Re-watched all three John Wick movies and found them more entertaining the second time through. Keanu Reeves really can’t act, though. Luckily, he doesn’t have a lot of dialog in these.
I never knew that!
Anatomy of a Fall (2023). I was blown away by this Best Picture nominee from France. A woman’s husband falls to his death from an upper story of their chalet in the French mountains, and she is indicted for his murder.
This is a masterful and exquisitely crafted film that could be described as a tense courtroom drama, although much less than half of it actually takes place in a courtroom. It’s noteworthy for the truly astonishing performances by all, even the young kid Daniel (played by Milo Machado Graner). In fact I’m not joking (nor do I think it gives away any spoilers) when I say that even the dog Snoop lives up to the high standards of the cast! The tremendously good acting is all the more remarkable considering that this French production has a roughly 50-50 mix of French and English dialog, and the principal actors are fluently bilingual.
Yet despite the stellar performances all around, one still manages to stand out: Sandra Hüller puts in the best performance of any actress in any film I’ve seen in at least the past several years. I immediately checked to see if she was a Best Actress Oscar nominee for this role, and needless to say, she is.
(Johnny Carson voice) I did not know that.
Nor that.
Nor this.
Thanks.
Too late to edit, but a quote from Sandra Hüller, who was Oscar-nominated for her role in this film:
There is also a dog in “Anatomy of a Fall,” a border collie named Snoop who is the companion of Daniel, the 11-year-old son of Hüller’s Sandra. And according to the actor, this dog – real name Messi – is a pro. “He’s a very trainable dog. And my dog doesn’t…she’s just there,” Huller briefly apologizes to her own dog. “I’m sorry, my darling – but she could never have been capable of doing those things.”
Sandra Huller on If Her 'Anatomy of a Fall' Character is Guilty
After listening to the audiobook Witness to Roswell 75th Anniversary Edition, I watched the 1994 Showtime movie Roswell, starring Kyle MacLachlan. The movie does a good job following the story of Jesse Marcel as he struggles with his memories of what happened in 1947. I think Oliver Stone could do a good JFK-ish remake with a bigger budget and higher production values.
Maggie Moore(s) on Netflix. A dramedy with Jon Hamm, Tina Fey, and a lot of actors I don’t remember seeing before, which I like. Directed by John Slattery (also from Mad Men). I liked this movie more that I probably should have, but it really is likeable. Fey dials down her usual smirky self, and Hamm is solid. But it’s the lesser-known cast members that really make the movie.
Watched Willard on Svengoolie last night. I suppose it was a horror movie, but I "awww"ed a lot more than I "eek"ed. The worst part to me was how Willard treated his friends. And only for a shot at Clint Eastwood’s girlfriend! I tell you, if I ever get a rat army, I’m gonna treat 'em right.
Back in high school, we used to watch trailer reels in our Motion Picture (English) class. I hadn’t seen Willard until just recently, but the trailer for it was really effective – you see Ernie Borgnine take a swing at Willard with a lamp (or some such), a big old rat drops square on Borgnine’s arm, quick cut to Willard hollering Tear Him Up, then Ernie starts pleading with Willard, then cut to the title card of a rat with the title underneath, meanwhile you hear Ernie screaming and screaming his head off, and my mind goes There, wondering what Borgnine is looking like right about now with numerous chunks torn from his body, covered in rats. ICK!
And now, I’m going to see if I can find the trailer on YouTube to see how much I got wrong.
Here it is! Fun!
Has anyone seen the more recent one with Crispin Glover? I have it on my potential watch list, but haven’t heard much about it.
The Last Days on Mars on Hulu, starring Liev Schreiber. Sort of engaging, but not really. Another tale of a science expedition encountering a hostile lifeform and trying to survive.
Man, I tried to watch this and actually quit halfway through.
I recall seeing at least part of it. I know Glover has a “Love or Hate” thing going on, but I find him pretty fascinating. He really can bring the creepy to a role. He was a highlight in an odious movie.
watched a movie with Chris Rock and Anthony Hopkins the other night
rock was an adopted hood rat and had an almost twin brother he didn’t know he had that worked for the CIA and was killed trying to buy a stolen nuke and Hopkins was the agent that had to recruit and train him …rock wasn’t annoying and actually funny and Hopkins was amusing in the dry British way
Of course, the action parts were entertainingly ridiculous …
Don’t blame you. I only finished because I was bored.
Watched Asteroid City today. I have mixed feelings.
Visually, I loved it. And there were some interesting ideas put forward.
But I felt the framing conceit worked against itself. Taking down the fourth wall at the outset (or, perhaps more accurately, never putting it up in the first place) made it difficult to connect with the characters, leaving much less emotional impact than there could have been.
Or maybe the actual characters were meant to be the actors playing the characters. In any case, whatever cleverness there is in the concept, it adds a layer that acts as a barrier between the audience and the story.
Robot Dreams. One of the five Oscar nominees for Best Animated Feature (I’ve now seen all five.) I really enjoyed this one, it’s a silent film set in 1980s NYC about a lonely dog who builds a robot to be his friend. It had some really touching moments (yes I had tears at one point) and a lot of heart and humor. I’d love for it to actually win the Oscar but I don’t think that will happen.
This one currently isn’t playing or streaming anywhere. I saw it at an animation festival, but the organizers did say Neon should be releasing it in theaters in the coming weeks/month. We were one of the few, if not the first, audience in NYC to see the film.
Nope. I almost started crying just reading that.
The long awaited sequel to Alienoid has hit the theaters!
OK, long awaited for the dozen or so people who saw it in 2022. 
Alienoid: Return To The Future- Just as wacky and convoluted as the first one. Sorcerer’s, aliens, humans possessed by aliens, martial arts, magic, divine weapons and a plot spanning centuries. What’s not to like? While there is a 5 minute “previously on” section at the start, I can’t recommend it to anyone who hasn’t seen the first part. However, to those Alienoid aficionados among us, I heartily recommend it. It manages to wrap up all the plot threads and all the character’s fates while maintaining the breakneck pace of the first film. It also has (IMHO) an almost perfect last line/scene.
I have finally seen all of the Best Picture nominees. The Zone of Interest is a harrowing Holocaust film without any gore or violence (on screen at least). To my mind it is an exploration not of mundane evil, but of casual evil and what it can lead to. Very much deserving of the nomination (though not my pick for Best Picture).
I’ve also seen a couple of rom/dram coms in the past couple of weeks. Both Which Brings Me To You and Sometimes I Think About Dying are nice pictures, though not rising to must see status.
I also caught The End We Start From and agree with the assessment above in this thread. I particularly liked that the characters behaved in very human ways, making mistakes yet persevering to the end.
I picked up two old movies yesterday and watched them.
The Stolen Airship – I though this might be one of those early silent films – the title sounds like one of them. It isn’t it’s Karel Zeman’s follow-up to The Weapon of Destruction/Fabulous World of Jules Verne, done in much the same style – it’s a combination of live action and animation intended to look like those old steelplate engravings that illustrated Verne’s works brought to life. This one is an original plot that mixes in elements of Verne’s Two Years Vacation with The Mysterious Island. If you haven’t heard of the former, it’s sort of as if Verne had written Lord of the Flies. Except, this being Verne, the boys don’t resort to primitivism and fetish worship, but are Resourceful Young Lads. Except that they’re the ones who steal the titular hydrogen-filled airship. On the island they eventually get to, they find Captain Nemo’s stronghold, and one encounters a superannuated Nemo and his still-functioning Nautilus. There’s also a lot of much weirder stuff. The film is in Czech with no subtitles. I think you can getr the full film on YouTube, possibly with subtitles. It has recently bee n restored. I had no iodea Zeman made this sequel, which is worth a look.
The other was Captain Sindbad, and MGM-Munich collaboration starring Guy Williams (playing different swashbuckler than Zorro) and Pedro Armandariz (Ali Kerim Bey from From Russia with Love, here playing a different character named “Kerim”. He apparently committed suicide the day before this film was released – he was suffering from terminal cancer.
If you can overlook that, it’s an entertaining enough film. Not a Harryhausen effects extravaganza, although it has many lesser effects. It also has nothing whatever to do with the Arabian Nights tale of Sindbad. (And, as I have pointed out before, even though most films make Sindbad a captain, in the stories he wasn’t even a sailor. He was a passenger on all his ships, and is only a “sailor” in that he travels by boat.)