Movies (and occasionally face slaps) (Part 2)

There is a ‘This American Life’ episode on the real story. Maybe as long as 15 years ago now. The real story is pretty batshit.

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Started watching Blackberry last night and Dennis Reynolds had me actually laughing out loud several times. Perfect role for him.

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Idk if I believe anything in that movie actually happened, but I really enjoyed it. Like a sillier version of The Social Network.

Saw the new Ghostbusters today. It’s not going to be memorable, but it’s fine. Clearly can never recreate the magic of the original, even with the old guard in it (I did enjoy the bigger roles of Winston and Ray in this one compared to the previous edition).

I enjoyed it, but also probably won’t remember it.

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I thought Lost City was direct to Netflix? How could it make 200 million?

That’s what BOM tells me

I saw it in theatres. It was not terrible. Forgettable rom com adventure film.

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I’ve long been pretty hit-or-miss with Wes Anderson, and it feels like more misses than hits (though I absolutely loved Grand Budapest Hotel; that’s been the major exception). But when you’re open-minded enough to give a second watch to a piece of shit like Fury Road, obviously you’re someone who is willing to run some things back and see if you can’t get them to click. And since there is such a large following of people who think that Wes is incredible, I’d obviously like to get there, so I’m going to try to watch his catalog back.

Well, most of it anyway. I remember pretty much hating Bottle Rocket, so I decided I’d put off any notion of trying that until later, after I see if any of his other stuff works. Otherwise, I wanted to do this in release order to track Anderson’s directing arc. My recollection of Rushmore had been that it was fine, but that I didn’t like it nearly as much as my friends did. And on rewatch…my opinion stands. There’s a little bit of funny, the emotional beats mostly leave me cold, I guess it’s decent if I’m grading kindly. But this rewatch did not yield any gains. Still, I forge ahead.

My recollection of The Royal Tenenbaums had been that it was definitely pretty funny, better than Rushmore, but I didn’t have a truly enthusiastic stance toward it either. On this rewatch…boom. This movie is great. I was clearly mistaken to have been so lukewarm on it previously. The humor works, the emotions work. Every actor involved is doing a fantastic job. That’s a minimum four-star movie. I’m very glad to have revisited it; this honestly lands among the best outings from Gene Hackman in a career full of really strong ones.

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Yea tenebaums is great

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I haven’t enjoyed anything else by Wes Anderson as much as I enjoyed Tenenbaums. Except the first of his recent short films.

I’m hoping I won’t be able to say the same as I work back through these, but we shall see. Not a Grand Budapest Hotel fan?

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The emotional ending of both Tenenbaums and Asteroid City are absolutely perfect.

Just so good from Stiller and Hackman.

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Dan McCoy on The Flop House recommended an early 80’s slasher film called Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker (1981) so I figured I’d give it a shot and holy crap, this movie is bananas. It’s weird and horny and effective and the lead actress is amazing. Dan is a well-known pervert, he always has strong recommendations for weird horror movie perverts. It is streaming on Shudder.

I never gave it a chance. The trailers alone make me think that’s not for me. I will give it a shot if you think it’ll be an exception.

Same, I loved Grand Budapest Hotel, hated Bottle Rocket, annoyed by Rushmore but not hatred. I think I didn’t finish it. I should probably give Royal Tenenbaums a try.

Although I loved Fury Road and really enjoyed it on rewatch too.

It’s been a minute since I’ve seen it at this point, but I’m looking forward to rewatching. And yes, even as a relative Anderson skeptic I definitely found it to be a real standout. Can’t promise how it will land for you, but if you appreciated the comic stylings of Ralph Fiennes in In Bruges then surely you can’t resist another opportunity to see him be hilarious.

To be fair, the Fury Road thing was just me trolling (albeit sincerely, fuck that movie) and was totally unrelated to how a person would receive a Wes Anderson movie. It was just an example of rewatching making no significant positive difference, whereas this rewatch of Tenenbaums did.

Tenenbaums stands at a minimum #2 Wes Anderson movie for me right now, so I’d say it’s worth a shot. It honestly feels like you’d have a strong feel for whether it will work for you within the first 15 minutes, if that helps. (It would also unlock a Rewatchables, albeit a Simmons-free one.)

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I see it’s on Hulu. Free trial here I come.

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https://twitter.com/RufusTSuperfly/status/1774558448467742725?t=aoCpjgCcmUqbAHo5uYczNA&s=19

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No, I want a big one one!

Observer #1: “Megalopoplis is about as non-Joe Popcorn a movie as one can imagine. But it is so startling, so original and sometimes downright confounding that there is a certain strata of moviegoer who will see it out of raw curiosity…especially if critics get behind it and if there is a major PR campaign.”

“I don’t know if the print we saw [last Thursday] is finished or not. I hope Francis clarifies the story so audiences have something to hang onto. The first approximately 50 to 60 per cent of the film is much better than the last part because you lose track of the story and become bored. It is nonetheless a bold and utterly original film, and for that Francis will get tons of credit from some quarters.”

Observer #2: “There will be many and varied responses to this film. Those who love it for its boldness will be right. and those who dismiss it for the same reason will, if you insist, also be correct. And perhaps the film’s natural, eventual home will be in art museums. “Megalopolis” will require careful and loving handling, which may turn out to be an impossible task in to