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

[MacMadame]

Okay, not meaning to get all Debbie Downer here, but I'd like to hear from everybody about your area and the guidelines for seeing a movie.

We have to wear masks. Except when eating and drinking.

I don't know if they have capacity limits because no showing I've seen has ever been close to what capacity limits might be.

 

[annie720]

Regarding theater guidelines, in my area near Denver, it depends on the local mandates. My county has an indoor mask mandate so on paper, masks are required in theaters. When I was at the Regal yesterday, everyone I saw was masked.. Another county just a couple of miles south, does not have a mask mandate. The website for the AMC-24 there says masking is recommended regardless of vaccination status, but from experience, you won't see many masks. AFAIK all of the theaters I frequent are now open but with reduced hours. Even the arthouse-style places.

 

[Cachoo]

Regarding theater guidelines, in my area near Denver, it depends on the local mandates. My county has an indoor mask mandate so on paper, masks are required in theaters. When I was at the Regal yesterday, everyone I saw was masked.. Another county just a couple of miles south, does not have a mask mandate. The website for the AMC-24 there says masking is recommended regardless of vaccination status, but from experience, you won't see many masks. AFAIK all of the theaters I frequent are now open but with reduced hours. Even the arthouse-style places.

Yes I will give the Regal credit as the state government sounded the alarm they did make sure the mask mandate was in place. I haven't been to the others but understand it is more lax.

 

[PeterG]

I think "Summerland" might be one of the favorite films I see in 2022. Gemma Arterton is Alice Lamb, living in a coastal cottage in Kent during WWII. She is an academic---a folklorist and as prickly as they come (we find out why) She is saddled with a boy from the London evacuation and told the ubiquitous "everyone must do their bit." She is not the least bit maternal. But the story of Alice, the child and the folklore, along with that setting is beautiful.

The trailer made me cry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJF5stmA5ys

 

[Cachoo]

The trailer made me cry.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJF5stmA5ys

I didn’t see that. Well I promise it is ultimately an uplifting story.

 

[Jay42]

I didn’t see that. Well I promise it is ultimately an uplifting story.

I second this. I watched it with friends shortly after it came out digitally and we all enjoyed it a immensely.

 

[PeterG]

I didn’t see that. Well I promise it is ultimately an uplifting story.

No doubt. It was a happy cry.

 

[watchthis!!]

That sounds claustrophobic.

It was, for sure! But it wasn't presented as creepy as it could have been. I guess that's a director mis-step because in a way they were buried alive, but just under snow. I think they expected to be found by those who cleared the road or for the snow to melt....MUCH quicker than it did. So maybe a missed opportunity because instead of grabbing my seat in apprehension, I was more annoyed by their lack of people skills.

 

[Winnipeg]

13 minutes sounds like a great movie. Will try and see it.

 

[PeterG]

7/10 – Like Father, Like Son is an interesting 2013 Japanese drama about two families who find out that their sons were switched at birth by a nurse who was experiencing psychological issues. Their sons are about five years old and they begin the process of introducing both boys into the homes of their birth families, with the goal for the move to be permanent. But as they continue this process, everyone realizes that there is more to address than they could have imagined.

I liked this movie even though I felt that if I were a parent, the child that I had raised for five years would be my child and I would not want to change the situation, but leave things as they are. I would want to move both of our families closer to one another and have the adults become aunts and uncles to all of the children in the two families. It seems Japanese culture is different and that having a blood tie is much more important there than in North America, maybe? Or perhaps I differ from most North Americans in this matter…what would you want to have happen?

Like Father, Like Son was nominated for three awards at the Cannes Film Festival, winning two. It made 30 million in Japan, unheard of for a serious drama. And Steven Spileberg bought the film rights for an English-language remake, with Paul and Chris Weitz (Oscar nominees for About A Boy) attached to the remake.

Trailer for Like Father, Like Son: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joR0F6Z9fDc

 

[watchthis!!]

I loved, loved, loved An Accidental Soldier, which is an Australian movie about a 35 year old baker who leaves Australia to serve as a cook in France during World War I. Because of many soldier casualties, he is ordered to serve as a soldier, something he never expected (or wanted) to do. After being injured, he goes into hiding in the French countryside where he meets a woman and stays at her home. The relationship between the two and their circumstances make up the majority of the movie until he realizes he must turn himself in to avoid catastrophe for both of them. This is one of the best movies I have seen in a while. I was surprised to see it was directed by Rachel Ward, who played Meggie in The Thorn Birds 1983 TV mini-series. She is a terrific director.

 

[smurfy]

Re - movies here in CT- I go to AMC, usually on a Mon or Wed pm- - hardly anyone there. I buy assigned seat ticket and at most 12-14 people have been in the theater. Everyone is wearing masks.

I have seen a few movies in the last week or so:

Licorice Pizza - entertaining, nice, good, not great. Acting was very very good. The preview made it seem different than it was. The story between the 2 leads was interesting, and then just bizarre scenes with Sean Penn and Bradley Cooper. The 2 leads are very good. I would recommend, but not to everyone. The lead Alana Haim - her real life parents and sisters play those parts in the movie and Paul Thomas Anderson directed/wrote and wife Maya Rudolph is in film. I did not look much up - but I think many of the cast know each other - and reminded me of watching improv - where the jokes seem funny to the cast, but the audience is out of the loop.

Nightmare Alley - high production values, well made, but whatever - it felt long and I was waiting for it to end. I like Bradley Cooper - and I think one was to root for him, but after a certain point I just did not care for him, he seemed stiff. Good supporting cast. Toni Collette always amazing and Cate Blanchett was campy. Once you get to the end - all the clues were there as to how it would end.

The Tragedy of McBeth - excellent - wonderful cast- everyone is great. Harry Melling - aka Dudley Dursley was Malcolm.
Denzel and Frances McDormand were excellent, as always.
My only thing, that is just me (and I read somewhere everyone has they own view of McBeth and so many versions) - I saw Sir Patrick Stewart live on stage, in Row 2, on Broadway doing McBeth - so I think he will always be my favorite McBeth. The set design was interesting, austere - felt modern and old at the same time. I love when Shakespeare is not set as one would originally think. I saw Julius Caesar on stage set in the 1930s Germany which was cool.

 

[clairecloutier]

We watched “Don’t Look Up.”

All bad reviews aside …. we both found it quite funny and interesting. I don’t know what this means. LOL.

 

[PeterG]

8/10 – Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013 (comedy) drama starring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. They play

Spoiler

centuries-old vampires/lovers

and we get to see a modern-day love story unfold…unlike any we have seen before. I’m surprised that I enjoyed this as much as I did as it was directed and written by Jim Jarmusch. Last year I posted about his 2019 movie The Dead Don't Die. Which was so, so, so BAD!!! Only Lovers Left Alive is much better, thankfully. It’s a slow-paced movie, but all the moments mean something and Swinton and Hiddleston are perfect in their roles. This movie was a box office flop, which is a shame. It’s one that lingers in your mind after seeing it. Only Lovers Left Alive also co-stars Mia Wasikowska, Anton Yelchin, Jeffrey Wright and John Hurt.

Trailer for Only Lovers Left Alive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-1lGXBRL4w

P.S. This trailer makes the movie looks pretentious, but it’s more accessible than presented in the trailer. I tried looking for a better trailer than this, but they are all the same. So don’t pre-judge this movie by the trailer.

 

[mjb52]

Only Lovers Left Alive is so fun. It could be taken as pretentious, but there is always an undercurrent of humor underneath. It's one of my go-to films for when I'm in a bad mood and need cheering up (along with the very different Thor: Ragnarok).

 

[quartz]

We watched “Don’t Look Up.”

All bad reviews aside …. we both found it quite funny and interesting. I don’t know what this means. LOL.

We watched it last night too, and we both laughed and omg’d several times. I don’t care about reviews.

Theatres here (Ontario) are closed right now. We did manage to see West Side Story in December - vax required, masks unless eating/drinking, reduced capacity, and distancing.

 

[Cachoo]

8/10 – Only Lovers Left Alive is a 2013 (comedy) drama starring Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. They play

Spoiler

centuries-old vampires/lovers

and we get to see a modern-day love story unfold…unlike any we have seen before. I’m surprised that I enjoyed this as much as I did as it was directed and written by Jim Jarmusch. Last year I posted about his 2019 movie The Dead Don't Die. Which was so, so, so BAD!!! Only Lovers Left Alive is much better, thankfully. It’s a slow-paced movie, but all the moments mean something and Swinton and Hiddleston are perfect in their roles. This movie was a box office flop, which is a shame. It’s one that lingers in your mind after seeing it. Only Lovers Left Alive also co-stars Mia Wasikowska, Anton Yelchin, Jeffrey Wright and John Hurt.

Trailer for Only Lovers Left Alive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-1lGXBRL4w

P.S. This trailer makes the movie looks pretentious, but it’s more accessible than presented in the trailer. I tried looking for a better trailer than this, but they are all the same. So don’t pre-judge this movie by the trailer.

I've seen this one and liked it a lot. It is so perfectly Tilda. Some roles are perfect for her and this is one of them.

 

[PeterG]

Only Lovers Left Alive is so fun. It could be taken as pretentious, but there is always an undercurrent of humor underneath. It's one of my go-to films for when I'm in a bad mood and need cheering up (along with the very different Thor: Ragnarok).

Just to clarify, I didnt think that Only Lovers Left Alive was pretentious, but rather, the trailer for the movie was. Which is disappointing for a trailer to not represent the movie as well as it should. On the DVD extras, we get to see Jarmusch working with Swinton and Hiddleston working how best to present (film) one of the movie's scenes. It seemed very collaborative and it was cool to see a director involve the actors in the process to such a degree.

 

[Vash01]

Finally finished watching the old WSS. The second half was pretty good.

 

[misskarne]

Surprised FSU viewers didn't like Encanto that much? I know one of the things some people have said is that it suffers a few pacing issues, which I agree with, but otherwise it's a beautiful story of generational trauma. Another total tear-jerker, family-centred film from Disney with no real antagonist.

Then again, I may have felt Surface Pressure hit a little too close to home, so maybe it was just that. I think there are a lot of people who saw a lot of themselves reflected in some of the characters.

 

[annie720]

Watched Tick Tick Boom for the second time last night and liked it even more. I really love this film and hope Garfield gets the Oscar.

Also watched the 1952 film The Greatest Show on Earth, a DeMille film about the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Baily circus that starred Charlton Heston, Jimmy Stewart, Betty Hutton, and Cornel Wilde. It's often referenced as being the worst movie to ever win the Oscar for Best Picture so I was curious. I liked it fine and was impressed by the vastness of everything and the pageantry. I would have given it some kind of award just for putting this all together. I was spellbound by the circus scenes. My husband didn't care for it because of the poor plot. I put it in the category of musicals. I go to see musicals for the dancing and singing, not so much for the plot. In this case, the circus was the singing and dancing. I enjoyed it.

 

[Jay42]

Surprised FSU viewers didn't like Encanto that much? I know one of the things some people have said is that it suffers a few pacing issues, which I agree with, but otherwise it's a beautiful story of generational trauma. Another total tear-jerker, family-centred film from Disney with no real antagonist.

Then again, I may have felt Surface Pressure hit a little too close to home, so maybe it was just that. I think there are a lot of people who saw a lot of themselves reflected in some of the characters.

I really love Encanto. I also found that while I did definitely like it the first time I watched it on Christmas Eve the more I think about it the more I like it. Which led to me watching it a second time last week, something I rarely do so quickly. The soundtrack is great, Surface Pressure hit super close to home for me too, We Don't Talk About Bruno is a total bop. It's like you said, it's a beautiful store of generational trauma.

Also Stephanie Beatriz, the voice actress for Mirabel played Rosa Diaz on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and I love seeing peoples reactions when they realize that it's the same person because of how different her voice is.

 

[Davy88gtbwxyc]

"Displaced" is a short documentary that delves into the many problems and challenges associated with Indigenous youth and the child welfare system.

This documentary delivers a guided tour of how provincial/territorial welfare systems remove Indigenous children and youth at alarmingly high rates, and is somewhat of a continuation of Canada's colonial practice of forcibly removing Indigenous children from their homes, which unfortunately has not ended with the closing of Indian residential schools.

I appreciated how this documentary shed some light on the many troublesome challenges associated with the well intended policies that enable this sort of thing to occur, and that it was done so through the many lived experiences of Indigenous youth themselves that had undergone their fair share of hardship as a result of having to live through child welfare systems.

Being told first-hand from Indigenous youth themselves really had an impact on being able to understand some of the difficulties associated with living through child welfare systems.

Among other things, the Indigenous youth gave accounts of often feeling abandoned and unwanted, which led to feelings of inadequacy and not knowing who they are, which thereby led them to having difficulties coping in society and often making bad decisions along the way.

They also discussed sometimes being ignorant of their rights, and uninformed of options that were available to them.

I never really generally thought of the child welfare system as something that can be more harmful to the well being of the children that are meant to benefit from it, but after seeing this eye-opening documentary, I realize that much needs to be done in order to better rectify the current downward trending state of affairs amongst Indigenous people in Canada.

Well intended policies can sometimes inadvertently be more detrimental to those that are meant to be its beneficiaries, which can often corrupt the individual and thereby inevitably ripple out into the rest of society.

 

[watchthis!!]

I was kind of bored with Hearts Beat Loud. Nick Offerman is the star of this movie, playing father to a young woman about to leave for medical school. The two have recorded music together for years, but just for fun. Then Dad secretly uploads one of their songs to Spotify…and it draws a lot of attention. But the daughter is leaving for medical school…

I wasn’t really drawn into the story or any of the characters. I found this to be the type of movie where you could do housework while watching and not miss much. And the movie gives thankless (and small) roles to Ted Danson, Blythe Danner and Toni Collette. How about we have a movie with these three actors in it as the leads instead?

 

[PeterG]

7/10 – The Prince And The Pauper is a very enjoyable 1937 telling of the classic Mark Twain novel. The biggest star of the movie is Errol Flynn, although he doesn’t even show up until half way through the movie. Real-life twins Billy and Bobby Mauch play the poor street beggar and the son of King Henry VIII. Claude Rains also stars as the Earl of Hertford. I might have seen this movie a LONG time ago, but so far back (decades?) that it was like seeing it for the first time. It’s definitely worth a watch if you’d like to enjoy some classic cinema that has a cozy warmth to it.

Trailer for The Prince and the Pauper: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYSkvRfqyw4

 

[MacMadame]

I might have seen this movie a LONG time ago, but so far back (decades?) that it was like seeing it for the first time.

I watched it as a child on Saturday afternoon tv. (They showed movies after the morning cartoons.)

 

[Seerek]

I was kind of bored with Hearts Beat Loud. Nick Offerman is the star of this movie, playing father to a young woman about to leave for medical school. The two have recorded music together for years, but just for fun. Then Dad secretly uploads one of their songs to Spotify…and it draws a lot of attention. But the daughter is leaving for medical school…

I wasn’t really drawn into the story or any of the characters. I found this to be the type of movie where you could do housework while watching and not miss much. And the movie gives thankless (and small) roles to Ted Danson, Blythe Danner and Toni Collette. How about we have a movie with these three actors in it as the leads instead?

This was definitely the epitome of a wannabe breezy summer movie.

I think it would have worked better as a coming of age film focused on just Sam's story.

That being said, Kiersey Clemons (Sam) has been busier than ever, she's locked into the DC Franchise of films for the next little while.

 

[made_in_canada]

Surprised FSU viewers didn't like Encanto that much? I know one of the things some people have said is that it suffers a few pacing issues, which I agree with, but otherwise it's a beautiful story of generational trauma. Another total tear-jerker, family-centred film from Disney with no real antagonist.

Then again, I may have felt Surface Pressure hit a little too close to home, so maybe it was just that. I think there are a lot of people who saw a lot of themselves reflected in some of the characters.

I like it more after multiple viewings, which thanks to my kids I’ve had many There’s a lot of details I missed when I watched it the first time.

 

[Tesla]

Surprised FSU viewers didn't like Encanto that much? I know one of the things some people have said is that it suffers a few pacing issues, which I agree with, but otherwise it's a beautiful story of generational trauma. Another total tear-jerker, family-centred film from Disney with no real antagonist.

Then again, I may have felt Surface Pressure hit a little too close to home, so maybe it was just that. I think there are a lot of people who saw a lot of themselves reflected in some of the characters.

I loved it! I've watched it twice so far. I like the non-villain Disney movies.

 

[escaflowne9282]

I didn't know if I should post this here or if it should be a new thread, but I was pretty sad to hear of this . It happened earlier today and appears to have been a freak accident .
He was so young , and I liked most of what I saw him in . He seemed to give off that debonair French vibe so easily. RIP Gaspard Ulliel.

'Hannibal' actor Gaspard Ulliel has died in a ski accident at age 37

Ulliel, known for playing fashion icon Yves Saint Laurent in a 2007 biopic and alongside Audrey Tatou in A Very Long Engagement, will be featured in Marvel's Moon Knight.

www.npr.org