I smell it, I feel it, it's almost here, Spring! Oh what joy you bring, let's rejoice, go out, take a fresh breath and then get back to some serious movie watching. For this thread of course. Here is what I watched this week sunshines:
Mississippi Grind (2015 DVD): I liked 80% of this road trip/gambling movie but the last 20% wasn’t fully satisfying for my taste. The chemistry between the two actors elevates this uneven film and makes it a really enjoyable ride. 7/10
Ant-man and the wasp (2018 Netflix): This is an entertaining movie without being an impressive one. It’s fun but not really funny. There is some good action but not much intensity. It’s even with the first one and I’d compare it to Dr Strange or Ragnarok; worth a watch or two but that’s it. 6.5-7/10
Ready Player One (2018 Blu-ray): My, my, what a blast that was! I was scared I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the “in-game characters” but they were actually awesome and the action was even more awesome. Simply put; that was one of the most entertaining sci-fi action movies of the 21st century. In my humble opinion of course. My rating: 8.5/10
Jaws (1975 TV): You might have heard of this movie before but it’s about a shark named Jaws that kills people. It was pretty good but it’s an old movie, so it must have been even more awesome back then, especially considering the nice visual effects. Seeing it for the first time myself, I thought it was a good time waster because it’s 2 hours long but went by really quickly. I enjoyed it mainly because of the palpable chemistry between the three characters and I don’t want to say too much, in case you haven’t seen it but I recommend it. My rating: 7.5-8/10
Jaws 2 (1978 TV): I thought this one was not bad but not good either. Let’s say it’s an averagely-forgettable sequel. 5.5/10
Mississippi Grind - I agree with your take on it. To me the film seemed more about the journey than the destination, so I can forgive the soft ending. 7/10
Ant-Man and the Wasp - I would like more of the single hero-focused Marvel entries to take this smaller-stakes approach. There are too many movies where the entire world hangs in the balance and a giant portal opens in the sky. 7/10
Ready Player One - Missed some key elements of the book and changed others. Some of it worked for the better and some of it didn't. A fine movie by all accounts, but it seriously lacks the Spielberg magic. 6.5/10
Jaws - You better believe this has some Spielberg magic. 9/10
Jaws 2 - A passable cash-in. 5/10
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My watches this week:
Captain Marvel (2019) - Lots to admire with this latest Marvel installment, but I cannot help but think that the formula is working against the series at this point. Even though her performance was acceptable, Brie Larson does not make for a compelling hero here. That said, I enjoyed her character's relationship with Samuel L. Jackson, which in several ways paralleled the two main characters' relationship in Mississippi Grind, coincidentally by the same directing duo. I didn't mind the blandness so much with this mildly amusing diversion. 6.5/10
Enemies Closer (2013) - One of the few movies where Jean-Claude Van Damme plays a legit villain. I do enjoy watching me some entertaining B-movies, and this one provided a lot to like. Competently choreographed action scenes, reasonably decent script and efficient editing make this one of Van Damme's better late-career vehicles. Also, Orlando Jones always brings his A-game. 7.5/10
Mary Poppins Returns (2018) - Emily Blunt gives a fantastic performance in this hollow sequel that completely misunderstands the meaning of the original film. 5.5/10
Dude Bro Party Massacre III (2015) - Hilarious horror spoof that maintains the spirit of the Abrahams/Zucker bros. movies while forging its own identity. Delightfully incisive and silly in the same measure. 8/10
Other stuff as well, but I seem to be running out of space.
It's rated 7.8 on IMDB, but I give it an 8.5/10. It's an almost unbearably tense, but also poignant Danish film. It was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 2017 Oscars. I highly recommend it.
Some comments from viewers on IMDB:
"an unbearably tense Danish film"
"a disturbing and devastating piece of cinema"
"the most heart-pulse racing moments you can have in a war history story
the needs to be told"
"a blot on Danish post war history"
"makes The Hurt Locker look like a walk in the park"
You were actually 2/3 correct on the first guess, but I'm going to have to flip over all the cards (bonus points if you recognize that reference). The answer is Fellow Film Fan.
i just caught jaws for the first time fairly recently myself, & thought it was just about a perfect movie. i saw rp1 in the theatre last year & was a little indifferent to at as a whole, but definitely thought it had some great set-pieces in it. i liked ant-man a fair bit - pleasant film, uses the concept pretty nicely.
my week:
blue my mind (2017) 3 a puzzling movie, in that it felt pretty great in some ways if perhaps a bit self-serious, seemed like it was creating a coming of age/self-revulsion story on the level of thelma or even raw, but it worked its way to an ending that seemed completely out of step & really underwhelming to everything it had been building up to.
it's good enough, & certainly well made in most ways, but it seems so odd to me that the creators would do all that work, do such good things in my eyes for something so ultimately silly.
a star is born (1937) 3.5 at this point i only know the new, improved recipe star is born, & was slightly surprised by the light, comedic tone. it's still enjoyable, but it felt pretty slight & lightweight compared to the (i thought) genuinely powerful & moving modern version.
body bags 91993) 3 pretty entertaining anthology that plays very much like the strung-together episodes of a tales from the crypt style tv show that it apparently is. i was a bit underwhelmed by the mark hamill/eye transplant closer, but the stacey keech hair segment made me pretty disgusted, so that's a feather in this film's cap, i suppose.
hellhole (1985) 3 trashy 80s horror. i had fun watching it. edy williams must have been 42 or so when this film was made, & she had the best body among the many, many women we get to see naked.
captain marvel (2019) 2.5 captain marvel might be the most blithely robotic movie i've ever seen in a theatre. there is simply nothing in it to latch onto. it is a cinematic block of wood. you remember how in repo man everyone drank generic beer & ate generic food? if otto took leila to a movie in repo man, it would have been captain marvel, except the poster would have been simply a giant 'generic.' it is two hours of cgi gloss & a gaping void where a personality ought to have been inserted & nothingness.
dark web (2017) 2.5 fairly useless horror anthology, but the second story featuring a man & woman connecting across time through their televisions is fairly inventive & interesting. it's worth strolling over to tubi-tv to check out that segment i'd say, but you're safe giving the rest of it a pass.
camp massacre (2014) 2 would be an amusing no-budget horror/comedy if it had come in at 75 minutes or so. it's over 2 hours long for heaven's sake! there's simply no need for it to be so long. did they run out of money to pay the editor? very cute girls, though.
don't torture a duckling (1972) 4 solidly above average giallo, quite bleak at times & (by the standards of the films from this era) fairly coherent plot-wise.
perfect blue (1997) 4 entertainingly weird animated feature. had some lynchian elements that i enjoyed quite a bit, though it perhaps felt a touch too on the nose in its ending.
killing of a chinese bookie (1976) 2.5 've enjoyed every cassavetes' film i've seen until now - only two films in, mind you, but i've found them charmingly shambolic, even hypnotic. i can't really say why i loved 'a woman...' & 'faces' but not this one, but i did & i didn't. i was bored by the end. checked out. i just didn't care.
perhaps i should try it again on a weekend when i'm well rested & engaged, rather than at the end of a rather long day. perhaps i'm just making excuses for the fact that i was bored by a film i ought to have liked.
eat (2014) 3.5 genuinely gruesome at times & overall shockingly enjoyable. the actress looks like a cookie-cutter blonde you'll tend to see in all manner of trashy movies, but she gives quite a nice, relatable performance. by the standards of no-budget items i've stumbled across on tubitv, this is practically great: weird, funny, relatively imaginative.
the tree of life (2011) 5 the one time malick's glacial beauty didn't bore me, to be frank. that's not the kind of thing one's meant to admit in public i guess, but i've always been bored by his films. all of them. not this one, though. the cosmic weirdness mixed with a grounded personal story made this something i found hypnotic & (for the first time) something genuinely touching.
24 hour party people (2002) shambolic (could it be any other way?) mess. a bit too chaotic for me to give 5 stars, yet i love it as much as any film of the last 20 years. nobody plays self-important silly man like steve coogan.
embryo (1976) 2.5 fairly dull 70s low concept sci-fi. if you are a typical hetero male, you'll probably enjoy ogling barbara carrera, but otherwise i found myself wishing they had done more with what they'd had to work with. more violence, or more sleaze, or, if they really wanted to try, more ideas. more something.
if it didn't feature a smattering of nudity & a bit of gore & floating fetuses, you would be forgiven for thinking it was a mid-tier tv movie.
I watched game shows with my family, "Star Trek: TOS" with my dad and brother, and Mythbusters in my room.
I also told dad that I gave up on "Cheers." We had watched a few episodes back in January when on a cruise, and I wanted to see more, and, um....I had enough after the first 5 seasons. I'd seen the best the show had to offer and didn't want to see it after a while.
Cheers had 11 seasons, but the best episodes were in the first half of the series. It was a very popular 1980s sitcom that centered around a bar in Boston called "Cheers." Most of the stories were about the owner of Cheers, his employees, and friends who frequented the bar.
Some parts were funny and memorable, though the show had the most ludicrous relationship between the bartender and a pseudo intellectual working as a barmaid there. I think it was their relationship that dragged down the series a lot. A lot of famous stars from the 80s had cameos on that show, and a number of comedians started their careers on that show, including several people in the main cast. This show also launched the spin-off series "Frasier," which launched Kelsey Gramar's career.
So it has good and bad parts, but the drama on there got to be really dumb and I had to quit watching.
I had seen an episode or two when I was young. I just realised that the big guy that was always sitting comfortably at the bar is NOT John Goodman. lol