last movie watched.

[Canadian Todd (for Canadians)]

Eighth Grade - 2018

I mostly only watch genre movies anymore, but this had a similar pacing/days-in-the-life vignette vibe as Sean Baker flicks; it had a similar listlessness as Florida Project, except there's something of an arc for the lead, which requires a narrative throughline. Depictions of anxiety really resonated with me and felt honest. I also think that the scene with the dad in the fire pit could have been really fake-cathartic and contrived/manipulative but ended up feeling p earnest. That's kind of what you need from a parent - to just be able to say the right thing at the right time to add some clarify and get you through a spot. Iunno. I'm a 31 yr old gay white guy so so there's privilege and distance from this.

Wild Bill - 1995

Walter Hill is legit one of the greatest American directors. That guy had an unassailable early run from Hard Times to Streets of Fire. Everything was good-to-great. He's also a classicist in the midst of new hollywood where masculinity was about being disaffected and alienated, whereas Hill's protagonists were stoic, interior, assured and validated by their proficiency in a craft. He borrowed from Melville while all his peers were aping godard and truffaut. His take on characters, classically, was "stick a gun in a character's face and see how they react; that tells you everything you need to know about them." He's a big deal to me.

What's a bummer is that Hill's '90s stuff gets kinda lost. Some of it was p rough (Last Man Standing, Supernova), but Trespass is a minor victory for him and Wild Bill stands up with Driver, Southern Comfort and Long Riders as one of his best. It's got this dour, fatalist tone because you know exactly how it ends, and it's all working toward that. Bridges is a guy who has virtually no interiority - just continually lashing out and living off his legend while simultaneously dismantling it at every turn. This works its way out by having Bill's exploits enthusiastically narratived and retold by groupies and town drunks - each time, the event becoming more grandiose. It all culminates in Bill being shot down while his card playing partner rambles on about a past event, with the rambling becoming louder and non-diagetic. It's as if the fiction is swallowing up the man, who's being killed (literally). There's a performativity in play, where he has to be Wild Bill for show because it's what he's done for so long. The high contrast black-and-white flashback scenes are sometimes recollections and sometimes potential fever dreams - all of it dubious.

The sets were all built for this movie. Many of them were reused for Deadwood a decade later (the pilot of which Hill directed, and he provided story notes to Milch in the first season). It's all mud-caked, wet and layered. Everything has a tan/brown hue to it. Kilmer was the most fun, but Bridges' performance is the gold standard of '90s neo-westerns - an entirely unlikeable, barely sympathetic, degenerating man who acts out all of his feelings in violence and defiance. Hill populates all of his movies with the best parts for the role (and his normal crew - James Remar gets in here as a hitman; Bruce Dern gets a cameo; Keith Carradine gets a brief shine as Buffalo Bill in his tryout for this movie's titular role in Deadwood years later). Hill also keeps his laconic guy paired with loquacious guy dynamic with John Hurt as Bill's handler; their vibe is interesting, because Hurt is p much the diplomat who attempts to diffuse all the tense situations Bill manufactures. Hill's script alludes to this being more successful in the past, but as Bill marches on to his inevitable death, he's less amenable to playing into Hurt's negotiator routine.

It's a fucking great movie. It deserves to be mentioned among Hill's best and, legit, is probably the high water mark for the '90s U.S. western revival (and I say that as a staunch lover of Tombstone, but they're vastly different. It has more in common with Unforgiven, but is infinitely better as a dirge for the lead).

[Mesh]

Why did more than one person say LEGO 2 bummed them out? What’s that about

Bc it’s bad? Or worse

less funny than the og. kind of boring.

but huge disclaimer - I only watched the first 45 minutes because my kid was terrified by it and wanted to leave. it's not scary at all. I said "you can just cover your eyes if you think a bit is scary" and he said "NO, i NEVER want to see this movie again" so we left. lol

Re: getting bummed out, the end of the movie goes for kind of a we can all defy Trump's America if we just stick together vibe, which is like YEEAAAAAH THANX.Toggle Spoiler It's by no means terrible and it does have a very saggy middle. I was telling people it felt like 78 characters to track through a 9 act structure and I fell asleep for 6 and 7. Has its moments though.

[Franco]

that message coming out of Chris Pratt's mouth sounds like shit

[landspeedrecord]

if you told me a decade ago that I would grow to intensely dislike chris pratt, I would not have believed you

[milano boy]

yea freakin same

[aububs]

what is the reason for the chris pratt hate?

i mean besides the anti-gay church thing which is completely legit but just happened in the past week

[Franco]

it's the church thing, but has been known for longer than a week

[aububs]

ah, ok

yeah that's heinous

[Franco]

He's a pretty boring "movie star" too imo. Surprising given the charms of andy dwyer

[furrowed brow]

idk why I remember this but someone on here posted a photo of him looking in the direction of an american flag looking very patriotic and sordid affair (i think) said something like "it creeps me out the way he's staring at that flag."

that basically sums up chris pratt for me. to put it a different way, in a universe slightly different from our Chris Pratt IS The American Sniper.

[tgk]

emmet is an extremely boring and cliched character, the typical stumbling male lead who doesn't listen to anyone and screws everything up so everyone else has to fix his shit and then he finally gets his moment of redemption by the end. movie would have been exponentially better without him, the sisters lego creations were all far more interesting and they could have had it pay major dividends if they were willing to make pt 2 all about the sisters story instead of still making it about the brother/emmet.

[mellowgold]

are yall really talking this much about the fucking second lego movie who the hell cares

[incoherent grunting]

Yeah, let's get back to talking about Can You Ever Forgive Me?

[mellowgold]

no lets not your posts proved youre a moron

[incoherent grunting]

[incoherent grunting]

rude

[mellowgold]

im mad today!

[landspeedrecord]

hell yes, let's get militant up in here

[landspeedrecord]

murder party
this wasn't very good, but it's a neat idea for a film and I got a kick out of williamsburg waterfront circa 2007 being filmed as a wasteland of abandoned warehouses


ronin
not nearly as good as I remembered. this film has an inflated reputation because of the car chases, which are fine, and it's considered the best (only good?) film frankenheimer made during his late period, but give me reindeer games any day


happy death day
scott lobdell wrote this? huh. mean girls crossed with groundhog day. breezy, kinda generic. I picked up the clue right away. jessica rothe's antiheroine carries it


basic instinct
hadn't seen this in ages, it's still as good as ever. catherine trammell is one of the best femmes fatales of all time. there are many poor imitations, but accept no substitutes. I think it'd be pretty hot if sharon stone murdered me with an icepick for my birthday, if anyone would care to arrange that for me


flesh + blood
perhaps the definitive statement of verhoeven's contempt for man. would make a great double bill with hard to be a god


deep rising
great concept and still a lot of fun, but its age is really starting to show. I wish stephen sommers kept making films like this


the untouchables
I think it's funny how highly de palma regards this one (largely because of how well it did at the box office), and he does a good job, but it's merely serviceable. a hard work to judge because of how much of it has entered our pop culture lexicon


john carpenter's village of the damned
evil children are a trope I tend to find pretty silly, and I expected the worst from this one, but it's actually pretty good. way better than escape from la


escape from la
carpenter's decision to use a lot of awful cgi hurts, but it's really just a mediocre retread of the original, which full disclosure, I find overrated. the basketball sequence is still amazing


dead hands dig deep
a doc about edwin borsheim of the gothic rock/metal band kettle cadaver, who were active in temecula ca in the 90s. edwin was infamous for his visceral live shows, which featured a lot of self-inflicted violence, including genital mutilation (which I should note is shown, so be forewarned). the doc follows him years later reflecting on his life after his short-lived marriage with eva o. haunting

[carlagain]

can you ever forgive me is about as good as good tv

[Repo]

are yall really talking this much about the fucking second lego movie who the hell cares

best post

[Canadian Todd (for Canadians)]

like landspeedrecord's post and slate of movies but you literally cannot overrate escape from ny.

[deadbass]

I saw Widows last night and didn't really like it, which was disappointing. Just felt like it had too many characters and half-sketched plotlines that didn't really come together. Beautifully shot and well-acted though (I even thought Duvall was good).

[neuartillery]

I rewatched Ronin a couple of weeks ago and I thought it holds up pretty well. The car chases rule, but I also appreciate that De Niro actually underplays his character. I've never seen Reindeer Games.

I watched Deep Rising a few months ago while working out and that film's a fucking mess.

[mellowgold]

are yall really talking this much about the fucking second lego movie who the hell cares

best post

I’m sorry. I should be the last person criticizing people earnestly dissecting popular and glossy media. But this is literally an ad for ur children and that’s it

[landspeedrecord]

I rewatched Ronin a couple of weeks ago and I thought it holds up pretty well. The car chases rule, but I also appreciate that De Niro actually underplays his character. I've never seen Reindeer Games.

I watched Deep Rising a few months ago while working out and that film's a fucking mess.

fwiw reindeer games is objectively really terrible, but I'm a lot less critical of films that don't take themselves too seriously

[furrowed brow]

aww nvm.

good post lsr

[mellowgold]

landspeed i recently watched Basic Instinct for the first time and i had no idea it was a horny Vertigo ugh. so good. Sharon Stone rules.

[landspeedrecord]

"horny vertigo" is a great way of putting it!!!

sharon stone is so good that I am contemplating watching the sequel, lord help me

[neuartillery]

I rewatched Ronin a couple of weeks ago and I thought it holds up pretty well. The car chases rule, but I also appreciate that De Niro actually underplays his character. I've never seen Reindeer Games.

I watched Deep Rising a few months ago while working out and that film's a fucking mess.

fwiw reindeer games is objectively really terrible, but I'm a lot less critical of films that don't take themselves too seriously

Ronin certainly takes itself too seriously but again, I think it works. Love the Sean Bean plot.

I read the plot summary for Reindeer Games and I could see it being dumb pulpy fun or a complete disaster, I assume the reality is halfway between the two.