Saturday, December 3, 2016

Weekend Open Thread

I'll steal your Pop-Tarts like I stole your socks.

How was everyone's week? Watch anything good? Talk about everything you want right here!

43 comments:

  1. Watched Breaking the Waves. It was nicely soul crushing. Thanks, Lars. And then Cronenburg's Crash. Not sure how I feel about that one although the final scene lingered in my mind so it's left some kind impact on me..

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  2. "Inferno" had probably my most laugh out loud moment of the year. When Hanks tells the "World Health Organization" that they have to go to Istanbul - cut to plane shot with the text "World Health Organization Jet"! I couldn't believe what I was seeing! No shit it's the World Health Organization jet! you literally told me that 1 second before you had to write that on the screen? Ugh..What an awful movie. I'll say it again, I miss funny Hanks.

    finally saw Morgan. I looked at my wife the minute I saw Mara's dumbass haircut and the way she treated the first guy she encounters and was like "oh shit! She's a robot". I mean it was ridiculously obvious. Pretty crappy film actually.

    Hoping tonight's viewings are better.

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    1. Is Ron Howard a bad director? I know the answer is No, but how can the same man who directed Appollo 13 and Cinderella Man also churn out Inferno and The Dilemma? I can only think that it's some form of mental vacation, where he doesn't have to think for a few months.

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    2. I would say Howard is an extremely competent director, maybe one of the best in that regard, but he's generally unexciting and bland. That can be viewed as a positive to some as he is unflashy, however I don't know if I've ever felt a voice in his films. Backdraft and The Paper are my two favs of his.

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    3. Inferno at first confused me?

      Tom hanks and the WHO in an Argento film?

      I just picked up the 30th anniversary edition from Arrow, it sounds like I got the better Deal

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  3. Season finale of Westworld is one day away and I continue to be impressed by the show (which is good since I've dropped just about every other ongoing show I've been watching).

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  4. Just finished For the Love of Spock, which is an excellent documentary about Leonard Nimoy, directed and hosted by his son Adam.

    Saw Brian De Palma's Body Double for the first time yesterday, and didn't really get into it at any point. Individual scenes were well executed, but the story is all over the place and doesn't make sense. I guess you just have to let it wash over you and not think about it. Maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for it. The new Indicator Blu-ray looks great though.

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  5. Stoker is a crazy movie with very weird pacing and editing. Mia Wasikowska is pretty captivating.

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  6. Watched Spike Lee's Michael Jackson doc about the early years leading up to Off The Wall. With a little less hero worship and David Byrne it would be near perfect. I liked the moments that focused on Jackson's impossible pursuit of perfection the best. Pretty fascinating.
    Also picked up a copy of 'The Thing From Another World' from the library. Looking forward to it. I think I'll seek out the original story as well. I gotta go deep. Have a good weekend y'all.

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  7. Just came home from seeing Nocturnal Animals. The movie totally gripped me and kept me at the edge of my seat the whole time, so I guess I liked it. Excellent filmmaking.

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  8. i watched Hired To Kill. i'm not sure it deserves the treatment Arrow Video gave it, but it was a damn fun 90 minutes full of guns, pretty ladies and one liners

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  9. I'm glad I'm not the only person who likes Yoga Hosers. Im in the minority, but I I also really really dig Tusk. I think its weird tonal shifts work in its favor. It made me uncomfortable as I didn't know whether to laugh or be repulsed. I like that, plus Michael Parks kills it. I've always really loved Kevin Smith. Its a shame he's become the next hip thing to hate. He just seems like a really genuine dude, and his daughter seems super sweet. If those two wanta make small goofy movies together forever, I am all for it.

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    1. i loved tusk, i kinda liked yoga hosers

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    2. That fucking close-up Genesis Rodriguez monologue is great. Made even greater when you know Smith made it up on the spot, on set. He's really great at dialogue, something Yoga Hosers kinda lacks.

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  10. Now watching Die Hard 2. My man Renny really could put together an action movie back then.

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    1. Forgot about the "metal detector" line. Groan.

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    2. Renny's great, but his use of slo-mo drives me crazy. It's not nearly as bad as it is on Cliffhanger, but it's maddening.

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    3. Mikko - The worst. And the ADR is so distracting.

      Brian - I like Cliffhanger better than DH2 believe it or not.

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    4. I like them about the same to be honest. But I'm pretty sure every single death in Cliffhanger is accompanied by slow motion, and it drives me crazy.

      I will say this, I know a lot of people make fun of John Lithgow in Cliffhanger....I love him, I think he's a great villain. I know it seems silly that he would fight Stallone, but he's got a foot and a half on him. You can't outlift a reach advantage.

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    5. I love him too. I also love Rex Linn. His delivery cracks me up.

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    6. Lithgow is great, Red Linn is great, Leon is great, the soccer loving mercenary is great. They're all having so much fun overacting. Lithgow especially, I'm pretty sure I've said "stop transmitting you stupid bastard!" over 1,000 times.

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    7. Damnit, I know his name is Rex Linn. I'm done fighting with autocorrect tho, it's beaten me. I'm tired, and I give up.

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  11. exterminators of the year 3000: it is as awesome as the title make it sound, or bad, depending on your tates. chances are, if you hang out on this site, you'll like it. mr bromley actually did a great review of it

    pit stop: great oldy stock car racing movie. produced by roger corman, directed by jack hill (before his blaxploitation era). described as an artsy stock car movie, and it's a great description. thanks Arrow Video

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  12. Watching Dark Knight Rises for the first time since maybe 2012, still maybe the most frustrating movie I've ever seen. I like it from moment to moment, but every time I think of the plot, I feel dumb. The plot is written like a middle schooler trying to understand the adult world. The stock market plot is so dumb. The cops are so dumb. It creates arbitrary problems and solves them with arbitrary knee braces.

    I don't think it's a bad movie, and I like it better than Interstellar. It's just so....ugh.

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    1. Why is Bane carrying around a on 8x10 of Harvey Dent? Does he always have it? Where did he get it printed?

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    2. I would imagine Bane got the 8 × 10 from the Gotham Federal Building. Do all government employees have their pictures taken?

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    3. Yeah, I can't really defend the cops in TDKR. The way they all went en masse to the sewers to smoke out Bane and the League of Shadows. But Gordon gave the order, making him the dumbest of the bunch. The cops' beards didn't even grow, either.

      The stock market sequence didn't bother me. The League of Shadows' plan was to disable all of Bruce's stocks and with a cleverly preparer virus, they did that. It's fascinating how critics connected the stock market sequence to Occupy Wall Street, since as far as I know, the sequence was shot way before it happened.

      The biggest issue I have with TDKR was with Bruce retiring Batman for eight years. Bruce would NEVER do that, and he definitely wouldn't do it because of the death of a loved one. The death of his loved ones is why he donned the cape and cowl in the first place. I always wished that idea had been scrapped, but Nolan just HAD to bookend and mirror TDKR with Batman Begins. It would have been so much better if he hadn't retired, and he just continued fighting crime while trying to avoid the police, who were hot on his trail after the events in the conclusion of The Dark Knight. I would have loved it if, after the Bane intro sequence (which I love), we cut to Gotham at night, in a Bond-style opening. I figure, if this was going to be the end of the Nolan films, he should try to include a few top tier villains. In the film as it is now, we only hear that the Dent Act helped the police end organized crime in Gotham. But what if we got a sequence where Gordon is in the middle of a sting, trying to find something to pin on the new crime boss who took over after Maroni... Oswald Cobblepot. Since Nolan likes to ground these characters, let's say his crew call Oswald Penguin behind his back because of his weight and the suits he likes to wear? So, I figured, what if, to try to find something to nab Penguin, Gordon had one of his goons in custody, made him a confidential informant, and let him out to rejoin Cobblepot's crew. Gordon can't put a wire on the guy, so whenever he learns anything and has to report to Gordon, he sends Gordon the information... in riddles. Yes, Gordon's CI is Edward Nygma. Nygma's riddles are good, too good, so Gordon is getting Batman's help to crack them. It would be important to show the lengths Gordon would have to go through to get on touch with Batman, since he's Gotham's Public Enemy #1 now. Batman cracks the riddle, the police move in on Penguin, with a little extra help from Batman, who gets chased by the cops and evades capture. And then we cut to the celebration of Harvey Dent Day at Wayne Manor, and everything goes on the way it does in the film normally, just without that ridiculous retirement subplot.

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    4. I don't have much of a problem with Bruce retiring as a character thing (I don't think movie characters need to match their comic counterpart exactly, as long as they make compelling movie characters) as much as I do on a story level. Bruce essentially completes the same arc twice in the same film. And it completely betrays the promise of the the last 2 minutes of TDK. I'd rather TDK ended with Bruce saying "alright, I'm done anyway. My knee hurts." then the promise of Bruce having to fight crime while being pursued by the police. The only payoff on that is a silly little chase where he uses a convenient car trailer to get away (because why write something clever?)

      But I say all this, and yet every time Bane is on screen I'm enthralled.

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    5. Hmmm... I feel, even if you take the comic out of the equation, it seems out of character for Bruce, considering his motivations in Batman Begins.

      I think the film betrays the ending of The Dark Knight also! Absolutely!

      Tom Hardy is great in the film. Agreed.

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  13. The Eye's of my Mother is not an easy watch but it looks beautiful, it's slightly surreal, eerie and tragic. Worth a watch if you don't mind your Horror dead serious.

    And...Uh, um...I thought The Accountant was great! I'm out.

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  14. You know that scene in Twister, where Bill is chasing Jo and he's like "STOP CHASING THE PAST AND LOOK AT WHAT YOU'VE GOT RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU" And she says "What?" And he says "ME, Jo! Me." That's such a great scene. I told my mom today it reminds me of her. Movies about heartbroken people who just can't stop themselves from chasing after self-centered, narcissistic women remind me of her constantly. Please stop me from having to collect all these sad stories to help me describe my feelings for you, Mother! AH! What would it be like if Bill realized the only thing Jo knows how to do is run the other way from him, chasing tornados, and he sees he'll actually be happier and healthier if he's NOT in a relationship where he has to beg and fight to be acknowledged and appreciated? That would be...realistic. Or if Jo suddenly does change her lifelong patterns for him- how? Please movies, I need so much more information from you.

    My sister had Dirty Dancing on again and it's SUCH a wonderful movie, which was not my first impression of it years ago. I thought it was silly and the dancing was goofy (it is). But Johnny is such an oddly self aware character. He even respects himself and stands up to Baby, which makes HER become a better person and creates this new authenticity between her and her sister and father. I realized that movie is kind of amazing.

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  15. Had to turn off the insultingly unwatchable Sausage Party after 15 minutes. RIP the comedy genre...

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    1. Might be my least favorite movie of the year

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    2. Ditto. First time I've walked out on a movie in a really long time.

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    3. I guess I'm probably in a minority. I had a blast with Sausage Party. I thought it was continuing the Ralph Bakshi tradition. It's cool, though. It's definitely not a movie for everybody.

      But Comedy isn't dead. That's like saying Horror's dead... and then we get a year like this year.

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  16. Folks, I don't post all that often, but sometimes things need to be said: Remo Williams is awesome!
    Lesson 37: plots don't have to be clear or make sense.
    Lesson 38: a Bond director can't help but put some Bond into any film he makes.
    Lesson 39: Fred Ward rocks!!! I mean The Right Stuff, Tremors, Miami Blues..... Big Business.... anything he's in is better for him being there.
    Put it on your To Watch list. If there is a definition of a beer and pizza film, Remo is it.

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  17. Happy birthday to me last night

    I dont think I can ever stop watching 80s horrors? I don't even really know why, I go to the shelves to look for a film and almost always choose 80s, maybe I need help? I'm like stuck in a timewarp of my own creating

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    1. If going back to 80s horrors is wrong, I don't ever wanna be right.

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    2. I'm glad im not alone Michael, Tonight maybe Bloody Birthday, The Burning, The Beyond, Basketcase, Beast within, Brain Damage, Boogyman, and that's just the B's, so much 80s Goodness

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  18. Trash Humpers the movie ~~~~ you must see

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