Movie What's the last movie you saw? (6)

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Continued in Part 7:

 
Triangle of Sadness (2022)

It had some interesting moments but it was very hard work. At half an hour nothing much had happened apart from the explanation for the title. I went and posted a letter. An hour in still nothing, so I weeded my garden beds. It improved after that. The scene with drunken Woody Harrelson and the Russian was funny. If the film makers had a socio-political point I didn't care. Their first job is to entertain and they failed.

4/10
 
Cocaine Bear - Download Dave

Terribly acted poorly scripted high gore level


In all areas this shouldnt work but it does. Amusing interlude that requires no effort of thought.

Nice seeing Angry Retail Guy and Jesse Tyler Ferguson flexing his hetero skills while Ice Cubes boy Shea Jackson is probably the best thing in this - apart from the Bear

At an hour and a half it doesnt require too much investment in time
 

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Supercell - USB

With Anne Heche and Alec Baldwin with this being the last movie for Heche (and possibly Baldwin)

A young boy is drawn to Tornado Alley by his fathers exploits and runs away for a legacy trip

Its ok - its in the Twister mold and if you like that sort of stuff it will appeal

A few scenes could have been done differently but overall its set up for the end scene and does it ok

7/10
 
Catching up on some Aronofsky.

Pi (1998)

Max is a number theorist, looking for patterns in nature that can explain reality. He's also paranoid and prefers to avoid social interaction. He has competing conflicts with a Jewish sect looking to find answers from the Torah, and a Wall Street mob looking to make a killing on the stock market.

It's Aronofsky's first feature film, made with a very limited budget and unauthorised locations. Shot in high contrast black and white it has a feel of Eraserhead. It's fun and interesting. I would have preferred the ending to explore his insights rather than his psychological demise.

5/10
 
Noah (2014)

I liked this more than I thought I would. The plot was a surprising deviation from the story we all know. I loved the bleak and grainy cinematography from Iceland. Good performances from Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Ray Winstone. Amazing digital art. It made me wonder what Lord of the Rings would have been like if Aronofsky had directed.

7/10
 
John Wick Chapter 4

Franchise will never top the first film, but such a grandiose piece of cinema and film making. So well lighted and action choreograph is superb.
 
Watching Elvis on Netflix and I'm struggling to watch it with Tom Hanks. I'm a big fan of his typically, but I'm hating him in this one. It's going to take me a few sessions to get through it. Loving the young fella playing Elvis.
 
Unintentional coincidence but ended up seeing two movies yesterday, both from the noughties set in the eighties.

American Psycho (2000)

Thought it was pretty s**t, with Christian Bale's performance the only real good thing about it.

The screenplay was rubbish. It didn't have much plot, hardly any escalation, no real conflict or antagonist. The scenes where he gave us his little critiques of various 80s albums became tiresome. The macho/sexist/greedy/eighties schtick was hackneyed.

It's listed as a Horror/Thriller on IMDB but if anything I felt it was an at times amusing black comedy.

I like movies you can really get into, I felt so detached watching this. Perhaps that is an intentional way for us to empathise with the psyche of the protagonist, but I'm not sure I can give this film that much credit.

I didn't like him, but I didn't hate him either. I just didn't care.

2 stars.

The Lives of Others (2006)

A tense and at times sterile slow burner set in East Germany in the 1980s. It follows the surveillance of a playwright who is suspected of being seditious, and who's partner is the object of the affections (or to put it more accurately, carnal desires) of the Minister for Culture. The main Stasi guy (who has his own political game playing going on with his employer) doing the spying slowly gets drawn in to the "lives of these others" as he learns about their activity, motivations, etc.

I'm a fan of the spy genre (more Le Carre, less James Bond mind you) and normally would probably want a little bit more going on in a movie like this. But in its own way, TLOO layers itself nicely and slowly adds little bits to the plot. What you end up with is a movie that feels very authentic. It delivers the depressing vibes of 80s communism really well.

Whilst the movie begins in the eighties, it does also take us beyond the fall of the wall, to a time now where (East) German citizens can go to libraries(?) and view the files that the Stasi had on them. Amazingly, more than 5 million citizens has a Stasi file, with between 1 and 2 percent of the population being Stasi informants.

4.5 stars
 
Watching Elvis on Netflix and I'm struggling to watch it with Tom Hanks. I'm a big fan of his typically, but I'm hating him in this one. It's going to take me a few sessions to get through it. Loving the young fella playing Elvis.
Found it hard to watch aswell, didn't think the movie was that good but the guy playing Elvis was great
 

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Unintentional coincidence but ended up seeing two movies yesterday, both from the noughties set in the eighties.

American Psycho (2000)

Thought it was pretty s**t, with Christian Bale's performance the only real good thing about it.

The screenplay was rubbish. It didn't have much plot, hardly any escalation, no real conflict or antagonist. The scenes where he gave us his little critiques of various 80s albums became tiresome. The macho/sexist/greedy/eighties schtick was hackneyed.

It's listed as a Horror/Thriller on IMDB but if anything I felt it was an at times amusing black comedy.

I like movies you can really get into, I felt so detached watching this. Perhaps that is an intentional way for us to empathise with the psyche of the protagonist, but I'm not sure I can give this film that much credit.

I didn't like him, but I didn't hate him either. I just didn't care.

2 stars.

The Lives of Others (2006)

A tense and at times sterile slow burner set in East Germany in the 1980s. It follows the surveillance of a playwright who is suspected of being seditious, and who's partner is the object of the affections (or to put it more accurately, carnal desires) of the Minister for Culture. The main Stasi guy (who has his own political game playing going on with his employer) doing the spying slowly gets drawn in to the "lives of these others" as he learns about their activity, motivations, etc.

I'm a fan of the spy genre (more Le Carre, less James Bond mind you) and normally would probably want a little bit more going on in a movie like this. But in its own way, TLOO layers itself nicely and slowly adds little bits to the plot. What you end up with is a movie that feels very authentic. It delivers the depressing vibes of 80s communism really well.

Whilst the movie begins in the eighties, it does also take us beyond the fall of the wall, to a time now where (East) German citizens can go to libraries(?) and view the files that the Stasi had on them. Amazingly, more than 5 million citizens has a Stasi file, with between 1 and 2 percent of the population being Stasi informants.

4.5 stars
American psycho is definitely a black comedy/satire. Book is much better though, as is usual.
 
American Psycho drew heavily on the banning of the book and the controversy. The Bateman character was a shallow self centred narcissist which was meant to be an allegory of the 80s and 90s

It would be interesting to see - with the rise of social media , maybe some Trumpism - how it would be written today

(and maybe Trump has a dog eared copy somewhere thinking it was a handbook)

(apologies for the political content)
 
Yeah I got the feeling there was a lot of scope there for satire and allegory there, book may well be worth a read. Film just left me a tad underwhelmed.

Haven't read the book, but I suspect if they tried to literally draw upon the source material to the nth degree, it would have been too graphic/violent for many
 
I'm about 3/4 way through Elvis.

I'm enjoying it but it's an assault on the senses. The song music, the soundtrack music, the super saturated colour visuals and editing and lights and fireworks, etc etc. That's without even getting in to the story and historical accuracy.

At a purely surface level watch, it's a tough watch. It makes Lurhman's Gatsby picture look like an old black and white era slow burn drama. And that movie was pretty lively.

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Watching Elvis on Netflix and I'm struggling to watch it with Tom Hanks. I'm a big fan of his typically, but I'm hating him in this one. It's going to take me a few sessions to get through it. Loving the young fella playing Elvis.

I got half way through and gave up on it. Not the Tom Hanks. More the Baz Luhrmann of it all. Agree about Austin Butler.
 
Natural Born Killers

Saw this on one of the FTA and figured why not

I remembered the controversy about it around the violence and media and wanted to see how it aged

I reckon Oliver Stone and crew were tripping balls when they made this

Even Quentin Tarantino wanted no credit for this

Too many wah wah shots and camera angles all over the place. As a Statement about media it failed - presenting this as a sitcom or as a prophesy about stations like Fox and CNN and the need to make news rather than report it. Now that would have been a good movie

but tying it into thrill killers - based on many but mainly Starkweather (better covered in Badlands with Martin Sheen) the violence is diluted - which may be the point I missed

I would like to see the movie Quentin wanted
 
American Psycho drew heavily on the banning of the book and the controversy. The Bateman character was a shallow self centred narcissist which was meant to be an allegory of the 80s and 90s

It would be interesting to see - with the rise of social media , maybe some Trumpism - how it would be written today

(and maybe Trump has a dog eared copy somewhere thinking it was a handbook)

(apologies for the political content)
I read this book around 1998 whilst hitchhiking from Melbourne to Brisbane, and on LSD, passing nights along the coast in July with nothing more than a thin sleeping bag. IIRC it was banned or a hard to find book.
 
On Elvis, the opening Hank Snow tour section is rough going (the backstory/influences/gyrating/Hanks narrator stuff was all very gauche), but it gets okay thereafter, basically from the 'Trouble' performance on. Even the typical Baz stuff was reined in imo, far from his most frenetic film. As far as post-Strictly Ballroom Baz goes it was fine.
 
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