I liked the approach to the real event. I didn’t realize the NTSB took such a hard look at Sully’s decision to land on water.
But in retrospect it was a high-risk decision. Both the landing and water rescue could have gone badly wrong. The NTSB was only doing its job to investigate. The flight simulators were key in confirming a decision Sully had to make in under a minute.
Sully and Jeffery Skiles’ stress by media coverage and public attention was handled well by Eastwood’s film direction.
There were a couple reviews of Tuesday in the ancestor thread, and none in this one it appears. It’s from 2023 and co-stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus. (Note, IMDb lists no roles for her since then.) Was putting if off since it’s got a major downer plot thread.
The real star of the movie is the actress who plays JL-D’s daughter: Lola Petticrew. (That’s right, that’s a “c” there.) Amazing performance. Her interaction with the bird/Death is great.
Anyway, the daughter is dying and she (and later her mother) start conversing with Death who has taken the form of a size-shifting bird. To say this is surreal is an understatement. Quite “out there”.
If you can handle the Big Issue and surreal is up your alley, then I recommend it.
iHostage a Dutch film about a man who takes over an Apple Store in Amsterdam.
I can’t quite recommend it. A hostage film relies on caring about the victims, and this film doesn’t do it. It’s dubbed in English, which certainly doesn’t help, not easy to get that emotional link with dubbed dialogue.
I didn’t really know the history of the film, and it plays like the first draft of a hostage movie, before they insert the Hollywood Twist, the Hook that separates it from the pack. There’s no twist and no hook. Someone takes over the store with a gun and explosive vest, the police act professionally to bring the situation to a conclusion. No crazy action scenes, no lone wolf policemen taking risks to save the day, just the police working diligently to save the lives of the people put at risk.
The history of the film? It’s a lightly dramatized retelling of an actual event. On that score, I think it does fairly well, again, it shows the police doing their job the way actual police do their jobs. It likely consolidated roles so that viewers could keep track of who was doing what, but as far as I can tell they didn’t introduce bad guy police or unlikely interpersonal problems to ratchet up the tension.
We watched iHostage last night. It’s an odd film whose beats can only be explained by it being based on a real event. Also, it kinda feels like the script was massaged by Apple’s PR department.
Companion with Sophie Thatcher (young Natalie in Yellowjackets) in the lead. A mix of sci fi and horror that I liked more than I thought I would. I think Ms Thatcher Is going to have a nice career.
I damn near get chills during the crash scene when Sully makes the announcement, immediately followed by the flight attendants shouting the repeated command:
Sully: “Brace for impact.”
Passenger: “What?”
FAs: “Brace! Brace! Brace! Head down, stay down!” *repeats*
I’ve been catching up on modern horror films now that they’ve been hitting the streaming services.
I liked Nosferatu (Peacock) quite a bit, though I was not as impressed with Lily-Rose Depp’s performance as I remember reading about when it was in theaters. I thought she was good, but a bit over the top for me in the early scenes. In fact, I felt that way about all the actors, so maybe this is more a criticism of Robert Eggers’ direction than the actors. (Loved his The Witch, though.)
After recently binging all three seasons of Yellowjackets (fun show!) I ended up catching two horror movies with Sophie Thatcher, who played young Natalie/Juliette Lewis on Yellowjackets. First was Heretic (Max), which I thought was great. I’m a big fan of evil Hugh Grant, and that was on full display in Heretic. It had the texture of Silence of the Lambs, if not necessarily the quality. I definitely had the sense that if we turned a different corner in that house we’d stumble across Buffalo Bill looking down into a pit doing the whole “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.” Second was Companion (Max), which was solid, though more sci-fi than horror. I’m a sucker for robot stories.
Not long ago I had done a double feature of The First Omen followed by Immaculate (both on Hulu) without knowing anything about either. Turns out they are twin films, like Volcano and Dante’s Peak or Armageddon and Deep Impact. Dopey me didn’t realize the twin-ness of it all until halfway through Immaculate. I think the former was the better film but I’m a big Sydney Sweeney fan so I preferred the latter.
Smile 2 (Paramount+) was great; much better than the original. Though in fairness, I didn’t really like the original when I first saw it, but then on rewatch I liked it a lot better. Still, the sequel was top notch. And this reminds me of Trap (Max), which was okay. M. Night Shyamalan is of course not what he once was, and Josh Hartnett was a little twitchier than I was comfortable with, but there were enough twists and turns to keep it interesting.
Speaking of M. Night, I found his daughter Ishana’s film The Watchers (Max) to be much more compelling. Sort of a cross between Enter Nowhere (Max) and The Ritual (Netflix), both of which I loved.
Currently watching Oddity (Hulu), which has gotten off to a promising start.
Good to hear. This is now next on my list after Oddity.
Agreed. I finished my Yellowjackets binge last week, and then Saturday when I was watching Heretic I kept thinking I recognized her until finally I checked IMDb and saw who she was. There I noticed she was also in Companion, which sounded right up my alley. Then it turned out that Companion happened to be Saturday night’s HBO premiere. That was a fun bit of serendipity.
So glad to hear mention of Oddity. I posted about it here some months ago and I’ve been waiting for someone else to comment on it. It’s in my top ten of horror movies, and I watch A LOT of horror. I hope you enjoy it as much as I.
My wife liked the parts that reminded her of living in Argentina in the 60s, but it was set during the 1976 coup, which is too much a reminder of what the USA is turning into.
Released in 1990, this is Johnny Depp’s first role after becoming a Teen Idol on 21 Jump Street and it’s fun to see him stretch and try different oddball roles. Amy Locane is the love interest and it has director John Waters’ wierdo earmarks.
We watched and enjoyed Companion on Max, last night. As suggested earlier in this thread, go in blind if at all possible. Knowing the premise won’t ruin it, but not knowing will probably make it more fun.
I thought I was recording Ben-Hur (1959) (which I’ve seen many, many times) off TCM…it turns out I had recorded Ben-Hur (1925). But I thought what the heck … it’ll be an interesting compare-and-contrast exercise.
Starring Ramon Navarro in the title role, and Francis X. Bushman as Masalla.
The 1959 version is an hour longer but feels more tightly paced: the 1925 has sub-plots involving JB-H’s loyal servant/business manager and his daughter; and introduces a femme fatale Egyptian beauty, Massala’s lover who attempts to seduce our hero. And a lot more scenes with or about Jesus (and those scenes were filmed in two-strip Technicolor). As in 1959 Jesus’ face is never shown. There’s a Last Supper scene that looks very much like DaVinci’s painting – except one apostle is sitting dead-center on the near side of the table, blocking our view of JC.
Prior to the chariot race, Judah is not going to reveal his true identity; instead he plans to race as The Unknown Jew. Which sounds like the pseudonym of a WWE Wrestler.
A really ludicrous plot point in 1925 that’s completely missing in 1959: after the chariot race, Judah is melancholic, pondering what there is to live for now that he has his vengeance. But then Balthazar the Wise Man re-enters the story and says “Hey, that Holy Child of Bethlehem from the prologue should be all grown now and ought to be our Messiah…” and Judah jumps up and says “Yay! I’ll build him an army, proclaim him our King, and we’ll kick out the Romans!” and he jumps on his horse and rides away and does exactly that. Except for the kick out the Romans part.
William Wyler, director of 1959, was an assistant in 1925. There are many shots in the 1925 chariot race that match identically to the 1959 version. The two big set-pieces – the naval battle and the chariot race – are as spectacular in 1925 as they were in 1959,
A Minecraft Movie (2025) They get the trailer quotes out in the first 20 minutes then you have another hour to sit through. It’s made for the kids who grew up with this game and it hits the marks it needed to, my teen son enjoyed it, but it’ll be forgotten in a dustbin in a month and the quotes will cease.
Go all-in and watch the recent re-make as well. It wasn’t great, though. Even the chariot race was less well shot and edited than the 1959 one. It also looks way faker becasue of the cheap effects.
They played that up a LOT for dramatic tension, especially the Mike O’Malley character as jerkwad antagonist.
In reality, there was a formal review, as there always is, but it focused on alternate options for reference and future pilot training. IIRC, the only minor criticism of the flight crew was they forgot to engage the Airbus system that closes all the vents and stuff for better floatation in water landings.
I saw Oddity (Hulu), which was nice and creepy. For my money, it had the most unsettling human-sized doll / golem since Hell House, LLC. It got disappointingly predictable as it went on, but maintained a lovely creepiness throughout. My only real complaint is that the description on Hulu gave me the impression that it would be a completely different movie than it ended up being. So while I rather liked it, I was left still wanting to see the movie I thought it was going to be. (Something Final Destination-y.)
Then I watched Strange Darling (Paramount+), which turned out not to be horror but instead a thriller. (Unless, of course, you count the most horrifically unhealthy Sunday breakfast ever captured on film.) This one was a banger that I highly recommend. Top notch. I’m starting to become a big Kyle Gallner fan, and may soon start seeking out his other projects.
Finally, I just now finished watching The History of Time Travel (Prime). The premise is that time travel was invented, and this is essentially a History Channel show about it, similar to The History Channel shows about the Manhattan project. It never breaks format, and is a pretty fun ride. I’m giving it bonus points because when I finished it, Prime recommended the sequel to The Man from Earth. I had no idea there was a sequel so now I know what I’m watching tomorrow! (EDIT: Checking IMDb the original earned a 7.8 user rating while the sequel only 5.2, so I am adjusting my expectations accordingly.)