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

ilovepaydays said:
Happy 50th Birthday, Jaws! ? ? ? ?
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Update - I found this gem: Steven Spielberg watches Oscar nominations in 1976. ? ?

To be fair, that year was probably one of the best Best Picture lineups ever.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (winner)
Barry Lyndon
Dog Day Afternoon
Jaws
Nashville

But Spielberg should have definitely received a Best Director nomination and Robert Shaw probably should have also been nominated for Best Supporting Actor. The Oscar wins for Best Film Editing, Sound, and Score were absolutely deserved, IMHO.
 
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Box Office Mojo - U.S. Domestic Box Office: Weekend 25.

I’m personally not a fan of that type of horror, but I would’ve thought that 28 Years Later would have been #1 - by a lot.

Elio did okay but I’m hearing that it’s MEH at best. It is the early favorite to win Best Animated Film, so I’m wondering if there’s any promising independent animated films coming out.

Notable opening next week: M3GAN 2.0 ?? ? and F1® The Movie ?️ ? ?.
 
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ilovepaydays said:
Box Office Mojo - U.S. Domestic Box Office: Weekend 25.

I’m personally not a fan of that type of horror, but I would’ve thought that 28 Years Later would have been #1 - by a lot.

Elio did okay but I’m hearing that it’s MEH at best. It is the early favorite to win Best Animated Film, so I’m wondering if there’s any promising independent animated films coming out.

Notable opening next week: M3GAN 2.0 ?? ? and F1® The Movie ?️ ? ?.
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The first act of 28 years later was horror like but the tone changed to drama in the second and was a coming of age story so it is very divisive. I did enjoy it

Elio was fine but not great.

I really enjoyed Life of Chuck
 
Buzz said:
Can’t wait to see Fantastic Four and already have my tickets so I am not going to watch or listen to anything regarding the movie. I think Marvel has a problem with revealing too much in trailers.
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It doesn't help that all these YouTubers who are familiar with the comic speculate endlessly based on those trailers either. I get to a point where I just don't want to know anymore. I'm there with Fantastic Four and Avengers: Doomsday and the new Superman movie.
 
There will be a new Sense and Sensibility starring that woman from that boring Crows movie? Also, I could not get into Normal People.

Old man rant: NO WAY will this match the quality of the Ang Lee film. Waste of time.
 
Last weekend, I saw two movies that weren't new that weekend. Below are my reviews.

Lilo & Stitch: Overall rating 7.0/10. Well, I didn't hate this live-action film remake as much as I thought that I would. I do think that Stitch overall looks a little bit better in this version. I was also relieved that the did a lot of filming in Hawaii instead of doing what Snow White appears to have done and filmed ALL the film on a soundstage instead of having some shots in an actual forest. I will say that I understand how die-hard fans of the first 2002 original film would dislike the difference in this version's ending. While I do think that Lilo living with the neighbor was probably realistically better for her, I think the amount of dislike is from Nani going to California for university instead of staying with them in Hawaii.

The Life of Chuck: Overall rating 8.8/10. This movie won the "People's Choice Award" at TIFF ?? last year. I think if it had been released in later 2024, Mark Hamill would have had a really good chance of getting some nominations for Best Supporting Actor. The story is poignant even though the overall tone initially is really sad. It does becomes clear by the end of "Act One" how the whole story actually ties together.
 
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The list, the people who voted and their 10 choices and a ballot for your ten choice. NYT 100 Best Films 2000-2025:

www.nytimes.com

The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

More than 500 influential directors, actors and other notable names in Hollywood and around the world voted on the best films released since Jan. 1, 2000. See how their ballots stacked up.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
 
Cachoo said:
The list, the people who voted and their 10 choices and a ballot for your ten choice. NYT 100 Best Films 2000-2025:

www.nytimes.com

The 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

More than 500 influential directors, actors and other notable names in Hollywood and around the world voted on the best films released since Jan. 1, 2000. See how their ballots stacked up.
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
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Gravity made this list? Holy crap the movies 12 years old already

I better see the others and mask in this list.
 
I just got back from watching F1 The Movie. Being that it's still in it's opening weekend, I'll put my review in spoiler.

Love sports movies? Always wanted to see a movie about Formula One? Did you love Top Gun: Maverick and you became a fan of Joseph Kosinki? Then you'll probably LOVE this!

I give this film a 9.0/10 as a sports film. I think this is the blockbuster of Summer 2025. I'm losing optimism over Superman and The Fantastic Four looks like it's going to be a dud.

The film is about what happens when struggling APXGP's team owner Ruben Cervantes (Javier Bardem) hires a "never-was" racecar driving named Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt) to try and salvage their performance. Hayes has a rivalry with a much younger fellow APXGP driver Joshua Pearce (Damson Idris) and develops a romance with APXGP's technical director Kate McKenna (Kerry Condon). The film then goes through the final races of that Formula One season.

The end credits show Sonny driving a dune buggy in the sand and into the sunset. It's cute to watch. :)

What's GREAT:
1) I HIGHLY recommend watching this film in IMAX if you can get to a theater that offers it.
2) This is probably the best edited film I've seen in many years. This film should win Best Film Editing (Stephen Mirrione, who won in 2000 for Traffic) at the next Academy Awards, but I'm afraid it won't because that Oscar typically goes to a Best Picture favorite.
3) Cinematography. This was a top notch job by Claudio Miranda (won the Oscar for Life of Pi in 2012).
4) This film does a superb job of showing: 1) How international Formula One is. I think Sonny Hayes is the only American character and driver in the whole film, 2) How Formula One is indeed a team sport - from the drivers, to the technical crew, to the pit crew, down to how teams strategize when to execute pit stops and replace certain types of tires, and 3) How what Formula One as a sport actually is and it's not "just drivers driving as fast as they can on a track".
5) At the end of the final race at Abu Dhabi, some in the audience actually applauded with they saw the black checkered flag.
6) There was actual flirtatious chemistry between Sonny and Kate. I was afraid that it was going to be too corny between them.

What's MEH/Left me wondering:
1) Sound. So this film probably won't win Best Film Editing, but I could see it winning Best Sound. I have two issues with this: 1) Warfare (A24) should probably win that Oscar because that film's sound was phenomenal, and 2) There are times in the racing sequences where I would have actually wanted to hear more from the cars themselves and instead they covered it with Hans Zimmer's score.
2) Script. The "story" of this film could have been expanded out a bit more, especially about Sonny and Joshua's backstory.
3) There's some demonstration about what women have to deal with in Formula One (Kate, who is apparently the first female technical director in Formula One, and Jodie, who is on the pit crew). But there was basically no reference to race and what Joshua may be dealing with as one of the few black drivers in Formula One. Did the film accurately depict the extent of issues of gender and race in Formula One? I did wonder that as I left the theater.
 
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In the last couple of weeks, I saw Anora, Babygirl, and The Substance--all featuring leading female characters with strong feminist under/over tones. I liked them all to varying degrees. I think Anora is the best of the bunch, but I actually think Kidman gave the best performance. My favourite female performances from last year seem to be the unrecognized ones--Kidman and Zendaya for Challengers.

And, OMG, I have such a CRUSH for Yura Borisov as Igor in Anora. He was giving Alan Rickman in Sense & Sensibility vibes.
 
Okay, I've finally gone and seen F1.

The entire time I tried to remind myself, "This movie is not for me. It is not for someone who has watched F1 nearly her whole life. It is not for me."

warning: LONG.

The good:
1) The cinematography. Holy **** yes. Give me those onboard shots. That drone lap of Yas Marina at the end was worth the price of admission alone.
2) The music: I thought the music was pretty good. There were moments where I noticed the score had similarities to Rush, which makes sense because a) Zimmer scored both movies and b) Rush is also about F1, though a far superior movie.
3) The number of shots that had to have been one-take shots. The grid stuff at Silverstone and Yas Marina with the national anthems, because you can't ask the drivers to stand there for ages while the shot is got. The formation lap at Silverstone. Things like that had to have been one take.
4) I will give Lewis Hamilton credit for making himself the antagonising driver in the last race. There was a not insignificant part of me that was concerned they would make it Max, which would have blown up the entire fandom.

Now buckle up, because here's the bad.
1) If I had a dollar for every time I wanted to scream "that's not how this works! that's not how any of this works!" I could quit my job tomorrow.
2) Look, I get it. It's Hollywooded up. But there's a difference between Hollywooding it up and completely going batshit crazy with the sport.
3) Not enough driver cameos, though it's a wonder they got what they did out of them (hilariously, that shot of Fernando greeting Sonny in the press pen wasn't actually scripted, Fernando was tired and mistook Brad Pitt for an actual driver). They did kind of sell this to us as "the drivers are in this movie!".
4) There is no rule about a team having to win a race in three years or be out. And a small new team like APXGP would absolutely treat a single point like a win.
5) YOU CANNOT DO SEVENTY FRICKING LAPS OF THE HUNGARORING ON SOFTS. Especially with how hot it was that day.
6) I did see a remark from Brad Pitt that they took some inspiration from the infamous Crashgate scandal from Singapore 2008. It shows. The problem with that is that there is no fcking way they would have got away with that bullsht in real life. The other teams would have flooded the stewards' office with protests. Especially Red Bull. The reality is Sonny would have been banned and so would all the top movers and shakers at APXGP.

Look, I could go on about the racing inaccuracies. More points.

1) I did notice some edits to remove reference to some drivers. The incident at the start of the Hungaroring did occur...but the third driver was Daniel Ricciardo, not Yuki Tsunoda. And I noticed when he was fighting the blue car #2, they only referred to him as the "other car", not by his name, Logan Sargeant. (On the plus side, you go KMag. You go commit crimes!)

2) Pour one out for poor Charles and George, who after the Abu Dhabi race last year then had to go up on the podium again to film the podium scene. They were probably exhausted, George was sick, and Charles had just done an entire race trying to win Ferrari the Constructor's and had just come up short in real life. They were most certainly in no mood for that.

Now for the big rant.

The women.

I knew this was going to be something I particularly hated but I was seething the entire car ride home. Making the women all soppy and meek around the drivers was one thing. Making the technical director hop into bed with one of her drivers was another. But making them incompetent?! That boiled my blood with rage.

It is 2025. Women have been creeping into the top echelons of F1 for a few years. Bernie Collins was the strategist at Aston Martin for some years. Hannah Schmitz is widely regarded as one of the greatest strategists of the modern era from her perch on the Red Bull wall. Alpine has at least two female mechanics. And this year, for the first time, Laura Mueller is the race engineer for Esteban Ocon. All of these brilliant, accomplished women had to fight twice as hard to get to the top. They have to fight twice as hard to stay there. None of them would even consider so much as sending a flirty look at one of the drivers in their team, let alone actually sleeping with them.

Kate's character could have been good. The first female technical director! Bring it on! But...she's designed a shtbox. And then along comes Sonny and tells her how to do her job. And suddenly his idea makes the car competitive. Don't get me wrong, there are very smart drivers out there. But not a single one of them would ever dream of telling the team's technical director how to do their job. And then of course they completely ruin it by having her sleep with Sonny and turn into a doe-eyed meek little girl around him.

Likewise the mechanic. Of course they make her the one who makes a mistake. Of course the big tough man has to tell her how to do her job and fix everything. And let me tell you, if a driver came into his garage screaming at his pitcrew the way Joshua did at the start of the film, he would not be on the grid very long. And in his rookie year!

To answer your question, @ilovepaydays - no, not really. Obviously, the representation of the women is atrocious. And there is a decided lack of Americans on the grid. Joshua is fairly evidently an expy of Lewis, who did face a fair bit of racism on his way up (and still, unfortunately). The irony is that IRL, it would be Sonny getting the most hate. F1 is very UK/European and generally hates Americans, Americana, any and all attempts to Americanise the sport. Logan Sargeant was practically bullied out of F1. An old American driver who came swaggering in on the grid and crashing into the established drivers? Hoo boy. Not a chance.

Looking at the "cast list" of drivers at the end, it can be broken down into 1 Finn (Bottas), 1 Argentine (Colapinto), 2 Dutch (de Vries and Verstappen), 3 Australians (Doohan, Ricciardo, Piastri), 2 French (Gasly and Ocon), 1 Chinese (Zhou), 3 British (Hamilton, Norris, Russell), 1 German (Hulkenberg), 1 New Zealander (Lawson), 1 Monagesque (Leclerc), 1 Dane (Magnussen), 1 Mexican (Perez, who yes, really did crash himself out at T1 of his home race), 2 Spaniards (Sainz and Alonso), 1 American (Sargeant), 1 Canadian (Stroll) and 1 Japanese (Tsunoda).

I did also pick up on the "easter eggs", see some below:

1. Sonny's crash was actually real, a recreation of Martin Donnelly's crash at Jerez in 1990. In real life the medical car got there much faster (Professor Sid Watkins would not have taken kindly to the movie's depiction of Hayes just lying there) and Donnelly did both survive and recover.

2. The "sausage kerbs" that caused the launch leading to Joshua's crash are a real problem, but they would not have produced that launch. They did however cause a spectacular arial crash for Alex Peroni, an Australian F3 driver, at Monza a few years ago. Peroni did not catch fire but did break a vertebra, but made a complete recovery.

3. The fireball crash was obviously a reference to both Romain Grosjean, who infamously became known as The Phoenix after his fireball crash in Bahrain in 2020, and the late, great Niki Lauda. The injuries point more towards Romain, who also suffered burned hands. But you'd best believe crews would have been on site way faster.

4. The Monza race, where it began to rain and some teams stopped for inters and others stayed out, is evidently based on the events of Sochi 2021, where it began to rain four laps from the end and Lando Norris very infamously choked a certain victory by not stopping. I would like to point out that Max Verstappen would never be dumb enough to stay out on slicks when it is raining that hard. He's good in the wet but not stupid.

5. It's quite obvious that Lewis had a hand in the end race...three laps is a lifetime indeed. This is, perhaps, a reinvention of the events of Abu Dhabi 2021, still the most contentious title decider in modern F1. The argument has been for some years that a red flag should have been thrown when Latifi hit the wall and the race restarted from a standing start. Australia 2023 on the other hand points to why that is generally not a good idea.

It was the story that frustrated me the most, honestly. I can think of a dozen events off the top of my head from real-life Formula 1 that would make a better movie: Michael's seven, the Silver War, the entire 2021 season, hell, Mark Webber's career, the rise of Red Bull, Verstappen's story, Hamilton's story; the list goes on. This movie didn't need to be Hollywood. It didn't need to be fake. It could have been real. And I think it would have been better for it.
 
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