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

Box Office Mojo - U.S. Domestic Box Office: Weekend 45

WELP. Especially for Heretic.

The box office sales are still so low - maybe it’s because so many movies are in limited release! ? It’s been so hard to find the ones I want to watch - and I live in a decent metro area (DC). ?

Notable opening next week: Emilia Pèrez (Netflix) and Red One.

I plan on seeing four movies (because Anora and A Real Pain are FINALLY near me):
Wednesday: Emilia Pèrez (Netflix)
Thursday: Anora
Friday: Red One
Saturday: A Real Pain

I plan to have my reviews posted here (in spoiler, due to the opening/limited releases) ASAP. ?
 
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I saw an excellent documentary about Jelena Dokic, the former Australian tennis player who had an abusive father.

www.who.com.au

Jelena Dokic reflects on life story in new documentary, Unbreakable

Tennis star Jelena Dokic has bravely spoken out on the abuse suffered at the hands of her father in a new documentary, Unbreakable: The Jelena Dokic Story.
www.who.com.au www.who.com.au

The documentary mainly focuses on the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. People kind of knew there was something very wrong with the situation back then but it astounding what she went through. Even more remarkable is that today she is an incredibly strong woman. Well worth seeing it if you can.
 
I saw Anora early today. I thought it was quite fun, a modern screwball comedy with some moving scenes at the end. Mickey Madison and the rest of the cast were great. I hear a lot of talk about it potentially getting Best Picture but I don’t know if it has the gravitas for that. I guess maybe that doesn’t matter but for me it was a solid three star kind of movie.
 
jenny12 said:
I saw Anora early today. I thought it was quite fun, a modern screwball comedy with some moving scenes at the end. Mickey Madison and the rest of the cast were great. I hear a lot of talk about it potentially getting Best Picture but I don’t know if it has the gravitas for that. I guess maybe that doesn’t matter but for me it was a solid three star kind of movie.
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I’ve heard from the “critics” who’s been to the festival circuit that Best Picture is likely going to be between Anora and The Brutalist. I’ll get a better idea after Thursday and then December 20 (The Brutalist).

Sing Sing had the critics’ hype for most of 2024, but A24, for some reason, decided to release it in almost no theaters. It’s not even available in streaming yet. ? And apparently, Coleman Domingo and Clarence Maclin are amazing in this film.
 
ilovepaydays said:
Sing Sing had the critics’ hype for most of 2024, but A24, for some reason, decided to release it in almost no theaters. It’s not even available in streaming yet. ? And apparently, Coleman Domingo and Clarence Maclin are amazing in this film.
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Update: I stand corrected. A24 apparently will be re-releasing Sing Sing in theaters in January. Will it be because they expect Sing Sing to get a bunch of Golden Globe nominations in December and that Queer and Babygirl are more likely to be busts?
 
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ilovepaydays said:
I plan to have my reviews posted here (in spoiler, due to the opening/limited releases) ASAP. ?
Click to expand...
I have a request of everyone who puts their reviews in spoiler tags. If you could keep the thumbs up/down part not in spoilers, that would be very helpful. Stuff like "If you like westerns, you'll love/hate this movie. I do/do not recommend it."

TIA
 
Just finished watching Emilia Pérez on Netflix. Overall, it's shot very well and innovative as a musical. But, IMHO - it is a bit clunky. Because it was in limited theater release in the U.S. and debuted today on Netflix, I will put my review in spoiler.

Overall, I give Emilia Pérez a 7.8/10. The musical film is about a Mexican cartel kingpin (Manitas/Emilia, played by Karla Sofía Gascón) who hires a disgruntled lawyer (Rita, played by Zoe Saldaña) for A LOT OF MONEY to assist with being able to start his life over as a woman. Rita gets his wife (Jessi, played by Selena Gomez) and their children to flee to Switzerland for "safety reasons". Manitas' then fakes his death and transitions to her life as Emilia Pérez. A few years later, Emilia reunites with Rita and requests assistance in reuniting the family in Mexico. Jessi initially doesn't want to go back to Mexico - except that she wants reunite with a lover (Gustavo, played by Édgar Ramírez) that she had an affair with. But Jessi is convinced to move back to Mexico by having Emilia, who says she's one of Manitas' cousins, live with her and the children as a housekeeper.

Emilia (wanting to live her life in redemption) and Rita start a nonprofit that identifies the victims from cartel crimes. Jessi rekindles her relationship with Gustavo. Jessi tells Emilia that her and Gustavo want to get married and move the family into his home. Emilia then becomes angry and steals all of Jessi's money. Gustavo and Jessi decide to kidnap Emilia which leads to a shootout with Rita, a revelation, and a tragic end.

What's good: This movie looks very good on the screen and I enjoyed the "musical" parts better than I thought I would. Zoe Saldaña has a very good performance and the "awards buzz" is certainly earned. I thought that Karla Sofía Gascón did a fairly good job of showing how Emilia wanted to live her truth and be a good person. I think Best Actress this year will be fairly weak for nominations, so it wouldn't surprise me if Gascón was nominated, but I don't think she'll win - especially if Mikey Madison is as good as the critics say she is in Anora (I'll be seeing that tomorrow night).

What's meh: I was never convinced that "Manitas" was ever THAT ruthless of a cartel kingpin. It seemed too much that Emilia was always the good-hearted person that she became. And while I typically like Selena Gomez, she was obviously trying too hard here. IMHO, the Oscar desperation was obnoxious. It got to the point that I dreaded seeing her on the screen.

Netflix does have this film with English subtitles, but it's not dubbed. The movie mostly in Spanish and I believe it's France's ?? submission for International Feature Film. Unless there's another notable movie, it will probably win that Oscar.
 
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Watched The Lonely Planet on Netflix

Don’t bother. Lame plot, a waste of a perfectly good actress - Laura seen. I hope she got a good paycheck out of it.
 
Watch Anora last night in theaters. If you thought that Sean Baker was robbed of praise for The Florida Project, I think he may get his due with this movie. Being that Anora is (I believe) in limited release, I will put my review in spoiler.

Overall, I give Anora an 8.9/10. The "Best Picture" buzz is deserved, but I will have to wait and see how good The Brutalist is. I'm also not convinced that Conclave isn't a dark horse right now.

I also think that the correct vibes for Mikey Madison for Best Actress are correct.

Warning: Yes, this is a movie that shows the bluntness of sex work. There is A LOT of nudity and I was a little surprised at how many sex scenes there were. It's enough that I'm shocked that Neon got away with making this film and it not getting an NC-17 rating. So, if watching nudity and sex scenes bother you in entertainment, I wonder recommend skipping this. This is the opposite of what Pretty Woman (1990) presented.

Yes, you could say that Anora is a modern-day, tragic, explicit, profanity-filled version of Pretty Woman. Except instead of Richard Gere playing a corporate raider, you have Mark Eidelstein playing an immature indulgent son of a Russian oligarch. After "enjoying" hiring Anora (or "Ani") for some initial encounters, Ivan (or "Vanya") decides to hire her as his girlfriend for a week. On a whim, they decide to fly to Las Vegas and Ivan is bummed out about returning to Russia to work for his father. He decides that if he marries an American, he can stay in U.S. and continue his indulgent lifestyle. Anora agrees to elope in a tacky chapel. You understand that she does care about him, but she is primarily motivated by seeing his wealth as a way to escape the life and work that she's been living.

Problem is, the family has discovered this and they want to put a stop to it. Ivan runs off and Anora is left fending for herself against the family's "fixers". BTW - the fight scene between Anora, Igor, and Garnick is EPIC. :lol: :eek: They then go on a chase to find Ivan so they can get this marriage annulled. And Ivan is found - and he's basically been nonstop partying and he really had just left Anora alone to fend for herself. You realize that the family just sees Anora as a problem and not understanding what a mess Ivan is. Everything gets resolved and Anora, in a heartbreaking final scene, believes that she will never get out of her desperate situation.

Some nitpicks that I have: The "searching for Ivan" part too a little too long in the movie and I think they could have cut 15-20 minutes in this movie. But Sean Baker pulled off an amazing movie and performances are overall fantastic.
 
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Just got back home from watch A Real Pain. Yep, two movies in two days. :D I was going to watch Red One as well, but my schedule got too busy.

A Real Pain is my "dramedy" of 2024. Because it is in limited release, I will put my review in spoiler.

Overall, I give A Real Pain a 9.2/10. It's probably my #2 favorite movie of 2024 so far, behind Dune: Part 2 and ahead of Conclave. It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in January before being picked up by Searchlight for distribution.

This film is about two cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) who travel to Poland together to go on a tour to explore their Jewish heritage and honor their recently deceased grandmother. They travel with a tour group and Benji basically acts without boundaries and says a lot of awkward and inappropriate things. This leads to tension within the tour group as well as between the two cousins. This leads to clashes on the train ride, visiting the cemetery, the group dinner, and how they react to visiting the concentration camp. David is confronted by Benji for being "too stoic" and not showing his negative emotions enough. David is incredulous that Benji hasn't developed into "a proper grownup" yet. But as they arrive back home, they reconcile and commit to always being there for each other.

The dialogues for this film are SUPERB and I would say that Jesse Eisenberg wrote the Best Original Screenplay of 2024 (We'll see with The Brutalist). Eisenberg also did a GREAT job of directing this film. I definitely agree with the critics that Kieran Culkin is a frontrunner for Best Supporting Actor (even though Culkin is technically a co-lead actor with Eisenberg, Seachlight decided to enter him in a Supporting role).
 
I want to see the substance, but I did see conclave, what an ending… Did not see that coming from anywhere. I won’t talk about it in case it’s a spoiler situation.

But holy moly that is dragging in the middle of the movie. I love Isabella Rossellini, but I don’t know if she’ll get in for supporting as her time on screen I don’t think it was meaty enough for a nomination, although I love her.
 
AngieNikodinovLove (ANL) said:
But holy moly that is dragging in the middle of the movie. I love Isabella Rossellini, but I don’t know if she’ll get in for supporting as her time on screen I don’t think it was meaty enough for a nomination, although I love her.
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I’m thinking that Rossellini really needed one more great moment in Conclave. But the movie was still so beautifully shot and overall well done.
 
Just got back from watching Gladiator II. As a standalone "popcorn film" about the Roman Empire, it works well enough. As a sequel to an epic film that won Best Picture, it's MEH! Because we are in its opening weekend, I will put my review in spoiler.

Overall, I will give Gladiator a 7.3/10. Denzel Washington's (Macrinus) performance pretty much made this entire film work. But it overwhelmed what Paul Mescal (Lucius), Pedro Pascal (Acacius), Joseph Quinn (Geta), and Fred Hechinger (Caracalla) were able to do. Their performances just fell a bit flat to Denzel.

Before the film started, you're greeted with Mescal, Pascal, and (I think?) Quinn welcoming you to watching the film - Really? They couldn't have had Denzel there? ? The beginning of the film shows a montage of the 2000 Gladiator film and you figure out quickly that the plot of this sequel is going to be similar. Really similar and predictable. How did Ridley Scott take two decades to create ALL of this? Was this film just mainly a money grab for Paramount?

The biggest issue I had with Gladiator II was the production quality and visual effects. Both the amount and quality of the CGI used is almost unforgivable. The second "games" in the Coliseum involved a "naval battle" with sharks. And a lot of the audience started laughing out loud with they first saw the sharks come on the screen. That's just one example. It's especially glaring compared to what we saw in Dune: Part Two earlier this year.
 
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ilovepaydays said:
Watch Anora last night in theaters. If you thought that Sean Baker was robbed of praise for The Florida Project, I think he may get his due with this movie. Being that Anora is (I believe) in limited release, I will put my review in spoiler.

Overall, I give Anora an 8.9/10. The "Best Picture" buzz is deserved, but I will have to wait and see how good The Brutalist is. I'm also not convinced that Conclave isn't a dark horse right now.

I also think that the correct vibes for Mikey Madison for Best Actress are correct.

Warning: Yes, this is a movie that shows the bluntness of sex work. There is A LOT of nudity and I was a little surprised at how many sex scenes there were. It's enough that I'm shocked that Neon got away with making this film and it not getting an NC-17 rating. So, if watching nudity and sex scenes bother you in entertainment, I wonder recommend skipping this. This is the opposite of what Pretty Woman (1990) presented.

Yes, you could say that Anora is a modern-day, tragic, explicit, profanity-filled version of Pretty Woman. Except instead of Richard Gere playing a corporate raider, you have Mark Eidelstein playing an immature indulgent son of a Russian oligarch. After "enjoying" hiring Anora (or "Ani") for some initial encounters, Ivan (or "Vanya") decides to hire her as his girlfriend for a week. On a whim, they decide to fly to Las Vegas and Ivan is bummed out about returning to Russia to work for his father. He decides that if he marries an American, he can stay in U.S. and continue his indulgent lifestyle. Anora agrees to elope in a tacky chapel. You understand that she does care about him, but she is primarily motivated by seeing his wealth as a way to escape the life and work that she's been living.

Problem is, the family has discovered this and they want to put a stop to it. Ivan runs off and Anora is left fending for herself against the family's "fixers". BTW - the fight scene between Anora, Igor, and Garnick is EPIC. :lol: :eek: They then go on a chase to find Ivan so they can get this marriage annulled. And Ivan is found - and he's basically been nonstop partying and he really had just left Anora alone to fend for herself. You realize that the family just sees Anora as a problem and not understanding what a mess Ivan is. Everything gets resolved and Anora, in a heartbreaking final scene, believes that she will never get out of her desperate situation.

Some nitpicks that I have: The "searching for Ivan" part too a little too long in the movie and I think they could have cut 15-20 minutes in this movie. But Sean Baker pulled off an amazing movie and performances are overall fantastic.
Click to expand...

Great review! I saw it again and definitely appreciated more the second time. And I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’m kind of in love with the guy who plays Igor. ?
 
jenny12 said:
Great review! I saw it again and definitely appreciated more the second time. And I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I’m kind of in love with the guy who plays Igor. ?
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Yura Borisov is apparently a huge movie star in Russia. I’m seeing some awards buzz for Best Supporting Actor for him, and I think he deserves a nomination. But we haven’t seen what will happen with Guy Pierce (The Brutalist) and Edward Norton (A Complete Unknown) yet.

We also already have Kieran Culkin (A Real Pain), Stanley Tucci (Conclave), Clarence Maclin (Sing Sing), and Denzel Washington (Gladiator II).
——————————

So……has anyone seen or plan on seeing Wicked? I’m not a hardcore musical person, and I’ve seen basically two reactions so far: 1) Wicked is AMAZING!, or 2) The lighting & cinematography made the film unwatchable.

Also…..I haven’t seen this onstage, but does it REALLY need to be two films? Because it looks like this first film is two hours AND forty minutes long. ?

I’ve already posted my review of Gladiator II. I’m thinking that Glicked isn’t going to match what Barbenheimer did, both in $$$ and the quality of both films.
 
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ilovepaydays said:
So……has anyone seen or plan on seeing Wicked? I’m not a hardcore musical person, and I’ve seen basically two reactions so far: 1) Wicked is AMAZING!, or 2) The lighting & cinematography made the film unwatchable.

Also…..I haven’t seen this onstage, but does it REALLY need to be two films? Because it looks like this first film is two hours AND forty minutes long. ?
Click to expand...
I haven't seen it but I've read the book and saw the musical. The musical got rid of a lot of the darker aspects of the story and kind of Hollywood-ized it. I preferred the book. If the movie adds back in some of that complexity and darkness, I can see it being two movies and being long. If it doesn't...

Defying Gravity is a showstopper as the director has said. But so was "Let it Go" from Frozen and they managed to tell the story in one movie. So I don't buy that explanation for why it's in two parts.
 
Just finished watching The Piano Lesson on Netflix. A family conflict about a valuable heirloom ? .......and there's ghosts! ?

Being that this film was in very limited theatrical release in the ?? and was released on Netflix today, I will put my review in spoiler.

Overall, I give this film a 8.2/10. This film is pretty good, but I wished I could have liked it more than I did. The film is based on the 1990 play that won the Pulitzer Prize and had been nominated for a lot of Tony awards (including Samuel L. Jackson in the 2023 revival).

The film takes place in Pittsburgh in the 1930s. It centers around a disagreement between two siblings - Boy Willie (John David Washington) and Berniece (Danielle Deadwyler) who are in disagreement with a family piano in the home that Berniece shares with her Uncle Doaker (Samuel L. Jackson) and she has a daughter. Boy Willie wants to sell it to he can go back to Mississippi and buy a piece of land that the family was enslaved in. Berniece wants to keep the piano because the piano has beautiful carvings showing their family history from when they were slaves. She also wants to keep the piano because their father was murdered stealing the piano for the family to own it. And there's ghosts in the house - and they seem to be their ancestors! I won't spoil how this gets resolved, but the family does come to a resolution about how they should move forward - and the ghosts end up at peace as well.

My nitpick: The middle 1/3 of this film was a tad too boring and filler. The first third did a great job of showing everything about the conflict and the last part's conclusion was epic to watch. But the middle of film was too many side stories that didn't overall matter, IMHO. Danielle Deadwyler and Samuel L. Jackson were GREAT in this film, though. I did like how the film was shot and it visually looked very good.
 
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The writer/director Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Bridget Jones, Love Actually...) recently received an honorary Oscar. Here is the ever so droll Hugh Grant on this occasion:

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
youtu.be youtu.be
 
There is a new animated film coming out called Flow, about the adventures of a cat and his friends, as they try to survive a flood. Looks very cute.

Flow trailer

I see it’s available on Prime, or hopefully it is. I may try to watch it. Looks very cute.
 
ilovepaydays said:
So……has anyone seen or plan on seeing Wicked? I’m not a hardcore musical person, and I’ve seen basically two reactions so far: 1) Wicked is AMAZING!, or 2) The lighting & cinematography made the film unwatchable.

Also…..I haven’t seen this onstage, but does it REALLY need to be two films? Because it looks like this first film is two hours AND forty minutes long. ?
Click to expand...

I didn't see "Wicked" but it grossed $46.7M on Friday alone. :eek: "Gladiator 2" did $22M Friday.

The Broadway show of "Wicked" only runs about 2 hrs 45 min with intermission, so who knows how they dragged the first act alone into the same approximate run time? Seems crazy to me. I've only read one complete review and they barely addressed that issue at all.

I plan on going to see "Wicked" but not sure when.
 
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