Let's Talk Movies #36 - 2020 - Yep it is a new decade

[olympic]

With Juliana Moore, right? One of my all-time favorites.

Yes. Viola Davis had a smaller role in the film, one of her first.

 

[VGThuy]

I just rewatched Far from Heaven (2002). Really beautiful and nuanced, I read the director went for the textures that were common in the 1950s and it gives the film a lot more of a 1950s feeling. It won the prestigious NYC Critics Award for best film. I also preferred Julianne Moore to Nicole Kidman in The Hours

Before the televised award season that became all about Kidman and Zellweger, Moore was having a banner year with Far From Heaven (and The Hours). She won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival, the Silver Bear (with Streep and Kidman) for The Hours at the Berlin Film Festival, and all the critics awards. Whatever critics award she did not win, went to Diane Lane for Unfaithful or Isabelle Huppert for The Piano Teacher. Someone pointed out to me that Moore is only a Tony Award away from winning almost every award there is to win for an English-speaking American actress. That’s really incredible. I finally saw her Cannes Film Festival winning role in Maps to the Stars and totally see why she won. Totally playing against type and she really sells the spoiled, dark-hearted, and troubled Hollywood star archetype. She’s really incredible in it.

 

[annie720]

Watched Another Round last night, the Danish film that won Best Foreign Film at the Oscars. I enjoyed it. In short, a group of high-school teachers set out to test a theory by a Norwegian psychiatrist that keeping your alcohol level at a certain level will make your a more relaxed person and your life will be better. Very good performances.

 

[watchthis!!]

The Deep Blue Sea is a well made movie…but a real downer. Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston are the stars. Weisz plays a woman in the 1950’s married to an older man. She is unhappy in the marriage and begins an affair with an Air Force pilot played by Hiddleston. If you like movies where all the characters are in horrible emotional pain from the beginning of the movie to the very end, then you will love this. On the plus side (I’m reaching here…) Weisz and Hiddleston are very pretty to look at. Maybe watch it with the sound muted?

 

[mjb52]

That's actually 100% my kind of movie

 

[VALuvsMKwan]

The Deep Blue Sea is a well made movie…but a real downer. Rachel Weisz and Tom Hiddleston are the stars. Weisz plays a woman in the 1950’s married to an older man. She is unhappy in the marriage and begins an affair with an Air Force pilot played by Hiddleston. If you like movies where all the characters are in horrible emotional pain from the beginning of the movie to the very end, then you will love this. On the plus side (I’m reaching here…) Weisz and Hiddleston are very pretty to look at. Maybe watch it with the sound muted?

A version of this starring Vivien Leigh was made in the 1950's, based on the same Terrence Rattigan source.

 

[Cachoo]

I watched “Miss Sloane” and liked the political intrigue even as I found a lot of the characters loathsome. The process and gamesmanship in lobbying as presented in this film is worth watching.

 

[LeafOnTheWind]

@PeterG

I started watching The Monkees on Tubi tv after you brought it up. I am at all the long hair references. It's hilarious to me that this is considered to be long.

The Monkees - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Jay42]

If anyone is into animated movies The Mitchells vs. The Machines is a great time. Loads of fun, very similar animation style to Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. I hope that Netflix goes hard for it whenever the Oscars end up happening next year. I'm always down for anything to break the Disney Dominance.

 

[PeterG]

Support Your Local Sherriff is a light, fun comedy from 1969 starring James Garner. I did a bit of googling to see how old Garner was when this was made...about forty. He is very handsome in this movie! And the movie itself is good! The tone is breezy, kind of in the vein of a Doris Day movie. The movie is about Garner basically stumbling into the position of Sherriff and how a local family wreaking havoc on the town needs to be put in line. And into the local jail which doesn't yet have any bars for the door or windows of the cells.

Lots of famous people in this. The wonderful voice and acting chops of three-time Oscar winner Walter Brennan, Emmy winner Harry Morgan (M*A*S*H), Oscar nominee Joan Hackett (Only When I Laugh), two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern and wonderful character actor Jack Elam (the type of actor upon whose picture you see, you say, "oh yeah, I know that guy").

Trailer for Support Your Local Sherriff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSYjf8V8GF0

 

[Jay42]

Support Your Local Sherriff is a light, fun comedy from 1969 starring James Garner. I did a bit of googling to see how old Garner was when this was made...about forty. He is very handsome in this movie! And the movie itself is good! The tone is breezy, kind of in the vein of a Doris Day movie. The movie is about Garner basically stumbling into the position of Sherriff and how a local family wreaking havoc on the town needs to be put in line. And into the local jail which doesn't yet have any bars for the door or windows of the cells.

Lots of famous people in this. The wonderful voice and acting chops of three-time Oscar winner Walter Brennan, Emmy winner Harry Morgan (M*A*S*H), Oscar nominee Joan Hackett (Only When I Laugh), two-time Oscar nominee Bruce Dern and wonderful character actor Jack Elam (the type of actor upon whose picture you see, you say, "oh yeah, I know that guy").

Trailer for Support Your Local Sherriff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kSYjf8V8GF0

I love Support Your Local Sheriff so much, it's by far one of my favourite westerns.

It's also the movie my family was watching in early 2001 when we felt a small earthquake in the small town in Alberta that we were living in at the time (an area not prone to earthquakes). The epicentre was in Northern BC somewhere.

 

[Buzz]

Venom official trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V0ARqmnzSk

 

[AJ Skatefan]

I saw Promising Young Woman the other evening. I found it good but disturbing.

 

[Jay42]

Venom official trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-V0ARqmnzSk

It looks bonkers. I can't wait.

 

[PeterG]

Just finished watching the war film Mulan. Or should I call it a fantasy film? A movie where women are respected and the male ego hardly exists. I enjoyed Mulan, I moved it up on my To See list because I looked to see what DVD's are at our library which got any Oscar nominations this year. Really glad to see that Mulan was nominated for visual effects and costume design. Both very well deserved. Not sure why it didn't get a cinematography nomination as it is a beautiful movie to watch. And maybe a production design nod as well? Oh, and in another year that didn't have so many great original songs released, "Loyal Brave True" (vocals by Christina Aguilera) should have been nominated.

Enjoyed the cast as well, didn't realize it was Jet Li as the Emperor and the "witch" was Gong Li?? She is 55 and she looks AMAZING!! And I liked seeing the Ming-Na Wen cameo at the end. But I have to admit that I have not seen the original animated version, so when I was looking into the cast at imdb.com, the thought came to me, "wait...didn't she do the voice..."? And yup, Wen was (the voice of) Mulan in the 1998 animated version.

Last thought...don't remember hearing anything about this movie being directed by a woman, Niki Caro. I didn't even recognize her name, but I've seen three of her other (great) movies, The Zookeeper's Wife (with Jessica Chastain), North Country (Charlize Theron) and the fantastic Whale Rider (Keisha Castle-Hughes). Is anybody better informed about female directors and are more aware of the director Niki Caro? Maybe she needs to hire a better PR firm.

Trailer for Mulan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrAmQS9jJJo

 

[Buzz]

Regina King to Direct ‘Bitter Root,’ Adaptation of Harlem Renaissance-Set Comic Book

Regina King is set to direct "Bitter Root" for Legendary.

variety.com

 

[PeterG]

Just watched Onward, only because it was one of the few movies readily available on DVD from my local library that was nominated for an Oscar. Yup, I'm keeping it old school. Onward wasn't on my To See list...and it probably should have stayed that way. The best part of the movie was the Brandi Carlile song, Carried Me With You, played during the closing credits. The worst part was the choice of Tom Holland and and Chris Pratt as the choices to voice the two lead characters. Tom Holland already has a high-pitched voice and I'm guessing that since he was playing a teenager, he went higher with his voice - and it was very unpleasant to listen to. Chris Pratt's voice is also annoying. I think that because he is handsome we must overlook the annoyingness of his voice. The women did much better work: Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Octavia Spencer and Lena Waithe, who had a tiny role, but whose voice is like BUTTAH.

Trailer for Onward: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxpjGMpnmx4

 

[MacMadame]

Oh, I loved Onward! It had some really great father-son moments. And I thought the message at the end was great.

 

[mjb52]

I watched the Chinese movie Ash Is The Purest White - another for the long list of "very sad but good" movies. The one thing I had trouble with was the time shifts - it takes place in three time periods and maybe I just wasn't paying close enough attention (not the movie's fault, just my own focusing issue) but the shifts to the second and third jarred me a little. The lead actress is incredible. I will put the following non-specific but still somewhat spoilerish bit about the content in spoiler text: there is one really violent scene that I couldn't even watch through my fingers but I'm pretty wimpy about violence so it may be fine for most people. The director made a previous movie with the same actress so I will probably go back and watch that. The previous movie was set where there were a lot of disruptions to people's lives to build the Three Gorges Dam, and this is in the same area I think, but deals with those societal changes in a much more indirect way; I wouldn't really have thought much of that without seeing it mentioned in some of the reviews. It made me interested in seeing the documentary Up the Yangtze, which deals with that topic, and then watching the movie again with a better understanding of that cultural context.

 

[watchthis!!]

I loved My Sister’s Keeper. It stars Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin as part of a family dealing with the eldest daughter as she struggles with leukemia. This is the type of movie you can’t go into detail too much because there are layers to the story, which could spoil the story. So I’ll just say that if you like a good old-fashioned family drama and have a box of Kleenex handy, then you should watch this one. The movie also stars Alec Baldwin, Jason Patric and Joan Cusack.

 

[PeterG]

New York, I Love You is the second in the Cities Of Love film series, the first being Paris, je t'aime. It's a quiet kind of film even though there are some big moments in it. It might feel quiet because the movie is ten short films, some loosely connected. So as a whole, the movie doesn't pick up a lot of steam, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. My favourite segment is written by Anthony Minghella (The Talented Mr. Ripley and The English Patient). Minghella was maybe to direct the segment he wrote, but passed away as the movie was being made. Instead, Shekhar Kapur directed (famous for the two Elizabeth films with Cate Blanchett). The segment stars Julie Christie, Shia LaBeouf and John Hurt. It is both haunting and beautiful and is a wonderful piece for LaBeouf to show what a brilliant actor he is, matching Julie Christie with equal talent. Other segements feature Natalie Portman, Robin Wright, Bradley Cooper, Ethan Hawke, Andy Garcia and many more.

The series continued in 2019 with Berlin, I Love You and there may be as many as six more in this series.

Trailer for New York, I Love You: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-N1GoRmX1A

 

[Buzz]

Teaser trailer for The Eternals!

Marvel Studios’ Eternals | Official Teaser

"Throughout the years we have never interfered, until now." Watch the brand new teaser trailer for Marvel Studios' “Eternals” and experience it in theaters t...

www.youtube.com

 

[BaileyCatts]

I know that Dear Evan Hanson was a Broadway show but I never knew what the story was about and never saw it. I just saw the trailer for the movie and OMG I so want to see this movie!

Dear Evan Hansen - Official Trailer [HD]

Today is going to be a good day because the trailer is here! #DearEvanHansenMovie, only in theaters September 24.--https://uni.pictures/DEHfbhttps://uni.pict...

www.youtube.com

 

[Vash01]

I saw two movies last weekend, on dvd.

Another Round - Huge disappointment. So far I had liked every Danish movie I have watched. This was supposed to be a comedy. I was bored to death. I couldn't believe this won the Best foreign language film Oscar. I adore Mads Mikkelsen. Even he couldn't save the movie. The acting was god.
Bad idea, poor story telling. Put me to sleep. I had to watch it twice.
2/10.

Martin Eden - I thought it was quite good overall. It was long drawn out but perhaps the book it is based on is like that. I have not read Jack London's book which is based in Oakland, California. This movie is Italian and it has Italian locations and names. Some people were upset about it. I thought it fits the story well. The different classes, conflict were shown well.

The book may be quite different. Now I am curious to read the book. The actor (Luka M.) who played the title character was really good. The female lead was good too.
7 or 7.5/10

 

[PeterG]

I enjoyed The Conspirator more than I expected. The script is very well paced...often I find historical dramas drag in the middle and my attention wanders. And the movie is just over two hours in length, so the fact that it keeps moving along at a pace that kept me happy is one reason to recommend the movie. The cast is another: James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood, Jonathan Groff, Tom Wilkinson, Danny Huston, Alexis Bledel, Colm Meaney, Kevin Kline...and Norman Reedus from the Walking Dead! (But in a too-small role, however.) Robert Redford does a great job at directing the story about those who carried out the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, focusing on the woman (Wright) whose boarding house was used to hold the planning meetings for the assassination attempt. If you like historical drama, I think you'll really like this one. Or if this great cast grabs your attention - another good reason to see it.

Trailer for The Conspirator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmoESMxbIIY

 

[Vash01]

I enjoyed The Conspirator more than I expected. The script is very well paced...often I find historical dramas drag in the middle and my attention wanders. And the movie is just over two hours in length, so the fact that it keeps moving along at a pace that kept me happy is one reason to recommend the movie. The cast is another: James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Justin Long, Evan Rachel Wood, Jonathan Groff, Tom Wilkinson, Danny Huston, Alexis Bledel, Colm Meaney, Kevin Kline...and Norman Reedus from the Walking Dead! (But in a too-small role, however.) Robert Redford does a great job at directing the story about those who carried out the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, focusing on the woman (Wright) whose boarding house was used to hold the planning meetings for the assassination attempt. If you like historical drama, I think you'll really like this one. Or if this great cast grabs your attention - another good reason to see it.

Trailer for The Conspirator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmoESMxbIIY

The cast sounds awesome! I want to see this movie.

 

[Buzz]

Aaron Taylor Johnson is set to play Kraven the Hunter in a stand alone movie based on the Marvel character for Sony Pictures.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson to Play Marvel’s ‘Kraven the Hunter’ for Sony Pictures

Aaron Taylor-Johnson will headline Sony Pictures' "Kraven the Hunter," the Marvel Comics anti-hero who often butts heads with Spider-Man.

variety.com

 

[Cachoo]

After Olympia died I decided to watch "Moonstruck" yet again. I don't think there is a performance in that film that I disliked: Even the waiters, the old crone putting a curse on a flight at the airport but particularly the lead characters were so funny and so good and so Italian-American or maybe my idea of them. How can you not feel good after watching that film?

 

[Cachoo]

So the 1993 film “Dazed and Confused” is set on May 28, 1976—45 yrs ago today—-the last day of school. As someone who lived in that era I thought Richard Linklater captured that era with both wryness and affection.

 

[manhn]

One of my favourite movies of the 90s.