Movies (and occasionally face slaps) (Part 2)

This looks fucking terrible

The backlash to civil war before anyone even sees it really shows what is wrong with American culture right now.

The first one was terrible so no surprise.

https://x.com/CINEMA505/status/1777867665471607173

The first one was inspired by / ripping off old Scorsese movies, but looks like they went to much more recent sources this time

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Eh I liked the first one and interested to see this one

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https://x.com/discussingfilm/status/1778104046076711039?s=46

Hit the Wisconsin Film Festival hard. We love this festivalā€“not too pretentious, a good mix of new films, old stuff, and local stuff.

Saw 7 films. If I had to decide thumbs up/down for them, I think all would get a thumbs up except for The Universal Theory.

The Wrong Guy. Slapstick Airplane-ish 80s movie (with some violence mixed in) with Dave Foley. Kind of a spoof of the Fugitive genre. Very funny, although it kind of lost steam at the end.

About Thirty: Argentinian comedy-of-errors, low-key drama at a wedding

The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed. Deadpan wry movie about a bored woman in some BDSM relationships. A little pretentious in spots but overall it was funny.

LaRoy Texas. Black comedy about a dullard who gets mixed up in some murderous shit. I was high for this one which made it fun.

Ryuichi Sakamotoā€“Opus. Basically a concert film, except with no audience. Sakamoto plays the piano for 100 minutes. Great stuff.

Tight Spot 1955 noir with Ginger Rogers and Edward G Robinson. I love these old noir movies. Rogers was a little campy and sassy but overall it worked.

The Universal Theory. German/Swiss movie, mostly in B&W, about weird cold war quantum mechanics shenanigans in the Alps. This one didnā€™t work for me, sometimes movies just use ā€œquantum weirdnessā€ in place of a good plot. It was atmospheric but ultimately not good, IMO.

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Im curious what you liked about the first one. Ive been looking for redeming qualities of what seems to me a near exact remake of The King of Comedy and come away with very little.

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Havenā€™t seen king of comedy, just remember liking it

The Feeling that the Time for Doing Something Has Passed . Deadpan wry movie about a bored woman in some BDSM relationships. A little pretentious in spots but overall it was funny.

Been meaning to see this so will still plan on it

The King of Comedy is a great Scorsese/De Niro film that is definitely recommended. You will, uhh, recognize some plot points.

Many of the arguments that have been made against Joker 2019 are entirely unpersuasive to me, but seeing The King of Comedy did entirely credit the point about Joker basically just being nearly a beat-for-beat remake (with new costumes) of a film that was already previously done better.

Joaquin does a great job though, and it is a pretty different performance from De Niro in King of Comedy. No level of unoriginality by the creative behind the film can take the Joaquin performance away.

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I also didnā€™t hate Joker at the time, but I had also not seen Taxi Driver and King of comedy yet. Definitely would have made for a much different experience

Speaking of movies inspired by older ones, the (1st) omen is doing a pretty good job at combining 70s horror references, looks really good and has enough visual ideas to keep it interesting throughout. Only issues I had is that the plot is too predictable and the ending isnā€™t great (not familiar enough with the older ones to know if theyā€™re trying to connect with the existing sequels or to set up new ones)

also as often there were some people constantly whispering in the back, but for this one this was soon joined by the movie also having whispers as ambient sound, so for the second half I always had my ears buzzing without knowing if this meant I should be annoyed or ā€œscaredā€

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Last year, I went to see a movie called Eileen. Itā€™s terrible, donā€™t watch it. And donā€™t be fooled by the fact that it has an intriguing trailer. Itā€™s trash.

Anyway, my biggest unique takeaway from it is that thereā€™s a moment that amounts to a fairly crazy jump-scare out of nowhere: the main character unexpectedly puts a gun to her head and immediately blasts awayā€¦it turns out to be a fake ā€œshe was fantasizing about doing itā€ thing, but they execute it like youā€™re really getting a crazy twist. When this happened, someone a couple rows back shouted REALLY loudly, ā€œoh, GOD!ā€ It was the most disorienting shit ever, especially the context of the movie made it feel like it could be a character reaction in the movie, the volume of the yell was loud enough to match the movieā€™s volume, and the AMC privacy barriers donā€™t really allow you to simply look back and get a clear view of people a couple of rows back, so I couldnā€™t really ever confirm whether the yell was in the movie or not. Iā€™m pretty sure it was a wild reaction from a theatergoer in an otherwise well-behaved crowd, but ???.

Guess Iā€™ll file that one under the Seinfeld theory that wildly socially inappropriate behavior like walking up to someoneā€™s table in a restaurant and wordlessly eating an egg roll is actually, more than anything, just giving that person a story to tell for the rest of their life.

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It starts to turn into a kind of fan fiction, but I find myself liking the execution and novelty of having Joker in the lead. I love questions that take a movie and say ā€œyes but what if x/y/z were different.ā€

Having said that, I think it owes an inescapable debt to King of Comedy. Iā€™d actually feel better about the sequel if Todd Philip said he was essentially remaking a different movie again.

Itā€™s like that story Douglas Adams told about sitting down with a pack of crackers at a table across from a complete stranger. The stranger reached out and took one of his crackers. Douglas was dumbfounded at this, but silently took one of his crackers for himself. They went back and forth taking one cracker each without saying anything to each other, and then the stranger got up and left. Only then did Douglas lift up his newspaper and see his unopened package of crackers. He laughs because it means the stranger now has the same story about a weirdo across the table eating his crackers, but he doesnā€™t have the punchline.

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I watched Eileen a couple weeks ago and yea didnā€™t really like it, pretty sure that was someone in your audience lol

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nah iā€™ll go and watch it

Mother of god

Obviously this guy has no idea what sells in cinema

https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1778149451040788745?t=IJaAoqUA2CS1RRPxDI8Rew&s=19

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I watched Jupiter Ascending. I sat through Southland Tales. I will show up for a huge swing even if itā€™s altogether Not Good.

Unless one of yā€™all says it is not fun in any way, but thatā€™s not what the reviews sound like to me.

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Neither does anyone else