Now Watching 2022

[chuckrh]

[kidsmoke]

6 hours ago, chuckrh said:

 

And how is this? 

 

[chuckrh]

11 hours ago, kidsmoke said:

 

And how is this? 

 

Caveat: I'm a huge Flaming Lips fan. It's definitely worth watching. Interesting how they put the whole thing together. The band sounds fantastic in the music footage especially "Feeling Youself Disintegrate". I've always liked that song but it's become epic live. The guitar solo is 1 of my favorites. Steven Drodz is an amazing musician.

[Albert Tatlock]

The English

 

Best western series I have enjoyed since Lonesome Dove for me (I don't have subscription TV so can't comment on that Deadwood series). Gorgeous to look at. More violent than Lonesome Dove. Interesting convoluted revenge story. Discovered it was written/directed by the same guy at The Shadow Line which i loved way back. A kind of western Peaky Blinders at its best in terms of atmosphere and set up for some scenes. Nearly in tears at the end.

[kidsmoke]

13 hours ago, chuckrh said:

Caveat: I'm a huge Flaming Lips fan. It's definitely worth watching. Interesting how they put the whole thing together. The band sounds fantastic in the music footage especially "Feeling Youself Disintegrate". I've always liked that song but it's become epic live. The guitar solo is 1 of my favorites. Steven Drodz is an amazing musician.

 

I haven't had the chance yet to see them live, but the reports of their live shows have always sounded so fun!

 

[calvino]

We finished the 1st season of White Lotus, last night --- it kind of petered out the last few episodes. Must admit, I am glad it was only 6 episodes. Could not get attached to any of the characters. 

[kidsmoke]

5 hours ago, calvino said:

We finished the 1st season of White Lotus, last night --- it kind of petered out the last few episodes. Must admit, I am glad it was only 6 episodes. Could not get attached to any of the characters. 

 

Too bad this didn't stay as intriguing as that first season. It sounded compelling!

[chuckrh]

This is fantastic!

[Beltmann]

I can't explain why I've never seen Valley Girl until now, since it's totally the kind of thing I would have had on repeat as a teen in the mid '80s, rotating between VHS tapes of Better Off Dead and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It arrived on the scene just as the obsession with all things Valley was winding down--that national fever was grody to the max, fer shure--but it was just in time to capture the era's airy, adorkable don't-take-it-too-seriously vibe. Fittingly, Cage's character is way too earnest to really register as an outsider punk; he's basically a heartsick romantic with awesome hair. Chest hair, that is.

 

Apart from one regrettable song that has, um, not dated well at all, the soundtrack is a trove of bitchin' '80s New Wave and power pop and Coolidge makes a strong case that perhaps every montage in a teen comedy ought to use Modern English's "I Melt with You," even though it's a song about dying in atomic war or maybe precisely because it's a song about dying in atomic war, because there is no better metaphor for teen romance. Adolescence? Gag me with a spoon.

(Watched because I just started reading The Age of Cage, by Keith Phipps.)
 

 

[Beltmann]

12 Angry Men was an Election Day choice, watched with my 14-year-old. I've seen this movie countless times, and of course it exists as a veneration of American rational justice and a warning about how that justice is alarmingly fragile. But this viewing is the first time I've felt that the movie's primary value might be in laying bare the channel that exists between white American masculinity and ingrained bigotry.

 

There’s an unintended value, too, in Argentina, 1985, a courtroom drama about the prosecutors tasked with bringing to justice the civil and military leaders who kidnapped, tortured, and murdered citizens as agents of Argentina’s dictatorship that ended in 1983. This case was known as the Trial of the Juntas, and the movie zips through events via a conventional play-by-play structure. Still, it’s much less showy than, say, The Trial of the Chicago 7, which gives the movie a solemn clarity of purpose. Director Santiago Mitre willingly trades grandstanding scenes for quiet moral rectitude, and the result is both honorable and, to be honest, a little too muted. But watching this story as an American in 2022, it’s easy to find bright, blinking red warning lights in its portrait of a nation grappling with how to drive back fascism in a time of sharp political division and cruel, remorseless leaders with cruel, remorseless followers.
 

 

[Analogman]

1 hour ago, Beltmann said:

I can't explain why I've never seen Valley Girl until now, since it's totally the kind of thing I would have had on repeat as a teen in the mid '80s, rotating between VHS tapes of Better Off Dead and Fast Times at Ridgemont High. It arrived on the scene just as the obsession with all things Valley was winding down--that national fever was grody to the max, fer shure--but it was just in time to capture the era's airy, adorkable don't-take-it-too-seriously vibe. Fittingly, Cage's character is way too earnest to really register as an outsider punk; he's basically a heartsick romantic with awesome hair. Chest hair, that is.

 

Apart from one regrettable song that has, um, not dated well at all, the soundtrack is a trove of bitchin' '80s New Wave and power pop and Coolidge makes a strong case that perhaps every montage in a teen comedy ought to use Modern English's "I Melt with You," even though it's a song about dying in atomic war or maybe precisely because it's a song about dying in atomic war, because there is no better metaphor for teen romance. Adolescence? Gag me with a spoon.

(Watched because I just started reading The Age of Cage, by Keith Phipps.)
 

 

Saw it at the theater back in the day - and on Cinemax many times after that -

 

Don't forget The Plimsouls -

 

I guess John Cusack does not care for Better Off Dead. That's a shame.

[chuckrh]

Free HBO this weekend. This is really good.

[u2roolz]

I went to see Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery yesterday afternoon. Every showing was sold out from Wednesday through Sunday evening. I really enjoyed it and (looks for spoiler tag)

Spoiler

I had an issue with a few things that happened in the film. I won’t spoil it in the spoiler tag, but I don’t think I’ll be the only one that questions a few things & the logic of it all.

A lot of mental gymnastics are required, while we are presented with the main mystery and the relationships amongst the characters/suspects. 

I thought that this film was a lot more intricate and will be interesting to see if the film actually allows for rewards with repeat viewings or if things won’t stick. It still was the most fun that I’ve had at the cinema all year. Everyone was great, especially Kate Hudson and Ed Norton. 
 

 

I do want to track down The Last Of Sheila which I heard was a big influence on Rian Johnson’s film. 
(Available on Netflix Friday December 23rd.)

[chuckrh]

13 minutes ago, u2roolz said:

I went to see Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery yesterday afternoon. Every showing was sold out from Wednesday through Sunday evening. I really enjoyed it and (looks for spoiler tag)

  Reveal hidden contents

I had an issue with a few things that happened in the film. I won’t spoil it in the spoiler tag, but I don’t think I’ll be the only one that questioned a few things & the logic of it all.

I thought that this film was a lot more intricate and will be interesting to see if the film actually allows for rewards with repeat viewings or if things won’t stick. It still was the most fun that I’ve had at the cinema all year. Everyone was great, especially Kate Hudson and Ed Norton. 

I do want to track down The Last Of Sheila which I heard was a big influence on Rian Johnson’s film. 

Definitely will watch this when it's available to me.

[brownie]

1 hour ago, u2roolz said:

I went to see Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery yesterday afternoon. Every showing was sold out from Wednesday through Sunday evening. I really enjoyed it and (looks for spoiler tag)

  Reveal hidden contents

I had an issue with a few things that happened in the film. I won’t spoil it in the spoiler tag, but I don’t think I’ll be the only one that questions a few things & the logic of it all.

A lot of mental gymnastics are required, while we are presented with the main mystery and the relationships amongst the characters/suspects. 

I thought that this film was a lot more intricate and will be interesting to see if the film actually allows for rewards with repeat viewings or if things won’t stick. It still was the most fun that I’ve had at the cinema all year. Everyone was great, especially Kate Hudson and Ed Norton. 
 

 

I do want to track down The Last Of Sheila which I heard was a big influence on Rian Johnson’s film. 

I saw it last week and thought it was great.  It looked great on the big screen too, and I think some of that will be lost at home unless you really have a top notch, huge TV. I do not have such a TV.  Netflix is nuts to pull this from theaters after only one week.

[u2roolz]

13 minutes ago, brownie said:

I saw it last week and thought it was great.  It looked great on the big screen too, and I think some of that will be lost at home unless you really have a top notch, huge TV. I do not have such a TV.  Netflix is nuts to pull this from theaters after only one week.

I’ve been saying that I would not be surprised at all if Netflix ships it back to theaters for another week starting on the 9th of December. Nothing really comes out on that weekend. Sony is releasing a PG-13 cut of Father Stu that day (originally came out in April) and The Whale hits arthouse theaters. 
 

I kept my eyes on Top Gun: Maverick and thought that it was going to be around this past holiday weekend, but the theaters around here that held onto it this long lost it two days before Thanksgiving to make room. I woke up to news this morning that it’s coming back to theaters around the country this Friday. 😂 I have to laugh because it seems foolish to lose it for such a big weekend. Oh well…

 

Maybe I’ll PM you my issues with Glass Onion. I don’t want to tempt anyone to read the spoiler tag. 

[brownie]

1 minute ago, u2roolz said:

Maybe I’ll PM you my issues with Glass Onion. I don’t want to tempt anyone to read the spoiler tag. 

Sure, go ahead.

[uncool2pillow]

I finished Andor last night. Absolutely phenomenal tension, drama, narrative, political intrigue. It fits nicely in the Star Wars universe, but is so much more complex and adult than any of it.

 

Can't wait for season 2!

[chuckrh]

41 minutes ago, uncool2pillow said:

I finished Andor last night. Absolutely phenomenal tension, drama, narrative, political intrigue. It fits nicely in the Star Wars universe, but is so much more complex and adult than any of it.

 

Can't wait for season 2!

From what I read, the same team responsible for Rogue 1 was in charge of Andor. Rogue 1 is by far my favorite recent Star Wars movie even though it's kind of a WW2 movie redone. Lots of good plot twists, no happy ending (waving ghosts, teddy bear creatures etc).

[Beltmann]

Agree with much of what was said here regarding Glass Onion, which strikes me as a better, angrier satirical takedown of the super-rich than either Triangle of Sadness or The Menu. It's also spooky as hell: How did Rian Johnson make a movie during the summer of 2021 that is a pitch-perfect allegory for last week's Elon Musk headlines?

[Beltmann]

Lots of people seem to be misreading The Fabelmans as Steven Spielberg’s romanticized version of "Here's why I love movies and how making them helped me process trauma." Sure, that's in the movie (and handled well, in my opinion), but what elevates the movie is how it goes far beyond that, interrogating the meaning of movies in a reflective and at times regretful way. There's much more ambivalence, and thought, in The Fabelmans than in just about any other Spielberg movie.

 

Imagine being the kind of person unwilling to surrender to what Spielberg does here. True, cynicism has no place in this sentimental universe, but Spielberg has always operated in that register at a very high level, and there is virtue in those kinds of stories.

 

In fact, The Fabelmans is precisely the kind of broad-brush yet acute storytelling that has persuaded generations of moviegoers from the Thirties onward to fall in love with the movies. That’s partially the subject of The Fabelmans, and there is indeed magic in its evocation of how and why art enthralls us and can be significant facts in our lives, but it’s also a movie that reaches deeper: Its real subject is the way using the language of cinema transcends mere entertainment; after all, the recording and manipulation of the moving image carries both power and pitfalls, truth and lies, joys and responsibilities, ecstasy and danger. This is an autobiographical portrait of a family told with an unparalleled technical mastery--some choices made me gasp in pleasure--that is also in constant conversation with itself about how to refract memories in a way that somehow sustains honesty, affection, and entertainment value all at once.

 

Part of that conversation involves deciding which historical details to include and which to exclude. That ends up raising questions about how truthful Spielberg has been about his mother and father, and for some viewers that central mystery might make or break the picture. For me, though, the answers to those questions are beside the point. What matters to me is that the interplay between memory, forgiveness, and movie love has resulted in one of Spielberg’s most searching and human stories, one shot through with such an abiding sense of empathy that I felt fully invested in these characters and their entanglements. I loved The Fabelmans because, well, I loved the Fabelmans.
 

 

[Beltmann]

Right now Decision to Leave is one of my favorites of the year. It surprised me--for a Park Chan-Wook noir about obsession, it is weirdly devoid of cynicism, carnality, and lurid violence--but only in ways that made it better than expected. One of the things that I liked was the constant presence of technology, and how digital devices became inextricably linked to the investigation, the romantic bonding, and the larger ideas related to communication. I also cherished the creative editing, which often generated ingenious, funny transitions. Best of all, though, is how it reaches for deep feeling; these two characters bond on a soul level that creates genuine intimacy and yearning. That's exactly why the overpowering finale, which swings for the fences, earns its tragic poetry.
 

 

[Albert Tatlock]

Always a pleasure Mr Beltmann :thumbup

[chuckrh]

surpisingly good

[chuckrh]