Let's Talk Movies #33: Star Wars: Jabba Rising...Captain America Trumps China...and MORE!

[Buzz]

I am super excited about Spider-Man Homeoming but sick of all the Spider-Man "stuff" being released. So I have decided to stay away from all things Spider-Man until after I have seen the movie.

 

[algonquin]

Toronto Star's movie critics 10 worst films of the last 20 years.

But I also see an awful lot of really bad movies, which makes me earn my keep as critic. I was reminded of it earlier this week while enduring Michael Bay’s latest abomination, Transformers: The Last Knight and also earlier this month while sitting through Alex Kurtzman’s insanely stupid remake of The Mummy. The blockbuster summer of 2017 isn’t going so well.

Both of these films are now in my Top 10 list of the worst films I’ve reviewed in my more than 20 years as a Star movie critic. And for this week’s column, I thought I’d actually compile and publish that list, along with the reasons for my ire.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainme...ic-peter-howell-picks-his-10-worst-films.html

 

[cocotaffy]

Toronto Star's movie critics 10 worst films of the last 20 years.



https://www.thestar.com/entertainme...ic-peter-howell-picks-his-10-worst-films.html

Yeah to me, I have not seen any single one of those 10 movies. Still saw so pretty stupid stuff though ... Entertaining fun summer article, thanks.

 

[algonquin]

@cocotaffy I have not seen any of those movies either and don't plan to.

 

[Vash01]

Toronto Star's movie critics 10 worst films of the last 20 years.



https://www.thestar.com/entertainme...ic-peter-howell-picks-his-10-worst-films.html

I have seen Extremely loud and incredibly close- 10th worst on this list. I have seen many that were far worse.

Didn't see any of the others.

 

[MacMadame]

Not only haven't I seen any (except maybe 88 minutes?), there are a few I haven't even heard of!

 

[watchthis!!]

Toronto Star's movie critics 10 worst films of the last 20 years.

https://www.thestar.com/entertainme...ic-peter-howell-picks-his-10-worst-films.html

To include something like Basic Instinct 2 on the list just makes the list seem silly. Who even knew there WAS a Basic Instinct 2? Also, who expects Oscar-calibre work in a movie like anything in the Transformers (or The Mummy) series? They're basically cinema's version of a roller coaster, and who looks for great stories and production quality from a roller coaster? You just want it fast and not sailing off the rails at any point!

I have seen Extremely loud and incredibly close- 10th worst on this list. I have seen many that were far worse.

So true. If he ranks this one as one of the worst of all time, he clearly hasn't seen many movies!

 

[VGThuy]

I mean this guy gets paid to watch every movie released in theaters, so it's safe to say he's seen more movies than we have. I can see why Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was on there. To me it belongs on there because I found the whole thing pretty disgusting while trying to present itself as something profound. Of course, it was nominated for an Oscar so some people liked it and without it we wouldn't have had Med's laughable program. Also to me, Transformers franchise are horrible because we know summer blockbusters can be done well, but they don't even bother. There's only so much mindless (though at times well done) action sequences that can make up for lack of everything else. I find that even in action movie standards, this series requires one to shut off their brain in ways not many movies ask their audiences to. They're not even trying anymore and whatever one can say of Michael Bay, one can tell even he stopped really trying with it because people will just watch it and they'll make tons of money overseas.

I also remember a lot of publicity surrounding Basic Instinct 2 at the time.

 

[manhn]

I find that movies people really hate, like really hate, go beyond just mere craft. Those movies tend to push buttons.

Just like skating. I don't really hate programs because they lack transitions, or were poorly skated, etc. They tend to push certain buttons in me.

 

[Vash01]

Watched 'Woman in gold' on DVD last night. I had seen it in theatre and liked it but didn't remember much. Having recently visited Vienna, I found it even more interesting this time. I recognized some places I had recently seen. I even took out from the suitcase the golden yellow silk scarf and wore it for the rest of the movie.

I love this movie. I don't know why Helen Mirren didn't get an Oscar nomination for this role. She was outstanding (when is she not?). Ryan Reynolds was good as the young lawyer. Katie Holmes in the small role as his wife was quite good. I really Like Daniel Bruhl. Recently I had seen him in the Zoo Keeper's wife. Why does he always get only supporting roles? IIRC in the car racing movie (Rush) I think he was considered supporting though he was the lead (or was it the other way round?). I think Chris Hemsworth played the title role but seemed like supporting to me.

Anyway, back to '. Woman in gold'. If I visit NYC I am definitely going to visit that museum. The actress who played Adele was beautiful, but I felt young Maria, was miscast. Tatiana Maslany (SP?) has no resemblance to Helen Mirren (older Maria). Except for that, I really liked the movie- even better on DVD.

 

[smurfy]

Watched 'Woman in gold' on DVD last night. I had seen it in theatre and liked it but didn't remember much. Having recently visited Vienna, I found it even more interesting this time. I recognized some places I had recently seen. I even took out from the suitcase the golden yellow silk scarf and wore it for the rest of the movie.

I love this movie. I don't know why Helen Mirren didn't get an Oscar nomination for this role. She was outstanding (when is she not?). Ryan Reynolds was ok. Katie Holmes in the small role as his wife was quite good. I really Like Daniel Bruhl. Recently I had seen him in the Zoo Keeper's wife. Why does he always get only supporting role? IIRC in the car racing movie (I forgot the title) I think he was considered supporting though he was the lead (or was it the other way round?). I think Chris Helmsworth played the title role but seemed like supporting to me.

Anyway, back to '. Woman in gold'. If I visit NYC I am definitely going to visit that museum. The actress who played Adele was beautiful, but I felt young Maria, was miscast. Tatiana Maslany (SP?) has no resemblance to Helen Mirren (older Maria). Except for that, I really liked the movie- even better on DVD.

Name of movie was 'Rush'. I am not a car racing fan - but I loved that movie. Bruhl did receive an academy award nom as best supporting. Yes he was star, but as many noms of oscars for supporting - they really are the lead (cough, Alicia Vikander - Danish Girl, cough). But so true - Bruhl is not the 'star' of the movies I have seen him in - and he is always great.
Woman in Gold is a lovely movie - to me - Helen Mirren can do no wrong.

 

[VGThuy]

Name of movie was 'Rush'. I am not a car racing fan - but I loved that movie. Bruhl did receive an academy award nom as best supporting. Yes he was star, but as many noms of oscars for supporting - they really are the lead (cough, Alicia Vikander - Danish Girl, cough). But so true - Bruhl is not the 'star' of the movies I have seen him in - and he is always great.
Woman in Gold is a lovely movie - to me - Helen Mirren can do no wrong.

Bruhl actually surprisingly did not receive an Oscar nod for Rush, which many thought was very odd considering he did receive a Golden Globe, SAG, and BAFTA nomination for the role. Usually receiving nods in those three makes one a shoo-in for an Oscar nod especially when Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips) and Michael Fassbender (12 Years a Slave) also received nominations for all three with Bruhl and received Oscar nods. Eventual Oscar winner Jared Leto was nominated for SAG and GG with the Bruhl, Abdi, and Fassbender but missed out on BAFTA while eventual Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper was nominated for the GG and BAFTA but missed out on SAG. So Bruhl was basically nominated all awards season with more-or-less the same group of nominees. Jonah Hill from Wolf of Wall Street, who wasn't nominated for any other big awards who snuck in for the Oscar nod over Bruhl, unlike Hill's nominated turn in Moneyball, where he was nominated for a bunch of precursors.

Of course, that year, Emma Thompson found herself in the same exact situation as Bruhl for Saving Mr. Banks and Oprah received a SAG and a BAFTA nomination for The Butler but no Oscar nod.

 

[Sylvia]

Daniel Day-Lewis Says He's Quitting Acting (June 20): http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/daniel-day-lewis-says-hes-quitting-acting-1015235

Day-Lewis' publicist, Leslee Dart, said Tuesday in a statement: “Daniel Day-Lewis will no longer be working as an actor. He is immensely grateful to all of his collaborators and audiences over the many years. This is a private decision and neither he nor his representatives will make any further comment on this subject. ”
Day-Lewis' last film, which has a Dec. 25 release, will reunite the actor with his There Will Be Blood director Paul Thomas Anderson. While it has been reported to have the working title Phantom Thread, the film is still officially listed by its distributor as Untitled Paul Thomas Anderson Project. From Annapurna Pictures and Focus Features, it is set in 1950s London and will see Day-Lewis playing a fashion designer who caters to high society. According to Dart, the actor plans to participate in promotion for the movie, which is expected to be an awards-season contender.

"Imagining Daniel Day-Lewis In A Life Without Acting" (commentary): http://www.npr.org/2017/06/24/534147874/imagining-daniel-day-lewis-in-a-life-without-acting

One of my favorite roles of his was as the snobby Cecil Vyse in Ivory/Merchant's A Room with A View in the mid-1980s.

 

[PeterG]

I've watched three comedy concert specials recently, by Hasan Minhaj (The Daily Show), Margaret Cho and David Cross (Arrested Development). By far, the best was:

Hasan Minhaj: Homecoming King. While this might not be the best comedy special of all time, it definitely ranks up there. It's a fantastic mix of laughs and thoughtful views and race and inclusivity in America. This is the best-filmed/edited comedy special I have ever seen. All the varying angles are perfect and then edited together for maximum effect. It's almost like this is a one-man play, it's so written so structurally perfect and delivered just spot-on. If I were to nitpick about anything of concern, it would be MAJOR-LEAGUE nit-picking: Minhaj keeps things moving at such a quick pace that sometimes he begins talking again when the audience is still laughing. I think the rapid-fired delivery was probably decided on purpose, but I would have been okay if he had slowed things down just a bit here and there. But that won't keep me from giving this one a definite ten out of ten grade.

Margaret Cho: PsyCHO is good because Cho is good, but this one seems like it was still in the "work-in-progress" stage and needed more miles on it...more fine-tuning before it was filmed for a special. Everything I've seen Cho do before this is at the least, a fair bit better than this. I still enjoyed it, but it made me want to go re-watch some of her other shows to see her at her best.

David Cross: Making America Great Again is probably best suited for a super-fan as I found it interesting for the most part, just not all that funny. But I wouldn't say I'm a fan of Cross in any way, so take that for what it is. My friends were more interested in this one than I was, and they seemed to think it was just okay as well. Didn't seem like much laughter from the audience either. Perhaps there were pockets of super-fans farther into the audience which the microphones did not pick up well...

 

[Japanfan]

I saw 'Maude' recently. It was well done and the acting was good - Ethan Hawke quite remarkable, actually.

But I didn't like it much. I found the characters and how they lived depressing. There was nothing uplifting about it, and no pay off at the end.

 

[VGThuy]

At first I thought you were talking about the tv show with Bea Arthur.

 

[Vash01]

I watched 'Monuments men' on DVD. I liked it. I think it was strongly criticized, not sure why.

It's odd that two days in a row I saw movies that involved the Nazis and works of art.

 

[watchthis!!]

Lots of interesting things in Friday's freebie newspaper:

Han Solo movie directors fired, replaced by Ron Howard. The movie was being directed by Chris Miller and Phil Lord. They claim creative differences with LucasFilm. Weird that creative differences is (was) the issue as apparently there's only a few weeks of filming left. Miller and Lord directed both Jump Street movies and The Lego Movie (which they wrote).

The movie A Dog's Purpose did so well in China (where it made 88 million compared to 64 million in North America) that the sequel will be made with Chinese audiences in mind. (The movie was marketed in China to middle class pet-owners). The worldwide box office for A Dog's Purpose was just under 190 million on a 25 million budget.

Gal Gadot's salary for Wonder Woman was leaked online: $300,000. She is getting paid that amount for the three movies she's signed on for to appear as that character. Then her contract will be up for renewal, when it is expected she will rake in the big bucks. Right before "Wonder Woman 2". At first people were up in arms about that small amount, but apparently that's what most actors in superhero movies make, Chris Evans was cited as getting a similar paycheque for his first Marvel movie. I guess the studio wants to see if audiences accept these actors in these roles and if so, they then get big paycheques.

Apparently the first Anchorman was to be a comedy riff on the 90's survival movie Alive. That was the one where a plane full of people crash in the Andes and have to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. But in the first draft of the Anchorman movie, a cargo plane is flying near the Anchorman plane, wings are clipped and both planes go down. The catch is the cargo plane is full of both orangutang and Chinese throwing stars. The orangutangs start using these weapons to pick off the anchormen. Christina Applegate's role in that draft was again the voice of reason, but all the doofus Anchormen continued to ignore her ideas while they get picked off one by one. Apparently, Paul Thomas Anderson (the eventual director) thought that idea was too crazy and guided the cast all towards the newsroom. Hey, this sounds so crazy that I think it could have been hilarious!!

 

[VGThuy]

Yeah, the creative differences this late in the game is odd. Who knows what is going to happen if there needs to be re-shoots, post-production editing, etc. With the producers and Disney having such a heavy-hand, I bet they don't want anything with too much personality.

 

[made_in_canada]

I so agree with you about Hasan Minaj's special, @PeterG! Especially about it being more like a one man play. It was funny, but so much more than just funny.

 

[Seerek]

Of note: Thomas Horn (who didn't have an acting background) opted for the college education (UCLA) route post-Extremely Loud... An interesting case of one-off casting.

 

[Aussie Willy]

I agree with others about Woman in Gold. Helen Mirren was good as always.

Daniel Bruhl was also in Lost in Berlin which I saw earlier this year.

 

[PeterG]

I've been doing some volunteer work with a friend and since I've been staying overnight at his place, I dove into watching 13 Reasons Why on Netflix. It's a great 13-part series that I expect most of you have heard about, but in case you haven't, it's about a group of high school students and one in particular who commits suicide - and leaves behind a set of cassette tapes about the reasons why she decided to take her life. Numerous people's actions played a part in where her life led and the series covers all the ways that teenagers treat each other and how it affects them. The series has an amazingly talented cast and the direction is quite good as well. Kate Walsh (from Grey's Anatomy and Private Practise) plays the mother of the lead character and gives a memorable performance. Dylan Minnette has a lead role, some of you will know him from the tv series and Saving Grace, Scandal and Lost. Adults in the cast include Derek Luke, Josh Hamilton and in a small role, Steven Weber. I thought the writing was quite good, but in order to lay out all the details of the story, at times it slows down a bit in order for all the pieces to fit in a way that doesn't confuse the viewer. So at times I was impatient with the speed that the story unfolded, but it was worth it by the end. Although I felt like they fit a few hours worth of story into the final episode. Perhaps they were hoping for there to be another season...which they've got as the show has been renewed for a season two. I was wondering with my friends if the show will focus on a new event with one of the current cast members, or if the show will focus on the legal proceedings and the court case around what happened in season one. Either way...it will be interesting.

 

[VGThuy]

I heard so many things about it that I want to check it out for myself. My 18-year-old sister gave me a lecture recently about why the show is incredibly problematic. I like to exercise her debate skills (I like to think I created a mini-activist) so I want to watch it and talk up the good points of the show.

 

[PeterG]

Wikipedia has a lot of info in the "social impact" section of their page for this show. A lot of suicide prevention organizations have criticized the show for glamourizing suicide, among other things. I find that wording quite unsettling in that if there are teenagers out there that seen any storytelling in relation to suicide and find it to have glamour...then there are so many issues that preceded their finding glamour in this that need to be addressed. I do have some personal concerns about the way 13 Reasons Why presented certain parts of the story. But those things do set everything up for us as a society to move to a new stage of awareness, discussion and understanding about too many things that get swept under the rug. And that only creates problems. Somebody needed to pull back the curtains so we could see all the mess inside that needed attention, to be cleaned up, and this show has taken us all in a big step forward in making some necessary changes about what life is like for young people (and other people as well) these days.

 

[Buzz]

Transformer 5 bombed at the box office taking in roughly $69m over a five day opening weekend. OUCH! It did make $199m internationally so it could possibly be save by overseas earnings, but the future of the franchise looks bleak. To make matters worse, it costed an eye popping $217m to make.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=transformers5.htm


On to much much more happier news; the first reviews for Spider-Man Homecoming are in and they are almost universally positive! Some say it could be the best Spider-Man movie yet!
http://www.gamesradar.com/my-new-fa...-free-spider-man-homecoming-reactions-are-in/

 

[VGThuy]

Spiderman is my favorite superhero with the X-Men and I've never truly loved any of the movies just because I found that some of the animated television adaptations have done a much better job expanding the storyline and providing the characters with depth than any of the films. However, I am excited about Homecoming. I do wonder if those who watched all three film series of Spiderman will be confused as to why there are three different female love interests for Peter.

 

[Buzz]

Believe it or not I was never into comicbooks or superhero cartoons as a kid, but I have always loved the movies. IMHO The female leads in many superhero movies are unfortunately there mostly just to be saved, so I am not sure it will matter much what Spidey's main squeeze is called. LOL

 

[VGThuy]

The last Spiderman animated series I watched, Spectacular Spiderman, was really excellent with the portrayals of Liz, Gwen Stacy, and Mary Jane. Yep all three were in that series before it was prematurely cancelled thanks to Disney buying out Marvel. The show made it so they had their own storylines, backgrounds, and reasons for existing outside of Spiderman/Peter Parker even if the show was in Peter's p.o.v. It was made by the same people who made the Gargoyles animated series which had great writing and character development.

 

[Buzz]

So Sony doesn't own the rights to Spider-Man on TV? I thought they did. In any case hopefully Disney/Marvel will fully own the righs to Spider-Man soon! THIS is one of the best reactions I have seen yet.