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

PeterG said:
5/10 - Urban Cowboy (DVD) - I'm surprised that I had never seen this 1980 movie starring John Travolta and Debra Winger. I think maybe when it came out, it seemed like a western rip-off of Saturday Night Fever. But after forty years, I decided to give it a chance. :lol: It was a disappointment for two reasons. Travolta's and Winger's characters are whiny, vindictive infants. Both quite unlikable. Plus the violence Winger is subjected to by both Travolta and Scott Glenn's character is horrible. I'm guessing the director wanted something gritty, with an unpolished tone like Taxi Driver or Dog Day Afternoon. So there's a darkness to this that I wasn't expecting. On the plus side, there's a lot of great country music to listen to.
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I also had never seen this movie before and recently decided to watch it. I had to stop halfway through because I just couldn’t take the misogynistic violence. Also it made me so angry. That first half felt almost like a documentary about the lifestyle of utter banality and misogyny available to Americans at that time (and still today for some). Travolta’s character manages to combine every horrific negative stereotype of American “masculinity” into one character. He is an uneducated individual working in a hazardous, dead-end job making no money with no future. Literally all he has going for him is youth, ego, and bravado. The only way he can feel any power is by becoming a petty tyrant in his own home, victimizing his hapless wife. So he ruins the only good thing in his life (their romance) because he doesn’t know how else to live. His character is truly pathetic, yet because he’s enabled by our culture of violence and misogyny, also scary. (50 years later, if these characters are real, they’re Trump supporters.) Ugh.
 
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"This Must Be The Place"---how did I miss this one? I like Sean Penn in this film and Francis McDormand is a hoot. I love good quirk with serious undertones. "Everything is Illuminated" fits this category too. For me this was an unexpected treat.
 
clairecloutier said:
I also had never seen this movie before and recently decided to watch it. I had to stop halfway through because I just couldn’t take the misogynistic violence. Also it made me so angry. That first half felt almost like a documentary about the lifestyle of utter banality and misogyny available to Americans at that time (and still today for some). Travolta’s character manages to combine every horrific negative stereotype of American “masculinity” into one character. He is an uneducated individual working in a hazardous, dead-end job making no money with no future. Literally all he has going for him is youth, ego, and bravado. The only way he can feel any power is by becoming a petty tyrant in his own home, victimizing his hapless wife. So he ruins the only good thing in his life (their romance) because he doesn’t know how else to live. His character is truly pathetic, yet because he’s enabled by our culture of violence and misogyny, also scary. (50 years later, if these characters are real, they’re Trump supporters.) Ugh.
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I agree with both your and PeterG's reviews of "Urban Cowboy." To me the only thing going for this movie was the music. The lead characters were all deeply unlikable and the world they depicted was depressing as hell.
 
Ive been using HBO to watch movies from the past that I love!!!!

I rewatched "The Reader" with Kate Winslet...wow...Such a GREAT movie...I cant believe that came out 11 years ago and is the only Oscar win thus far for Winslet. I truly think Winslet is the new Meryl Streep.

then I rewatched "The Human Stain" another Kidman movie with Anthony Hopkins, Gary Sinise and Wentworth Miller...what a SCRIPT!!!!!

These are my kinda movies.... Human movies, well written with depth.
 
Another review from my friend:

So I really enjoyed Reminiscence. I gave it a 7 and Aubrey gave it a 7.5 because he said it was a sci-fi that he could understand. Not sure that’s a glowing recommendation.

It was a bit slow in parts for me. It was a sci-fi setting but that’s about it. Mostly a love story / mystery. Good revealing of the storyline in an artful way. Great sci-fi scenes with the water levels having risen around the earth. I like the way they didn’t tell you how or why because it’s so obvious that it’s a result of global warming. A lesson without banging you over the head about it.
 
clairecloutier said:
I also had never seen this movie before and recently decided to watch it. I had to stop halfway through because I just couldn’t take the misogynistic violence. Also it made me so angry. That first half felt almost like a documentary about the lifestyle of utter banality and misogyny available to Americans at that time (and still today for some). Travolta’s character manages to combine every horrific negative stereotype of American “masculinity” into one character. He is an uneducated individual working in a hazardous, dead-end job making no money with no future. Literally all he has going for him is youth, ego, and bravado. The only way he can feel any power is by becoming a petty tyrant in his own home, victimizing his hapless wife. So he ruins the only good thing in his life (their romance) because he doesn’t know how else to live. His character is truly pathetic, yet because he’s enabled by our culture of violence and misogyny, also scary. (50 years later, if these characters are real, they’re Trump supporters.) Ugh.
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vgerdes said:
I agree with both your and PeterG's reviews of "Urban Cowboy." To me the only thing going for this movie was the music. The lead characters were all deeply unlikable and the world they depicted was depressing as hell.
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Before watching Urban Cowboy, I was expecting a Saturday Night Fever or Grease...but with country music. But I don't think Saturday Night Fever was a upbeat, peppy music like Grease. It had it's dark moments for sure. I think we just remember all the good music from Saturday Night Fever and think of it as a happy movie. But it's not Grease. And with Urban Cowboy, I'm guessing Travolta wanted something more serious...and even dark. Which it is, as @clairecloutier stated so well. I'm thinking the director's goal was a critique of this world that people eventually celebrated because of the music and a new nightlife scene. A nightlife scene which took over as disco died...umm, was murdered...and a nightlife scene that was WAAAAY more white and heterosexual than the disco scene.

A few tidbits from wikipedia: Urban Cowboy was directed by James Bridges, who previously had directed The China Syndrome and The Paper Chase.

And the movie was choreographed by Patsy Swayze. Her son had his movie debut one year earlier in Skatetown, U.S.A. But some might know him better from his roles in Ghost and Dirty Dancing. :D
 
I was going to mention that The Three Musketeers is the ____th remake of the classic novel, but when I checked on this at wikipedia, the list is so long that who knows what version this is! But the one I watched was the 2011 version with Orlando Bloom, Luke Evans, Mads Mikkelsen, Christoph Waltz, Juno Temple, James Cordon, Logan Lerman and Milla Jovovich. Now if that isn't a cast, what is? But the movie is just so-so. I think it's the director's fault. And that is...Paul W.S. Anderson of the Resident Evil and Death Race movies. I guess this was his chance to get out of the action/sci-fi genre. But he directed this as if it was an action sci-fi movie. Perhaps he was trying to get 14 year old boys interested in classic literature? I dunno... I'd recommend this only to see such a great cast of actors all on screen in one movie.
 
Cachoo said:
"The Power of The Dog" looks interesting and the trailer doesn't tell us too much which I like: Jane Campion directs and stars Cumberbatch, Dunst, Plemons, Smit-McPhee https://youtu.be/I-U5jh9_ihg
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Yeah, this and "Dune" are the two movies I'm most looking forward to this fall. I think Ben is playing a pretty dark character here, which is interesting to me.
 
vgerdes said:
Yeah, this and "Dune" are the two movies I'm most looking forward to this fall. I think Ben is playing a pretty dark character here, which is interesting to me.
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Ita...I remember reading the Dune books then seeing the movie and being so disappointed. This one looks promising.
 
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Cachoo said:
I'm not one for horror but this film looks fun---anyone see this one? "The Final Girls" https://youtu.be/zreNh78kTjg
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I saw this one. Maybe more for those who are fans of the great cast: Taissa Farmiga (Vera's sister), Malin Akerman, Adam DeVine, Thomas Middleditch, Alia Shawkat, Alexander Ludwig, and Nina Dobrev. As goofy as you would expect. But it's a well-rated movie. 73% fresh by the critics and 70% fresh by the audience at rottentomatoes.com. Not often do both the criticis and audience rate a movie so well.
 
Tooth Fairy is a 2010 family fantasy comedy with Dwayne Johnson, Ashley Judd, Julie Andrews, Stephen Merchant, Billy Crystal and Seth McFarlane. Emphasis on the "family" part of the genre. Definitely one for the kids, not too much added for just the adults watching along. I'm guessing this one was a "big payout" job for most of the cast. Except maybe for Johnson, as at this point he was maybe wanting to broaden the view of what types of movies he could do. Although I'm guessing he still got a nice paycheque for this one. Normally with movies with casts this good, I would recommend it just to see all of them working on a project together. You could take a pass on this one instead and just go back and watch one of your favourite movies with any of these stars that you haven't seen in a while and re-watch that movie instead.
 
I was looking at movies listed at the Paramount site and there is a “Snow White” live action film from the ‘70’s that stars Diana Rigg and Billy Barty. I wonder if it is awful. I may need to see this.
 
Lots of interesting movies that were released to theatres this June. The bigger ones include Black Widows and Jungle Cruise (Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt). These twelve additional movies are going on my To See list:

How It Ends - Olivia Wilde, Fred Armisen, Helen Hunt, Whitney Cummings, Bradley Whitford and Nick Kroll. This apocalyptic comedy has Zoe Lister-Jones on a journey around L.A. to make it to her last party before the world ends.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t84FHuWMs2I


The God Committee - Kelsey Grammer, Julia Stiles, Janeane Garofalo and Colman Domingo (Fear The Walking Dead). A drama about the staff of a hospital who oversee organ transplants and how their decisions impact on the people involved.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6orCn7Ea_Y


Rock Paper Scissors - A comedy with a new young cast about misfit teens to come together to compete at the World Championships of...you guessed it! :lol: This trailer made me laugh quite a few times:

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsIhtn4Pncg


Settlers - A British sci-fi movie with a new cast and Jonny Lee Miller. A small family in a lonely outpost on Mars is attacked by bandits...

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mOuDyQp93g


Summer of Soul - The same summer of Woodstock, another concert was happening in Harlem. It happened to feature Stevie Wonder, Mahalia Jackson, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Nina Simone, The 5th Dimension, The Staple Singers and Sly and the Family Stone. This documentary showcases performances that have been sitting in the vaults for decades. New interview footage is also included.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oTu3hl_Gaw


Escape Room Tournament of Champions - A sequal to 2019's Escape Room, this psychological thriller/horror movie has six new Escape Room players, featuring two the only two that survived the first Escape Room.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlfUbZJVInA


Joe Bell - A biographical drama starring Mark Wahlberg, Gary Sinise and Connie Britton. Wahlberg plays a small-town father who embarks on a walking journey across America on a crusade to end the bullying such as what his gay son experienced in high school.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhUqYOpnln8


Zola - A black comedy starring Riley Keough, Nicholas Braun (Emmy nominee for Succession), Colman Domingo (busy guy) and Taylour Paige (Ma Rainey's Black Bottom). A viral twitter thread becomes a Rolling Stone magazine article becomes a movie. A part-time stripper and her friend travel to Florida to make some money...and get in WAY over their head.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxDHVwINxvo


Ailey - A documentary that follows the life of dancer Alvin Ailey. This documentary was made after it was discovered no film about Ailey's life had ever been made. Honors Ailey has received include the Kennedy Center Honors in 1988, induction into the National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame in 1992 and posthumously received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2014.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e14XoL2D99c
@Artistic Skaters @cocotaffy @kwanfan1818


And these last three have been advertised fairly well on television:


The Green Knight - Dev Patel medieval fantasy film. Also starring Alicia Vikander and Joel Edgerton.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hEhhcdAIVM


Stillwater - Matt Damon and Abigail Breslin drama.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MQupxpN3LY


The Forever Purge - Starring Josh Lucas and Will Patton, this fifth movie in The Purge series was meant to be the last, but now a sixth film is in the works, perhaps as this one has made 74 million so far on an 18 million budget.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMq0ys-Hyu0
 
Ready Or Not is a comedy horror movie that works both as a comedy and as a horror movie. But it's more entertaining in a funny way than a scary way. It's about a newly wed bride who has just married into a wealthy family who are part of the Le Domas Family Games company dynasty. It is a family tradition that each newly wed couple take part in a game on their wedding night. But this ain't no board game! :lol: The game is quite serious...and potentially deadly. The bride is played quite well by Samara Weaving and lucky for her, she doesn't like to lose. Andy MacDowell and Henry Czerny play the groom's parents and Adam Brody is the groom's brother. This one's a great thrill ride of a movie. I'd gladly watch it again if a friend wanted to see it. :)
 
I just watched "Midsommar" because I liked Florence Pugh in "Little Women". What a pile of dreck. Not a likeable character in it. Excessive gore, not "thrilling" at all for a thriller, and plain weird just for the sake of being strange. Hard pass on this over 2 hours "experience".
 
watchthis!! said:
Ready Or Not is a comedy horror movie that works both as a comedy and as a horror movie. But it's more entertaining in a funny way than a scary way. It's about a newly wed bride who has just married into a wealthy family who are part of the Le Domas Family Games company dynasty. It is a family tradition that each newly wed couple take part in a game on their wedding night. But this ain't no board game! :lol: The game is quite serious...and potentially deadly. The bride is played quite well by Samara Weaving and lucky for her, she doesn't like to lose. Andy MacDowell and Henry Czerny play the groom's parents and Adam Brody is the groom's brother. This one's a great thrill ride of a movie. I'd gladly watch it again if a friend wanted to see it. :)
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I remember going to see this movie when it first came out, because I needed to kill some time and I could get in for $5 (Tuesday night special). I enjoyed it quite a lot. I always kind of wondered why it didn't do better at the box office, because it was very entertaining.
 
We went to see Respect, the Aretha Franklin biopic. There were some interesting parts of it but it had pacing issues and was probably 30 minutes too long. One good aspect is that Jennifer Hudson singing Aretha's songs wasn't disconcerting at all (which I had feared). Hudson did a great job and really channeled Aretha. But they seriously needed to make the first half move faster.
 
watchthis!! said:
This is hilarious. I love seeing how celebrities in the audience react:

Rebel Wilson steals the show with HILARIOUS unexpected BAFTA 2020 speech - BBC

​

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OMG...she needs to host the Oscars. Or at the very least, the Golden Globes. I think Rebel is so funny. I wonder if she will ever do a stand-up special. I need to see it!

vgerdes said:
This one looks interesting...

The Power of the Dog
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Cachoo said:
"The Power of The Dog" looks interesting and the trailer doesn't tell us too much which I like: Jane Campion directs and stars Cumberbatch, Dunst, Plemons, Smit-McPhee https://youtu.be/I-U5jh9_ihg
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Cumberbatch seems to be going for the Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood vibe. Doesn't really look like he's pulling it off here. But I love Campion, so I'm hoping the trailer just has a bad edit. The Power Of The Dog also stars Thomasin McKenzie (so incredible in Leave No Trace), Frances Conroy (Six Feet Under, American Horror Story) and Keith Carradine (TV's Fargo and Madam Secretary).

Kasey said:
I just watched "Midsommar" because I liked Florence Pugh in "Little Women". What a pile of dreck. Not a likeable character in it. Excessive gore, not "thrilling" at all for a thriller, and plain weird just for the sake of being strange. Hard pass on this over 2 hours "experience".
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I swear I warned people about this movie. So I checked to see what I posted a year or two ago about this movie. But couldn't find anything. So...MY APOLOGIES! I found this movie to be disgusting, abhorent, vile and any other similar synonyms that aren't coming to me at this time. The movie is directed well by Ari Aster, but the script (also by Ari Aster) made me feel sick. Aster also wrote and directed Hereditary, which was also horrible. When I found out he was the culprit behind both of these movies, I made a mental note to never see another movie he is associated with. But I see that he has a new movie coming out in 2022 called Disappointment Blvd. starring Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane, Patti LuPone, Parker Posey, and Amy Ryan. Normally that is a cast that I would love to see work together. If I say later in this thread that I plan to see this movie...somebody please remind me of this post!! :lol:
 
MacMadame said:
We went to see Respect, the Aretha Franklin biopic. There were some interesting parts of it but it had pacing issues and was probably 30 minutes too long. One good aspect is that Jennifer Hudson singing Aretha's songs wasn't disconcerting at all (which I had feared). Hudson did a great job and really channeled Aretha. But they seriously needed to make the first half move faster.
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I’m glad Hudson singing Aretha’s songs wasn’t disconcerting. One of the reasons I could never see Judy was because I couldn’t get passed Renee Zelwegger singing Judy Garland while sounding nothing like her. I like Zelwegger well enough but I couldn’t get passed it. I’ll probably check out Respect when I can watch it at home since by the time I’m able to get to a theatre again it’ll be long gone.

People’s reactions to Midsommar are wildly polarizing. I’ve seen people who absolutely adore it but the people who hate it really hate it.
 
Jay42 said:
I’ll probably check out Respect when I can watch it at home
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I think it's a good movie to see at home. For one thing, when the timeline gets confusing, you can pause and go back or look stuff up to help figure it out.
 
From my last day of house-sitting... :wuzrobbed

6.5/10 – In The Tall Grass (Netflix) – Based on a Stephen King novella, this movie is about a brother and sister moving her to a new city. They make a short stop in the countryside and hear a boy crying for help in the corn field across the road. They go into the corn field to find the boy but get separated. They find that in this field, direction and distance is not what it normally is. And they can’t get out. Patrick Wilson stars as a man who is also lost in the field with his wife and son. I enjoyed the first half of this movie, but the second half felt repetitive and therefore slow. Plus I was confused by the ending, but as my attention wained during the second half of the movie, maybe I just wasn’t paying close enough attention.

Trailer for In The Tall Grass: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5tEsyUyz-U


6/10 – The Perils of Pauline (Tubi) – A 1947 musical comedy romance with Betty Hutton as the famed silent screen star Pearl White. This movie is a very fictionalized account of White’s story, so there’s a lot of the plot was not true to life. Reading about White at Wikipedia, her real life story sounds more interesting than what was made up for The Perils of Pauline. That said, this is still decent melodramatic fun. Although having White pine for her jerk of a boss is a 1947 story and hopefully stays there. Hutton gives it her all in this one and there are great supporting performances from (closeted gay actor) Billy De Wolfe and Constance Collier (Stage Door, An Ideal Husband and Hitchcock’s Rope).

Trailer for The Perils of Pauline: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wOt0EREAFk


4/10 – Ring Ring (Tubi) – A 2019 “action” “thriller” which I only watched because one of the stars is Alex Shaffer. (Quotations marked used for action and thriller because those are the genres used at imdb.com to categorize the movie, but there was little action and not much thrill.) Unfortunately Shaffer only has one scene in the movie near the end. So I ended up watching this barely directed movie for pretty much nothing. It’s about some telemarketers who get laid off and while drowning their sorrows in a pub, and one of their phones is stolen. They track the phone, break into the home where the phone is…and end up locked in a basement that has a corpse in the freezer. Not much to recommend about this movie, but Tommy Kijas gives a wonderful performance as the lost and fragile homeowner.

Trailer for Ring Ring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYgN9vymSNQ
 
After having had to write a lesson plan for the lesson my headmistress is going to attend tomorrow (I hate writing those with a passion, and I really hope this will be the last time I had to do it), I decided to watch "He's all that" on Netflix, the new remake of the famous 90s rom-com "She's All That" with Rachael Leigh Cook and Freddie Prinze Jr.

I didn't expect much because I have such fond memories of the original movie, having watched it at least once a month with my best friend in 6th grade back in the days, but I have to say it wasn't too bad actually. It's not a masterpiece, but a nice heartwarming movie and since I'm such a fan of the original it was a lot of fun to find all the Easter eggs throughout the movie, including 2 cameos by actors from the original movie.
In the end, I even teared up a bit and felt like my 12-year-old self again.

Where have all those years gone?!
 
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