That’s sort of what I thought. It seemed to me they were going for something Meaningful™ but didn’t quite hit the target.
The Bikeriders on Peacock Plus. It’s a cool movie, but that’s about it. It doesn’t really tell much of a story. At least not one that has any sort of resolution. And most of the characters kind of slipped into caricatures, especially Jody Comer who lays on a Chicago accent worthy of Da Bears.
But really in the end, half the main characters are dead, the club is being run by a murderous thug, nobody does anything about it, and our hero becomes a mechanic if Florida. Who cares?
It’s a cool movie … but it doesn’t really say anything.
Smile. Quite enjoyed it, even when it was fairly trope-y. Sosie Bacon was excellent.
I liked the second one almost as much.
Queued up. We might go see that on election night.
I really enjoyed Conclave as well! One of the few times recently I was really shocked by a film, in a good way. Highly recommended, it’s in my top 5 of the year so far.
One might think that a movie starring Peter Dinklage, Josh Brolin, Brendan Fraser and Glenn Close might be a step above the usual drek, but one would be wrong, when the movie is “Brothers,” now streaming on Amazon Prime.
It’s a heist comedy (a genre I often enjoy) about two brothers, twins to be exact (Dinklage and Brolin - ha ha), who take off on a road trip to find stolen jewels and reconcile their differences along the way. Well, it’s not terribly funny, but it is terribly dull. And none of the characters seem to be able to speak without the volume turned up to 10. About halfway through I said to my wife “There’s an awful lot of yelling in this movie.”
Perhaps I wasn’t in the right mood for it, but “Brothers” is one of those movies that makes you think a cast like this just took the gig for a quick paycheck. What a misfire.
M. Emmet Walsh’s last movie. I’d say a terrible epitaph, but he made a lot of crappy movies in his last years, despite Roger Ebert’s “Stanton-Walsh Rule” (in which no movie with either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh can be all bad).
The new Nosferatu movie is coming out next month. It looks like it might be good, so I’m preparing by watching all of the other Nosferatu movies I can find. So far I’ve watched the original Nosferatu, the 1979 Warner Herzog version, Vampire in Venice, and Shadow of the Vampire. I’m watching The Last Nosferatu (aka Nosferatu 2023), but it doesn’t look so good. I might not make it through this one.
Have you tried…
A silent film evoking the look and style of the original Nosferatu with a few changes to the story and many effectively handled scenes.
I was a little confused by this list as it sort made it seem like Werner Herzog made Vampire in Venice. To be clear, the original Nosferatu (1922) is an amazing silent classic, like nothing ever seen before or since. Werner Herzog made Nosferatu the Vampyre, released in 1979, which was pretty good. Vampire in Venice was very poorly rated (I haven’t seen it). Shadow of the Vampire is an excellent movie but in no way a remake of Nosferatu; rather, it’s a recreation of the events surrounding the making of the original, which were so bizarre and creepy that it led some to speculate that Max Schreck, who played the vampire Count Orlock, was in fact an actual vampire!
Silver Bullet 1985 Gary Busey, Megan Follows, and Corey Haim
It’s not as intense compared to other Stephen King movies.
The Werewolf attacks are done well and scary. But in between there’s a really enjoyable small-town story, that features a handicapped boy and his sister bonding.
I had forgotten how good Gary Busey was before his Motorcycle crash brain injury. Gary created interesting characters. Even if the script was limited.
Gary is great as the irresponsible, hard drinking Uncle Red. His only redeeming quality is the connection to Corey and his sister. Naturally Uncle Red doesn’t believe in the Warewolf and he’s very inept at the end trying to protect the kids.
It’s a realistic touch. You don’t expect good old Uncle Red to fight like Rambo. He does try his best to protect the kids when the dog shit hits the fan.
I recommend watching.
Saw it yesterday, and ditto. An excellent film, and I’m sure Ralph Fiennes will be getting some award nominations. Also, very beautiful to look at with all the Vatican artwork and architecture, and the cardinals go through more costume changes than a Cher concert. (I picked who the next pope would be right away, but did not see the twist coming).
It would make a great double feature with The Best Man (1964). Same story, set at a political convention.
Roadhouse 1989 Patrick Swayze
It ran on AMC tonight and I decided to watch. I’ve seen it several times since it was released thirty years ago
I never understood the movie’s Cult following. The elements were there to develop some characters with depth. Sam Elliot is an amazing talent and he wasn’t given much to do in Roadhouse.
I find the mob guy that controls the town a cliché and needless distraction. Cleaning up the bar and dealing with the violent rednecks could be a great story by itself.
Roadhouse is worth watching. AMC scheduled Point Break just before Roadhouse. That’s 4 hours of classic 1980’s action at its best.
I didn’t intend to be so negative.
Roadhouse is a very good movie.
I don’t fully understand why some fans elevate it to cult status. Patrick Swayze is actually better in Point Break. Bodhi is a great villian. Swayze should have played more of them.
I liked the movie better than you did (I’m a Val Lewton fan – atmosphere is everything), but I actually liked that the satanists were so conventional and ordinary. It made them scarier in the sense that they could be anybody.
I watched Sweetie for the first time yesterday. It’s an extremely assured debut by first time director Jane Campion. Really good. It made the devastation a mentally unbalanced family member can have on every member of that family so heartbreakingly real. All the actors did a fine job – even the little neighbor boy. Usually cute kids make my teeth itch.
Saw a Liam Neeson movie called Absolution tonight, we thought it was going to be one of those shoot-em-up revenge thrillers, and it kind of was, but it kind of wasn’t. We ended up liking it more than I expected.
I couldn’t sleep last night (for obvious reasons) so I watched The Infiltrator on Netflix. It’s a 2016 movie starring Bryan Cranston based on the true story of a US Customs agent who goes undercover as a corrupt financier to bust the money-laundering organization of Pablo Escobar. Action-packed, fast-moving, and very bloody.
I had fuzzy memories of the 1979 TV series of King’s “Salem’s Lot”, starring David Soul and a young Bonnie Bedelia. The episodes got spliced together to make a movie for Max. What I remembered as a not-too-bad viewing turned out to be fairly appalling.
I just found out about Mimesis Noseferatu, which is free to watch on Tubi. It has very bad ratings on IMDB, so I might regret it, but I feel a duty to watch every Nosferatu movie I can find. In this one, the Harker Arts Academy drama club produces a play based on the 1922 Nosferatu. Kristy Swanson is in the cast. 
There is also a 2023 version, which is also probably not very good, but I probably will watch it anyway. I have high hopes for Nosferatu (2024), and I will pay real money to see that in a theater. I might even buy popcorn.
If I had meant that, I would have punctuated it in a different way. 