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Post by Mattsby on Mar 14, 2021 20:39:13 GMT
This movie and Support Your Local Sheriff used to play constantly at the old movie house near me and I must have seen it like 20 times growing up or more even. Love Garner in both and the rapport he has with Vereen - both of those movies have this easy likability to them. I sometimes mention this movie as the most glaring example of "movies you can't make today" because they appear on the surface to be "outdated" or "insensitive" but are not really (to me anyway, ymmv I mean I like Pepe Lew Pew and Dr. Seuss so my getting offended tolerance is pretty high ). anyway............... in the 70s this inspired a TV sequel ( Sidekicks (1974)) with Larry Hagman taking over the Garner role (Vereen is back in his part). Now that could use a rewatch! It's on Youtube .......... Garner's own production company Cherokee Productions (his mother was half-Cherokee, who knew!?) set up those projects, and Duel at Diablo before them which gave Poitier the best role in it. There's rarely talk about that, stars who produced progressive(ish) projects - like Burt Lancaster and the Take a Giant Step movie, speaking of which - that play Louis Gossett starred and debuted on Broadway almost 70 years ago!!I'll have to check out Sidekicks. I'm fascinated by pilots deployed as tv movies (Madame Sin, etc) - happened much more often in the 70s compared to now where they bury unpicked-up pilots. And that cast... Blythe Danner, eyebally Jack Elam, Gene Evans. Burt Kennedy directed too who specialized writing those smaller set Randolph Scott Westerns (which I recently finished streaking) and helming easygoing Westerns... The Good Guys and the Bad Guys w/ Robert Mitchum an underrated one. Pac, question - Any particular fav perfs from Gossett??
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 14, 2021 22:23:08 GMT
Pac, question - Any particular fav perfs from Gossett?? Well I'd say the Oscar probably hurt him - if he doesn't win an Oscar well........he's more like Glynn Turman I bet and that would have been great - afterward he won he's sort of cast as a noble guy who doesn't get meaty parts in the sense that their deep characters - though they are glumly-serious parts that often killed his sense of humor and he did get a lot of TV acclaim (Sadat etc) for a kind of dignified approximation. I like one TV thing he did called Carolina Skeletons where he has to portray a characte r and centers the piece - and he's good - although that's as close to heavy lifting acting as he's done in way too many years. Bruce Dern is in that too - worth a watch where a lot of his TV stuff is a let down......but formulaic tbh. For me he'll mostly always be Fiddler from Roots - and that's a great turn - basically to the 70s to me is where I like him without him being pigeon-holed - I even like him on episodic TV in the 70s Good Times (not kidding) - 2 appearances - both memorable, both wildly different.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 15, 2021 11:20:27 GMT
The Measure of a Man (2015) - 7.5 / 10Sort of a more prosaic, less faux-arty version of Nomadland - a 50 something skilled man loses his job and then under every opportunity he loses it, repeatedly in different ways. Strong film that some people will see their whole lives in - others, most likely younger viewers will watch and say "so what?" Which in and of itself is what the movie is about too. The lead performance, simple and not showy by Vincent Lindon won a César Award for Best Actor for this - and this is a good example of acting the role - not "acting the acting" too.
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 15, 2021 19:02:40 GMT
The Measure of a Man (2015) - 7.5 / 10Sort of a more prosaic, less faux-arty version of Nomadland - a 50 something skilled man loses his job and then under every opportunity he loses it, repeatedly in different ways. Strong film that some people will see their whole lives in - others, most likely younger viewers will watch and say "so what?" Which in and of itself is what the movie is about too. The lead performance, simple and not showy by Vincent Lindon won a César Award for Best Actor for this - and this is a good example of acting the role - not "acting the acting" too. Saw this a few years ago - Lindon is great, movie is pretty good but if I'm remembering right it lacks a third act. I especially liked how quiet and believable Lindon is... like the disposition class where everyone harshly critique hims and he's just taking it in. There's a just perceptible pain to him in those moments that he holds/hides, or like when he's doing security at the grocery, highlighting themes how workers are pitted against each other - as he's told to watch them too. Lindon is often low key and effective... I always think of School of Flesh for him, but I haven't seen much.
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 15, 2021 21:27:27 GMT
Space Sweepers (2021) 5 or 6/10. Korean remix of Guardians of the Galaxy and Star Wars. Uses its $21 mil budget well, it's blockbuster big and many of the sets are really detailed and fun to look at. Costars a badass Tae-ri Kim (The Handmaiden) and there's Richard Armitage as the Elon Musk-esque villain. Unfortunately the last few scenes make this less fun, kinda manipulatively schmaltzy, and the charm vanishes, but there's plenty of entertaining sci-fi scenes and action before that for anyone interested.
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Mar 16, 2021 0:19:45 GMT
Now that the Oscar nominations are out, I'm here to present my week's viewing of movies that had no shot of Oscars...
The Exorcism of Emily Rose - Listed as a horror film but is actually a courtroom drama. I wasn't expecting that. It's decent enough, I guess. The stellar cast saves it from being overly humdrum but I don't imagine I'll ever watch this again. Still, compared to many of the other films I've watched lately this might as well have been Trial of the Chicago 7!
The Clovehitch Killer - Knew nothing about this movie but it surprised the fuck out of me. More of a slow-burn thriller than a horror movie (as it was listed) but it was good enough that I didn't mind the lack of scares. Definitely worth checking out.
Cabin Fever: Patient Zero - And then there's this pile of shit. I don't know why I put it on given that the first movie was trash... but this one is trash that was light on fire and then defecated on by the entire cast and crew. Still, hot chicks. So there was some light at the end of this flesh-eating tunnel.
Ghost Stories - If it weren't for those last 25ish minutes I would have gladly given this a thumbs up. Good acting, good story, but then a terrible ending. This would be like having a neopolitan ice cream and you eat past the vanilla and strawberry only to find the third layer is just dirt. I was very angered by this.
Pandorum - My brother sang this movie's praises to the high heavens. For this recommendation I have emailed Saint Peter and told him to keep my brother out. Okay, it wasn't that bad but when a certain someone compares it favorably to Aliens and instead I get something closer to Supernova... yeah, I'm going to be a little peeved.
Delirium - Have you ever watched Blair Witch Project and thought, "you know what would make this movie better? Lets have the entire cast be full of frat boy stereotypes!" then this movie is for you. If you're like most people and that sounds like pulling teeth then a trip to the dentist may be more enjoyable.
They Reach - Brand new film with a shoestring budget that actually worked. Definitely taking some of that ripe Stranger Things vibe a little too much at times, but it worked for me. Last two minutes, not so much.
The Prodigy - Basically a bad rendition of The Omen that's made exponentially worse due in large part of the logic and problem-solving by the mother's character. Let's just say if you make it to the end of the movie and you're still thinking "this child can still be saved" then you need to be neutered or spayed. Shoutout to Bob Barker.
The Relic - Typical 90's monster movie that's so incredibly 90's you can't really hate it too much. Mimic was definitely a better option if you want 90's monster action.
Annabelle: Creation - This was... good! I'm not kidding and not even comparing it to the other stuff I have listed. Genuinely pretty good. Also whoever played the little girl is going to be a hell of an actress one day. Mark my words.
Underwater - Alien rip-off that just doesn't even compare. This is also one of those movies where once all the main characters are introduced you can just go "dead. dead. dies heroically. dead. makes it out alive since they're useless. dead. alive." and be 90% accurate.
Quarantine - Another genuinely good one. Aside from the TV crew being the most annoying fucking people on the planet (instead of helping out, let me just film this despite the fact that everyone around us is turning into a fucking monster!... though I guess that's pretty accurate for how the news is today), I can't think of much wrong with this.
Look Away - Interesting premise until it decides to go full on Carrie. Also, Jason Isaacs in this is probably one of the worst film dads ever. I even said out loud despite being completely alone at 3am "wow what a fucking prick!"
Trick - I actually liked this. It's a solid slasher movie. However, I did not like how they said "Trick" every 20 seconds. That's honestly not even hyperbole... they say it A LOT.
I Still See You - Decent. Definitely a few head scratching moments but it was fairly original and I didn't hate my time watching it.
Buddy Games - I needed a break from horror movies and I chose a terrible movie to break the trend with. Now, I will say that there were a few really funny bits/moments but the crux of the story is every buddy comedy cliche you can think of wrapped into a 95 minute movie. So while I did laugh a decent amount it's bad.
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Post by wilcinema on Mar 16, 2021 14:36:03 GMT
Just Mercy: Way too bland for a story like this, I thought I was watching a TV movie.
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Drish
Badass
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Post by Drish on Mar 16, 2021 18:58:52 GMT
A question for themoviesinner.. can we watch The Blue Elephant 2 without watching the first part? The second part is FINALLY on my Netflix but not the first :/ And you know how I have been dying to watch them both.
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 16, 2021 20:15:05 GMT
Guilty Conscience (1985) 7/10 - CBS movie cowritten by Link/Levinson (Columbo creators), this is probably what a murder mystery from Florian Zeller would look like. Great opening line from Hopkins - "Murder. By all means....let's talk about murder." He plays an illustrious, wealthy attorney who has decided he's to murder his wife, but how, and how not to get caught. "Some weave, we unweave." He fantasizes criminal scenarios, mentally cross-examining himself (two Tonys!) and gets lost. Hopkins plays the role with great molten sarcasm, someone so smart it doubles over into a stalling weakness... He can't fathom fault but he's so confident he feels tragically invincible. Blythe Danner as the wife is good too, upfront and up-to-something. Very good psychologically complex play-adapted script.
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Post by HELENA MARIA on Mar 16, 2021 22:09:06 GMT
THE FATHER (2020) : 8.5/10
SOUND OF METAL (2020) : 9/10
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Post by jakesully on Mar 16, 2021 22:24:53 GMT
The Aftermath Post World War II, a British colonel and his wife are assigned to live in Hamburg during the post-war reconstruction, but tensions arise with the German who previously owned the house.This was quite good & featured 3 A-Listers in it (Keira Knightley , Jason Clarke & Alexander Skarsgard) All 3 of them did an impressive job in their leading roles. Would recommend it to anyone that is a fan of these actors. 7/10
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Post by themoviesinner on Mar 16, 2021 22:42:19 GMT
A question for themoviesinner.. can we watch The Blue Elephant 2 without watching the first part? The second part is FINALLY on my Netflix but not the first :/ And you know how I have been dying to watch them both. You could watch it, as the two films aren't very closely related (I mean the main characters are the same, but the second film takes place about five years after the first and their stories aren't related), but I think watching them in chronological order is definitely the wiser choice as the second one is much more idiosyncratic, so it would probably be more difficult to get into it without the knowledge of the first film (more on an aesthetic/creative level than anything story related). But you needn't worry as I'm pretty sure that the first film is on YouTube (though I don't know if it has subtitles). Anyway I love both, but I think that the second one might be even better than the first.
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Drish
Badass
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Likes: 1,766
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Post by Drish on Mar 17, 2021 3:11:21 GMT
A question for themoviesinner.. can we watch The Blue Elephant 2 without watching the first part? The second part is FINALLY on my Netflix but not the first :/ And you know how I have been dying to watch them both. You could watch it, as the two films aren't very closely related (I mean the main characters are the same, but the second film takes place about five years after the first and their stories aren't related), but I think watching them in chronological order is definitely the wiser choice as the second one is much more idiosyncratic, so it would probably be more difficult to get into it without the knowledge of the first film (more on an aesthetic/creative level than anything story related). But you needn't worry as I'm pretty sure that the first film is on YouTube (though I don't know if it has subtitles). Anyway I love both, but I think that the second one might be even better than the first. I searched it's not on YouTube. Fuck it. I'm watching the second part 🥳
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Post by themoviesinner on Mar 17, 2021 7:34:59 GMT
I searched it's not on YouTube. Fuck it. I'm watching the second part 🥳 That's too bad. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the second one and I'd be interested in your thoughts on it afterwards.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 17, 2021 8:01:17 GMT
Twisted Obsession aka The Dream Of The Mad Monkey (1989) ~ 6 / 10
This film is actually awful.......but it's my kind of awful dammit .......I keep replaying/rewriting it/recasting it in my head. There's something to this though - and somebody liked it - it won Goya for Best Film (wtf) - and in the hands of Roman Polanski & Gerard Brach this could have been magnificently deranged. I think the source novel may be better - it's hard to see this many balls juggled in the air - Punk Rock girl, heroin, the movie business, multiple kinds of sexual perversions, men as lost boys, harbingers/messengers of Death, marriage troubles etc - and all of those balls in different ways, dropped. Also the casting doesn't work - Jeff Goldblum tries hard but isn't a fit - ( James Spader would be) - second way too many strands dangle - there's not spelling "everything" out and not spelling ANYTHING out and this is the latter - characters disappear in ways that are dramatically unfulfilling. But the premise is a movie lovers sort of dream about a guy pulled into a movie he doesn't get and a situation he doesn't get either (and neither frankly do we, um). Miranda Richardson is kind of greatish here (improbaby so) - there are several wrongfully arousing and inappropriate sex scenes and several scenes of shockingly graphic sexual language that makes you say "well, ok if they just SAID that, what are they gonna show now?" .......alas, not enough and that only applies somewhat to the sex scenes.
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Post by jakesully on Mar 17, 2021 11:53:25 GMT
The Drop (re watch) pretty damn good film (even better than I remember when it came out in 2014) Hardy & Rapace had good chemistry and the little puppy dog was adorable. It was also entertaining to see Hardy & Matthias Schoenaerts share screen time together (both are awesome actors)
And last but not least , James Gandoifini was terrific in this ( his final film role I believe. )
7.5/10
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Post by stabcaesar on Mar 17, 2021 16:11:17 GMT
As Above, From Below - Forced to watch this tacky piece of shit. Awful from beginning to end. One of the worst movies I've ever seen.
Hotel Mumbai - It was entertaining, though not as authentic and grounded as the likes of United 93 so the impact was a lot weaker. Anupam Kher was great, though. 7/10.
Rosetta - Not as great as TDON but it was still very, very strong. Dequenne was devastating. 8/10.
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Post by Pittsnogle_Goggins on Mar 17, 2021 17:07:52 GMT
The Rental. I really enjoyed the first 2/3 of this. Thought Dave Franco’s direction was pretty decent and thought it had some nice eerie buildup going with an underlying tension. Unfortunately it didn’t really deliver for me in the final act.
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 17, 2021 19:34:41 GMT
The Pool (2008) 7.5/10 - the great documentary filmmaker Chris Smith from Milwaukee went over to Goa, India for six months with a narrative script, street-casted actors who couldn't read or speak English so he made this in Hindi and trusted them to improvise and bring themselves into the part. They shot half the movie to edit and show name-actor Nana Patekar and convinced him to join, in a perf with a centering gravity to it. It's a simple, affecting movie and the main two kids have funny, great rapport together. Rarely talked about (I'm fascinated with Americans making foreign movies), Cannes turned it down at the time, but it has 96 % on RT from like 50 critics.
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Post by Pavan on Mar 17, 2021 20:06:00 GMT
Only the Brave (2017)-
Familiar brushstrokes all the way but we haven't had many films about stopping wildfires and so it does feel fresh. Fire sequences were intense and Brolin and Connelly turned good performances- 7/10
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Post by mhynson27 on Mar 18, 2021 3:20:44 GMT
Emma (2020)
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Post by theycallmemrfish on Mar 18, 2021 23:15:40 GMT
The Blackcoat's Daughter - Interesting but ultimately a miss. The direction and acting are solid but its script does it no favors whatsoever. I would definitely like to see this director do something that they didn't write.
12 Hour Shift- HORRIBLE. This is what happens when someone in film school watches the Coen Brothers filmography and tries so desperately hard to ape them. It doesn't work on a horror level, it doesn't work on a comedy level, it doesn't even work as a film. It's terrible. Terrible! TERRIBLE!
The Night Watchmen - Goofy and embraces it making it a pretty fun time. Not so much ha-ha funny, but I was smiling for a good portion of it.
Anna and the Apocalypse - I knew going into this that it was a horror comedy. I didn't know that it was also a horror comedy musical... I fucking HATE musicals... but I stuck it out and I was absolutely hooked after the first 15 minutes. It was really fucking good. Funny, heartful, a few scares in there. I 100% recommend this to everyone. I had a BLAST!
Run - Fuck you Sarah Paulson and I mean that in the best way possible because you made a character so repulsive without having it turn into some Annie Wilkes wannabe. Another good one to add to the repertoire. The ending was so good that I threw my fist in the air like the ending of The Breakfast Club.
Fire in the Sky - Definitely not a horror film but a cool and creepy sci-fi alien abduction movie. Robert Patrick was pretty incredible here.
Animal - Everything involving the creature was fantastic... everything involving the characters ranged from eyerolling to me doing my best Captain Picard facepalm. I honestly think this film would be best watched on mute. Also, I 100% predicted who would die first.
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Post by pacinoyes on Mar 19, 2021 1:15:46 GMT
Gemini (1999) - 8 / 10Part horror - especially in the set-up - part romantic period piece and part psychological mystery this Japanese film is a fascinating contradiction. At times evoking Oldboy, Memento, Dead Ringers.......lots of great stuff can be found here from other movies both earlier and later and weirdly Frankenstein too and an element of strong social critique. It has great beauty and a queasy, hard to watch element underneath as well so you are never sure when you can rest easy and not feel off-balance. You can guess the ending though which does play out effectively if not quite with the full force you might like - but I was into this for the whole weird, sometimes exhilarating ride anyway.
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Post by mhynson27 on Mar 19, 2021 2:44:29 GMT
Wolfwalkers
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Post by Mattsby on Mar 19, 2021 17:06:33 GMT
Heading Home (1994) 6.5 or 7/10 Rare, undistributed movie produced-written-directed by two women - neither have any other IMDb credits besides working on the crew of Christmas Evil (1980). This only has one view on Letterboxd which is almost unheard of. Set in 1970, character actor Frankie Faison plays the lead, a bus driver struggling to accept that his recruited son won’t be coming back from Vietnam. Mary Alice plays his wife. While on a bus ride to Washington DC (hub of ‘Nam protests) he strikes an unlikely friendship with a young girl running away from home. Allison Janney plays her distracted parent (“I’m just a mother whose kids are almost done!” “Ma, I’m not a pot roast”). Most of this movie is set on the bus at night, and feels like an okay off-broadway play. But there’s some deeply felt moments and it’s thematically ambitious in a way. Looking at a specific period of cultural, political, generational crossroads as well as racial compromises. Faison says at one point, “Man walked on the moon but I can’t get a cup of coffee in Kentucky.” Had this been released as a TV movie it might’ve seen some Emmy action.
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