In the words of Tim Blake Nelson, I agree with you fellers. Just saw Drive Away Dolls and it was a lot of fun but definitely not something to be taken seriously. And the use of Damon, Pascal and an uncredited Miley Cyrus just seemed…superfluous.
Also, it’s very lesbian. I’m just telling you this in case you’re under the impression it isn’t. It is. I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, but if you think this is just a standard road trip movie, it’s not really.
One Life (2023). A beautiful, powerful, and largely understated film chronicling the true story of Nicholas Winton, a London stockbroker who in 1939 organized the evacuation of hundreds of children from Prague on the eve of the Nazi invasion. The movie effectively rotates through three scenarios, the events of the rescue itself, the struggle with British bureaucracy to get visas, foster homes, and funding for the children, and modern-day events in the aftermath.
In the contemporary scenes, Winton is superbly portrayed by Anthony Hopkins. In the end, Winton had saved 669 children. The number would have been much higher but the Nazis intervened, pulling everyone off the last train just as it was about to leave Prague. Winton was modest about his legacy but when the story came out many years later he was celebrated as a hero. Many of those children and their descendants were able to meet him and stayed in contact with him. Winton was knighted by Queen Elizabeth and received the Czech Republic’s highest honour. He died in 2015 at the age of 106.
Watched Sausage Party again yesterday. Such a great movie. Anthropomorphized food has always bothered me, and this movie demonstrates exactly why. When you think about it and draw it out to its logical end, it gets quite disturbing very quickly (which was exactly the reasoning behind them making it).
Paris, Texas (1984), starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, and Nastassja Kinski.
Directed by Wim Wenders, this is a perennial arthouse-cinema favorite. Parts of it ring false, such as the main character’s initial psychological withdrawal (at one point, he asks, “Is four years a long time?” as if he has no clue). But the story becomes more compelling as it progresses and takes a few turns that might surprise those of us raised on Hollywood plots.
What really stands out in this film is the cinematography. The landscapes and highways of Texas and the Southwest, vividly lit, seem to pop off the screen.
Babylon (2022)
What a mess! It starts out with the interesting premise that all of the bullshit Kenneth Anger wrote about old Hollywood actually happened. We get some interesting, over the top characters played by excellent actors. And then…no story and almost zero interaction between those characters. Things inevitably go badly for these characters and when it does…who cares?
Marlow 2022 Liam Neeson
I watched it primarily because Liam is the main character.
It’s a period piece in the film noir style. Classic story of depravity and corruption within the rich and famous. Marlow is the ex cop who recently got fired and lost a pension. He is hired to find a rich heiress’ lover. It’s updated with the inclusion of the Mexican cartels and drugs.
The story is a bit of a mess. They seemed to rely heavily on the period costumes and atmosphere. It starts slowly and gets better towards the end.
Colm Meaney from Deep Space Nine has a small part as a Police Detective. He’s heavier and I only recognized him by his voice.
I was a bit surprised to see Jessica Lange playing a older woman. (mother of the heiress) I hadn’t thought of her since King Kong in the 1970’s. I didn’t realize she was still working.
C+
I’d mildly recommend the movie. Liam’s strong acting makes it watchable.
Long Shot (2019)
Presidential candidate Charlize Theron falls for speech writer Seth Rogen, complicating both their lives.
Much better than I expected. Rogen plays a more substantial character than usual, and believe it or not, there’s some real chemistry between the two.
Though it hits a lot of typical romcom beats, it’s not as formulaic as most of the genre. There are some pretty good laughs and a few actually emotional moments.
A pleasant surprise for wife’s choice Sunday afternoon Netflix.
I remember having a similar reaction to that when it came out at the cinema. Definitely well worth watching; a bit like Game Night, I had low expectations, but they were easily exceeded.
If you get a chance, I recommend the Feud: Bette and Joan TV series from 2017. Lange plays Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon plays Bette Davis. It’s an absolute tour de force by both.
@Gyrate I’ll check out Feud. I appreciate the recommendation. I’ve heard about the bad blood between Crawford and Davis. It lasted decades.
Jessica plays a similar older and highly respected actresses in Marlow. The writers should have given her more lines to work with.
Liam Neeson is about this film’s only redeeming value. They got the film noir-ish trappings pretty much right. (The vintage cars were nice.) But some of the acting from those playing the lesser characters was pretty awful. I began to wonder if the director thought he was directing a parody and told everyone to go over the top in their affectations.
Batman and Robin
Wow, was this a hot mess. It’s a bit of a throwback design wise, evoking the classic comic book look, and a bit of the Adam West TV show, but in a big budget movie. This mix doesn’t work. The action scenes are weirdly slow moving, like the TV show, but without the big POW and BLAM, though we did get a couple of slide whistle sound effects…
Clooney is actually good as Batman (though he apparently disagrees), O’Donnell is fine as Robin, Uma is good as Poison Ivy, Arnold would have been good as Mr. Freeze if he wasn’t wearing a million dollar suit of armor that prevented him from moving. There’s a scene where he catches his freeze gun, and it’s clear Arnold can barely move his arms to catch the thing, it’s obvious that he doesn’t actually catch the gun, it just falls in his arms and you cut to another view.
There are other obviously broken scenes that had me saying “wait, what?” Like a shot of Robin “drowning” that was 2 seconds of him exiting the water followed by 2 seconds of that same shot run in reverse. Home video quality editing. All 3 Bat characters also did a complete costume change while driving from one location to another. Um, weren’t they wearing different super suits when they started this trip?
The less said about Bane the better. Kid Cheesesteak proclaimed “They did him dirty in this movie” and he was right.
Filled with possibilities and capable actors, destroyed by a bizarre production concept and directorial choices.
The woman has two Academy Awards for acting!
I somehow lost track of Jessica Lang. I may have seen her in something else and didn’t make the connection. We didn’t have imdb to check credits 30 plus years ago.
I’m glad Marlow is free on Prime. I wouldn’t pay to see it.
Back to the Future III (1990, Peacock) The return to this childhood classic BTTF odyssey continues for my family and I. Looking back you could tell it was essentially a double feature and was filmed along with BTTF2 and on a budget at that. Still, all these years later it holds up and was fun to watch. My children enjoyed it.
You kept my 13 year old daughter engaged, Robert Zemeckis, that is no small feat.
One of the worst studio movies of the 1990’s. The director also apologized. It went out of control.
I watched Teen Wolf a couple nights ago. It still holds up pretty well. Michael J Fox made a string of good movies in a fairly short time.
The production of Back to the Future was problematic. They had to reshoot some of it after Fox replaced Eric Stolz. Christopher Lloyd said in an interview that his frenzied role was already challenging. He said having to recreate some scenes with Michael was daunting.
It’s amazing that the film turned out to be a classic. I wish II and III had turned out better.
Poor Things on Hulu. Well, this one’s been discussed extensively elsewhere, and I don’t have much to say that hasn’t already been said, but the missus and I both liked it. Not giving it enthusiastic raves, but overall, a favorable reaction.
Dead Man on the Criterion Channel. Jim Jarmusch directs Johnny Depp in a film often labeled as an “acid western.” I’m not sure I can describe it to my own satisfaction without writing a lot more than I want to write, but I quite like it. No contest, the best of the three I’m mentioning here. Shot in black and white, with music by Neil Young improvising all by himself while watching the movie.
Permanent Vacation on the Criterion Channel. Jarmusch’s first feature film, shot on a budget that amounted to little more than lunch money, and it very much looks, sounds, and feels like it. The movie follows the main character as he wanders around New York encountering various people. Not really recommended unless you’re interested specifically in seeing what a young filmmaker with more enthusiasm than resources can come up with.
Late to the party as usual, but finally watched Oppenheimer and haven’t nothing much more to say that hasn’t already been said, leaving me little opening as an Oppenheimer wisenheimer.
Oppenheimer Agonistes is already an established cinema sub-genre, and this wasn’t really the best of that. Dave d Strathairn did it better: doing the actor’s “interior work” of a character under pressure, self-conflicted, and frankly, reaching beyond his grasp. But this movie gave us a pseudocomplex nervy man, set in the typical mid-20th C. of big wool suits and big metal cars. Emily Blunt serves as Greek Chorus but not as all a character in her own right, despite getting to show her displeasure at being mistreated (I guess that’s progress)
Robert Downey (whose dad died in 2021, so the “Jr.” may remain as a homage but not as normal convention), was the best part of the story. There was a sweet spot in US history between the Civil War and WWII when Washington was just the right size for an interning mix of personalities and issues to come into conflict with potential for great drama, and Lewis Strauss was among them. A better movie could have been made there, with J. Robert O. as just one of many sacrificial lambs.
But Christopher Nolan’s Oppeheimer works best for the audience who accepts 1. Japan was “already defeated,” so a-boming them was wrong, 2. The US’ development of nuclear weapons “fueled” the USSR to do so as well. Better Oppenheimer movies allowed for the other side of the argument, and the best ones show that for either viewpoint the dangerous fallacy was unreasoning ego getting its hands on advanced weapons technology.
We watched The Eras tour, or rather had it on in the background when we were exercising over several sessions.
I am not a Taylor Swift fan, but not opposed, quite serviceable pop music. Visually impressive, many costume changes , and even if you don’t like her, it would be churlish not to be impressed by the range of her talents . God knows how she did multiple 3 hr shows and still have a voice left.