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

11/8/16 is quite an interesting documentary considered it covers a day in our lives that most of us probably remember quite clearly. The day of the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. This documentary films the lives of over ten different Americans from all kinds of backgrounds. We get to hear their hopes, expectations, fears and then thoughts once the shocking results occur. I liked how this movie didn’t really take a stance on where the filmmakers stood personally. Instead, they just let a large, diverse group of interviewees share their stories. Very well made movie.
 
I like many David O. Russell films and watched "Amsterdam" tonight and was not disappointed. It is hard to describe this movie: Part mystery, part comedy, part romance, part political commentary--there seems to be something for everyone. It concerns WWI veterans involved in a murder mystery. The three stars, Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington are excellent and there are plenty of good supporting performances from a stellar cast including Robert DeNiro, Zoe Saldana, Chris Rock, Taylor Swift, Rami Malek, Anya Taylor-Joy, Mike Myers, Andrea Riseborough (once again completely unrecognizable--the woman is a chameleon), Timothy Olyphant, Allesandro Nivola and Matthias Schoenaerts. It is on HBOMAX.
 
Cachoo said:
I like many David O. Russell films and watched "Amsterdam" tonight and was not disappointed. It is hard to describe this movie: Part mystery, part comedy, part romance, part political commentary--there seems to be something for everyone. It concerns WWI veterans involved in a murder mystery. The three stars, Christian Bale, Margot Robbie and John David Washington are excellent and there are plenty of good supporting performances from a stellar cast including Robert DeNiro, Zoe Saldana, Chris Rock, Taylor Swift, Rami Malek, Anya Taylor-Joy, Mike Myers, Andrea Riseborough (once again completely unrecognizable--the woman is a chameleon), Timothy Olyphant, Allesandro Nivola and Matthias Schoenaerts. It is on HBOMAX.
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I saw this at the cinema. I thought Margot Robbie was the best thing in it. In fact I would pay to see her play a paper bag I love watching her so much.
 
Aussie Willy said:
I saw this at the cinema. I thought Margot Robbie was the best thing in it. In fact I would pay to see her play a paper bag I love watching her so much.
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I liked her. But I really liked Christian Bale the most. And then Andrea Riseborough---she took what could have been a two dimensional character and fleshed her out into something more. I thought she would be utterly predictable and mostly she was but then she surprised me when she was in Bale's office. I hear the director can be a real SOB. But I have enjoyed most of his films going back to "Three Kings."
 
Cachoo said:
I liked her. But I really liked Christian Bale the most. And then Andrea Riseborough---she took what could have been a two dimensional character and fleshed her out into something more. I thought she would be utterly predictable and mostly she was but then she surprised me when she was in Bale's office. I hear the director can be a real SOB. But I have enjoyed most of his films going back to "Three Kings."
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Interestingly I always check the credits to see who the actors are and I remember at the time wondering who she was. Yes she was very good. I don't think I have seen her in many movies. But now that you have mentioned her I will look out for her a bit more.

Christian Bale is always good too and a bit of a chameleon himself.
 
Aussie Willy said:
Interestingly I always check the credits to see who the actors are and I remember at the time wondering who she was. Yes she was very good. I don't think I have seen her in many movies. But now that you have mentioned her I will look out for her a bit more.

Christian Bale is always good too and a bit of a chameleon himself.
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Don’t be surprised if you have seen the movies Riseborough is in and found her unrecognizable. If I was writing and directing I think she would be a regular cast member because she’s so changeable.
 
For those interested, Sight & Sound has conducted critics' poll ranking their top films of all time list since 1952, and have released that list every decade. It has grown to the point where they now list 100 films decided by with 1,639 participating critics, programmers, curators, archivists and academics each submitting their top ten ballot. Vertigo was listed no. 1 in 2012.

The Greatest Films of All Time

In 1952, the Sight and Sound team had the novel idea of asking critics to name the greatest films of all time. The tradition became decennial, increasing in size and prestige as the decades passed. The Sight and Sound poll is now a major bellwether of critical opinion on cinema and this...
www.bfi.org.uk

I personally don't take the actual rankings seriously and I use these lists more as a recommendation guide to add to my queue of films I need to see.

I do think it's just interesting to see just where critics' attitudes are at every ten years. A lot of these older films go up and down depending on how the mood is regarding those films, and I can see that happening as more decades pass. I also think it's interesting to see how many of these movies were less-appreciated then than they are now, in retrospect, and what movies that were appreciated then are less appreciated now by these sorts of voters. Not saying one group is more correct than the other, I just like observing these variances and what these "critics, archivists, programmers, curators, and academics" selectively pick (based on their own biases) as movies that "stood the test of time" and which haven't.

I will say I'm shocked that critics' darlings like Hou Hsiao-Hsien and John Cassavetes didn't have a film that made the top 100 cut in 2022, and I don't agree with that.

Funny enough, Chantal Akerman, director of the no. 1 ranked film, was asked to participate in a similar list for documentary films, and she wrote back essentially saying she hated these sorts of rankings, found them boring, and asked if they could just reframe it as movies she recommends.

Speaking of directors, to offset that list, since 1992, Sight & Sound has also conducted a decennial poll among selected "noteworthy" directors as a foil or a contrasting list to the above one. It started out with 101 directors participating. Now, it is 480 directors with an electorate consisting of experimental, arthouse, mainstream, and genre filmmakers from around the world.

Directors’ 100 Greatest Films of All Time

Every decade since 1992, Sight and Sound has complemented its celebrated critics’ poll by formally sounding out the world’s leading directors on the ten films they believe to be the greatest of all time. Though it has always been global and inclusive in scope, the poll has expanded...
www.bfi.org.uk

I also find this list interesting because we know directors don't watch movies the way viewers do. They have their own movie-making experiences, skillsets, and styles that inform how they appreciate film and what other directors (who may have different strengths or styles) bring to their films.
 
Those lists are interesting. I have to admit I haven't seen very many of the films, only about 15 on the directors' list and 10 on the critics' list. I'm a little surprised that Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive both made each of these lists. Those are two films that I definitely enjoyed and found intriguing and creative at the time, but they haven't really stayed with me all that much. In fact, I had sort of forgotten about both of them.

Kind of cool to see Portrait of a Lady on Fire on the critics' list. That was the last film that I saw in theatres before the pandemic, and it definitely made a big impression. Incredibly visually striking, and quite unique in centering the stories of women in a past time period, with very few men in the film.
 
Buzz said:
Say it isn’t so!!! :wuzrobbed

www.bbc.com

Henry Cavill: British actor will not return as Superman

The British star, who revealed his return as the superhero in October, is dropped from the role.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
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If they could make the DC movies better then I might be upset. But that doesn't bother me.

I could sit there and watch Henry Cavill build a gaming PC

www.youtube.com

Henry Cavill - How To Build A Superman Gaming PC

Henry Cavill Video, How To Build A Superman Gaming PC. Justice League Snyder Cut, Superman Black Suit Clip & New Superman Movies ► https://bit.ly/AwesomeSubs...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
 
I was expecting a lot from the documentary Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami. I find her to be a fascinating singer/actress/model/person. And while Jones was followed for a number of years to get footage for this movie, I was left somewhat disappointed. The live performances are the highlight, although there are only about four of them and each is just a portion of each song. There is one scene where Jones is expected to perform, but no signed contract has been received and Jones refuses to leave her hotel while chewing out a guy on the telephone. That was pretty kick-ass. :lol: I’m thinking I probably would have enjoyed a full concert film instead of so many scenes of Jones in her native Jamaica…which for the most part are not all that interesting.
 
Buzz said:
Say it isn’t so!!! :wuzrobbed

www.bbc.com

Henry Cavill: British actor will not return as Superman

The British star, who revealed his return as the superhero in October, is dropped from the role.
www.bbc.com www.bbc.com
Click to expand...

James Gunn has cancelled the third Wonder Woman movie also. Gunn is taking over the DC movies. He was in the news a while back after being fired from the third Guardians of the Galaxy movie for tweets from years previous making jokes about pedophilia and the holocaust. By the next year, after backlash and support from many, many people, he was re-instated.

I wonder if he will have a foot in both the Marvel and DC worlds. Or if he took the firing personally and has jumped ship.

Anyway, I wonder if Gunn wants to get rid of the ancient Cavill (39 years old) and Gadot (37 years old) and market the DC movies to a younger audience who think the 26 year old Tom Holland is a boomer.
 
Aussie Willy said:
I could sit there and watch Henry Cavill build a gaming PC
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The top comment on that video you shared is :rofl: .

I generally don’t like DC movies but enjoyed the Wonder Woman and Super Man movies so I’m disappointed in this news. Henry Cavill showing up in the credits was the only good thing about Black Adam.
 
Here are some movies that have played in theatres recently that you might not have heard of as they are not big budget productions that had tons of advertising behind them. But they look quite interesting to me.

Cat Daddies – This documentary is a film festival favourite about cats and their male owners who love their feline friends!

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LpKespCG-XM

*

Cocaine Bear is both a black comedy and a thriller based on a true story of a bear that ingested a duffel bag full of cocaine. Great cast for this one, including Keri Russell, Margo Martindale, Ray Liotta, O'Shea Jackson Jr., Matthew Rhys and Jesse Tyler Ferguson. Elizabeth Banks directs.

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

*

Piggy is a Spanish-language horror thriller about a young heavy-set girl who is tormented by a group of other girls. When she witnessed them being kidnapped by a serial killer, does she stay silent?

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmxqoA0VNjg

*

And a Netflix movie that looks good:

Senior Year is a comedy starring Rebel Wilson, who wakes up from a coma after twenty years and wants to return to high school to fulfill her dream of becoming prom queen. The movie co-stars Justin Hartley [This Is Us], Chris Parnell, Michael Cimino [Love, Victor] and Alicia Silverstone.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCtDkpe89aY
 
"Generation Wealth" is an interesting documentary that navigates the ever escalating ritz and glamour that is often pursued by those wishing to partake in what is often perceived to be the American dream.

Exessive extravagant wealth that is generally unattainable to most of us is often fervently sought after by many, especially amongst young people growing up in the modern world.

With the glorification of such extravagance on social media platforms, it is not surprising that cohorts of modern society are suffering the consequences of such continuous bombardment.
 
I watched Tar today. Cate Blanchett was brilliant as always, just totally commanded the screen. While the movie was quite long, it held my interest the whole way through. Very engaging character study about the cost of certain types of ambition (among other things).
 
jenny12 said:
I watched Tar today. Cate Blanchett was brilliant as always, just totally commanded the screen. While the movie was quite long, it held my interest the whole way through. Very engaging character study about the cost of certain types of ambition (among other things).
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I found the trailer for that one to be SO dark. My thought while watching it was, "why would anyone want to watch this movie"??? (Other than getting to see Cate Blanchett on screen, of course.) I just re-watched the trailer and feel the same way. Does the movie has any lightness or warmth to it?

Trailer for Tar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na6gA1RehsU
 
PeterG said:
I found the trailer for that one to be SO dark. My thought while watching it was, "why would anyone want to watch this movie"??? (Other than getting to see Cate Blanchett on screen, of course.) I just re-watched the trailer and feel the same way. Does the movie has any lightness or warmth to it?

Trailer for Tar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Na6gA1RehsU
Click to expand...

It has a lot of dark humor as well as some subtle humor that is pretty specific to the classical music world. I guess it’s not really a warm movie but that makes sense for the type of movie it is. It’s a character study about a problematic person that is done in a really engaging way. I think if someone is into classical music and really detailed character studies, they’d be interested in seeing it. And I personally don’t need all movies to be warm and light to be interested in them.
 
One thing some critics who loved the movie did say is that it's not a "warm" movie, but this movie wouldn't make sense if it was "warm" as is the style Todd Field chose to make his him. That could turn off viewers though, admittedly, as not everyone would like this sort of film.
 
I was surprised to find that Cinemability: The Art of Inclusion is a documentary that was made in 2012 as it seems like a very recent film to me. It looks at the history of people with disabilities in film (and covers a bit about other minorities as well). I see from the DVD that the director (Jenni Gold) is disabled herself, directing ten films from a wheelchair as well as writing and producing even more projects. I found this movie to be have a strong start looking at the history of film. But as it moves toward the present, the overall feel seems to drag somewhat. It’s still interesting in that I’m not aware of any other movie that addresses this movie’s topic. People interviewed include Jane Seymour, Jamie Foxx, Ben Affleck, Marlee Matlin, Geena Davis, Gary Sinise and William H. Macy.
 
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