I noticed that, too (how could you not?) SO CLUNKY and unnecessary.
I didn’t see the movie, but really disliked the book. I started a whole thread about it and how I felt the mystery solution was cheap.
I saw The Thursday Murder Club yesterday and thought it was just okay. I was hoping for something more fun like The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a 2011 movie that featured a cast of older British actors. (Quartet, a 2012 film directed by Dustin Hoffman, was another.)
The Roses. A remake of 1989’s War of the Roses, with Benedict Cumberbatch and Olivia Colman….who I think is a national treasure, and I’ve loved everything she’s been in, or at least her role.
I did not love this. It’s less of a dark comedy, than a "tragedy with some funny dialog”. I couldn’t shake the feeling that we were watching a marriage fall apart and nice people being really cruel to each other, and it wasn’t over the top enough (as it was in the original).
In supporting roles, Kate McKinnon has some funny scenes; Adam Sanberg is wasted.
Have you seen the previous version of this, starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner and Danny DeVito?
Never mind; I read more carefully and see that you have.
One thought I had about this (without seeing it), the 1989 version arrived when Douglas and Turner were not only at the top of their sexy stardom, but they’d semi-recently appeared together in those two adventure-romance movies (Romancing the Stone, Jewel of the Nile), and it seemed like almost a continuation.
Cumberbatch and Colman are both fantastic in roles they’ve been in, but neither has any of the above going for them.
We also tried The Thursday Murder Club and came away unimpressed. The cast was good (Peirce Brosnan the miscast exception) but the characters were stereotypes and the plot uninvolving.
We’re not now nor have we ever been fans of the feisty-old-people-solving-murders trope, and both of us ended up nodding off long before the ending.
Y’know, like old people do.
I’ve been skipping jam nights for the last couple of weeks just because I’ve been tired. I went tonight and I had a great time, so I’m in a terrific mood right now. ThereforeI am going to watch one of my favorite newish movies that isn’t that masterpiece, Moonfall, but the absolute best entry in the Ghostbuster’s universe, Ghostbusters (2016). I’m not joking. This is the best Ghostbusters movie. I’d go as far as to say that Ghostbusters is better than Ghostbusters. I’ve seen it probably three or four times already.
I watched Heads Of State from Amazon last night. Really dumb action movie, saved by its leads and a decent lull or two for them to riff off each other a bit. Turn your brain off, or better yet remove it and keep it in the fridge, while watching.
Interesting thought on Ghostbusters in general. I will say that while I don’t know that 2016 is better than the 1984 one, I do believe the original Ghostbusters is way overrated.
Fun, but not that funny throughout. It isn’t on my favorite 80s list at all.
We watched Downfall over the past two nights on Prime. A German film, with subtitles, based on actual reflections by his secretary who was with him in the bunker, and the written history of Hitler’s last days. Well done and chilling. He truly was a madman.
Yeah, but what about Eva? Magda Goebbels was a run-of-the mill fanatic (like Hitler) committing fanatical atrocities. But Eva was this weird party girl who didn’t let any of it faze her and just quietly bit into the capsule when the time came. That film is such a fascinating character study of a woman’s place in Nazi Germany.
Do we know this of her? How much of Eva is known history vs. total guessing?
I have no idea; but that’s what the film depicts and I assume what Traudl Junge wrote from first hand knowledge.
I’m quite surprised this isn’t familiar to everyone, the “Hitler having a rant with different subtitles” is a recurring meme of the early 21st century….
No idea what you’re on about, friendo.
Alas, the producers of Downfall have gotten most of those videos scrubbed from YouTube and other vid providers.
That time that the Doctor Who promotional team switched out the very Aryan looking Rose Tyler for the non-Aryan Martha Jones also drove Hitler into a frenzy…
Saw Fantastic Four…First Steps lat night.
Finally! Somebody got the Fantastic Four right. For the first time, The Thing looks like The Thing from most of Jack KIrby’s run.
Instead of not wanting to alienate an audience not familiar with the story or the characters, and not wanting to weird them out, this time they actually embraced the comics, name-checking characters (Moleman (who they actually call Harvey Elder), Diablo, The Mad Thinker, Puppet Master, Shalla Bal, Zenn La, and a real blast from the past – The Red Ghost and his apes. We get to see one of the apes on-screen. They don’t even think of explaining who these people are – the fans will know, and it won’t matter to everyone else.
Galactus looks like Galactus, not an indistinct cloud with a hint of his helmet
Sue actually has things to do, besides being pregnant. Although her making her belly transparent so they could look at little Franklin was cool.
They bought into Ben Grimm’s Jewish background in a big way. And they had a lot about Yancey STreet.
The film had that whole “family” dynamic that was woefully lacking in earlier movies. The horseplay between Johnny and Ben was there.
The second end-credit sequence was a TV cartoon, done in the style of the 1967 Hanna-Barbera cartoon, except with the team resembling the actors, was cool. It reminds me of the TV cartoon “extras” on the DVD of The Incredibles. Which was, of course, also Disney. The Incredibles essentially ripped off The Fantastic Four, with the costumes, the super powers (but substituting super-speed for flaming), the family relationships, the 60s atmosphere and architecture, and the baby of ambiguous powers. They did it so well that the real-life movies attempting to do The Fantastic Four failed by comparison. This time the Fantastic Foyr film stands up to comparison.
I didn’t even mind H.E.R.B.I.E. At least, not too much.
I haven’t seen this, and based on your comments and some others here, I don’t plan to. Sounds like the typical remake flop. But I do highly recommend the original, The War of the Roses (1989), with two of my favourite actors, Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, with Danny DeVito as the narrating lawyer just for added spice. Wildly over the top in spots, but hey, that’s comedy!