I don’t think he meant anything except for a hypothetical revenge fantasy. Like… what if this could’ve happened instead? Wouldn’t that be… more fun?
Was home sick for a couple of days and got Airport and Earthquake watched. At least, I think I watched them. I may have been in and out a little. I found Airport superior.
I saw Ad Astra today. I was not impressed.
The plot line is basically Apocalypse Now (or Heart of Darkness) with the addition of a troubled relationship between a son and his father.
The science was questionable and there were some scene that the movie seemed to take seriously but just looked silly (Moon pirates! Monkey attacks! Jumping through asteroids! Nuclear explosions!).
The heart of the movie was supposed to be a psychological study of the protagonist - and it didn’t work. The story itself failed to develop his character fully or depict the resolution of his problems realistically. They tried to paper over this lack with a lot of expository narration.
Surely you jest.
MotW: Adopt a Highway. [Caution: Again IMDb plus the artwork gives away too much, IMHO.]
Ethan Hawke is released from prison after serving a very long time. Lots of troubles adjusting to life outside (think of all the tech that’s changed in 20 years).
A major event happens that disrupts things for him. And then the aftereffects of that take up a good chunk of the film.
Hawke plays a person who seems slow/puzzled a lot/whatever. So a really scaled back performance. It would seem like bad acting except, shoot, it’s Ethan Hawke. This is a decision not a lack of skill.
Elaine Hendrix plays the obligatory messed up woman. (Wow, that Parent Trap remake was over 20 years ago. And she was on Doogie!)
Once you see/know what the key plot point is, you know there’s two obvious ways it can continue from there. But a sort of alternate, not completely obvious thing happens and that’s welcome.
It has an “almost interesting” ending. I wish they’d dropped the “almost”.
Give it 3.5 walruses.
I saw Knives Out at an early screening yesterday, although it doesn’t premiere until this weekend. I recommend it. It’s really good and funny.
Klaus, an animated film about the origins of Santa Claus, is a lot of fun. It’s kind of a Shakespeare In Love* approach to a lot of the Christmas traditions and myths, not to be taken seriously, but it’s completely delightful and I definitely recommend it, maybe best watched closer to Xmas day. It does have a bit of formulaic forced drama in it that felt like a studio note, but everything else is amazing, in particular voice performances and the creative blend of 2D and 3D animation.
*Shakespeare In Love may be too dated a reference for contemporary audiences to recognise, now that I think about it
I saw A Streetcar Named Desire, with Vivien Leigh and Marlon Brando. I’ve always wanted to see this classic film, but I must say I was disappointed. Lunatic moves in with trash, predictably, tragedy ensues. If you enjoyed They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? maybe this film is for you. I admit it held my interest, but having seen it, I never need to see it again.
With a DVR, I normally FF thru ads. But I watch the ones for this due to the cast.
Good to hear.
Just saw End of Watch with Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena. Very well done, very violent, very tense. Too much shaky cam, though.
The Irishman - and it sucked so bad, just like most of Scorsese’s movies.
They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? is in my Top 5, Brando is my favorite actor ever, and I like this movie a lot.
This is my shocked face.
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Fairly nice thing except …
-
Many segments just dragged. E.g., the chat with the child actress actor. And the visit to Spahn ranch. A good 40 minutes could have been cut from the film. The Hateful Eight also had this problem.
-
Leonardo DiCaprio. Never understood what people see in him. Terrible in … Gilbert Grape. Terrible now. Absolutely the wrong choice for the role.
OTOH, the ending was really fun.
Give it 3 1959 Ford Galaxies. (Our family actually owned one of those in the same paint scheme.)
MotW: Marriage Story.
Adam Driver and Scarlett Johansson are a couple going splitsville with a kid involved to make it more “fun”. He’s a stage director. She’s the star of his theater company.
Laura Dern, Ray Liotta, and Alan Alda play lawyers of 3 different ilks.
Wallace Shawn plays a great foul-mouthed actor in the company.
The evilness and weird worldview of lawyers are on display here.
One nice touch: Driver sings a torch song very well at one point. (Cf. Inside Llewyn Davis.)
One “that wouldn’t happen” issue: Johansson trivially wins having the divorce be in CA despite them living in NY for 10 years. No hard nose lawyer would let that happen so easily.
At times tough to watch but worth it in the end.
Give it 4 sofas.
Watched Killers on Prime.
Basically, I watched because Katherine Heigl is eye candy.
But it was bad. I mean really, really bad. Mostly because the premise was soooo far-fetched that we simply could not suspend our disbelief.
Katherine meets, falls in love with, and marries Ashton Kutcher. Ashton, upon meeting her, gives up his job as an assassin .
They live happily in suburbia until his boss reaches out to him, then…
His employee and best friend tried to kill him. See, this guy was a ‘sleeper’ assassin who was just pretending to be a friend and employee on the off-chance that some mystery big wig would activate a contract on Kutcher worth 20 million dollars. OK, we’ll play along. But then his OTHER friend and employee is also a ‘sleeper’ assassin, as is HER best friend, their neighbors, the Fedex guy…basically everyone they know…have all been just waiting for 3 whole years. Oh, and they guy who was keeping them there, sleeping…was HER father. 
:smack::smack::smack::smack:
Some recent notable watches (on the big screen, as always):
** Mickey and the Bear**
A coming of age movie starring Leo DiCaprio’s 20-something model-turned-actress girlfriend! What could be better? Actually…not much. A terrific performance by Camila Morrone anchors this well written film. It doesn’t quite rise to my “best of the year” list, but it is surprisingly watchable with good performances all the way around and a few narrative choices that take it just outside the “talented girls struggling to escape grinding poverty in a small town” cliches.
The Aeronauts
A fun watch! A mashup of stories from the earliest days of ballooning and a truish story of the early days of the science of meteorology, it pulls you in and, thanks to the two engaging central performances (Felicity Jones and Eddie Redmayne), never slacks off. This is good, since the bulk of the film is two people in a balloon. It nicely subverts the “manly scientist saves the day” trope and pays tribute to some of the (not very well known) women adventurers of the 19th century.
63 Up
I missed the Friday showing, which included a Q&A with the director, but this documentary series is well worth a viewing on its own. Quite possibly the last of a 9 film series started in 1964 (the director, Michael Apted, is in his late 70’s), it has grown to be more than an illustration of the original point, “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” and has become a chronicle of a cross section of individuals subjected to public scrutiny every seven years. Certainly one of the best documentaries of the year. For those new to the series, there are enough flashbacks to catch you up without watching the previous 8 films.
Ad Astra
Didn’t enjoy it, mostly because of the pacing. A lot of it is slow 2001-style shots with maudlin narration, and I found myself napping several times. In a good way…a very tranquil sleep…but still.
Then there’s a scene with a bunch of people dying that happened so fast I didn’t follow what happened.
As mentioned upthread, the science is not quite as accurate as may be implied by the “hard science” moniker, but that didn’t bother me as it still compared favorably to most modern sci fi in that respect.
The Irishman
Also mixed feelings.
The stellar cast are on top form and it’s really a joy just watching and listening to them, and how they play off each other. The period environments (60s, 70s) were all fantastic. The 3 1/2 hours did not seem long at all (no napping :)).
OTOH, the story never really grabbed me. A bunch of folk vying for power via assassinations. That’s the beginning, middle and end of it. It doesn’t feel like it had much structure over that.
The dialogue is some of the best I’ve heard in recent years: natural, witty and believable, and yet…it still lacks something in terms of making sense of the actual events.
Maybe I need a second viewing, but right now, mixed feelings, as I say.
I don’t think he does, and don’t call him Shirley.
My latest five:
The Manchurian Candidate
Classic paranoid Cold War political thriller. Despite a laughably-fake fight scene (Frank Sinatra is no Bruce Lee), still worth a look.
Sanjuro
Not-as-good sequel to Kurosawa’s terrific Yojimbo, about an 1860s ronin who gets drawn into small-town corruption, politics and street-fighting more or less unwillingly.
First Love
Ultraviolent, darkly sometimes-funny crime thriller about the contemporary Japanese underworld and drug trade. Very uneven. All in all, I’d say skip it.
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood
Heartwarming film about Fred Rogers (very convincingly played by Tom Hanks) and his abiding commitment to goodness and kindness, which over time breaks through the shell of an emotionally-wounded writer working on a magazine profile of him. Chris Cooper is excellent as the writer’s dad. One of the best new movies I’ve seen.
The Winter’s Tale
A film of a British stage production of Shakespeare’s play, with Kenneth Branagh as a jealous king and Dame Judi Dench as an elderly queen, perhaps his mother (a noblewoman in the original play). Great acting, beautiful cinematography and a genuinely touching final scene, even knowing, as I did, how it would end.
Please remember there is one movie called “The Killers” (1946) which, IMO, is one of the very best “film noir” movies ever made. So many people seem to think that “Out of the Past” is the best of the “film noir” genre. But IMO, The Killers is a much better film.
The film referred to by Typo Negative is “Killers”. But despite the similar name, it is a very different film.