Yes, we need a Celia Imrie Appreciation thread at some point. She’s in approximately everything, and reliably enjoyable to watch. As if that weren’t enough, she’s also an accomplished novelist, apparently.
Signed up for a free trial of AppleTV+ almost exclusively for The Gorge and Severance.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Gorge, though you have to turn your brain off at times. And you know the concept of suspension of disbelief? This movie crystalized for me that we need a similar term for Hollywood endings. You kind of just have to assume that Hollywood will tack on a dopey happy ending and you need to suspend your dissatisfaction with it.
Otherwise I thought it was a rollicking good time, though of course Sigourney Weaver deciding to tag along was the height of stupidity. But I suspended my dissatisfaction with that bit, too. Hollywood can’t help itself.
Still very excited for Severance…
Saw Thunderbolts* today. Enjoyed it a lot.
Which is a plot point that aged like milk, as the saying goes, since those weapons wound up arming the Taliban.
Ah, well…
The film was made in 2007. It was kind of the point.
Apple just dropped the trailer for a Denzel remake/update of Kurosawa’s High and Low.
He’s fully welcome by me to survey his choice of late-career Mifune roles instead of silly shit like Gladiator II.
See also: Rambo III, The Living Daylights.
But in CWW it is indeed a deliberate plot point (and based on reality).
Saw The Thunderbolts * today. I liked it as a movie okay, but I don’t love them as a team. My feelings are echoed (humorously) in the post-ending footage. Not to be confused with the mid- and post-credits scenes. The post-credit scene was the best since The Avengers, imo.
Yeah, I see that. But basically, he was just being Denzel rather than putting much effort into the role.
The Grudge (2004, English version)
Not recommended.
Dull. I like Sarah Michelle Gellar, but this movie is a dud. Not one real scare or thrill in it. I guess I commend them for including Japanese cast members and keeping some ties to the Japanese origins of the movie, but it’s a very slow and boring movie.
I was surprised. Did not enjoy.
Grimsby
Not recommended.
An unfunny comedy with Sascha Cohen, though I will admit…the “elephant scene” is kind of amazing and so over-the-top, I did laugh and wince. If you’ve seen the movie, you know what I mean. If not, just look up the elephant sequences from Grimsby and you will see the only thing in the movie that actually got a reaction from me.
The rest is a low-brow, unfunny, vulgar, and really unfunny comedy. I see what they were going for, but the jokes don’t land and the whole thing is just unfunny.
Spy with Melissa McCarthy hits some of the same points, but is much funnier.
I had already seen Conclave on an airplane flight over a month ago, but the sound was terrible, and I couldn’t get subtitles. My wife and daughter hadn’t seen it. And it’s free now because of recent events. We tried watching it a few days ago, but the system stopped working and they told us to try again later.
Last night was “later”.
Good film, all agreed. Surprising twists and turns. Hard to imagine Real Life being that convoluted, though.
The last pope named “Innocent” was Innocent the 13th, back inn the 17th-18th centuries. It took 75 ballots to get him elected.
I do find myself wondering how much of the Pope selection is a genuine prayerful process and how much of it is wheeling and dealing, so to speak.
I won’t spoil the Conclave movie, but I think the actually resolution would be insanely unlikely.
Really? How cool!
Slow Horses is really good, too.
I really enjoyed the film myself.
My husband and I are at odds over the ending. I’m oversimplifying our positions, but:
He posits that Cardinal Lawrence is only keeping quiet about Innocent because it would be a scandal if the real story got out.
I posit that Cardinal Lawrence realized Innocent was truly God’s chosen spiritual successor.
Naturally, I take the most naive view, and he is the skeptic.
Not mutually exclusive explanations, IMHO!
I would think both are true.
Me too. Mainly it is the right thing to do. Secondly…it’s the only thing to do to avoid cataclysm.
Warfare
Recommended.
This movie recreated a very tense battle that happened in 2006. 90 minutes of absolute stress and danger and we watch the Seal Team that was there dealing with it. I have no idea what the accuracy level is, but they relied only on the memories of the team members and the movie was co-directed by one of the soldiers. It’s about as accurate as I bet we’d get.
A movie like this shows me why I could never be a soldier. I’m just not brave or tough enough. I mean, I could rise to the occasion if drafted and forced in, but I would never volunteer for what these guys did. I don’t even know for sure what they were trying to accomplish.
Well made and worth your time.
MASH (1970)
I’ve been revisiting the TV series recently, so I decided to check out the film as well, which I hadn’t seen in decades.
It’s mostly as I remember it. But I didn’t appreciate before how dense this movie is, with lots of overlapping dialogue, throwaway lines, quick visual gags, and so forth. I’m sure I could watch it again right now and spot a dozen things I missed earlier today.
It’s extremely chaotic, surely meant to parallel the chaos of war, and there’s really no plot to speak of, rather just a series of loosely-connected vignettes.
In the end, while I’m not sure it’s the biting anti-war satire it’s cracked up to be, it’s still a fun and interesting watch.
One of the general’s football players (during the game at the end) is Johnny Unitas, happily smoking a joint. I believe he was on the Baltimore Colts at the time.
Also seen — Sylvester Stallone
Also heard on camp PA — Ted Knight