Movies you've seen recently (Part 2)

Cafe Society
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These will be in descending order of recommendation.

A Little Prayer David Strathairn gives an Oscar-worthy performance as the paterfamilias of a family in quiet crisis, supported by solid performances by the rest of the cast. It is reminiscent of some of the French films I’ve seen lately, with the story dipping into lives being lived and then ending with those lives continuing, but changed in profound ways. There is no violence, shocking deaths, or even evil villains. Just people making good, bad, and tough decisions that ripple through their lives and their family’s lives. Highly recommended.

Relay A solid action picture about corporate misdeeds and coverups. Good central performances and an atmospheric twisty plot with a surprising amount of suspense and action. Refreshingly, the twists (which most will see coming) do not depend on any of the characters making stupid or out of character decisions. Not profound, but it doesn’t try to hammer home any “moral of the story” moments. Recommended.

Caught Stealing I wish I could recommend this one. I was really looking forward to this story of a hapless hero drawn into a world of gangsters and double crosses through no fault of his own. . It has a sterling cast and some worthy black-comedy elements, but the story never coheres into something I cared about. It is set in late 90s NYC and captures that retro atmosphere, But the plot holes poke through and I ended up not caring enough about the protagonist to be pulled into the film. Others may find the performances and action scenes to be enough, though.

The Toxic Avenger This is a faithful to the original recreation of one of the most celebrated Troma films. However, it is so faithful to the action and atmosphere of the original, one has to ask what the point is and why not just watch the original. But it was fun and properly gory and transgressive in honoring Troma, so there’s that. I can’t say I regret watching it, but can’t recommend it.

Run This one is…well, if you grafted the first half of a Tyler Perry movie about a cancelled wedding and the efforts of the bridesmaids and groomsmen to put the two lovebirds back together onto an alien invasion by predatory super-aliens hunting humans, you’d end up with this movie. But don’t assume any of the characters are written to have the survival sense of a sheep or that there will be any sensible response from the government’s of the Earth to what is essentially an invasion of weapons-free creatures who can be killed with a well aimed bullet and repelled by cell phones. On the other hand, I pretty rapidly started rooting for various characters to be the next to be torn to pieces by the (seemingly infinite) hordes of aliens surrounding a lone cabin in the middle of the woods. I was not disappointed by the boneheaded ways in which the characters were reduced to the core survivors. My recommendation is to wait for the RiffTrax version.

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I re-watched the Giorgiou Moroder version of Metropolis, Fritz Lang’s 1926 silent film. His version was one of the most complete available up to that time (although he didn’t include all the film that was available then. He cut out some items he evidently thought too long or repetitious in order to keep the running time to 90 minutes; there have been two more recent releases with much more added material, and now the film is like 98% complete). He then added a modern rock score that you either love or hate. I’m in the “love” camp.

What struck me was the very first title card Moroder put in, which sems oddly appropriate these days:

The year is 2026, a Dickensian “best of times, worst of times”, where total oppression and manipulation of the masses is wielded by the unquestioned power of the few.

It’s our job to make sure that it’s still being questioned next year.

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Locked (2025)
Bill Skarsgård is a petty criminal entrapped in a car by privileged vigilante Anthony Hopkins. It’s mostly just an exploration of the many ways you could torture someone by locking them in a fully remote-controlled electric car but it does have a bit of emotional angst involving the daughters of the two leads.

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Like, turn up the heat or cold, stereo loud…?

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I watched Die Alone on Amazon. It’s a post-apocalyptic movie with some scattered zombie-like creatures. It’s about a man who’s searching for his girlfriend after regaining consciousness after a car wreck- they were headed for their remote cabin before the wreck to avoid the plague that’s wiped out much of the population. It was pretty good as far as this type of movie goes. It didn’t follow the standard formulas, which was a nice change.

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Yes. Yodeling on the stereo was almost as bad as the tasers under the seat cushions.

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Nobody 2021 Bob Odenkirk

Walter Mitty character is actually a retired assassin.

I like the mix of dry comedy and violence. It’s predictable but I still enjoyed the story. The soundtrack adds a lot.

Its on Prime and Nobody 2 is also available.

Hutch, Don’t Call 911

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Deep Cover (2025)
Bryce Dallas Howard, Orlando Bloom, and Nick Mohammed are all in an improv class in London and get recruited by Sean Bean, a detective in the Metropolitan Police Force. The detective’s reasoning is that criminals can sniff out an undercover cop right away, hence recruiting improvers. The trio are supposed to set up a sting to capture evidence at a shop selling bootleg cigarettes but they end up getting too deep, get involved with a local criminal, accidentally kill a hitman, and work their way towards the crime lord, played by Ian McShane. Meanwhile, they’re being investigated by two other detectives, discover that Sean Bean has something else going on, and have to figure out how to get out of this without getting killed. It has some funny parts, Bloom is great as a tightly-wound character actor and Mo]hammed has some fun bits where he’s a quiet IT guy who grows into his criminal persona.

The Cabin in the Woods (2011)
Five college students vacation in the woods and awaken an unspeakable horror. The catch is that they are being monitored and manipulated by a team in a lab. I thought that the part with the lab was a spoiler at the end but the movie pretty much opens up with them so spoiler! There are a lot of interesting monsters, a fun bit with some Japanese schoolgirls, and the movie is fairly meta about horror movie tropes without being too in your face about it.

Necropolis (1986)
A witch from the 1600s sexily dances like she is in an 80s music video before getting killed by the townspeople but comes back in 1986 to complete her ritual. She seems to randomly walk around and suck the lifeforce out of people and a New York cop, a journalist, and a pastor who runs a shelter all work together to try to stop her. The journalist and pastor reveal that they remember their past lives along the way, the witch grows extra breasts so her Morlock creatures can suckle the stolen lifeforce form her, then the good guys finally stop her, or do they? This is not a good movie, the actors aren’t great, the characters are tropey (there’s a coroner who seems to be doing a Paul Lynde impression for some reason), and the scenes are limp. LeeAnne Baker looks like an 80s rock star as the witch with short blond hair, heavy eyeshadow, and black leather jacket and that kind of works. Nothing else really does though.

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Weapons, wherein a group of elementary school kids leave their homes in the middle of the night. The fear of your kids disappearing is very frightening, and the movie leads you through the adult reaction and trauma and slowly reveals itself. In some ways, a commentary on how people, in real life, might have sudden turnarounds and how disturbing that is.

Really well done, differently recommend.

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Unknown Number: The High School Catfish

Recommended.

It’s a documentary. A high school girl began to receive terrible texts attacking her, telling her to kill herself, and a bunch of crazy and disturbing things. It went on almost two years before the police solved who was sending them.

I was not shocked at the reveal because I’m a teacher and I could tell very quickly. I wasn’t for sure the actual perpetrator, but I knew more or less what the situation was.

A depressing story, but one any parent who has kids with phones should see.

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Man, that was disturbing and unexpected. In these docs you can usually tell who the culprit was by…well, I don’t want to give anything away.

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Like I said, I was guessing it was a teacher who was infatuated with the girl or something.

:exploding_head:

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Alien (1979)

Inspired by watching Alien: Earth, I watched the original movie over the past two days. I don’t remember when I saw it last, sometime in the 90s. I think it still holds up. The Nostromo looks worn down and lived-in, the crew feels real, and the creature is mysterious and menacing.

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Telling us who it isn’t could still be considered a spoiler.

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Spoiler: It’s a news story.

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Irrelevant. It’s filmed so as to maintain full suspense as to the guilty party. The folks discussing it have all stated how much they were surprised by whodunit once it was revealed. Let’s give others the same opportunity to be surprised.

Eta: there’s another thread devoted to the documentary where spoilers are assumed and expected. This thread here is different.

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I liked it a lot. I was surprised to see that Chris Columbus directed it. It felt to me like it was a tv show and not a movie. The cast is fantastic. I did not recognize Paul Freeman under the beard. About halfway though I realized it was Belloq.

I laughed when Jonathan Pryce (who once played Price Phillip) told Helen Mirren that she looked like the queen.

Nice touch having Elizabeth driving an Aston Martin as a former MI6 agent in a movie that is also starring James Bond.

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Killing Mary Sue (2025)

It’s silly and violent and very funny. If the look and vibe of the lead character isn’t instantly recognizable, you have never seen Blade Runner.

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It could turn into a television show. There are already five books in the series (counting one that’s soon to be published) and a play that currently in development. They could make up some original plots too. Since the film is produced by Netflix, they may be thinking about making more of them.

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Black Bag. We enjoyed this - it definitely had that Soderbergh feel and was concisely constructed at about 90 minutes.