Saturday, May 6, 2017

Weekend Open Thread

The summer movie season is upon us!

As the movies get more expensive and same-y over the coming months, let's keep checking in on everything we're watching, whether it's a big summer release or some weird old movie Chaybee is watching that can only be found on YouTube.

What are you all watching/talking about this weekend?

47 comments:

  1. Haven't done a recap for several weeks, but have seen some good stuff. I finished my Vin Diesel kick by watching xXx which was incredibly fun. Vin was vibrantly kick-ass but jokey, not to mention "extreme", wearing big collars, and it was the perfect way to end it.
    But then I watched xXx: State of the Union thinking Vin was in it. He wasn't. Ok, I'm done with Mr. Diesel. Adieu for now.
    My next goal is to watch every movie with Lana Turner, on a boat.

    I rewatched Battleship which Chaybee described as "fun as shit". He's totally right. OK, it's not an honest depiction of war. And Liam Neeson isn't really in it (this pissed people off more than anything, I think). But, spoken as a movie non-critic, I liked it. (The critic in me says it's missing 50's Lana Turner)

    Also watched Big Trouble In Little China for the first time. I loved the special FX (yes, Riske, I would consider these ones special), and just everything about it. Can't wait to rewatch.

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    1. Yes! Battleship is fun as shit!

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    2. You're right Paul. The fx in Big Trouble in Little China are special.

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  2. About last week's monetization conversation. A podcast I used to listen to, called Probably Science, have Amazon affiliate links on their site, which you can use to support the show at no cost to you. I know you use affiliate links when linking to movies you review, but surely a general affiliate link would be more profitable. It's probably not a big percentage they pay, but it's not nothing. And I know I'm not the only one here who shops at Amazon.

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  3. Hypothetically, if I were to visit L.A. for the first time this summer and had a couple of days to kill, what should I do? I really want to catch a double feature at the New Beverly, and being a Star Trek (and scifi in general) nerd, I'm tempted to visit Vasquez Rocks (a bit silly, I know). I'm traveling with family and we'll definitely visit Universal Studios together, but I'll also have a couple days on my own.

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  4. I would rent a car, and visit Sequoia National Park.
    I kind of hate cities, but really enjoy hiking in beautiful places, so my bias shows. But seriously, Sequoia is a real treat.

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  5. It's days like today that make a New Yorker like me want to go all Winston Zeddemore, raise my arms in the air and scream 'I LOVE THIS TOWN!!!!' :-P

    I'm going to hang out with Larry Cohen and Eric Bogosian as they present a 35mm screening of Cohen's "Special Effects" from 1984. Then Larry comes back to introduce a 35mm screening of "Perfect Strangers" (also from 1984). Then I have to skip "Black Ceasar" (also in 35mm) at 6:30pm because Larry isn't introducing it... or should I see it anyway? Hmmm, first world problems. But I will return at 8:30PM for a 35mm screening of the 'Whisper Cut' of "God Told Me To" introduced by Cohen himself. All of these at Quad Cinemas, a NYC arthouse theater mainstay that was closed for renovations for almost two years but just re-opened a few weeks ago. They just screened "Rocky IV" in 35mm a couple of days ago, but I couldn't go because I had to work. :'(

    Only after seeing "God Told Me To" will I entertain whether to go to midnight screenings of "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2" or call it a night after having way too much awesome for one evening. The only thing that could make today ever better would be if it was already June and I could do these flicks for Junesploitation! :-)

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    1. Junesploitation seriously cannot come soon enough.

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  6. I caught up with two 2016 releases:

    La La Land: It's perfectly fine.  Some decent performances but I'd have liked more John Legend. Unfortunately, none of the songs are especially good.

    The Queen of Katwe: My, what a wonderful little film. Mira Nair, doing what she does, takes what could have been a pretty standard sports biopic and gives it warmth and joy without descending into schmaltz. Just really special and I hope more peope discover this now that it's streaming on Netflix.

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  7. I haven't had much time for movies lately, but I did revisit some Carpenter. I introduced my girlfriend to 'In The Mouth of Madness'. I can't say she was terribly into it (she said it was interesting), but I realized it might be a top 5 horror film for me. It's got everything I need. Crazy imagination, awesome practical monster effects, and Sam Neil. I don't know what more someone could want.

    Also 'Prince of Darkness', which is a badass horror film. I personally think it's Carpenter's scariest film, but that's just me.

    I saw 'Once' last night. It was pretty good. Glad a film so obviously low-budget got success.

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    1. "Crazy imagination, awesome practical monster effects, and Sam Neil."

      You've seen Possession, right? It's got all of those things too.

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    2. I really want to, but I sadly have not. That's a tough movie to get ahold of.

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  8. A stomach bug is keeping me from GotGv2 but I watched Five Easy Pieces for the first time last night. What a great movie (and the Criterion blu looks awesome) - just a really good little character piece that's light on plot but effortlessly interesting because of some great performances (particularly Jack before he became JACK) and the way it captures some universal human experiences. Loved it.

    I'd have to think on it some more before making any sort of declaration but it feels like the 70s was great because of characters/performances and the 80s was great because of plots.

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    1. not long after FEP, jack also directed a little movie that's worth the watch. not as good as FEP, but interesting. i got them all from the BBS box set by criterion.

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    2. I assume you mean, Drive, He Said - haven't seen it but want to. I got the FEP standalone but will be keeping an eye out for a decent price on that BBS set.

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    3. Yes of course, i forgot to tell the title :)

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    4. "You want me to hold the chicken, huh?"

      "I want you to hold it between your knees."

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    5. So great. And then he fucking clears the table. lol

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    6. That movie is exceptional in every way. Then it shoots the moon with a life changing ending. On the dark day that physical media dies, what is going to keep older movies around? The major streaming services have already shown that they could not care less...

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    7. Perfect movie. So is The Last Detail.

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    8. @Matt Sollenberger, i totally agree with you. i think that's why i buy so many blu-rays. streaming services are unreliable and take movies in and out of their catalogs whenever they feel like it.

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    9. Yeah, The Last Detail is fantastic.

      Was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest the point at which Jack Nicholson became JACK NICHOLSON?

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    10. Maybe. It's been a while since I've seen it but maybe Easy Rider?

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    11. You and your driving movies, Adam. Honestly.

      I know you probably don't remember this, but I said in a response to you on another thread that I hated the Fast and Furious movies even though I'd never watched a single one. I didn't mean that. I don't hate them.

      I just wanted to get that off my chest. I'm like Columbo: things bother me. Also, I discovered America.

      I think Easy Rider was the film that introduced the world to Jack Nicholson, but he didn't become 'JACK' until later on. JACK is the guy in 1989's Batman; JACK is the Devil in The Witches of Eastwick. The Shining. That might have been the movie that turned Jack into 'JACK'.

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    12. Easy Rider is very worth your valuable time. it's basically required viewing for any movie lover.

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    13. Yeah, I'd say it was The Shining. And thanks, Adam, I'll have to check out The Last Detail.

      I'm actually starting to feel good about physical media not completely going away - it might for new releases - I can see the mass market going away - but the fact that Criterion and Shout/Scream Factory and the growing number of even smaller companies are surviving out there seems to prove that there's a physical media business model that can work solely for collectors. Maybe? I hope?

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    14. Just imported the Indicator Series blu ray of The Last Detail. I've never seen it. I'll report back in a couple weeks when it arrives. Can't wait!

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  9. Body of Evidence (1993) - One of the worst Madonna movies, but yet it was the most unintentionally hilarious erotic thriller ever put to film, filled with laughable dialogue, very unsexy nude scenes (notably the candle wax bit), strange courtroom antics, and lack of chemistry between Madonna and Willem Dafoe.

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  10. i suddenly decided to watch Risky Business, because i never saw it. fun little movie, i was expecting something else. something more like what michael j fox used to do

    the best part is the Tangerine Dream score

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    1. The best part is a young, long-banged, preternaturally beautiful Rebecca Demornay, forever enshrined in celluloid riding that subway car for all eternity

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  11. This week has been a good one for me with new to me films. In the order I got to see them; Phantom of the Paradise, The Belko Experiment, Colossal, and Madman (1981). Phew! They're all immediately favorites movies I'll watch again and again. It's hard to believe I'd never seen PotP, it felt like home. I think Belko was better than I'd expected, although I feel like a few minutes could have been shaved at the end. Colossal I got to by myself in the theatre and man I was not prepared. I may share a bit more in common with the two leads than I'd like to admit but I absolutely loved it. Watched Madman cuz catching up on KillwrPOVs and wasn't disappointed.

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  12. I saw Kong Skull Island* for the first time. Didn't love it. I had assumed it was a sequel to the original story, but was disabused of this notion when no one at any point said, "Skull Island... Skull Island? Oh, I knew that sounded familiar. This is where the giant monkey that terrorised New York in the 1920s came from." It was bleh. The human characters were dull and there weren't enough monsters for Kong to fight. Where, exactly, were the great big ants John C. Reilly spoke about? If someone mentions great big ants in a film, I expect to see great big ants at some point. And having the Big Bad of your film be just a larger version of smaller monsters we've already seen bespeaks a dearth of imagination. The post-credits scene, along with Kong's much larger size than in previous iterations, made me think this entire film was just a set up for a sequel. That sucked when Back to the Future Part II did it, and it sucks here.

    In descending order of goodness, my personal ranking of the Kong movies is: 1933, 2005, 1976, 2017. I know no one asked, but I thought I'd share anyway.

    I also saw Logan, which I thought was great. Based on the trailer, with the beclawed one examining his scarred body in the bathroom mirror, I imagined it was going to be about a future in which for whatever reasons — probably something having to do with the mutant "cure" — there are no X-people any more. Logan still has his Adamantium grafts, but unleashing his ungues is agonising and the wounds do not instantly heal. I thought my prediction was borne out in the opening scene in which he steps out of the limo and his feet pronate awkwardly and then has difficulty dealing with the hoodlums. His metallic implants weigh a tonne for him now that he's no longer superhuman.

    My smugness was short-lived.

    Incorrect prediction number two: The ailing Logan's consciousness is transferred to the skinhead WolverClone, a bit like what happened with Data and B-4 in Star Trek: Nemesis and Professor Xavier and his comatose brother at the end of X-Men: The Last Stand. The first time we the audience encounter the WC, though — SPOILERS — he kills Charles, who was the only person who could conceivably have performed this feat of psychic handiwork.

    Wrong again, mouse. It wouldn't have fit the tone of the movie, either, which to me is the only one in the franchise that feels like it's set in our universe. The comic books were a lovely touch that "brought me into the world", but the entire thing just felt real. As Patrick points out in the Logan episode — you have to press record and play at the same time — we're not in a particularly dystopian future here. This really grounds the film, I thought.

    Does Professor X in the other movies shave his head? In the ones in which he's bald, he's completely bald, but in this one he has a Peter Boyle thing going on on the back of his noggin. In X-Men: Apocalypse (shudders) Xavier the younger's hair falls out after battling... I forget. That film was awful. Apocalypse, that might be it. He was battling Apocalypse. It's not just male pattern baldness, then. Vanity, thy name is Charles Xavier.

    I'm not ashamed to say that when Laura tilted the cross over so that it became an X I shed a tear or two. Or fifty.

    Best film in the franchise for me.

    "Time Lord" isn't the Doctor's species. Not every Gallifreyan gets to travel around the universe in a cool timeship. There's an academy you have to attend before you can do that. Some must flunk out. Are they no longer members of this species when that happens?

    *I omitted the colon out of respect for Patrick. If you Google the movie, it's included in most results. Is it only "Kong, colon, Skull Island" if that's what it says onscreen? I don't know.

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    1. Wow, you did some good pondering there before seeing it, Nonnymouse. I liked Logan a lot, too, even though I just kind of stumbled into the theater with a friend, not knowing much about X-men or Wolverine. Definitely didn't feel like I deserved to watch the death scenes of their two most important characters. Anyway it was very well done, I thought :)

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    2. @Nonnymouse,

      according to wikipedia, for whatever that's worth, time lord is a species. but i did stop to think about it for a second when he said it in the episode.

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    3. I have lots of time, far too much in fact, for pondering, Meredith. I live at the arse-end of the world for most of the year. Literally. I'm not complaining; it's gorgeous here, but I have to get on an aeroplane if I want to see a new movie release. How's Hawaii? Still sun-kissed and with cinemas aplenty? Of course it is. :)

      I felt Professor X's — again, SPOILERS — death was anticlimactic for the character. He deserved more. Although maybe that was the point. Heroes die insignificant, lonely deaths all the time.

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    4. A species is something that has evolved, Kunider. If Time Lords were able to wiggle their noses like Samantha did in Bewitched and travel through time this way, your source would be correct. They require machines, albeit living ones, in order to do this, though. If there's some sort of Time Lord-TARDIS symbiosis at play here, which has been suggested, Wikipedia might be right. I don't know. I'll have to see what Conservapedia, "the trustworthy encyclopedia," has to say about this. Andy has never let me down before.

      It's the Master who was tinkling the ivories behind the vault door that Matt Lucas is required to stand in front of pretending to be studying for scene after scene, right? It has to be.

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    5. of course it's The Master.

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    6. Yeah actually I like that idea that heroes die lonely, humble deaths. Are they planning on bringing those characters back?

      Hawaii's good, thx. I only live here a small part of the year myself now, but it's always home. Sure is changing tho. Movies are like $18 per person now and they rarely play good stuff. I'm not sure how theaters are gonna stay in business. Where's the end of the world? :) tell us someday.

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  13. Haha...funny you say that! Speaking of "weird, old movie that can only be found on YouTube"...Watched State Park a.k.a Heavy Metal Summer (1988) a Canadian, somewhat run-of-the mill teen camp screwball comedy. It's pretty standard for the most part but I actually really liked it! Maybe cause it's been a while since seen one of these or maybe it's cause Ted Nugent makes an appearance! :) Lots of fun!

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  14. Went to see Power Rangers with the kids. It was great that it captured that original feel, including swilling beer while having long heart-to-heart conversations, dealing with problems like sexting and acceptance of homosexuality, and heaps and heaps of teenage angst. This is the Rangers we grew up loving (sarcasm, btw).

    About 20 minutes in, my son whispered to me "when is it going to get fun?". And the whole 2nd act they were showing signs of boredom, except for some bits where they were discovering their powers.

    BUT!!! The 3rd act was actually really good. A lot of the fighting was done in the same style of the original, with no shaky cam, very little speed ramping etc. And all the kids around us were obviously laughing and enjoying it too. My kids walked out saying it was the best movie ever.

    The 1995 movie is still miles better, but anyone who loves the franchise will find enough to love about this version. I don't believe anyone had mentioned it on the podcast yet? No one has watched it lately?

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  15. i bought the original french comic Transperceneige last week. it's the comic that inspired the awesome movie Snowpiercer. so here i am watching the movie because it's been a long time.

    the movie is very different than the comic, but both are very worth it.

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  16. I guess I'm the only one to see GOTG2 this weekend. It absolutely lived up to my expectations and did everything right that a sequel should do. In fact it was even FUNNIER than the original film, only this time Drax was the stand-out character in terms of the laughs rather than Rocket (who wasn't short shifted by any means. Drax was just more consistent in the amount of humor he was delivered by this script.)

    I have to say the weakest part for me was Kurt RusseLl as Ego. The idea of a character who's actually an entire planet just barely made the transition from comic to screen in a capable way. And so it was hard to build up any kind of feeling for him one way or another seeing as Kurt existed in the film as more of an abstract entity rather than someone tangible. Whenever he was on screen also tended to be the parts of the movie that hit the brakes on the comedy and overall manic momentum of the film. You'll feel the same when you see the movie, the entire energy of the audience shifted into neutral during the Ego segments, which is shame because this film could have surpassed the entertainment factor of the original had it not leaned so heavily on the Ego storyline.

    At any rate, the GOTG franchise is an absolute gem among the dreck the superhero genre has been pumping out regularly for the greater part of the past decade. I wish more of these films took the risks and possessed even half of the ingenuity and passion for its characters that Gunn has served up in spades now for both GOTG films.

    I'm planning on seeing it again in 3D with a variety of different friends, as I now know its a guaranteed crowd pleaser for whomever I bring to watch it. It wasn't just all shits and giggles either. This movie has a heart as big as Ego's planet, and the combination of different tones is something other superhero directors have attempted but just couldn't pull off because they didn't possess the same passion for their characters as Gunn does here. There's not even the slightest semblance of a cynical cash grab franchising at work in this sequel. And that's what made GOTG2 so eminently enjoyable and refreshing among the glut of superhero sequels that preceded this very film in the mishmash of mediocre movie trailers that played before it.

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  17. Wow, you and I had really different experiences. I felt like it faltered in every avenue where it's successes lied in vol.1, especially humor and pacing (complaining about pacing is the new 'praising a movie's dream logic', btw.) It's the first honest-to-goodness 'ambitious failure' of the MCU, IMO; it feels like Marvel let Gunn put in every single idea he came up with, and the film is just overstuffed. I mean, it's got four (I think) different end credits sequences... not after credits sequences, four completely separately designed portions of end credits text. That's a lot. That said, I still kind of loved it. Podcast about it from me and my guys coming this Wednesday.

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    1. I watched it twice in the last week and for the most part I really enjoyed it all the way down to the credits (I'll take what they did here over 7-8 minutes of standard credits followed by a 10 second scene any day).

      My only real issue is the lack of subtlety in some of the character work. Rather than let the characters actions/motivations/flaws speak for themselves we have to have it pointed out repeatedly in dialogue as if to let the audience know what character arcs are going to be resolved by the time the movie ends. It's a small nitpick that seems like a result of having more characters this time around to divide the focus up amongst. Conversely there's a great character moment in a scene between Drax and Mantis that required very little dialogue.

      Overall though I think it's a great movie. Gunn carries most of the movie with action and humor but still knows how to gut punch the audience a couple times as well.

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    2. It was so much funnier than the first one, especially Drax. But it must really come down to personal senses of humor. If you're on board with GOTG2 within the first 15 minutes, you're going to be on board throughout. I agree with your pacing comment solely when it comes to Kurt Russell though. Whenever he's on screen the fun comes to a screeching halt. Fortunately that's only 20 or so minutes of the whole film, but boy do you feel that slog.

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  18. last movies of the weekend

    Mifune the Last Samurai: good documentary on the legendary actor. over way too quick. only 80 minutes and the first 14 are about the situation in japan when mifune was born

    Cold In July: great movie. dark, moody, good music, good actors.

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