Let's Talk Movies #35 – Sparrows and Panthers and Dinosaurs…Oh My!

Which Movies Might You See? (Multiple Votes Allowed)

  • Feb. 16th - Black Panther – Action adventure with Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan and Lupita Nyo

    Votes: 32 60.4%
  • March 2nd - Red Sparrow – Mystery thriller with Jennifer Lawrence, Joel Edgerton and Mary-Louise Pa

    Votes: 15 28.3%
  • March 9th - A Wrinkle In Time – Adventure fantasy with Reese Witherspoon, Chris Pine and Oprah Winfr

    Votes: 26 49.1%
  • March 16th - Tomb Raider – Action adventure with Alicia Vikander, Walton Goggins and Kristin Scott T

    Votes: 10 18.9%
  • March 30th – Ready Player One – Sci-fi adventure with Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke and Simon Pegg

    Votes: 10 18.9%
  • May 4th - Avengers: Infinity War – Adventure fantasy with nobody famous

    Votes: 27 50.9%
  • May 18th - Deadpool 2 – Adventure comedy with Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin and T. J. Miller

    Votes: 19 35.8%
  • May 25th - Solo: A Star Wars Story – Adventure fantsy with Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover and Woody

    Votes: 27 50.9%
  • June 8th - Ocean's 8 – Action thriller with Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway

    Votes: 24 45.3%
  • June 22nd - Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom – Action sci-fi with Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and

    Votes: 22 41.5%

  • Total voters
    53

watchthis!!

Well-Known Member
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1,774
Dark River is a very good drama about a woman who returns home to the family farm after 15 years away. Her father has died and she had been promised the farm. But her brother, who has remained and worked on the farm, believes it should go to him. The movie is about their struggle, all while dealing with repressed trauma at the hands of their father (played in flashbacks by Sean Bean). This movie is entertaining as an intense drama and highlights very well how traumatic experiences can damage people's lives. Ruth Wilson plays the lead character. She won a Golden Globe for the tv series The Affair. She has starred in Jane Eyre and Luther and was nominated for a Tony award for the play Constellations. She is fantastic in Dark River, as is Mark Stanley who plays her brother. Some of you might know him as the character Grenn on Game of Thrones.

Trailer for Dark River: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0PMTh9s_ac

I can't watch dog movies in which the dog (or other animals) speak a human language.

I'm okay with this, but only if they get the accent right.
 

DannyCurry

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Messages
429
Les Confins du Monde (To the Ends of the World) : French movie about a soldier surviving a massacre and seeking revenge during Indochina war. Apart from gorgeous Gaspard Ulliel (who shows his big "asset" :p), I didn't get into the movie.

The Happy Prince : drama directed by Rupert Everett in which he plays Oscar Wilde in his final years. Didn't into this one either.

Disney's The Nutcracker and the Four Realms : I liked it for Christmas season.

Widows : I got into this one immediately...before getting bored very quickly.

Shoplifters : which won 2018 Palme d'Or, about a poor and atypical Japanese family. Really liked it.

Mary Poppins Returns : Overrall, I enjoyed it, but I prefer Julie Andrews to Emily Blunt. I didn't like Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Spider-Man : Into the Spider-Verse : Despite some really annoying nerds fans sitting next to me, I liked it.

A Star is Born : I liked about the first half. Would have enjoyed it more if fat girl sitting a few rows below, eating popcorn and drinking Coke so loudly and checking her cellphone hadn't been so annoying. She would rummage through her bucket and chew loudly during quiet scenes but went silent during concert scenes, go figure (because those songs weren't that jaw-dropping). The worst.

Wildlife : I really liked it. Well done, Paul Dano. I prefer you behind the camera hahaha.

ETA : BTW, Happy new year everyone !
 

Kasey

Fan of many, uber of none
Messages
16,343
Watching "Oceans 8" on a movie channel right now. It's cute, not as good as the original "Oceans 11" (and I mean, the original original!) All of the actresses do well in their roles; Rhianna especially surprised me by fitting in with the pro actresses quite well. Not crazy intellectual or any kind of masterpiece, but good enough. 5.5/10
 

Buzz

Socialist Canada
Messages
37,308
Saw The Upside today and loved it! This is what I do for a living so I had to go see it. This is the 2nd mushy movie I have seen in days which is more I am sure than I saw all of last year! LOL
 

Vash01

Fan of Yuzuru, T&M, P&C
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I watched the mini series 'Scarlett' on DVD this weekend. It starts right after GWTW ends. I had seen it on tv when it was running, but I didn't remember much. It is the sequel to GWTW, and I really wanted to like it. It was rather disappointing in the story but it had the happy ending I wanted. I had difficulty understanding the southern accent, and later the Irish accent. It did not have subtitles so I missed some of the dialogues.

Before watching it, I kept reminding myself not to compare the actors who play Scarlett and Rhett (Joanne Whalley Kilmer and Timothy Dalton) with Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable in GWTW. It was difficult not to, because i recently saw GWTW in a theater, and those are such iconic performances. The tv series is based on the book 'Scarlett' by Alexandra Ripley, which I had read years ago. I had liked the book, but I may not read it again. I am overloaded with reading material right now.
 
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Japanfan

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25,532
I'm okay with this, but only if they get the accent right.

:D

No, we can't have a Shiba Inu speaking with a German accent, or a Rhodesian Ridgeback speaking with an American accent, or a Shih-Tsu (sp?) or Pekinese speaking with anything other than a Chinese accent.

And the King Charles Cavalier should always speak with an upper class English accent. Your garden variety of mutt would do well to speak Bronx.

:p
 
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Kasey

Fan of many, uber of none
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16,343
I had difficulty understanding the southern accent, and later the Irish accent. It did not have subtitles so I missed some of the dialogues.

Vash, does your television have closed-captioning? Sometimes I'll do that with movies that feature heavy accents, if they don't have subtitles (Brad Pitt in "Snatch" comes to mind! ;) ) Of course, how to get the dang CC on and off often befuddles me! :)
 

cygnus

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Messages
3,297
:D

No, we can have a Shiba Inu speaking with a German accent, or a Rhodesian Ridgeback speaking with an American accent, or a Shih-Tsu (sp?) or Pekinese speaking with anything other than a Chinese accent.

And the King Charles Cavalier should always speak with an upper class English accent. Your garden variety of mutt would do well to speak Bronx.

:p
So would my Siberian Husky speak with a Russian accent or a Canadian Inuit accent? I suppose an Alaskan Malamute would speak something like Sarah Palin?
 

Vash01

Fan of Yuzuru, T&M, P&C
Messages
55,381
Vash, does your television have closed-captioning? Sometimes I'll do that with movies that feature heavy accents, if they don't have subtitles (Brad Pitt in "Snatch" comes to mind! ;) ) Of course, how to get the dang CC on and off often befuddles me! :)

I don't know if my tv has cc. I will have to check. It is about 5 years old. Thanks for the info.
 
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10,070
:D

No, we can have a Shiba Inu speaking with a German accent, or a Rhodesian Ridgeback speaking with an American accent, or a Shih-Tsu (sp?) or Pekinese speaking with anything other than a Chinese accent.

And the King Charles Cavalier should always speak with an upper class English accent. Your garden variety of mutt would do well to speak Bronx.

:p

Haha, my Newfie husband often “narrates” for our Labrador. He’s on the right track :lol:
 

Kruss

Not Auto-Tuned
Messages
4,237
I watched the mini series 'Scarlett' on DVD this weekend. It starts right after GWTW ends. I had seen it on tv when it was running, but I didn't remember much. It is the sequel to GWTW, and I really wanted to like it. It was rather disappointing in the story but it had the happy ending I wanted. I had difficulty understanding the southern accent, and later the Irish accent. It did not have subtitles so I missed some of the dialogues.

Before watching it, I kept reminding myself not to compare the actors who play Scarlett and Rhett (Joanne Whalley Kilmer and Timothy Dalton) with Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable in GWTW. It was difficult not to, because i recently saw GWTW in a theater, and those are such iconic performances. The tv series is based on the book 'Scarlett' by Alexandra Ripley, which I had read years ago. I had liked the book, but I may not read it again. I am overloaded with reading material right now.

The first part of the mini series was just like the book "Scarlett", but the second part ran off the rails, was almost nothing like the book, and was absolutely ridiculous IMO.
 

VGThuy

Well-Known Member
Messages
41,020
Steven Spielberg's remake of West Side Story's cast has been officially announced:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/n...-story-casts-maria-1175973?utm_source=twitter

I think Ansel Elgort is great casting as Tony and I love that they went with a complete unknown for Maria. Ariana DeBose as Anita is an amazing singer/dancer so she has the skills to do the role. David Alvarez is cast as Bernardo. He was one of the three Broadway Billy Elliots who won a Tony Award. Tony Kushner worked on the screenplay (apparently lots of drafts) and they hired New York City Ballet choreographer Justin Peck for the film. I'm just a bit iffy about Peck since I disliked his choreography for Carousel for both narrative and aesthetic reasons and I don't like them playing with Jerome Robbins' choreography. However, it probably needs an update as Sharks and Jets doing ballet in the streets is too much for people these days who don't understand dance as storytelling.
 

Vash01

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The first part of the mini series was just like the book "Scarlett", but the second part ran off the rails, was almost nothing like the book, and was absolutely ridiculous IMO.

ITA. Just to be sure I skimmed through the last one third of the book. It was completely different from the mini series. It was ridiculous to introduce crimes just to create drama. I wonder what writer Ripley feels about them butchering her novel?
 

Vash01

Fan of Yuzuru, T&M, P&C
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55,381
I saw The Wife today. Very good movie, and Glenn Close is great in it. She deserves the best actress award. Will she get it at Oscar time? The Oscars are political but I think this may be her time. 9/10 or 10/10.
 
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MacMadame

Doing all the things
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58,281
It's the voiceover I'm referring to - of course animals can't speak human languages.
It's a translator doing the speaking, is my POV. :D

I don't know if my tv has cc. I will have to check. It is about 5 years old. Thanks for the info.
cc is ancient. You definitely have it. And it makes such a difference for enjoying certain types of shows especially if you have any hearing issues at all.
 

Aussie Willy

Hates both vegemite and peanut butter
Messages
27,871
I cannot wait for all of the WSS skating programs.
Problem is that of all the WWS programs I see no-one captures the flavour of the choreography and music. Except I thought the Duschenays did a pretty decent job of it.

Well that will be interesting to see a remake of WWS. It is one of my favourite musicals and I have seen a few fabulous stage productions over the years. And I do love the original movie. I hope they don't edit the crap out of the dance scenes and just keep the shots simple.
 

VGThuy

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41,020
Problem is that of all the WWS programs I see no-one captures the flavour of the choreography and music. Except I thought the Duschenays did a pretty decent job of it.

Well that will be interesting to see a remake of WWS. It is one of my favourite musicals and I have seen a few fabulous stage productions over the years. And I do love the original movie. I hope they don't edit the crap out of the dance scenes and just keep the shots simple.

Me too! I trust Spielberg. I hope my trust is well placed.
 

Vash01

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It's a translator doing the speaking, is my POV. :D


cc is ancient. You definitely have it. And it makes such a difference for enjoying certain types of shows especially if you have any hearing issues at all.

I don’t have a hearing problem. I just have difficulty understanding some accents. That’s what I had mentioned in my post about ‘Scarlett’ - it was the southern accent and Irish accent, it is not a hearing problem.
 

Aussie Willy

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27,871
Vash, does your television have closed-captioning? Sometimes I'll do that with movies that feature heavy accents, if they don't have subtitles (Brad Pitt in "Snatch" comes to mind! ;) ) Of course, how to get the dang CC on and off often befuddles me! :)
One of the best bits about Brad Pitt in Snatch was you couldn't understand him which is exactly what the other characters had trouble with. It was definitely one of his better performances. Along with his personal trainer character in Burn After Reading. When Brad Pitt does comedy in the right movie, he is fantastic to watch and is really entertaining.
 

annie720

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1,303
Saw Vice last night. I enjoyed the movie and would call it good, but not great. The performances, however, were fantastic. Christian Bale, of course was awesome and I was expecting that. But Sam Rockwell WAS W and that was a surprise. After the first sighting, I never thought it was Sam, I only saw W. The speech and mannerisms were spot on. OTOH, I always saw Steve Carell in Rumsfeld and couldn't lose sight of that. On the whole, the movie seemed more of an SNL skit to me than a movie to take seriously, even though I learned things. I worked for the feds at the time of 9/11 and reliving that is always emotional, but also being reminded of the craziness and going on at the time regarding the decision makers - sobering. Personally, I think the embedded part during credits gook away from the movie and made the whole thing seem like a farce.
 
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Japanfan

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So would my Siberian Husky speak with a Russian accent or a Canadian Inuit accent?

Canadian Inuit!

I suppose an Alaskan Malamute would speak something like Sarah Palin?

You do insult to the majestic Malamute!

Haha, my Newfie husband often “narrates” for our Labrador. He’s on the right track :lol:

It's a translator doing the speaking, is my POV. :D

We always translate for our animals (i.e. "Bandit says _____"). I highly recommend Stanley Coren's book 'How to Speak Dog'

And of course like all dog people, we have learned to speak dog.

We have learned to speak cat also, but the cat is much more limited conversationally than the dog. He has only two things to say:

"I am very unhappy because I am inside, and I want to go outside".
"I am very unhappy because I am outside, and I want to go inside".

ETA: and one more thing: "There is not enough kibble in my bowl".
 
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Vash01

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Saw ‘Roma’ today.

I went in with zero expectations and decided to make a decision after the movie was over. IMO Roma is a good movie but it is way overrated. I give it 7 or 8 (Max) out of 10.

First, the positives.

The relationship between the maid Cleo and the family she works for is shown very well and it seems to be the focus of the movie. I liked it the most in the movie.

It shares some of the problems women face, whether they are rich or poor.

At the end the movie rises and it all comes together (I want to avoid spoilers).

The B&W cinematography is a masterpiece (but not the movie).

The not so great things-

I was prepared for the extremely slow pace because I had read reviews that complained about it. First 40 minutes nothing happens. I was patient, wondering if anything was going to happen in the movie? A story perhaps? We sit there watching the maid cleaning, picking up clothes, dog poop, washing the floor, an egg sitting on a table before being eaten, camera steady for several seconds on birds, dogs, etc.
This list is very long.

I took a brief nap during the movie. I just couldn’t stay awake anymore, and this was after one hour of the movie.

I don’t understand the fascination of critics (and some viewers) for slowness and gimmicks. As good the cinematography is, it is somewhat gimmicky. May be it is what the director wanted. If I wanted to see just art, I would go to a museum or an art gallery. A movie has a different purpose. There needs to be Some entertainment and we shouldn’t have to wait for 40 minutes to see something happen. Small things do happen, but often there are individual scenes without much connection with each other.

Some very unrealistic things-

The forest fire is subdued by people throwing buckets of water but nobody get injured

A woman who does not know swimming walks deep into an ocean with high waves but does not even lose her balance.

The big house has only a tiny, single car garage that is too small for a big car. Not sure if that’s how it was in Mexico in 1970.

It is not necessary to make the camera stay in one place for several seconds on nearly stationary objects. The scenes of the ocean are great, though.

The acting is good, but I don’t understand why Yalitza gets a best actress nomination ahead of some other actresses. She is very good in the role of Cleo, but the acting does not really rise until the second half. The wife and children in the rich family give good supporting performances.

So overall, many positives, with good character development, a good story that develops (though slower than a snail) and great cinematography, but I have seen better movies this year. ‘Shoplifters’ (Japanese) is definitely better. I don’t think it was given a single award. I have not yet seen other foreign language nominated films.

I have seen English language movies this year that are better than Roma. So it bothers me that Roma is being crowned as The Best Picture of the year (English and foreign categories) by several critics.
 
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VGThuy

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41,020
I honestly get where Vash01 is coming from as I sort of felt Cuaron was a bit too self-indulgent at times. I've seen other films (many of them foreign films like from Ozu) that were slow and used stationary shots and long shots but I felt actually did it better and had it all fit in into a narrative better. That said, of the major Oscar contenders for Best Pic, of the ones I've seen, I think only Roma and The Favourite as being worthy of winning as I think they're sort of beyond awards validation and will be remembered later on by film enthusiasts/scholars/critics and filmmakers. I'm only counting ones that seem poised for a Best Pic nomination. And between the two, I think Roma is ultimately a stronger film even though I had issues with what I felt were sort of tone-deafness of the sociological, class, and race dynamic portrayed. I haven't seen If Beale Street Could Talk yet but I wonder of Barry Jenkins also suffers from a bit of derivativeness from his filmmaking idols as Cuaron kind of does in Roma. But at least they have strong POVs and are making movies to actually express something beyond mere entertainment. I also appreciate some deviation from the basic Hollywood storytelling structures because I'm honestly really bored of them right now.
 

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