I was thinking more about this film later, from a sociopolitical lens. Spoilers ahead! Anne Hathaway is a godless, driven feminist who is hiding her creative life and dreaming of abandoning an anchor of a family. Ewan McGregor is a soft-hearted, browbeaten godly man who is optimistic, like Forrest Gump, who sacrifices himself for his family. This causes the godless feminist to come to her senses about what’s important (“obey your father!”) and who only then is able to save the family and bond to her mate. Neither is forced to confront their prior lives, because dinosaurs solve the problem.
Rebel Ridge
The most concise way I can review this is to say this is the best Jack Reacher film I’ve seen. Really well done, and recommended.
7.5/10
The Drama on HBO. A dark rom-com starring Zandaya and Robert Pattinson. I’m very selective when it comes to romantic comedies but the description sounded kind of interesting - happy couple about to get married when one of them confesses something that may end their relationship.
To his credit, Robert Pattinson has come a long way since he was a sparkly vampire. I wouldn’t say he’s unrecognizable in this but I felt he played his part well. I haven’t seen Zendaya in anything before but she is so lovely and the character seemed a good person.
It started well but then it quickly became hard to decide what kind of movie they were trying to make. Heavy themes with whimsical music; a character so obnoxious you think it’s supposed to be funny, but I don’t think she’s supposed to be. Who knows.
I can’t recommend it really, but I want someone else to watch it so I can see if they receive it the same way.
I ended up leaving maybe 1/2 or 2/3 of the way through. The more I watched, the less I cared about what happened to any of them. I looked up what happened in the parts I missed, and think I made the right call for myself.
Same here. I should have mentioned that I didn’t finish it; I also looked up the ending and am perfectly happy not finishing it. If you watched it based on my “challenge”, thank you and I’m sorry.
Nah, I saw it (or part of it) when it came out in the theater. I’d actually gone to see Hail Mary, but didn’t much like it and left that one partway through first, and thought I’d give The Drama a try. Struck out twice!
Frankenstein
Gorgeous to look at, as you would expect coming from del Toro, and some good performances to go with it, in particular from Elordi, who could have just phoned it in with some grunts and roars but really did manage to make the creation (I won’t call him the monster because that surely is Victor) into a sympathetic character.
Wasn’t totally convinced by what happened with one character’s relationship with the creation, but overall I enjoyed this one and plenty to recommend it.
7/10
The Acçountant, 2016 and The Accountant 2, 2025
Ben Affleck, J K Simmons, Jon Bernthal
I rewatched both last night.
The original is excellent at depicting autism and the struggles autistic adults
continues to face.
The self-harm scenes as the character rolls a pipe on his shins are difficult to watch. I assume the pain helps autistic people cope with the firestorm in their minds.
I must finish! is their battle cry. Doesn’t matter if it’s a puzzle, game, or audit of a shady company’s ledgers.
Affleck did an amazing job of portraying autisim and including enough action & mayhem to satisfy audiences to satisfy audiences.
I’m on the autism scale and really connect with the character. Thankfully my symptoms are much less severe. I’m less socially awkward now compared to my childhood. It only took me 50 years to start looking people in the eyes and feel comfortable doing it. I was never non-verbal. Just the opposite. I talked way, way to much as a child. Aggravated a lot of people. My ability to fully concentrate and immerse myself into computer programming is an asset. Losing track of large chunks of time is the cost.
The Accountant 2 character is just an socially awkward guy and a standard action thriller.
Affleck doesn’t portray autisim in the same depth. That’s unfortunate.
I guess this was just a paycheck project for Ben. He waited 9 years to make the sequel.
I wish Anna Kendrick had returned for the sequel. I wanted to see her character take the next step in a relationship with the autistic character.
Coraline, via Laika’s watch-along party. This might be the several-hundredth time my (adult) daughter and I have watched it together, it’s one of our things. Her boyfriend watched with us as well, and that was fine.
It’s a great movie where the girl is scared but still does what needs to be done.
Catching up on my zombie films:
28 Years Later
Well done continuation of the “infected” genre with strong performances all around, especially Ralph Fiennes. A bit over the top in places, but you expected different? Sets up the sequel which I will be seeing soon.
The Dead Don’t Die
I’ve waited years to see this, just for the cast alone. I’ve waited in vain. Too smug for its own good, not scary enough for a horror film, not funny enough for a zom-com. It thinks it’s clever — think again. Only the second film I’ve seen Adam Driver in and I hope there isn’t a third.
1/10 for Chloe Sevigny’s performance; she was very good. You can’t skip this one hard enough.
The Last House (Netflix)
Skip this stinker. Another one of these trending “weird stuff is happening, follow us to the end to see what it is” sci-fi things. Started with a kind of interesting premise, an odd rain comes and essentially glues everyone inside their homes. If you happened to be outside at the time aliens/creatures will eventually get you.
Then it just drags on and on with a family that figures out how to survive in their house for the next five years. Obligatory “if I have to be in this house one more minute I’m going to go craaaazy” scenes, obligatory paternal figure hacking violently at a wall with a sledgehammer to free his family while they all scream at him frantically. See! It’s chaos! Chaos!
I had 30 minutes left and thought I could make it to the end. After checking the time remaining again (are you serious, only 5 minutes has passed) I gave up and read the plot summary.
When the answer to the mystery is given half way through the movie, of course by a kid (but what if they aren’t aliens, but actually XYZ?) quit while you’re ahead.
Toy Story 5
Flogging a dead Bullseye a little here, but still a good film and provided plenty of laughs. Some self-referential stuff in there including a nod towards Buzz playing dead in front of humans despite not realising he is a toy. It was a tad shameless with the Jessie/Emily stuff which I’m sure Pixar knew was a dead cert to be a winner as far as nostalgia/tear-jerking goes, but I’m a sucker for that sort of thing.
Funniest thing was Buzz’s horse, closely followed by a sign that Woody is ageing a bit (I can identify with his particular affliction, if I can call it that).
7/10
The Last American Hero 1973 Jeff Bridges, Gary Busey, Ned Beatty, Valerie Perrine
Based on NASCAR champion Junior Johnson’s early life driving moonshine for his dad and entry into professional racing.
Prime offered me the film. I’d forgotten about watching it decads ago on cable.
It’s features a excellent cast that were just beginning their acting careers.
I rarely watch racing movies. This is a notable exception. The story is very compelling.
8 out of 10
Junior Johnson was a legendary NASCAR driver and owner. Fans today aren’t as familiar with him. The movie is dated now.
And adapted from a Tom Wolfe magazine article.
I saw it new in the theater.
As a kid, it bugged me that they just used actual NASCAR footage. “That’s not Junior Jackson, that’s Richard Petty! And that’s David Pearson!” Now I just accept it. Still a better film (by several laps!) than Days of Thunder.
And the theme song! In 1973 I was all “How lazy! They just used a Jim Croce song, instead of writing original music! And they cut it up and reordered it!” Then later, when I’m older, I watch it again, and go “OK it was a good choice. It fits the theme of the movie great. I forgive them.” Takes until the internet for me to find it it was written specifically for the movie after all! Oops! No wonder it fits so well.
Good film!
I had assumed the movie used video coverage from one of Junior Johnson’s races.
He retired in 1966. His last win is at The 1965 Wilkes 400. A NASCAR Grand National Series event that was held on October 3, 1965
There should be some color footage available for the news and movies.
I don’t think colorizing video was available when they shot the movie. Today they can easily correct old video.
He was a team owner for many years afterwards. His drivers won a cumulative 132 races for Johnson. His drivers won six Winston Cup Championships — three with Yarborough (1976–1978) and Waltrip (1981–82, 1985).
Outstanding career.
I had to go look again, didn’t trust my memory. And good thing!
The William Smith character was driving the 43 Petty Road Runner. Jr Jackson was driving the Bobby Alison car (Coca-Cola #12 Monte carlo) Also visible are Buddy Arrington ( #67 Charger) Buddy Baker (#71 KK Insurance Charger) David Pearson (#21 Purolator, announced as driver ‘David Baer’), future owner for Dale Earnhart Richard Childress (#96, retired early), the late JD McDuffie (#70), future broadcaster Benny Parsons, (#72).
.
A lot of creative editing: Petty actually won the race with Allison in second.
The race used was the 1972 Old Dominion at Martinsville. Martinsville is a unique pinched oval because the N&S railroad runs right next to it.
Mutiny, Jason Statham’s latest. Jason pretty much phones this one in - I generally like his stuff, realizing that he really just keeps remaking the same film, but they don’t even much pretend to develop either his character or the standard picked up on the fly sidekick.
Also, I’m pretty sure one auxiliary helper who gets shot four or five times is standing around right as rain after all the bad guys are dead (hopefully I didn’t need to spoiler that bit of plot).
Oh Noooes! You’ve ruined it for me. SPOILERS PLEASE
Seriously, these are Hallmark movies produced by the lesser known MAYHEM division.
This film was recommended to us because we have an autistic kid (this happens a lot), so the weird way in which it was presented to us may have affected how we felt about it.
I had mixed feelings about the depiction, as it seemed to be conflating PTSD with autism with sociopathology. I don’t know if it helps to depict autistic people as unpredictability violent. On the other hand, some are. I give it credit for trying to do something different though, and I do think Affleck’s performance was outstanding. It was also nice seeing a depiction of someone who had real issues as opposed to quirky but likable idiosyncrasies.
The thing of it is, it was recommended by someone trying to better understand our son, and I think it’s maybe not the best way to learn about autism. If someone wanted to understand autism better I don’t think I would recommend this film. However I can totally see how it would be exciting for an autistic person to see this talented anti-hero type they can in some respects relate to. Really good depictions seem few and far between these days.
It’s scads better than Young Sheldon which is also recommended to us all the time.