Movies you've seen recently (Part 2)

Cafe Society
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The opening theme, yes. But the closing theme:

The closing theme was a different song with more of a hard rock sound performed by Atlanta musician Jim Ellis, played over scenes from the episodes followed by a still photo of the Cincinnati skyline. Ellis recorded the song as a demonstration for Wilson, and as he had not yet written lyrics for it, Ellis mumbled nonsense words. Wilson chose to use the demo version because he found the gibberish lyrics funny and a satire on the unintelligible lyrics of many rock songs.

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Weapons was a hoot. It wasn’t a comedy but it refused to take itself too seriously. The final scene had me walking out of the theater with a big grin on my face.

I knew this was by the director of Barbarian, but nothing else before looking him up on Wikipedia. I was surprised to learn he was a member of Whitest Kids You Know.

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I know. I’ve never made a list of “best final 5-10 minutes”, but Weapons certainly would be on a list like that.

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If anyone was mistakenly thinking covid was only hitting the old…this is a wake up call.

Very cinema verite :tired_face:

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I watched the MST3K version of Women of the Prehistoric Planet (1966), not to be confused with Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), which MST3K also riffed.

I can’t believe that I missed this one – ‘d never seen it before. It’s not an American dub of an originally Russian movie – this one was made in all its awful glory right here in the US of A! It stars Wendell Corey and B-movie veteran John Agar and a very young Stuart Margolin, long before Love, American Style and The Rockford Files. (“Angel cleans up nice,” I commented to my wife). It’s trying to be open-minded and unprejudiced, but fails miserably. (the write-up in Wikipedia is all to accurate) The awful writing and acting doesn’t help. And the “clever” twist ending has been used lots of times before, so I don’t feel bad spoiling this for anyone – the planet they end up colonizing is — Earth! Even though all the signs on the space ships are in English, and they use standard Hindu-Arabic numbers. I guess they were translating.

I will give them one star for something I frequently complain about – they depict the planet (and depict it as a recognizable Earth in the last shots) with actual cloud cover. And this was two years before the famous “Earthrise” photo and poster changed most people’s minds about what the Earth ought to look like from space. (Although, admittedly, this wasn’t the first time – Destination Moon and Chesley Bonestell’s paintings had shown us the way a clod-covered Earth really looked from space. But this is a rare pre-1968 example of the correct view.

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Without getting into politics in this forum, this is an amazingly on-point typo. It’s taking longer than we thought, indeed!

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Starring Irene Tsu as one of the alien women. She’s remembered in Hawaii as the woman who danced the Hulu atop a gas pump. But not to be confused with Elizabeth Logue, the travel brochure model seen running on the beach in the Hawaii 5-O intro.

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We recently watched Anora, which won 5 Oscars. I thought the movie was incredibly overrated and in desperate need of editing.

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She’s famous for starring in the movie Flower Drum Song in 1961. It only took her five years to appear in this piece of tripe.

She was in a lot of other movies, but of interest to me is her appearing as Celestial Image in the 1974 TV movie Judge Dee and the Monastery Murders.

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You should see Devin Stone (Legal Eagle on youtube)’s video about this movie. It’s one of his favorite lawyer movies. He convinced me to watch it, and I was glad I did. I think it’s the only Grisham I actually liked.

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I could not have hated this movie more. It is easily one of the top 5 worst movies I have seen in a theater. The only saving grace was the chase scene. Other than that, I honestly thought I was watching a Syfy Channel original.

I was shocked at the positive reviews it received.

I am just flabbergasted by this. Obviously, people have different views of movies, but to me hearing someone say that they liked this movie is the equivalent of someone saying that black licorice is their favorite candy.

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Uh, actually…

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I find most entertainment garners this reaction from me these days. People seem to love the things I don’t, and dislike the things I adore. It’s all shifting away out of my reach, which is quite disappointing.

I haven’t seen Weapons and don’t intend to, it’s not a genre I’m interested in, but it is another symptom of the way things are headed in entertainment.

And don’t get me wrong, nobody has to cater to my tastes, it just means I’m missing out on the thrills everyone else is getting.

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I’ve already stated that I like Weapons, though not as much as @Mahaloth. But if it is part of a trend, I’m for it. There are moments of laugh out loud horror in the movie, which I don’t recognize any trend towards in recent movies I’ve seen.

My latest:

Nobody 2 Rinse and repeat Nobody. Not the slow reveal of the assassin within the nebbish of the first one, but Odenkirk does a good job of playing the hangdog, overworked wage slave in desperate need of a vacation. If you liked the first one, you’ll like this one, just not as much.

Americana From the trailer, I was looking forward to this one. I’m a fan of nasty little noirs, so I certainly enjoyed the Tarantino-esque journey into a weird part of the American underbelly. Outstanding performances by Sydney Sweeney, Halsey, and Paul Walter Hauser, within a nicely convoluted plot that wends its bloody way to a bittersweet conclusion. Not in my top movies of the year, but still recommended.

East of Wall A story about a hardscrabble horse ranch in South Dakota and the family that lives on it. Like The Rider, it is a fictional film based on true life, starring the people who lived that true life, sprinkled with some professionals (including a nearly unrecognizable Jennifer Ehle). The core performances are outstanding (I didn’t realize the leads were not professional actors until the credits rolled) and the story engaging. It doesn’t have heroes or villains, just people with a variety of flaws. Highly recommended, it might make my year end list. I have to think on it a bit.

The Ties That Bind Us (l’attachement) One of those French films that dips into people’s lives as they go through crisis, follows well written characters for a period, then departs. Heartbreak, romance, estrangement, reunification, all without melodrama. If you can handle subtitles (or speak French) and don’t mind patiently watching people’s lives unfold, it is a satisfying watch.

Highest 2 Lowest A Spike Lee joint. It is a remake/reimagining of Kurosawa’s High and Low (which is itself based on an Ed McBain 87th Precinct novel) set in the New York music scene. Denzel Washington is the rich music mogul who has someone close to him kidnapped and has to deal with deciding between morality and money. The performances are top notch and Spike Lee is one of those directors that makes the background music a character in itself. Not in the top tier of his films, but definitely worth a watch, if only for Denzel’s magnetic central performance.

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I sure hope so!

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Excellent. Horror movies that aren’t the slightest bit scary. Maybe comedies that aren’t funny will be the next big trend.

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I hope you didn’t get that from my post. I never said it wasn’t scary. It pulled off simultaneous scary and funny in several scenes (which IMHO is hard, but YMMV)

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No, it was just my general snark at the movie, which for me, had not one memorable scary moment. But I see that i have beaten this poor dead horse enough.

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:person_shrugging:t3:

Don’t know what to tell you. I definitely think it pulled off the combo of both scary and funny exceedingly well.

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Shane 1955 Alan Ladd, Van Heflin, Jean Arthur
On MGM+

I wanted to rewatch Shane before it drops off MGM in a few days

I’d forgotten how much the sound track adds to the film.

Kids primarily see a Western with a big gunfight. There’s more adult themes. The sexual tension between Alan Ladd and Jean Arthur is palpable. Van Heflin is aware of it too. But it remains unresolved.

Ladd makes a difficult decision to save Van Heflin’s life by taking his place in the gunfight. Leaving Van Heflin, Jean Arthur and the young boy to continue life together.

Can’t forget Brandon De Wilde as Joey. The kid who idolizes Shane and eventually recognizes his dad as a hero.

There’s some debate whether Shane survives. He’s bleeding and riding off into the sunset without any medical care.