Well, it was filmed before the Space Shuttle entered service, but I don’t remember any such scene with another spacecraft, either.
As i recall, there’s a scene taken from the basket of a hot-air ballon, over a river, which suddenly opens up to a huge waterfall. When the bottom fell out of the scene, the sensation of height was amazing.
I found the clip, but can’t find where it was shown. I bet watching this on your 55 inch smart TV while sitting waaaay up close would be a riot. I’ll let you know.
If they make watch It’s a Wonderful Life, they have to watch Violent Night. Same heartwarming message of redemption, forgiveness, family harmony - wrapped up in blood splatter, dead bodies, and wall melting profanity.
To silenus.
Yes, that scene is in the movie.
Ah, yes. I think a scene with those might have been in one of the IMAX movies about either the Space Shuttle or the International Space Station.
A surprise dud. I Like Movies. 100% at RT with 26 reviews. 7.0 at IMDb.
A high school senior with problems, real problems, gets a job at something called a “video store”. Whatever that is. (Or was, 20+ years ago.)
The kid is not just socially awkward or anything “simple” like that. He is completely self-centered with a very high view of himself that is shocking. (But see below.)
.
He creates major problems for his mother, friend, boss, etc.
Very difficult to watch. Just scene after scene of him being awful to people while being completely unware of his own faults.
I know such people exist. I know one such person who at that age “knew” they were going to succeed at something in life they weren’t very good at with no plan B at all. Yeah, it hasn’t gone well for them. At all.
But, this is a movie so of course: The kid Learns an Important Life Lesson and goes off to college a Totally Changed Person. Right. Completely unrealistic.
I have no idea what those critics saw in this movie. Give it 1 Steel Magnolias.
I came here to mention Blackberry. It had a special interest to me since the epicenter of the development and the rise and fall of this uniquely Canadian phenomenon was not far from here. I thought the movie was well done, and didn’t realize the above-mentioned chronological faults. I also had not been aware of the amount of home-brewed Canadian assholery at the company. Apparently Jim Balsillie, despite his record of philanthropy, is quite the arrogant piece of work. My only criticism is that I thought some of the acting was a bit manic, but that may just be my perception.
Another one that was surprisingly engrossing was Reality, about the FBI interview and arrest of Reality Winner, charged under the Espionage Act with leaking a classified document to a media outlet. It continues to uphold HBO’s reputation for quality productions. It’s especially relevant in the current political climate.
Some recent films:
Sanctuary. A well acted two-person psycho-sexual drama that plays out in a single evening in a high end hotel suite between a dominatrix and her “client” Lots of twists and turns as revelations are the theme. On reflection it is sort of the mirror image of Secretary (2002). See it for the performances.
Mending the Line. Characters with PTSD are redeemed through…fly fishing (really). A pretty much by the numbers drama we’ve all seen before (and isn’t it sad that we live in a nation that sends soldiers into situations creating large numbers of PTSD cases so periodically, that the regular appearance of such films is never “dated”). Some very good performances from the leads (including Brian Cox) and some spectacular scenery, but not much else to recommend it.
The Night of the 12th. A two hour L&O episode filtered through a French lens with a (almost predictable) European ending. It is engaging and I wouldn’t recommend against seeing it, but it’s no Parallel Mothers (for example).
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. A good Transformers movie, which doesn’t necessarily imply it is actually a good movie, just that it is better than the usual incoherent dreck that this franchise produces.
A classic fly fishing movie is A River Runs Through It:
I remember liking it.
Across the Spiderverse. A++++
The art direction, the animation, the writing, the dialogue, the voice acting, the soundtrack, the humor, the pathos, everything was perfect. The art style itself is magical, it’s like watching a comic book come to life.
My husband is usually critical of films, especially superhero films, but he walked out of that one saying, “I just don’t have any notes.”
I honestly can’t think of a single thing they could have done better. Didn’t even mind the massive cliffhanger ending.
I’ve seen some pretty good films this year, but this one is definitely my favorite. The first one is great too.
Chevalier
Le sigh. A biopic of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, has been long overdue - the man was a ridiculously accomplished composer, violinist, swordsman and (by all accounts) lover, and, for a mixed-race man in 18thC France, cut a mighty swath through upper society. And I had long hoped that the French would make the film, on the basis that Hollywood would make some cheap, flashy and only vaguely-connected to reality version of his life.
Well, Hollywood made the film, and it is indeed cheap, flashy and only vaguely-connected to reality, starting from the beginning with an entirely fictitious violin duel with Mozart (who never actually met Saint-Georges because Mozart was being a petty little bitch about Saint-Georges’ fame and success and refused to meet with him when in Paris). The film isn’t even based on Saint-Georges’ life; it only manages to achieve the level of “inspired by”. And while it does occasionally dip into reality (the letter from the Paris Opera divas is real and pretty much verbatim in the film), viewers unfamiliar with the real man are unlikely to come away enlightened.
That said, the couple next to us knew nothing about him beforehand and said they loved the film, so ignorance may be bliss in this instance.
Watched Arctic (2018) on Netflix. I checked Rotten Tomatoes, where it had a 90% Fresh rating — but most of the listed grades were 3.5 stars out of five.
There’s only one substantial character, played by Mads Mikkelsen, and that character is entirely likable. His plane has crashed, and he does all the right things in an intelligent and sympathetic manner. But ultimately there are not enough surprises, and not enough happens.
Dirty Pretty Things (2013, Prime) About the seedy underbelly of London and what illegal immigrants must do to stay hidden in the shadows. I liked it, Chiwetel Ejiofor is a fantastic actor and I’ll watch whatever he is in.
This particular film draws you into the characters lives, you’ll like them, so it’s going to suck for you when they have a tough time of it. Requiem for a Dream was similar in this in that regard. If you liked this you’ll like Message from the King (2016, Netflix).
Everything Everywhere All at Once (Red Box, 2023) Essentially a Crazy Rich Asians and Rick & Morty mashup. It was alright, if confusing on purpose. I would recommend it in a ‘foreign sleeper hit of the year’ way except that everyone already knows about it. I have to watch it again to make sense of it, but I am not sure I can be bothered. I advise you all to watch it, but don’t pay for it.
Mafia Mamma (2023, Red Box) Absolutely a chick flick top to bottom, but no potty humor so I guess meant for mature women. My wife enjoyed it, and I thought it was pretty good. It’s by the numbers so much of it was predictable, but the dialogue and pacing kept it moving. I would recommend this for a Girl’s Night In or couples film for dudes who want to do something nice for the women in their life.
Watched Barbarian and Creed 3 over the weekend. Barbarian was great, and I don’t like horror. Definitely best watched without knowing anything about it. I was pretty disappointed in Creed 3. It felt incredibly contrived to me.
Damn, I had had some tentative hopes for that picture, based on good things I heard about the historical conscientiousness exhibited by the costume creators. Maybe I’ll just wait till it comes to streaming and watch with the sound off.
There certainly wasn’t much historical conscientiousness with regard to the presentation of the music - the instruments were wrong, the performances were wrong, the cadenzas were wrong, and basically a vast amount of it was off by at least half a century if not more. Also, the lipsyncing wasn’t great.
But it looks nice. And I would recommend to everyone to check out his actual music.
Pity. Missed Opportunity City, sounds like.
Indeed.
I’m also waiting for a Robert Smalls biopic. I keep hearing there is at least one in the works but who knows.
Cooooool. Captain Robert Smalls was the subject of my first-ever school research paper (with a BIBLIOGRAPHY, and CITATIONS 
), and I would love to see his story brought to life!
Unfortunately, it seems more and more common nowadays for screenwriters not even to bother attempting period-appropriate dialogue. Whether they’re convinced that modern audiences can’t understand the older communication styles, or whether they themselves just haven’t bothered to read enough historical writing to develop an ear for older styles, they seem to have mostly given up on trying to represent contemporary language in their characters’ speech.
I don’t want to hear 18th- or 19th-century characters talking like 21st-century people with occasional bursts of pseudo-period pomposity. I want a writer to put in the effort to learn how people—or at least fictional characters—of that time actually spoke, and to write plausible dialogue for people in that era. Such effort seems to be getting rarer and rarer, though.