodness, she certainly got that Texas accent down pat – her natural accent sounds exactly like the late Queen of England, very English upper class!
X is fine, but Pearl is one of those prequels that shines more than its original. It will be kind of neat to see X knowing who Pearl is and what happened in the movie Pearl. Now you get to see what happened decades after the movie Pearl.
Retelling of the Tham Luang cave rescue. Coach and 12 kids were trapped in flooded cave on June 23, 2018. Between 8 and 10 July, all 12 boys and their coach were rescued from the cave by an international team.
I had followed the news about the rescue and already knew the story very well.
I liked the movie but was disappointed they didn’t do more research. We didn’t get any first hand information about the victims experiences inside the cave. This is a big film from Imagine and producer/director Ron Howard. They could have paid for interviews in Thailand or flown people to the US for interviews. I didn’t learn anything that wasn’t reported 4 years ago.
I do recommend watching. Its free on Amazon Prime.
From what I understand both Viggo Mortensen and Colin Farell decided that they would do all of the underwater shots, no stunt doubles were used. Sure it was not filmed in the actual caves, but still I am sure that took a lot of work.
We saw Banshees of Inisherin this weekend - dark (sometimes really dark, you’ve been warned) comedy by the same leads and director of In Bruges, which is one of my favorite movies. Loved it, especially Colin Farrell and Brendon Gleason, two of my favorite actors. Smart, musically talented friend decides he can’t take his (very) nice but kind of simple friend’s conversation any more but they are stuck on the same tiny island, apparently forever. Still thinking about it, even if some of the “smart” guys motivations didn’t always make sense.
Tried to watch Grand Budapest Whatever again today. Nothing else on. I walked out of the room the last time I attempted this. I actually hated it more this time. I chalk that up to cruel sobriety. That is the most tedious shit I’ve ever seen. I hope Wes Anderson steps on a rusty nail.
Watching The Bob’s Burger Movie right now. Completely lost my interest. The little half-hour show is pretty funny now and then, but this is Ass. Just pointless. Not even Kristen Schall can save this mess.
Wasn’t Rod Serling the guy who would come in at the end of the episode and say “In case you missed the part where the Confederate Army could only have won the Civil War if it had been in league with Satan himself, the point of what you just saw was that the Confederate Army did not have right on it’s side and deserved to lose the war”?
Rod Serling wrote a huge number of scripts for radio, television, and movies. He admitted himself that he often wrote and then sold those scripts too fast. It’s not surprising that many things made from his scripts weren’t very good.
The Mummy 2017: Just saw this. It’s beyond me why this movie was so widely panned. It was pretty good, entertaining, nice production and performances, the story worked. It was certainly as good or better that any number of Marvel movies that have come out over the last couple of years. Plus, upon viewing, I think idea of the Dark Universe is much more compelling than it looks on paper. Anyway, I guess it wasn’t to be. Too bad in my opinion.
Martyrs Lane(I saw it on Shudder) A slow burn ghost story set in rural England, with two young girls as the main characters. I can’t say enough about these young actors’ performances. It’s tense, scary but not in a jump scare / monster way (I think there was one jump scare) and really quite poignant. Highly recommend.
Watched Ender’s Game this morning. I don’t read Sci-Fi at all and don’t really know anything except this is supposed to be some big deal, but defiantly not my cup of tea. Came across as pseudo-intellectual metaphoric mumbo-jumbo. The ending was especially unsatisfying. A whole lot of it didn’t make much sense, but at least it was pretty to look at and seems to have been well made. I’m assuming Ford and Kingsly were well paid.
It’s been discussed before, but I can’t really think of any other director that inspires such a binary reaction in me. Either great interest (Rushmore, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom) or great boredom.
I don’t want Wes Anderson to step on a rusty nail - I rather admire his singular vision. I just with he’d stop making films like The Royal Tenenbaums or The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, that bore the fuck out of me.
Saw Confess, Fletch. We enjoyed it quite a bit. Ham is a better Fletch than Chevy Chase. The plot has holes but Ham is enjoyable to enough that we forgot about them.
See How They Run . Lots of fun, especially if you are a fan of the old school whodunnits.
Panic in Year Zero Fun to watch Ray Milland, why telling family they have to remain good people following a nuclear attack, immediately become a dick.
The Sting My wife had not seen it. Still a great movie, especially if you choose not to remember the con would not have worked.
Woman of Straw Sean Connery as a sexually harrasing, lying-ass cheat who turns out to be a double dealing murderer. Pretty good if you can forget the resolution would NOT have worked.
Irene Cara’s death prompted us to watch Fame last night. For a 1980 film, it holds up fairly well. They were clearly trying to tweak the establishment’s nose with an openly gay student, a black man smooching a white girl, a Jewish girl dating a Puerto Rican boy, etc. There is a rather gratuitous nude scene near the end. But it’s an exuberant film.
I really enjoyed Confess, Fletch as well. I remember reading a few of those books before the movies came out. My mom was a fan of the series; I believe this was the second of the books, taking place right after the events of the first Fletch. It was cool how the long forgotten plot came back to me in snippets. I’m sure the movie is no where near faithful to the book, but the general plot is the same.
And you’re right - Jon Hamm was a much better Fletch.