Always Amazing - a documentary detailing the life and times of comedian The Amazing Jonathan. Directed by comedian Steve Byrne, his first directorial effort, it is very well done. Many details of his life are made clear in a well paced effort. His relationship with his mentee Australian comedian Joel Ozborn, whom he met when Ozborn was 12, is one of the most touching things you’ll ever see in a documentary.
I recommend it, especially since you can see if for free on YouTube - by design. It’s not there as a bootleg or anything, the producers essentially gave it away to YouTube so it would be seen. So see it.
MotW is Funny Story with nobody I know of. (Warning: The IMDb page contains spoilers. Don’t click on this link if you want to avoid them.)
An actor who once starred in a SciFi Fantasy TV show is going to spend a weekend near Big Sur with his grown daughter that he has a complicated relationship with. Along the way he picks up the daughter’s friend in LA so it sort of starts with a road trip. Movie ensues.
This is just a good movie in most respects. The acting is surprisingly good. Esp. Emily Bett Rickards (from the DC TV universe) as the friend.
I guess I’ve seen the lead guy, Matthew Glave, in several things. But never doing a standout thing like this before. Reginald VelJohnson has a blink-and-you’ll-miss-him bit.
Whoever picked the songs for this needs to be charge of selecting music for all TV shows and movies. Although Pachelbel’s Canon turns up, as usual.
There are a couple of “people should not do this” scenes that are uncomfortable but they are at the core of the movie and are musts.
During the road trip, they stay overnight in Solvang, CA which you will remember (right?) was a location visited in Paddleton I reviewed [del]a few[/del], [del]many[/del], several months ago. That blasted fake windmill is getting famous.
Generally rave reviews at RT. It seems that several of the negative critics expected the “funny” to mean purely “haha”. But it’s more than that.
A documentary featuring Steve Young, long time writer for Letterman. He was in charge of rounding up the music for the “Dave’s Music Collection” bit. Stuff like Shatner singing, stereo test records, etc. But he started coming upon albums of music for corporate shows. Put on for the benefit of sales folk, distributers, etc. Some of them quite complex with Broadway quality music and production. Some cost millions of dollars to put back in the 60s.
And wow, these are just … weird. Ballads to bathrooms and tractors.
Young’s journey is interesting. Starting from making fun of them to being in love with them to obsession.
Has appearances by performers and writers, fellow collectors, etc.
Shows nice things like his last days on the Late Show. What do you do if you haven’t had to search for work in 25 years?
A good source of trivia like “Name a film that has Florence Henderson and Jello Biafra in it.”
One odd thing: Near the end Young “discovers” that there are still a few industrial musicals being made. Why didn’t he know this all along?
Maiden
A documentary about the voyage of the first all-female crewed ship to compete in the Whitbread Round the World Race (6 legs totaling more than 30,000 nmi). Less a tale of feminism than of desperation on the part of sailors with the passion, will, and skill to participate in this grueling contest, but arbitrarily excluded from competing as part of any “regular” crew strictly based on their gender (the journalists covering the race bet that they wouldn’t even make out of sight of land).
Despite that frankly heroic nature of what these women did (particularly the skipper), the documentary manages to portray the individuals in a warts and all fashion, with the deep character strengths and flaws.
If this documentary were turned into a dramatic sports movie, it would probably be panned as unrealistic and cliched, with an ending that could only be described as “over the top and unrealistic”. (if you want to be spoiled, Wikipedia has what you want)
On my absolutely recommended list (which is up to 10 half way through the year). It’s going to be on the lists of the year’s best documentaries going into Oscar season, so see it now and save time.
Just saw the new Spider-Man: Far From Home. I’m sure someone will start a proper spoiler thread once it’s out in the US, but until then:
It’s fantastic fun. Really thrilling, a lot of laughs, a lot of clever twists, and the secondary characters get a great showing too. Angourie Rice, Martin Starr, JB Smoove, and Jacob Batalon are brilliant, as well as top work from the big names, Jon Favreau and Marisa Tomei in particular.
Also there is a surprise character addition I did not see coming.
No spoilers, but stay till the end, the post-credits clips are potentially important.
A Hasidic cantor (Géza Röhrig) is worried about what happens to his late wife after her death. And not in the spiritual sense. This leads him to a local CC Biology teacher played by Matthew Broderick. Rotten stuff ensues. (Some scenes are not at all for the squeamish.)
A bit of comedy, a bit of drama, a whole lot of stupid stuff.
It’s interesting to consider Broderick’s character and acting. The guy mispronounces everything. Is this harder to do than regular acting? If he blows a line by mangling a word, do they just let it go? Does pronouncing something right mean a retake?
Basically a two person movie. Both actors are better than this. If you want to see Broderick as a teacher, watch Election instead. Son of Saul for the other guy.
Yesterday. I like Richard Curtis’ work (Four Weddings & a Funeral, Love Actually) and I like The Beatles, so I had high expectations for this. And I wasn’t disappointed. Loved it.
Ralph Breaks the Internet. I’m not a big fan of sequels in general. Sometimes you get a winner, but for the most part they smack me as afterthought cash grabs and this one smacked me around but good. It was funny and I suppose the plot made a bit of sense, but I really didn’t see how they were going to do THE INTERNET justice as the did to old school video games in the first movie. And they didn’t. It was just a very PG-13 version of an analogous internet. The first thing I thought of was how they were going to address porn. They just didn’t. I mean, it’d be like making a movie about a retirement home and not mentioning death.
I understand that it was geared to a younger audience so I wasn’t expecting to see choke-porn over in the corner or anything, but I just couldn’t get myself to buy into it enough to enjoy it when even the spam was represented by just a funny guy who actually does help you make money after all.
Chuckle worthy, probably better lines than the first one, but serving a boring story, if you ask me.
One of my favorite movies of the 2000s! I think Cooper should’ve at least been nominated for an Oscar, as his character goes very convincingly from writer schlub to Wall Street genius to junkie in withdrawal to US Senate candidate. Here’s the SDMB thread on the movie: Limitless film (spoilers after OP) - Cafe Society - Straight Dope Message Board
Captain Marvel
A U.S. Air Force pilot becomes a superheroine after being trained and empowered by aliens with an agenda of their own. Pretty good if not great MCU flick.
Avengers: Endgame
A fitting conclusion (or is it?) to the MCU series, with some nice character moments, occasional laughs and great action sequences.
An American in Paris
Classic, bouncy, color-saturated musical from the early Fifties. A wide-ranging Gershwin score, beautiful Paris setting and Gene Kelly as the star - all terrific.
Toy Story 4
I would just as soon they’d stopped at a trilogy, I have to admit, but this is still a worthy addition to the Pixar collection. Fun, funny and bittersweet, with a gazillion Easter eggs hidden in the antiques-shop scenes (IMDB has a good list of them). Great to see Woody, Buzz, Bo Peep and the others one more time.
Hostiles
Christian Bale is outstanding as a worn-down US Cavalry officer assigned in 1892 to escort a former Indian foe (the always-good Wes Studi) to his Montana homelands to die. A fine recent Western.
I started to watch Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but I kept drowsing (long day at work) so I lost the thread. I’m eager to catch up. In the meantime, I’d forgotten that back on Father’s Day I went to the movies with my kids and we saw Dark Phoenix. It was horrible. There’s a reason I’d forgotten about it. I seriously can’t remember the plot. Something about Jean Grey gets blasted by some gooey space-jizz and becomes really powerful and then some stuff happens. She’s mean and then she’s nice again and then the movie ends. It was a waste of time and potentially one of the portents of the death of the superhero genre. If we’re lucky.
MotW: Dirty God. (Warning: Again the IMDb page has spoilers.)
A woman is released from hospital after suffering a horrific injury. She then tries to put her life somewhat back together. There’s her daughter, her problematic mother, a friend and her friend’s boyfriend, a new friend from work, etc.
A classic tale of a person who innately knows how to make bad decisions.
Note that it drifts at time into the issue of a young, disfigured, woman trying to get fulfilled in the sex department. Some hard-R stuff.
So, pretty much a downer but there’s some interesting aspects to it. In particular, the star Vicky Knight has only this credit on IMDb. (The rest barely have any either.) Here’s the reason:
She was horribly burned at age 8. That’s not makeup.
I’d say her performance is worthy of award consideration.
When Long Shot was coming out and I saw that it had Seth Rogen and Charlize Theron as a pairing I thought: “This is going to suck.”
But the reviews are quite positive. Many of them basically raves.
So … gave it a chance. And it is in fact a really nice movie.
Classify it as a romance but I wouldn’t call it a rom-com. It does have some comedy in it but also some drama. The focus is the romance.
Great cast. (Bob Odenkirk as the President. Andy Serkis as a slimeball billionaire. Alexander Skarsgård as the weirdest Canadian PM ever.) Reasonable story arc. Good dialogue. An a remarkably eclectic soundtrack: Blondie, Moon River, Mozart, Boyz II Men (in person), The Crystals, Big Boi, etc.
There is one major unforgivable sin, however: June Diane Raphael with dark hair. Nooooo!
Purple Noon - 7.5/10
Le Cercle Rouge - 8/10
Two Men In Town - 8/10
Lola - 7.5/10
Hiroshima Mon Amour - 7/10
Lo Chiameremo Andrea - 6/10
The Battle of Algiers - 10/10
Gas Food Lodging - 6/10
The Killer Elite - 5.5/10
Written On The Wind - 7.5/10
Charlie Bubbles - 6.5/10
Viridiana - 7/10
Room For Rent - 7.5/10
Opening Night - 8/10
Christiane F. - 6/10
The Fire Within - 7.5/10
O Lucky Man! - 6/10
Los Olvidados - 7.5/10
Festen - 7/10
Capernaum - 8/10
Shoplifters - 7.5/10
A Wedding - 7.5/10
The Furies - 7/10
Giudizio Universale 7/10