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

clairecloutier said:
I saw the first 3 Matrix movies but, TBH, the only one I really remember much about is the first one. So I don't know if I will bother with this new one. My husband may watch it on his own.
Click to expand...
The first one is perfect IMO. But I just watched a vid on the new one that said two and three grow on you with repeated viewing and that this one might too. So maybe I'll watch them all in a row and see what I think.
 
9/10 – The Cakemaker is a 2017 Israeli-German drama and it is one of the most beautifully made movies I have ever seen. The movie is both written and directed by Ofir Raul Graizer. Who I figured must have made many, many movies to be able to craft a movie with such moving warmth. So I was surprised to find out that this is his first feature length film (after making about six short films). The Cakemaker is about a German baker who meets an Israeli man who he begins an affair with. He learns that this man is married, but plans to divorce his wife. Before that happens, the Israeli man dies in a car accident. The German baker travels to Israel to find out what happened. He visits the newly opened restaurant of the widow and begins to work for her.

This is one of the most watchable movies I have seen in a long time. And it is a must-see.

Trailer for The Cakemaker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrJ4Iwgd9h8
 
I've recently watched "The Public" in which Emilio Estevez plays a heroic role as a humble librarian that finds himself in a harrowing situation amongst victims of poverty, homelessness and addiction.

In the struggle to keep warm during the cold season, it is not uncommon for the dispossessed to take shelter in public venues such as libraries, malls, and restaurants.

However, when these public venues close for the night, and there are not enough homeless shelters to house all those in need, we are sometimes left in troublesome situations that are not very easy to grapple with.
 
I saw "Nightmare Alley" this afternoon, the first time I've been in a movie theater since CV started. I was expecting the theater to be pretty empty since it's been a box office flop, but there was a decent sized crowd.

The movie itself looked amazing, incredible sets, lighting, costumes, and the acting was top notch. The story was very retro, like a three act play more than the film noir style of films this movie emulates. In my opinion, the film stumbles in the final 20 or so minutes, and the denouement can be seen coming from a mile, but overall if you enjoy 40s noir movies, I think it would intrigue you. Since it has done pretty badly at the box office, I'm guessing any Oscar nominations will be in tech categories.
 
MacMadame said:
We watched Encanto a few days ago. Mr. Mac said it was confusing but I didn't really have any trouble following it. I thought it was fun, but not great.
Click to expand...
We watched it too. I didn’t find it hard to follow at all. It’s kinda fun, but definitely not one of Disney’s bests. None of the songs were particularly memorable either. I much preferred Luca and Raya and the Last Dragon of the newer Disney releases.
 
made_in_canada said:
We watched it too. I didn’t find it hard to follow at all. It’s kinda fun, but definitely not one of Disney’s bests. None of the songs were particularly memorable either. I much preferred Luca and Raya and the Last Dragon of the newer Disney releases.
Click to expand...
Luca was my favorite out of those 3. And also Coco from recent films.
 
7/10 – The Death & Life Of John F. Donovan is the English language debut of Canadian director/writer/actor Xavier Dolan. He has had great success with his French language films, at imdb.com the heading for his accolades reads, “76 wins & 123 nominations”. This includes eight wins for five films at the Cannes Film Festival. I mention all of this because the critics hated this movie. It has a 19% rotten score at rottentomatoes.com. Interestingly, the audience was much kinder, giving it a 54% rating.

The movie is about a boy named Rupert (Jacob Tremblay, “Room”) and John, his TV superhero idol played by Kit Harrington (Game of Thrones). Rupert writes a fan letter to John and they begin a years long correspondence. Rupert decides not to share this friendship with his mother, so when news of their correspondence is leaked to the press, it is portrayed as secretive and questionable. The lives of both Rupert and John take a downward spiral.

I can see why some might not have enjoyed this movie. A few scenes don’t ring true and the acting misses the mark in these scenes. But overall, I enjoyed a new kind of story which we get to see here. I have to admit than I’m an uber-fan of Dolan. So I expected to like it in spite of all the negativity directed at the film. I am wondering if that negativity mirrors the negativity in this story though. To me, this movie was about a brotherhood of two strangers. Each who needed a friend and both ended up being good friends to each other. And how the friendship is ruined by people looking for something seedy where only sweetness exists. The movie is also about the friendship of
two gay males of different generations supporting one another without ever knowing that each of them were both gay
.

So I’m bothered that it seems the people watching this movie didn’t understand a movie about how people choosing not to understand these two people…and ended up creating heartbreak for many people. ☹

Trailer for The Death & Life Of John F. Donovan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk30TGvtz18
 
6/10 – By The Light Of The Silvery Moon is a 1953 musical romantic comedy starring Doris Day and Gordon MacRae. When MacRae returns home from World War I, Day’s character expects to marry her beau sooner rather than later, but he gets cold feet. And to complicate matters, a note written by her father is mistakenly taken to be a love letter to a French actress whose play the father is overseeing. Lots of complications ensure...and all handled very well by a top-notch cast. Day and MacRae have fantastic singing voices, which made me wish there was more singing. I would rate this movie higher, but I couldn’t help think about Day’s later movies with Rock Hudson, all of which I liked so much that I couldn’t help but compare this movie to those great comedies.

Trailer for By The Light Of The Silvery Moon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUCQCdLlv7s
 
I was tooling around YouTube and saw this promo and remembered this movie that starred a very young Helen Hunt and Daphne Zuniga and also had Tim Robbins in a smaller role. I saw the real Tami Maida who Hunt plays and there is a resemblance. Anyway the movie is from 1983, on Youtube and called "Quarterback Princess." Here is an ever so brief promo: https://youtu.be/scdLOaca-d0
 
I watched Dumbo yesterday, the remake starring Colin Farrell. He plays a man returning home from serving in World War One. His wife has died of the Spanish flu but his two children are healthy and have been kept on with the travelling circus where their parents were performers. And then a baby elephant is born. So you probably all know the story from there. The movie is done well and it’s enjoyable to watch. But one to watch with the kids, I wasn’t totally captivated by it as a single adult. I did like that they avoid some of the movie cliches that appears in movies like this, such as making the villain of the piece into a caricature. And some of the dialogue has a modern touch to it rather than a heavy, outdated tone that we would have seen from movies from long ago. Danny DeVito, Michael Keaton, Eva Green and Alan Arkin are also in this movie.
 
Hugh Laurie is the lead character in the New Zealand drama Mr. Pip. He is quite good in this as a British teacher now living in Papua New Guinea with his wife, who was born in the village where this story takes place. He re-opens the school and begins each day by reading Great Expectations to the children. A lot happens in this movie, too much to summarize, but one part of the movie is about a girl named Matilda and how she comes to love the novel that is read to her and her classmates. The actress who plays Matilda is fabulous, as is the actress who played her mother. Unfortunately neither of them were ever in a movie again (Mr. Pip came out in 2012). I liked this movie so much that if a friend asked about a good movie to watch, I would not only recommend this, but want to watch it again to share the experience with them.
 
Margaret Qually must have a good eye (or a good agent or both) when it comes to scripts. I like so many of her performances. I watched “My Salinger Year” today about a budding agent (glorified secretary at first) who also wants to write and her year at the agency that represents Salinger. It is a quiet film, well paced, set in NYC 1995. This was on HBOMAX.
 
I love Whit Stillman’s films from the 90’s and his costume comedy “Love and Friendship” from 2016. I had not seen 2011’s “Damsels in Distress” with Greta Gerwig so I watched and was glad to see a film about four college women living by their own code. But I thought it was Stillman’s weakest film though still worth watching.
 
Has anyone seen 'American Underdog'? It is about NFL QB Kurt Warner, our local hero. It is in its first week, so I will wait until there are fewer people in the theater.

It has 7.6 on IMDb.
 
So I have to preface this post with how when I was a kid, Bigfoot was a big deal. Lots of stories, bumper stickers, a couple of movies...there was even a restaurant outside of the city called The Sasquatch Inn. :lol: So I thought this movie would be stupid fun. I was wrong. :(

0/10 – 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Bigfoot (#1 Will Blow Your Mind!). The original title for this movie was “The VICE Guide to Bigfoot”. But no title could save this piece of excrement. Even the mind-blowingly unfathomable rottentomatoes.com ratings (79% fresh by critics, 70% by viewers) should not influence you into considering watching this being steaming pile of crap. There must have been some SERIOUS drug usage for those ratings to exist. I only watched this movie because I thought it would be a schlocky documentary about the elusive Sasquatch. Instead, it’s a “comedic” mockumentary made by those people you know from parties or high school who thought they were hilariously funny…but NOBODY ELSE DID. This is the type of independent film made by some film school grads who conned people into financing a thousand bucks here and there until they had enough money to start shooting. Horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible movie.

Trailer for 15 Things You Didn’t Know About Bigfoot (#1 Will Blow Your Mind!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jor38v3QXq4
 
"Beans" is a movie about a Mohawk girl who experiences adolescence amid the armed stand-off known as the 1990 Oka Crisis.

This movie appealed to me as something that I'd like to watch because it consists of a narrative that is based on true events.

Also, as a person with some Indigenous ancestry myself, I appreciate learning about our history.

I was rather taken a back by how life-like the acting was in certain parts of the movie, specifically more so amongst the child actors.

Some of the mindless racism that occurred in the movie was rather
off-putting, but thankfully the movie concluded with a happy ending.
 
Seerek said:
Jean Marc Vallée's sudden passing (at only 58) over the weekend prompted me to revisit this scene from 2014's Wild

Click to expand...

:wuzrobbed

58 is so young. That's my age! :O Vallee directed Dallas Buyer's Club and received an Oscar nomination for his editing of that movie. He was an Emmy winner as well for directing and producing the TV series Big Little Lies. He also produced and directed the TV mini-series Sharp Objects, starring Amy Adams and Patricia Clarkson. What a loss.... :(
 
I watched first hour of the old WSS on dvd -
B O R I N G! I will finish watching it, but I gave myself a day off. I hope the rest of the movie is better.
 
From "The Ringer" and their article on anticipated films of 2022:

Don’t Worry Darling (September 23) and Women Talking (TBA)​

The amazing cast assembled by Sarah Polley for her first fictional feature since 2011’s Take This Waltz includes Frances McDormand, Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, and Claire Foy, all as members of a Mennonite community harboring a disturbing secret; the novel by Miriam Toews is considered a modern Canadian classic. A different kind of outlying, experimental community figures into Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, a period thriller set in the California desert. Talking to Vogue, Wilde described the film as being “The Feminine Mystique on acid”; in the same interview, the director-slash-actress lamented the disappearance of sexuality in American cinema and promised that the love scenes between stars Florence Pugh and Harry Styles would make audiences “realize how rarely they see female hunger, and specifically… female pleasure.” So, basically, if one out of every 10 people who downloaded “Watermelon Sugar” buys a ticket, the film will make more money than Spider-Man: No Way Home.
 
I thought Vice was really good, it’s the dark comedy where Christian Bale plays Dick Cheney. The script is really strong, as is the direction and all the performances. (Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell and Tyler Perry also co-star.) It was nominated for lots of awards, but didn’t win all that much…one Oscar for hairstyling and make-up and one Golden Globe for Christian Bale. Was surprised to see that it didn’t make much money at the box office. But maybe that’s because half of America probably boycotted the movie since Cheney isn’t exactly portrayed in this movie as a hero.
 
Cachoo said:
Margaret Qually must have a good eye (or a good agent or both) when it comes to scripts. I like so many of her performances. I watched “My Salinger Year” today about a budding agent (glorified secretary at first) who also wants to write and her year at the agency that represents Salinger. It is a quiet film, well paced, set in NYC 1995. This was on HBOMAX.
Click to expand...

She was really good as Ann Reinking as Fosse/Verdon (for which she was nominated for an Emmy). I'm going to get My Salinger Year from the library. It wasn't on my To See list. But I'll give it a shot and then determine whether I should ever consider any of your recommendations ever again. :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
 
watchthis!! said:
I thought Vice was really good, it’s the dark comedy where Christian Bale plays Dick Cheney. The script is really strong, as is the direction and all the performances. (Amy Adams, Steve Carell, Sam Rockwell and Tyler Perry also co-star.) It was nominated for lots of awards, but didn’t win all that much…one Oscar for hairstyling and make-up and one Golden Globe for Christian Bale. Was surprised to see that it didn’t make much money at the box office. But maybe that’s because half of America probably boycotted the movie since Cheney isn’t exactly portrayed in this movie as a hero.
Click to expand...
I had seen Vice in a theater and thought it was well made. Bale was very convincing as Cheney. Too bad someone else was better than him, so he missed out on the Oscar. All others were also very good.
 
PeterG said:
She was really good as Ann Reinking as Fosse/Verdon (for which she was nominated for an Emmy). I'm going to get My Salinger Year from the library. It wasn't on my To See list. But I'll give it a shot and then determine whether I should ever consider any of your recommendations ever again. :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
Click to expand...
Yikes....well I hope you enjoy it. I'm watching "The Eyes of Tammy Faye" and I do like Chastain and Garfield in their roles so far...I'm about halfway through the film. I finished the film. I was worried about watching it because I couldn't stand these two in their prime. And after the fall it was easier to relate to them. I thought Chastain and Garfield did a good job of reigning the characters in---it would have been so easy to make them clowns. And Cherry Jones was great as Tammy's mother.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who are viewing this thread

Total: 14 (members: 5, guests: 9)

Similar threads

AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)
ISU trying to modernize, is it working?
2
Replies
43
Views
5K
jägerbomb
jägerbomb
Sylvia
‘Let’s Talk About It’ Skate Ontario podcast with Pj Kwong
Replies
1
Views
1K
victorskid
victorskid
VGThuy
The Shibutanis Thread 7 . . . Years Later
Replies
10
Views
2K
my little pony
my little pony
Desperado
Anyone here into watching soaps?
2 3 4
Replies
107
Views
10K
three fingered jack
T
Sylvia
Lorraine Hanlon Comanor: "I Was Supposed to Be on the 1961 Flight That Crashed, Killing the U.S. Skating Team"
Replies
1
Views
1K
AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)
AngieNikodinovLove (ANL)
Back
Top
Do Not Sell My Personal Information