Movies

[garyclark]

I think Lithgow was supposed to be American, too. And Fiennes British?

Loved it. And yes, that last spoiler was one of my takeaways.

I thought the cinematography was stunning, and the acting was tremendous. Enjoyed it all.

[rass]

ministry of ungentlemanly warfare....liked it. Just a fun movie with decent characters. Feels like they writing could have rounded out the characters a bit more and done more with the plot...but not losing sleep over it. Probably would have been better as a streaming series....and called "the A-team with British accents"

I guess I'm on a Nazi slaughtering kick this week. Xfinity is providing Starz for free and I watched Sisu the other night and Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare last night. I feel like the latter could have been more violent? Both were fun though.

Alan Ritchson looked smaller, both in terms of height and muscles, than he does in Reacher. Some of that must be related to his "training" regimen, and some to how they shoot/cast Reacher.

[The Sybian]

ministry of ungentlemanly warfare....liked it. Just a fun movie with decent characters. Feels like they writing could have rounded out the characters a bit more and done more with the plot...but not losing sleep over it. Probably would have been better as a streaming series....and called "the A-team with British accents"

I guess I'm on a Nazi slaughtering kick this week. Xfinity is providing Starz for free and I watched Sisu the other night and Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare last night. I feel like the latter could have been more violent? Both were fun though.

Alan Ritchson looked smaller, both in terms of height and muscles, than he does in Reacher. Some of that must be related to his "training" regimen, and some to how they shoot/cast Reacher.

It also seems like in Reacher, they surrounded him with tiny people. Side note, I finally gave Reacher a shot based on all the posts here (after ignoring my father telling me to watch it). What a fun show! I just love how he leaves a wake of dead bad guys everywhere he goes, and nobody, including the police, seem to care.

[Shirley]

ministry of ungentlemanly warfare....liked it. Just a fun movie with decent characters. Feels like they writing could have rounded out the characters a bit more and done more with the plot...but not losing sleep over it. Probably would have been better as a streaming series....and called "the A-team with British accents"

I guess I'm on a Nazi slaughtering kick this week. Xfinity is providing Starz for free and I watched Sisu the other night and Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare last night. I feel like the latter could have been more violent? Both were fun though.

Alan Ritchson looked smaller, both in terms of height and muscles, than he does in Reacher. Some of that must be related to his "training" regimen, and some to how they shoot/cast Reacher.

Watched that one on a plane last month. Lots of fun. It didn't take itself too seriously. Classic Guy Ritchie stuff and I guess I'm a sucker for that.

[Giff]

We saw The Monkey today. If you like gore and random laughs, I recommend it.

[rass]

We saw The Monkey today. If you like gore and random laughs, I recommend it.

My wife is going leaving for a conference tomorrow so I might take the youngest to see that

[Giff]

We explained the movie tonight to our girls over dinner and were laughing so hard, so I think I enjoyed it more than I thought.

This seems to be a good era for campy horror/slasher films, and I’m surprised at how much I’m here for it. The previews today were great, but the ones for Hell of a Summer and Together stood out.

[A_B]

Just watched the substance. What the ever loving hell was that.

[brian]

Glad Sean Baker won the screenplay Oscar for Anora, which I can’t wait to see. The Florida Project is one of the best films of the 21st century IMO.

[A_B]

Glad Sean Baker won the screenplay Oscar for Anora, which I can’t wait to see. The Florida Project is one of the best films of the 21st century IMO.

I couldn’t agree more. The Florida project is a god damn revelation. The young girl in it was outstanding.

[brian]

Baker becomes second person to win four Oscars in one night.

The other was Walt Fucking Disney.

[DSafetyGuy]

Baker becomes second person to win four Oscars in one night.

The other was Walt Fucking Disney.

Anora.jpeg (216.29 KiB) Viewed 4987 times

TL/DR: Apparently, the movie started shooting with union deals (including healthcare) only for SAG and DGA (including Baker), not crew, and tried to hide that from the union until they forced them to go union for the crew.

[Shirley]

I'm not sure I'd ever heard of Anora before yesterday. That's happened a few times in recent years. I'm not sure if that says something about me or the movie industry. Probably both.

[Nonlinear FC]

Well, I was feeling pretty good about watching Anora at, literally, the last possible moment. We watched Conclave on Saturday and figured we'd watch one more to give us 5 or 6 that we'd seen that were nominated on Sunday afternoon.

I really liked the movie. But we were pretty shocked that, say, Conclave, seemed to get pretty much shut out in favor of Anora.

[The Sybian]

I'm not sure I'd ever heard of Anora before yesterday. That's happened a few times in recent years. I'm not sure if that says something about me or the movie industry. Probably both.

I'm with you, and I'd say both. The entertainment landscape is just so different with movies being released on so many platforms, theatrical releases get so much less attention. I've only heard of Anora because a video was on the side of my YouTube feed with a video from Seth Myers where Sara Sherman brought the Anora Menorah on. I guess SNL used it in a skit. I clicked on that then watched a few minutes of an interview with the main actress talking about the movie. It used to be that we had a centralized pop culture, and you couldn't avoid knowing what big movies were being released. Now, you have to search stuff out to know it exists, or at least listen/watch/read stuff that discusses a topic to know about it.

[Nonlinear FC]

You absolutely have to be more proactive, but with that said, the entire Awards Season gives a pretty good road map of stuff that you can go out and watch to see what's going on.

I don't have a lot of interest in sitting through a 3-hour Oscars if I haven't seen 5 or 6 (at least) of the various movies in the mix for the major awards.

[Steve of phpBB]

I'm not sure I'd ever heard of Anora before yesterday. That's happened a few times in recent years. I'm not sure if that says something about me or the movie industry. Probably both.

Same. I have a feeling I'd be more likely to have heard about it if I were still on Twitter.

[The Sybian]

You absolutely have to be more proactive, but with that said, the entire Awards Season gives a pretty good road map of stuff that you can go out and watch to see what's going on.

I don't have a lot of interest in sitting through a 3-hour Oscars if I haven't seen 5 or 6 (at least) of the various movies in the mix for the major awards.

The last awards show I watched was probably the MTV Awards around 1991, so I just don't have any interest in watching the awards shows regardless. I used to try to watch most of the Best Picture nominees before the Oscars, just because they were critically acclaimed movies, but never with a thought to watch the show. Now that I think about it, I may have seen the year Letterman hosted the Oscars, either that, or I just saw clips of Oprah...Uma...Uma...Oprah after the fact, but I think I may have watched, as I was a Dave fan back in the day.

[P.D.X.]

pretty sure I haven't watched since Crash won (not correlated). I will seek out movies that won awards after the fact though.

[Nonlinear FC]

My wife is very into all of the Hollywood stuff and I don't mind using the general framework to find and watch good movies. I find the event pretty annoying, but watching it the next day and speeding through the nonsense makes it more palatable.

[sancarlos]

Because I was with my mom and dad, I watched some of it, for the first time in decades. I felt old for not knowing so many of today’s stars (and I, too, was completely unfamiliar with Anora), but younger (by comparison) when my parents would bitch and moan about the outfits and appearance of people who don’t meet their expectations.”He looks like a stick of butter!”

[The Sybian]

My wife is very into all of the Hollywood stuff and I don't mind using the general framework to find and watch good movies. I find the event pretty annoying, but watching it the next day and speeding through the nonsense makes it more palatable.

How was Conan? I was curious to watch clips of him, but only saw a 15 second joke. Thought more would pop up for me.

[Nonlinear FC]

My wife is very into all of the Hollywood stuff and I don't mind using the general framework to find and watch good movies. I find the event pretty annoying, but watching it the next day and speeding through the nonsense makes it more palatable.

How was Conan? I was curious to watch clips of him, but only saw a 15 second joke. Thought more would pop up for me.

The opening number was, in theory, pretty funny. It was basically a song and dance about not wasting time, while becoming increasingly silly and clearly just being a big waste of time. I just think it was too on the nose. You are, literally, wasting our time. Stop it.

Overall, it was Conan being Conan, which I'm a big fan of... He got a few veiled and not so veiled shots in on Trump, made a couple of on the fly jokes about attendees that were pretty clever/funny.

I was worried he was going to be too far into full schtick mode, but he played things more straight up. If he had gone too much into the silly string dance guy mode, it would've been a disaster.

I particularly liked a segment where he had a bunch of LAFD folks up there and then had 3 of them tell jokes that Conan couldn't get away with saying. Standing O for those ppl, which was moving, and then they all nailed their jokes.

[Giff]

Anora was pretty great. Funnier than I anticipated. If you like titties and fuckin in your good movies, this is one for you.

[sancarlos]

Anora was pretty great. Funnier than I anticipated. If you like titties and fuckin in your good movies, this is one for you.

It hits Hulu on March 17.

[Giff]

Oh the best part is we went into the completely wrong theater. Thought it was #5 and when we walked in I remember thinking it was bigger than what I remembered when buying the tix. Then the previews started 15 minutes early and I thought maybe Alamo was trying this crazy thing out where the movie actually starts at the time advertised. Then we see Robert Pattison in the snow and oops, we’re in Mickey 17 and supposed to be in theatre 1.

[brian]

Anora was pretty great. Funnier than I anticipated. If you like titties and fuckin in your good movies, this is one for you.

Mikey Madison is an awesome actress so I’m looking forward to seeing it.

[Giff]

Anora was pretty great. Funnier than I anticipated. If you like titties and fuckin in your good movies, this is one for you.

Mikey Madison is an awesome actress so I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Absolutely deserved Best Actress.

[brian]

She was so good in Better Things.

[govmentchedda]

She was so good in Better Things.

Such a great show.

[The Sybian]

She was so good in Better Things.

Such a great show.

What was it on? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.

[govmentchedda]

She was so good in Better Things.

Such a great show.

What was it on? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.

FX, I think.

[brian]

She was so good in Better Things.

Such a great show.

What was it on? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.

Yeah FX. You should check it out. I’d bet $10 the missus would really like it too

[brian]

They made a movie about the guy who figured out the Press Your Luck pattern with Paul Walter Howser, Walton Goggins and David Straithairn and I am fucking here for it.

[govmentchedda]

Shea Serrano really has me wanting to watch a bunch of movies that I just dismissed for whatever reason, Den of Thieves among them.

I signed up for Shea's new Substack GOOD MOVIES and have 5 different gift memberships for a month. PM me your email address if you want them. I will probably wait until he's posted some things to send you the link, so you actually get some value from the membership, given that it's only a month for free.

His sales pitch for it is...





...Hello, my friends. Today is a beautiful day, because today is the day I finally get to tell you: I have a new project I’m doing. I’ve been working on it in secret for a while now. It’s called…


I’m fucking pumped about it. We launch officially on March 28. It’s a thing you can (and should) subscribe to. If you wanna just jump in blind and trust that I will not lead you astray, you can do so right here: https://goodmovie.substack.com/

If you wanna know more about GOOD MOVIE before subscribing, though, here is some information you may find helpful:

WHAT IS GOOD MOVIE?

GOOD MOVIE is a publication about movies. The way it works is simple: Every Friday, we publish one essay and video about one good movie. There are no restrictions to particular genres or restrictions to particular time periods. If a movie is good, it’s in play to be covered. If it’s not, then it’s not.

As a bonus: Each Monday, there’s a community chat about the movie that subscribers can participate in. So, let’s say this Friday’s movie was Interstellar. You’d get an essay that I wrote about it in your inbox about it on Friday, and then on Monday a chat would become available where, should you feel so inclined, you could add your own thoughts about Interstellar. It’s meant to replicate that feeling of when you’d go see a movie on Friday night and then Monday at work or school or whatever you’d talk with your friends about it.

YOU MENTIONED A VIDEO. WHAT’S THE VIDEO?

Remember that show Pop-Up Video that ran on VHS in the ‘90s? They’d play a music video and little notes would pop up on the screen throughout it? Each week’s video is like that, except instead of a music video it’s a scene from each movie, and instead of pop-up word bubbles it’s footnotes. It’s really cool and really fun. You’re gonna love it.

WHAT KIND OF ESSAY IS IT?

Well, generally speaking, the answer here is: A good one. A good, funny, insightful essay. But if you want a specific answer here, then: Each essay is made up of four parts. They are as follows:

The Introduction: This section gives an accounting of time, people, and context around each movie’s release. It’s there to quickly explain what was happening in Hollywood when a particular movie came out, and what was happening with an actor or director’s career when a particular movie came out.

The Viewing: This is the bulk of every essay. It’s a time-stamped rewatch of the featured movie. Picture a bunch of little entries written down about various scenes, and lines, moments. For example, here’s a thing I wrote down during the part in Kill Billwhen The Bride flies to Okinawa to get a sword:

51:28: In hindsight, it’s at least a little bit crazy going all the way from El Paso to Okinawa to get a sword. That’s a 20-plus hour flight we’re talking about. They were selling guns at Walmart in 2003. She could’ve just popped on in there. Grabbed a pistol, maybe some snacks. It would’ve taken ten minutes.

It’s a bunch of those kinds of entries. They work nicely as individual memos—some are funny, some are thoughtful, some pose questions, others posit answers—but together they (hopefully) form a full and meaningful view of the movie.

Accidental Similarities: This is a short section; just a fun little exercise. The goal of it is to find unintentional similarities between the current movie being written about and the movie from the previous week. I always enjoy doing stuff like that.

So, for example, if this week’s movie was, say, the serial killer thriller Seven, and last week’s movie was, say, the boom-boom-bang action movie The Rock, I’d try and find some unexpected ways that those two movies were unintentionally similar. Such as: Did you know that Seven and The Rock both have parts where someone dies from being force fed something? And did you know that Seven and The Rock both have villains who are white guys with shaved heads? And did you know that Seven and The Rock both have scenes where John C. McGinley points a gun at someone?

The Last Bits: I always end up googling stuff whenever I’m watching movies that I’ve seen before. Like, there's a part in Jerry Maguire where the little kid tells Tom Cruise that the human head weighs eight pounds. The last time I watched that movie, I googled “How much does a human head weigh” to see if that was true. Turns out, it kind of is. Generally speaking, most human heads weigh between five and eleven pounds. (I assume this means that Peyton Manning’s head weighs something like 16 pounds.) Anyway, this section is that: stuff that I googled while watching a movie.

Those four things together equal one essay.

WHY DID YOU CALL IT GOOD MOVIE INSTEAD OF GOOD MOVIES?

You know the thing of when you’re walking out of a theater after you’ve just watched something really great and you’re making your way down the little carpeted walkway toward the exit out into the theater lobby and all you can think to do is say to the person walking next to you, “Man… good movie”? That's why.

[tennbengal]

They made a movie about the guy who figured out the Press Your Luck pattern with Paul Walter Howser, Walton Goggins and David Straithairn and I am fucking here for it.

Yeah, I am sight unseen all-in for that.

[GoodKarma]

They made a movie about the guy who figured out the Press Your Luck pattern with Paul Walter Howser, Walton Goggins and David Straithairn and I am fucking here for it.

Ditto...there was a brief documentary or something similar I watched a few years ago as I had forgotten about the story (the guy was from Dayton, I think). I had no idea about this until I saw the preview yesterday.

[L-Jam3]

Watched Wolfs tonight, the new George Clooney, Brad Pitt film. No classic or anything, but a pretty good buddy action flick.

[+] spoiler

The ending is very reminiscent of the ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

I just caught this on a flight down to St. Thomas. This definitely should have been at least nominated this year for the Oscar for Best “Movie to Watch on a Plane” Picture.

Agreed on the spoiler. I was racking my brain trying to place it.

[brian]

TL/DR: Apparently, the movie started shooting with union deals (including healthcare) only for SAG and DGA (including Baker), not crew, and tried to hide that from the union until they forced them to go union for the crew.

Sounds like this version was exaggerated.

I’m pro-union and I’m glad the project was eventually unionized but it wasn’t exactly Baker twirling his mustache to pay the crew gruel sandwiches.

[wlu_lax6]

Electric Slate is a really interesting idea, but came up short. Very interesting visual/character/art. But then some bad CGI, average acting (by some big names who just played it like other characters they have played in the past). Allstar cast.....Millie Bobby Brown, Chriss Pratt, Tucci, Key Huy Quan (Short Round), Jason Alexander, Woody Harelson, and others. Hollywood loves Qiancarlo Esposito. He is good but he is not so great he has to be in everything.

Also feels like Chris Pratt feels like he gets to pick the music in his movies since Guardians of the Galaxy.