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

annie720

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I just got back from seeing Late Night with Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling. It was good, but not great. I thought the writing could have been better. Emma Thompson and John Lithgow were very good in their roles.
 

Vash01

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I saw 'The two faces of January' on DVD. It starred Viggo Mortensen, Oscar Isaac, and Kirsten Dunst. It was pretty good. It was a crime drama with some interesting twists. Viggo and Oscar were very good. Kirsten reminded me of Evgenia Tarasova. She was good too. This movie came out in 2014 but I don't recall hearing about it at all.
 
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vgerdes

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I just got back from seeing Late Night with Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling. It was good, but not great. I thought the writing could have been better. Emma Thompson and John Lithgow were very good in their roles.

I have to agree. There were some genuinely funny moments, but all in all... kind of forgettable. I was hoping for more, given the talent involved.
 

Vash01

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Finally saw Hotel Mumbai and loved it. The movie is way better than the box office receipts would suggest.

It is a very good movie. Not sure why it didn’t do well at the box office. One reason could be that it is not the kind of movie you would go back to see again and again.
 

Vash01

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manhn

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I saw The favourite. It was fine, I suppose. Like a fancy Cruel Intentions. I am flabbergasted that not only did Olivia Coleman win, she was deemed the cool, indie, critical choice. Glenn had a more interior, less showy, and imo, more interesting turn. I also preferred Gaga.

Saw Searching, so fun!

Three Identical Strangers. Fascinating stuff.
 

aftershocks

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Searching was unusual, timely, very well thought out, and well-conceived. It took a lot of courage and a leap of faith for the first time writer-director, Aneesh Chaganty (with co-writer, Sev Ohanian) to stick to their guns in maintaining the online screen format innovation as a way of telling the story from beginning to end!

ETA:
The film was also very well-acted, believable and engrossing. It was cool seeing Asian-American characters as the main characters in a universal story about a family experiencing events that could happen in any city in today's world.
 
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Vash01

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I saw The favourite. It was fine, I suppose. Like a fancy Cruel Intentions. I am flabbergasted that not only did Olivia Coleman win, she was deemed the cool, indie, critical choice. Glenn had a more interior, less showy, and imo, more interesting turn. I also preferred Gaga.

Saw Searching, so fun!

Three Identical Strangers. Fascinating stuff.

I also preferred Close and Gaga to Colman for the best actress Oscar.

I had seen the documentary ‘Three identical strangers’ on CNN and probably I had started a thread on that subject at that time.

Tonight I finished watching ‘Georgia O’Keefe’ on Dvd. I wondered how I missed this movie in theatres. Then I found out it was a made for TV movie. It was never released on the big screen. That’s a pity because the cinematography is stunning. Particularly the scenes of New Mexico are inspirational to an artist. I would have loved to see this movie in a theatre.

Joan Allen in the title role and Jeremy Irons as her husband were both spectacular. Joan Allen looks rather old as the young O’Keefe in 1916, but does fine portraying the artist throughout the movie. She totally becomes the character, as she always does. In the discussion about her, they said that she watched some videos of O’Keefe. There couldn’t have been many, of the young artist, but probably a lot after she became famous.

I noticed that she painted with her left hand, and wondered about the real life Georgia. It turned out she was right handed. Why couldn’t the actress not use her right hand? Not saying it is easy, even for acting (she was not actually painting).

The movie didn’t have many painting scenes or her paintings. The focus was on the relationship between the two main characters.

Did Allen and Irons receive golden globe nominations in 2009? I am guessing the movie didn’t qualify for an Oscar because it was ‘made for TV’. I wish some day someone will bring this story to the big screen.

I have seen many of her flower paintings and that’s what I associated her with. I didn’t know she had painted landscapes too (hard not to, since she lived in beautiful parts of New Mexico).

I learned some things about her life. She is credited (in the dvd) with the first American woman artist who was famous. Mary Cassat (1844-1926) painted before her and she was very famous. So I don’t understand why they felt the need to claim that O’Keefe was the first American woman artist/painter to have become famous.

Georgia O’Keefe lived to be 98; she died in 1986. I didn’t know that. Now I feel like visiting Taos and Santa Fe. Seems like a beautiful area.

Overall, as a movie it was quite good.
 
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Japanfan

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I saw The favourite. It was fine, I suppose.

I didn't care for it. I don't even remember how it ended, and I only saw it recently. I do remember wanting it to end.

I also preferred Close and Gaga to Coleman for the best actress Oscar.

I didn't see 'A Star is Born', but did see 'The Wife'. I think Coleman's acting may have been superior to Close's, even though I didn't care for "The Favourite".

I had a bit of an issue with the premise of 'The Wife'.

Okay, so the wife is an introvert and doesn't like a lot of attention. That holds true for a lot of writers, perhaps the majority. I just didn't buy that she would ghostwrite her husbands books all those years. [/QUOTE]
 

Aussie Willy

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Today I saw Never Look Away which someone mentioned previously they saw a few months ago. It was made by the same director who made The Lives of Others which was brilliant. This one too was very good and I really enjoyed it.
 

Vash01

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Today I saw Never Look Away which someone mentioned previously they saw a few months ago. It was made by the same director who made The Lives of Others which was brilliant. This one too was very good and I really enjoyed it.

I had seen it during the Oscar season (February/March) and thought it was very good (but The lives of others was better). It was a bit too long. I think in my review I had written that they needed to cut out some of his experiences as (re)starting as an artist in the west.
The ending was very good.

Oddly I was thinking of a scene from this movie yesterday but couldn’t remember the name of the movie. Now I do. :)
 
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manhn

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The Wife is not a great movie either. The flashbacks were especially bad. But i liked Glenn (anyone else feel some heatbetween her and Christian Slater?). And the music at the end would be perfect skating music.
 
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canbelto

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I saw the Favourite and disagree that Colman didn't deserve the Oscar. When acting awards are given out I always think "How much does the acting elevate the actual material?" With The Favourite I thought Colman, Weisz, and Stone all elevated the material from trashy historical costume "drama" to a genuinely compelling love triangle. I feel the same way about Gaga and A Star is Born. Without her pipes and earthy, likable Ally would we have cared as much?

Besides I always hate when Oscars become Lifetime Achievement awards. I felt the same way when Leonardo di Caprio won an Oscar for the times he was passed over in Gilbert Grape, Wolf of Wall Street, Django Unchained, and The Departed. Any one o-f those movies was IMO more Oscar worthy than The Revenant.
 

Vash01

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I saw the Favourite and disagree that Colman didn't deserve the Oscar. When acting awards are given out I always think "How much does the acting elevate the actual material?" With The Favourite I thought Colman, Weisz, and Stone all elevated the material from trashy historical costume "drama" to a genuinely compelling love triangle. I feel the same way about Gaga and A Star is Born. Without her pipes and earthy, likable Ally would we have cared as much?

Besides I always hate when Oscars become Lifetime Achievement awards. I felt the same way when Leonardo di Caprio won an Oscar for the times he was passed over in Gilbert Grape, Wolf of Wall Street, Django Unchained, and The Departed. Any one o-f those movies was IMO more Oscar worthy than The Revenant.

I hated the movie ‘The favourite’, although the acting by the top three was great. It’s not that Colman was undeserving but I preferred Close because of her subtle acting (IMO that is much harder than screaming, crying, etc.) and Gaga because of everything about her in that movie. I was rooting for Gaga to win.

I agree that the Oscars should not be lifetime achievement awards, but I felt that either Close or Gaga would have been a better choice. Some years the field is so strong that it is hard to pick just one winner. That was evident in the men’s field too. Any of the three top nominees (Bale in particular) would have deserved the Oscar.
 
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canbelto

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There was some weirdness with Gaga. For whatever reason the film industry soured on her very quickly. At least she did get her Oscar for "Shallow."
 

Aussie Willy

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I had seen it during the Oscar season (February/March) and thought it was very good (but The lives of others was better). It was a bit too long. I think in my review I had written that they needed to cut out some of his experiences as (re)starting as an artist in the west.
The ending was very good.

Oddly I was thinking of a scene from this movie yesterday but couldn’t remember the name of the movie. Now I do. :)
I realised it was 3 hours when I left the cinema. The time didn't bother me. I was really engrossed in the story and I loved his attempts to recreate himself as an artist. They did make so very good humour out of it. The art he created when he found himself was really good.

I agree about The Lives of Others. I walked out in tears over the main characters final outcome in his life. It was heartbreaking.
 

VGThuy

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I just thought Colman did so much with the role and showed so many shades of personality and emotion with every scene she was in. Yargos captured her perfectly with the camera. I also believe out of the three, Colman clearly had the best line deliveries and gave almost every line of dialogue a pop that only a truly trained thespian could. I sort of thought she and Weisz outshone Stone in the movie who relies on her natural charm and base emotions in all of her movies though at least this one required her to play a more complicated character. I thought Lady Gaga gave the worst line deliveries and I don't think she was award worthy. But she has promise as an actor if there's another role that requires her to play without nuance and just show emotion.

Close, I wish won for sentimental reasons and because she did so much with just her face. She showed so much intensity that most actors cannot, and I saw all conflicting emotions and hidden resentments building up after all of those years and yet the love as well she had towards her husband. Since we have so many examples of Oscars being lifetime achievement awards, I wonder why the voters decided to single out Close to finally not make it the case this time when so many less deserving actors got that lifetime achievement award and we all know it's going to happen again. I mean I don't think DiCaprio was any more deserving and IMO is a much lesser actor than Close is. IMO, Leo DiCaprio is one of the most overrated actors ever and always looks so smarmy no matter what he does with that smirk he does in every role. The only thing he had in his favor was that the Oscars kept nominating him over and over when there are plenty of other actors doing great work who don't get nominated nearly as much. It also seemed like a big "F you" to her for some reason when every category went the way as predicted and then the voting members decided to make it a surprise for her category when all everyone spoke about was how she hadn't won one yet despite her incredible filmography.

Of course, the much more rational explanation is that not only did voters simply prefer Colman, but I think with The Favourite being nominated so much, simply many more Oscar voters saw The Favourite and liked it whereas The Wife only received one nomination so less people would see it. Maybe enough people thought Close would win that they thought they would just vote for Colman thinking it wouldn't matter, but it did. I think she needs a film role closer to her Dangerous Liasons or Fatal Attraction mold like her role as Patty Hewes in the tv show Damages, IMO, her best role and the role that made her a lifelong fan of hers.

Regarding the movie itself, to me, The Wife was a really good movie, and I liked the flashback scenes. I even bought into the premise because I watched an interview with Close who said she had a hard time figuring this character out and why would she just ghostwrite all of her husband's stories, but then she realized she had to stop interjecting her own attitudes and what she would have done onto the character and just accept the character was the type who did that. I believe the book probably delves much deeper into Joan's psyche and why she started out willingly not taking any credit and having it build until she was past middle-aged and realized how much she wanted it and how much she resented her husband. It probably started out innocently and then snowballed out of control to the point where their entire newly comfortable lives would have been totally upended and they both would have been humiliated if it came out. Plus, with that older woman writer played by Elizabeth McGovern saying how men would never take her work seriously or read it probably did a number on her and made her think if it came out after her work had already been celebrated, the same critics would reevaluate her work and NOT READ any future ones or give it a proper chance since they knew she wrote it. Have it not be about writing and something else, maybe something less glamorous, and I think we can think of many examples in our lives where we see women taking a back seat that way because we are conditioned to nurture men and encourage their "brilliance"...even with very mundane and small things.

Someone also asked if anyone else felt heat between Slater and Close. I don't know if I'd call it heat, but the movie woke up during their drinking scene. That's when I started seeing Close as an Oscar contender. It was from that moment on where Close took control and stopped being so passive. I also wonder if her scenes opposite her husband would have had similar chemistry or heat if Gary Oldman played the part as originally cast instead of Jonathan Pryce, a man who I simply do not see as being a lothario as written. Oldman would have been much more believable to me and looks much closer to the actor who played his younger counterpart. But the shooting schedule of The Darkest Hour went overtime, and prevented him from doing The Wife. Also, Frances McDormand was supposed to play the older woman writer, but scheduling conflicts happened.
 
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canbelto

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I think Close might be "ready for her close up" so to speak re: the Oscars because she's set to star in a movie adaptation of the musical Sunset Boulevard. That one does seem to have Oscar Lifetime Achievement Award written all over it.

I think The Wife just didn't get enough attention as a film, whereas The Favourite got a lot more buzz.
 

VGThuy

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I think Close might be "ready for her close up" so to speak re: the Oscars because she's set to star in a movie adaptation of the musical Sunset Boulevard. That one does seem to have Oscar Lifetime Achievement Award written all over it.

I think The Wife just didn't get enough attention as a film, whereas The Favourite got a lot more buzz.

I just wonder how many people will just negatively compare her to Gloria Swanson. She's also like 30 or so years older than the character of Norma Desmond is supposed to be. Also, the musical is sort of boring. But Close herself is beyond great in it. Boy, I think we're going to familiar territory with Close with that narrative.
 

canbelto

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I just wonder how many people will just negatively compare her to Gloria Swanson. She's also like 30 or so years older than the character of Norma Desmond is supposed to be. Also, the musical is sort of boring. But Close herself is beyond great in it. Boy, I think we're going to familiar territory with Close with that narrative.

Well the musical is a much weaker work than the film. With that being said I saw Glenn Close as Norma Desmond and talk about elevating the material. I do think that her Sunset Boulevard has Oscar written all over it. Especially if it's a weak year for women.
 

VGThuy

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Just got back from ‘Toy story 4’. It was really good. I had seen the first two but missed the 3. Must rent it from Netflix.

Ahhhh!!!! Watch TS3! Well, I don't know if it'll have the same impact now that you seen TS4 before you saw TS3.
 

vgerdes

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I just saw 'Anna.' Yes, I know it's basically a recycled 'La Femme Nikita,' but I thought both Helen Mirren and Sasha Luss (as Anna) were quite good.
 

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