Thanks for the recommendation. When I heard that half of it was recycled stuff it put me off. I’m now tempted to watch it on the big screen but I guess I could wait. I love Jackass, ok a lot of it is puerile but in a funny way it’s always seemed quite wholesome, just a load of blokes enjoying themselves with their mates. Not remotely offensive, unless you get offended by seeing someone’s penis flopping about.
Hellraiser (2022). It was okay. A complete reboot that ignores all the previous movies, including the first. The new cenobite designs were cool. They didn’t explore the leviathan’s home dimension as much as they could have. Pinhead is female here, played by Jamie Clayton from sense8.
I have watched every single Hellraiser movie. There isn’t a single genuinely good one. There are less than 5 interesting moments…in all movies combined.
This includes that new one you just saw, which I found entirely forgettable.
Hellraiser is just one of the worst series in horror.
Ok, so I watched it on Kanopy a few months ago and it was pretty good. Mentioning now because I see it was just added to Netflix, for anyone who is curious but hasn’t dealt with Kanopy before and doesn’t want to start.
The Red Violin
Recommended.
Samuel L. Jackson was asked about the best movies he’s been in during his career. Surprisingly for a lot of people, he listed The Red Violin as top 5 movie he’s in and also one of his best performances. He’s only in about 40 minutes of it, but it is nice to see him play a very calm, highly educated, and passionate person.
It’s more or less an anthology film that follows the history of a, well, red violin. All the way from its construction 350 years ago, through Europe, through China in the cultural revolution, to today where they analyze it and discuss its worth.
It could be dull, but each segment is 25-30 minutes long and overall it creates a pretty interesting movie. It streams free on Tubi with ads.
Oh, Jackson is quite good in the movie. I see why he likes it so much.
Seconded. Fun fact: American composer John Corigliano wrote all the music featured in the film, including the convincingly faux-Baroque/Classical/ Romantic violin repertoire performed in the pre-20th-Century segments.
Definitely. The score is one of the absolute highlights.
Project Hail Mary. It’s very good. Two Eridian thumbs down.
Also revisited Weird Al’s UHF. The humor style hasn’t dated much but the cultural references have (plus just trying to explain to my daughter what the hell UHF stations were). Anyone too young to remember the 1980s is going to miss out on a lot. But I’d rather watch Michael Richards as Stanley Spudowski than as Kramer.
Back to back The Pianist and The Brutalist with a soccer break for Canada to lose 
Adrian Brody, the lead, won well earned Oscars for each film. Grim fare well executed and acted.
Ronin 1998 Robert De Niro, Jean Reno, Natascha McElhone
Ronin - a lordless samurai, esp one whose feudal lord had been deprived of his territory
That sums up the movie. Former intelligence operatives are working for hire. They’re hired to steal a mysterious, heavily guarded briefcase. Problems arise as people shift loyalties.
Pretty good movie. It’s not Robert De Niro best work. I thinks it’s a respectable performance for the later part of his career.
8 out of 10
Babylon
Recommended.
The first couple hours of this three hour film are amazing. Downright terrific stuff. I am glad the movie points out that it has a similar story to Singin’ in the Rain because…well, it’s a movie about transitioning from silent to sound films.
Anyway, I do recommend the movie. It’s hilarious and fascinating.
That final hour does contain Tobey Maguire’s performance, which is extremely disturbing and creepy.
It just felt like a movie that began to go on and on and on. Good stuff, but it was overlong.
This apparently bombed and was not well received. Hollywood loves itself so much, you think this would have won Best Picture.
If you haven’t seen it, check it out. Just be aware it’s quite long.
That’s what I remember. I think I saw this right after listening to a whole season of a podcast (You Must Remember This) debunking the Kenneth Anger book that inspired most of the vignettes in the film. It kinda felt like a copy & paste script to me. In hindsight, it was an obvious parody of the myth of Hollywood rather than the reality.
I saw Babylon when it was first released. I was interested partly because it was directed and written by Damien Chazelle, who previously made La La Land, which I liked very much. I liked it, but not as much.
I watched Project Hail Mary last night. It’s on Amazon. I started out heavily disliking the annoying cinematography and fast cut editing on scenes that were not supposed to be action paced, but after the “encounter” it settles down and becomes far more palatable. I would not say it’s great, as the plot is quite predictable, but it’s an okay time.
1776 on the 4th, natch. It’s one of my favorite musicals. “No, John, that was a new one.”
Pressure is down to two showings a day so I’m planning on seeing it tomorrow.
The car chase scenes in this movie are considered to be some of the best in film and this was partially because they had professional racers choreograph and perform the driving. They also performed them at speed, rather than cranking them up later. I of course am a sucker for films with Jean Reno which is the reason I saw the film when it was first available to me years ago (I think on DVD).
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We recently watched this and had the opposite reaction: it started out ok and then became way too long and cutesy. It went from being ok popcorn movie to death march for us.
The interminable car racing are the #1 thing I dislike about that film (which otherwise is decent). I find car chases just a little tedious generally.
Yes, I also don’t particularly care for Bullitt and the Fast and the Furious franchise sucks. Blues Brothers gets a pass 
.
Of course, because you have Illinois Nazi’s after dying after they fly through the air!
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I watched Ronin in the theater, and the sound was so loud or ill-mixed that the chase scenes were literally painful to watch, and as you note, there were a lot of them. Friend of mine walked out, I just hated the whole experience and refused to watch it ever again.