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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Feb 7, 2020 21:14:47 GMT -5
Explain the premise of this flute-o-phone. The rest of the movie seems pretty unessential, but I am intrigued by the flute-o-phone. It's the thing he's holding here in this picture. It's not quite a flute and it's not entirely sax-o-phone thus making it a flute-o-phone. He can play one (1) song on it and has been playing that song since he was a small child.  That's a good flute-o-phone, but it's pretty unimpressive that he never learned how to play any other songs. |
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Dr. Rumak
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Post by Dr. Rumak on Feb 7, 2020 21:36:42 GMT -5
Once Upon a Time in HollywoodI guess my expectations were too high. Not in my top tier of either Quentin Tarantino films nor Once Upon a Time films. Is Once Upon a Time in America in that top tier? Because that one’s in my Netflix queue but also I think like four hours long or something. My top tier are Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in China. But it’s been about 30 years since I watched Once Upon a Time in America, and I don’t think I watched the four hour cut (but it was definitely not the 2 hour theatrical cut), so maybe I should try that and report back. Edit: I replied before seeing NV’s response, and I have to admit, I don’t even remember the flute-o-phone. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Feb 7, 2020 22:20:17 GMT -5
Is Once Upon a Time in America in that top tier? Because that one’s in my Netflix queue but also I think like four hours long or something. My top tier are Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in China. But it’s been about 30 years since I watched Once Upon a Time in America, and I don’t think I watched the four hour cut (but it was definitely not the 2 hour theatrical cut), so maybe I should try that and report back. Edit: I replied before seeing NV’s response, and I have to admit, I don’t even remember the flute-o-phone. I don't remember anything else about it except the flute-o-phone...and the sex crime. Also there were a couple scenes that randomly looked like someone taped the movie of basic cable on an old-ass VHS cassette while the remainder of the movie was just normal-ass looking cinema film. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 7, 2020 23:23:41 GMT -5
Is Once Upon a Time in America in that top tier? Because that one’s in my Netflix queue but also I think like four hours long or something. My top tier are Once Upon a Time in the West and Once Upon a Time in China. But it’s been about 30 years since I watched Once Upon a Time in America, and I don’t think I watched the four hour cut (but it was definitely not the 2 hour theatrical cut), so maybe I should try that and report back. Edit: I replied before seeing NV’s response, and I have to admit, I don’t even remember the flute-o-phone. is getting a theatrical showing by the local movie theater chain in March. I've been thinking about going. |
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Post by Floyd Diabolical Barber on Feb 9, 2020 1:08:10 GMT -5
The Straight Story
I saw it when it was first released. liked it a lot, and have wanted to see it again for a long time, so I finally rented it from somewhere, Amazon, maybe. I just cannot say enough good things about this movie. True, it may be the most rural-midwestern-old-white-guy movie ever filmed, but it is also a brilliant meditation about family and growing old. I'm going to also say that it is the best, most intelligent G rated movie I have ever seen. I don't know how else to put that. Based on a true story, and set in either the late 1980's or early 1990's, Richard Farnsworth plays Alvin Straight, a rural midwestern old white guy who learns that his estranged brother, who he has not spoken to in 10 years, has had stroke. Now, at age 73, Straight suffers from several ailments, and doesn't drive. He decides instead to build a homemade trailer, hook it to his old lawn mower, and drive it the 370 miles to his brother's home. The trip takes him a long time. The pace of the movie is as slow as the pace of Alvin's cross country trip. Nothing much exciting happens, but Alvin encounters several people along the way, and their stories, and his, recalling his life, are deeply moving. The conversations Alvin has with the folks he meets tend to be brief and sincere, quiet and interspersed with long silences. It is a movie of mood and atmosphere and contemplation. Of joy and regrets.
The cast is outstanding. Farnsworth was Oscar nominated for his performance, and while I don't remember who won, he should have. Sissy Spacek is fine as always Alvin's daughter. I found her speech patterns in this movie distracting, but that is explained in the movie. Harry Dean Stanton does more in his few minutes of screen time, with only a couple of lines of dialog, than most actors could do in an entire movie. David Lynch directed this, and to me it shows beyond any doubt that what a talented and versatile director he is. The only connection to any of his stranger projects that I noticed was that the beautiful musical score reflected just a few hints of the Twin Peaks score. I grew up around these same WWII vet rural Midwestern white guys that populate this movie, and I heard just a few of their stories of war, and watched the final years of their lives play out. Almost all of them are gone now, and maybe that's why this movie affects me so deeply. It's a great movie.
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 9, 2020 1:31:42 GMT -5
The Straight Story
The cast is outstanding. Farnsworth was Oscar nominated for his performance, and while I don't remember who won, he should have.
How annoyed did you get when you read that Kevin Spacey won that year for "American Beauty"?
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Post by DangOlJimmyITellYouWhat on Feb 9, 2020 13:03:15 GMT -5
It's the thing he's holding here in this picture. It's not quite a flute and it's not entirely sax-o-phone thus making it a flute-o-phone. He can play one (1) song on it and has been playing that song since he was a small child. That's a good flute-o-phone, but it's pretty unimpressive that he never learned how to play any other songs. I don’t even go here, but is that meant to be just what the guy calls the instrument? Cause those are pretty clearly pan pipes, and what I’ve heard called a flute o phone is more like a recorder. |
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repulsionist
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Post by repulsionist on Feb 9, 2020 18:38:44 GMT -5
Spies in Disguise (2019)
Copaganda that looks like it took some character design cues from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. These levers and pulleys are getting shoddy. Cloacal poppycock.
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Post by Floyd Diabolical Barber on Feb 9, 2020 19:24:29 GMT -5
The Straight Story
The cast is outstanding. Farnsworth was Oscar nominated for his performance, and while I don't remember who won, he should have.
How annoyed did you get when you read that Kevin Spacey won that year for "American Beauty"?
Yeah, that sucked pretty bad when it happened, and time and circumstances certainly haven't made it any less annoying. |
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Post by Hachiman on Feb 9, 2020 19:30:25 GMT -5
Maleficent: Mistress of EvilI am really losing faith with Disney here. The only thing they seem to be doing well is the Marvel movies. This movie couldn't even hold my kids' attention so, in my book, it was a failure from the outset. I'm not going to bother checking, but I wonder how many of the people from the "Pirates of Caribbean" sequels and "Hellboy 2" were in on this one since there seemed to be a lot of shared DNA. We have more backstory and characters that were never mentioned up to now, but were apparently around the whole time. Plus, we have these big senseless battles that make the combatants look dumb and aren't even fun set-pieces. Like, we find out there's a whole lot of other creatures like Maleficient and she's supposed to be their queen or savior or something. And these creatures sweep in (unarmed) during the obligatory final battle only to immediately fly directly into range of every single ranged weapon, which fires some sort of fairy pesticide. So they get lit up. They then regroup to attack from below the ranged weapons as if castles weren't designed to repel invaders below the walls and get slaughtered there as well. At no point do they go, "Let's check their maximum range and make a new plan to attack a blind spot." or even better, "Let's just grab a ton of pebbles, fly into the clouds, and drop the pebbles such that, thanks to our friend Gravity, we are essentially raining bullets on these guys. Since we can approach them from any vector above, maybe we can just fly in from the Sun's position and blind them. Worked in "The Two Towers." Anything but essentially charging their firing since we've spent all of our screen time crying about going extinct." Anyway, this movie makes the case that the reason fairies don't exist is because they were too dumb to live.
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Post by Nudeviking on Feb 9, 2020 19:31:23 GMT -5
That's a good flute-o-phone, but it's pretty unimpressive that he never learned how to play any other songs. I don’t even go here, but is that meant to be just what the guy calls the instrument? Cause those are pretty clearly pan pipes, and what I’ve heard called a flute o phone is more like a recorder. He never calls it anything in the movie. The flute-o-phone is what I called it because I couldn't remember what it actually was before googling a picture of him with it and all unknown woodwinds are just 'flute-o-phones" to me. |
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Post by nowimnothing on Feb 9, 2020 20:49:43 GMT -5
1917 (2019)
Really one to see on the big screen, I am sure it would not have the same effect on TV. There are a number of truly amazing cinematic moments. The characters and emotions are bit flat but it is an entertaining ride.
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Post by DangOlJimmyITellYouWhat on Feb 9, 2020 21:51:23 GMT -5
I don’t even go here, but is that meant to be just what the guy calls the instrument? Cause those are pretty clearly pan pipes, and what I’ve heard called a flute o phone is more like a recorder. He never calls it anything in the movie. The flute-o-phone is what I called it because I couldn't remember what it actually was before googling a picture of him with it and all unknown woodwinds are just 'flute-o-phones" to me. Ah okay! I’m glad I wasn’t as confused as I thought |
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Post by Mrs David Tennant on Feb 9, 2020 21:59:06 GMT -5
Toy Story 4. It was okay.
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LazBro
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Post by LazBro on Feb 10, 2020 9:15:09 GMT -5
Timmy Failure: Mistake Were Made (2020)
Disney+. Based on a children's book series by the Pearls Before Swine guy. I have not read any of them.
Timmy Failure, a precocious 5th grade boy, runs a detective agency with not-much-help from his imaginary polar bear partner, all while getting in constant trouble at school and playing dumb to his single mom's financial struggles.
I thought this was super bad. Like, atrociously bad. Boring, repetitive, structure-less, pointless, bad. With maybe a little blame placed on actor Winslow Fegley's performance, the movie's central problem is the character of Timmy, whose flat, disinterested demeanor muzzles every laugh line and slows nearly every scene to a crawl. I think his staunch adherence to being "professional" is supposed to be funny, and a couple early scenes play out that way, but it becomes overbearing with every scene essentially hinging on the same slow-burn "joke."
I don't think a movie based on this character could be saved - not with this performance - but it doesn't help that it's also so poorly put together. Over the course of the movie, Timmy takes on at least four cases, none of which is satisfactorily concluded or even advanced through expected procedural means. No stake outs, no shaking down witnesses, no finding clues ... no detective work. In any given scene you know he's working a case, but it's not always clear which one. Then in the end, two cases go unsolved, one is solved for him by pure random chance, and another is closed early with the client saying, "Good work" while we have no idea what that work was. We only see when Timmy gets that case, and then the end after it's closed.
And then there's the fucking polar bear. Look, it's a metaphor. It's an obvious metaphor. You will recognize it immediately. But this is never addressed in the movie at all. The bear is just there, in almost every scene, so that it can do some silly bear thing and then Timmy can look over and say, "So unprofessional" or some such.
Oh, and there's a girl at Timmy's "quad" (group of desks) in school who he calls "the nameless one" and who's face is redacted for the first 10 minutes of the movie, until she's not. It's never explained why he calls her this, and the decision about 10 minutes in to remove the black bar redacting her face never comes to anything.
I was not surprised at all to find it was based on a book, because it has every whiff of a book that has been adapted poorly. Fantastical elements that are lame on the screen, plots that go nowhere, character building and history that is obviously missing, characters that are under-used.
Did I mention that Wallace Shawn, Craig Robinson and Ophelia Lovibond are in this? They were good, for what they were given.
I'm so glad my daughter didn't seem very taken with it either, because if this became a rotation regular, I would die.
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Post by Superb Owl 🦉 on Feb 10, 2020 16:46:44 GMT -5
Missing Link
This seemed to be the cream of the "Inexplicable Run of 2019 Children's Yeti Movies" crop.
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Post by Roy Batty's Pet Dove on Feb 10, 2020 16:51:50 GMT -5
Missing LinkThis seemed to be the cream of the "Inexplicable Run of 2019 Children's Yeti Movies" crop. What were the most middling, and the worst, "Inexplicable Run of 2019 Children's Yeti Movies", respectively, Owl? |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 11, 2020 1:25:03 GMT -5
Saw a few BP contenders right before the Oscars:
"Little Women" - Thought it surprisingly good. Full disclosure, I am not a fan of this story. However, I thought all the female actors were great, though I wasn't sold on Chalamet in his role. Several people said they found the time jumping confusing, but I actually liked that feature. I thought it helped to make the story slightly more compelling. I thought it made it so the marriages weren't the focal point of the story, and really allowed Gerwig to examine the pressures on the women to make their choices. So, overall, iI liked it.
"Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" - Meh. I wanted to like it, but I think Hollywood nostalgia-fests are not my thing. I do see why Brad Pitt won a bunch of awards. It's such a "movie star" kind of role, where he gets to look so cool. I have close to zero interest in the Manson clan or Sharon Tate murder. And I didn't like the typical Tarantino ultra violent ending on this one. It ended up feeling a bit weird to me that Tarantino focused on this Manson cult but never actually had Manson himself involved. It created a weird effect where these brainwashed women were made out to be the villains and then his male characters got to enact violence upon the women and.... it just all felt a bit unsettling. Where the revisionist revenge didn't have the same type of cathartic feeling that something like "Inglorious Basterds" had, or even "Django Unchained". I don't know. It looked really good, and I liked the acting. The story just did nothing for me.
"JoJo Rabbit" - I went in with low expectations based on the reviews, but I liked it much more than I expected to. I wasn't really into it at the beginning, but I thought it got better as it went. I actually loved Scarlett Johansson in it. I'm now pretty upset that Laura Dern won for a one-note role where she shouts a monologue about how unfair life is for women. ScarJo has an interesting, complex character here, and I think she's great.
And a friend made me watch "Joker" also. Blech. Did not like. It wasn't actually as bad as I was expecting. But, yeah, it really is derivative of earlier Scorsese films. I already don't very much like "Taxi Driver" and especially don't like "The King of Comedy", so this was not fun.
Did not see "1917" or "Ford V. Ferrari"
So, of the BP nominees I saw, my ranking would have been 1. Parasite 2. Little Women 3. Jojo Rabbit
4. Marriage Story
5. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
6. The Irishman
7. Joker
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Post by The Stuffingtacular She-Hulk on Feb 11, 2020 8:17:59 GMT -5
Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)2020 is off to a strong start. I love this movie so much! The characters are colourful (literally and figuratively), the action is well-choreographed and bonecrunching (literally and figuratively), the story is frenetic and winds all five protagonists around and into the arc of Black Mask seizing control of Gotham's underworld. And it's really funny! And really fun! It is incredible that this movie was spun off the utter trainwreck of Suicide Squad. Just came here to say this. It's loud and bright and sparkly and violent and profane and funny, and it's the first movie in I don't know how long to put a smile on my face the entire time I was watching it (when i wasn't laughing, which was often). I think I'm gonna see it again this weekend and maybe drag my dad along. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Feb 12, 2020 5:52:01 GMT -5
Little Dragon Maiden (1983) - Of all the kung fu/wuxia movies I've watched over the years I think only Buddha's Palm tops this in terms of complete batshit insanity. You had kung fu Big Bird guarding a legendary sword, a dude getting chopped in half lengthwise, a final boss that showed up in the last five minutes of the movie, a neon green ice bed, some sort of kung fu that could only be done in the nude, a random guy steal and eat someone's dog, a snake getting split open by the aforementioned kung fu big bird, a dude getting stabbed in the crown of the head and exploding, a guy who kept falling off cliffs, a bird randomly getting chopped in half lengthwise, sex crime, a guy cutting off his own finger, poisoned armor and so, so much more!  Kung Fu Big Bird (left) and Brodude Heroman (right)Also after watching all these goddamn movies with their countless training montages and trials by combat, I finally learned that all it really takes to master the basics of flying around and doing flips n' shit style kung fu is to capture 81 sparrows without harming them. Then you get to learn nude sweaty kung fu with the adorable titular Little Dragon Maiden (who subtitles called Dragon Girl for the entirety of the flick).
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Feb 13, 2020 9:26:10 GMT -5
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
SEE. THIS. MOVIE.
Makes Call Me By Your Name look like Police Academy 2.
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Post by Mr. Greene's October Surprise on Feb 13, 2020 9:47:16 GMT -5
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
SEE. THIS. MOVIE.
Makes Call Me By Your Name look like Police Academy 2.
Have you seen Tomboy? I've got to recommend it. |
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Post by MrsLangdonAlger on Feb 13, 2020 9:50:19 GMT -5
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
SEE. THIS. MOVIE.
Makes Call Me By Your Name look like Police Academy 2.
Have you seen Tomboy? I've got to recommend it. I have, and Girlhood and The Returned. I guess I'm officially a Sciamma fan! |
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Post by Mr. Greene's October Surprise on Feb 13, 2020 9:53:03 GMT -5
Have you seen Tomboy? I've got to recommend it. I have, and Girlhood and The Returned. I guess I'm officially a Sciamma fan! Happy to say I was in a French cinema course in college where the professor knew Sciamma, showed the class Tomboy, and had Sciamma Skype in to talk about the film and answer our questions about it!  |
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Post by repulsionist on Feb 13, 2020 16:37:34 GMT -5
Bandie (1978)
I can barely finish anything these days, and this was no exception. For Westworld hipsters of the late 90s I guess this has faint association with hard-to-find record Bombay the Hard Way as the film is Indian action cinema of the 1970s. For modern folk beseiged/overwhelmed/completely entranced by the panopticon content we consume, my Netflix has access to various Bollywood films. I am no fan of Bollywood films insofar as I have only seen bits of them and have no appreciation, comprehension, or understanding for their lore. I do laud their existence, and I chose to attempt watching this based on seeking something outside my normal blinders. Also, this was the only intriguing thing appearing in output using a search string of a film I really wanted to watch: White Sun of the Desert (1970).
Lots of stabbings and political intrigue in Bharatpur, Rajasthan. Incredible sets and make-up give me reason to analogise as this being some mid-to-low-grade exploitation film with a Jodorowskian colour palette having none of the cinematography to keep a viewer engaged.
Best served as exotic digestif to a cinema feast comprising Disco Godfather and The Holy Mountain.
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Post by Floyd Diabolical Barber on Feb 14, 2020 0:02:02 GMT -5
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
SEE. THIS. MOVIE.
Makes Call Me By Your Name look like Police Academy 2.
They ran a trailer for Portrait of a Lady on Fire before they showed Parasite a week or two ago, at the same little four screen independent theater that we saw JoJo Rabbit at the week before. A foreign language preview before a movie in a different foreign language. I was pretty surprised. This theater is located on the edge of an actual cornfield at the outskirts of our county seat, a tiny town of a few thousand people. I appreciate that they are showing these diverse movies, since nobody else within maybe 100 miles of it does. I just hope it's an attempt to widen their customer base and not a sign that attendance at their more mainstream movies is declining. We almost always go to matinees, so it's difficult for me to get an idea how their prime time business is doing. |
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Post by Desert Dweller on Feb 14, 2020 1:00:25 GMT -5
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
SEE. THIS. MOVIE.
Makes Call Me By Your Name look like Police Academy 2.
It opens here tomorrow. Going to try to see it this weekend.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2020 8:06:11 GMT -5
Portrait of a Lady on Fire
SEE. THIS. MOVIE.
Makes Call Me By Your Name look like Police Academy 2.
That just makes me want to see Call Me By Your Name. |
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Post by Nudeviking on Feb 14, 2020 10:49:25 GMT -5
I was just on an 11 hour flight during which I did not want to sleep in order to minimize the effects of jet lag. I ended up watching 5 movies.
Parasite (2019) - I saw this in a theater In Korea when it was a new release sans any sort of subtitles because I’m fluent enough in Korean to watch a movie. This time it had built-in English subtitles. Was surprised by how low key the translation made the profanity. Wonder if this is the case with all translations or just because it was on an airplane. Think it might just have been the translation everyone got since they kept the finger-banging intact on the airplane version.
Joker (2019) - I liked that they used the old Warner Bros. logo. I didn’t like that they used a Gary Glitter song or that the Joker Man constantly writhed around like a rib cage Axl Rose for no goddamn reason.
Pokemon Detective Pikachu (2019) - One star for the heap of Bulbasaurs. Half a star for the fact that Growlithe is apparently the most commonly owned Pokemon.
Jade Dynasty (2019) - Apparently in 2019 wuxia movies have big TOO GODDAMN MUCH CGI!!!! Marvel movie style climaxes. Otherwise it’s the same shit that the Shaw Bros. were doing in the early 80s. This movie had something for everyone. There were cute kung fun girls, a dumb ass with a stick, people flying on swords like they were skateboards, a monkey, a pig monster, and so so much more. It was kind of a weird movie since half the time it was trying to be a comedy and then other times there was a demonic puppet that ate people.
The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019) - This was the best odd couple buddy flick I’ve ever seen. A dude with Down’s Syndrome who dreams of being a pro-wrestler escapes a nursing home he’s being forced to live in order to learn how to wrestle. He meets a Shia LaBeouf who is on the run from crab fisherman he wronged and the two set off together towards the wrestling school and Florida respectively. A modern day Huckleberry Finn follows and it’s cute and funny. If you’ve ever wanted to see Shia LaBeouf punch a child in the face this is the movie for you!
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Post by Pastafarian on Feb 14, 2020 20:51:38 GMT -5
Pain and Glory
Beautiful film, but Almodovar so no surprise there. I think Banderas should have won the best actor award (as much as I enjoyed seeing Brad Pitt have a good time, and he delivered a pretty good speech.)
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