2Guns, Denzel and Marky Mark (NFLX). Not a bad buddy movie, or at least the dialog between the two was pretty smart.
Bombshell with Jean Harlow. She was great as usual, but the story had too many subplots, and the male lead (Lee Tracy) was just plain awful. He ruined every scene he was in. Apparently, he lobbied hard to make his role bigger, but the studio should have held firm.
Interestingly, there weres scenes set in “Desert Springs,” which seemed to be an oblique reference to Palm Springs. But it was obviously Arizona. Curious, because I would have thought that then (1934) it would have been too expensive to shoot on location. And it was definitely Arizona. I recognized the Biltmore Hotel in Scottsdale, and there was a horseback scene with saguaro. Saguaro do not grow on the California side of the Colorado.
Just saw the new Ant Man movie, Quantumania. Despite the lousy reviews, it’s a solid entry. I LOVE Kang as the villain, really dig the actor and the motivation/presentation of him. A few laughs, but not nearly as many as in the first movie, which makes sense if we see Scott Lang as more competent now than when he first got the suit.
Granted, it’s not necessarily one of the best Marvel has given us, but it’s a fun watch.
I just came back from seeing it and I agree. There were a few parts that I thought dragged on a bit too long, but overall I enjoyed it. The characters are what sells it more than the plot and their interactions were good. It is also interesting to me how the movies have evolved in going from being essentially a side project, to front and center for the MCU.
//i\\
I saw the Ant Man movie yesterday. I enjoyed it, though the quantum realm was really weird.
During a heavy storm, a writer (Arturo de Córdova), his fiancée and his (never-seen) son check into a hotel, but the son is soon swept out to sea after taking a fall. As police investigate, the flashback-filled plot grows increasingly ridiculous, unfortunately leading to a lame climax and weak finale. Still, an entertaining mystery most of the way with some good lighting and the underrated (at least in his Mexican films) Córdova typically effective and unbalanced as the scheming protagonist caught in an unusual love triangle with the woman he loves and the son he must “kill.”
Chariots of Fire 1981
I was never that interested in watching a period drama about running.
TCM ran it tonight and I decided to see what I missed. Nominated for 7 Academy awards???
It was ok but I can’t relate to the elitist college culture. I had incorrectly remembered a friendship between the Jewish and Christian runner as a big part of the story. Nope. One handshake and they just tolerated each other.
I wouldn’t watch again. Not my kind of movie.
The plot is fairly predictable if you’re at all familiar with the MCU films and television shows and all the main characters were pretty much two-dimensional (no pun intended) emotionally throughout, but it has a number of supporting characters that are a lot of fun, particularly the secondary villain I won’t spoil. I enjoyed it overall.
Also, how did I not notice until the end that the word “Quantumania” has “Ant Man” in it?
Agreed and not interested in most films of a similar nature. Anything that has to do with people’s “stations” in life usually rubs me the wrong way.
Most interesting thing about CoF is that the producer was the man, Dodi Fayed, who died with Lady Diana in 1997.
One of my all-time favorites! Isn’t he also wearing flip-flops with socks along with the robe? 
Vangelis died last May. That was the first time in 40 years I even thought about Chariots of Fire.
The only time I think of Chariots of Fire is when I see the parking lot race scene in National Lampoon’s Vacation. Which makes me want to watch the latter more than I want to watch the former.
It actually won the Best Picture Oscar, beating, among others, On Golden Pond and Raiders of the Lost Ark. (The following year, Gandhi won, beating, among others, Tootsie and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. It’s weird that sometimes the losing pictures are the ones that are better remembered.)
Nah, I thought about it when Mr. Bean appeared at the London Olympics to perform. Still makes me laugh.
The winner for Best Picture at the Oscars are just one group’s choice of the best film of the year. Lots of groups and critics make their own choices. They are often quite different from each other. I expect my choice for the best movie to be the same as the Oscars’ choice only about once every ten years. And I always call them my personal choice, not my prediction for the Oscar. I’m not qualified to choose the Oscar winner and don’t pretend that I am.
In 1998, the worst movie of the bunch won the award, probably the only year I can for sure say this. The nominees were:
Elizabeth
Life is Beautiful
Saving Private Ryan
The Thin Red Line
Shakespeare in Love ← this won!
Actually, I really liked Shakespeare in Love.
I could go through the years and tell you what was my personal choice for many of the years, but what’s the point? Often my personal choice for the best film of the year was something that wasn’t even nominated for anything. If you want to be convinced that the Academy’s choices for nominees wasn’t very good in many cases, look at the early years. Often most of the films nominated in the early years have been almost completely forgotten, even by people who are experts on movies in general.
In fact, Sunrise won the very first Best Picture…along with Wings. They awarded two of those the first Academy Awards and retconned the whole thing to make Wings the sole winner.
Outstanding Picture - Wings
Best Unique and Artistic Picture - Sunrise