Watched Rocky 3 and got Rocky 4 queued up. I think where this franchise failed hardest isn’t that it didn’t stop at 4. It’s that we were never given Creed vs. Lang during Creed’s prime. Just inexcusable really. Whatever happened to that sleazy promoter from the first film? He sucked.
Yeah, I thought pretty much exactly this.
Even mediocre Tarantino is solid, but this was far from his best work. Definitely my least favorite of any of his films.
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I’m sure you could find a dubbed version, but I suspect some of the purists would have me banned for even suggesting that option.
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On the other end of the spectrum: movies that I used to think were so-so but love more every time I watch them: Jackie Brown
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Jackie Brown was good. I liked it on first viewing and my opinion hasn’t changed much. It’s no pulp fiction, but it’s a good, entertaining film.
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Robert Forster was subtly great in it. I liked it a lot.
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Ok he binked an Oscar nom I guess it wasn’t that subtle but very good nevertheless
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I got a good chuckle out of imagining you going through this discovery process
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Heh I guess I knew it. I think I was referring to the performance? It was sort of understated. Just a solid vet actor delivering his lines brilliantly while surrounded by a beautiful lead and a bunch of movie stars, yet he still manages to shine.
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The only part of Mulholland Drive I understood was the lesbian sex scene.
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I f’ing love Jackie Brown. How often do you see a romance story involving middle-aged people? And then there’s De Neiro going completely out of his range to play a fuckup stoner.
In other news, man, Ray Harryhausen’s films hold up so well. There’s just something timeless about them. You see Harryhausen monsters enter the shot and you can’t look away, they’re all so spooky and great.
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Bridget Fonda needling Deniro until he gets a belly full a WTFPWNS her is some of the most hilarious cinema in all of cinema 
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It makes sense in a kind of dreamlike way, I semi understood it after watching it and there were additional details I got after I googled a bit (for example the mafia type guys instructing the director to cast Camilla Rhodes is Diane’s subconscious chalking up her not getting the role to it being RIGGED, that’s a nice touch) but my response was kind of “so what?”. I didn’t feel like the movie worked on any level, superficially it’s slow and boring to watch and too long, the puzzle doesn’t really work (there are loose ends and stuff that don’t really make sense), it has no emotional core to it because characterization is sacrificed to the surrealist style, it’s thematically vapid (oh Hollywood isn’t as glamorous as it seems for young actresses? profound, my dude) etc. It’s basically a rerun of Lost Highway, you could summarize both as “surreal exploration of the subconscious of someone involved in a traumatic incident”. I wouldn’t say I’m a huge fan of Lost Highway either but it had some really good, unsettling scenes (“I’M THERE RIGHT NOW”) and an interesting aesthetic. I thought the aesthetic of Mulholland Drive was kind of ham-fisted to be frank, the constant over-lighting of Betty just looked amateurish for example.
One of my maxims in life is to be suspicious of my own opinions if I just flat out don’t get something (for instance I understand the appeal of Shania Twain, I think, I just think it sucks, whereas certain other types of music I just don’t get, and there it’s quite likely I need to listen harder). But having been bored out of my mind through Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive now, I’m never watching anything Lynch makes again, I’m done with him.
Let’s not forget the glory of Pam Grier and Sam L. And Chris Tucker in an easily forgotten cameo!
Oh man and that guy who sells vacuum cleaners in Breaking Bad.
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Couple of questions about Parasite, which I saw for the first time last night:
I guess what I don’t get is why the father decided to hide out in the underground bunker. My understanding is that Asian prisons aren’t bad at all. Presumably he would be able to get out eventually. Also he’d likely get family visits and regular meals. Life in that bunker has to be worse than a South Korean prison.
I suppose retreating to the bunker would make sense if he was making a plan to get out. For example change appearance, steal some valuables from the German family and get out of Dodge. Start a new life somewhere else. That would be a reasonable strategy. Only downside is that he gets caught and goes to a prison that is nicer than the one he has trapped himself in.
It just seems really weird that he would just decide to trap himself in there forever.
I hated Mulholland Drive when I watched it years ago. I probably need to revisit it.
Jackie Brown is elite.
OUATIH is solid. It lacks a lot of the really good QT dialogue and is overlong, but it’s a good movie.
I just started Midsommar. That was… quite the opening scene.
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Later tonight, I’m gonna watch Mal Gabson’s latest: Force of Nature.
The description is delightful
There’s arguably nothing the world needs less right now than Force of Nature , a movie starring Mel Gibson and Emile Hirsch as trigger-happy cops with violent pasts and take-no-prisoners attitudes who are tasked with rescuing a Black man, a rookie Latina officer, and a Nazi descendant (and his stolen artwork) from evil Puerto Rican villains during a Category 5 hurricane in San Juan. What would be tasteless retrograde nonsense at any other time resounds during this particular moment in U.S. history as almost cataclysmically tone-deaf and insulting, turning director Michael Polish’s thriller (on VOD June 30) into the year’s most misbegotten venture.
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What about anyone who watches it?
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I’m with you on the top 4.
For the rest I’d go
- Django Unchained
- Jackie Brown
- Hateful Eight
- Death Proof
- Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
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