Let’s Talk Movies! #31: Pandas, Zombies, Male Models, Superheroes, Greeks and…Caesar!

Which Of These Movies Grabs Your Interest?

  • Jan. 15th - The 5th Wave - Sci-fi with Chloë Grace Moretz, Liev Schreiber, Maria Bello

    Votes: 15 31.9%
  • Jan. 29th - Kung Fu Panda 3 - Animated with Jack Black, Angelina Jolie, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan

    Votes: 4 8.5%
  • Feb. 5th - Hail, Caesar! - Comedy with George Clooney, Josh Brolin, Channing Tatum, Ralph Fiennes

    Votes: 19 40.4%
  • Feb. 5th - Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – Horror comedy with Lily James, Sam Riley

    Votes: 12 25.5%
  • Feb. 12th - Zoolander 2 - Comedy with Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson, Christine Taylor, Will Ferrell

    Votes: 14 29.8%
  • March 18th - The Divergent Series: Allegiant – Adventure with Shailene Woodley, Theo James, Ansel El

    Votes: 9 19.1%
  • March 25th - Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – Adventure with Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck

    Votes: 17 36.2%
  • March 25th - My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2 – Romantic comedy with Nia Vardalos, John Corbett

    Votes: 12 25.5%
  • Apr. 15th - The Jungle Book – Adventure with Idris Elba, Ben Kingsley, Scarlett Johansson, Lupita Ny

    Votes: 12 25.5%
  • Apr. 22nd - The Huntsman: Winter's War - Fantasy with Chris Hemsworth, Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt

    Votes: 12 25.5%

  • Total voters
    47
On the weekend I watched Big Game, which stars Samuel L. Jackson and newcomer Onni Tommila as a young Finnish teen who comes upon a stranded president of the United States in the woods after his plane has crashed after an assassination attempt. But the bad guys on the ground are close by to complete the mission. This one is very much a family-friendly movie, I see at Wikipedia that it has been referred to as "a throwback to ’80s and ’90s adventure movies with a dash of comic book violence thrown in for good measure". Jackson and Tommila play well off of each other and the movie is light, but fun. It co-stars Felicity Huffman, Jim Broadbent, Victor Garber and Ray Stevenson.



I tend to be drawn to the typical leading man as far as what I think is sexy, but I like lots of different types. In my last job, one of my co-workers looked at me once when I pointed out someone I found attractive and said, "you really don't have a type". I guess the men I had pointed out in the past to her had been varied enough that she couldn't gauge what type of guy I saw drawn to. And the first gay man I ever had a big crush on was "a dog face" according to a friend who finally got to see me after hearing me pine away for him maybe a bit too much. :lol: I guess Daniel Mays is a good example, because I can see why people would think he is not handsome, but I'm really drawn to him. Partly because of his talent, his ability to play many varied roles, and his willingness to make a complete goof of himself when the role requires it. And he's tall (6' 2"), that's a big bonus. And I get the feeling that he has a humility to him, which is also appealing. All in all, I find him very kissable. :D


He is someone I'd love to see on stage in a powerful role. I don't know if he is too old for Prince Hal in Shakespeare's "Henry IV" but I love that particular play and that particular role. Or maybe an American classic like "Streetcar." He is not visibly beautiful like Marlon Brando but he is such good actor that I think a lot of people would find him very sexy in the right role. Getting away from the "power" roles he broke my heart in the "Red Riding" movie trilogy as a man who is somewhat slow, brutalized by the police and imprisoned. The three films are tough to watch knowing that some of what we saw was based on fact. I don't know about his character but to see that and then see him in totally different roles and be utterly convincing every time makes me believe we will be talking about him for a long time. That's the thing about guys: They don't have to be the proverbial hunk to be appealing.
 
So, as per my norm, I'm watching a movie from 2011....I'm about an hour into "J. Edgar". I really like DiCaprio (although I freaking HATE the number of movies of his that I have to end up feeling sorry for him at the end), and like Hammer, but really, when does this movie get better? Or doesn't it?

(Maybe it's the detox I'm on and it would be better with a glass of wine. Alas, not till February)
 
"What We Do In The Shadows" is a recent viewing, it's one of those comedies where I found it amusing, but never really laughed out loud at anything. I think maybe a lot of the movie was improvised (good on them all, if so), but if they had a more detailed script and then improvised from that...then the movie would have been a lot funnier. The cast are all great, my favourite is Taika Waititi. He was wonderful and sweet and definitely the funniest of the lot. The outtakes on the DVD which featured him were also the best. Plus I find him very attractive! :swoon: I checked imdb to see what else he has been in and was surprised to find he's done as much directing as he has acting. His previous movie to this was The Green Lantern, which I got from the library just because of him. Well, I could stand staring at Ryan Reynolds for a couple of hours, too... :D Anyway, it looks like Waititi is focussing on directing now, he just finished a comedy and is set to direct the next Thor movie. Unfortunate for us who like to see him in front of the camera, but this might give him a big break into the world of directing. My eyes loss! :)

As for The Green Lantern, I wondered if I had seen it already (I hadn't). I think it didn't make it's way onto my to see list because it bombed at the box office, but the trailer looked okay, so I got it from the library. Wasn't as bad as the naysayers had bellowed on about. And it wasn't a major box office blop, but I'm sure it ended up in the red overall. Waititi had a small role in it, but Reynolds was uber-buff and there were lots of shirtless shots. One thing I found interesting was that this movie didn't do well enough to become an ongoing series, but Reynolds will be in Deadpool soon, playing what seems to be quite a similar character. Didn't work the first time, not sure why they're giving it another go... Reynolds should stick to doing romantic comedies with Sandra Bullock and independent character-driven films. He doesn't seem to have a good connection with big Hollywood releases.

I saw '45 Years' in my movie preview club about a month ago....Rampling in particular was just amazing.

I watched the second season of Broadchurch recently and Rampling was wonderful in it. She got to do a lot of scenes with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, so that was amazing for us viewers to see two such talented women at the top of their game. Loved season two of Broadchurch by the way, the whole cast is amazing. Can't wait for season three!!! :cheer2:
 
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I watched the second season of Broadchurch recently and Rampling was wonderful in it. She got to do a lot of scenes with Marianne Jean-Baptiste, so that was amazing for us viewers to see two such talented women at the top of their game. Loved season two of Broadchurch by the way, the whole cast is amazing. Can't wait for season three!!! :cheer2:

When does it air? I loved both Season One and Season Two, but can't imagine that the tiny community of Broadchurch will be afflicted by yet another heinous crime.
 
Season three won't film until this summer. As for plot, Joe Miller wasn't Mr. Popularity, so maybe something might happen to him...and then we will be left with whodunit...
 
I couldn't sleep last night so I watched a documentary called "Cast Party." It was really a simulcast of a live event staged to feature popular podcasts. I was not familiar with every podcast so I wanted to watch. It was interesting though my favorite podcast ended up being one I already love which is "Radio Lab." I would have enjoyed seeing this live even more.

I did see "What We Do In the Shadows" on HBO recently and thought it fun. I liked seeing both familiar and new faces from New Zealand. Jemaine Clement is a lovable goofball.
 
As for The Green Lantern, I wondered if I had seen it already (I hadn't). I think it didn't make it's way onto my to see list because it bombed at the box office, but the trailer looked okay, so I got it from the library. Wasn't as bad as the naysayers had bellowed on about. And it wasn't a major box office blop, but I'm sure it ended up in the red overall. Waititi had a small role in it, but Reynolds was uber-buff and there were lots of shirtless shots. One thing I found interesting was that this movie didn't do well enough to become an ongoing series, but Reynolds will be in Deadpool soon, playing what seems to be quite a similar character. Didn't work the first time, not sure why they're giving it another go... Reynolds should stick to doing romantic comedies with Sandra Bullock and independent character-driven films. He doesn't seem to have a good connection with big Hollywood releases.

Deadpool is very different from Green Lantern. It took a lot to get Deadpool made, largely because of the failure of the Green Lantern movie. If you watch the trailers for Deadpool you will see where they take a few potshots at Green Lantern. I'm excited for Deadpool. I think it looks pretty awesome and should be true to how Deadpool should be done unlike what they did I the steaming pile of crap that is X-Men Origins: Wolverine. I was very relieved when I saw that they were ignoring that.

Deadpool's trailer was far and away the best received at San Diego Comic-Con last year. As soon as the applause died down they had to play it again because of how loud the fans were chanting for it.
 
I went to see "The Hateful 8" and hated it. Completely pointless repulsive violence in Tarantino-style with an equally pointless and uninteresting plot inbetween. Half of the film is spent on men beating up, vomiting on and otherwise torturing a woman and the viewer is meant to think she deserves it. It deserves no Oscars!!
 
I am looking forward to Deadpool and Doctor Strange, but mostly to the first superhero movies with female heroes. Unfortunately the first one is not out until 2017 and the next will be Captain Marvel in 2018. :(
 
BAFTA Nominations were announced today:

BEST PICTURE
"The Big Short"
"Bridge of Spies"
"Carol"
"The Revenant"
"Spotlight"

BEST DIRECTOR
Todd Haynes, "Carol"
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, "The Revenant"
Adam McKay, "The Big Short"
Ridley Scott, "The Martian"
Steven Spielberg, "Bridge of Spies"

BEST ACTOR
Bryan Cranston, "Trumbo"
Matt Damon, "The Martian"
Leonardo DiCaprio, "The Revenant"
Michael Fassbender, "Steve Jobs"
Eddie Redmayne, "The Danish Girl"

BEST ACTRESS
Cate Blanchett, "Carol"
Brie Larson, "Room"
Saoirse Ronan, "Brooklyn"
Maggie Smith, "The Lady in the Van"
Alicia Vikander, "The Danish Girl"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Christian Bale, "The Big Short"
Benicio del Toro, "Sicario"
Idris Elba, "Beasts of No Nation"
Mark Ruffalo, "Spotlight"
Mark Rylance, "Bridge of Spies"

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jennifer Jason Leigh, "The Hateful Eight"
Rooney Mara, "Carol"
Alicia Vikander, "Ex Machina"
Julie Walters, "Brooklyn"
Kate Winslet, "Steve Jobs"

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
"The Big Short"
"Brooklyn"
"Carol"
"Room"
"Steve Jobs"

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
"Bridge of Spies"
"Ex Machina"
"The Hateful Eight"
"Inside Out"
"Spotlight"

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
"Bridge of Spies"
"Carol"
"Mad Max: Fury Road"
"The Revenant"
"Sicario"

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
"Brooklyn"
"Carol"
"Cinderella"
"The Danish Girl"
"Mad Max: Fury Road"

BEST FILM EDITING
"The Big Short"
"Bridge of Spies"
"Mad Max: Fury Road"
"The Martian"
"The Revenant"

BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING
"Brooklyn"
"Carol"
"The Danish Girl"
"Mad Max: Fury Road"
"The Revenant"

BEST MUSIC
"Bridge of Spies"
"The Hateful Eight"
"The Revenant"
"Sicario"
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens"

BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN
"Bridge of Spies"
"Carol"
"Mad Max: Fury Road"
"The Martian"
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens"

BEST SOUND
"Bridge of Spies"
"Mad Max: Fury Road"
"The Martian"
"The Revenant"
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens"

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
"Ant-Man"
"Ex Machina"
"Mad Max: Fury Road"
"The Martian"
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens"

BEST ANIMATED FILM
"Inside Out"
"Minions"
"Shaun the Sheep Movie"

BEST BRITISH FILM
"45 Years"
"Amy"
"Brooklyn"
"The Danish Girl"
"Ex Machina"
"The Lobster"

BEST DOCUMENTARY FILM
"Amy"
"Cartel Land"
"He Named Me Malala"
"Listen to Me Marlon"
"Sherpa"

BEST FOREIGN FILM
"The Assassin"
"Force Majeure"
"Theeb"
"Timbuktu"
"Wild Tales"

BEST BRITISH ANIMATED SHORT FILM
"Edmond"
"Manoman"
"Prologue"

BEST BRITISH LIVE-ACTION SHORT FILM
"Elephant"
"Mining Poems or Odes"
"Operator"
"Over"
"Samuel-613"

BEST DEBUT FILM
"Ex Machina"
"Second Coming"
"The Survivalist"
"A Syrian Love Story"
"Theeb"

EE RISING STAR AWARD
John Boyega
Taron Egerton
Dakota Johnson
Brie Larson
Bel Powley
 
BAFTA Nominations were announced today...

Omissions that surprised me include no Jacob Tremblay for "Room", no Kristen Stewart for "Clouds of Sils Maria" (I checked last year's awards to see if she was nominated there like in France) and no Sylvester Stallone for "Creed". One surprise was nominations for both lead and supporting actress for Alicia Vikander. I liked Ex Machina okay, but I didn't love it. So because of that, I can't/don't really remember much about her performance in that movie. I'm not quite sure if she spoke or not in that movie, or if was one of the other women along with her who was the one who never spoke.
 
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Nice to see 'Bridge of Spies' get love from BAFTA. Well deserved. Also nice to see The Force Awakens get some nominations. Quite often the blockbusters are ignored. Alicia Vikander has nominations in Lead and Supporting categories, I didn't see Ex Machina. May have to rent the DVD.

Surprise omissions:

No Cinematography nomination for The Danish Girl,
No acting nominations for Spotlight, and
no BP nomination for The Danish Girl (I may be the only one who thought that movie was outstanding, though not as good as Bridge of Spies and Spotlight). I have not yet seen The Big Short.
 
I went to see "The Hateful 8" and hated it. Completely pointless repulsive violence in Tarantino-style with an equally pointless and uninteresting plot inbetween. Half of the film is spent on men beating up, vomiting on and otherwise torturing a woman and the viewer is meant to think she deserves it. It deserves no Oscars!!

If I see the name Tarrantino, I skip that movie. He has a reputation for extreme violence. I don't need that.
 
I went to see "The Hateful 8" and hated it. Completely pointless repulsive violence in Tarantino-style with an equally pointless and uninteresting plot inbetween. Half of the film is spent on men beating up, vomiting on and otherwise torturing a woman and the viewer is meant to think she deserves it. It deserves no Oscars!!

Do you normally like Tarantino films?
 
Saw In the Heart of the Sea. I liked it a lot, though the whale harvesting scenes were sad to watch. Not sure why it didn't get more love at the box office--I thought it was very well done.
I did find it interesting how they changed the movie so that the first mate came off as the hero when in real life he was the one most responsible for many of the struggles they faced later.
 
Despite the stop-motion animation framework, Anomalisa is a Charlie Kaufman work through and through.
I suspect that this particular work will be quite polarizing for unsuspecting viewers, who will be surprised to witness an unapologetically adult animated movie.

Similar to his other works, Kaufman creates a tone that is rather bittersweet bordering on the pessimistic/forlorn throughout.
There is an interesting direction technique used to emphasize Kaufman's perspective about human (dis)connectedness (I won't give too much away, but I think a lot of the audience will find the technique used somewhat tedious, no matter how true/relatable it actually is).
 
While watching "Holiday" recently (George Cukor-directed 1938 romantic-comedy with Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant), I once again thought, "why don't they make movies like this where the adults are truly adults and the dialogue is SO smart"? And then I watched I'll See You In My Dreams (Blythe Danner, Sam Elliott) and wondered if this was the modern-day version of that kind of movie. The latter is much less of a comedy than Holiday, but we get to see smart adults in an interesting situation with good dialogue. Unfortunately, movies like Holiday were much bigger hits in their day than something like I'll See You In My Dreams is today. Not a lot of Transformers movies filling up the movie theatres in the 30's! :lol:

I'd say I liked I'll See You In My Dreams better than Holiday, which tried a bit too hard to be witty in that usual fast-faced way of romantic comedies of that time. I'll See You In My Dreams is more relaxed, but more interesting. Blythe Danner should have gotten a lot more recognition for her work in this movie. I also liked Martin Starr as her poolboy/drinking buddy. Interesting to see that he played the uber-geeky Haverchuck way back in Freaks and Geeks. I thought he was kind of sexy in an understated way in this movie. :D And nice to see June Squibb, Rhea Perlman and Mary Kay Place as Danner's buddies, even if there parts were all relatively small.

When they choose some ugly geeky guy to play one of the sex symbols of the 20th century, no one goes to see the film.

Wasn't James Dean whole thing about making an ugly, geeky guy now seen as one of the cool, handsome guys? James Dean was probably seen by many as ugly and geeky next to men like Cary Grant and Gregory Peck.
 
I'm curious to know of what you saw in 2015---whether it be a film on PPV/TV or at the cinema--what were your favorites?

I get out very little so I watch a lot of "on demand" PPV stuff. Of everything I saw I was surprised by what I loved the most: 1. A Little Chaos and 2. The Man From Uncle. I also saw a black and white film directed by Kenneth Branaugh years ago and called A Midwinter's Tale. It was a scream and is my number 3.

I'm curious to know everyone's favorites.
 
Do you normally like Tarantino films?

I loved "Pulp Fiction" and I liked "Jackie Brown" and "Django Unchained", but this new film is just terrible. The screenplay is idiotic to say the least, the "twists" (if you can call them such) are both predictable and nonsensical at the same time and it's physically repulsive to watch. Tarantino clearly needed fast cash.

Wasn't James Dean whole thing about making an ugly, geeky guy now seen as one of the cool, handsome guys? James Dean was probably seen by many as ugly and geeky next to men like Cary Grant and Gregory Peck.

I'm not a fan of his by any means, but I have never heard anyone describe James Dean as either geeky or ugly. This was the era of Marlon Brando and all about the cool sexy "bad boy" rebel image. James Dean copied Brando in nearly everything (which is why Brando did not like him).

I'm curious to know of what you saw in 2015---whether it be a film on PPV/TV or at the cinema--what were your favorites?

I get out very little so I watch a lot of "on demand" PPV stuff. Of everything I saw I was surprised by what I loved the most: 1. A Little Chaos and 2. The Man From Uncle. I also saw a black and white film directed by Kenneth Branaugh years ago and called A Midwinter's Tale. It was a scream and is my number 3.

I'm curious to know everyone's favorites.

The best film I have seen in 2015 was "Bridge of Spies" by a large margin.
 
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You know, "Heaven's Gate" became a cautionary tale for Hollywood and I've only seen bits and pieces. But pull up pics/images of Walken in that film. He is beautiful.

Watched the first half of "Heaven's Gate" (it's over 3 hours long and Walken only appears after about an hour and 15mins into the film). My first impression: the editor fell asleep on the job, but Walken looks gorgeous!

Edit: I gave up. It's terrible. If the idea was to film another Gone With the Wind, there are no words to describe how badly it failed. After 2 hours of wasting my life waiting for Christopher Walken to appear on screen, I still have absolutely no clue what the film was meant to be about. Seriously bad.
 
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I'm curious to know of what you saw in 2015---whether it be a film on PPV/TV or at the cinema--what were your favorites?

My favourites from last year:
  1. Trainwreck
  2. Spy
  3. Suite Française
  4. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
  5. Jurassic World

  6. Z For Zachariah
  7. Amy
  8. It Follows
  9. I’ll See You In My Dreams
  10. Pitch Perfect 2

  11. Insurgent
  12. Clouds Of Sils Maria
  13. Poltergiest
  14. The Gift
  15. The Age of Adaline

  16. Get Hard
  17. Far From The Madding Crowd

I'm not a fan of his by any means, but I have never heard anyone describe James Dean as either geeky or ugly. This was the era of Marlon Brando and all about the cool sexy "bad boy" rebel image. James Dean copied Brando in nearly everything (which is why Brando did not like him).

You must not get out much! ;) But James Dean is now thought of as cool and handsome, but when he first hit the big screen, I bet a lot of the older generation hated him both for his "cool" demeanour (which they probably thought of as incredibly disrespectful) and his strange looks which didn't fit the matinee idol mold at all. Of course, things have changed a lot since then in how the public sees him.

Was it Dean that copied Brando? Imdb.com lists Brando's first credit in 1949 and Dean's first credit in 1951. Is that enough time for one actor to copy another actor's persona? I do see that Brando had a hit in 1951 with A Streetcar Named Desire, but Dean didn't have a movie hit until four years later, 1955's East of Eden. I don't see their personas overlapping much myself, other than as the outsider. Brando was brash and tough and outgoing while Dean was quiet and tortured and aggrieved.
 
Peter, that is an interesting list. I like that you have thought of all genres when making your choices.
 

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